Target is March 2020

Target Family in progress, by Gayle Pritchard

2020 is coming. This is exciting to me for a variety of reasons: a new presidential election, the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment (look it up, please, if you do not know what that is!), and a new exhibition scheduled for March 2020 with my art group: me (Gayle Pritchard), Gail Crum and Jill Milenski at the fabulous Beth K. Stocker Center Gallery.

My art group tries to meet once a week. We have been doing so for years now. We sip wine, catch up with each other, plan play-days and art-related outings, and, all the while, we work on whatever it is we are working on. When one of us is exhibiting in one of the many juried exhibitions around town, we all try to attend the opening. This type of support is so important, not only for the professional reasons you can imagine, but for the emotional support and the safe creative environment it provides.

A drawing play-day at Jill's

Meeting every week provides an incentive to keep working. While it is perfectly okay if you had a hectic week full of distractions or family obligations or illness and got nothing done, we all really want to have something to work on each week, or something to show that we have finished. It's absolutely exhilarating.

Jill and I, both writers as well as artists, recently took part in a one day writing workshop sponsored by our local library system, The 36th annual Western Reserve Writing Conference. Here we found yet another iteration of the creative community in our Northeast Ohio region. We spend the day with like-minded people seeking ways to improve our craft. I am so grateful to be surrounded by creativity virtually everywhere I go. Writing and talking about the writing process is just another way of expressing that fundamental need to express.

All of which now takes me back to my target: March 2020, the next exhibition, the next body of work, the next chance to interact with my audience, and another giant block of time to work on my art with focus.

Making Marks is the Start

"Mexico" by Gayle Pritchard, oil pastel with collage and
image transfers on mat board

I have never met a kid who, at a certain age, did not like to draw. Somewhere along the line, most of them end up abandoning the skill, because they are taught, often by an untrained "art" teacher, that their drawings aren't up to snuff. They aren't taught that drawing is a lifelong skill and one that, no matter how good you naturally are at it, can become rusty or greatly improved, depending on how often you practice.

So, making marks: It's the key to it all, and my hands long to create them. Whenever I travel, even if for a few days away from home, I always bring along a little travel kit which includes drawing supplies. I especially love the marks that soft pastels or conte crayons make, but I adore using the less messy oil pastels.

I am fortunate to have two women artists in my life with whom I meet almost weekly: my art group. When we have play days, Jill, the experienced sketcher and painter in the group, often creates opportunities for us to sketch and draw in new ways. Her massive stack of filled sketchbooks regularly inspires us to keep drawing. As further incentive, she even gave both of us a set of Prismacolor pencils and a brand new sketchbook for Christmas. Get crackin', ladies!

Landscape drawing on two pages, oil pastel, by Jill Milenski

Inspired by both Jill Milenski and Gail Crum and their drawing practice, I have returned to a drawing series I started several years ago. For one of our groups' two major shows over the past two years, I began making house drawings that went along with the theme of our show, Circling Back Home.

Two of my house drawings in oil pastel, bottom,
along with Gail Crum's framed collage, top. From
our Circling Back Home exhibition.

I have also been inspired for many years by two other landscape painters: Wolf Kahn and Sheep Jones. Their use of marks and color combined create a deep longing in me, and I absolutely love their paintings. I am especially moved by Jones' imagery, the evocative houses standing in landscapes that she captures in her marks. 

Now that the New Year is well underway, I am happy to have entered back into my art studio routine. This month began with the need to clear off my work space, which always leads to the discovery of some forgotten sketch, background painting, or fabric or collage snippet. I found all of these, and since several were already in progress, still in the thrall of the original idea, I just picked them up to finish them.

House Drawing #3, Gayle Pritchard, 4 x 6

House Drawing #3 was made on a background painting I had made with a marked gesso surface painted with various acrylics, including interference paint. It creates a nice shimmer behind the oil pastels. It's attached with brass brads to one of a giant stash of vintage boxes that I have. It's a good use for the boxes, and a nice way to finish an artwork, especially these little 4" x 6" ones.

House Drawing #4 isn't finished yet. It is larger, and I am going to mount it on the piece of wood shown. It has also turned into an assemblage, with a shelf at the bottom and found wood, metal and glass pieces added. The wood background, salvaged from an old dresser drawer, has oil pastel marks, and I will probably add some more. The house drawing, just started, is also being created on a background prepared with gesso that has been drawn into before being left to dry. When the oil pastels are added to the surface, they can be pushed down into the grooves in the gesso, creating an interesting, textured surface.

House Drawing #4 by Gayle Pritchard, in progress. Found wooden blocks, beach sticks,
altered photographs, glass and metal will be attached to a piece of wood
salvaged from an old dresser drawer.

Making marks is the start of creating for me. I use a mark to "open" a surface, even if I'm working in fiber. Making marks gives a start. It's a beginning of a new idea about to come to life.

Loose Ends, New Beginnings

From the book, I Hope You Dance, by
Mark Sanders and Tia Sillers.

It's that funny time between Christmas and the New Year. Today, against all odds in northern Ohio, the sun is brilliant in the sky; even though I slept in, it's the kind of sunshine that makes you want to jump out of bed on a winters' day and greet the world. It makes you want to dance.

I haven't put the Christmas tree ornaments away yet. In fact, I just finished clearing off the dining room table yesterday, finally removing the soiled tablecloth and taking it outside for a good shake before putting it in the laundry pile. I haven't done much in the way of "necessary" work this week: laundry, grocery shopping and the like. I'm on vacation.

Thanksgiving builds its' crescendo to Christmas Eve dinner, the big day at our house, I rise to the occasion, making plans, decorating, preparing pies and special dishes, shopping in local boutiques, trying to find just the right gift at the right price. After the family dinner on Christmas Eve, everyone opens their sleigh gift, and the night dissolves into family stories over dessert, talks, conversations in the corner, and mellow holiday punch. After that, my vacation begins.

I used the time this past week to tie up loose ends. This gets me ready for the new year. I like to start out with a clean slate, or at least a good start on one. I worked on my genealogy piles, scanning pictures and documents, following up on correspondences that have winked at me for weeks when I was too busy to form a reply. I got a good start on thank you notes, returned phone calls, organized my recipe books, returning the loose pages pulled out for the holidays. I gathered stacks of cardboard boxes for the next recycling truck, made a bag of donations, scanned my pile of new books into Goodreads to add to my "want to read" list. I even started reading one of my new books, Michelle Obama's "Becoming."

May Queen, a collage in progress by
Gayle Pritchard

There are plenty of loose ends in my studio, as well. Because my attic access is through the closet in that room, it gets piled up with Christmas boxes, wrapping paper, gift bags and the like. When I'm not working, the table gets covered with piles of collage papers I haven't put away yet, mending projects, and large pieces of artwork that have been moved to make room for a visiting guest or two. I didn't get the table cleared off completely, but I did pull out a few things to finish up.

This collage, I call it May Queen, was started back in July in a play-day with my art group. I made several pieces that day, but I really liked this one. I pulled it out this week and finished gluing the three dimensional elements in place. I plan to darken the blue botanical drawing in the bottom right corner, and maybe add a line of nice blue oil pastel, melted to a lip-sticky consistency, along the curve of the woman's back on the left. I think that will do it. The collage was created on stretched canvas, so I will either frame it with found wood pieces, or find a box or frame to pop it into.

As the new year approaches, I wish you peace and happiness. And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance. I plan to. Happy New Year.