Hello, My Name is Red

Paint!  Red paint!  Red, melting, honey-scented wax on a hot sheet of metal, on a smooth sheet of wood, on a soft goat-hair brush.  Could anything be more delicious?  

The images above are wildly in-progress.  I have been enticed to make them as companions to a set of six white paintings I made a couple of years ago.  Ever since I finished those spacious & restrained works, I knew there would be a set of red ones to accompany them & complete the cycle, but until now, I didn't have Red firmly, deliciously enough in the body to approach that project.  Today, things are moving.

I show up at the local hardware store with my intricate map of how to chop a 4x8' sheet of plywood into 48 bits.  It's worked for me before, twice, on occasions when I needed a big store of panels for teaching & for my own work.   My experience as a lady-artist has been: if I do my math right, and am sure of what I am asking for, the Hardware Guardians will smile on even the most baroque plan. This time, though, I don't really need the 48 bits: just the 6 panels for Red.  So the Hardware Guardians, who don't mess around, aren't budging: 3/4" birch ply comes in full sheets, period.  OK.  Also, Larry the Saw Master is not at all enthused about my map.  Taking stock, sniffing around the saw room, I see a part-sheet of something leaning against the wall.  How about this?  Oh, that?  That's Red Oak.  I thought you wanted White Birch.  Nope.  No, as it turns out, I want Red Oak.  By the square foot.  Right now.

Larry asks me about what I'm going to be doing with the wood.  I tell him a bit, about the wax, and the heat & color.  He's a real craftsman, so he gets it, but he's also honor-bound to poke some fun.  You went to school for this?  Larry asks, smiling from behind his Odysseus eyes.  Yes.  Luckily, it wasn't so expensive.  What a lie!  What a truth!  $33.76 later, with Larry's able help, I am off to the studio, heart brimming.

Thanks Universe!  
​Mad love always,
XOXO,
Julie

PS: Thanks, Himalayan Art Resources, for the image below, of Red Kurukulla - the goddess who turns the energy of desire towards enlightenment.  You're the best, and so is She, and so is Larry, and so am I, and so are we all.