Writer's Vessel encaustic on board by L.Bigness

http://lindabigness.com/penwomencny/PenWomenCNY.html

Mixed Media Encaustic

THE BIG C

From the Artist Journal

Tuesday May 12, 2000

Where am I?  Like this new-fangled keyboard, I keep trying to find my keys, my order, and my purpose.  Every day brings another manic emotion.  I’m going to do this, or that.  This will be the day.  Today I will…and so it goes…. until I feel totally frustrated, trapped within my own trappings.  I have maybe too many things going on.  One thing for sure, a daily writing about, it or not writing about it, whatever the case may be, can only lead to some revelations.  Hopefully soon, as I feel I am running out of time.  There, that’s it, running out of time, I wonder if this is what is really bothering me.  How can I allow this fear to continuously permeate everything I do?   It has been almost two years since I was diagnosed with cancer.  Isn’t that interesting, I went back 3 times on that word cancer, trying to decide if I should capitalize the c or not.  You’ve heard of the Big C.  Oh yes, I was writing about the cancer.  I guess it was a long time coming.  This little cancer cell that was hidden within me, just waiting for the appropriate stressed out time to rear its ugly head.  In my case a tumor the size of golf ball in my neck.  I remember it was just after the sometimes-annual spring open house at the Delavan Center.  This is where I have my studio and go almost daily to create or whatever. There I stood in front of the mirror early on a Sunday morning, May 17, 1998, applying moisturizer in the attempt to stave off the aging process, a daily ritual I take pride in doing as I find this time somewhat self-indulgent and pleasant.  But this morning it was different, as it had been so many mornings before, for I’ve been noticing changes, changes I did not understand and had been blaming them on all the family problems that had been thrust upon us the past year.  Some of the changes were a constant bloating, of the face mostly, and this morning something more, a tiny bump in the left side of my neck.  I thought how strange, maybe an insect bit me; I didn’t know but distinctly knew that there was something strange about it.  Later in the day, at a restaurant, we took my mother-in-law to for a belated Mothers’ day outing, I again noticed it in the mirror of the restroom.  My young niece, Susan who was with me also noticed, or perhaps noticed my preoccupation with it and asked what it was.  I remember saying; I don’t know and kind of laughed it off as a mosquito bite and didn’t think of it again for the rest of the day.  I did mention it to my husband Bob, who in his not unusual concerned and caring way responded with, “you better have it, checked out by the Doctor”.

 JULY 14, 2010

Twelve years have passed and I AM A CANCER Survivor.  It has left its mark and i carry the side effects with me every day.  My strength comes from surviving this ominous disease.  I have become a survivor’s survivor and continue to live out my journey through the abstract.

Art Travels with Linda Bigness

Well I’m living large, at least pretty large for Central New York, and last night was exceptional.  When a girl from the other side of tracks hob nobs around with the famous and want to be famous and can carry on somewhat of a conversation with very learned scholarly people you have to realize how large that actually is.  I felt pretty happy last night shaking the hand of Larry Poons, the artist honored last evening with a wonderful exhibit of his work “Velocity”.  He was gracious and signed my poster print that I had picked up at the entrance of Golden’s Gallery.  I told him “I can see the love in your work”.  Now that sounded pretty stupid….but let me explain.  As I cruised around the gallery falling into these massive textural pieces using tons of Golden acrylic paint and mediums I could truly feel the intensity and involvement of this artist with his work.  I genuinely felt he loved what he was doing and loved the material he was working with.  I think I  must have been right on as later when I took a break to read Karen Wilkin’s “Larry Poons: Five Decades”, (1) the introduction essay in the show’s accompanying catalog, my feelings were confirmed.  She writes “Despite Poons’s many changes in direction over the past five decades powerful constants dominates work.  He has always exalted color and always turned a wealth of hues into singular, richly inflected, confrontational expanses.  He has always celebrated the physical character of paint – its abitlity to be thick or thin, liquid or resistant.  Perhaps the most potent constants in Poons’s approach are his life-long  questioning of assumptions about what a painting can be and is implicit faith in the primacy of direct, wordless experience, both in  making and responding to works of art.   “If we could only make paintings that look as good as the paint,” Poons once said.  He has.”  Wow, I love the way she writes and talks as I again I had the really nice pleasure of engaging in a conversation with her, not realizing at the time who she really was, but there I was and being me I jumped right in.  She too was gracious as I babbled on a little about art, and a little about women artists, you know small talk but she seemed interested in what I was saying as I told her that years and years ago I attended one of her seminars.  At one point in our conversation I mentioned my studies of “Women in Art” with Dr. Oppler, in the seventies at Syracuse University, and I hit a chord.  Feminism was the operative word here, and Karen Wilkin has a very clear opinion about that.  For her and I quite agree or concur, artists are artists and women artists should not be categorized.  And it has been a problem that so many artists are categorized by their race, sex, or human condition.  Well she moved on to talk to someone else and my blond head was reeling.  Of course, it was much later in the evening when I had a chance to read the exhibit’s catalog that I realized I was speaking to a very informed scholarly person.  Another WOW moment for me, I sincerely liked her though, she was artfully spunky. 

As the evening progressed I spent time talking to many old friends and of course popping my wisdoms to the likes of  Steven Kern, Director of the Everson Museum, an art collector or two, and of course Mark Golden.  I’ve known Mark for years and remember, as a much younger artist, how I would visit the old Golden factory and buy discounted paint and get my “free” samples.  Over the years Golden has played such an important role in our artist community.  Many, many stories can be told and I’m sure Mark could tell the best of them.

I think it is important to acknowledge the wonderful people who inhabit our art world and make it a better place for artists, lovers of art, and the children that will someday experience the gifts of art left behind.  A really big thank you goes out to the Golden family and their many gifts to the art world. 

Wrapping up the evening our little entourage headed out into the rural farmlands of New Berlin, over the rolling hills heading towards another delight La Petite Maison.  WOW! 

(1)     Five Decades c 2011 KarenWilkin  This essay was originally published in The Hopkins Review 4.4 (Fall2011)

The Art of Collage and the Evolution of a Painting

 On the evening of September 14th the Maxwell Library in Camillus will present “Meet the Artist”….. and book signing.  You are invited to attend this reception.   Books will be for sale and small works from Studio 245 will be on exhibit.

http://blog.syracuse.com/cny/2011/06/edgewood_exhibit_features_different_approaches_to_similar_ideas.html

Edgewood Gallery

Writer's Vessel

Curious Dragonfly 12 X 12″

Encaustic on wrapped panel, 12 X 12″

Four new encaustic works are now on view at the GALLERY 54 in Skaneateles, Ny through June 2011.

Encaustic on wrapped panel: 12 X 12"