Retouched plaster work!

Retouched: Baldosa # 5
Plaster relief with acrylic

Repainted: Baldosa #2
Plaster relief and acrylic

Busca de contribuciones: Anécdotas de Mudanzas

Fulcrum, 2009

Busca de contribuciones: Anecdotas de Mudanzas


¿Le gustaría participar en el proyecto que estoy desarrollando sobre cambios de casa? No le ocupará mucho tiempo. ¡De hecho, si quiere, podría dedicarme cinco minutos y hacerlo ahora!

Mi proyecto consiste en reunir historias, esbozos o tendencias sobre los siguientes temas:
- Mudanzas (el más conmovedor, el más estresante, el más alegre, el más difícil de realizar físicamente.... etc.)
- El proceso de empaquetar y vaciar cartónes
- La experiencía de renovar una casa.
- O conteste simplemente a la pregunta: "si usted partiese de viaje para no volver nunca más a su residencia actual, ¿QUÉ SE LLEVARIA USTED CONTIGO, Y QUÉ DEJARÍA?

Para no ponérselo demasiado complicado, puede contestarme en el idioma que Usted quiera.
Puede enviarlo por correo electrónico (laurie.pearsall@gmail.com) o enviarme un mensaje en Facebook.
Todas las contribuciones serán tratadas de forma anónima , si asi lo desea y las incorporaré a mis pinturas, sólo de forma parcialmente visible.

Su contribución significará mucho para mí. Si lo desea, puede seguir mis blogs para conocer los progresos de mi trabajo.
Gracias. Laurie

Call for Submissions: Moving Stories

Chromosome, 2009


Seeking submissions: Moving Stories

I am gathering stories, lists, or stream of consciousness thoughts on the following topics:
- Moving (the most recent, most poignant, stressful, joyful, physically difficult....etc.)
- Packing +/or unpacking
- Tearing down or renovating a home
- OR answer the question: "if you were planning to take a journey, never to return to your present home, WHAT WOULD YOU TAKE WITH YOU, AND WHAT WOULD YOU LEAVE BEHIND?

Any language is fine.
You can post it here as a comment, send me an email (laurie.pearsall@gmail.com) or send me a message on Facebook.
All submissions are anonymous and will be incorporated into paintings, only partly visible.

Your contribution means a lot to me.
Thank you.

Cada cara su cruz OR Everyone has a cross to bear

"Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of NOT working".

(A quote from Stephen De Staebler, taken from Art & Fear: Observations on the Joys and Perils of Artmaking; David Bayles & Ted Orland, 1993, The Image Continuum Press)

Back from the Hiatus

I have been off this blog for quite some time. First, focusing on my daily painting blog, but also I went to America for 3 weeks to recharge my batteries with family and friends, and visit some old an new haunts in Brooklyn and NYC. This was the first time I had traveled alone in I think 7 years. Wow. I will not gut this site with all my pictures, I have just included a tiny taste. Above you see me with artist Meg Foster
Meg was actually a student of mine in Massachusetts years ago. Check out her work, she's a gem.


I wandered to the Lower Eat Side, and around The Cooper Union where I studied my under graduate art degree. The whole community has changed. I blogged about this last August. The newest feature was the new Cooper-Hewitt Learning Space. Above is the only shot I got of the before my camera battery died. It looks sort of like a Transformer toy and you can see more angles of it, under construction here. This link has a building process web-cam.

This is a rusty bit of joy I documented in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Stay tuned for the new and reworked pieces I am picking away at in the terrace studio. The blazing temperatures have returned to Mallorca. It's time to cast plaster!

The Progress of Patience

This image is the Day 8 post on my Daily Painting blog. It's called Over & Over Again.

I am posting it here because this composition has given me pause. The process of completing a painting every day, for only a week so far, has been very liberating. Yet, in the studio with my bigger works I am at a bit of a loss! "What was I doing"?

In the words of the great teacher: Patience Pays. I do know that it is good to be a little lost, in order to find the road less traveled. I am working hard at releasing the notion that I have to finish pieces by some imagined or real deadline, or that what lurks in my mind's eye matters so much. They have a life of their own.

Introducing my New Blog

Here is a sneak peek at a few pieces displayed on my new sister-site Daily Paintings: Art and Sadhana
This site is dedicated to showing a new painting each day. Check it out for more information and the first three posts!

Finding the Essence

All irony intended, I feel that I have hit a WALL with my recent work. Flat and impenetrable. That is not my goal. My curiosity for dismantled homes is not only a question of composition and aesthetics; but also the vibration that remains of the stories played out between the walls.

So what now? I am trying to play more...to explore the essence of the images I document and not simply replicate them with paint.

The other day I pulled out a box of collage materials gathered on my many walks around the city and the villages here in Mallorca.  Above you see some examples of a bunch of collages which will serve as under-paintings.

Trust the Process

I want to share with you a book I am reading for the third time...I pick it up when I know my work is stuck and I need a good teacher. 

It's called 'Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go' by Shaun McNiff and published by Shambhala. He is actually from Beverly, Massachusetts, the city where I was born. You can read more about him here. The following is a quote that makes A LOT of sense to me in considering my approach to art-making.

"It seems that whenever I really want to do well, I am more likely to contradict these basic principles of creation (letting the unique qualities of unplanned gestures and color combinations emerge through the process of painting). If it is an especially important event, I am apt to plan too much. As I deliver the performance I realize I am following a script.  There is no magic unless unplanned expressions arrive to infuse the performance with a spontaneous vitality".

The thing is, even when I don't have a specific deadline, I feel that it is 'especially important' and that I want to do well because:

a. I am recovering perfectionist; 

b. I have made a lot of sacrifices to follow this path;

c. I balance so many other devotions and responsibilities, that studio time is PRECIOUS, I want to make it count.

ALAS, THESE ARE ALL EXCUSES. MAKE ART NOT EXCUSES.

The photos above were taken in La Llonja and Sa Quadrada districts in Plama de Mallorca...I've been looking closer at the walls.

Loosening up...

Now that I have had a few months distance from the bulk of work I have already created using building facades as a theme, I recognize that they are far too static for my liking. I am not throwing out a line for compliments, this is a genuine critique of the work as it stands alone but also with respect to the concept, which is important to me.

I am so curious about these exposed walls as cross-sections of lifetimes spent in the formerly closed quarters. So...where is the life in the paintings? The energy, the movement...I have a tendency to 'over-work' surfaces; and in the end usually prefer my drawings and under-painting to the finished product.

So, today I tried to loosen up- let the image breathe and no be so tied to the original photo I took. I incorporated some text, some stream of consciousness writing about the seemingly haphazard approach to home reforms in many Mallorcan towns. Then it occurred to me that I occasionally meet someone who lived in or next to the buildings I am painting...I AM GOING TO INTERVIEW THESE PEOPLE. Stay tuned for further development!

Iranian Calligraphy Art

Bahram Hanafi Baghchejegh
Born in 21 March 1966

http://www.caroun.com/Calligraphy/Iran/BahramHanafi/BahramHanafi.html

Calligraphy & Graffiti

To follow-up on my last post, here are some of my pieces from 2000 - 2002 which show my interest in calligraphy. I have always used text of some sort in my work, up until about a year ago. I have taken a break from this ritual to free my paintings from a, perhaps, too specific interpretation. Looking at this older work of mine and that of José Parlá (http://joseparla.com/home.html) I am reminded that language does not have to be read to add richness and conversation to a piece.

Artwork by José Parla

http://joseparla.com/home.html
Run, don't walk to see this beautiful artwork by José Parla. Although the result is quite different, what inspires him is very similar to my current muse: urban archeology, a rythym of layers expressing individual and community experience amongst the inevitable cycle of progress and change. This is aptly described in his bio. His work is at once totally contemporary and archetypical, calling on centuries of written and creative expression. Beyond the immediate reference to graffiti and urban signage, I see delicate pages from Da Vinci's sketchbooks, Arabic text, and the ephemeral depth of Monet's waterlilies. Seeing this work has catapulted me back into the studio, it is so good to be reminded of the beauty in everything that surrounds us.

Within the 'walls' of the edifices I have been documenting, I hope to develop such an exquisite attention to surface depth and vibrance! SIGH...

An enormous thanks to Luis in Berwick Brooklyn for sharing this with me.

Menorca: Pedreres de s'Hostal

Thanks to Carrie Barns, who directed me to this link via Facebook, I have discovered a visual gem not far from where I live. The Pedreres de s'Hostal is a disused quarry in Menorca Spain currently being converted into a 'post-industrial heritage park'.

Check out the link below to read more and see loads of wonderful photography of the site.

http://pruned.blogspot.com/2009/02/pedreres-de-s.html

New piece finished today!

Yet another acrylic painting of a local facade...the multi-level staircases attracted me most to this composition. One curious benefit I have is that I can study the renovation process of my neighbors on both sides of the house - actually, one is building a mostly new structure and the other is renovating. The wall you see above reflects this odd kind of patchwork approach to adding-on that is rampant here.

"Let's add some stairs this weekend"!
"Ok, the stairs aren't finished, but now that I am up here, wouldn't it be nice to have a solarium"?
"Great, pass me a cinder block..."
"That nosy neighbor keeps looking over here, let's add a few bricks to this wall here..."

High Contrast in Palma de Mallorca

As I continue to work on some mixed media paintings on the vast collection of façade images I have accumulated, I am eager to let loose on some black and white ink drawings- a favorite technique of mine. I started the investigations by tweaking photos in Photoshop.

Here's a result that inspires me: The effect that the humidity has on the cement of the upper levels of this torn-down building looks like bleeding, soaked black ink. Stay tuned.

Exhibition in E-Cosí, Sa Pobla, Mallorca

Last night we opened a show of my new work from 2008 at E-Cosí Ristorante Italiano in Sa Pobla, Mallorca (http://e-cosi.info/48/espanol/). The collection includes a large-scale, privately commissioned piece that had yet to be displayed. The opening was well attended for short notice on a Tuesday evening. Many thanks to my friends and those who attended to celebrate with us.

Palma de Mallorca, Carrer de Santiago Rusñol

Are you sick of seeing these images yet? Well, I'm not - here's another goody from Palma de Mallorca. This is a rare find because it shows three adjacent walls in a city block. There was a high fixed-in-cement barrier in front of the theatre-like display so I could not photograph freely. I have included a few decent shots taken with my arm stuck through the muslin!

Don't you just love the multiple stair cases leading to...?

Muro, Mallorca...another ruin

Today is another beautiful December Sunday in Mallorca. With some time alone I wandered my village to uncover neglected nooks. This particular house pictured above gives me déjàvu of snooping around the ruins behind my grandparents' house in Gloucester, MA.

My brothers and I used to go out into their back woods and trespass on the dangerous rotting staircases. The peculiar thing about these former dwellings here is that you don't need to go far to find them- they are abundant and nestled in with renovated and modern homes.

Drawing or Painting?

I always like to document my 'under-paintings' which are more drawings than paintings I suppose. These images are important because if I go too far with subsequent layers, I can see what I want to reclaim. I have found some wonderful black paint-pens that are more opaque than Sharpie markers and allow me to draw into my paintings. You can see the photo I took to compose this painting in an earlier post (Urban Archeology). Stay tuned for the imminent changes in this piece.

Mallorcan Façades- Abstract Interpretations...

I had an intense casting day yesterday. I'm playing with facade-like compositions, but with an abstract positioning of the textures and forms.

Like the other plaster casts, the impressions here are made with discarded construction materials and other recycled objects.

The difference here though is the scale- it's tricky, but I want to cast much larger blocks then reassemble them in different compositions.

Welcome to Mallorca

I haven't posted in a little while.  However the Mallorcan sun has beckoned me back to the terrace to cast plaster tiles. I also have more paintings in the works. I will be able to share more new things very soon.

Those of you aware may be wondering what happened with my 'big deadline'...Well, after a lot of hard work and cranking out the creativity, I was disqualified based on my age. Yes - it was disappointing for a few minutes (maybe an hour and a half).

All I can say is WELCOME TO MALLORCA! And to quote a savvy restauranteur I know, "Mallorca is a peculiar place full of peculiar people who do peculiar things".

Well, I win anyway. That deadline gave me the push I needed to embark on the new body of work I have been ruminating over for a long time. I am really into it and cannot wait to share it with the public.