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Category: Studio shots

Dream Job

Published November 17, 2017

I’m guessing that some of you think that I have a dream job. I get to make art, go to parties and shows and generally have a good time. Outside of school, there is no one to check up on me, no time clock to punch, no daily grind. That is all well and good, but that means I have a whole other set of challenges. There is no one to keep me on track, no real tasks I must do, not much of a daily routine, except what I impose on myself. Over the years I’ve done pretty well with being self motivated but sometimes I go through times when it gets pretty challenging.

I keep up with classes and teaching responsibilities fine because I made a commitment and people are relying on me to fulfill it. I actually really enjoy working with students and helping them discover the joys and frustrations of photography, especially the darkroom process. I relish the autonomy given to me as a college professor and I pride myself on a job well done at the end of each semester.

artist Judith Monroe art studio
The afternoon light falls across my studio work table in the prettiest way…

My studio practice can be more difficult. It’s actually easier when I have an exhibit scheduled and a shorter amount of time to pull it together. Or when I have to prepare and create pieces to paint on stage. Deadlines have a way of invigorating me. Gallery owners asking for artwork is a fabulous thing. But there can be a lot of time that it’s up to me to drum up the work or find a new gallery to push the exhibition schedule and that is where I have a hard time.

The hardest part of being an artist for me is the marketing and networking and selling aspect. I have no trouble socializing but the business aspect begins to freeze me up. Even getting myself to sit down and write and send out updates to people who have asked for it can be a struggle. I’m not quite sure why I’m telling you all of this, but I guess it’s just part of my new philosophy of not avoiding the taboo. I’m just going to be open and honest and let the chips fall.

But I’ve also been praying for something to change, for inspiration, for more self discipline, and for the strength to rise to the challenge. If you’re the praying sort, I’d ask that you pray for me that way, too. If you’ve got any words of wisdom or encouragement to share, please do. And if you’re willing to be my part time boss, that might be helpful, too.

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Are we done yet?

Published August 7, 2017
Work in progress in the art studio of Judith Monroe
Playing with a photo of the piece I’m working on lets me experiment with different ideas before committing to them on the panel itself.

“How do you know when you’re done?” People often ask me that question and I usually give them some flip response, “Sometimes I don’t!” It’s true, it can be hard to know when I’m done creating a piece of artwork. Sometimes a deadline is pushing at me, so I can’t just keep going. Sometimes it’s easy to tell, the piece just feels finished and I happily send it off into the world, confident of its completion. And then there are times that I really struggle with knowing when a piece is done. With the nature of my process, adding layer upon layer and usually obscuring at least part of what lies below, it can be hard to know when to stop.

Take the piece I’m working on now, for instance. It has a long and storied past. Underneath lies a completely different painting, something that came back to the studio and then I decided I could do far better if I started over from scratch. It’s pretty easy to paint on top of something, once you get over the emotional part. I know, some of you just gasped at the horror of me obliterating an artwork, but most painters I know do this sort of thing, they just don’t tell you. We just gesso over the old piece; gesso is a like paint primer, and it’s always the first layer that I put on my wood panels. When I gesso over an older piece, I’ve got my texture already in place and I work like I would after the layer of texture when starting with a fresh panel.

Back to the work at hand: this piece is already the second set of imagery on this panel, painted live during a couple church services and put on display for a while, as is normal. But at a certain point it just didn’t feel right to me. I don’t know how else to explain it. I certainly felt happy with it when I finished it and put it out there, but then I saw it again after not seeing it for a while. And it just didn’t sit right with me. Pretty soon, the feeling grew and became a bit of a nag. When the opportunity came, I brought the artwork back home to my studio.

At that point I just let it sit in the studio, out in view where my subconscious could work on it. I don’t know about you, but my subconscious is a busy little creature, working on several different projects in the background until it gets tired of being ignored. As I was finishing up my most recent set of live paintings, (more on those soon,) I felt the strong urge to tackle this one. Mind you, I have several of other things sitting in the studio waiting for me to get back to them, but sometimes certain things just need attention right now, thank you very much. So I got to it.

It’s funny how this sort of thing works. I could tell you that the border was feeling too overwhelming in this piece, so I felt like I needed to work with that and then it felt like it was missing something, so I’m working on adding to it now, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to be changing more than I thought it would but I try not to think too hard about these things. And yes, my mind works in run-on sentences because one thing just leads to another and if I didn’t go with it things would get boring.

And I’m sorry, but I still don’t know how I know I’m done. Sometimes I really don’t know, but I have to stop sometime. Usually.

 

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A Flurry of Activity

Published March 29, 2017

A few weeks ago I was asked to submit to a popular annual Sacramento show called the 20/20 Show. For this show, several artists are chosen to exhibit twenty small artworks all on the same theme. I was honored to be among this year’s chosen artists with my Specimina works. The exhibit is in May and each artist has to produce twenty five artworks to fill in spaces when pieces sell. I attended the reception for this show last year at the Kennedy Gallery and the excitement was palpable. I am truly looking forward to participating in this year’s exhibit.

 

As I have been working on my 20/20 series, I have been posting  videos of my progress in my studio on my Facebook page. As usual, I started with priming the panels with gesso, then adding acrylic texture to them.
The next step in the process is choosing all of the images for the series and printing them all out, then I decide what to collage as a background to each image and adhere it onto the panels. Once that is done, I coat the images and then transfer them onto the panels, which is the step I just finished yesterday.

 

The next part of the process will be to use color pencils to enhance the details of each image and start the coloring process. Then I will add acrylic paint in transparent layers, possibly more collage elements and wax pastels. I’m never entirely sure what exactly I will do until I get to that point in the creative process.

 

I’m pretty excited about this series, as I recently took a bunch of new photographs of some pretty cool and interesting creatures, some of which are included in this series. I am planning on putting a video together of the whole process when it’s done, so you’ll be able to see the entire project come to life. In the meantime, here’s the state of my work table at the moment.

 

My entire twenty-five panel series on my work table in my studio.

 

Mark your calendar for the Second Saturday Reception for the 20/20 Show on May 13, 2017, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Kennedy Gallery, 1931 L Street, Sacramento, CA 95811. I look forward to seeing you there!

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What I Did for my Summer Break

Published September 7, 2016

When I was a child and we came back to school in September, very often the teacher would ask us to write about what we did over the summer. I always thought this was a cool thing and I liked writing and being able to express myself. Even though I actually taught summer school this year and felt like I had no summer vacation at all, I still feel like I had a summer break of sorts.It just wasn’t the sort of break I thought I was going to have.

 

After the spring semester ended – funny how my life is again governed by school seasons –  I decided to deep clean and reorganize my art studio. It had been a really long time since I had done anything like that in this space and I had visions of what I wanted it to look like. There were piles upon piles on counters and table spaces, there were boxes and bags on the floor, there was just stuff everywhere. Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t stuff in here still, because I think that part of the function of an art studio is to hold stuff. But it was just way too much and I felt a little claustrophobic about it all. So I decided to just dig in and in maybe a week or two I would have the art studio of my dreams.

 

That was a little over three months ago. Needless to say, after a week or two I had just begun to scratch the surface but I was committed to sticking to it til it was all done. I started methodically, tackling one cupboard, shelf by shelf and I stopped to praise myself and show off to family each reclaimed space. I recycled bunches of things, threw away things, made donation trips to Goodwill. I was on a roll and feeling good. Then life happened. Nothing big, just regular life things, and I lost a little steam in the studio but somehow ended up cleaning out other spaces in the house and that felt good, too. Okay, I thought, let’s just go with the flow here and clean and sift and make my life a little lighter. I still got into the studio to clean but I found I was taking a bit of a break from art and business in general. I don’t know why, but I think it was just something that I needed. I have always worked in cycles and seasons and I have found that if I just go with it, things work themselves out in the end.

 

At one point, I wasn’t sure about what was going on. I was slowly but surely making progress in the studio, I even took a break and made a little art (okay, it was a big piece, but just one.) I wasn’t sure I was on the right path and I questioned a lot of things. What am I doing? Is it the right thing? Should I even make art at all? Well, yes, I can’t not make art… And then I got a little confirmation, a friend with a word of encouragement, some new requests for work, and I realized that this was just a little season and that it would pass and everything would be okay. Summer school ended and I got another little boost of energy to finish up the studio. I started to see my dream studio peek out from the chaos and I started feeling more inspired. It was such a huge job, though, and at one point I felt like it might never be done. Truthfully, I don’t think it ever will be completely done, but that’s okay, I can tackle the bits and pieces that are left hidden away at a later time.

 

So what did I do over my summer break? I cleaned my studio, painted two bedrooms in the house, helped one daughter clean our her space and make it new and another one move back in – which meant clearing the guest room out – and got rid of more stuff than I can quantify. And do I have the studio of my dreams? Well, not quite, but I’m pretty happy with it, and I need to start making art again, which I’ll share with you here. Soon, I hope.

 

art studio
Freshly re-organized, my studio is ready to start making art again! Of course, the dogs are always on hand to help.
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Late Spring Cleaning

Published May 31, 2016

I’ve never been one to follow other people’s schedules very much. Not that I haven’t tried, or that I can’t. One office job I had (with the Department of the Army, no less,) I consistently came in fifteen minutes late and stayed just as late. I got more than my share of work done and worked well with everyone else, I just had a hard time keeping the standard hours and my boss was lenient with me. I do start classes on time – most of the time – and I made a commitment to myself that I would not penalize my children with my tardy ways when I had to take them to school and I never made them late. But if everyone else is doing something at a certain time there is this little voice inside me that says, “You can’t make me!” And that is how I end up doing my “Spring Cleaning” at the dawning of summer.

 

 

It’s actually a perfect time for me, I don’t have any big deadlines approaching, I am between spring and summer semesters at school and the big one – I feel like doing it now. So I’ve been going through cupboards, sorting, recycling and donating; trying to free up any space I can, in the hopes of having a space where I will be able to see more of my various natural history type collection and feel happier and more inspired when I’m in  here.

 

 

insect collection in the art studio of Judith Monroe

 

I actually got this display box months ago and have been wanting to transfer part of my insect collection into it, but I just never had, until today. Not that I have a place to put it. Yet.

 

This may take a little time.

 

 

 

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A Peek Into the Studio Tonight

Published March 10, 2016

Worktable in the art studio of Judith Monroe

I’ve been working on a few things in the studio lately. On the big worktable, the final piece that I’ll be sending to my show at Xanadu Gallery in April, and four little pieces just because. If you’re in the Phoenix area, I’ll be down at Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale for the reception on April 7th – less than a month away! Which is why I need to be finishing up this piece.

I’ve also got a good sized piece of a Sedona landscape going on a smaller worktable, and there are several small pieces I need to get started to send to the Lanning Gallery there. Okay, I better get back to work…

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Making Art – Tree of Life

Published January 28, 2016

I recently finished a big piece I was working on, called Tree of Life. While I was working on part of it, I actually thought to take some time-lapse video of it, then I figured out how to edit things together and make a whole video. I think it’s pretty cool to learn how to do new stuff.

In this video you get to see me cutting a stencil from my own design, then using that stencil to add texture to the piece with modeling paste. After the paste dries, I paint the extra textured part and then add paint to the background. After that, I added more little details by collaging on more of my photos printed pretty small. These are the kind of things that you don’t really see at a distance but that add interest up close and make living with the piece more fun, as you can be discovering new little things in it for some time to come.

 

Tree of Life is 42×42″ and currently available in my studio…

 

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On Being Offensive

Published September 8, 2015

 

Just as I am finishing up a new set of work that I am very excited about, I’ve had to face a fact – not everybody likes my artwork. In fact, some people apparently find it offensive in one way or another.

 

Inside Judith Monroe's art studio

 

I know this because every time I post a dead bird photo on Instagram, I lose followers. I also have had certain pieces rejected from galleries because they were potentially offensive, both because of dead birds and because they have Bible text in them. I’ve also had artworks in other galleries sell for those same exact reasons, so that says something, too. I really like connecting with people that way. In fact, if you can appreciate my dead birds and scripture together, I bet we’ll get along pretty well in general.

 

That’s not to say that we can’t get along if you don’t appreciate my unique perspective and vision. I find it stimulating to be challenged by different points of view and I’m really not out to upset anybody – not too much anyway. I guess that’s just the price of being an artist and putting my work out there in the public square, sometimes people aren’t going to like it, sometimes people will truly be offended.

 

And I’ve thought about it a bit and I deiced that if I’m not offending somebody with my artwork, maybe I’m doing something wrong…

 

 

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