Look at this little guy? Isn’t he cute?

I am not given, as a rule, to enthusing over such things in an overt, little-girl-squealy kind of manner, but last Thursday night we were in Decatur and visited one of our favorite stores there, Mingei World Arts, and there was a whole display of these bizarre, wonderful little creatures, about 50, all different and all of them reading.

I couldn’t contain myself.

I oohed and aahed so much over each and every one that I attracted the attention of the owners of the store who guessed correctly that I must have something to do with reading in my real life. I told them who I was, and they told me about the figures.

The school in La Union, Oaxaca, Mexico, has a library, but the children cannot take books home from there. And so Libros Para Pueblos (in Spanish, and the English button doesn’t seem to work) was formed to establish circulating libraries for the children. They can open a library and sustain it for a year for $1,000.

So the good ladies of Mengei cut a deal with the village of La Union, to donate 20% of the sales of these figuras, carved there in La Union, to Libros. I think I’m remembering correctly that they very quickly raised multiple thousands for the children.

Anyway, all of the animals are reading books. There were dogs and zebras and elephants and lions and mermaids and nearly everything you could think of. My favorite was a large cat, about fifteen inches long, with a rat dangling from its mouth, and the rat was reading a book. Of course, a figura that size is very expensive, about $200. None of them were cheap.

But I find Oaxaca wood carvings (follow the link and make sure you look at the galleries) irresistible. There’s something endlessly intriguing about them. The store had a lot more from other villages, larger, even more fantastical (and more expensive), but I had to have one of the La Union readers.

It took me a long time, but I finally settled on this little guy. His carver was Calixto Santiago, who appears to be somebody in the carving community. Color being what it is on computers, you’ll have to imagine his brilliant cerise coat, his vivid yellow eyes and book (which is purest lapis lazuli underneath), and his emerald green ears. He is no more than five inches tall.

There is some question as to his species. Others have suggested that he’s a jaguar because of his spots; I’m thinking he’s a rat because of his incisors, but he could be some other rodent. Anyway, I find him absolutely charming. I will be collecting more.

Not a lot on this one tonight. After a few swipes with the white paint, I set it aside to work on other stuff. You might not be able to tell any difference between this version and six days ago.

The madness continues.

Again, much change, and I don’t know why or whether it’s for the better. I look at the painting, I think, well, it needs more balance here, or it needs more movement here, or how about this color over here, or geez it’s all crap why don’t I just cover it with white?

The next to go will be the vertical line on the left.

I keep thinking about the little blobs swarming the yellow glow and being rebuffed, but I’m not sure that’s right either.

I don’t know what possessed me, but I actually used my free time tonight to work.

You may remember Field IV, begun during the Lichtenbergian Annual Retreat. Here it is after a little work on it tonight.

The differences are small but significant. I’m still very not happy with it, but I’m discovering some things that I think will lead to success. Notice in particular that some of the blobs are now connected umbilically. I don’t know what that’s about.

Also, and it’s clearer in the larger image, the white seems to be losing in the battle to erase the color. It’s not as assertive as it covers the blobs.

I’ll be updating this as the day goes by.

Here’s my first stopping point on Field IV:

You can click on the image for a larger, more detailed view.

I continue to explore the idea of “erasure,” the fields of color on the bottom and top, the hieroglyphic figures (this time more “scribbly” and in color), all crowded out by the mass of white. There’s a big glowy spot in this one, too.

It’s clearly not done. I’m not even sure it’s started. It’s a couple of ideas I’ve been wanting to try, mostly in response to a commission from Seth Langer. Seth, if you’re reading this, this may be your painting, finally. Eventually.

More later…

I am in the mountains at the Lichtenbergian First Annual Retreat, the purpose of which is to produce crap all weekend, i.e., to produce as much art as we can without worrying about its quality.

So far, I have certainly done that, with 20 charcoal action sketches of varying quality, a couple of self-portraits with some interesting bit about them, two paintings purporting to be portraits which really suck, and now another in my Field series:

I’ve set up the next one but will work on it later tonight. This next one will explore some visuals that I worked on back in August out in the labyrinth.

Yes, I know it’s been more than a week since I drew this. I’ve been busy. I actually began working on an honest-to-goodness post last week, but events intervened. I’ll try to get that up this week.

This is better, but I’m still not getting the proportions right. My face is taller than this. I measured it while drawing it, but it still comes out too short.

Also, I need to be moving into tonal issues, filling the paper with graphite rather than drawing lines on a white surface.

These are from Thursday.

These were deliberately “action” drawings, just getting the marks on the paper.

More later.