Ah, Spring: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor!

May I share? Here it goes(I can't stop myself!)
     Spring means one thing to me: Outdoor bugs will come to life, and they want to bond with me. It is March 20, and where I live that means a ground thaw. So it begins...

     I woke just now from a nap, grabbed my oversized Tshirt and put it on. Damned tag itched, but you just deal with it, acrobatically scratch it out of place, until it's pleasantly un-tucked from shirt, and go about your business, or mine, or something. I began brushing my teeth when I saw, over half the size of my ring finger, yes! A large black, shiny water bug out of the corner of my eye on my left shoulder. I took the brush out of my mouth, and smacked the Pterodactyl off, but couldn't find the damned thing!
   I dropped the toothbrush, and I might say the vibrating brush beating the sink, added a certain, "Je ne sais qua?" to the situation. It was loud! I got the shirt off by getting my right arm out carefully, just incase the dragon bug from Hell was still on me somewhere, then slipping my head out, finally the left arm, and dancing about like a three year old future princess on Meth, attempting to get away from the BEAST, and I didn't even know where it was!
   Having, "Jitter-bugged" my way out of the bathroom, I peeked back in and saw Golliath, holding on under the lip of my vanity table, and I hopped passed it to grab a pretty pink (Seriously?) fly-swatter/world-saver!
   Nabbing my (bad-ass for it's color) weaponry, I landed a nervous if exacting blow to the six-legged DEATH LOBSTER, and crushed the nasty guts out of it.....on my white vanity table. 
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   Victory is a bittersweet mistress, indeed.
(Cue Taps)
tina jones

The Dark Side of Beauty

The earliest records of painting on cave walls record the kill of hunt. Caravaggio presented his bodiless head on canvas to a pope, and Frieda Kahlo painted herself skewered by a rod through her abdomen depicting the most painful moment of life to her at the time. Then perhaps most gripping was "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.

 Beauty is sometimes in the countrysides, sunsets and billowing impressionistic parasols...

Othertimes it reaches into taboo, those things we'd alternately rather not think about, or we think about them when no one is watching....

"Kneeling Nude (The Prayer)"
11x14
Acrylic on Canvas

Passion

"Nude 10"
11x14 Acrylic on Canvas



Passion

“Hot” he says so innocently without notion.                            

Careful where you stand. Guard the seething cauldron.

Flames lick, and stretch, caressing in soothing stings

“Feels good” he says warming by embers that softly sing

With ferocity temporarily tame kinetic tombs.

“I love you” he says. Don’t let it consume

Unless you want it, Lest your tempted to open the gate,

Be forwarned. You tread the territory of fate.

Then there’s no return to cavernous space.

 Watch your heart and guard your face,

Yet I can tell you, it will not harm in it’s throes                     

It protects, feeds on its own and grows,

And you are the flames as much as I.

Dive if you’re brave. I rise dripping, meet heart to eye.

Flames lick wet whips in unquenchable screams.

Tongues in heat froth erotic creams.

Breath burns on skin, sweet acidic warm

Touches dissolve towers built from harm.

And walls fall like so much silk

In a gentle kiss, one another’s milk

Be us both lost or found by the liquid sun in me

Who only asks for all, whose All is all of me.

All of me, and all of you melted, to one that began two.

Unchain, reveal me. I beg, unleash me to you.

I am more than a storm of raining fire

I am more than me, reborn of simple desire.

A third is made, an Us created that is more powerful

Than any singular beginning or awakening hour, full

And mercilessly loving. The monster gloriously untethered

 Viciously entangled and ferociously surrendered.

I don’t know that I can survive this, and I cannot find a spark of care.

Stay with me close, Let me become this. Come with me trembling there.

Let me be more than what you see

And only who I am when I am free.

Sweet insanity, this longing without mistake,

No cold threatens, no isolation and no ache.

Arms hurt for now to hold. Sweet kindness cools and soothes

Through bitter nails and hungry bites with will-weakening  moves.

Sweet hunger starved for satiation,

Primal mind, writhing contemplation

Of single kisses and madly thrashing waves

Of willing partners, each others drenched slaves

It wakes, and cries, walls torn apart,

Dare you look, the cost... is but your heart,

For this passion no eyes yet see,

The win is love, and the prize is me.

Still I understand eyes that in fear cannot bear, .

I’ve seen the hidden places that souls cannot share,

I know fear, and I have compassion

For existence long since in silenced passion.

 I know the heat within, and I know the door.

I know how to close it, and I know that I want more.

The sadness of it is, I know how much I have to share

and crux remains, How much can you bear

Of love?

Tina Jones

Self Love in Death's Arms

  About six or eight years ago, I attended a life drawing studio. The model was thin, and thin isn't what I would normally view as beautiful, but she was graceful and delicate with a few curves of feminity and a great mane of dark hair. I got out one of the sketches I'd done of her, and I'd left out a lot, so a painting was going to take further construction. I began working shadows and lights, and found myself remembering.
 I got very thin last year, certainly not so much as this painting, but it was bad. I had cancer. It was anal squamous cell carcinoma. I'm ok now, infact a little overweight, but I remember the "me" of the time with much tenderness. Months spent in lieing there in pain that medicine couldn't touch, often losing conciousness at the pain, unable to move, and unable to eat. My daily goal was to drink a little water. In exhausted moments, and there were some where there was less pain, daydreaming of painting the memorized ceiling, and meditating to hold on to a degree of sanity, and the quiet that comes with surrender...the acceptance of the respit of death. The "it's going to be ok," I'll rest soon, and the watching of faces of loved ones, whom I didn't want to leave, but "knew" I would, the deepest love for them and compassion at their suffering, they were so beautiful. I had lived a wonderful life afterall, and I was grateful.... In retrospect, there was even a beauty in the fragile state of such horrid illness. Looking at the painting, is at once frightening and heart-rendering. I have the feeling of wanting to pick her up and tell her she'll be ok, that's it ok to let go, and that I love her.
   I underwent a major surgery, and did it really for the love of my family, so they'd know I cared enough for them to try, but I didn't expect it to work. I had nothing left to fight with. Months went by, and so slowly I was able to eat again, move without pain and far beyond my understanding, I'm alive.
   I had seen people die before, and I had attended their needs and comfort. I have held hands and cried with them, and I've seen the peace that comes before they go. I thought I was strong, but I had never been the one who was dieing, the one who went so far into and beyond pain to absolute serenity.
   This is not the first time I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and sure as death must come for all of us one day, it won't be my last. Until then, serenity remains, love abounds and I paint.
tina jones



"Emaciated Nude"
11x14"
Acrylic on Canvas



"Iris" Transformation of a Painting (nude)

It was an ok painting that did of some "Irises" years ago, hence the title.  At the time, there were a few television artists showing how to paint blended strokes. Usually, this is done by double loading a flat brush. One corner is dipped into one color of paint, and the other corner is dipped in another color. The brush is taken to the palette, and brushed back and forth until it leaves a mark transitioning smoothly from one color to the next. The brush is then taken to canvas to make the same kind of mark.

 

Inspired by a photograph of a model I took a handful of years back, and the interest in Van Gogh's "Irises" paintings, and the love of skeletal and muscle structure,  I set out to recreate what I'd created. I was fascinated by the foreground leg, so that's where I began.

 The original completely covered, I began sculpting the form. I added a bench for her to sit on. To remain true to my original painting and the idea of Irises, I put scumbles loosely in the back ground, and tightened up some forms to resemble the flower vaguely. A sheer drapery was added over the bench to reflect the flower petal's shape in hopes that the figure would become part of the flower. The thought led me to look up paintings by Georgia O'keefe for inspiration.

With the form set solidly, I began focus on light and shadow then added color. This is Yellow Ocre over Ivory Black and Titanium White. In the end, more white and black were added to enhance tonality and shift small muscles and bone within the form to make it come forward or recede, reach to light or fade to darkness. The sheer drapery was trimmed leaving only the remaining petal shapes on the bench. These were highlighted and shaded as well, becoming a carving there.

Though there are many Irises in the final work, I felt the focus should be only one.... her, the timeless lady iris, who sits, supple stone in remembrance of a simple work done long ago.

"Iris"

24x30"

Acrylic on Canvas

Is she finished? I don't know. Perhaps she will call again one day. smiles

tina jones

P.S. Read Critique Comments on this work at About.com Painting: http://tinyurl.com/49yb6s5

5/25/2011: "Iris" Has now been featured in Psychology Today magazine!
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergirls/201105/aspergers-bullying-and-self-advocacy