Art block, Life block

Since the start of the year, I've found myself in the midst of an artistic moment of change.  New York, being the unforgiving aggressive city that it is, isn't the best place to have a second to reflect or figure things out. 

My 2014 ended after quitting my job, going to an AMAZING artist residency, then working for around 70 days straight at an exhausting retail gig that ended in early January.  Then I treated myself to a week-long trip to Puerto Rico. 

These are all great things. Really, really great.  But now, I've found myself in a mirror of 2012 --unemployed-ish and artistically stuck -- just slightly older and slightly less tolerant of shitty work of both the artistic and money-making kind.  There will always be moments like this in my life, I'm pretty aware of that now, but the good thing is that now I might have the tools to make the best of it. 

I've been running after any and all interests that I have.  No plan, just diving blindly: 

 Sculpted a whale bulla (ear bone), bought some calcite and optical spar crystals, and a painted sketch of crystals in the background. 

 Fossils (Megladon teeth, a Trilobite, some weird oceanic things), a U.S. map with the Mississippi River marked, and a sketch of the whale ear bone. 

Then I bought laser pointers:

 Oooo, look at that purple laser turn green in the calcite!

It's hard to see, but this green laser turns orange. They change to their complimentary color, I suppose.

Red stays red, though.

Will this lead somewhere? Who knows...

Wolf paintings

Here are the final paintings and prints from my project with the Wolf Conservation Center!

These packs of cards were really well-received.  I'll probably bring them back and expand on it next winter.

This is the largest wolf painting I did for this project.  It's around 24 x 30 inches and depicts a Mexican Grey Wolf which has had a shaky reintroduction in the Southwestern U.S.  The constant battle with wolf reintroduction is how they're viewed culturally, which has changed from one of god-like wisdom and strength to fear, gluttony, and deviousness. Both views are based in spirituality and are at the heart of the wolf debate. 

It can take minutes, hours, or days—a delicate balance of physical and mental strength by the entire pack is needed to overwhelm a 1 - 2,000 lb animal.   This painting, and the rest, are all small, around 8 x 10 inch.

The precious land encased in Yellowstone National Park lays against land owned by states pushing for less regulation on wolf hunting and species protection. Though their legal protection changes past the parks invisible boundary, wolves recognize no sovereign line.  

This is Atka, resting and being sweet. Fear and misunderstanding are the largest threats to a thriving wolf population.

The Red Wolf became extinct around 1980 because of intensive predator control programs. 14 were captured by biologists before their extinction for breeding programs.   

Deforestation, road building, and persecution of the Red Wolves in the South Eastern United States pushed the species into extinction in the wild by the 1980's. They were reintroduction to Alligator River Wildlife Refuge in coastal North Carolina where approximately 100 exist today in an unsteady and uncertain climb to a healthy population.

This is the new puppy, Nikaii. 

To reintroduce a wolf into the wild, a pup of the same species is released outside of a den housing pups of a similar age. The mother will always adopt the new pup and raise it as her own. 

This is Zyphyr! He's may be my favorite.