Coming Home From Lonely Places

Coming Home From Lonely Places

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Coming Home From Lonely Places
oil on wood panel
16 x 20 x .75
This item is unframed but ready to hang
​(click on the image to purchase)


Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.― John Le Carre

Oh oh OH, you may be thinking - Lola is back in space again!  Indeed I am.  But it isn't my fault this time.  Really!  Truly!  I blame it on Carl Stoveland.  

You see, Carl sent some images he created with the AI bot of a new series called "geishanauts" and then challenged me to paint one.  I had to!  If ballgown bots and geishanauts met for tea, I am certain it would be the talk of the town.  And also, I am not one to hesitate when someone throws down an art challenge.

And when the quote came across my path (we're blazing through Le Carre's George Smiley series here at home) I thought - whoa!  THIS!

Why?  Because making art, being an artist, creating artistic pieces is largely a solitary life.  It requires vast stretches of solitude and loneliness, and we may just "go a little mad" as Le Carre says, spending so much time in a world no one else sees.  But there is also a sense of community - slim strings of connection and resonance - which allow a little feeling of being a bit less isolated when those strings are strummed (or twanged or plucked).

So here's to all of you out there in lonely places of creativity, making magic behind the curtain. I'm sending a geishanaut to your galaxy to check in on you. :)

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About the art:  this is a paint over of an older oil painting.  The beauty of it is the instant texture and colorful underpainting (which shows through a wee bit in the geishanaut's uniform).  I jumped off from Stoveland's idea with my own AI bot session, asking for a mash-up of Diebenkorn, Moebius and Fritz Scholder as style instructions. Armed with a bevy of painterly compositions, colors and figures, I ultimately settled on this piece.  I began with the background, taping off the quadrants and applying thin layers of color.  Then the figure, loosely brushed in and then refined as the composition took shape.  Carving back through the wet background to create some swirling movement.  Adding many many glazing layers to suggest light and shadow.  This quiet explorer has been most excellent company in the studio.

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It's June!  A new month, a new giveaway!  Leave a comment on any blog post during the month of June to be automatically entered to win a piece of original art - FREE!  And thanks always to everyone who reads, comments and shares this blog.  It helps make this solitary artist feel a little less like a voice in the wilderness of the internet. :)