New work from art sabbatical

 My art sabbatical here on Lake Chapala, Mexico has been a very rich experience personally and artistically. Originally I planned a 4 month sabbatical and then extended it to 8 months. I have never had such a long stretch of studio time in my life and it is no surprise that my work began to change with so much time and attention.

I began working in a more vertical format and the first two pieces, Plumaje and Plumaje 2 are long and pelt like. I had big breakthrough after a Photoshop tutorial with my friend and photography colleague, Vero Almeida. I realized I could build the pieces in sections and in that way create even more layering. The resulting work is more organic and wing-like.

I have had the time to begin developing a series of prints that I have wanted to produce for the last few years. These prints will be based on details from my work.The first in this series is a long, narrow horizontal print (20” H X 70” W) that I have produced on linen.The second is a composite from a detail of Halcyon. I will be offering these for sale shortly on my website.

One of the most satisfying parts of the sabbatical is having time to develop larger work which has long been on my mind and wishlist. All of the small pieces that I have done recently are maquettes for larger format work. The first two Colibri pieces (hummingbird in Spanish) are sketches for very large ‘wall necklaces’ that are in the works. I am also planning to enlarge prints of the individual ‘feathers’ at the digital printer and use these to build large scale installations.