I dub thee "XAIPE"

My latest painting is finished and is named "XAIPE," (pronounced khai-ray) which my sources assure me loosely means "Farewell" in Ancient Greek (many Ancient Greek gravestones have the word "XAIPE" engraved on them).

The subject is a gravestone from Paros depicting a young girl expressing her devotion to her doves. Doves are sacred to the goddess Aphrodite, but I am unsure of the exact relationship between these doves and the girl. Were they her's or did they belong to a temple of Aphrodite? In any case, the hands which carved this grave stele may very well be the same hands which sculpted some of the figures on the Parthenon frieze. The stele is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and its details can be found here.

This is the first piece I've done since my mother's death and, in a way, is a farewell to her and her innocence.

Book of Art

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine passed a handmade book to me. I judged the book by it's cover and immediately thought, "Alright! It must be a sketchbook that you pass on to people—I can't wait to draw something in it."

Alas, it was not. It was simply a book full of lyrics and two CDs. It was well done and made... but I was expecting something much more interactive and engaging—something that would spur my creativity.

I was disappointed, but, with encouragement from friends, I decided to make such a book. I made the book with pages of all different types of materials: plain paper, manuscript paper, lined paper, canvas pad, charcoal paper, hosho paper, etc. I also put photo sleeves in it in case a photographer wants to slip in a picture or if someone finds some inspiring leaf or something flat and wants to share it.

I just completed the book yesterday.
The instructions I put in the book are as follows:

This book is for your artistic expression.
Pick one page and

write
draw
paint
compose
sew
fold
photograph
collage
Do some art.
Be inspired.

You have two weeks to finish.
There are many surfaces provided to express your creativity:

rice paper
charcoal paper (3 colors)
drawing paper
graph paper
watercolor paper
manuscript paper
lined paper
canvas paper
canvas
hosho paper
black paper
plain paper
photo sleeves (for photography or inspiring things)
The medium you choose is not dictated by the page material.

Once done, sign your piece, place the piece of tracing paper back between the pages (for its protection)and give the book back to the maker.
If the artist you received the book from is not the maker, slip the book (in its box) into the pre-paid envelope, located at the back of the book, and mail it.

Out with the Old...

My website plans presented in my last post have not come to fruition until recently. I am now finally making more time for my art and it's promotion. While my website is not updated yet, my design plans can be seen at http://www.rlmacaulay.com/testpage01.htm. I've made little icons for each section of artwork: Painting (paint brushes), Drawing (pencils), Printing (U-gouge tool), Sculpting (wire loop sculpting tool), Mixed Media (scissors) and Design (compasses); you can see these icons in the background of this blog and the website test page.

I have been posting my painting progress on Facebook, but I'm also going to start posting my progress on this blog (for all those non-Facebookers out there).

In the design world, with the help of Drupal, I've been building a new site for Tansey Gallery at http://www.tanseygallery.com (formerly known as Mountain Shadow Gallery). They've gone for the clean black and white approach for their new persona and I've applied what I like to call my "Geisha in Gray" color scheme to their new site—I have some color themes on adobe's kuler.adobe.com if you'd like to look at them.

For now, my painting-in-progress can be seen on my Facebook page.