Babies still asleep; they’ll be up soon. The day is October grey, my favorite kind of day. There’s a new darkness in the sky. A dampness in the air. My fingers are slightly chilly from my studio; nap time paintings. The top of the California Red Bud is bright rust. We set up SIMPATICO yesterday at The Fourth Wall Gallery. The show looks amazing. It’s gorgeous. I am so happy We had help curating the show, TaVee Mc Allister did such a wonderful job; each piece is showcased, each piece spectacular. We are updating the “Under $250 Bin”. I worked on some paintings today I LOVE! They are a true “score” for $250. Fiona went into my studio today, opened up a container of bright pink paint. She smeared a blob of paint on a painting laying on the floor. It inspired me to use the bright pink paint for the rest of the day. I just heard Jack say, “Mama!”. Nap time is over now. They’ve been such good babies today, and the past couple of days. They’re turning into little people, but they’re still my little babies. The fridge fans just clicked on, reminding me I still need to cook dinner tonight. It’s a good soup and grilled cheese sandwich day. Tomato soup. As I look around I realize there’s so much picking up to do too. I just don’t feel like doing it though. I want to be relaxed around Jack and Fiona, not stressed about the mess. My new motto, “Don’t stress about the mess”.
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SIMPATICO
Fourth Wall Gallery
Oakland, California
Preparation for SIMPATICO; Carl Heyward and Jenny Hynes, a Two Person Show at the Fourth Wall Gallery; metamorphic.
Since we began preparations, the world has shifted, taking us with it like the inside of a washing machine spin cycle. It inevitably seeps into our work and our beings, both sensitive artists; feeling, reacting, retreating. The first collab day; driving to Carl’s studio listening to the news; a truck with a bomb in it explodes in Nice. It’s unbelievable, and too much to take in. As Carl and I begin to work, pulling out paper, paints, making marks, reacting to each other’s marks, a calmness fills the space. A burrow. Our work becomes meditative this day. A refuge. At home in my studio the residue of our collaboration days these past several months linger. Things I learned from Carl, working with him, seep into my work. Wrapping around my faces and figures, making them disappear into abstraction, then rear their ugly faces at me. Appearing, disappearing, and reappearing again. I react with figures; imbedded emotion and frustration. Expression. Communication. Carl and I meet in the middle, in an abstract, stream of consciousness place. Always asking myself the question: What’s too much? Where can I eliminate? Where can I add more clues? Clues into the feeling, the message I am trying to communicate. Through paint, line, form, colors, size, and materials I try to tell a story. A story of now, my own existence, my shared existence on this Earth. Using paint, color and texture to play peek a boo with an audience. An audience on Facebook, and now at The Fourth Wall Gallery. The story that is told in SIMPATICO is about people, being together, not only physically but in spirit. Reacting to each other through an artistic practice, in this case painting and drawing. It’s about sharing ideas, creation. It’s an excuse for people to get together and visit the Fourth Wall Gallery; Come together. Making marks and creativity, it comes natural to young children. It must be important. It is a way we can communicate things that could never be explained in words.
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Been thinking a lot about paintin’, been paintin’ a lot. Have painted over everything I’ve made lately four or five or ten times. My work for SIMPATICO is at the frame shop. Lucky for me and lucky for it. I may have ruined it all. My hands are covered in paint, strange because: I didn’t have the energy to work in my studio today or write. But here I am doing both. My recent series, in preparation for SIMPATICO, I have gone down a dark path of phylos, burnt umbers, red- blacks, blue -greys, garish pinks, rusts, yellows, figures appearing at times, yelling and screaming, keeling over in pain. I’ve exhausted pieces of paper, my brain, and my body. Obsessive and detrimental; I can’t stop. Pulling out the large canvas ripped open a deep crevice inside me. From the beginning. Painting on large pieces of found wood and Masonite. Large un-stretched canvas tacked on the wall. Painting over and over them until a texture built up on the surface. Like my body. Covered in a thick callus, a chronic thickness evenly distributed on my most used parts. I am growing out of my studio and my mind. I paint obsessively. I must use extreme mindfulness techniques to remain fully present when I’m parenting. I’m very successful at it. If I feel myself slipping away, thinking thoughts like, “I could put on the T.V., give them a popsicle, and run down to my studio.” When these thoughts pop in my head I use re-direction with myself. I figure out some way to get engaged, I watch, I draw and write in my journal, or with the babies, we play playdough and play dirt in the garden. It works. I love my babies so much I don’t want to take for granted the time I have with them. In between all of this I find myself slipping away in despair when I listen to the debate and hear about shooting after shooting. The paintings gain even more importance to me; I have to express myself; PURGE my Soul. I went to the SF MOMA the other day and left questioning what I have to offer as a painter anyhow? Why I paint? What’s unique about my paintings? I do know why I paint, I can’t not paint. My paintings are only unique because I am a unique person and they come from inside me. This makes my paintings necessary to myself, my existence, which would make my painting important to my family too, because I have a healthy outlet. That’s why my paintings exist and why I want to show them, and why SIMPATICO IS.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 