Ariel Elizabeth Churnin: Geometric Symbolism: Fall 2008

September 2008 began my second year of the New York Studio School MFA program. After summer of making art in relative freedom, I felt pressure to create a solid and serious body of work. Although the MFA show was over six months away, anxiety often clouded my mind. For example, I wondered how I could focus on a single subject when my tendency is to make multiple bodies of work that relate on a grander scale. The lesson that I learned during MFA 2 year was self trust: finding the courage to pursue what feels right, even if it means taking a different path than expected. Here is a sampling of works created during the first half of the year.

Transcriptions for the Fall 2008 Benefit: The Four Elements
Every year the New York Studio School has a benefit auction and dinner which raises scholarship money. Graham Nickson, the dean, selects a theme for the year and students make transcriptions (a personalized version of a copy) of works of art related to this theme. This year's theme was the four elements. I selected paintings that I saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: two by Nicolas Poussin, a French painter who studied in Italy, one by Eugene Delacroix and one by El Greco. The first Poussin transcription was given to Sean Scully as a gift from the school and the second disappeared from the benefit!

Transcription of Nicolas Poussin's

Summer: Ruth and Boaz (1660-1664)

9" x 12" oil on wood

October 2008

Transcription of Nicolas Poussin's

Landscape with a Calm (1650-51)

9" x 12" oil on wood

October 2008

Transcription of Eugene Delacroix's

Abduction of Rebecca (1846)

9" x 12" oil on wood

October 2008

Transcription of El Greco's View of Toledo (1597)

14" x 9" oil on wood

October 2008

Four Horses: Watercolors

While painting the transcriptions, I made little watercolors from drawings of my mother's horses. The large oil-paint versions did not turn out as well as the small watercolors. Bigger isn't always better!

Two Horses

10" x 14" watercolor on cardboard

October 2008

One Horse

10" x 14" watercolor on cardboard

October 2008

Diamond Eating

10" x 14" watercolor on cardboard

October 2008

Visit from the Vet

10" x 14" oil on wood

October 2008

Geometry: One obstacle of the MFA 2 program is the desire to find a unique subject matter for the show. Only later did I realize that trying so hard for something special can blind you from making what you like to make. In the beginning, I used other people's images for inspiration, placing characters from my grandmother Katherine Kilgore's tapestries into Nicolas Poussin's landscapes. Katherine made a weaving of my brothers and I dancing under a tree to the music of a lute player. I wore stag antlers, Joel wore a wolf mask and Ian was a baby jester. The paintings of the series begin depicting a stag and wolf holding a bundled baby and became increasingly geometric.

Stag, Wolf and Child

apx. 30" x 20" acrylic on wood

November 2008

Stag and Wolf Octagon
apx. 40" x 40" acrylic on wood
November 2008

Octagon Study
20" x 30" charcoal on paper
October 2008

Triangle Dream: In October I had a dream of two triangles, representing the male and female touching at an apex. The male triangle is normally pointing upwards but in the dream I felt that the purple upwards-pointing triangle represented myself and the light blue downwards triangle was the male energy. Curious. The dream prompted a study of geometric symbology, sacred geometry and platonic solids. Two triangles united forms the Star of David. At that time in my life, the male and female energies were not ready to make the union of opposites. So I painted my feelings about relationships using triangle imagery.