The Huge Beating Genius Machine

The Huge Beating Genius Machine

The Huge Beating Genius Machine
oil on gallery wrapped canvas
18 x 36 x 1.75 inches
This item is unframed but ready to hang
(click on the image to purchase)


I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.
HOW TO TRIUMPH LIKE A GIRL, by Ada Limón

There are efforts afoot to make us all feel disempowered. To liquidate our confidence. To mash our energy and hutzpah into a pulp. To run our hope through a meat grinder. To create a nation of people throwing up their hands and admitting defeat.

No, I say. HELL NO! 

Limón's words fill me with vigor, get my heart pumping and my feet ready to go. My lady horse swagger needed this infusion of gritty tenacity and bold self-belief. This huge beating genius machine​ of mine (and yours, too) is going to win.

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About the art: a fresh canvas with a nice coat of gesso to begin this piece - no murdered underpainting! I began with a sketch of the form in thinned oil paint and roughed in the first layer of the background to refine the form. A long drying time. Beginning with the face and hair, then moving to the dress, leaving the hands and arms untouched until the initial layers on the rest were dry. A slow and thoughtful mark making with thinned oil paint to create the designs on the skin. Then the real fun! A wide, flat brush laden with paint moved with big gestures to create movement in the fabric - ooh la la! Building darks over many weeks. A final coat of paint on the background, a looooong drying time and then the varnish. She's a big girl, and a powerful presence. I am smitten!

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​For those who prefer to watch and listen, here's a link to this blog on YouTube!

Watch to the end to see an animation of the art
OOOOOH LA LA!