edicole sacre

I won't have much to show for a while, but I started on a new series this week. Every surface in my studio has photographs on it. I'm mixing and matching elements from photos I took in Florence, Rome and Venice. This series is about what communication between the material world and the divine looks like.

There are large candle stands for tall tapers, and shorter ones with tiers that look like miniature stadium seating and hold votive candles. Some of my favorites are electrical: you put a Euro in the slot and twist on a red glass cylinder and it lights up. In each of these I had lit five candles one for each member of my family. Lighting them was a form of visible prayer, a wish made with fire, wax and thread, that rises like smoke. In some of the source photos the architecture is an important element, in others its mostly shadowed shapes and glow.

I plan to combine the candles with  elements I associate with my family - a painted banjo, or child's accordion for Emily, various bells and a bird for Robin, climbing gear for Parker, C-stand and apple box for Robert, hourglass, quill, tube of paint for me. I'm also toying with the notion of painting a drape across the top and down one side of a few of them. A sort of framing device, but mostly because I adore the look of drapery in still life painting.

I am painting them in two sizes, 16x20 and 18x24. I'll do one 30x40. As of today I've drawn two, and started painting one. I'll be gessoing more canvas today.