Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Connecting With My Dreams

Well ..Lately I have had some frustration and criticisms with what I call my "eclectic Style."
The Rasmuson Foundation who has been giving grants to artists all over Alaska said this:
"Her style is eclectic! Her work samples demonstrate that she is experminting with encaustic wax, but her work is all over the place in terms of style. Blah, blah, blah, yatta, yatta, yatta.
In my defense I am primarily a self taught artist so I take my inspiration from all types of art and also it is part of my learning process.
The frustrating part is I got an application and prospectus for solo exhibition at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art for years 2007-2010. I missed the deadline (August 18th) because I just could not come up with an idea or theme or a cohesive body of work to show the judges.

There is an Idea simmering just below the surface of connecting with my dreams to create my my artistic expression. But how to connect with the concept of dreaming and a visual representation? The encaustic wax medium and collage will be perfect for dream imagery. Something I have always wanted to do is to keep dream log and religously record my dreams. After all we spend at least 1/3 of our lives dreaming..........like my childhood dream of my family just floating away in the sky unaware of me crying below...... or the dream of the levis attacking with butcher knives..... or the Martians taking Mars candy bars out of my dads head or the dreams of flying....or being lost in a maze...or being naked at school...
Bye for now - I'm going to bed with a new purpose "dreaming with intention" with the benefit of giving me an insight into who I am and my artistic style of expression.



This is my latest wax creation a triptich I shall call "Praying for Inspiration."

1 comment:

Judy Vars said...

Hi Elise,
Thank you:) it's in the Halloween spirit some of my assemblages are "dark art" actually its not to different for me. I have been attempting in the last year or so to lighten up.
The skelton was cut out and collaged on the wings came from an old angel book and the praying skeltons are an copyrightfree image I found online traced on some hiku sp paper which is transparent when applied. The encaustic wax gives is an added spooky dimension.

So glad you are staying right here in Alaska.