I’ve been experimenting with little canvases and fauvism, a style of art I love.  I love the work of Portland, OR, artist Trina Hesson, who, among other things, does faces on small canvases and boards.

I like not being limited to the local color.  But I’ve felt many of my attempts at using unrealistic color always made the painting look like a big old mess.

With these little canvases, 5×7″, I’ve started out without any real goals, except to play with color.  The size is non-threatening.  I like the idea of being free of skin tones.  When I was making fabric sculptures, I hardly ever used skin tones.  They could be any race, they could be just figures anyone could identify with.

With these little paintings, I’ve used mostly dark colors:

I decided this week to work with lighter colors.   It was a terrible week — shootings, ICE arrests, and a deepening feeling of division around me.  So much unnecessary sorrow.  I’m shocked almost daily by  how well the “divide and conquer” political strategy still works.  I also had a discussion with a person I know who has a very rigid attitude about who is to blame and why.  That all crept into my latest 5×7″:

I use art as a window or a door into the imagination and out of this fragmented world.  I don’t often do directly political pieces, but it’s hard not to.   I hope this one is political and humorous.  Her frustration that people don’t see she’s right.  The imperious stare over the glasses — a look many of us of a certain age look out at the world with.  It makes me laugh.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately.  What do you think?

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