When I began this piece, it was about loneliness and liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold")—about feeling alone and neither here nor there—hence my choice of a door, which is literally a threshold, and the brooding head of a raven. Liminality, which is an anthropological term, describes “the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete.” (Wikipedia) My subject, this raven-headed figure, exists purely within the threshold of this door, the structure of my painting. On one side, the raven stares back at us, clearly on the verge of stepping past the threshold. On the other side, the figure has shed the raven's head but grown a wing and—we are too late—is already passing the threshold, the face obscured.

We are, in a sense, never in “possession” of the figure depicted in this painting. When viewing a nude figure, especially one whose face is exposed, thereby revealing their identity, the audience may feel they are in a position of power or entitlement. I was once told by a fellow artist that paintings which depict a figure staring back at the viewer do not sell as well as paintings in which the figure does not meet the viewer's gaze. Again, I think this has to do with a voyeuristic power the viewer may enjoy. The raven-headed figure, however, evades us at every turn. On one side, the figure challenges us but remains anonymous. On the other side, we could have glimpsed the face, we might have been satisfied by gazing at the figure's buttocks, but we are spurned. The figure flees, and we are left wondering, “What was that?”

It eventually became clear that this piece is also about gender. As I publicly documented the progress of this piece via social media, I referred to it as the “Raven Queen”, and I encountered a handful of people who confessed that they did not know why I was calling the subject of my painting a “queen” because, to their eyes, my subject was male. I felt a mixture of indignation and puzzlement at this reaction because on one side of the piece the subject is clearly depicted with a female breast, albeit small, and because the subject is me. It is true that I am uncommonly muscular, with small breasts, but I was born female and I continue to identify as a woman. Yet because my viewers could not see my face, nor my genitalia, I was perceived as male. I pointed out to a few individuals that the male pectoral structure does not at all look like that of the Raven Queen's, and while she is well-defined, her muscular structure is not that of a man's. But I see these things because I have a trained eye, accustomed to the intricate variations found in the nude figure. You, the viewer, despite your best intentions, are relying on preconceived notions. I am sure that I am guilty of this as well in other contexts. We would all do well to acknowledge the fact that we are all the same, that we are all different, and that we may think we understand what we are seeing, but our gaze is often distracted and superficial. Learning to draw and paint, after all, is just learning to truly see.

I am the raven queen, this foul head a heavy thing. Everyday I wait for a sign of the one with wings as black as mine.

This is my current work in progress; it's an oil painting...on a door! So, there's another painting on the other side! I've been updating my Instagram a fair amount, so you can follow its progress more regularly there.

I am that red, roiling thing.


Je suis la femme-fénix, tordue, épouvantée. Effrayante en sa splendeur, ses ailes enflammées, exténuées. Je n'ose pas, alors je m'envole...nulle part. Les murs m'entourent, il n'y a que des murs. Partout, partout, des murs sans portes, des portes sans toi. Toi, tu pars. Moi, je reste. C'est toujours comme ça. Ces ailes ne volent pas.

"Coup de foudre" - digital painting

I tried to make a GIF of the work process...let's see if this works.

Well, a great deal of things have happened, but alas, not that much art, at least in traditional mediums. I have been thoroughly absorbed in my pursuits as a trapeze artist, but you might start seeing more oil paintings from me as someone has most generously allowed me to take over a spare room as my painting studio. It's small, but way better (and healthier) than trying to do an oil painting in my bedroom, which is what I did for this little still life here (which I completed last fall):

"Le Foyer" - oil on panel, 5.5" x 5.5"

This was actually the first still life I had ever attempted, painted from life, and not from a photograph. I thought I would quickly grow bored, but in fact, it was fascinating to notice new minute details each day that I hadn't noticed the day before. Eventually, I had to call it quits (especially because I was painting in my bedroom), or else I would have worked on it forever.

Instead of oils, I have mostly been doing digital paintings, such as as these two below. The first is a digital painting study of cinematic screen capture...I find these are quite instructive to do and fun, too, especially if you're listening to the movie soundtrack at the same time!

"Bottom of the Lake" - digital

"Dreaming: walking on the bottom of the lake of yourself." ~Teju Cole

That last digital piece, "Bottom of the Lake" is perhaps another representation of the "femme-pieuvre", what I call a "muse", though I'm not sure it adheres to the traditional definition. I'm not a huge fan of writing about my art, but I've barely blogged at all, and I've been doing a lot of thinking...so, here goes.

This little piece I started last winter when I was staying out in Seattle. I think this was around the time I began to think about muses and what mine are.

"Femme-pieuvre" - oil on panel, 6" x 4"

I believe I contain (so to speak) three primary muses, three beasts in my personal mythos, conscious and subconscious. They coexist symbiotically, almost peacefully, although they do at times make war on each other (I am currently working on a digital piece about that...more later).

One of them is the "femme-pieuvre" as pictured above, or as pictured in this digital painting:

"Welcome Home" - digital

"It is all wrong. I am a stone, not a mermaid. A black, viscous stone: the sound of granite flowing shudders through my bones. My organs realign—stomach, intestines, spleen—like celestial bodies in the sky of my being."

The "femme-pieuvre" is the lover; the romantic, sensual, emotional woman-leviathan prone to love, to gloom, to lust. She is desire, she is dreams. She gives and takes. She yearns and craves. She caresses, she cradles, and yet she can just as easily strangle and smother.

Another is the "femme-phénix" as pictured here in this digital painting:

"La Femme-phénix" - digital

"Quand il a laissé tomber les clés, je les ai saisies. Je me suis envolée d'un bel éclatement de plumes et de feu." 

The femme-phénix is the artist; she is creative passion, solitary, prolific, intensely dedicated. She is more energy than entity. She is reason and purpose. She burns bridges remorselessly and flies like a flaming arrow.

The third (and possibly the oldest) primary muse is the femme-loup, as pictured here:

"It's Not a Phase" - oil on canvas, 66" x 32"

"I was a raw thing, tangled into the new growth, covered in fresh pink scars."

The femme-loup is the animal; she is instinct, she is silence. She is both stillness and quickness. Androgynous, wary, she is is only at home in the forest and never anywhere else. Too often she is eclipsed by the other muses.

There have been a few others besides these three, but they have come and gone, arriving at specific moments of my life and then taking their leave. The three I have thus far described have been around awhile now, they keep popping up in my art, and I can feel their presence in my life on a day-to-day basis...so, I think they're here to stay.

So, the question is...which muse will emerge here?