Ascender Rises Above

Plant Seeds Of Expectation In Your Mind; Photo

Hi everyone! I’m happy to pass on the name of the two poster giveaway winners!

Congratulations! I hope you enjoy the prints! Thank you, ArtSnark, for such a fun giveaway!! Thanks to everyone who entered and helped promote the give-away.

Art Has A Voice – Let It Speak; Who Is Ascender?

Jacquelyn Berl (aka Ascender Rises Above ), California.

I live and work in paradise. My apartment *is* my studio; a place where I go to get completely lost in time, a place to dream and play.

Over the years, my studio has grown from one corner to taking over the entire living room. Living and working under the same rooftop is perfect for me. It’s freeing to be begin creating whenever I get the urge, even in the middle of the night.

My workstation powers from sitting to standing – depending on how much I am moving around. I try to keep it tidy, most of the time. My screen sits atop three college books about architectural graphic standards; college was a few years ago (ahem; cough, cough). I hide the regulation bird’s nest of wires and gadgets behind a curtain which unfolds as I power my workstation to standing. It isn’t cutting edge, but then, neither am I. Like me, it usually gets the job done nonetheless.

Other stuff on my desk includes the essential broken coffee cup with assorted pens, a big stack of paper, lists, notes and letters next to the keyboard. I keep my active files in a hanging rack to the left of my workstation. I still use my scanner from time to time, and my workhorse LaserWriter 12/640, so old that the ink cartridges don’t have expiration notices on them; unlike my HP 1200 office inkjet. (grr). I listen to music (Pandora or i-tunes) when painting or doing pastels. I don’t like music playing while working on the computer.

The wall in front of the workstation bland; colorless and devoid of artwork (both my own as well as other peoples). I think it’s better for the creative process that way – less external influence allowing you too focus on balancing the colors in the piece at hand. At one time I had assorted framed Scatterlings on the wall above my desk but found I was forever referencing them and trying to redo aspects I’d thought successful. Do you do that? Besides the whole area is cranked up with radiation from the computer etc anyway; right? (Note the carbon monoxide alarm on the wall; I try not to think about it being there. If it sounded I would have a cow right where I am sitting)

To the left of my workstation is an ancient entertainment center which is the size of a decent sized buffalo, filled with inspiring magazines and books, photo albums and a few of my scrapbooks. I’ve been working professionally as an artist since the age of 24, so over the years I’ve acquired a pretty nice library. I have to limit myself to the amount of books this thing can hold or else the whole room would be full of books — I do try to recycle out the books that have outlived their usefulness about twice a year.

Don’t get me wrong there’s a lot of artwork in my rooms; piled thick with it. It’s just all on the wall behind my workstation when I’m working. Most of these are the larger pieces I’ve been working on.. I keep paintings over the fireplace on rotation through out the rest of the house. I try not to get too attached to seeing them in one spot or I will never be able to part with any of it. I used to keep all sorts of fun items on the mantel but removed them too.

(riddle me this batman – why, oh why, did they put a fire place leading into the hallway?)

On my front door is a large six week calendar where I stick that all-important ’stuff’, postcards, lists, notes of huge importance and a list of paper dimensions, because I never remember anything the slightest bit technical, even down to paper.

This is a a bookcase made for my art supplies; it is quite thin. I go ahead and leave my supplies in the open or I would completely forget what I have and where I have put it. It is in an area that doesn’t get a lot of attention.

Embellishments, feathers, collage, mixed media supplies, glues, beads; glass bottles preserving dried flowers; stamps, inks; critters in the making. In a few minutes you will forget it is there too.

I have begun to seriously took up collecting for future assemblages – next year!

Every year I say “next year”; meanwhile I collect whatever tiny items I find on the ground. This is part of my collection of found items from the last six years. I have realized that I don’t make these assemblages because I am afraid of ruining the items.

I usually work on my standing light table and an easel which collapses down to store between light table and wall. I’m fortunate enough to have a lot of natural light. The light table is quite large and durable, it has the light mechanism built inside … Can you even still find these today? (I got this light table from my former job where I worked as a designer on a marketing team for a state wide newspaper; they cleared them out when the department shifted to computers.)

I have modified the light table to attach permanently to a small work table. I wish the black trays to the right were attached permanently – I want to use them but tend to keep them empty due to the amount of times I have bumped into them and knocked them on the floor. I got tired of picking it all up. (Why don’t I just fix them?)

I tucked two 2-shelf bookcases from IKEA in front of the light table – the perfect size as they look built into the light table.

This area is really quite organized at the moment, due to the fact that I have just finished one brief project and will soon be starting another. My daughter and I are putting finishing touches to a couple of paint-by-numbers for her apartment. (I tossed the instructions to mine and altered the painting style; I am picking up colors she used in hers so there will be a consistent color key). Usually this area is a little chaotic and when I can’t see my desk, or the floor, or find anything, I tidy up and start again.

I have a small coffee table behind the light table which I continually trip over; I keep the answering machine on it; a land line which I rarely pick up. (I wish I could get Victoria’s voice to answer the machine).

Behind the coffee table are doors/windows to a small porch which I sometimes escape to. I have flowers and trees out here. Every year a random flower popped up. I don’t know what this one is. My orange tree behind it needs some food badly.

I grow, dry and press most of the flowers used in my Scatterlings.

Items on my wish list for my apartment/studio/apartment are:
wall of bookcases!
flat files!
An empty wall to paint half with chalkboard paint and half with magnetic paint!
I want a loft… I need a loft… I deserve a loft.

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Check out What’s On My Desk

Ha. Photo

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

I declare laughter to be the highest religious quality. And if we can decide that every year, for one hour, at a certain date, at a certain time, the whole world will laugh (together), it will help to dispel darkness, violence and stupidities – because laughter is a unique human characteristic… It can relax you, it can make you feel light, it can make your world a beautiful experience. It can change everything in your life. Laughter can make life worth living, something to be grateful for.

Buddha

The Things With Feathers; What’s On My Desk, Acrylics on Tile

What’s On My Desk – Golden’s Iridescent and Interference Acrylics on stone tile.

I have wanting to paint this robin since taking his photo in the tea garden earlier this spring. The tile I am painting on is stone; 12″ x 12″, larger than my illuminated tiles. I have am leaving sides unpainted. In talking to people at the Danville Festival many had inquired about wishing to purchase tiles to place them within walls that they are finishing. The sides are still attractive enough to be placed on easels. Other acrylics on stone tiles: Rebirth of Ideas, I Must Not Fear, Not A Word

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson

Dickinson uses the metaphorical image of a bird to describe the abstract idea of hope. Hope, of course, is not an animate thing, it is inanimate, but by giving hope feathers. These feathers enable you to fly to a new hope, a new beginning.

In contrast, broken feathers or a broken wing grounds a person, and conjures up the image of needy person who has been beaten down by life. Their wings have been broken and they no longer have the power to hope.

Hope is a free gift. It exists for all of us. All we must do is not clip the wings of hope and let it fly and sing freely. Its song can be heard over the strangest seas, coldest lands, and in the worst storms. It is a song that never ends as long as we do not let it.

Detail in The Canary by William McGregor Paxton

Paxton, an American Impressionist painter, was the member of the Boston School; known for images of women in beautiful doemestic interiors. He was well known for his extraordinary attention to the effects of light and detail in flesh and fabric. Paxton uses “binocular vision,” in that that only one area in his compositions was entirely in focus, while the rest were somewhat blurred. In this case the focus is on the bird and hand.

I love that idea and imagine the different painterly technique it might require to give this overall effect.

✿•**•.¸¸♥¸¸.•**•✿ 6 days remain on my joint give-away continues over at ArtSnark’s blog – I am giving away two posters for free; See more on her “meet the artist Ascender” post and her “Ascender Studio Tour“. Also a mere 6 days also remain for special pricing on my entire line of limited run prints listed here. Read more about my pricing here. And this is the limited run page to choose from. Here are a few bird inspired prints:

Three In The Bush – Acrylics on Canvas print. Read more about my pricing for it here.