Portrait of a Niece

This past weekend my niece Katrine had her first birthday. Unfortunately I wasn’t there to share a piece of birthday cake with her, but I wanted to give her a very personal gift.

My parents and my sister have kept me well up to date, by sending me photos of our new little family member. It is all thanks to them that, although I haven’t actually met her yet, the photos have given me a sense of having followed her after all, seen her grown and develop, as well as I got a good idea of her facial expressions.

My parents sent me this picture a while back, I loved it, because she has such an attitude in both face and body. So I cropped it, and started to work on a small portrait. I find babies really hard to portray - possibly since their faces are so unfinished and smooth.

But I was determined to do a solid attempt. I worked on it for a day - then left it around so I saw it all the time. That is really helpful, as you over time see what needs to be changed. This ended up as my finished result. I packed it up well, and mailed it all the way from the post office on Guam, to my parents on the Danish West coast...

Prints In the Gift Shop

Art prints and note cards are now availible in the Gift Shop at Andersen AFB

Art prints and note cards are now available for purchase in the Gift Shop at Andersen AFB. The prints come in two (matted) sizes, 11 x 14 and 8 x 10, and as a new feature, blank note cards are now available too.

The Gift Shop is located at Andersen Air Force Base, opening times are:

Tuesdays 10:00 - 14:00 and Thursdays 15:00 - 18:00

G.A.I.N (Guam Animals In Need)

Tomorrow GAIN (Guam Animals in Need) have an adoption event. In the past I have been involved with various pet rescue organizations in the United States, mainly by donating work for fundraisers. By coincidence I got in contact with the good people of GAIN. It is a shelter, caring for homeless and abused cats, rabbits and dogs. They are doing an amazing job, managing to get a lot of pets new homes, as well as educating youth about responsible pet care.

I have agreed to paint a mural for them at a later date, but for now, they have borrowed a few of my portraits of Playdoh (which were newly fix after a damaging move) to decorate the walls for theirAdoption Day this Saturday.

Hopefully the event will be a big success, and a lot of cats and dogs get to move in with a new family. For more information about GAIN, please visit their website:

http://guamanimalsinneed.blogspot.com/

New Prints Available

This week I took 11 new art prints down to The Chamorro Village. They come in two (matted) sizes, 11 x 14 and 8 x 10, and are available for purchase at the Guam Gallery Of Art

Done!

Done! Well, almost. At this point I just needed to add the final layer of varnish on the surfaces.

FINALLY. Done. It is such a relief to put this project behind me, mostly because I (ever since noticing the damages) was worried about how they would turn out. If it was even possible for me to really fix the paintings. I didn’t truly know the extend of the damages, until I started working into the surfaces. It did take a few full days work, but luckily the result is quite good. To avoid this happening again, in our next move, I changed my varnish recipe for the surface. It is a lot matter, and not sticky at all, which is very important. I like it, I think it works. So, the portraits are done!

I have promised G.A.I.N (Guam Animals In Need) that they can borrow some of these “reborn” Playdoh Portraits for their opening house event later this month. More on that later...

Restoring My Work After The Move

One of my Playdoh portraits before and after. Hopefully after some “surface work” it will soon look more like it did before.

Over a year ago, when we left NJ, we had a moving company pack up our house. For the most part it all went well, except for the packing of my art. The surface of my work is very delicate, and must be wrapped in fabric and not paper. Especially when moving all the way around the world, and therefore will be wrapped for a long time. And on top of that, moving to Guam would mean a dramatic change in temperature as well, which could also be an issue. So, I specifically instructed the movers to please use the provided fabric to cover the art, they all said “all right”, and I thought all was golden. Wrong! When we then in August unpacked all our house goods here on Guam, I realize that 98% of the work was wrapped in paper. I was so angry, frustrated, and really didn’t know if I would be able to save my work. It was mostly my portraits of our Boston Terrier Playdoh that were damaged. We then filed for the damages - and as you can imagine, working with the company, filling in forms, them getting back with us, them needing more proof, back and forth... It took most of a year, but it is now sorted and we accepted their offer. So, this week I have spent getting my old paintings back to normal. Something I have been both excited about and dreaded at the same time.

The surface of all my work is a layer of a varnish-like glue, and if not careful - and with the change in temperature - paper will stick to it. All the paintings had been covered in this thin mover’s paper, and I have tried to take it off, to the best of my abilities. I have spent a whole day going through each piece with a rag and very hot water to dissolve all the traces of paper. Some pieces, turned out not too bad, but others were severely destroyed deeply into the surface layer.

I am a little nervous to get started, but also excited; FINALLY I get to get the work back to normal. It has been frustrating to look at the destroyed pieces for so long, but we needed the settlement from the moving company before I could begin. I cross my fingers, and I will make an update about the final result...

The paintings are now all paper free, patched up here and there, and I am ready to start restoring the work. My biggest concern is being able to mix the exact, right colors. And whether I am able to get the nice, smooth surfaces back.

Working Away From Home

We just got back from Hawaii this weekend. For three weeks I hung around Honolulu, looking at people, art, traffic and Nature. I took my books and Ipod touch to the beach and just let time pass. I absolutely loved it, and now being back on Guam, I am full of good energy, hoping I can ride on the Hawaii happy wave for at least a while...

I brought my little sketchbook and noted anything I came across and wanted to remember. I have mentioned it before: I thrive on new environments, in new settings. That’s partly the reason each of my studios have had a special significance to me. And it is somewhat refreshing to leave my studio, books, paints, boxes of postcards, and books of magazine cuttings. Just having a notebook and being in a brand new place in the world. It is a way of leaving any (art) baggage at home and starting over. A clean mind sweep so to speak. Being back on Guam is surprisingly great. I am ready to begin again, to start over...

I always bring my little black moleskin notebook. You never know when an idea hit you, a piece of great music, or a book title you want to look up later. My book is a mess of loose notes and quick sketches.

Honolulu Academy Of Arts

Today I went on a little art expedition, all by myself. One I had been looking forward to: the Honolulu Academy of Arts. I took a taxi from the Hotel, although it wasn’t actually very far. I just wanted (at all cost) to avoid getting lost in the city! I didn’t know what to expect. You never do when all the Information you have is an Internet page and a place you have never even heard of.

I was simply looking forward to ART and to the experience. I did not get disappointed. It was an amazing place, and definitely worth a visit. The Gallery did not look that big from the outside, but I quickly found out that it was indeed huge. Many small rooms, and so many kinds of art: Egyptian, Italian Renaissance, Chinese, Islam - just to mention a few. and also modern Western Art - which is my favorite, I have to admit. In the collection were Warhol, Katz, O’Keefe. And also Dale Chihuly, to whom we probably got a bit overexposed while living in Tacoma, where he lives and works too. But it was nice and slightly nostalgic to see his work again. I enjoyed every moment, being surrounded by art, looking at it, taking it in. Sitting on the wood benches in the middle of a room with paintings on each wall, and smelling that special museum scent - of oil, thoughts, dust and varnish. Going through the many little courtyards, flipping through art books in the Museum Store, and eating a great lunch in the Museum Cafe. On a small scale I absolutely got that “MoMA feeing” which I have missed so many times since leaving NJ. So here I am, Tuesday night, writing on my laptop in the fancy Hilton Lobby. Feeling quite happy, enjoying my personal little (art) high and hoping it will last, at least for a while...

Local Hawaiian Art

I was lucky enough to get to go to Hawaii for a few weeks. It came about suddenly, and I am enjoying every moment of it. It is our first time here, and coming straight from Guam, we were expecting the climate to be the same. Wrong! Hawaii is much less humid, the breeze i

s comfortably cool, and NO insects! Very nice indeed. I am spending a lot of time just walking around, watching people, looking at stores, sitting on the beach, reading, listening to the waves and the breeze ...And of course I have visited a few local art galleries as well. I can’t help but stop and check it out - whether I like it or not, and whether I find it interesting or not. I am always curious. And not surprisingly I see a lot of Hawaiian land - and seascapes, flowers and hula girls. Guam is different, yet similar. The heritage naturally is different, yet the nature and flowers seem alike, to me, anyway. So in a lot of ways, the art here reminds me of the island I just left for a few week

s.

Thinking back - where I grew up on the Danish West Coast, it was the same thing: people painted what they were surrounded by. Most of my fellow artist were mainly inspired by the rugged Nature around the Northern Sea. The tall, freezing waves, the violent wind and the rough beaches. A differently beautiful landscape (-and about as opposite to this tropical setting as you can get). Every time I go home to visit, I see the same motifs and the same cool blue color schemes. And over time (perhaps because of not living there anymore) it has become quite nostalgic to me.

I guess it is a natural thing for your surroundings to rub off in your work to a certain extend. I have found that myself, even though all my environments have been extremely different. I think I pick up something from each place, and carry it with me in my work from place to place.

Snapshots from a local art gallery booth in Honolulu

Wallpaper From a Scary Decade

As you probably already know, my work is a mixture of collage and acrylic on canvas. The wallpaper (collage) came into my work while we lived in Tacoma, WA. It happened quite coincidently, as I came across a couple of large wallpaper books in a vintage store downtown Tacoma. They were cheep, only $10 and $15, and I couldn’t pass it up. Kevin and I each brought one back to our apartment in the Stadium District. This spontaneous purchase would steer my work in a brand new direction. These, my two first books were (from what I can gather from the information on them) from the 1950’s. Maybe it was the pattern style, maybe it was Tacoma’s general 1950‘s atmosphere - don’t know?! But my work slowly but surely took a turn for thevintage. Since then I am always on the lookout for great sample books, from all decades. And I have been lucky to find a few great ones.

The idea of wallpaper, or general wall coverings gives me the chills. I remember the children’s rooms of my childhood, the brown/orange kitchens and green bathrooms. But in a new light, in small doses I like it. Love it even! When it comes to big bold patterns, it is definitely a case of Less is More. I find myself especially attracted to big flower/nature patterns - like the ones above. Not quite so vintage anymore. Maybe it is the feeling of tropical, island living. Palm trees, turquoise water and a warm breeze...