Portals and Hauntings
Hauntings and Portals
Vaimo bought me a bouquet, a gorgeous autumn arrangement to commemorate our 11th wedding anniversary which we celebrated on October 5th. I’ve milked it along for the entire month and I’m looking at the decaying flowers as I write. I’ve been soaking up the various forms the flowers have taken for the entire month, observing their changes over time and finding myself marveling at its decay. There is something so decadent about flowers, and in my current state of a lack of appetite it’s as if I can drink in their beauty with my eyes and that nourishes me.
I’m the kind of artist that dreams of sketching or somehow capturing a bouquet daily as it shifts and changes. Or, wouldn’t it also be nice to have a collection of paintings from different angles so as to deeply enjoy each part of the whole? For now, that is all it remains for me; dreams instead of action. It turns out there are a lot of things I want to want to do, and a few things I actually do, do. Is that just me, or are there others out there experiencing a similar phenomenon? I like to think that if it is truly an interest, perhaps a different me is actually doing it on a different timeline somewhere out there.
One thing I have been doing as of late, is when I utter the words, “this is a painting” when gazing upon something that strikes me as interesting, I actually make it a painting. It’s like a side quest off of the main route that is the large narrative quilt/paintings journey. This quest brings me exciting spontaneity and novelty along with the ability to complete works in a week’s time instead of a few months time. That’s how this painting “View from the top (third) floor of the Holiday Inn Express somewhere along I-94” was born. Vaimo, ‘Chito, and I found ourselves at this hotel overlooking a truck stop as a resting point between an art opening event and dropping off a painting in Omaha. When I opened the curtains from our penthouse view with a flourish in the morning after perusing the breakfast buffet I exclaimed, “wow, this would be an incredible painting.” And Vaimo looked out and said “huh,” and marveled at this life with her artist who has a tendency to see paintings wherever they go.
This painting ended up being a scene of the top of a very large building and a parking lot full of semi trucks. It is a rural scene, a transitory space, small cars and distant gas pumps, along with the signage of big box stores beckoning in the middle-ground. It is a painting about nothing and so many somethings all at the same time. I’m really drawn to that right now. Trying to capture a moment in time, an essence of something that is difficult to name but still something nonetheless. My BFF and I were talking when I was birthing this painting and when I said it’s like about queer rural places, a Queer Americana and he said, “totally it’s a Queeracana.”
“I love it.”
I’m itching to be painting two more scenes that have revealed themselves to me for this smaller painting series. It’s all I can think about. These paintings call to me in the night like spectral spirits roaming the halls. Bumping up against the wall, trembling dishes on the countertops, humming a low vibration asking me to return to them. It’s a low grade haunting! They want me to work on them; they are laying in wait until chosen. Knowing that when they get called up onto the easel it will be time to come forth, to step through the portal we’ll open and begin the process of becoming an object in the flesh - an idea made material - a painting.
Much of the process of painting for me is about portals - the portal is the space of the substrate that opens during the process of painting. But it’s not only contained there, the energy of that creative force once open goes from a low-grade buzz to a loud hive of information swirling — needs and wants traveling beyond the surface of the painting into my daily life, my thoughts, my dreams. (For a visual and entertaining experience of painting portal openings see Season One of the How Do You Paint show LINK). I cannot have too many painting portals open at one time, because then too much energy is diffused in too many places. Too much of me gets pulled into those portals, I feel it like a push and pull with the creative forces requiring so much of me to get to the place where that portal can be satisfactorily closed.
I was desperately trying to close a portal before I started a new painting for my library residency, but I wasn’t able to do so until yesterday. The beginning stages and the stages when things are coming together for the composition are when the portal is the largest and most needy. So thankfully, the one I was trying to close was on the less-needy trajectory when I opened a new one. But, this is the first time I have ever made a large painting that is somewhere beyond the confines of my studio. When it calls to me, it’s calling me to a 17 mile drive to a nearby town. We’re tethered until I close that portal. And wow oh wow did I not anticipate the mental strain of this distance between us! I don’t have casual encounters with the portal when I walk by it, or simply sit with it like I do when I drink a cup of coffee when I come to my studio first thing. I like to just see the work and be with it in its current stage when the portal is open and listen to what it needs from me like I do for the painting portals on the walls of my Studio Utopia. Instead, for this library painting I show up and work on the painting after driving to town, lugging my paints in, and shortening that tether’s straining rope to something more comfortable.
While I’ve been minding my portals, as in recognizing which paintings are currently open and requesting my services and holding a certain number that feels comfortable for me that’s not too taxing (4-5 seems to be my max) - I have not been as consistent with making sure I’m also minding the ghosts in the wings. I probably can’t have too many of them knocking from the other side demanding their portals be open too. They can be known to get rowdy or restless and go somewhere else to find someone who is able to open the portal for them if not sated. With this new Queeracana series nagging at my heels plus my current main series I’m working on for my exhibition next winter, I’m at a dangerous level of hauntings and portals needing my attention.
I’ve always loved Halloween, it was up there as one of my top holidays to look forward to as a young person. In the top three it might have been tied with my level of excitement for Christmas. All that candy?! The thrills of a scare! Watching a scary movie to purposefully scare yourself and complete the stress/response cycle in one sitting. Unlike my poor nervous system’s usual on high alert stress response never ending cycle of ruminating worry and dread! (Thanks a lot GAD!) My painting portals and the painting spectrals do not scare me. Though they do require a lot of me, and I place a lot of needs on them that may or may not be fair. But I’m in this thing for now, unlike the artist who doesn’t sketch their bouquets. I’m tending to my portals that thankfully are not (to my energetic knowledge) more or less activated in this season of the thinning veil. And even-though I’m not sketching my bouquets I am tending to my portals, so at least I can say I’m doing something around here. So back to the painting for me, I must not get too overwhelmed by the ghosts. Happy Halloween and good tidings to all remaining open to the lessons the portals and hauntings are sending us from the beyond and into the now.
From the Archive:
Four years ago October 31, 2020 Ritual Routine
Three years ago October 31, 2021 Art is Making It
Two years ago October 31, 2022 Haunted House Party
One year ago October 31, 2023 Many Paths
Artist Offerings
I missed the live offering of this Mellon Foundation talk Creativity and Cultures in the Borderlands - but I and you can watch the replay!
I enjoyed this segment on Minnesota’s very own Jimmy Longoria
Listen to this podcast - Femininity in the Post-Apocalypse by Klaire Lockheart- I had the pleasure of being a guest on to discuss a Frida Kahlo painting!
Creative Ritual
I am really proud of myself for making an important shift in my mindset earlier this month when I was feeling a bit overwhelmed to tone myself down by focusing on three key things I have in front of me daily. Those three things also include personal health/home tasks so I’m minding my energy as I move into a bit of a slower, colder, season. This new approach to managing my time has paid off, especially since I have not had two newsletters in a month released in a while. I’m feeling in the groove. I finished a painting! I applied for a show. I applied to be considered for a painting acquisition. I hosted and shared my work in the first Art of KCF Scholarly Webinar Event. I went to Ely, MN for the weekend to do some workshop facilitation. I drove to Omaha to pick up a painting. I taught a group of cool people how to make junk books and I started one (6) myself. I’ve been busy but centered.
Upcoming and Ongoing opportunities with me and/or my art:
October 10th through November 23 See my goats painting/billboard as part of a group show Exhale: Reflections on Guaranteed Income curated by the Emerging Curators Institute and up at the Minneapolis Central Library Cargill Gallery.
If you’re really wanting to celebrate with me, join me on November 16th for a Curator Talk from 1:00-3:00pm at the Mpls Central Library
Ongoing opportunities to connect with me for my Artist Residency at the Fergus Falls Public Library Through 2024)
Upcoming Live Painting Public Sessions 3) Mon Nov 4 2-4pm, 4)Sat Nov 9 12-2pm and try to catch me weekly after these formal dates as I work to close this portal
Quilted Upcycling (for 7th-12th graders, registration required - two seats left! Sat Nov 2 1pm)
Through December 8, 2024 See my painting “When Two Became Three” as part of the Latina Latinx MN: Re/claiming Space in Times of Change Group Show at Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN
Questions to ponder
What portals are you connected to that open or close based on your interaction with them?
What idea is gently haunting you?
Do you believe in ghosts?
What’s your favorite thing about Halloween?
Thanks for journeying with me. I hope, as always, that you take what you need and leave the rest for someone else, or for another time.
-KCF
As always, if you enjoyed this offering please consider adding a monetary tip or joining my Art of KCF Kofecitxs monthly subscriber community. Perks include a free print available only to subscribers, access to Sunday planner/journaling/sketching/crafting meet ups, book reviews, and weekly images from my sketchbook or WIP paintings not shared on any other social media platform. I’d love to have you in my support circle!