Shayla Maddox

One of 'em changes colors! :oO

(click em to see all 5 images of each)

There's nothing I can say to sugar coat this blog entry.

I've written about Gen Kai Japanese Restaurant before:

Japanese Artistry
Adventures in Sushi
Nami

It's been my favorite restaurant for about, oh, 15 years. The sushi there is impeccable. I enjoy its authenticity. There are so many Americanized sushi places out there nowadays, and so far I've found nothing that compares.

Anyway.

There was a fire this past weekend, and it destroyed much of the interior of the restaurant. The structure is still standing, and they hope to rebuild eventually. My heart just broke when I found out. We've developed personal relationships with many members of the staff, and I can't imagine how awful they must be feeling. It's just soul crushing to think about. If Jun-san and Irene-san happen to be reading this, know that we are thinking about you.

As for me, though I have suffered a personal loss in this experience, it's hard for me to feel as though my situation compares. It's sad all around. Either way, restaurants can be rebuilt, paintings can be remade. No lives were lost. In the end, it's all just stuff. As we used to say in the old Immersion days, it's about The Journey.


Even if it's painful to look at. :o(

Labels: gen kai fire

Ingredients: acrylic, beach sand, crushed glass, phosphorescent pigments, varnish, water & light on canvas.

Moonlight Mood is a Glenn Miller song. :o)

I don't know what it is about this painting that reminds me of a 1940's nightclub, but I seriously feel like mixing up a highball and swingin' the night away to a large orchestra. Hence, its title.

I should also note the the texture on this piece is so thick and texturey, it sticks up nearly half in inch away from the canvas. In some ways, it's more like sculpture. Or, as Colin put it, "an acrylic meteor."

:o)

Moonlight Mood is available in my Etsy shop.

THIS IS SO AWESOME! AGH!



(now would be a good time to mention that I've never even heard Beyonce's original version, and I have even less intention of doing so now.)

But! In case you're more of an Earth Wind and Fire type of person, here ya go!



More Pomplamoose to listen to online.

Love it. LOVE IT. Go buy Pomplamoose's music. Now. Support art. Support AWESOME art.

Labels: awesomeness, bad assery

Ingredients: acrylic, beach sand, crushed glass, phosphorescent pigments, varnish, water & light on canvas.

"Water need not think to offer itself as a home for clear moonlight." --Sogi

I think I must find water to be spiritual, because I have an ongoing obsession with it. Water is essential for all forms of life. It gives life and takes life. A raindrop is so small and soft, yet a tsunami washes villages away.

The idea of living in the middle of the country somewhere far away from any large bodies of water seems nightmarish to me. Dry and nightmarish. What do you breathe out there? Dust? Dirt?

Truthfully, I'm also afraid of the ocean. I adore the ocean when I'm standing on a beach, or when I'm close to shore surrounded by turtles and yellow fishies. But deep water? Open ocean? Now that's a nightmare.

Cymatics! I don't have a fancy lead-in for that, it's just awesome and should be announced. Basically, cymatics is the study of wave phenomena, specifically sound wave vibrations. Look at this flower shape created through sound vibrations on water:


And if you're still with me and interested to see more, check out all these amazing variations in patterns this person created with a synthesizer and water:


A friend of mine was over last week and noted "all the moons" I was painting around my studio. This was true, but I really never think of myself as painting the moon, except maybe in a philosophical sense. I think of it more as exploring the light from the moon, or the mood of the moon. I'm not even sure it's necessarily inspired by the moon when I paint it. Maybe it's just a star. Or a planet. Or a circle. Maybe it's just light. Someone once encouraged me to "paint the moon" in a realistic way, with all the visible craters and regions on the moon we see every night, adding that "that would be REALLY interesting" if I did so.

I have a feeling I'll never be doing that. ;o)

Resonance is available in my Etsy shop.

Ahhhh. Hello super ridiculously large painting. Nice to meet you.

Well, goodbye, rather, because I just shipped this piece off to Chicagoland today. Actually, it's kind of sad, I'd really grown used to the bright orange sunrise everyday. It was causing me to paint a wave of tealish blueish greenish paintings. Now my studio is totally unbalanced. And naked. Good thing I have a blank canvas the exact same size just waiting to be painted something colorful. Or maybe it will be dark and gray. Who knows.

This is the painting I was counting dots on. I counted every single dot. I won't be doing this again. I learned quickly that I can't listen to music and count simultaneously. And really, I prefer listening to music than counting 4,647 dots.

That's right. You heard me. This painting has 4,647 dots.

I wanted this piece to be extremely glowy. In the event that its owner doesn't get a blacklight to go with it (get one, Stephanie, get one) it should still light up the room after dark. (Get one, Stephanie, get one.)

Hope you like it. ;o)

Um. 109? In Orange County?

I've been clear on my feelings about the desert. For someone who hates dryness, August through November is a vile, vile time in Southern California.

So, instead of acknowledging the heat, I'm going to get even more psyched for sweet breezy humidity in January. (Hawaii!!)

But, actually, that picture is of the plumeria on my patio. :o)

What do you get when you mix a modern Canon DSLR with a vintage Argus?





We took a field trip to the park to play with our very different cameras and had a successfully artsy time. The vintage one belonged to my grandparents, before my mom saved it (plus a few others) from the Good Will pile. Phew.

Let the fun begin. :o)

More photos here.

Available in my Etsy shop! (Click on them to see the other lighting conditions.)

I'm currently working on 9 different paintings right now. So, where there has been an absence of painting related blog posts lately, there will soon be a flood of them. I cannot *wait* to start taking pictures of them with our new camera. The detail and difference when getting shots of these ACEOs was obvious immediately.

woo

More fun with our new camera!





Oh fine, now he's all shy. When he was smaller and lived on my arugula plant, he was all rebellious and angry and charging me. No, really, he would run up the tallest stem at me, flashing gang signs, makin' all kinds of threats. Jerk. I made Colin take him somewhere far, far away.

But now he's back, and he brought a friend, and the friend lives in our cypress tree, and this guy lives in our plumeria tree and now he runs in the opposite direction because clearly he's a little camera shy in his adult years. Who's chasin' who now, buddy?? Yeah. That's right.

So we have a truce. He doesn't charge me, and in return, I let him stay there and eat bugs. (Which works out nicely, because the truth is, he really scares the crap out of me.)