Lee, father of this blog’s author, has lived in Oregon City since 1963. And despite his lengthy residency, moontrap is his first piece of public art  in his home town. Go anywhere else in the state and you’ll see quite a bit of Lee’s work.

Moontrap is located on Railroad Avenue and Eighth Street, anchored to the large concrete wall that separates the railroad tracks from the city.

Initial sketch of moontrap on a cocktail napkin. Winestock, Oregon City, February 2011.

The idea for moontrap was sketched on a paper napkin one evening at Winestock, our local wine stop, almost a year ago. The idea was to make a connection between the natural world of the basalt bluffs and Singer Creek above, and the human built world of industry and commerce. The title of the sculpture comes from Moontrap by Don Berry about the rowdy, raucus early days of Oregon City, and the compromises that had to be made in order to live with civilization.

At the dedication a few days later, Railroad Avenue was filled with citizens of Oregon City, members of the Rotary Club, Winestock folks, and friends from distant Portland, all celebrating a new work of public art in Oregon’s first city. Art and the rain—two good reasons to take shelter and create fellowship in this funny old town.

Here are some photos taken by The Theory on November 1, 2011:

Moontrap is made from type 304 stainless steel. It is 39' in length and 8' 9" in height.

Lee Kelly and D'Nita Carbone (at center) with moontrap installation crew, November 1, 2011.

Moontrap, looking north on Railroad Avenue, Oregon City.

Okay. Let’s take that again. Hey, I’ve been absent here for about ten months! Didja miss me? Picture me tiptoeing past The Hive Encaustic blog, feeling horribly guilty. The Hive Beast and Marzi have been scratching their furry noggins, asking why I left The Hive. Or maybe it was the fleas. The Theory offered to make some supports for me, but I said no.  He even offered to clean up The Hive. But I couldn’t be persuaded.

What brings me here today?
Sniplits is offering my short story ValkYra of The Damned for free this week, and press materials direct listeners here. So we should all make ourselves welcome to this nearly drowned blog.

I love audio because the story comes before the actual words. I can sink into an audiobook as if I were listening to a dear friend tell me a story.   Sniplits does a great job with my work–I love the readers and would be happy to listen to any one of them read the Pittsburgh phone book. So go download ValkYra–its free this week. And adding a comment wouldn’t hurt my rep, either. [Note: ValkYra is pronounced Valk-EYE-ra in my mind but the reader pronounces it the other way. It still works.]

Where have I been?
I think you all can figure that one–not in the studio. This has been an extremely busy time while The Theory prepared two exhibitions of my mother’s artwork. The first show, Bonnie Bronson Works: 1960-1990, went up at the Pacific NW College of Art in Portland in August. The Hive became a hotspot of framing and cardboard-cutting activities for several months, and continues to be a happening place while The Theory returns work to Bronson collectors who shared their pieces in the show.

Other things that were donated to the Bonnie Bronson project:

• My garden–no veggies this year.
• My disposable income–not that there was much to start with. But we had several donors who really helped. Whew!
• My artwork–just didn’t happen, although I made a couple of candles. Does that sound pathetic to you too?

The show of Bonnie’s work at Pacific NW College of Art in Portland was beautiful and entirely worth the effort. A few pieces of Bonnie’s work are still on exhibition at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery through mid-November. Go to Bonnie’s web site for more information and I’ll try to collect my thoughts about the project for next time.

Next time
With no Hive to go to, I take the Hive with me. I’ve been all about writing these last few months–which I do in the house at the ridiculous hour of six a.m. At least I’m warm. And if I wasn’t so hangdog about not making visual art, I would have been back here sooner. The word game is tough too, and maybe I should blog about that. Especially since I’m writing a mystery novel where a dead body is found encased in encaustic wax. I get chills just thinking about it.

“I am moved to make art that explores themes of loss, identity, and memory. I have a tendency toward revealing…something: remains, lacunae, vestiges, scars, traces of memories, clues, the barely discernible….The work seeks to bring forward traces of memory and experience which cannot be expressed with words. I am interested in the tension between what is known and what is not.” Read the whole thing here.

A piece of Ms. Farrell’s from 2009, called Ophelia (grey) is worth checking out. Watch me be a good Internet citizen by not posting a large version of her image. Go to Pamela’s site to see it in situ.

Pamela Farrell. Ophelia (grey). 2009. Encaustic on panel. 36" x 36".

As a viewer, I look at Ophelia (grey) and respond to the artist’s brilliant control of the medium. The title evokes memories of other times I’ve heard the name Ophelia. From Shakespeare through The Addams Family and finally to the non-fiction work Drowning Ophelia.  It resonates as an idea, a character, and a sense of female sadness. On the other, it is simply a lovely piece of art. Would it mean as much to me if it didn’t trigger a range of thoughts that exist outside the piece–inside the viewer’s busy little brain?

I’m tempted here to suggest that words, such as this title, impact my feelings about the work a lot. As a writer, it may be hard-wired in me.  But I don’t like this piece simply for the name; it also possesses a non-verbal, liquid, lost in falling beauty. See how many words I used there? Sheesh. A picture’s worth a thousand of them, so they say.

I am moved to make art that explores themes of loss, identity, and memory. –Pamela Farrell

From the artist’s statement, I posit that she too has a deep and thoughtful relationship with words. However, her work is lovely without them too.

Speaking of words, here’s another piece of mine from last weekend. The text is from a poem about a woman who leaves home in a hurry. It wasn’t intended to be about my daughter, the Baron Lucy-Lee, who moved out to go to college(leaving a lot of stuff behind), but it’s all in there. Life imitating life.

Vanishing Point. 2011. Encaustic on prepared board. 9" x 12".

This piece doesn’t have the extra layer of chalk, which leaves it a little more bald and plain than I would like. Thus I see a lot of words I would change. Maybe this weekend, I’ll do some revision.

Kassandra Kelly. Distance. 2011. Mixed media on prepared board. 9" x 12"

Kassandra Kelly. Through Sleeping Air. 2011. Mixed media on prepared board. 9" x 11"

I think I’ll try this technique again and see what happens. I’m still not sure about the value of scraping off the wax–there’s something like revision in the process but the tool I’m using (lino cutter with a square chisel thing, I’m sure there’s a word for it) looks so much like whittling. Which it is, generally. Oh, well. Maybe I don’t always have to know why. Wow, there’s a concept!

I asked him to “say something about Jasper Johns and encaustic”. I tossed this off during dinner one night (did I mention he cooks too?) and he said he’d think about it. Here are the results–complete with large format images for those of you who complain about my chintzy photos.

Part I
Thanks for the memories: Encaustics and time

Kassandra graciously offered a few installments on The Hive to share thoughts about painting and time, specifically how a painting, and a particular medium, can encode temporal experience.  And, eventually, I’m going to talk about two artists closely associated with encaustic – Brice Marden and Jasper Johns – but the foundation for that is a bit complicated.

I don’t just mean encoding a narrative in compositional, or pictorial, terms – like, say, the practice known as “continuous narrative,” in which a single work may depict more than one sequential moment.  No, I’m interested instead in how the process of the work might literally embody its making.

What does this mean in practice?  Consider a work such as Jackson Pollock’s Number 1 (Lavender Mist) from 1950.  We know, of course, that this elaborate tracery was the result of successive swaths of pourings and drippings, as attested by Hans Namuth’s famous photographs.

Jackson Pollock. Number 1 (Lavender Mist). 1950. Oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on canvas 87 in x 118 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

It is obvious that a gesture – say, the dripping of a particular color – will obscure whatever is beneath it, which is as well to say, whatever came before it.  Put differently, if we imagine, as a thought experiment, Pollock creating Lavender Mist by applying colors in sequence, using each once only, the finished work would be a temporal map of its own creation, “readable” as a geologist might read layers of rock strata.

Reality, perhaps needless to say, is a good bit more complicated than our experiment, not least because Pollock was not constrained to use each color once and only once and, on an even more fundamental level, there is no necessary guarantee that the paths of any two colors will cross.

Well, I didn’t promise this would be easy.  But that’s one of the reasons why I like Pollock as an example.  It was easy to visualize, in part because the Namuth photographs are so well-known; another advantage is that, as a thought experiment, it almost works, but breaks down in an interesting way. Pollock provides a convenient way to think about not just what a process means, but how it means.

The art critic Harold Rosenberg is remembered for introducing the term “action painting” to describe (some) Abstract Expressionist painters.  Rosenberg’s basic idea was that the blank canvas was a kind of Existential theatre, and thus its own subject – the “action,” therefore, was the “act” of making.  This became the difference between, on the one hand, an emphasis on an open-ended process and, on the other, a concentration of attention on results.

A huge opposition, to be sure, and one familiar in a variety of guises, not least as the tension between the Apollonian and the Dionysian.  Peter Schjeldahl captures this perfectly:

“Those opposed qualities became the magnetic poles of Abstract Expressionism…and also the virtual battle stations of the movement’s great, mutually hostile critics, Harold Rosenberg (1906-78), who interpreted the new art rather exclusively in terms of existential drama, and Clement Greenberg (1909-94), who exalted formal invention as an end in itself. Rosenberg gravitated toward [Willem] de Kooning, Greenberg toward [Jackson] Pollock. They squared off over [Barnett] Newman’s smooth expanses of color inflected with vertical bands or lines – spiritual hierophancy to Rosenberg, aesthetic engineering to Greenberg.”

Barnett Newman. Vir Heroicus Sublimis. 1950-1. Oil on canvas 95.5 in. x 213.25 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York

A careful reader, or perhaps just one still awake, might notice here that I was using Pollock not as Greenberg would have, but in a very Rosenbergian way. This is true. But in no event do I want to fight again that war (Green Mountain and Red Mountain, it used to be called) – I’d prefer to just reinforce Schjeldahl’s suggestion that it’s often far from evident, to say the least, how to actually apply such reductive categorizations to actual art, and may indeed finally be somewhat arbitrary.

This has been a lengthy curtain-raiser, but it helps us to ask some fundamental questions. And, in my next installment, when we look at the works of Jasper Johns and Brice Marden, to put these ideas within the specific context of encaustic.

Bonnie Bronson. Porcelain enamel on steel, detail.

Bonnie’s first show in eighteen years is over. Four pieces sold out of the show, which covers our expenses and leaves a little bit extra for the next phase of Bonnie (Re)Introduction.

I have to say, I was stressed out! Every time I went to Winestock and saw the work–or saw people ignoring the work–I worried. What if no one liked it? And whose fault would that be? Not the stalwart patrons of Winestock. Not the generous (and patient) owners Sarrah and Carlos.  No, it was me. Bad daughter.

Deafening silence.
It was worse than people ignoring my work. Heck with ‘em. But all I could think about was how my ma would feel if she knew.

But it didn’t happen.
So I learned where those daughterly emotions exist in me now: right here, baby. Right up front next to my trigger finger. But work sold and I didn’t pitch a fit or cry in public. I’m even happier knowing that some pieces will come home to become part of the permanent collection.

Above is a Bonnie enameled panel from the early seventies. She did a number of “body parts” pieces, richly colored and seductive, and very much part of the Garden of Eden era we remember as the late 1960′s.

Gouache over wax video
This video from Angeline Marie really deserves a post of its own. It shows an interesting craquelure technique using gouache over wax. I haven’t seen the first video in the series, though the artist shows the piece she worked on in the second video. Check it out, along with a very moving series of encaustic paintings about the Gulf oil spill disaster. The lady does nice work!

I’m through with dogs / No more dogs for me / Through with dogs / I’ll kill the next one I see.

There was another verse about guns and knives but that seems gratuitous for a family-oriented blog.

Didi the Hive Beast at rest. She's actually not dead in this photo, just napping with her eyes open on her ratty old chair. And, folks, she's not that cute.

Through with Art
While cleaning up, I asked myself why I hadn’t been in the studio since, like, December of last year. It wasn’t just Didi (though reason enough, right there). I wondered if I’d arrived at a stopping place with encaustic. In the last eighteen months, I’ve studied the material and the technique very closely and practiced good work habits, just like Dad would tell me to do. Some of the art is okay, and I have shown improvement. All good. And yet…I didn’t want to make art as I had been making it. I felt done.

What now?
I went back to my journal and found a couple of simple sentences, one from a post here on the blog and the other from an ages-old short story. I wrote them out on some French cold press paper and then added and removed wax. I have no images yet—the pieces aren’t done. But I have to say that for the first time in months, I felt meaning at the heart of this work.

Words at the Heart
What was this new meaning? Text. Until yesterday, I had been experiencing a sort of writer’s block, even though I was still writing all the time on stories and other projects. Visual art had become a wordless zone.

Many artists use words in their visual art. Think Cy Twombly and Anselm Kiefer, for instance. In my work, I don’t see words as a gesture, comment, or descriptor but as a sort of window that makes other kinds of thinking possible. For one thing, my handwriting isn’t as pretty as Kiefer’s. For another, what if I decide I don’t like those words…what if I want to change them later?

Cy Twombly, detail. From an exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute.

Writing process as meditation
Words are history as well as story, identity, and yes, even visual substance. But one thing writing doesn’t do is give you time to just exist. All those words want thinking about, editing and rearranging.  So why couldn’t my visual art use the same tools as writing, words for instance, and work them like objects that contain literal, visual and even temporal aspects?

Final word on words
So, I’m back where I started eighteen months ago. Writing, painting over, rewriting and revealing words.

Linda Womack
For a nice description of a similar artistic process, but with very different results, check out this post from wax legend Linda Womack.

Verdigris "rust" on some kind of copper or bronze fixture.

The green pigments I’ve been able to afford are quiet earth colors just a step or two away from gray. In other words, boring. But I was listening to the incredibly diverting At Home, Bill Bryson’s newest and learned something about how to make green pigment. Do yourself a flavor and get the audio book. Bill is a perfect reader—soft-spoken and funny. No one delivers a line like “…and he died, obscure and penniless, a broken man,” with more vaudevillian regret. In this text, Bill describes how the ancients made verdigris, the basis of green.

It’s simple. Take some copper and suspend it over a vat of horse dung and vinegar. The copper will corrode, like it does on your arm when you wear a copper bracelet. Scrape the green “rust” off and there is it. A Google search reveals that horse dung is just the beginning. Lots of people prefer using their own urine, and in fact there was some discussion at Winestock the other night about how common this is. Mind you, the discussion was among men, and I was faintly disgusted.

Here’s an image of a work in a series by Andy Warhol from 1978 called Oxidation. The Theory tells me this series was created in just this way, with urine:

Andy Warhol, Oxidation Paintings. 1978. Acrylic ground, copper metalic paint, urine on canvas.

Here is a lovely description of the final result:

“For all the conjecture surrounding why Warhol made these somewhat perverse works, one is left, in the final analysis, with objects of extraordinary beauty. The present example is one of the largest Warhol ever ‘made’, possessing the same qualities one finds in Oriental screens. Indeed, a Zen-like serenity pervades the surface, quite at odds, one can imagine, with their creation One can see the paintings as ethereal landscapes, or portraits of micro-organisms, wildly amplified Whichever way one looks at them, the Oxidation Paintings remain Warhol’s most economic works and some of his most elegant compositions.”

I found this text on a restricted area of the Georgetown University web site (it came up in a Google keyword search, so how restricted could it be?) and there was no author given. Go here to read the entire the article which also includes some entertaining notes on who did what.

Addendum: The Theory used his mad skills to glean more information about the article quoted above: “The author is Martin Irvine of Georgetown U.  Teaches contemporary art theory and visual culture. He is quoting an exhibition catalog from Piss & Sex Paintings and Drawings, from Gagosian (NYC, Madison Avenue).  Catalog essay was by Bruce Hainley.  Exhibition dates September/November, 2002.  Catalog is out of print.”

(While this not a proper citation, I express my thanks to both Georgetown University and the Gagosian Gallery for the link.)

While I really hope NOT to use my or anyone else’s bodily products, verdigris seems like a worthy Hive experiment. The Theory checked pH levels of various household compounds and discovered that very close to the top, just after battery acid (1.0 pH), was lime juice (1.8 to 2.0), followed by lemon juice (2.2 to 2.4) and vinegar (2.2). Go here to check pH values of other interesting household items.

Bits of copper salvaged from other projects.

I took some bits and pieces of copper and put half in white vinegar and half in concentrated lemon juice. Both solutions were warmed and soaked in paper towels with the copper bits arranged on top. The lime juice I set aside for my gin and tonic constitutional. Check back later to see how my verdigris experiment is progressing.

Driveway leading around the side of the house.

Perhaps because I was born in Oregon, I am always searching for evidence of a drowned world. I dream of summer, but to be honest, it is the impenetrable curtain of rain I love most. Today the ponds are overflowing and all the soft, low spots in the paths and driveway are deep underwater. Last week’s fallen leaves are are now a carpet of crinkled mulch. Rhododendron leaves hang slick and sodden, bloated with with water.

No place describes the process of accretion and decay like the Willamette Valley in winter. All last year’s layers–leaves, newspapers, soda cans–press into the ground, soon to become just another layer of tilth and soil. Nothing organic lasts long here, and why should it? Our memories are only slightly more reliable than a season of rain.

This weather–and this time of year–got me to thinking about some of the various reasons artists use encaustic. After all, they could be painting with acrylic. Or whittling. This week I want to examine briefly memory, recycling, remote viewing and the geologic/archaeological process of hiding and revelation. These observations will come from various artist statements gleaned from the web. Caveat here: artist statements are invariably imprecise because they are artists’ attempts to explain what they do. Some artists do it well, others less so, but these statements are often put together somewhat after the act of creation.

Before I get to this new series, I’ll post what I intended to write last week–some thoughts on how to make green pigment. I know, right? Didn’t I say I’d never make my own pigments? Read it Wednesday.

For today, here are some photos of my drowned world.

Sword ferns and pond.

Mulch in the making: leaves and ferns at the base of a birch tree.

Pond with golf ball-sized raindrops on the camera lens. Don't they look like UFO floating orbs? Maybe they are...

And because I couldn’t believe my luck, today of all days, here’s Marzi–awake:

A brief moment of consciousness.