tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44796338619152891912024-03-13T04:40:13.897-07:00DAISY ENEIX ART ~ Dreamers, Lovers, BeastsOne Artist's Efforts, Encounters & EpiphaniesDaisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-22740495436397543542015-04-30T21:19:00.004-07:002015-04-30T21:30:47.698-07:00ANIMAL SPIRITS EXHIBITIONPosing with who I consider to be art royalty at the Animal Spirits exhibition opening at Big Crow gallery! Immediately behind me is some of my art which sold in the first week. Hurray!<br />
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In the blue polka-dot scarf is Diane Olivier, an extraordinary artist who teaches at City College who I will be accompanying to Morocco for a wonderful art-making opportunity. On the other side of me is Sandy Yagi, another extraordinary artist who I admire. The gallery is run by another extraordinary artist, Anna Conti, whose landscapes of the San Francisco waterfront are incredible. I felt very lucky to be in such company!<br />
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Here on the wall is Honeybee from my Dreamers series, a 3-plate yellow, ochre and black etching. </div>
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They put two of my works that I've never exhibited before in unusual, perfect little spots. Above: my little ink-on-wood New Year Misogi Imp in the fireplace. Below: my spider-web cocoon ladies nestled between nests. </div>
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This lovely lady above purchased a black and white version of one of my linocuts. The gallery drew quite a crowd all through the evening, and they were the kind of people that really wanted to dialogue about art. I think it was one of my most favorite receptions and exhibitions; the look of it, the feel of it, the people who came, the sales, all of it.</div>
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Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-42449683290012310122013-09-17T15:00:00.006-07:002015-04-30T21:20:11.039-07:00INTERVIEW ABOUT MY ART IN CAN SERRAT, SPAIN!<br />
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Nice interview here about my Channeling Series in Can Serrat, Spain:</div>
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<a href="http://www.canserratart.com/2013/08/daisy-eneix-can-serrat-artist-in.html">http://www.canserratart.com/2013/08/daisy-eneix-can-serrat-artist-in.html</a></div>
Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-68599525862549726452013-08-08T13:10:00.003-07:002015-04-30T21:20:26.450-07:00CHANNELING (completed works)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Daisy Eneix, <b><i>Lightning</i></b>, 23x16", ink & graphite on paper</div>
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Daisy Eneix, <b><i>Rain</i></b>, 23x16", ink & graphite on paper</div>
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Daisy Eneix, <b><i>Moon</i></b>, 23x16", ink & graphite on paper</div>
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Daisy Eneix, <b><i>Float</i></b>, 23x16", ink & graphite on paper</div>
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Daisy Eneix, <b><i>Faith, </i></b>23x15.5", graphite on paper</div>
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<b>INQUIRIES:</b></div>
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<b>Overall</b></div>
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What states of being do people embody when they feel most present, attuned, aware, charged, connected to nature, an entity or a consciousness in this Universe that is greater than themselves? </div>
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How can I explore this with others? </div>
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How can I express it in drawing?</div>
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<b>Process</b></div>
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How do I translate the intuitive experience of mark-making that I get from printmaking to drawing?</div>
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How do I combine gestural, atmospheric abstraction with careful representation?</div>
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How do I combine graphite and ink without one overwhelming the other?<br />
How do I make room for more open space and less density in my completed work?</div>
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How can I enhance precision and remove peripherals, as in a poem?</div>
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<b>Content</b></div>
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How do I continue this artistic path of connecting the visceral and ephemeral? </div>
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How has its meaning evolved for me over time, and how can I go deeper into this topic, to previously unexplored territory? </div>
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<b>Collaboration</b></div>
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How do I engage other people in my work while still maintaining the freedom </div>
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to work in solitude and fully listen and respond to where the Muse leads?</div>
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These works were all completed during my month-long July residency in Can Serrat, Spain. I am grateful to them for the time, space and nutrition (literal and figurative) that allowed me the luxury of experiencing drawing as my sole priority.</div>
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Thank you for viewing!</div>
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Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-64177235474821026332013-08-01T14:13:00.001-07:002015-04-30T21:26:19.090-07:00ANKH <div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I had great fun working on a commission for an Egyptian Ankh combined with four requested elements. After researching the Ankh's meaning I am fascinated: Egyptian symbol of life, unification of male/female, reference to ancient Snake Goddesses, and more. So much material!</div>
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I've enjoyed searching a way to weave everything together in a work that unifies all of the requested elements compositionally, symbolically, thematically, metaphorically AND that will look good on the body it is destined for - because ultimately, it's intended as a tattoo! So exciting...<br />
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You can see the image much more clearly if you click on it to enlarge it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><i>ANKH, </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">23x16", graphite</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-79364391808616525142013-07-17T14:23:00.002-07:002013-07-17T16:26:18.817-07:00Drawing the Body Channeling Divine EnergyI'm back in Can Serrat, Spain for a second time, in a month-long artist residency. Drawing and drawing and drawing all day long!! It is such a pleasure and a gift to be able to do this for a significant period of time.<br />
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The project I'm working on here explores the body channeling, giving over to, or being in the flow of 'divine energy,' however people may choose to define it, or in whatever context they have felt it. It could be through a particular spiritual, ritualistic or meditative practice, or in an encounter with an elemental force of nature, or by opening themselves up to whatever may be their concept of God, or in some other way altogether. I've asked friends and acquaintances to consider and embody that state of being, which has been the taking-off point for the final works.<br />
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Here are some of the drawings in progress:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix drawing in progress, detail, 23x16". 2013</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix drawing in progress, detail, 23x16", 2013</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mInBLtuPH9Y/UecEStIFMKI/AAAAAAAAHGs/nQer5e42goU/s1600/a3DaisyEneixFlyingBackwards-Faith-workinprogress2013sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mInBLtuPH9Y/UecEStIFMKI/AAAAAAAAHGs/nQer5e42goU/s320/a3DaisyEneixFlyingBackwards-Faith-workinprogress2013sm.jpg" width="198" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix <i>Faith/Flying Backwards</i> (in progress) 23x14", 2013</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix <i>Sky Float</i>, 23x16", graphite and ink on paper</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Daisy Eneix <i>Sky Float (detail)</i>, </span>23x16",<span class="Apple-style-span"> graphite and ink on paper</span></td></tr>
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The next stage for these drawings will be to add contextual and atmospheric elements that build upon the state of the being of the figure, as I have begun to do in <i>Flying Backwards/Faith </i>and <i>Float.</i><br />
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Once again I seem to be exploring this idea of resonance between the visceral and the ephemeral, a theme that seems to have always been at the core of my art and inquiry. But in this incarnation, I get to collaborate with others and to work in new media, which both feel like exciting new directions for me.</div>
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Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-19109255165086895022013-06-25T14:30:00.000-07:002013-07-17T14:37:28.592-07:00Confluence & God<br />
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Noticing uncanny coincidence, which I am seeing more as confluence. There has to be something as work - Nature, God, Consciousness, whatever you want to call it. Something more than what we know. Life is just too uncanny. </div>
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Confluence #1:</div>
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1. A running theme in my artwork is an exploration of where the visceral, erotic and spiritual meet. Lately it seems that the spiritual side has a new kind of gravity that I'm ready to drop into artistically. I'm not sure what it will look like, but I'm once again returning to artists that drew me initially in that direction: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon">Odilon Redon</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_Kiefer">Anselm Kiefer</a>, <a href="http://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/Collections/Cunningham-Center/Blog-paper-people/Performed-Invisibility-Ana-Mendieta-s-Siluetas">Ana Mendieta</a>, <a href="http://www.uiowa.edu/~artlearn/ASJHR/AnimalImagesasaVisuallesson.htm">Joseph Beuys</a> and more recently <a href="http://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/Collections/Cunningham-Center/Blog-paper-people/Performed-Invisibility-Ana-Mendieta-s-Siluetas">Michelangelo</a>. There are many others, but these are the first that come to mind.</div>
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The surprise: There is an exhibition at the museum where I work that is exploring spirituality, and my assignment, as a docent there, is to explore the section Genesis and discuss how I would present it. Amongst the artists are: Kiki Smith, Ana Mendieta, Bruce Conner. Could not be more perfect for the direction I want to go in my own art.</div>
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Confluence #2:</div>
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2. I've been wanting to explore new ways of making marks that resemble printmaking, but without the tedious process of making prints. I want to make art in a more direct, spontaneous manner, but mark the page - incise the paper - as if it was a plate. Scrape it, surface it, burnish it, sand it, ink it, as if it were metal. But also, draw on it.</div>
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The surprise: Who did I run into with these questions on my mind but a calligrapher, who is using unusual German inking tools. I don't even know what they are called. But I have them. I thought they were merely calipers. I did not know the full extent of their use. But I can dip them in ink. And so - I am coming up with whole new ways to make marks.</div>
Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-23716731081424914942013-06-04T00:13:00.002-07:002013-06-04T21:02:47.049-07:00Finding Your Line<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Recently <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Tissier">Christian Tissier</a>, one of the best-known practitioners of aikido, gave a seminar at my <a href="http://www.sfaikido.com/">dojo</a>. People came from all over the world to participate. I was glad to learn from him, and also of the surprise opportunity to ask him questions. <a href="http://www.sfaikido.com/aikido.html">Aikido</a> is as essential to me as art and, for me, they deeply inform one another.<br />
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So I asked him this: At this point in my training, how do I best advance internally? Is it about focusing on something in my practice, or attending more seminars? How does he approach it? [Stay with me here, I'm getting to the art part!]<br />
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He said: "You must find your line." He talked about aikido as having many lines, lines of ancestry in particular, and that jumping all over and trying to pick up something from everywhere is actually not so useful. That sooner or later I'm going to have to choose my line, and follow it.<br />
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As simple as this may sound, it had never really occurred to me before. I guess I've always believed that I should listen, look, and try to learn from everyone who has something to share. That it is important to remain entirely open. Not to select, if it means leaving out.<br />
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Sometimes people just say something at the right time and it goes 'thunk.' Yes, aiming involves going towards. But there is another part, which is about letting fall away the parts that are not the target. That at a certain point in one's practice, being continually open to all new influences may be just as stymying as being totally closed to them. That if I want precision, if I want to get to the core, I also have to hone.<br />
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So the obvious next question I had for myself was, what does 'finding my line' look like, both in aikido, and in art? Here is how I applied it to the art:<br />
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FINDING MY LINE<br />
1. Literally: What are my unique mark-making techniques?<br />
2. Methodologically: What do I choose to make, and also not to make?<br />
3. Heritage: Who are my artistic ancestors?<br />
4. Innovation: To what new places am I taking this trajectory?<br />
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It's not as if I haven't considered these things before in this context; they just haven't been at the forefront. So I am looking forward to embarking on using these guidelines as a lens, and seeing where it takes me.<br />
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<br />Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-55792384889546622752013-06-03T00:35:00.004-07:002013-06-03T08:55:34.401-07:00SFMOMA last chance dance<a href="http://www.sfmoma.org/">SFMOMA</a> had some interesting offerings to experience before closing for renovation today. Most people were on line to see The Clock. For four hours. I didn't have the patience for that. But I did spend some time with a fantastical architect whose whose imagination and line quality had me struck dumb. I thought I was looking at lithographs or some such, but these were free hand drawings!<br />
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The images brought a number of science fiction films to mind - Brazil and Alien in particular. But set in the lighting of Metropolis and in something of the surrealist engraving feeling of Max Ernst.</div>
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I was also intrigued by a program called <a href="http://www.workshopsf.org/">The Workshop</a>, offering DIY classes, that had samples set up in the lobby. I haven't really caught on to the 'DIY' craze, but I thought this was a really ingenious use of a gallon plastic bottle. Something about the way it held the light was pretty compelling.</div>
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<br />Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-3672489406830622192012-12-18T13:04:00.005-08:002015-04-30T21:28:10.652-07:00ART, AWAKENING & LOSS<br />
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Daisy Eneix, PERSEPHONE IN HADES, 2012 graphite drawing, 22x30</div>
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Daisy Eneix, SONGBIRD, 2012 graphite drawing, 22x30</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix, FELINE, 2012, graphite drawing, 22x30<br />
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It has been five months since I sent a package to myself from Can Serrat, Spain, which contained preparatory drawings created over a period of six months, and the final drawings I created at a residency while there, a time when my hand was fully coordinated with my eye and the muse, and I had the luxury of drawing six hours a day and took full advantage of it.</div>
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I experienced pure joy in the making of these drawings. That I could address this multilayered material, be both isolated and surrounded and influenced by other artists who were also wresting with their muses, and not feel as if I wanted for anything except to be doing what I was doing was a kind of celestial experience. I was channeling a precise and clear energy, purposeful, sometimes huge, but remarkable in its focus and total absence of fear. In martial arts, the peak experience for me is similar. There was a deep awareness and contentment, a stillness inside of motion. It was a kind of awakening. I was realizing a vision, I was open to being guided, and I was in contact with pure creation.</div>
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The package of these drawings never arrived. I am lucky that I have any record at all, but I do really wish I had the originals, as well as all of the other sketches and beginnings of new works that were with them. Maybe their loss is the catalyst intended to force me to turn a corner, or release the subject matter altogether, or it's just part of the larger letting go of many things this year. Maybe they will show up one day. It's hard to say. I don't know entirely what to make of it. But I'm trying to listen.<br />
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I am grateful that my dear friend and traveling companion Susan Schen took photographs of the drawings with a real camera. They were taken in a combination of sunlight and indoor light, as they were never intended as a final record. Unfortunately, large, gray pencil drawings on gray paper --particularly when so detailed and full of purposely faint lines alongside dark, coarse ones -- don't photograph well without professional lighting, if at all. But since I do have these 'ghosts' of them, I wanted to share them (above).<br />
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It is so much harder, while operating in the world of practicality, human relationships and the social and professional practices that are just as essential to me as art, to remember how important this relationship is, the one waiting there, with the Muse. I can only access it when I am truly solitary, and only when I give it my full, undivided attention. Since I am not the kind of person that naturally leans toward solitude, this is always a challenge. But the memory of this and the posting of these drawings may help me to keep striving towards it amongst the other, competing strivings.<br />
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I am so grateful to Can Serrat for creating the kind of holding space that they do for the artists who come. It is not only the delight and aesthetic wonder of the place but also its hosts, who imbue it with the kind of spaciousness and quiet, love, tending and merriment, eclecticness, chaos and edge, that allows artists to feel both at home in solitude and in the company of their peers. And also dinners to die for. This seems to be especially helpful for artists.<br />
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Overall, I'm just grateful that I got to have this experience, and how vivid it remains in me.<br />
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More about Can Serrat:<br />
<a href="http://www.canserrat.org/">http://www.canserrat.org/</a><br />
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Additional details of the artwork above are posted on the Can Serrat blog at: </div>
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<a href="http://www.canserratart.com/2012/07/meet-artist-daisy-eneix.html">http://www.canserratart.com/2012/07/meet-artist-daisy-eneix.html</a></div>
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Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-75106356671698312742012-12-18T09:54:00.000-08:002012-12-18T09:54:11.714-08:00ON MAURICE SENDAK:<br />
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Believer: How did you find your artistic style?<br />
<br />
Maurice Sendak: It's spontaneous combustion. I don't know what's going to work until I start to draw. It is so out of your hands it is amazing. It just started to happen. Bumble-Ardy was a little boy many years ago and now he's a pig. I don't know why. There's so much I don't know about the procedure.<br />
<br />
From:<br />
p78<br />
"I REFUSE TO CATER TO THE BULLSHIT OF INNOCENCE"<br />
Maurice Sendak interviewed by Emma Brockes<br />
The Believer<br />
The 2012 Issue<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.believermag.com/">http://www.believermag.com/</a>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-87645026854583261812012-10-30T16:44:00.000-07:002013-09-18T16:08:44.633-07:00SYMBIOSIS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Painting completed. Commission delivered. Yes!</div>
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Daisy Eneix</div>
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SYMBIOSIS</div>
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ink on wood panel</div>
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36x18"</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cCstEZknFb8/UJBikQ_a1KI/AAAAAAAAG5c/aED1bKWhZwY/s1600/smDaisyEneixSymbiosis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cCstEZknFb8/UJBikQ_a1KI/AAAAAAAAG5c/aED1bKWhZwY/s320/smDaisyEneixSymbiosis.jpg" width="158" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;">Symbiosis ©</span>2012 Daisy Eneix</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EKQisCQK1L8/UJBilI8on8I/AAAAAAAAG5k/EUxx-L0oYFI/s1600/smDaisyEneixSymbiosisdtl1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EKQisCQK1L8/UJBilI8on8I/AAAAAAAAG5k/EUxx-L0oYFI/s320/smDaisyEneixSymbiosisdtl1.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;">Symbiosis (detail) ©</span>2012 Daisy Eneix</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XnNwl6RuLWA/UJBilvpdd8I/AAAAAAAAG5s/YO01XKcEc64/s1600/smDaisyEneixSymbiosisdtl2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XnNwl6RuLWA/UJBilvpdd8I/AAAAAAAAG5s/YO01XKcEc64/s320/smDaisyEneixSymbiosisdtl2.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;">Symbiosis (detail) ©</span>2012 Daisy Eneix</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bppIbAu__tc/UJBimBmqBOI/AAAAAAAAG50/myuS99suRmA/s1600/smDaisyEneixSymbiosisdtl3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="279" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bppIbAu__tc/UJBimBmqBOI/AAAAAAAAG50/myuS99suRmA/s320/smDaisyEneixSymbiosisdtl3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;">Symbiosis, detail ©</span>2012 Daisy Eneix</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2IbPyMRo8is/UJBim9LG9-I/AAAAAAAAG58/CMGn0bqC4J8/s1600/smDaisyEneixSymbiosisdtl4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2IbPyMRo8is/UJBim9LG9-I/AAAAAAAAG58/CMGn0bqC4J8/s320/smDaisyEneixSymbiosisdtl4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;">Symbiosis, detail ©</span>2012 Daisy Eneix</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">All artwork photographed by Susan Schen.</span></div>
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<br />Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-34440712925015576842012-09-21T21:38:00.001-07:002012-09-21T21:39:38.091-07:00Color Craziness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I do a lot of color testing and settle on a palette before painting. </div>
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The evidence sometimes looks pretty chaotically cool, so I thought I'd share. </div>
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This one was tricky to work out but I think I have my almost final palette now :)</div>
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It was so nice to settle into work this evening. Hoping to do the same tomorrow.</div>
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<br />Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-21320794728808032952012-09-09T20:24:00.002-07:002013-06-07T11:14:19.550-07:00A Revelatory Manifesto ~ Patti Smith, Just Kids & Why I Make ArtmJUST KIDS by Patti Smith - a set of artist revelations<br />
<br />
This book really touched me. Some incredible ruminations on being an artist, creating, love, collaboration and innocence:<br />
<br />
'The creed we developed as artist and model was simple. I trust in you, I trust in myself.'<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kv3y1Oz4Flc/UE1WfFteYsI/AAAAAAAAG4E/s2s4wI37F7A/s1600/just-kids-patt-smith-200x330.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kv3y1Oz4Flc/UE1WfFteYsI/AAAAAAAAG4E/s2s4wI37F7A/s1600/just-kids-patt-smith-200x330.jpg" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wcBEmiNLWX0/UE1ZF6lZ5YI/AAAAAAAAG4c/_Y9Gady2QKk/s1600/gerard-m-alanga1-634x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wcBEmiNLWX0/UE1ZF6lZ5YI/AAAAAAAAG4c/_Y9Gady2QKk/s320/gerard-m-alanga1-634x1024.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
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'Robert trusted in the law of empathy, by which he could, by his will, transfer himself into an object or a work of art, and thus influence the outer world. He did not feel redeemed by the work he did. He did not seek redemption. He sought to see what others did not, the projection of his imagination.'</div>
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What is the soul? What color is it? I suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while I was dreaming and fail to return. I did my best not to fall asleep, to keep it inside of me where it belonged.'<br />
<br />
'I didn't feel for Warhol the way Robert did. His work reflected a culture I wanted to avoid. I hated the soup and felt little for the can. I preferred an artist who transformed his time, not mirrored it.'<br />
<br />
'I wondered if I had really been called as an artist. I didn't mind the misery of a vocation but I dreaded not being called.'<br />
<br />
'In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.'<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pRlgi03XPlI/UE1WhPIMDPI/AAAAAAAAG4M/8FMfwb4vXxg/s1600/patti-smith420-420x0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pRlgi03XPlI/UE1WhPIMDPI/AAAAAAAAG4M/8FMfwb4vXxg/s320/patti-smith420-420x0.jpg" width="320" /></a>'In my low periods, I wondered what was the point of creating art. For whom? Are we animating God? Are we talking to ourselves? And what was the ultimate goal? To have one's work caged in art's great zoos - the Modern, the Met, the Louvre?'<br />
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<br />
'Robert had little patience with these introspective bouts of mine. He never seemed to question his artistic drives, and by his example, I understood that what matters is the work: the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of color and graphite scrawled upon the sheet that magnifies His motion. To achieve within the work a perfect balance of faith and execution. From this state of mind comes a light, life-charged.'<br />
<br />
THE BOOK: <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060936228">http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060936228</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-69333758808817539472012-08-29T00:53:00.002-07:002012-08-29T01:00:41.526-07:00Drawing away until the wee hours always feels good. So does combining two animals into one. In this case, a wood bison and a bull. With its own special rider.<br />
<br />
I'm working on the third version of the preparatory drawing, and it's really coming along. <br />
<br />
I find that the first drawing I do captures something of the feeling in my head, the dreamy part, but it usually needs more substance. The second drawing usually has more things in the right place, but often looks either a little too technical, cartoon-y, or has lost a bit of the energy of the first. Then the third somehow pulls it all together, combining the dream and the real into something new.Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-37909776179669886992012-08-20T21:33:00.002-07:002013-09-18T16:09:51.686-07:002012 - MY DREAM ARTIST RESIDENCY, CAN SERRAT, BARCELONA, SPAIN:<br />
<br />
Artworks and more at this link:<br />
<a href="http://www.canserratart.com/2012/07/meet-artist-daisy-eneix.html">http://www.canserratart.com/2012/07/meet-artist-daisy-eneix.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--2I3kc8oSBY/UAfPbKxEhQI/AAAAAAAABEk/BjuKN2Dl99k/s1600/MyFirstDayinCanSerrat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--2I3kc8oSBY/UAfPbKxEhQI/AAAAAAAABEk/BjuKN2Dl99k/s1600/MyFirstDayinCanSerrat.jpg" /></a></div>
Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-76736569745607333792012-01-10T00:50:00.000-08:002013-09-18T16:10:55.288-07:00Hairier, Scarier & Waterfalled<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h99sA0gwM_0/Twy9PrJWlwI/AAAAAAAAG3A/iYcpz1sCXcw/s1600/11DaisyEneixMisogiImpstage5dtl2012sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h99sA0gwM_0/Twy9PrJWlwI/AAAAAAAAG3A/iYcpz1sCXcw/s320/11DaisyEneixMisogiImpstage5dtl2012sm.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix Misogi New Year Imp, 2012, in progress, detail</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix Misogi New Year Imp, 2012, in progress, detail</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-teZuqdI97Iw/Twy9gvopexI/AAAAAAAAG3I/3v0D0rYCi_0/s1600/9DaisyEneixMisogiImpstage5talonsdtl2012sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-teZuqdI97Iw/Twy9gvopexI/AAAAAAAAG3I/3v0D0rYCi_0/s320/9DaisyEneixMisogiImpstage5talonsdtl2012sm.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix Misogi New Year Imp, 2012, in progress, detail</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RQhEwEZYDDc/Twy9sE_83qI/AAAAAAAAG3Q/svyU98x-gEk/s1600/8DaisyEneixMisogiImpstage5tail2012sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RQhEwEZYDDc/Twy9sE_83qI/AAAAAAAAG3Q/svyU98x-gEk/s320/8DaisyEneixMisogiImpstage5tail2012sm.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix Misogi New Year Imp, 2012, in progress, detail</td></tr>
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Well I've made a lot of progress on my little Imp. She's got some fur now and her own waterfall and a mossy, green environment (still in progress). So, a number of folks called her a Demon. I wish to explain how and why she is not a Demon. She is most definitely an Imp.<br />
<br />
<b>What is an Imp?</b><br />
Historically, Imps are mischievous, unpredictable magical characters that may assist Demons, Witches, or Wizards. Whereas a Demon is usually a colossal, independent force, an Imp is smaller, lesser, more ambiguous creature. It also likes to have company.<br />
<br />
<b>My Imp also has a bit of inspiration from:</b><br />
<i><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsune">Kitsune</a></b></i>, which are the enchanted, shape-shifting female fox spirits of Japan,<br />
The goblins in the story-poem <b><a href="http://plexipages.com/reflections/goblin.html">The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti</a></b>,<br />
the monkey god <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman">Hanuman</a></b> from the Ramayana Epic.<br />
And other unspoken ones.<br />
<br />
<b>An Imp is an enchanted creature that is definitely going to add chaos to your day.</b><br />
Whether or not you regret that chaos is never entirely clear. Perhaps it will show you a pleasure you never thought existed, make you laugh at yourself very deeply, or bring you a little secret knowledge or a treasure. It may just as likely bite, claw, steal, kidnap and cause mischief of all kinds.<br />
<br />
<b>An Imp will undoubtedly sharpen your awareness of yourself</b> (and your possessions - it is best not to take your eyes off of them when it is around). It always comes with darkness and light, though not necessarily both on the same day. Imps are very devoted and loyal in their own code of what morality is but it is not a human code and therefore makes sense only to the Imp. You can learn a lot from an Imp but it is also best not to spend too much time in its company, lest you lose your way back into reality.<br />
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<b>For me, the Imp is the perfect metaphor for the artist's dilemma. </b>Sunlight living is glorious and joyful and feeds the soul and body at the root; however, it is night, darkness and mystery that feed the art and the heart. Both together are essential, but I have yet to find what my own line of balance is. I have definitely experimented with going too far in either direction. However, this particular little Imp seems very much at home in the daylight environment of a lush waterfall. I think that's a good sign.Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-20258005305590696822012-01-03T21:09:00.000-08:002012-01-03T22:02:45.814-08:00New Year Misogi Imp, 2012 (stage III, color added)She's still in progress. My vision for her is that she will be nestled in a waterfall. Also, she doesn't have her fur yet and she obviously needs some. I have a feeling she's very hairy.<br />
<div><br />
<div>Misogi is a Japanese physical and spiritual cleansing ritual that usually happens in the morning, under a waterfall. The freezing cold water cleans and awakens. I imagine her surprising various pilgrims come to bathe, with unpredicable results ;)</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uqS5_jA0_QA/TwPe2j0BCWI/AAAAAAAAG2w/N_t5CgERIdw/s1600/4DaisyEneixMisogiImp2012stage3smdetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uqS5_jA0_QA/TwPe2j0BCWI/AAAAAAAAG2w/N_t5CgERIdw/s320/4DaisyEneixMisogiImp2012stage3smdetail.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Daisy Eneix, New Year Misogi Imp, 2012 (detail, in progress)</div><div><br />
<div><br />
</div><div>I think I'm finding out that I really love painting in ink on wood. Maybe even more than printmaking. Shhhh.<br />
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PS - Next post has more images working up to this one</div><div><br />
</div></div></div>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-72840369959007330832012-01-03T20:59:00.000-08:002012-01-03T20:59:06.664-08:00The little Imp is begun...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ETqF2r8J3Y/TwPb8S4G87I/AAAAAAAAG2U/y_7erIUT9RE/s1600/3DaisyEneixMisogiImp2012stage2smdetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ETqF2r8J3Y/TwPb8S4G87I/AAAAAAAAG2U/y_7erIUT9RE/s320/3DaisyEneixMisogiImp2012stage2smdetail.jpg" width="243" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is with the gesso added</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QzfjlzjPoIU/TwPcAU4TqyI/AAAAAAAAG2c/xIluZSCGdeE/s1600/2DaisyEneixmisogiimpstage12011smdetial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QzfjlzjPoIU/TwPcAU4TqyI/AAAAAAAAG2c/xIluZSCGdeE/s320/2DaisyEneixmisogiimpstage12011smdetial.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New Year's Eve day, drawing on wood</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lBSaXvXIqmU/TwPcB8mC02I/AAAAAAAAG2k/wKauMV-QLng/s1600/1daisyeneixmisogiimpsketch2011sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lBSaXvXIqmU/TwPcB8mC02I/AAAAAAAAG2k/wKauMV-QLng/s320/1daisyeneixmisogiimpsketch2011sm.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I first sketched her in summer, 2011</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-42369157855426326252011-12-29T22:59:00.000-08:002012-01-02T14:57:38.322-08:00DAISY'S DRAWING TIPS for artistic self-sanityDrawing for myself again for several days after months of a hectic teaching schedule feels amazing!! But I seem to forget some very simple things every time I take a big break. With this list maybe I'll remember better:<br />
<br />
1. Find the sharpener and the good erasers** BEFORE sitting down to draw. Put the sharpener and erasers in a place that you can reach without getting up.<br />
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2. If you are getting too involved in your drawing and don't want to bother to sharpen your pencil, SHARPEN THE GODDAMN PENCIL. You will regret it if you don't. No, really, you will. Sharpen the pencil. Now.<br />
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3. If you are a lefty, start on the right side of the page. If you wind up wanting to add something to the right later, protect the rest of the drawing with a sheet of vellum.<br />
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4. If you are going to work on a drawing for hours, don't use the Staedtlers. They smear. Use the Tombows. They don't.<br />
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5. Do not draw the legs before determining the tilt of the pelvic cradle.<br />
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6. If you are drawing someone with male parts, do not wait to draw in the genital details later the way you do with female parts. This is because the penis blocks some of the view of where the legs come out of the pelvis. If you draw the legs first and then sketch the penis in later you are likely to discover later that you have misjudged where the legs begin and that you have to draw them all over again. Being that legs and feet take a hell of a lot longer to draw than a penis, this is very sad.<br />
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7. If the top half looks great and it doesn't need a bottom half, remember that a drawing doesn't always require a bottom half.<br />
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8. If you have not moved for hours, get up and shake it out. Also, do not get so absorbed that you ignore nature calling until it is shouting. Your body and (believe me) your line quality are suffering.<br />
<br />
9. If it's getting on towards three in the morning and your drawing looks great except one part, just stop. You can fix it tomorrow or more likely not even remember what the part was the next time you see it.<br />
<br />
**Throw out your shitty erasers. At best, they sit around fooling you into thinking you have erasers when you don't, at worst, you'll get desperate and use them and we all know that ends in tears (here both meanings of the word apply).<br />
<br />
<div>Now let's see if I remember to look at this next time I have to take a big break...</div>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-85309414574995788812011-07-20T14:22:00.000-07:002011-07-20T14:39:33.525-07:00Final Show 'n' Tell at Oxbow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1c5RiiBupKk/TicwcNDcrsI/AAAAAAAAGx4/PI5R84SpDLI/s1600/IMG_4166.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1c5RiiBupKk/TicwcNDcrsI/AAAAAAAAGx4/PI5R84SpDLI/s320/IMG_4166.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Pinnacles of Summer Studios ;)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rv4QKcvZDyw/TidGlFJuwMI/AAAAAAAAGyE/FDnA8HOI85E/s1600/IMG_4144.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rv4QKcvZDyw/TidGlFJuwMI/AAAAAAAAGyE/FDnA8HOI85E/s320/IMG_4144.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Looking</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QM_sOQ3PCiM/Ticqt9rLNmI/AAAAAAAAGxM/833tos0yZzM/s1600/IMG_4125.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QM_sOQ3PCiM/Ticqt9rLNmI/AAAAAAAAGxM/833tos0yZzM/s320/IMG_4125.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> Clint's Prints</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KQFsG5kroVs/TicrO1PMpuI/AAAAAAAAGxQ/_zd_FLhTmpw/s1600/IMG_4133.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KQFsG5kroVs/TicrO1PMpuI/AAAAAAAAGxQ/_zd_FLhTmpw/s320/IMG_4133.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> Suzanne</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3oGyD8DrBnI/TicsDl794CI/AAAAAAAAGxY/iuHmgHF2dbk/s1600/IMG_4151.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3oGyD8DrBnI/TicsDl794CI/AAAAAAAAGxY/iuHmgHF2dbk/s320/IMG_4151.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Craig</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F6eSN4_cltY/TictRVviBiI/AAAAAAAAGxg/Sr66eGpi6vM/s1600/IMG_4154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F6eSN4_cltY/TictRVviBiI/AAAAAAAAGxg/Sr66eGpi6vM/s320/IMG_4154.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> Kathleen</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Yup8OpgUH8/TictXnT1GBI/AAAAAAAAGxk/pIdyE56EqyM/s1600/IMG_4159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Yup8OpgUH8/TictXnT1GBI/AAAAAAAAGxk/pIdyE56EqyM/s320/IMG_4159.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> Leslie</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RLxGuuC1r04/TictqDIyttI/AAAAAAAAGxo/Eqt_2HLuP_g/s1600/IMG_4165.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RLxGuuC1r04/TictqDIyttI/AAAAAAAAGxo/Eqt_2HLuP_g/s320/IMG_4165.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DtSzEnYUNH4/Ticvs-6XYzI/AAAAAAAAGx0/lUByNlILPb0/s1600/DSC_7467.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DtSzEnYUNH4/Ticvs-6XYzI/AAAAAAAAGx0/lUByNlILPb0/s320/DSC_7467.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Me with large works in progress</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g-wlY1tJX60/Ticw19-cuqI/AAAAAAAAGx8/xt_SGkY-mgY/s1600/IMG_4170.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g-wlY1tJX60/Ticw19-cuqI/AAAAAAAAGx8/xt_SGkY-mgY/s320/IMG_4170.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Great spaces to work in</div>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-26644291893507728222011-07-20T12:11:00.000-07:002013-09-18T16:13:01.228-07:00Our Lady of the Root<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8k31Ohjxeu4/TicknOU_sgI/AAAAAAAAGxE/3TG1DjV3GpQ/s1600/IMG_4124.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8k31Ohjxeu4/TicknOU_sgI/AAAAAAAAGxE/3TG1DjV3GpQ/s320/IMG_4124.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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Daisy Eneix, untitled (in progress), 3x4' painting on panel</div>
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Detail of painting in progress at Oxbow. I brought out the wood grain using colored inks, then added the figure. The initial drawing was created by scanning an existing life drawing sketch I had and combining it with images of tree roots on photoshop; tracing it onto vellum and then tracing it again and adding and altering details. When I finally had a design I like I enlarged it onto the wood panel, first painting the shape in gesso (transparently) and then working over it in inks. This was the first time I used photoshop to create an initial composite - actually several - to see what worked best. The amount of sketching and erasing time it saved me in the initial planning stages was phenomenal.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xvvW3ws_G-4/TicmoVIL-HI/AAAAAAAAGxI/rLKIEn1w2HU/s1600/IMG_4187.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xvvW3ws_G-4/TicmoVIL-HI/AAAAAAAAGxI/rLKIEn1w2HU/s320/IMG_4187.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Daisy Eneix, untitled, 3x4' painting on panel<br />
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Here the luna moths have been added. These were made by mixing gesso and ink initially, not layering as much, so they appear more opaque. Mica was added for iridescence. The bird and nest also received some more color. I still haven't chosen a title.Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-77953195774321243842011-07-11T15:53:00.000-07:002011-07-20T14:27:53.656-07:00Luna Moth - ink on panel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fRVJYgIGyJ8/Tht-cgYMt3I/AAAAAAAAGxA/inprLgNWz4Q/s1600/IMG_4189.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fRVJYgIGyJ8/Tht-cgYMt3I/AAAAAAAAGxA/inprLgNWz4Q/s320/IMG_4189.jpg" width="238" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There's more to tell about this small detail of a 3x4 foot painting I made, </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">but this is a good beginning.</div>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-32841828728210524642011-07-11T15:48:00.000-07:002011-07-11T15:48:01.682-07:00Painted Stages of Spiderweb/Trap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6NZEYrCIpxs/Tht4D-lzmoI/AAAAAAAAGww/a5FOTavS3-o/s1600/IMG_3878.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6NZEYrCIpxs/Tht4D-lzmoI/AAAAAAAAGww/a5FOTavS3-o/s320/IMG_3878.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First I made some sketches from reference.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FY_9tpri1LE/Tht4luLv22I/AAAAAAAAGw0/HmPInIzoE2o/s1600/IMG_3982.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FY_9tpri1LE/Tht4luLv22I/AAAAAAAAGw0/HmPInIzoE2o/s320/IMG_3982.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Using the drawing as inspiration, I layered ink and white gesso on a long, narrow panel. This is a detail of it.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-so2-ktGsuHI/Tht5r0P2srI/AAAAAAAAGw4/PzcLZ8Yg_3w/s1600/IMG_4102.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-so2-ktGsuHI/Tht5r0P2srI/AAAAAAAAGw4/PzcLZ8Yg_3w/s320/IMG_4102.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a detail of the final work - with added ink, pencil, colored glazes, and acrylic 'ooze'<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PxgkLA9IZ1o/Tht7JkDNQ4I/AAAAAAAAGw8/-ZjxNbkL8KI/s1600/IMG_4100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PxgkLA9IZ1o/Tht7JkDNQ4I/AAAAAAAAGw8/-ZjxNbkL8KI/s320/IMG_4100.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a detail of the top of the work. I wanted the web to look strong, thick and a little bit worn. Parts of it are incised into the wood. I had a close look at a number of webs and was surprised to find double-strands. While trying to collect reference, I learned that spider webs can be right there in front of you but not appear in photographs at all. You have to be in the light just right for your camera to see them. I thought that was pretty eerie.</td></tr>
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</div>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-81411341519514548582011-07-11T15:19:00.000-07:002011-07-11T15:19:58.205-07:00Oxbow Painting Retreat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I5ehH0AI4fY/Tht2dTXXEII/AAAAAAAAGws/zoOBNPQKNi4/s1600/IMG_3984.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I5ehH0AI4fY/Tht2dTXXEII/AAAAAAAAGws/zoOBNPQKNi4/s320/IMG_3984.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>This summer I had the opportunity to work alongside some incredible artists at Oxbow school. The Oxbow summer adult program allows artists to work on independent projects with experienced and encouraging facilitators. For three years I participated in printmaking, but this year I tried painting for the first time.<br />
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I had painted before in oil on canvas and watercolor, but I wanted to do something different. Normally I do a lot of preparatory drawings for my prints, and the drawings themselves are interesting. I was hoping to somehow combine qualities of drawing, painting and printmaking all together. I wound up using ink, pencil and paint on wood with gesso and also, sometimes, carving directly into the wood. I found that creating white gesso shapes based on my drawings did have a printmakerly feel. I also learned that I could work with ink directly on wood, over a clear-gesso, or over white gesso and get very different effects. Pencil also worked on the wood, but it dulled very quickly so I had to sharpen it a lot.<br />
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Both the subject matter and the media of my work appears to be shifting from what it was before. Changes like this are at once challenging, because I can't rely on what I knew from before, and exciting, because I can approach things with more of a beginner's mind. Having such a supportive group and helpful teachers was the perfect environment in which to explore this new material.Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4479633861915289191.post-2712740156558224252011-05-01T00:08:00.000-07:002011-05-01T00:38:42.032-07:00UNDERWATER DANCE DREAMINGHaunting, powerful, devastatingly beautiful, not what you'd expect...watch the clip...<br />
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<a href="http://www.sfballet.org/performancestickets/2011season/program8.asp">click here - SAN FRANCISCO BALLET'S THE LITTLE MERMAID</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><strong><br />
The Little Mermaid </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">a ballet by John Neumeier after Hans Christian Andersen</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><strong>Composer:</strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Lera Auerbach</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><strong>Choreography, Scenic, Costume, and Lighting Design:</strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">John Neumeier</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><strong>Staged by:</strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Kevin Haigen, Leslie McBeth, Niurka Moredo, Lloyd Riggins</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><strong>Lighting Realized by:</strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Ralf Merkel</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><strong>World Premiere:</strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">April 15, 2005—The Royal Danish Ballet; Copenhagen, Denmark</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><strong>Hamburg Version:</strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">July 1, 2007—The Hamburg Ballet; Hamburg, Germany</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><strong>San Francisco Ballet Premiere: </strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">March 20, 2010—War Memorial Opera House; San Francisco, California</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;">Music originally commissioned by The Royal Danish Ballet. Current performing version (Hamburg Version) commissioned by The Hamburg Ballet, made possible by the generous support of the Foundation for promoting the Hamburg State Opera (“Stiftung zur Förderung der Hamburgischen Staatsoper”).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The 2010 United States premiere of </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Little Mermaid</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> was made possible by Lead Sponsors Richard C. Barker and The E.L. Wiegand Foundation, and by Major Sponsors Suzy Kellems Dominik, Jennifer Caldwell and John H. N. Fisher, Stephen and Margaret Gill Family Foundation, Alison and Michael Mauzé, and Sponsors Gail and Robert Smelick.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Little Mermaid</span></strong></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">In </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Little Mermaid</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, Hamburg Ballet Director and Chief Choreographer John Neumeier blends dance, dramatic storytelling, and spectacle into a stunning interpretation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fable. With choreography, sets, and costumes all by Neumeier, this ballet—as much theater as it is dance—reveals the depths of the choreographer’s imagination. And it demands the heights of artistry from the dancers, who must venture into deeply emotional terrain in order to convey the ballet’s full message. Neumeier elevates a fantasy into a sophisticated portrayal of psychological transformation and the resilience of the spirit, human or otherwise.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Neumeier created </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Little Mermaid</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> for the Royal Danish Ballet in 2005 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Andersen’s birth. Of all the famous writer’s stories, the choreographer chose this one because of its “very particular concept of love,” he says. “Love that is so strong that it can overcome boundaries, that it can transport her to new worlds, although it may seem to be self-destructive—because the Mermaid re-creates herself at the cost of extreme personal pain. But the story teaches us, at the same time, that no matter how strong our love may be, it doesn’t obligate the object of our love to love us in return.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“Visually stunning” is how San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director & Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson described </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Little Mermaid</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> when he saw it in Hamburg four years ago. “It was a very dramatic piece, very emotional,” he says. Always looking for opportunities for his dancers, Tomasson says he felt this ballet would be “wonderful to bring to San Francisco. It’s very different from anything the dancers have done, and the role of the Mermaid is fantastic! It’s very difficult, what she has to do.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Tomasson and Neumeier have a long history—as a member of the Harkness Ballet, Tomasson danced in </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Stages and Reflections</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, one of Neumeier’s earliest ballets. “We’re talking about 40 years ago,” says Tomasson. But the experience left a clear memory of what it’s like to work with Neumeier. “He’s very demanding—he reminds me of [Jerome] Robbins in that way—every little detail has to be to his liking,” Tomasson says. “I feel that he’s a major artist, and maybe now the time is right for us to see his work more in this country.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Neumeier, a Milwaukee-born American who has spent nearly his entire career in Europe, trained in Copenhagen and London and began his dancing and choreographic careers at Stuttgart Ballet. After only six years there, in 1969 he became director of the Frankfurt Ballet, where he caused a stir with his reinventions of classics such as </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Nutcracker</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> and </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Romeo and Juliet</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. Four years later he began his tenure as director and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet, and in 1978 he founded a school that now supplies more than 70 percent of the company’s dancers. He has created close to 140 ballets for his own company and as a guest choreographer for American Ballet Theatre, the National Ballet of Canada, and throughout Europe. His extensive list of honors includes dance and arts awards from the United States,<strong></strong>Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Denmark, and several publications.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Given Neumeier’s tendency to couch ballet tradition in a stylized dramatic format, it’s not surprising to learn that he holds a degree in English literature and theater studies (from Marquette University in Milwaukee). He cites Japan’s Noh theater, a roughly 700-year-old form of musical drama with a fixed repertory and masked performers, as a favorite. Cultural influences permeate his ballets as well; for example, the Mermaid’s hairstyle, makeup and costume derive from African, Balinese, and Japanese traditional styles. In considering making a ballet about the Mermaid’s story, Neumeier saw the potential for imaginative richness. Its magical premise, fanciful characters, and worlds gone askew make it a perfect vehicle for the kind of dance-theater he does so well.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But Neumeier’s first concern with any ballet is whether its story translates well into dance. “There are certain beautiful stories that are so dependent on words that even the essential conflict, the internal story, is not really possible to present in a nonverbal form of theater,” he says. So first he envisions what is possible to portray onstage. “I always think the job of a choreographer is not to put steps together; it is to create worlds,” he says.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But with this ballet he faced a huge obstacle: finding a way for the dancers who portray the Mermaid and her sisters to move as though they have tailfins, not legs. “How do you do that in a ballet?” he asks. “Because I knew I wanted to do this story, I agreed to do it before I knew the answer to that.” Then, while on tour in Japan with his company, he saw a Noh play, and in it was his answer. “There is a medieval kind of Japanese trousers, which are very, very long, and watching this man moving I thought, ‘That’s it—he has no legs!’ ” For his Mermaid, Neumeier designed wide-legged silk pants that add fluidity to her movements, pooling onto the floor when she stands and fanning out like fins when she is held aloft to “swim.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Helping Neumeier define the distinctions between land, ship, and sea is Russian composer Lera Auerbach. Like the abstract waves of light that divide the stage visually, showing us whether we’re above the water’s surface or below it, the music too sets the scene, evoking both atmosphere and emotional tone. Auerbach, a prolific, award-winning musician (and a poet to boot), earned two degrees at The Juilliard School and completed a piano soloist program at the University of Music and Theater in Hanover, Germany. Her works, performed worldwide, include ballets, operas, symphonies, concertos, string quartets, and other chamber works.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">In her score for </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Little Mermaid</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, sweet and haunting melodies for violin flow into brusque passages of atonality and dissonance, making audible the strangeness and discomfort of being out of one’s element. Complex and changeable, with few normal harmonic progressions, in early rehearsals the score challenged the dancers, who can’t fully invest themselves in their roles until they have integrated movement and music into an unquestionable whole.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Beyond its setting, </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Mermaid</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> offers more riches. Written between the lines of this fable about personal sacrifice was a far more touching story—Andersen’s own torment. According to Neumeier, many scholars believe that this story is probably Andersen’s most autobiographical work. The writer had a history of falling in love with women he could not have, and a few men as well. This tale of unrequited love could well be his own; shortly before he wrote it he had suffered greatly at the marriage of Edvard Collin, a love interest who did not return his affections. “So in a sense,” Neumeier says, “Andersen’s disappointment [about Collin] is the jumping-off point for </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Little Mermaid</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Neumeier has played on that fact, expanding the ballet’s story to include Andersen as the Poet (who is, like the Mermaid, in love with the Prince). Neumeier didn’t intend to depict Collin specifically; instead, he says “the historical facts inspire and help to create a new Prince—through movement—in the necessary present tense of dance. You can do a lot of research for a ballet, but even if your subject is a historical person, you cannot use intellectual findings as a recipe book for creation.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But as integral to the story as the Poet and the Prince are, it’s the Mermaid who is at the heart of this ballet. And Principal Dancer Yuan Yuan Tan seems born to the role. She found a strong personal connection with the Mermaid, she says, in the character’s pursuit of “unconditional love. People dream about it. And [the Mermaid] tries to pursue it, and fails, but still believes in it. I think all of us do things we want to do, and if we try and fail, it’s okay; we keep going.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Tan says she didn’t expect to experience any monumental transformations as a dancer at this point in her career; after all, she is in her prime. But dancing the Mermaid “brought my dance skill up to another level,” she says. “I have to say this role changed my career. I didn’t think I could have grown anymore; I thought, ‘I’m pretty comfortable with where I am.’ And now I express myself more and I have less worries about what I’m doing. I think I’ve come to a stage [where] I just feel happy to dance—not as an obligation, not as a job, but as a joy. The mind and soul—it’s all there. Life goes on, things change, and you grow and you learn. So it’s a combination of the whole. I’m much happier.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Principal Dancer Sarah Van Patten, who dances both the Mermaid and the Princess, agrees that the Mermaid is a life-changing role. “Dancing the Mermaid was very different from anything I’d ever done. And it’s the main role, so the weight of it was also challenging.” Along with the physical aspects of working on the floor, being barefoot, and needing to be flexible in certain ways that she wasn’t used to, Van Patten found that preparing to dance the role took “a lot of time, thought, energy. You’re dealing with being a fish—creating this image of being underwater and making sure you use that throughout the entire [ballet],” she says. “Even when you come onto land, you’re still moving as if you’re a fish because that’s all you’ve ever known. And yet you’re now a human being using feet and hands for the first time. So it takes a lot of imagination.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Imagination, certainly. But dancing the Mermaid also requires an emotional investment on a level not often found in ballet. The character’s psychological journey is not only searing, it’s an endurance test for the dancer, who remains onstage for long stretches of time. With no chance to stand in the wings and prepare for the next emotionally devastating scene, it requires a mental presence that’s immediate and committed. “With the Mermaid, I found that I needed to keep up with what was happening in that moment, and not go ahead of myself,” says Van Patten. “Little nuances need to be real, so you need to be present in what’s going on. You can’t be thinking, ‘I’m going to get really devastated in about half an hour.’ You need to do what you’re doing in this moment so that when you come to the devastation, it’s going to be real. So that made it really interesting, and very difficult.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Part of what makes the role so rewarding, Van Patten says, is having to connect so deeply with the Mermaid’s emotions. Neumeier would accept nothing less. “John is someone who can tell right away if the emotion is real or not. He knows how to get honest emotion out of people, and it’s so scary to do a part like that and be fully honest. It’s very exposing.” Depicting such powerful emotions means revisiting personal memories of similar experiences. “Say you felt that much pain in your life, or that much loneliness or feeling of being excluded, being cast outside, which the Mermaid was,” Van Patten says. “Or having such a broken heart, or loving somebody so much and not getting that in return. [Dancing this role] makes all those emotions surface again. And then to experience that over and over again—that’s one of the hardest aspects of the piece—but also the most rewarding, on some level.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">“John told me, ‘Don’t act,’ ” Tan says. “He doesn’t want the girls all doing the same stuff, because everybody’s different. Because he’s the creator, he gives you the steps and the music to express yourself.” Within the choreographer’s parameters, the dancers brought their own feelings and experiences to the role. “One time he said to me, ‘I can see you’re working on it, and I can see a lot of improvement. And now [I want] more. I will tell you if it’s too much.’ ” In conveying what he wanted, Tan says, Neumeier didn’t need words. “I could see through his eyes what he wanted. And he saw my expressions in my body and knew what I was trying to say. So it’s communication without speaking.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Van Patten too noticed Neumeier’s astuteness in dealing with the differences between dancers. “He has a good way of watching people; he tends to see who they are, and then he can communicate either through helping them with the movement or with an idea.” She describes how he would talk to her about a feeling or a situation in such a way that she would respond emotionally, “and then you know what he’s talking about. So then you can associate that step or moment with that feeling he’s sparked inside of you. And he seems to have a really good sense of how to do that. He would talk to Yuan Yuan and me very differently.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">As the Mermaid makes her way through physically and emotionally disturbing terrain, we see the world through her eyes. And so everything underwater is beautiful and serene. “She is in her element [there]—gorgeously, beautifully, and belonging,” says Neumeier. “She knows this world, and yet she has a desire to go beyond that.” But what she discovers when she leaves her watery home “is that our dreams, our answered prayers are not always what we wanted—not always as we imagined them,” says the choreographer. “The earth world, which she so desires, can have some very sharp edges.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Those edges become visible in the searing pain she endures as she walks on the feet she wanted so much, the bizarre behavior of the ship’s passengers, the nightmarish atmosphere to the Prince’s wedding, and the horror of being bound by ceilings and walls instead of free to roam an endless oceanic paradise. Toward the end of the ballet Neumeier reveals, in his set and in the Mermaid’s actions, the trap she has laid for herself.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And yet the Mermaid’s terrible sacrifice leads not to tragedy but to redemption, and that’s what makes this story compelling. “There is a sense of transcendence in the last dance [the Mermaid and the Poet] do together,” says Neumeier. “I think that the story is, in its essence, so beautiful. I don’t know of another story in literature with such a vision of love.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">And that’s the secret to </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Little Mermaid’s</span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> power. Yes, it offers up stunningly original dancing and high theatricality. But audiences and dancers connect to it because of its story. For Van Patten, it provides the kind of depth that allows every performance to be fresh and alive. “There are moments throughout the ballet where little things will be different every performance, emotionally and physically, even though you’re telling the same story,” she says. “And that’s why I think it’s such an awesome piece to dance, and one you can dance over and over again. It’s not something that ever gets old.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">As for Tan, she says she was shocked at the impact the ballet had on her. “After the premiere, the bow, I couldn’t stop crying. And I had to get John onstage, and he was crying, and he gave me a hug and we cried onstage. I would never have thought this would happen, but it was good.” Her face lights up in a huge smile. “Because my heart was out there.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Program notes by Cheryl A. Ossola</span></div>Daisy Eneixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12463886079743436958noreply@blogger.com0