October 20th, 2008 Siobhan
I hear a lot of argument on both sides about digital media. Galleries have been slow to accept it as a valid media and many analog purists dismiss it as somehow “cheating”. I’ve actually heard some say that digitally created works of art somehow “don’t count because you can just whip ‘em up”.
As someone who has worked on both sides of the aisle on this issue let me start by saying that nothing is “just whipped up” in any working artists studio that I know, my own included.
I’ve been working with digital media off and on for well over 20 years. As of late I’ve been working in combinations of digital and analog mediums. Has the digital experience changed my approach as an artist?
Yes and No.
I work mostly with Corel Painter IX these days. It has a gazillion and fifty two nifty features that I don’t use, opting to work the digital format like an analog medium. Why don’t I just work the analog equivalences you may ask?
My reasons are as follows:
1. Pixels aren’t toxic.
I worked in oils for years, then switched to wax pastels due to toxicity issues. I tend to not pay attention to where my brushes and solvents are and also have an unfortunate propensity when rapt in work to stick my brushes in my mouth when I need a point or to wipe solvent laden brushes on my pants leg. *DOH*
Even though there are other mediums that don’t require toxic solvents I realized that most artists pigments are, in and of themselves, toxic. This includes the pigments in pastels, acrylics,watercolors etc. Cadmium anyone? And then there’s always the issue of toxic fixatives.
2 Pixels are green
No solvents, no minerals, no wasted paper in reworks , no waste in general.
3. Safety of Originals
I had a studio flood on me a few years back. I lost a lot of pieces. I’ve also had pieces meet a number of more unusual demises, some involving housecats.
Back up your files on disc regularly and your originals are safe
3. Space
it takes a whole lot less space to work on a Wacom Tablet than to work on an easel, as well as a drafting table and airbrush booth. That and one doesn’t have to pay for all of that equipment.
4. Versitility
See entry 3.
I tend to approach my digital works the same as my analog work ie with classical layering technique.
I also tend to combine scanned analog and digital, using the best of both worlds.
The only thing I really miss about analog is working with impasto, but then again a girl can’t have everything.
When I was in college , back in the earlier days of computer art, my instructor told me 2 things that have stuck with me throughout my career.
The first is that it doesn’t matter what tools an artist uses to get the effect that they’re going for. They STILL have to come up with the idea for the piece and make every call along the way as far as approach.
The second is that a computer is really nothing more than a fast pencil. You still have to be able to draw and be well grounded in artistic fundamentals in order to make it do what you want.
My challenge to you is this…look around the works posted on this site and My Imagekind Gallery.
I have a whole lot of pieces that are marked mixed media. Can you tell which are purely analog and which are analog/digital?
I’d be interested to hear which you think are which.
Posted in Fine Art, Life in General, Prints, art, new work | No Comments » | Viewed 54 Times
August 14th, 2008 Siobhan
As I’ve been tooling around finding information on the Autism Spectrum I’ve noticed a startling lack of information on Adult AS/Autism. And even less about females who are adult and AS/autistic.
Why is this???? There are certainly adults along the autism spectrum, and the children that everyone seems so very single pointedly focused upon do tend to grow up when ones back is turned. And gee, they become adults. I truly applaud the efforts of parents to help their children and the network of information that has ensued. I guess what I’m grousing about is the dearth of stuff available to many adults that need it….and I know many.
While I understand that statistically speaking there are a whole lot fewer girls than boys that are AS/Autistic, I also understand that it tends to manifest very differently in girls and women than in the male of the species due to gender based neurological differences. Speaking statistically again, girls are far more likely to be misdiagnosed due to these differences in manifestation. I know that was certainly the case in my life.
I’d love to hear from y’all adult spectrum specters. Have you found resources? Diets that work? Coping Mechanisms? And how about the stuff that doesn’t work?
Inquiring minds want to know 
On a side note I had my first GFCF dinner party the other night…oh and add VEGAN to that as well.
I did a lasagna that was pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. BUT the crowning achievement of the nite was dessert…rich chocolate layer cake , filled with marion/raspberry filling, coated with a semi-sweet chocolate ganache and decorated with fresh berries. This was served with a very rich bittersweet coconut/chocolate ice cream that I whipped up. It was good by any standard, let alone gfcf.
I’m insufferably pleased with myself at this point.
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July 20th, 2008 Siobhan
Get rid of your television. We’ve got ours set up to watch movies only ( no cable or antenna) which means I have to plan to sit and watch a given film. If I want news, I hit it online.
It’s amazing just how much more time I have to produce.
Posted in Life in General, Uncategorized | No Comments » | Viewed 143 Times
June 30th, 2008 Siobhan
I’ve finally gotten my office unpacked and functional after the move! This means as well as working I can get back to my blog. This should please you, oh my readers….both of y’all
As I had mentioned in a previous blog, I am now writing down all of my GFCF recipes as well as devising new ones. My goal is for dishes that aren’t just “good for what it is” good but rather “OH MY GAWD that’s good” good. I did a ‘cheese’ sauce based Potatoes Au Gratin with Ham that fit the bill this last week. It made my gluten and casein consuming husband very very happy.
I’m not only transcribing existing recipes but devising new ones as well. The idea in my little brain is that since I cook all the time anyway, I might as well put it all together into a cookbook. If any of you have leads on publishers that would take such a manuscript I’d gladly accept any information.
My mom seems to think that I could do this with one frying pan tied behind my back. I’m not so sure.
My big issue so far has been which things to leave out. Only a bit over a week in and I’ve got 10 pages just on sauces, and I’ve only covered 2 of the French mother sauces and a few variations.
Iwillnotobsessiwillnotobsessiwillnotobsess
Posted in Life in General, Uncategorized, autism, new work | No Comments » | Viewed 161 Times
June 16th, 2008 Siobhan
Well we’ve arrived back in Washington State, found a truly wonderful house with a truly wonderful landlady.
She has been foolish, er, KIND enough to let us paint the place in whatever colors we choose so long as we put it back to white when we leave. This is a very nifty thing for me as the place has very high ceilings and architecture of this sort tends to look a bit institutional if left all white, IMO. Well that and with my previous 6 winters in Alaska , I’ve seen about as much white as I care to , thanks very much.
I decided I wanted a deep red kitchen. Now deep red is a problematic color even with the best of paints, but more than a royal pain in the butt with Home Depots supposedly premium paint, Behr.
After the first coat my kitchen looked like the inside of an autopsy. I sort of expected this considering the walls are textured. Disturbing visually, yes. Unexpected, no.
After the second coat the walls looked like the floor of an abattoir. Wasn’t expecting this one
3 coats in and it started looking as I wanted it to, barring the need for a few bits of touch up even after that 3rd coat.
I’ll never buy Behr Paint again. It ran, lifted, sagged and streaked and is hard to clean up. So much for premium paint.
On the good paint side of things, the new VOC free FreshAire paints are awesome even if they take some getting used to in the handling. It’s sort of like painting with Elmers glue. BUT, no smell and awesome coverage even with extreme color changes. Cleans up super easy too.
Valspar from Lowes is absolutely phenomenal in coverage and handling. It’s not VOC-less unfortunately.
Can’t beat the price though!
Our furniture finally comes tomorrow (keep in mind we’ve been in state since the 28th of May) and I can then stop painting walls and get back to painting for real.
Posted in Life in General, Uncategorized | No Comments » | Viewed 181 Times
May 20th, 2008 Siobhan
In 48 hours I’m moving away from Alaska.
Part of me is happy to be going to a place where it doesn’t get below 20F often and one doesn’t have to shovel out in the winter or worry about avalanches, volcanic eruptions, frozen pipes and automobiles or getting stomped on and/or mauled by wildlife.
Another part of me is sad to leave a place of such breathtaking beauty. This place fills up my soul through my eyes.
Living in Alaska pushed my work into areas that I said that I would never go, mainly into landscape.
I don’t know how I could have avoided landscape work living here. Every day brought a different and more intensely beautiful vista, even in the middle of town.
I think it’s all about the light. There is a color of light that’s pervasive here that is usually reserved for a few fleeting days in the very early spring in environments further south. It’s a sort of pinky- golden color and being as there are so many white barked birches , it’s reflected back everywhere. In the winter even snow dumps acquire alpine glow. Add to that the extended sunsets (hours and hours!) and well, even the big 64 box of crayons wouldn’t be sufficient to render it. The sky is always doing something utterly amazing.
One thing that I found impossible in working on the Northshore series was capturing the sheer magnitude of the larger views. Trying to catch color as it was ended up looking garish on the page. Seriously…the color is so very intense that even photography doesn’t seem to quite catch it or ends up looking less than, well, real.
There is not a film on the planet that can even approximate the living blue of glacial ice.
It seems that Alaska will not allow itself to be taken out of context.
In response to this I ended up focusing on small moments rather than the grand view.
This is an example of that and is the last piece in the Northshore Series:
Barnacles, Bladderwrack and Basalt
Mixed media on Paper 2008
Okay before you say “gee it looks just like a photograph” Look here:
Barnacles, Bladderwrack and Basalt detail
Mixed Media on Paper 2008
I’ve heard Alaska described as brutal, savage, and uncompromising. I think it’s more supremely indifferent. It has an extreme and vital sense to it that is separate from human doings. The place thunders under ones feet.
I’ll miss it….except for when the mercury hits -50.
Posted in Fine Art, Life in General, Northshores, art, new work | No Comments » | Viewed 193 Times
April 24th, 2008 Siobhan
Why on earth would I write publicly about something as deeply personal and potentially socially stigmatizing as being autistic you might ask?
1. Because there is no possible way that I can separate my artistic process from my autistic function. Believe me, I’ve tried and tried again. In order to begin to explain my work in any kind of real fashion I must address the autism and visa versa.
2. Blogging gives me an avenue to actually express where I am in either process in a manner that is less socially awkward and potentially alienating i.e. the ability to edit. It’s also helpful the the reader decides when they’ve heard enough
My work is an area where I apparently have a really difficult time interacting like a civilized human being. This forum also gives me a place where I can send people that are interested in what’s happening in that area of my life without having to traverse that slippery social slope.
If I perseverate, (an action I once had a friend call “arting in my face”) the reader can opt out on their terms, no harm, no foul.
3. I hope that I can, in some small way, dispel some myths and stereotypes that surround Adult Autistics and Apergers folks from all areas of the spectrum.
I don’t claim to be any kind of expert on the subjects that I am putting forward for public perusal.
All I can do is share my personal experience.
As far as the potential social stigma? Well, I’m capable of committing social suicide all by my lonesome. This blog isn’t going to make a whit of a difference there…..
Posted in Life in General, art, autism | No Comments » | Viewed 191 Times
April 15th, 2008 Siobhan
As an artist I am, like most other artists, asked about major influences on my work.
Last night, as I was watching a wonderful biopic on PBS, I realized what a profound influence that literature has had on my work. More specifically poetry. Even more specifically the works of Walt Whitman.
I was raised in a family with a love of literature of all sorts. My mother read me the works of Emerson, Scott, Longfellow, Frost and manymany others as a very young child. It got to where I could recite many before I was even out of kindergarten. Of course this was no doubt due to the fact that my mother herself had many works memorized and would recite them to entertain us as she baked or did some other household task. I always liked the rather macabre ones like Longfellow’s “Wreck of the Hesperus” and Sir Walter Scott’s take on Goethes “Erl- King”. Yeah, ok, I was a weird kid.
As I got older I discovered Blake, Neruda, TS Eliot, and Rilke, who are some of my favorite poets still. I would suggest that anyone who wants to go into the Arts of any stripe read Rilkes’ “Letters to a Young Poet”.
Walt Whitman’s body of work has, however, impacted me more than that of any other writer, poetry or prose.
I discovered Whitman at around age 12 , when I fancied myself a fledgling writer of sorts. I have since read and reread “Leaves of Grass” over the course of my entire adult life.
I recently passed on my grubby, tattered, dogeared copy to my daughter who writes.
Whitman’s pure physicality transcends time and cultural boundaries. It transcends the restrictions of the society in which it was created. It trumpets a strength in the most fundamental act of simply being as well as a deep love for and unflinching examination of existence . What courageous writing.
When I’m feeling unsure of my work or weirded out by my own weirdness all I have to do is pick up “Leaves of Grass” and open it to a random poem.
I read and am renewed, recharged and reassured.
“The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab
and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you. ”
“Song of Myself”
Stanza 52
Thanks Uncle Walt. And Thanks Mom.
Posted in Life in General, art | No Comments » | Viewed 195 Times
April 13th, 2008 Siobhan
In the last few months I’ve gone completely casein free in my diet. I’ve been gluten free for a couple of years now and have adapted to that. I’m finding going casein free a bit more difficult. For the first few weeks I completely went ape s**t as I detoxed. Now a few more weeks in I can tell an appreciable difference in anxiety levels and a lessening of repetitive action and speech. Awesomeness.
Actually finding casein free products that taste decent has been a bit more problematic.
Now who’da thunk that there’d be casein in SOY CHEESE for crying out loud?? I mean who the hell eats soy cheese except those sensitive to milk products and vegans??? Almond cheese too.
I want to know which brainiac in product development decided that this was a good idea. Having an ooey gooey melted texture isn’t going to do the company any good if it makes their clients sick now is it?
I also found out my favorite bratwurst from the Alaska Sausage Company (awesome products btw) while being gluten free has milk solids in it. Poop.
A few cool finds though.
Ghee is caesin and lactose free. WOOHOO for butter taste! I think I can add it to baked goods with a non trans fat margarine to get that oh so not duplicable flavor.
Soy yogurt is a pretty good substitute for sour cream or thinned a bit for buttermilk. It also drips out fairly well and can be used as a soft spready cheese like ricotta or sweetened for use in place of marscapone. The drip thing takes longer than with regular yogurt, but oh well.
Hmmmm. Maybe I should think about a cookbook. I’m cooking anyways (always have), I just tend not to write things down. Mayhap I should start…..
EDIT: I have since found that Tofutti brand soy cheese does NOT contain caesin! The Mozzarella sort even tastes ok! I’m going to try out a GFCF lasagne! Tinkyada rice pasta ROCKS!
Posted in Life in General, autism | 3 Comments » | Viewed 201 Times
April 12th, 2008 Siobhan
I’ve never been much of a blogger. Well, barring a few posts on MySpace that is…..
I’m an artist. I’m also a musician. In addition to these things I’ve also been diagnosed High Functioning Autistic/Aspergers.
Now the autism label can be fraught with mythconceptions. I don’t necessarily consider it (at least for me) a disability…well, maybe at parties. Rather I consider it to be who I am, rather like having blue eyes or an allergy to ragweed pollen.
More importantly I hold firm to the notion that I don’t need to be “Cured”, social interaction difficulties aside.
In the coming posts I’m going to try and document my artistic process, my thoughts on autism in general and whatever else strikes my fancy.
Posted in Life in General, art, autism | 1 Comment » | Viewed 191 Times
