On my desk

Updates from my desk

Family Ties

I have begun a series of studies based on journal entries and dreams I have had. The theme is a meditation on some family-of-origin relationships and history that I have begun to unpack these past few years. I longed to write a book about it all but don’t consider myself an effective writer. When I asked myself how I might process all the complicated feelings and beliefs I have, I landed on what comes naturally, painting.

I am a trained grief counselor and am well aware of the power of telling your story, your way. My truth matters. It’s something I often have to remind myself as the middle-kid, bandaid sibling who has always seen my role as the peacekeeper, the one who was responsible for bringing everyone together even if it meant I had to hide my truth and my feelings in the process. My parents are deceased and the remainder of my family have essentially abandoned me for a deranged story they have conjured about me that apparently makes them feel less shame, less embarrassment for their own perceived shortcomings and abuse. It’s one of the most complicated and painful grief experiences I have had to grapple with and I have experienced quite a bit of loss. Mental illness can destroy families and the souls of those who are fighting to preserve what is good in a family.

I hope this series will evolve slowly and thoughtfully for me. My intention is to take my time and allow the imagery and feelings to spill out in their own way and time. I want to respect this process in order to honor my parents who worked so hard to create a family based on shared memories, some roads that had no road maps and love. It will be an intensely private process and outcome but I hope the imagery that emerges will have some universal messages for people as well.

Some studies from my sketchbooks:

New Traditions

This past Christmas as I watched my three adult children and their partners take in traditional items that mean ALOT to me didn’t seem to hit them in the same way. It got me thinking, what will their traditions be? What sorts of things will they collect to refelct this season? Their partners have different traditions of course as well as religious traditions. What imagery will they want to surround themselves with (if any)?

I asked them some questions about this - even asked about the traditional red and green color palette and if that was important to them. Their answers were informative and inspiring to me.

I’ve been developing ideas for Christmas tree toppers for the 25 - 35 audience. They are shaking up our ideas of the old world order and their future trditions and imagery/color palette choices will reflect this.

Here are some of my ideas I’ve been creating with paper maches and acrylic gouache. They are prototypes but the bug will go to my son Parker and the owl to my son Simon. I made my daughter and her husband a felt Santa developed from an illustration I did as part of my 50 figures series.

Dung Beetle - to roll away the crap from the year before and clear the energy for the new year.

Owl - gazing over the family to bring greater connectedness and wisdom

Santa flying over a village to bless the communities around the world - this one is the most in process of the three paper mache tree toppers.

Felt Santa created from my illustration:

Word Daily

An ode to ignored emails…

Does anyone else get emails on a daily that they do not unsubscribe to because they think they’ll get to them at some point but actually rarely do?

For me, one of these is Word Daily. I want to have better vocabulary. I thought I would play with some lettering and spot illustrations/doodles from my sketchbooks for a bit. The lettering is not fussy, just helps me learn the word.

The making of a whale

June 25, 2014

Follow me on Instagram to follow my progress on my newest Beasts series piece: a humpback whale diptych ! http://instagram.com/janemhoughton

The space where my Beasts series will hang come October: the Vip room in the Hanover Theatre, Worcester, MA USA

The progression of mixing just the right color for the whale's body. I'm going for a sea glass and sea weed palette!

the first under layers for the whale piece. It is a diptych on two 36" square panels

under coat of the polkadot seaweed pattern

I am determined to get the eye right. It's incredible how human a humpback whale's eye is!

About Jane

Every time I start a new series of works I start with a sense of wonder, a speeding up of my pulse, a feeling like I can’t catch up to the things I want to express and the places I want the work to take me.