Stace and Wallpaper Kids

After the Anahata gang left, I continued to make wallpaper people. but I will back up just a little. Our partner at Apakabar Villas, Wayan, had just finished building a beautiful 4 bedroom rental home down the road from Apakabar, Villa Paradiso. Since Rob and I are co-owners in this venture, Wayan graciously said I could change anything I wanted in the interior decoration (it was pretty much done when I arrived) so I took him at his word and starting taking down all the hideous mass produced Balinese "Motel Art" from the walls and went on a several week odyssey to find "real" art. Well, having just come off of this incredibly creative and inspiring week with Anahata and the group, I was highly motivated to make my own art for Villa Paradiso. I had brought many photocopied faces with me for the Wallpaper People project, including some of my kids, Jesse and Corey. I had been staying down at Villa Paradiso during the Anahata retreat and had my eye on 2 really bad paintings hanging up on the ceiling practically in the living room (Balinese like to hang paintings way up near the ceiling, it is a strange thing.) Well, I kept eyeing these horrible paintings, BUT they were in KILLER handcarved wood Balinese frames and they were canvases...Now I havent ever painted on a canvas, in fact I havent painted much at all. But those stupid Balinese figures in the paintings on the ceiling kept calling to me "Gesso! Matte Medium! Gesso!" So I yanked them down, slathered on the gesso and went to town creating Wallpaper People (with out the wallpaper substrate) on these canvases, using my sons Jesse and Corey's faces as the subjects.

There was something really satisfying about gesso-ing over this really BAD art.You can see the painting over the window in the center. I wish I had taken a closer "Before" photo, but you get the idea.
The bad Bali Motel Painting was given a new life as my older son Jesse.JesseThe matching bad Bali Motel Painting was across the room, it became
my younger son Corey.CoreyWhen my kids arrived in Bali with their Dad 2 weeks later, they saw their paintings hanging in the dining room.
Speechless. NOT the speechless I would have invisioned. They thought they looked like girls. No other comment. Oh well they are teenagers, 13 and 17.
I didn't take it personally. I loved the paintings.
Still do.
At least I got Corey to pose with his.
So here they are in their new home.
The last Wallpaper Painting I did was a picture of Dicky,
Wayans 5-year old nephew. I had a beautiful photo of him when he was 3, so I brought that with me in the group of photos to Anahata's class.
I covered up another bad Balinese Budda Motel painting from the house with loads of gesso and probably had the most fun with this one.
I attribute that to the fact that I did it at the end of the trip, I was under the gun to get it done, with not much time, so there was virtually no THINKING involved, I just had to go with that creative process that comes from that unexplainable source. I also feel it was the best one yet simply because it wasn't coming from the thought part of the brain, it was more intuitive.
Now Dicky is only 5, he has never been outside that little village of Amed. People don't really give gifts like paintings to each other, so he had no preconceived notions about looking like a girl or anything else for that matter. I think he was pretty delighted with this rendition of himself.