Go Primal

I have long been interested in primal images of life, especially those related to several tribes of Native Americans. I read stories, made costumes, learned tribal and inter-tribal dances, and attended powwows. In short, I spent a great deal of my childhood pursuing such images. As a teen and adult I collected artifacts and bought Indian-made jewelry, dream catchers, and paintings. I still follow some Native American writers and usually scan the daily paper for any articles of American Indian news. 

ATCs with a few primal designs by Phillip Hoyle

The topic for this week's Artist Trading Cards swap and make is "Go Primal." I am delighted with the topic, one I may have submitted sometime back, and have collected idea after idea. Here at the first of the week I have made only five cards. Guess I'd better get into my studio and make some more. Over several years I've already made quite a few such ATCs: cards related to tribal masks from Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and others related to American Indian petroglyphs and pottery designs. Of course now I'm looking for something that contrasts with those things.

A few days ago I decided I needed to get out some materials. I chose leather, feathers, fur, rafia, sand, dirt, and so forth. I hope to use them in mixed media collages that could invoke a primal feel. Now for the feeling part of the assignment. 

Cutouts of some Ute bighorn sheep cutting up. My three new cards.
ATC by Phillip Hoyle. Acrylic washes on paper.

Since I have so few new ones done, I've added some from the past and in so doing hope to find the inspiration for a new batch! I have until Tuesday--that's tomorrow--to complete several new ones. I'm hoping for the best, new images to post next Monday. And I hope to surprise myself and any readers who open these pages!

Go primal. Remember that a lot of European painters of the early 20th century were inspired primal designs. Those images can still stretch an artist's imagination.

Denver 2014

Art Dreams

A group of Artist Trading Cards I made at an
evening meeting of artists in a local studio.
My friend Sue and I go to ATC events together.

These days I have a friend Sue who loves to drive around town and suggest how a certain house could be just right for her. Once I said one of her houses would be too much for me. “But you’d need a room for a studio, one for writing, one for living in, and on for sleep,” she insisted, “and maybe a second bedroom for company.” 

“No. That would be more than I’d ever want to clean,” I responded.

“But when I fantasize,” she rebutted, “I always assume a large house comes complete with a staff: a person to clean, one to cook, one to take care of the lawn and grounds, and one to drive me around.”

“Oh. I just don’t have those kinds of fantasies.”

“Well maybe you need some,” she retorted. 

I suppose her challenge to me is to dream bigger in order to clarify just what I want and need. We are different, my friend and I. We talk together a lot and although we differ on our housing fantasies, we do sometimes dream together of having a large studio together where, away from the phone, our families, and other interruptions, we could spend serious time painting, art printing, making collages, creating mixed media works, and probably talking until our throats were raw. Actually we may end up tiring our voices over this fantasy because already we’re clarifying just what we want to do, what kinds of equipment we need, and the like. We haven’t yet let anyone else know we have these dreams. We still seem insecure about where the visions will lead us.

I am reminded of my childhood friend Keith with whom I would fantasize about many things. We’d lie on the twin beds in his room and talk and talk about all the things we would do in a kind of duet daydream. The big project we undertook in this fantasy world was to dig out his family’s basement so we could build a rifle range. We actually did remove a few wheelbarrows full of dirt before we gave up on the idea. I guess we grew out of that kind of communal fantasy when our lives started becoming too different, our interests diverging—his into hunting, woodworking, and messing with large machines; mine into making music and studying language. Those kinds of changes happen to seventh graders.

But my friend Sue and I as adults continue driving around Denver talking, wondering if we will ever get to work in the same art studio. The dream seems possible when we work together in another artist’s studio we make Artist Trading Cards. Working alongside other artists stokes one’s enthusiasm and encourages creativity. Having such a studio is a dream I’d like to pursue, so I guess I’d better start dreaming about how to get the money to do it! Sue’s already watching for vacancy signs. I’m still dreaming. Maybe I’ll go out and buy a shovel. Who knows where this dream could lead.

Denver, 2014

A Day at the Gallery

Same picture as last week but one referred to
in this post.
Acrylic washes on paper by Phillip Hoyle

Fortunately I found my folder that morning last week. I needed it for the security codes that provide the key to enter and the ability to turn off the security system of the gallery where I was scheduled to work. The gallery sits on the main street of Georgetown CO, a small mountain town high in the Central Rockies west of Denver and just a few miles east of the Continental Divide. The historic town sits at around 8500 feet above sea level, an old place that grew due to the discovery of silver. Today it’s mainly a tourist spot near scenic passes, alpine skiing, and a small lake that is fished all year much of the time through thick ice. Tourists can ride a narrow gauge train to another mining town, tour the train and mining museum attached to the depot, visit the old Hotel du Paris museum, enjoy good food, gather curios, and shop at the two art galleries including the Colorado Mountain Art Gallery where I was headed.

I joined the co-op gallery a year ago and was fulfilling my monthly obligation by working there. My partner for the day had not arrived so I opened the door—successfully I was glad—and began turning on the lights. There are many lights to highlight the art of nearly sixty artists in a building that is about half a block deep. By the time I made it to the front of the building, my partner had arrived and was waiting for me to let her enter. Then we shared the opening process.

I had not worked in retail since I was a kid and found myself facing old but new challenges in my membership at the gallery. With so many owner-members—probably some with even less experience than I—the gallery provides a detailed list of daily duties. It covers opening up, cleaning, clerking, running the credit card machine, and closing the gallery. (If you’re curious, keep reading.)

I was pleased to be working with Lisa who is a fast and endless worker as well as a wonderful and experienced painter. Between us we counted the money, turned on lights in jewelry display cases, started the paperwork that must be done daily, set out the sign, bench, and chair on the sidewalk in front, cleaned the restroom, ran the sweeper, washed the front window and doors, cleaned the glass tops and fronts of the many display cases.

We also had each brought more artwork to replace or change out in our own displays. Lisa decided to re-hang her display. She removed the paintings, pulled out nails, filled the holes with putty, and painted the spackle. Then she worked to hang at least one or two more paintings on the wall. Later, I did something similar except I was not planning to redo my whole display. I simply added to it some smaller pieces and changed what was hanging in the front gallery with another painting, this one of a petroglyph of a Rocky Mountain big horn sheep in preparation for last Saturday’s Big Horn Sheep Festival in Georgetown. Of course, when one hangs more paintings or adds pottery or sculptures or whatever, there is bookkeeping to be done. We adjusted our inventory records and made printed and hung wall tags.

We worked pretty steadily with the many projects through the eight hours we were at the gallery, well until the last hour when we were done with our work, itching to get out of there, and had no more customers. Actually on this midweek day in November, we had only seven or eight customers, but we talked with them, sold a few pieces, and enjoyed both their personalities and the diversion they provided us. Nice people, elders on fall outings, mostly from the Denver area yet also two from England, folk Lisa remembered had visited last year. At 4:00 we sat together in the front gallery and talked—swapping stories and art concerns—until it was time to begin closing up. That last hour the air also began to cool. We were extra glad we were leaving in mild weather and not having to battle a snowstorm on our ways home. On my way out I did remember to gather all my belongings, including the folder that had eluded me all last month!

Denver, 2014

Still at It

This past week and over the weekend I dedicated quite a bit of time to my current art project that I described a couple of weeks ago. I have completed six of the projected twenty-three pieces. I'm pleased with the results and am looking forward to displaying them soon. 

Bagged, acrylic washes on watercolor paper
by Phillip Hoyle

I've been messing with these petroglyph designs for many years and have never tired of them. I'm working with some designs that are familiar and others new to me this time. It has been fun to try a few different colors and shades. The great breakthrough for me was when I began to use masking medium in the process. By building up washes close in color and texture to the "exposed" rock (that that has weathered less than the face of the rock) and then applying the design in masking medium, I create the effect of the subsequent washes being the weathered rock. The design can look like color was removed. At least that is how I have learned to work. 

By not using flow enhancer in the acrylics I get a more rustic look that seems compatible to me for the look of sandstone. Anyway, I love working with these primal subjects and ever changing artistic ways and always seek to treat the designs in a manner respectful of the people who made them in some cases many hundreds of years ago. 

Hope your art projects are bringing you the same kind of buzz.

Denver, 2014