Casa & Campo I/II / House & Field I/II

Casa & Campo I / House & Field I


Casa & Campo II / House & Field II

Diptych: 20 X 20 inches (50 X 50 cm) each. Collage 7 mixed media on wood

This diptych is a large scale version of the 32 abstract orange Daily Paintings featured on my other blog.

New Piece: Volver a Casa / Return Home

New Piece: Volver a Casa / Return Home

24 X 24 inches (61 X 61 cm)

Mixed media collage and painting

The composition of this piece is from a section of an enormous destroyed building in Inca, Mallorca. The wall paper and newspaper come from a building demolition in Sa Pobla, Mallorca. There are two bodies of text taken from moving stories contributed by Jose and Eusebia. Thank you both.

Pondering Weathered Walls

I received an appreciated recognition from Robyn at: http://artpropelled.blogspot.com/
where she has gathered a collection of artists who are interested in the same rich and reminiscent surfaces of aged and decrepit walls as I. Thanks to Robyn, I have had a wonderful morning of discovering new artists that make my ex-pat world feel a bit smaller.

The photograph above is by Margaret Ryall.

I am particularly blown away by the fact that I hadn't previously stumbled across Clay Ketters, whose photographic images are almost identical to so many I have taken in Mallorca. More on him later...

The High Tower (La Torre Alta)

The High Tower (El Torre Alta)

Collaboration with my 5 year old daughter, Malena, 2009

35.5 X 47 inches (90 X 120 cm)
Mixed media on wood (old Mallorquin newspaper, acrylic, graphite, ink)

New Piece: The Castle

The Castle (El Castillo)

Completed October 7, 2009
35.5 X 47 inches (90 X 120 cm)
Mixed media on wood (old Mallorquin newspaper, acrylic, graphite, ink)

The title of this piece comes from the drawing in the background created by my daughter about a year ago. Lately pretty much every piece I make either has some drawing of hers or found objects collected by her incorporated into it. The composition of rooms and open door is from a destroyed building in Palma de Mallorca. The text is from a moving story written by my yoga student, Victoria.

here's a detail of the castle drawing...

Introducing my new website!

PLEASE NOTE A CORRECTION BELOW IN THE URL FOR MY ENGLISH WEB SITE:

I have changed my website. Actually, there are two:

English version here: www.laurieapearsall.weebly.com
Spanish version here: www.laurieannpearsall.weebly.com

I am in the process of preparing lots of new work for a restaurant installation, an upcoming exhibition, and competitions in Mallorca. So, keep in touch of new work appearing regularly.

Very soon I will be launching my on-line store at Etsy.com. Stay tuned.

Set of Six Dailies

Here is a continuation of Series 2 of the daily paintings I am currently creating. Now I will begin a transition in the color scheme...stay tuned.

looking at the individual pieces I like to get lost in the intricate little microcosms. As a set or 4, 6 or more squares, they have a very different feel: more chaotic, like a locomotive engine or watch mechanics in motion. Eager to select some and re-interpret on a much larger scale.

I feel like I am back in art school, playing with so much Cubism! Gotta admit, 'passage' is so fun...

New Piece, details

These shots give a truer sense of the actual color and detail of "La vida pseudonómada".


You can see how the written stories are integrated. Some folks were hesitant to share their stories, because they didn't want their privacy compromised.

Well, as you can see, it's just between you and me ;) you'd have to be a forensic specialist to decode this story.

La Vida Pseudonómada/The Pseudo-nomadic Life

La vida pseudonómada (The Pseudo-nomadic Life)

Completed September 1, 2009
35.5 X 47 inches (90 X 120 cm)
Mixed media on wood (rusted metal, collage, acrylic)

I started this piece ages ago and have finally pulled it together. It is the first piece that utilizes some of the many Moving Stories I have collected over the last 2 months. Thank you, Jose for your contribution. The original building structure is one in Inca, Mallorca. The junk was collected on the streets of Muro and the wall paper is from the site of a renovation in Sa Pobla.

I am entering this piece today in a competition at a gallery I have been salivating over; the exhibition space is a wonderfully restored historic estate and well-suited to my work. Just being in the group show would be great, but the first prize of a solo exhibit is going to be even better! Wish me luck.

Collage: Duplex / Adosado

Duplex / Adosado

22 X 30 inches ( 54 X 73 cm) Collage/mixed-media on paper

Rejection Letters are junk mail

The following is an excerpt from How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist: Selling Yourself without Selling Your Soul, Fifth Edition. By Caroll Michels (Owl Books)

Rejection and Success are analogous for various reasons. Both Success and rejection are capable of producing an identity crisis. Some artists who attain success find themselves stripped of goals, direction, and sense of purpose. The same holds true for artists who are rejected.
Stagnation is a by-product of rejection and success. Artists who are rejected can be diverted and blocked in their creativity. Artist who attain success can lose momentum and vision.
It is possible to be unscathed by rejection or success, and continue with new goals, directions, explorations, irrespective of other people's aesthetic judgments.
The sooner you lose an obsession with rejection, the sooner your real potential develops, and the better equipped you will be to handle success.

A tip for building immunity to rejection: Each time you receive a letter of rejection, initiate a new contact, send out another presentation package, or pick up the phone. Replace feelings of rejection with feelings of anticipation.

Caroll Michels has a website for visual artists that accompanies this book; it's full of resources: wwww.artisthelpnetwork.com

New sets of dialies

Set of 4 Dailies

This is a composition of 4 daily paintings, developed at first as a set, then individually. Check out the individual posts here. As I start each new daily piece, I make reference to the one that came the day before. In this way, there is a constant flow of continuity day to day.

Top left, clockwise to bottom right:

Cocina, Parquet, Rotary, and Golden Crop.

8 X 8 inches (20 X 20 cm) each panel. Collage, joss paper, rusted metal, and acrylic on wood.

Untitled Plaster Relief

Untitled (as of yet)

8 X 16 inches/each
Plaster relief with acrylic; impressions made with objects found near construction sites.

These are a bit chunky for my tastes; either the contrast in the paint needs to be more subtle, or I need to carve down the relief after casting. Perhaps they are too cluttered. Back to work...

Casa de Trastos / House of Junk

Casa de Trastos, or House of Junk

Plaster relief and acrylic, Composition of 8 tiles approximately 26 X 35 inches (65 X 90 cm)

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.