Drawing in Mirrors

Imaginary Mother

Sometimes when I'm working, I get a phrase stuck in my head, and with the left piece the phrase has been "imaginary mother". It might end up being the title of the piece, or inspiring the title, but we'll see. I see these pieces as mother and daughter.

As my twenties roll on I start feeling the tightening of my reproductive organs, threatening to strangle me if I go another month without reproducing. It's making me think a lot about my life in big, long-term ways. My mind works like this: if you really like something about your life, it'll just be like that until you die. You may as well just fast-forward to the end.
That makes me antsy and makes me question everything.
The imaginary mother isn't comfortable with being done yet.

Self-portraits

Self Portrait, 30"x44" pen and watercolor on paper- in progess

I am the model in almost all of my work, but I don't consider most of my pieces to be self-portraits. Usually I'm trying to embody a feeling in my art, and looking at myself helps to take me where I want to go with the piece. I think the human body can hold a great deal of emotion, and that is interesting.
A few days ago the drawing I was working on gave birth- a piece of paper came out from under the drawing after I had been working on it for several weeks. I starting this piece with the urge to draw something more real- maybe draw more like I know what I'm doing. The piece I have been working on is messy and frustrating, so I began the new daughter-drawing. After a few minutes I realized that I wasn't using myself as a tool in this drawing, I was drawing myself. It's distinctly different, and I like the piece very much. It makes me excited about drawing. I could write volumes about myself and the flesh and the blood and the eyes, but I'll try to let the drawing speak for itself for a while.

unidentified

Sometimes the urge to get something out of my head and onto a piece of paper is overwhelming. So tonight I was there, tearing my crinkled paper and putting it up with duct tape I found in the kitchen.

I had a dream the other night that I kept finding a body covered in horizontal cuts. The memory of picking the limp body out of the dirt was very real. The image of her sliced up legs was very vivid. I don't remember her face or much else about her. The killer knew I would always find her body, so he wanted to kill me too. Things like that aren't as scary in my dreams, because time doesn't always move in  a straight line, it skips around. I was trying to lock him out of my house, and I was trying to call the police without him noticing. I always do things like that, and I can't help but see that I even love being sneaky in my dreams.

Work in progress

I've been working on this piece at home, which has been a lot of fun. Today it reminded me of falling backwards down my friends stairs and cutting the back of my heel as a kid. It was rainy and cloudy like today. All summer sand kept getting in the cut, and it took months to heal. It reminded me of my dream last night, where I pulled a little straw out of my heel. It was folded in half under the skin, and I had been wondering why my foot was bothering me.  It reminds me of my numb sleepy hands and the way they don't work in the morning. We'll see where it goes now..
I see a bunch of wiggly strings getting tied up at the ends.

Sleeping Beauty

Goodnight Sleeping Beauty, This piece SOLD in my last show (coming down this evening). I'm glad she's found a good home. :-)

The Power of Self

So if you scroll down down down down, you'll see my name, Kathryn LaRanger, as an honorable mention in the "Artists Wanted- The Power of Self" competition. It was a good experience, and I'm hoping to do more juried exhibitions/online art competitions.

http://www.artistswanted.org/self/

New work is on the horizon..