New Works and Shop Update

Hello, everyone....it's the start of yet another week and almost another month. They do just keep rolling along, don't they? I have been busy in the studio, making some adjustments to the Etsy shop and squeezing in a bit of reading as well. Last week the weather was so much warmer, we were sure spring was on the way. I was able to get in a daily walk most days, but now we are back to gray and cold and damp. But...the good news is that it's quite temporary, as we will have upper 50's by the end of the week! Surely spring is just around the corner.

Below are a few of the new pieces recently posted in my Etsy shop.

Gathering of Stones

Present Moments

Notes From The Ancestors no. 18

It felt good to be working on the more layered Notes From the Ancestors piece. I have loved that series and missed working on them. It is hard to see all the detail here (more views on Etsy), but there are bits of text fragments glued to the backing sheet that are visible floating above the chairs through the beeswaxed paper. On the left panel, I layered the letters of the alphabet to create a dense field. Once again, this is all a reference to the buried text, the forgotten history, and the wisdom lost to the ages.

I have a new scroll piece underway as well. Some of you may remember that these scrolls began some years ago with an homage to the alphabet...Scroll for the Letter A and Scroll for the Letter B. Each was done differently, but focused on a particular letter. I am working now on Scroll for the Letter C, which will be filled with a series of words from the dictionary (unknown words, at least to me) that begin with the letter C. Should be done in a day or so and then I'll be happy to share it with you.

A couple of other updates to share. As I may have indicated, I did close my 2nd Etsy shop, Missouri Bend Musings, which was dedicated to featuring daily drawings on teabags from several years ago. I've selected my favorites from that series and am slowly adding them to Missouri Bend Studio, so browse the Daily Drawing section where you will find a number of them. 

I also added a 10% coupon code to show my appreciation for those who purchase my work from MissouriBendStudio on Etsy. It is set up so that the coupon code is sent automatically to anyone who makes a minimum $20 purchase and gives the buyer 10% off a future purchase. Just a way to show my appreciation and let you know I'm always happy to see you back in my shop!

Well, time to get back to my reading of Hamilton by Ron Chernow (it's a hefty one, but wonderfully engaging), with a glass of wine and a bit of cheese! See you soon.

Rocks on Paper

A busy week, trying to stay balanced and maintain my new outlook.  Of course, none of those life demands that seem to take so much time exist while one is at a residency. No bills to pay, plants to water, groceries and other necessities to purchase....the list goes on, of course.  But, so far so good, I think.  Do I sound just a bit less confident than a week ago....maybe....it just takes more work.

I finally have some decent photos of a few of the new pieces.  As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, some of the new work will go in my Etsy shop and some on my website, robertspizzuto.com.  How do I choose what will go where?  Well, I guess the more miscellaneous pieces will go in the shop and the work I want to focus on building as a coherent series will go on my website.  I'll be sure, as I post the pieces here, to let you know where to find them.  Just an FYI, my website allows purchase of any of the work directly. It will go through Paypal, just as it does in an Etsy shop.

The first two pieces are more like meditation drawings, inspired by the landscape and the rocks.  The first one is posted in the shop and the second one will be posted tomorrow.  They are made on a most luscious handmade paper that Johntimothy bought for me from an artist, Sandra Anible, who was at the Frogman's Print and Paper Workshops this summer.  He bought three sheets of the paper which I brought with me to Brush Creek, still safely rolled up.  Once I unrolled it, I knew immediately that I was in love....the color, surface and the crisp thinness was just perfect.  Of course I went through all of it in no time, even tearing each sheet into quarters to make it last longer.  I have since been in touch with her to order more and have found out the paper is made of corn husks!

Rock Meditation Drawing no.1

Rock Meditation Drawing no.2

The next two pieces are from a much larger body of work that is still evolving, and they'll find their way to my website as they are finished.  I have a number of these pieces finished and quite a few more underway.  Still, the focus is on the rocks, but not in any specific way...these are not actual rocks, but point to the idea of rocks and time, aeons of history and the search for understanding.  They seem to float singularly or in groups upon the page.  Something new in the work, besides the subject matter, is the way I began working while at Brush Creek.  I'd never used a stencil brush before and I had a couple that I brought with me to play with, so much of these new pieces are made using stencils and a kind of pouncing technique both in the background and in the rocks themselves.  Before I used to scumble layers of color on top of each other and here I am building the color with layers put on with a stencil brush.  Always interesting to discover a new way of working!

I think rather than having individual titles, they'll just be numbered in the series, which has yet to be given its full name.  This red piece has a layer of pseudo-writing on top of the red, behind the rocks, that alludes to a written text, as if this is a letter or a message from the deep past, knowledge long buried. I started by folding both these sheets of paper in half, thinking they might end up as book pages...it didn't happen that way, but I kind of like the fact that they still suggest "bookness" in subtle ways.

I must say, it is very difficult to photograph these pieces or even get them edited accurately...the color is not this vivid in the actual work...it's still rich, but more muted than shown here.  That's why the professionals get paid the big bucks!!  I just make the work...I can't seem to get the hang of it's presentation to the world!

Hope everyone is going to have a great weekend!  Any special plans?  Nothing too exciting here....the semester starts next week, so my husband is getting ready for the start of another academic year...it'll be our 7th in South Dakota....Florida was a long time ago, it seems.

Stayed tuned for a report on what I'm reading these days!

Cheers!