resolutions

My artist friend was overwhelmed at the intelligent and varied feedback about the framing question last post. Thank you, blogging friends! She read everything and considered all the angles and decided to take a middle-ground approach when responding to the gallerist's edict. There's no question that the gallery is exploiting the artist and, in the process, alienating her. On the other hand, they appear to be making decisions out of economic fear, which is clouding their ability to look at the bigger picture. Since the artist knew she couldn't agree with the gallery's terms she decided to offer a third option that would be less expensive for her and require the gallery to pony up a little, too. She asked them to ship her the artwork, still framed, and she would then attempt to exchange the faulty frame for a new one, in effect taking the problem back to the manufacturer. She will then reframe the artwork and ship it back with a carefully drafted Statement of Condition (and Returns Policy) for signature. Future shipments of artwork (if she decides to continue the relationship) would also include the document.

And while on the subject of resolving problems, I have been working on a very special house portrait, but it started out badly. It was built in 1906 in Kitchener, Ontario, and has had many lives and incarnations over the past century, its latest being a sort of halfway house, and it is truly a beauty. Jo-Anne's happiest memories are from that house so I knew I wanted to get it right, but the photos I had were really difficult to work from so, after laying down the underpainting, I sent the image to Jo-Anne and cried for help. She responded by sending her husband to Kitchener to take more photos of it, now that the leaves have dropped, and digging up/scanning a couple of photos of it from when they lived there 20 years ago (when a number of the details were different). I then decided to take an unorthodox approach and, rather than sanding down, re-gessoing and starting again, I put down a wash combining dioxazine violet and pthalo blue, and re-drew the basic outline of the house in white conte over the top. As you can see the original underpainting appears like a ghost beneath the surface, much like the way the house has changed but remained the same house over the decades. The final painting will have very subtle references to the original.

It's going really well now. Sometimes it's like the house is painting itself and I can hardly wait to finish the duties in My Other Life so I can get back to it. Stay tuned for the final product; I only have about a day's work left.