IsabeauxStudio

This piece evolved from a day trip with a date many many years ago.  It was an era I fondly call "pre-Matt."  We drove an hour outside of New York city to the Storm King Sculpture Center (see reference section for a link.)  It is acres and acres of beautiful green landscape combined with some pretty powerful sculptures. 

There is a phrase that Susan, my coach, and I are currently using- "Turn the Light On,"  meaning find things that inspire and excite me.  While working full time it is harder and harder to experience this.  Life gets in the way of me being creative all too often.  That day at Storm King blew me away, and as it was the epitome of "turning the light on." It filled me with the excitement to create again.

During the trip to Storm King I saw a sculpture titled "King Lear" by J. Seward Johnson  (see reference section.)  This was a sculpture that I remember so clearly to this day as it was incredibly powerful.

These pictures only capture a portion of this sculpture.  This was a full size a figure.  If you take the time to visit J. Seward Johnson's website which I hope you do, you can see the full size sculpture under section "Icons."

I was very inspired by the original King Lear sculpture, and created a collage from the photos that  I took of it.  Again,  I played with shape and texture, adding layers upon layers of images, distorting it  from the original photographs.

 The collage is again in black and white,  I wanted to really make sure I took my piece in a completely separate direction.

Again I followed the same procedure, getting the collage printed in large format, 16  x 20" so I could use the grayscale printing as an underpainting.  This picture, dated 6/12/2006 shows the initial addition of colored pencil.  My goal for this piece is that I wanted it to feel icy cold.  I wanted it to feel cool like the original metal of the bronze sculpture.

 This picture is dated 7/5/2006, and I am much farther along, but still not quite done.

This is the completed piece, titled "Hollows."  I am really pleased with the outcome, and definitely feel that it evokes a feeling of "iciness."  I have the same criticism as the Wilds of Relationship piece, which is I wish I chose a different quality of paper.