Palmarin Merges: In the Studio

Happy New Year All!

Julie and I have finally gotten a handle on our exquisite corpse collaborative project and here is a finished piece.

Even Falcons come home

Whether it will make it into the March 2010 Blackfish Gallery Backroom Show is still to be determined!  What has been most interesting about this project are the itierations that the project itself has gone through.  We started out with an excessively broad base and have winnowed it down to a few requirements. Which on hindsight seems backwards but it’s hard to tell where you’re going unless you Start.  Enjoy!

While Julie was doing her residency at OCAC this summer, we got to together to look at our Exquisite Corpse project.  As we looked at it all over the floor, 10 piles and about 50 different ideas per pile, I said, “This isn’t going to work. We need to start over.”  We had been sending our mixed media pieces back and forth for about 2.5 years and had amassed an enormous pile of….yeah, that’s right.  So, we reduced the size from ‘any’ to about 18″ x 24″ AND we picked out the themes of birds and migration from looking at the previous works.  We’re back at the beginning! I’ll leave you with one of the pieces from our Exquisite Corpse Collaboration.  Enjoy!

Squid head

location, location, location

     Coming home from school everyday, I expected to have something to eat right away.  My grandfather never disappointed me - tinula (chicken soup), bindoongoo (better experienced than described, trust me), taboongao (opo squash soup with atsuete powder and pork) the list goes on!  Hence the image of the pot which is always full of food and full of memories.  

    And just because the location has changed - Portland, OR and instead of Hawaii - the full pot policy has not.  It is embedded deep in my psyche.  When we go backpacking, where we try to cut down on as much weight as possible, I make sure Matt always carries at least 5 pounds extra of food.  Shh, don’t tell him.  Because no matter where you are, especially if you’re not at HOME, food is important!  Check back next week for further developments on the HOME Series.

Wanna Play?!

As a child growing up in Honolulu, HI, the neighborhood I lived in had an ‘Open Door’ policy.  We would just walk into any house and see if there was something to eat or if there was anyone around who could play with us.  Then, “Home” meant comfort, food, playmates, and if you were naughty, ‘da slippah’, belt or extension cord. Good times. We weren’t often naughty but there was always the mango tree to escape to!

 This is the piece beginning of

This is the piece in its final state.

“From My Heart to Yours”.  At the event I added some leaves that I inked up and printed onto a yellow background.

As you can see to the right, I cleaned up the gold leaf and added some acrylic paint.  I wanted to keep the colors bright and cheery.  It is a sobering thing to see pictures of babies weighing 4lbs who’ve had major surgery and only live for a few months afterwards. I am grateful to have participated in such a worthwhile event.