Annie Blazejack

Peter's Drawing Machine (Bernini Copy)

2012-02-20T23:09:00.002-05:00

Snake Queen

2012-02-20T23:08:00.000-05:00

Snake Den

2012-02-17T18:23:00.000-05:00

Joe with Fish

2012-02-17T18:19:00.000-05:00

Clouds

2012-02-17T18:18:00.001-05:00

Beet Woman

2012-02-17T18:17:00.000-05:00

Beet Bread

2012-02-17T18:15:00.001-05:00

Sometimes beets and sunshine are rendered the same way. Because in these paintings, beets and sun are the same.

Sunlight in a bottle

2012-02-17T18:13:00.001-05:00

This transportation method is slow and unreliable, but we believe it preserves the flavor best.

Sun Tea, or Sun Preserves

2012-02-17T18:11:00.000-05:00

Snakes

2012-02-17T18:08:00.001-05:00

A painting for the wintertime should expand the sun.

Scroll

2011-11-21T19:11:00.000-05:00

Clouds

2011-11-21T19:09:00.000-05:00

Birthday Cakes, 1-5

2011-07-17T15:36:00.000-04:00

Printing Paintings

2011-07-17T15:30:00.002-04:00

A blob of paint is brushed onto the first painting, then transferred down the line of paintings by pressing each painting face-to-face with its neighbors. A new blob is added to the second painting, and printed down the line. Then the third gets its blob, etc.

Decoys and Decoy Decoys

2011-07-17T15:26:00.000-04:00

Painting About Painting

2011-07-17T15:23:00.000-04:00

Haiku Paintings

2011-07-17T15:22:00.000-04:00

Geddes

2011-07-15T16:47:00.001-04:00

Copies of Famous Paintings

2011-07-15T16:43:00.000-04:00

Prophetic Pairs

2011-07-15T16:41:00.000-04:00

Parade

2011-07-15T16:37:00.002-04:00

Alien Desert

2011-07-15T16:34:00.000-04:00

Meteor Shower

2011-07-15T16:32:00.000-04:00

Joe

2011-07-15T16:27:00.001-04:00

My brother has taken hundreds of pictures like these. Maybe I will paint them all.

Circles

2011-07-14T22:32:00.000-04:00

Talking Brushstrokes

2011-07-14T11:20:00.002-04:00

Darger's Monsters

2011-07-14T11:18:00.002-04:00

Darger's Monsters Live in Mountains

2011-07-14T11:16:00.000-04:00

Friends

2011-07-14T11:13:00.000-04:00

Abstracted Suburban Roads

2011-07-14T11:09:00.000-04:00

Other Artists' Portraits

2011-07-13T17:12:00.001-04:00

St. Thecla's Autobaptism

2011-07-13T17:07:00.001-04:00

Illustrating scenes from the Acts of Paul and Thecla

Peacock Hunt

2011-07-12T22:10:00.002-04:00

The citizens of the Village of Pinecrest unite to celebrate the flora and fauna of our sub-tropical suburb. Tired of adhering to the geographically, environmentally, historically, seasonally, and meteorologically irrelevant Thanksgiving tradition, community members gather in the Gardens to feast in Floridian style: Local. Free-range. Organic. Peacock rotisserie.

Carousel

2011-07-12T22:07:00.001-04:00

Four Horses

2011-07-12T22:05:00.001-04:00

Joe Fishes

2011-07-12T22:01:00.002-04:00

Five Feasts

2011-07-12T21:58:00.002-04:00

All of these feasts were painted in the same day.

Beet Feasts

2011-07-12T21:55:00.003-04:00

After a utensil-less performance.

Snakes!

2010-12-28T15:21:00.000-05:00

Moths from November

2010-12-28T15:19:00.002-05:00

By the Seashore

2010-12-28T15:16:00.001-05:00

Ghost in Hand

2010-12-11T21:56:00.004-05:00

The ghost is a photograph taken from the Betty Huestis marionette collection at Providence Children's Museum.

Zoom In

Tree Candles

Ship at Sea

2010-12-11T21:55:00.001-05:00

Paintings with Florida, a Houseplant, and Coloring Book Moths

2010-12-11T21:49:00.008-05:00

All the Costumes We've Ever Worn

2010-10-25T20:13:00.003-04:00

Can you list all your Halloween costumes?

Forest Candles

2010-10-25T20:13:00.001-04:00

Everglades

2010-10-25T20:12:00.002-04:00

Birthdays

2010-10-25T20:02:00.003-04:00

Festival

2010-09-30T20:45:00.000-04:00

Third Fig

2010-09-30T20:40:00.002-04:00

We know we shouldn't swim in this storm.

pretend rainbow

2010-09-29T22:15:00.000-04:00

it's raining forever

Weaving

2010-09-25T13:25:00.004-04:00

part of a simultaneous performance with Geddes

September 12 in 12

2010-09-19T14:03:00.011-04:00

My bedroom window is on the left.

In long-distance collaboration with Geddes & Janelle.

POWER LINES AND SKY SWIMMER; SEA AND SHORELINE, MAP VIEW; JULIANNE

2010-09-16T17:32:00.002-04:00

CASTLE AND SIDEWALK

2010-09-16T17:29:00.002-04:00

This spindly castle is ‘A’ shaped because I live in it. The sidewalk promotes pedestrian safety and encourages visitors.

SNAKE BURROW IN A HILL

2010-09-16T17:26:00.001-04:00

The mountain’s snow-covered peak and the clouds are the same.

VALLEY STUDY

2010-09-16T17:18:00.002-04:00

My drawing teacher favored several techniques for creating the illusion of space in a painting. Sometimes I favor these techniques without caring whether I’ve achieved any 3-D illusion. Overlap objects. Provide more detail in the foreground. Provide more color intensity in the foreground. Make far-away objects smaller. Remember rules for perspective. Let objects near the horizon line blur a little bit. Put more marks in the foreground (use more paint pigment, or graphite, or charcoal, or pastel, etc.) How many of these tricks can you play without creating depth?

CASTLE WITH SUGGESTIVE DOORS

2010-09-16T17:15:00.003-04:00

And flying flags.

POOL SCENE

2010-09-16T17:12:00.001-04:00

If one day I become very wealthy and self-indulgent, I’ll buy 40 acres of grassland, and dig a swimming pool whose water level is conterminous with ground level. With a diving board.

KITTY CAT HOUSES I and II

2010-09-16T09:47:00.002-04:00

The scene I could see from my attic window at 48 Pratt. Then the same landscape, further abstracted.

CASTLE AND RAINBOW

2010-09-16T09:46:00.001-04:00

As a girl scout, I camped once at the Koreshan State Historic Site in central Florida. The campsite is on the land once colonized by a cult called the Koreshan Unity, whose members believed that the entire universe existed within a giant, hollow sphere. I mis-understood this: I thought the earth was the bit trapped within this giant, hollow sphere. As if the sun were a sort of peach-pit suspended inside of the earth, and we lived just below the peach skin. In this world, would rainbows be upside-down?

CONFLAGRATION

2010-09-16T09:40:00.002-04:00

When I am an old woman, I will title every one of my paintings ‘Conflagration,’ after a poem my brother wrote in the fourth grade and in order to celebrate passionate painting. I think this is a castle burning under water.

UNDERWATER CASTLE

2010-09-16T09:37:00.001-04:00

This castle has put down stubby roots.

COUNTDOWN PAINTING

2010-09-16T09:35:00.001-04:00

Walking up and down Wickenden street, I tore down all the telephone poll posters whose advertised events had already occurred. It was drizzling, and the posters’ ink ran. I chopped them up and organized them by date and price.

HOUSES MAP

2010-09-16T09:33:00.001-04:00

On this map of Providence’s lower east side, I marked all the places I’ve lived, and listed my housemates.

PINK SHELVES

2010-09-16T09:31:00.001-04:00

I installed these shelves in my bedroom. I was proud of them throughout my stay at the 75 Brook apartment. When I moved, I abandoned them in my basement.

CLOUD KAYAK

2010-09-16T09:24:00.002-04:00

As I dreamed a few nights ago, I realized that I was dreaming. And so I was allowed to fly. I flew around a department store. When I realized that a flying dreamer needn’t inhabit a department store, I flew into my room. My bedside light wouldn’t turn on. Why not? As the dreamer of my dream, I was an honorary queen. Other royalty lived over the hill. They had taken my light bulb to assert their power.

VIRTUAL REALITY FEST: in a perfect world

2010-09-15T18:33:00.002-04:00

All of the dishes on these shelves are based on objects I carry with me from apartment to apartment. I don’t want to carry all the contents of a house with me wherever I go. But neither do I want to depend upon my friends and family to provide for me. Do you see the conflict? On the one hand, I want quality frying pans and pots with matching lids. I want sharp kitchen knives and carpets and sofas. I want ladles and can openers. Can’t I have all this and also be able to migrate from house to house, city to city. Must I own a car? Must I own a skillet? Must I schlep my skillet around in my car’s trunk?
My friend John believes that every house should be permanently furnished with the set of objects that most perfectly compliment its architecture.

LIGHTNING CLOUDS AND MULTI-COLORED SKY; WOMAN AND GREEN RIVER

2010-09-15T18:28:00.004-04:00

These pieces of paper were color-mixing palettes before they became paintings.

HOUSE ON FIRE

2010-09-15T18:23:00.002-04:00

Painters can imagine houses that don’t follow the rules of 3-D space. Also note the fire in this third floor window.

ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR DANCE PARTY

2010-09-15T14:55:00.004-04:00

Barrington beach with yellow overcast

Embracing Almonds

2010-06-01T20:22:00.004-04:00

Frequency of Solitary v. Embracing
Almonds in Food-Grade Mixed Nut Bag:
A Study Sponsored by
The Museum of Miniature Embraces

Solitary:
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIIIIIIII
IIIII

Embracing:
IIIIIII

The Museum of Miniature Embraces

2010-05-19T22:40:00.006-04:00

Maggie Ewing and I built a museum. We were drinking tea, cracking almonds with pliers and a hammer and a can opener.

Later that day...

2010-05-19T22:37:00.002-04:00

This swimming pool (depicted in plan) was my paint-mixing surface for 11 other paintings. Now the colors are submerged and framed by tiles.

Gardening

2010-05-19T22:29:00.001-04:00

Fields

2010-05-19T22:12:00.003-04:00

Geddes posted all of our paintings on officiallyanartist.blogspot.com

A May Conversation Begins

2010-05-19T21:49:00.005-04:00

On Monday morning, we spread blue tarps across Geddes's living room floor. We encircled ourselves with paints and paper scraps, brushes and buckets of water. We sat facing each other: the mirrored heads of the Queen of Spades, digging into their paints.

See the Sea

2010-05-03T14:22:00.003-04:00

Nocturnal, Submerged

2010-05-03T14:16:00.001-04:00

An April Dozen

2010-05-03T14:13:00.002-04:00

A fiery pair.

Imagine Spring!

2010-03-28T21:19:00.006-04:00

I hold a fire in the palms of my hands; songbirds gather around the warmth.

These flowers fill the city with heavy sex scents; bees arrive.

A bird sounds an alarm.

Twelve Hour Painting Date

2010-03-28T21:10:00.004-04:00

Yesterday Geddes Levenson and I spent all day making paintings together. We held image conversations: She would paint something for 1 hour, I'd paint a 1 hour response to her painting, then she'd respond to mine, and so on. Geddes posted the conversations on her blog.
This painting depicts the fair state of Florida!

enveloped

2010-03-21T22:39:00.002-04:00

if everyone I knew lived in my neighborhood

2010-03-01T23:04:00.006-05:00

I've been making several dozen little drawings. I work on them simultaneously: I'll add india ink to the drawings that need heavy black lines, then gesso to those that need white fields. I'll do a round with the gold marker, a round with the green pencil...
Once every page had something on it, I spread my drawings over all the horizontal surfaces of my room. I made a list of 50 people who don't know how much I like them, and then chose a drawing for each person. Now I'll finish each drawing with a particular friend in mind.

The simplest drawings are my favorites. I drew a lot of circles.

Some include poems assembled from found paper scraps.

This one depicts an island in the clouds.

I love you.

2010-02-13T22:52:00.005-05:00

I want to have just one valentine this year. I want to give all my art 'n crafted hearts to one special person -- somebody who doesn't expect them. It's a valentine in the spirit of "all around the world there may be folks singing tunes/about the love of other folks that they barely knew," and, "someone somewhere might be singing about you."

The Inevitability of Christmas

2010-02-11T22:42:00.004-05:00

Every Christmas my mother and I assemble our fake tree. The tree must be 20 years old; we ought to be able to erect it by memory.These are the directions, gilded and preserved. They diagram how wire-veined boughs hook into the trunk.

We store our tree in a crumbling cardboard box -- it juts precariously over the edge of its shelf, threatening Dad's car all year long. We fetch it from the garage, carry it gingerly, alert for mice or lizards, sure that some Floridian creature has nested in its plastic boughs and will be waked by this jostling.
Branches scratch our shins and forearms as we wrestle each into place, perk up the flattened wire, arrange the needles to look 'natural.' I don't think we enjoy building our tree, but the tradition feels necessary and inevitable. We drink egg nog, untangle lights, replace broken bulbs, search for ornament hooks, hang glass balls and bells to cover up the tree's barer sections.

Vows

2010-02-09T19:06:00.002-05:00

for Cormac and Lindsay

Instructions: Sun Tea

2010-02-08T20:00:00.004-05:00

CHOOSE YOUR TEA. RED TEAS ARE IDEAL:
ROOIBOS POMEGRANATE HONEYBUSH
RASPBERRY CRANBERRY ACAI
COLLECT GLASS JARS.

ON A SUNNY DAY.
STEEP THE TEA WITH COOL WATER
MAKE AS MANY SHADES OF RED AS POSSIBLE
KEEP THE LIDS ON YOUR JARS
NOTE WHICH SORT OF TEA IS IN WHICH JAR
STEEPING TAKES A FEW HOURS
SLOW STEEPING MAKES SWEETER, MORE MELLOW TEA

PAINT SIGNS.
ON SCRAPS OF WOOD
THEY SHOULD READ
DANGER
FREE
SUN
TEA
THE SIGNS OUGHT TO BE BRIGHT AND VISIBLE FROM THE ROAD
(WRITE ‘DANGER’ IN RED LETTERS)

SUN TEA DOESN’T GET HOTTER THAN ABOUT 130° F
BACTERIA MIGHT GROW
THEY’RE CALLED Alcaligenes viscolactis
CAFFEINE CAN HELP KILL BACTERIA
I THINK YOU’RE NOT IN MUCH DANGER
SOUTHERN MOTHERS HAVE BEEN STEEPING SUN TEA SINCE FOREVER
STILL --
'DANGER'

SET UP YOUR SUN TEA STAND.
CHOOSE A SPOT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD THAT’S SHADY AND GRASSY
TABLE CHAIRS LEMONS IN A JAR SUGAR HONEY DIXIE CUPS ICE CUBES A SPOON JARS OF SUN TEA

SIT AND WAIT.
SOMEBODY WILL WANT A CUP OF SUN TEA.

polar bear shake

2010-02-08T19:52:00.002-05:00

My mother and I do an impression of this polar bear.

shadows through the power plant smoke

2010-02-08T19:40:00.002-05:00

From our living room window, we see a quintessential Providence-scape: a vast parking lot, a highway on-ramp (under construction), a Portuguese Catholic church, the dumpsters behind the Coffee Exchange, the three smoke stacks from the power plant (and the three red lights at their tops with blinking periods that never align.) Sunlight filtering through the smokestacks is bent a little bit, so that the shadows it casts on the living room wall seem to wobble in and out of focus. Here are shadows from Arielle's aloe plant and a tree-shaped Christmas ornament.

Self-Portrait as a Prophet

2010-02-07T22:19:00.004-05:00

(PAINTING = PERFORMANCE
PAINTER = PERFORMER)
This one is a sculpture: If you pay her a quarter, she'll talk to you. She'll sing or she'll whisper something wise.

Red is my favorite color:
1. Moses’ face shines pink after he sees the back side of God. Forever. His skin is stained by this sight.
2. I’ve been sunburned. it hurts. I can’t tell you about it; you’ll have to feel it for yourself. It’s beyond words.
(Still, I’m proud of the pink: a badge of experience.)
3. We bleed every month. Someone suggested we ought to sit in tents while we bleed -- because the world is impure, and we are so pure. We must be aware of our bodies. We mustn’t be distracted by routine and triviality.

Portraits

2010-02-07T22:16:00.003-05:00

Once in Swan Point Cemetery I chose twenty-five trees. I painted their portraits. They sat for a few months in a big pile. Then I gave the trees to my friends.

Beet

2010-02-07T22:07:00.004-05:00

Beets are so red inside. We can't metabolize all that red. It's too much for our systems. It colors our poop magenta.

Rare Fruit

2010-02-07T17:22:00.006-05:00

I walk home across the Point Street bridge, half yearning for the warmth and stillness of my apartment, half content here, tensed against gusts of February wind and a stream of traffic headlights. After such a day of work, how can anyone paint? How do we do anything but sit dumbly in front of a book, a bowl of soup, a computer screen?
I'm proud of myself for drawing this evening. Rare fruit.

In the fourth grade, my brother Joe wrote a poem called "Conflagration." It upset me; I didn't know what conflagration meant. My baby brother was titling his poems with foreign, adult words. The poem won a prize, too. He read his "Conflagration" to an auditorium full of youth-fair-goers. Blaze of glory.

Geddes and I drove once through all of Florida, through the Southeast, all the way to Pittsburgh. On our way home, we stopped at a campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We were beautiful in an unwashed, un-brushed, we've eaten sardines and saltines for quite a few nights in a row, we've obviously never pitched a tent and started a fire before way. The campground caretaker gave us a half dozen logs and helped us start a fire. We sat proudly by our fire for many hours, tracing shapes into the darkness with the orange embers at the end of our marshmallow roasting sticks. We traced the names of all the people we loved, and all the people we could think of.

Blast Off! (The city takes flight.)

2010-02-07T17:15:00.002-05:00

One of these rocket ships is a drawing by Benedict from a community center where Providence Children's Museum runs after school programs. It's okay. Great artists steal.
Moreover, it would be best for everyone involved if the city of Providence could fly away from New England, orbit the earth a few times, and then land on top of Miami.

Two

2010-02-07T17:13:00.001-05:00

Three

2010-02-07T17:06:00.003-05:00

Behind every door is a cosmic light. There's no wrong choice.
(These doors are dangerous.)

At Sea

2010-02-07T17:04:00.001-05:00

Scrawl / Sprawl

2010-02-07T16:46:00.005-05:00

I believe that painting 12 paintings in a row is, in hippie language, a healthy image detox. Here's how I want it to work:
1. Thoughts and pictures build up in my head. They compete for space, crowd each other.
2. When I paint, a dozen of these images will tumble out of my head, through my hand, and sprawl across a dozen papers. They don't have to land gracefully.
3. I'll line them up, and with a little distance between me and the images, I'll be better able to judge whether any of them deserve more attention.
4. Then I'll reconsider the worthwhile images, and space in my brain will be opened wide for new ones.
Really, though, the process isn't orderly: When I paint, I'm reacting not only to the image I'm holding in my brain, but also to the paint that's already on my page. Paint is so real and interesting. And I get tired and bored. I decide to test all the markers in Geddes's marker drawer. I like the way these pastels feel: they're big and heavy and the marks they make are silky smooth. So I make marks mostly unrelated to the pictures I intended to paint. Still, I make the marks confidently, unabashedly. I can't be self-conscious for 12 hours straight. My lines can't remain tight and tense and careful. The paintings are brave and easy-going.

(The mates, the ship, the shore.) (Please come.)

2010-02-07T16:35:00.002-05:00

Once on an airplane I sat next to a boy with a watercolor set. He painted a picture for me on his barf bag, and he narrated his painting as he worked: "Here we are, see? On this plane. And here's Milan, here's Miami. We're above the ocean, which is blue. We're also above more fish than you can imagine. I'm only going to draw two. And there are bird in the air, especially over Miami. These dos are birds. When we get to Miami, I'm going to drive in a taxi cab to my house. That's my house, see? I'm putting it on top of the ocean because there's not space to put it somewhere else..." He drew layers on top of layers. He introduced new characters, new places, new problems to solve all on top of each other. You'd never figure out a thing about his story by looking at the muddy mess scrawled over the waxy paper an hour into the story. It was beautiful.