Inspiration - Art Research

 I've recently stumbled upon some much needed inspiration for my work on several different sites.

Acrylic on Canvas Painting, by Angela Canada Hopkins

The first person is Angela Canada Hopkins and she creates representational cellular paintings of cancer. She did this as a way of coping with her father's cancer diagnosis . Also having a father, who is luckily in remission at the moment, with cancer and having a huge cancer scare myself within the last few years it really hits an emotional button. It also though hits an artistic note with me since I've created works in a similar fashion with fibers and a way of approaching my work on canvas and printmaking.

Check out her website here. 

The second is Pharmacopoeia a group of artists who approach medications in a number of ways from how many pills we take in a life time to issues of dealing with lifetime pain treatment vs. surgery.

Sweetie - 2000 

I love how they approach medication and how it  affects our everyday lives. A majority of the pieces are created as garments or accessories to reflect how they are ingrained in our existence just like wearing clothing or even carrying a purse. I really love the garment Sweetie and how medication has been been coated in flavors in order for us to take it much more easily. I've reflecting upon the same idea in regard to children's medication and how they market them as almost candy. 

Check them out here.

Last but not lease I found a wonderful collection of pieces using pill bottles, and being a consumer of a minimum of 4 prescription medications a month, I've been looking for ways to use the vast amount of bottles that are stashed away. 

On left: “Corporate DNA” a helix shaped sculpture by Ron Jones; on right: Rocky Stroup’s “Borrowed Time (13 Years of Pill Poppin’)”

The entire show was focusing on consumption and waste associated with medicine. I'm looking this show as a way of thinking about incorporating the bottles into a new form much was the piece Corporate DNA is created. I've still got a lot to think about using pill bottles and the message I am trying to send.

Read about the show here.


I'm feeling mentally refreshed from looking at these pieces and its going to make my work in the coming months much more interesting. 

Lady Geodon

 Lady Geodon is a lady who will make you twist and turn while you look behind your back. She is not a good friend of mine while she sets you on fire.

Pocket Pill Portrait

It has been an up and down summer. There have been medication changes, switching of doctors, deaths in the family, and little experiments. I was playing around with these small wooden plaques from Michaels Craft Stores and found them an okay surface. I think I might use a bigger plaque next time.

The Paxil Twins

I completely forgot to post about the Paxil Twins when I completed the painting last month. So here it is the Paxil Twins, they are usually taken in multiple doses unless you have the Paxil XR then you only need one of these ladies.

Divine Inspiration

Our Lady of Lithium 

Work has given me a new and inexpensive surface to paint on when I want to make Byzantine inspired work  with pill people. Its just foam insulation covered in a clean foil backside. It cost me around $14 for an entire sheet that was cut down into 4 sections. Not a bad price to make faux religious art.

Oh yeah about the art... A lot of people treat medication like it is the end all solution to everything, sorta like how religion is to me at times. We rely on one thing too much when a combination of things are needed.

Hanging Around

I went into Art Mart in St. Louis and discovered this drawn in the kids section's art board.

My child harassing my Dad's cat. Luckily, he was very tolerant of my daughter's pokes and prods.

I've been absent for a few weeks because nothing has really gone on artistically for me. I've gone to St. Louis with my daughter for a few days, got incredibly ill from a stomach virus, teaching various summer camps, and trying to develop an after school program to teach kids art. I've done some new paintings here and there but I'll post those later. Just letting people I'm not dead, I'm just teaching.

Belles of the Ball, Runner Up Miss Meth.

Belles of the Ball, Runner Up Miss Meth. 

Meth is more of in what we call the "county" part of the area I live in so it becomes a runner up. 

Belles of the Ball, Chastity Promise Ball Queen, Dropped Acid.

Chastity Promise Ball Queen, Dropped Acid.

Yes you read it correctly, the chastity prom queen dropped acid.

Belles of the Ball, Homecoming Court Ritalin

Belles of the Ball, Homecoming Court Ritalin

Ritalin is more of an over prescribed medication to children and teens so it deserves a place on the home coming court instead of a crown.

Belles of the Ball: Home Coming Queen Roofie

Home Coming Queen Roofie

Even more of the Belles of the Ball, this one is the roofies passed around at the home coming dance.

Belles of the Ball

Prom Queen 'Tussin

I've been working on a small series of watercolors taking a stab at the south, where I live of course, and chastity balls but each "belle of the ball" will be named after a different drugs teenagers like to dabble in to get high and the pledges had to "sign" every year around prom season which promised we wouldn't do drugs, drink, or have sex. (The sex part of the pledge was a part of the catholic school I attended pledge for prom season)

Silk Screening madness

You know I like cute stuff. and I've been working on some silk screens of lovey robots and unicorns and I turned them into new pouches. I think I might make these into purses but I'm still up in the air about it.

Class Clown NyQuil

Class Clown NyQuil, watercolor on canvas board, 9 x 12 inches. 

Class President Sudafed

Another children's medication and another stereotypical school picture background with Class President Sudafed.

Lil' Miss Children's Tylenol

I've been working on canvas board that I have laying around the studio for a few paintings. I forgot how i prefer to work in watercolors on these things. They just work much better.

OKay here is the low down about the next few paintings. I'm taking a stab at horrible school pictures of childhood and the medicines I had to endure. Lil' Miss Children's Tylenol is sitting on one of fake benches with the horrible fountain background. I really hated children's tylenol in any form, especially the liquids and the chewables, I still shiver from even thinking about the taste of them.

Anyways I have been watching a lot of documentaries about medicated america, and the one that stuck out most recently to me was Generation RX, about over medicating out children with psychiatric drugs. Sooo... now I'm going to make a few paintings of children in bad school pictures as their childhood medications.

My Little Pill Pony Painting

My Little Pill Pony Painting. Acrylic on canvas.

I need to make more of these pieces along with my pill ponies with playsets because I really like these pieces personally. Its hard to find the knock off ponies I like to use for these pieces but I need to look at the bargain barn some more during the week. Oh well off to make more pieces...

Governess Cialis

Coverness Cialis will take care of all your needs while you recover.

Mme Pristique

My newest Pill Doll, Mme Pristique. She's a very high and mighty antidepression drug, she high and mighty that I had a bad reaction to her when I took her once. I've noticed a trend, I see medications, especially the antidepressants as fancy ladies.

Klor-con Self portrait

The first real self portrait I've created as a pill person. This is my self as my Klor-con. I actually cannot go without my potassium pills for more then a day or so my other medication's side effects become very strong and annoying. The background is based upon the backyard at the home I grew up in. We lived on the bottom of a large hill and we had a large yard ourselves. It was a great home but we eventually left it because of a drive by shooting and the area going down hill.

My Little Pill Pony on Canvas Preview

If you knock on my door a unicorn will impale you

Just a quick interjection here but I have to say I am tired of people coming to my door and trying to sell a service to me. Primarily its, "can I mow your yard?" less then two days after we've mowed it. It is truly just as annoying as cult members coming to your door wanting you to drink their kool-aid.

Frick and Frack Paintings

I was thinking about the good and bad of medications and old cartoons from the 1950s. I feel like all I am missing now is a wascally wabbit.

Frick and Frack with strawberries

Two small canvases for two lil pill people I call Frick and Frack.

Sometimes I make other stuff

You've may have already noticed it through my facebook page but I've been making polymer clay jewelry. I like to have other things open to people who like my art so I've made some cute silly things. I quite like making these little things. It helps to break up the days in between paintings.

My Little Pill Pony with playsets

I decided to take the Pill Ponies to another level and give them all playsets they are permanently attached to improve their visibility. They seemed like they were lacking in something and when I went to the craft store the other day I found these round wooden discs and they were perfect bases for the ponies. If you notice closely the tress are actually old prescription bottles and yes those are expired prescriptions on the trees. (Hey candy can grow on the trees in the original, why not pills in my version?) I am quite happy with my pill ponies more then ever and I'm on the hunt for more My Little Ponies to appropriate into Pill Ponies.

Food is my second love

Contents of a toddler's bento box: Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, rasberries, earth's best whole what blueberry mini waffles, yo-kids mixed berry yogurt tube, Anne's Organics Cheddar Bunnies, banana, Apple-Cinnamon pouch.

I've not talked about how food is a good source of keeping myself stable with my medical conditions. The bento (Box lunch) above is actually my daughter's breakfast with morning and afternoon snacks for daycare (they daycare center provides a decently healthy lunch). I really make sure she eats healthy because my kiddo has a tendency to get sick easily. We've been through ear tubes, several stomach and sinus bugs, and general icky whatnots. I know might seem like a lot but I was told by her teachers that she was bugging for more snacks at school so I had to pack more. Keeping these bento boxes help us eat better at home and keep a steady health diet.

Bargain Adventures

I had an adventurous day going from getting a new tube of paint, finding classic my little ponies (and one of the ponies from the recent happy meals!), eating lunch and stuffing myself at TOPS BBQ, and eerily gawking at the tent revival being set up next door, and back home to start on some new paintings. Now I've got to go think about making some dinner...

The Mighty Collage Box

This is my mighty collage box. I collect all of my medical materials in here. I save all of my old pill bottles CVS bags, and other medical thingies in here. I often can grab something out here and make something that works along my paintings in here.

Klor-Con Self Portrait Painting Sneak Peak

I just wanted to share a quick little painting on wood I'm completing. This one is more of a self portrait with myself as Klor-Con, or potassium pills.

Madame Celexa

I've really liked looking at medication in the way I look classical portraiture from the 18th century on back. I'm raising up medication like the people in the portraits. I've had it in my mind to make a doll in the similar style the Duchess of Codine is painted and keeping with reusing medical equipment the lower half of the body is made with a pill bottle her upper body is stuffed with rubber medical gloves.

My Little Pill Ponies

It isn't obvious I watch a lot of my little ponies with my child? Actually I do blame watching too much of the aforementioned show. I've actually had these fake MLPs sitting around the studio for a week now after buying them at the "bargain barn" section of a local Good Will store. I've thought about taking pieces of wood and making complete "play sets" for these babies, but my intent is to play upon the idea of the "cutie mark" from the show MLP and how it reflects upon the pony's personality. They're all slightly over medicated, but the white pony especially is with the tweaked out look it has. (Its my favorite)

Rumination

Have you ever dealt with Rumination before? I tend to ruminate over a lot of different things especially my body and health. These images are from a book I worked on for teaching art to high school students and the professor made us keep an "idea book". I tend to obsess over thins and the circles are constantly repeated as a way of obsessive thinking, or rumination.

Happy Mother's Day

I hope all of my mommy readers out there are having a wonderful mother's day. I personally don't think you need to have given birth to your child to celebrate this day. I often treated my grandmother just like my mother because she was there the same amount as my actual mother.

This little embroidery sample comes from my 2nd year in fiber arts during my under graduate years. We were using text in our art as a form of communicating them just with imagery and I came up with this funny little piece. I think it should be the name of show about children's medicine one day perhaps...

artist's statement