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7/31/2020 Room for creativity 🚧WORKS IN PROGRESS🚧
. I live in my studio. My floor is painted concrete, both intentionally and accidentally. It’s a damn mess. And it totally works for me. . “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star”- Nietzsche. When things are too stable and rigid, there is no room for creativity. Perhaps this is why many creatives tend to be considered unstable yet do not wish to do away with their inner instability. They recognize their internal chaos to be essential to their creativity, fueling them to impose order on their world in the form of highly creative works. Creativity requires deep involvement in your work. It is not so much talent that leads to creativity but the ability to become absorbed in your work for extended periods of time. . Watch your step. 7/28/2020 Not apologies Portrait of me by @analogsomer 🖤
You are a woman. Skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat. You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies. Not excuses.- S.K.  🚧WORK IN PROGRESS🚧
. “Callisto, Before They Made Her A Stranded Star. Part II.” Oil on canvas 18x24”. SOLD . “Maybe that was their intention all along. Perhaps they knew they could not eliminate the darkness of the night, so instead, they created these beautiful glowing lights in the sky—a small light for the people to cling to—to serve as a constant reminder to all that looked up, that no matter how dark the world seemed, there would always be light. Maybe that is why they created you as well” ― Courtney Praski, The Seven .🌌. How do you know a painting is done? When I first start a painting, I’m on my feet, I’m up all the time. As it progresses, I spend more time sitting and thinking - the ratio switches. There’s a play of call and response as the painting goes on: If I do this, painting says yes or no, if I do that, the painting says no room or I want that. It’s negotiation until there comes a day when I am sitting and looking, but I don’t get up. The painting is no longer responding. It’s full. Whatever this painting gave you, whatever you could have gotten from it, this relationship is not done but it is full. It’s not finished, there is just no more room. It has given me everything it can. There was so much response coming from part I that it simply could not stay on one canvas. Both pieces have room left to consider and I’m looking forward to seeing both of these soon. Swipe for part I and look up the Roman story for the constellation Ursa Major for the narrative.  “Even Every Sunday.” Letter 3/3. Oil on canvas 16x20”. SOLD
Stephen King says “all novels are really letters aimed at one person.” I don’t view my work much differently. . Hi. I know we didn’t talk after I left. But maybe the best part about not seeing you anymore is I can still write you these letters. Even if all we had left were Sundays, I’d still write. Because maybe these aren’t even letters anymore than they are the story of how I found myself. . . . I don’t think I need to send this one, after all. . ✌🏻. . The crop on letter 1 absolutely killed me. See individual posts for each letter. 🖤 7/23/2020 Exhale “Exhale.” Acrylic and metallic nickel / gold / copper on canvas 30x 40”. SOLD
. 🦊. . Nothing lasts forever, not the good nor the bad. Winter in Seattle, without fail, with her short days that are often bone-chillingly cold and gray, buries me head first, tail tucked, deep into a foxhole. . Down here, I hold my breath. I am frozen and numb. But atleast down in the dark, I can’t feel how cold it is above the ground. . I can’t feel... anything. . The numbness thaws at pace with the season, and I start to feel a warmth I am certain the sun knows nothing about. . I notice the days are becoming brighter, the gloomy winter sky welcomes back her sun. I look up from the dark safety of my burrow where I have nearly forgotten what the sun feels like. Nearly forgotten what anything feels like, for that matter. . Above ground, I see the cherry trees have started to blossom and the sun gets back to work sweeping the last of the winter frost away. . I can breathe again. . . After a hard winter, I exhale. . . . I can feel again. . .✌🏻. . This piece has been going on for a very long time. I can’t tell you just how happy I am to see this one through. 7/21/2020 So Walk Tall So Walk Tall, Or Baby, Don’t Walk At All.” Oil on board 12x16” sketch for a v large project.
. 🐘 . In the hardest times, we learn how to swim and where we gain the courage not to be fearful of the water again . . . ✌🏻. . I’ve been drawing elephants since I was a little girl. This particular image is one I’ve been drawing over and over again for the last 5 years. Here’s to painting big when you feel very small. More to come.🐘🌊 7/20/2020 Long Live the Rose, progress 🚧WORK IN PROGRESS🚧
. .🌹. Perhaps the greatest advice for any painter: make the paintings you want to see. You don’t have to paint roses like Morandi. There already was a Morandi who did it far better than I ever could. Guns N Roses didn’t need to be The Rolling Stones, we already had the Stones. No one cares what you do or how you learned to do it. Might as well make what you want to see while you’re around to do it. Last night we had a run through for a group art show this Saturday. My work was sorely out of place among very traditional landscapes and still life subject matter. I don’t have formal training. I don’t know all the rules. When I started this piece I didn’t have the skills I needed, I still don’t , truth be told. I didn’t start this thinking “oh I’ll just paint a couple flowers and see how this goes.” I said, “I’m going to do this, even if it’s weird and different and everyone hates it, I’m going to figure this out and I won’t settle on ‘good enough’.” That’s the wild part about art, you don’t know the formula for good work, but you certainly know when it’s bad. . . . ✌🏻. .  ⚠️WORK IN PROGRESS⚠️
. “Callisto, Before They Made Her a Stranded Star.” 18x24” oil on canvas. Private collection . Before they made her a stranded star and called her Ursa. Before they decided sadness was a disease. She was just a girl named Callisto. And she was enough. And it was ok to not be ok. . . . ✨✌🏻✨ . If you aren’t familiar, look up the Roman story for the constellation Ursa Major. I'm not saying that's where this came from, I had no clue before I started this piece, but I think I accidentally found Callisto in this. 7/18/2020 Fox Like Me “Fox Like Me.” Oil on canvas 18x24”. SOLD
. Do they love you .... or just the mask you put on every day? . . . ✌🏻. . We are so tangled up in a world of toxic positivity that I think many are ashamed to actually feel anything else. I don’t know if I can count how many times I was sad But I told everyone I was tired. . 7/16/2020 Aviator “Aviator.” Oil on cradled board 10x10x2”.
. Let’s get one thing straight. There is a difference between a pilot and an aviator. . One is a technician: the other an artist in love with flight. . . . ✌🏻. . The true substance of painting, despite all my grumbling about darkness, is light. Show me a better virtuoso than the dove to see and follow the light. I’ll wait.🕊 . I am no virtuoso, just a girl who wants to sing this song. 7/15/2020 Pilot “Pilot” Oil on cradled panel 10x10x2”. SOLD . Dad, I left my heart up there. — Francis Gary Powers, CIA U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union, describing his first flight at age 14. . . . ✌🏻. 7/13/2020 Stay Wild Moon Child “Stay wild moon child.” Oil on canvas 16x20”. Private collection
. We all wear a mask. Sometimes to protect ourselves and sometimes because of who we are. We live in a world where we have to do so to survive. You must have heard a famous quote “7 billion people, 14 billion faces.” . Happy people often look like people who aren’t. . The most exhausting activity is pretending to be what you know you aren’t. . Stay wild, moon child. . ✨🌜  “Stationary.” letter 2 of 3. 16x20” oil on canvas. SOLD
. Stephen King says “all novels are really letters aimed at one person.” I don’t see much of my work much differently. . Hi, it’s me again. This one I had signed and sealed. I never sent it. I was too scared to say it at the time, scared maybe you wouldn’t write back. At that time, it probably mattered and you deserved to know how I felt. I don’t know if you saw my last letter, but I’m sorry it was a bit harsh. By the time you read this letter, these words will be those of the past. Forgive me, I was afraid, but instead, I told you I just couldn’t decide on the stationary. All my love, Aliza . . . ✌🏻. . Letters are perhaps one of the most sentimental things a person can leave behind them. I think maybe that’s what I’m doing. I’m finishing my letters. The ones that are most important. What a better moment than a pandemic to push me to get as much accomplished as I can while I am here, should I get sick, or worse yet, you. I am leaving unwritten everything you already know. Right now I’m finding the visual language for all the things I never knew how to tell you. 🐻 . 7/10/2020 Flight Hours “Flight Hours.” A sketch, oil on cradled board 8x10”.
. Most of the time I’m working out a painting, a good idea often starts with an idea that isn’t. So you work it. You fix it or change it and suddenly you land on an idea that’s workable. You can always edit. You can always cancel a painting and not let it out if it’s bad. But you’ll never get anywhere if you hadn’t first started when it was weak and anemic and small. . Two things are requisite for being a painter: looking a lot, and painting a lot. There aren’t any workarounds I’m aware of, sorry. In painting, flight hours really do count. . . . ✌🏻. . I still haven’t decided whether this bird is coming or going, today he stays out of the trash, though. 7/9/2020 The Last Song Sketch “Last Song.” A sketch, oil on canvas 18x18”. .🐋. . “The whales do not sing because they have an answer, they sing because they have a song.”- GC . . Three days ago, a ferry boat to the island I was born and raised on struck a whale. Despite numerous warnings from a whale watching vessel that they were in a direct line of a juvenile male and partner humpback whale, they made no effort to alter their course and denied later even being aware of the magnificent creature. . The whale watching vessel observed the one that was struck struggling at the surface for 20 minutes, clearly disoriented and with massive injuries. His partner watched him through the entire struggle, and was later seen that evening, alone, just off the shore of Whidbey Island. . Yesterday, they confirmed the young whale died. I can’t tell you how heartbroken I am about this. I can tell you I tried to study roses during my time at the easel yesterday and this is the only thing I could think about. . . . ✌🏻. . “We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It's too terrible to imagine.”PB We are doing a fine f!cking job, here. The world is being totaled. 7/8/2020 Brian “Brian.” Oil study of an old friend, on canvas 18x24”. . Have you ever met someone who walks into a room and all the walls fall down? This is how I know Brian. . Ive come to know the walls I build to protect myself also keep many on the outside. I push people away. That’s my thing. . The first time I met Brian, he passed me in the last stretch of a half marathon, I thought he was being a total b-hole clapping as he went by. Then I saw him in the finishing chute, still applauding and knew he was a verifiable a$$hat. “Good for you, man, pace off me the whole way and then blitz by after I’ve done most of the work to get your carcass to the line.” . The second time I met Brian, we ran the Enchantments in a day, an 18 mile alpine trail that we somehow turned into 23 miles and 9 hours getting lost in the worst way- try getting cliffed out in road running sneakers and no climbing gear and running out of snacks in burn season. . And so many misadventures running through mountains, canyons and islands over the last 7 years would follow. I took a chance on this one, and he proved my initial suspicions far from correct. . I found myself in quite the analogy of our story trying to find a reference photo of yours to work with. I’m not sure anyone would have seen this portrait in the original photo, just as I wasn’t sure there was a genuine and kind spirit in the a$$hole who outkicked me 7 years ago. . We can talk about your nose, later. . . . ✌🏻. 7/7/2020 Feed the Good Wolf II “Feed the Good Wolf, II.” 18x24” oil on canvas. SOLD . Broken people don’t hide from their monsters. Broken people let themselves be eaten. -F.Z. . . . ✌🏻. . Finished. ❤️Limited edition, signed with COA giclee prints are available 7/6/2020 Laurel “Laurel” a study, oil on panel 8x12”.
. Some people come into your life to teach you how to let go. This isn’t one of those people. . Laurel and I grew up on the same small island together, and, like most of our friends, we come in and out of contact over the years as distance and life comes between us. But when we do cross paths, we tend to pick up where we left it. . I see her now on the shelf in my studio, drying, and she makes me think of my childhood homes (divorced parents, they ended up living 9 miles apart and I’d split time between each household). ...And how I couldn’t wait to leave. . Sometimes you need to leave behind everything that made you because it’s no longer possible to stay. I realized if I didn’t just go, I’d never go. Going was the key and I don’t think it mattered where. The leaving became the problem later on, mostly when it came to knowing when it was simply safer to stay. . The ‘leaving’ thing? It’s in me. . . . ✌🏻. . “Leaving was easy. It’s everything else that is damned hard.” . 7/5/2020 Finch Notes “Finch Notes”. 8x10” oil on panel. Sold
. As I continue working on these imperfect birds I couldn’t help but wonder who first saw a bird in the sky ...and built a cage.🕊 . . . ✌🏻. . I’ve got more to say on these. 🖤 7/4/2020 Post Script “Post script”. 24x18” oil on canvas. Finished.
. Stephen King says “all novels are really letters aimed at one person.” I don’t see much of my work much differently. This one has taken me quite some time to figure out how to properly sign off and whether I was ready to send it. . . . ✌🏻. . All that to say, I hope this finds you well. Best regards, Aliza . PS: 🔥. 7/3/2020 After Flowers Sold before paint even dried🖤
The poets were right all along, “everything is enough.” . . . ✌🏻. . “After flowers.” 8x10” oil on acrylic on panel 7/2/2020 Some F upsBelieve me when I say I’m not here to make a living.
. . . Some fuckups today. Enjoy. All of these are casualties on the same 16x16” board.🙈. .I painted over all of these. And really having some misgivings looking back on that 3rd one. That wasn't terrible. It's really wild looking back at the struggles of 2 years ago. I've stopped painting over what I call F ups so much and let them live on the shelf for awhile. Sometimes you just need to catch up with yourself to really see a piece through. ... Sometimes they do belong in the trash bin though |
AuthorAliza and Her Monsters Archives
October 2022
CategoriesAll 2020 2021 Art Journey Art Marketing Business Oil Painting Series Studio Life Thoughts |
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