Current Artwork (# 522, 528)

I am definitely still working while here in Belgium. In our unusually large apartment (for Europe), we have a patio with a quiet, bubbling koi pond that's very peaceful to work beside and I try to take advantage of it whenever I can. I prepared myself for the trip by making sure that whatever art supplies I brought could fit along with my other necessaries in my travel backpack. This meant that all of my surfaces had to be quite small. This was a major reason why after the "The Other Folk" show, in May, I immediately began working on smaller Ampersand surfaces, because I knew this trip was coming up [see Untitled (516), Untitled (520), & Untitled (519)].

earlier version of #522

As in #s 516, 520, and 519, the reference photos I was and am now using have all come from the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Alabama (if you're paying attention, you'll note how mentioning this small fact is in slight contradiction of values discussed earlier on June 25th). The reason for this is a very classical one: the effect of creating my earlier work was not totally about replicating what I saw in my mind, per se, so using a reference from life (like my photos from the museum) fills in so many details that takes sooo much time to draw - more like tear - from my mind. The earlier process was making my work a bit unwieldy to instill a believable sense of pneuma, or breath of life, without, well.... life. So the dedication to a type of non-objectivity wasn't making my job easier. I found that it was keeping me from fulfilling larger and more immediate goals (like creating lots of work to help my learning curve). I knew the simple addition of using references could help speed up my creativity if I could find a similar type of relief-like spacing in the image that is rampant in a lot of my earlier pieces (like #498, or Samhain). It would also breed a vein of familiarity (technically, I'm supposed to say I'm  a "classically trained" artist, so this is something I'm much more used to) without interfering with my hopes of discovering "the new" in my process(es).

But below you can see the two new pieces that I've taken to about 90-95% of completion.

#522

ink on clayboard

6 x 6"

© Lumi 9

 #528

ink on clayboard

5 x 5"

© Lumi 9

I still have no idea which side is up or down for #522, 528... so don't get attatched. Actually don't ever get attached to any image I show you of my work. I'm always likely to go back and change (ruin, fix, improve, throw out my window, break over my leg, use as a coaster) it.

There is a reason why I say 90-95%. It's because I expect a certain amount of damage to be incurred on the way back to the states, and expecting to be finished touching work, only to find that you have to mend corners in the end seems to add time to the process. But if you have to do some touch-ups anyway, it makes the mending fold into the workflow a lot better.

I'll do what I can to avoid damage by wrapping everything in plastic (like above) and put the finished work into pre-made boxes fit for every size of surface (I brought over about 35 pieces).