Update: Dates in a Life Project 2019

I'm two-thirds of the way through working on the Dates in a Life Project is a year-long painting project documenting the number of steps I walk each day. 

Walking in August was not as much of a challenge because of the hot weather, as it was in July. It was hot but not too too bad. 

We also went to France for a week and when visiting Lyon, we walked over 20,000 steps two days in a row, which always makes me happy to do, not only for exercise, but as a way to get to know the location better than we would have if we were driving or taking public transportation.

I use a system of symbols to represent each thousand steps. Instead of showing exactly how many I walk. The black icons represent up to 9999 steps walked each day, red represents 10,000-19,999 steps and yellow represents 20,000-29,999 steps. 

To keep track of steps, I use the Health app in my iPhone. 

The daily background color changes season-to-season in this painting. Starting on June 22, the first full day of summer, I changed it to a bright yellow for the summer, but will change to Indian Yellow Hue on September 24th. It was Teal Blue for Winter, then Green for Spring. . When Winter starts again in December, I'll change the color back to Teal Blue.

I use the daily background color to document my daily steps in fractions of 250 steps. As an example, after 2000 steps (which would be the icon with no paint), I'm painting colors to show as close as I can to 2250, 2500, 2750, and then up to 2999, instead of then rounding up to 3000 steps.

One note about the yellow icons for walking over 20,000 steps and the yellow background color for summer. It's a problem differentiating the steps icons next to the background color. I will most likely repaint the background color to a lighter yellow before I finish the year. I also think the bright yellow is not working well with the Teal Blue for Winter and the Green for Spring. I think the lighter yellow will be much better, but I'll make my decision about it after I start using the Indian Yellow Hue in Autumn.

This painting measures 37.5" x 34" and is created with monoprinted textures of a construction fence as the background, handstamped rubber erasers on fabric which are collaged on the background grid, as well as handpainting and stitching on stiffened fabric.

Update: Dates in a Life Project 2019

The Dates in a Life Project is a year-long painting project documenting the number of steps I walk each day. 

It was a challenge to walk in July because of the hot weather. I did my best to get to 10,000 or more steps as often as I could. This summer, I've been trying to walk in the morning before it gets too hot, and in the evening when it cools before sunset, something I can't do in the winter because it's too cold at the beginning and end of the day.

To keep track of steps, I use the Health app in my iPhone. 

I use a system of symbols to represent each thousand steps. Instead of showing exactly how many I walk. The black icons represent up to 9999 steps walked each day, red represents 10,000-19,999 steps and yellow represents 20,000-29,999 steps. 

The daily background color changes season-to-season. It was Teal Blue for Winter, then Green for Spring, and on June 22, the first day of Summer, I changed the background to Yellow. Autumn will be Indian Yellow Hue, and when Winter starts again in December, I'll change the color back to Teal Blue.

The daily background color is to document my daily steps in fractions of 250 steps. As an example, after 2000 steps (which would be the icon with no paint), I'm painting colors to show as close as I can to 2250, 2500, 2750, and then up to 2999, instead of then rounding up to 3000 steps.

This painting measures 37.5" x 34" and is created with monoprinted textures of a construction fence as the background, handstamped rubber erasers on fabric which are collaged on the background grid, as well as handpainting and stitching on stiffened fabric.

Press!

I'm always grateful for being mentioned in the press: Artist of the Month: Mixed Media Artist Jeanne Williamson on pages 12 and 13 in the July 2019 issue of Natick Neighbors Magazine. Thank you to the publishers as well as Molly McEachern for putting together the article.

Electric Boxes After Fire

A few days ago there was a very bad fire in downtown Natick MA. The "missing tooth" building, which was across the street from the two electric boxes I painted in 2016, burned down. It took over a 12 hours, with 17 mutual aid fire departments assisting the Natick Fire Department, to stop it and then raze it for safety reasons.

Artists who have outdoor art are interested in how the piece or landscape change over time. This is true for me too. Here is a photo from 2016 and one from today. See more pictures.

Inspiration

I don’t have enough wall space in my teeny tiny art studio, so I had to hang my Dates in a Life Project 2018 painting over my Dates in a Life Project 2017 painting over another as temporary storage because I don’t want to roll them up. It does look a little cool though, and is giving me ideas for new projects.

New Work: Dates in a Life Project 2017

Dates in a Life Project 2017

mixed media on stiffened fabric

50.5" x 30"

2019

I finished my post-dated Dates in a Life Project 2017 painting.

2017 is the year I had a milestone birthday, so I designed the painting so my birthdate is filled in with yellow-gold, and the blue lines under each icon changed to orange on my birthday and continue through the rest of the year.

The icons represent each thousand steps in black and over 10,000 steps in red.

In 2019, and in 2018, steps are added usually on Sundays because they are/were yearlong paintings. The fabric is/was hanging on the wall as I work/ed on it to free up my table for other projects. Because I have the data from 2016 and 2017 in my iPhone, I created 2017, and I'm also working on 2016, with the fabric lying flat on my work table.

All four paintings are for an exhibit I'm going to be in next winter. More info will be available in a few months. In the mean time, I've been enjoying working on 2016 and 2017 while I'm working on 2019 as it happens.

One note about 2016 and 2017 vs. 2018 and 2019 (so far). I did not walk nearly as much in the first two years as I have been since January 2018. You can see that by the lack of red (10,000 steps and over) icons in this painting. You'll see similar when I finish 2016.

Update: Dates in a Life Project 2019

Thanks to my sweetie the enabler, I walked 20,000 steps on Saturday. Because it was really hot I didn’t think I’d walk even 5000 steps, but we went to the Red Sox game and then decided to walk from Fenway Park to where were parked near Brookline High School where I was at 19,489 steps at 11:44pm. I told him I was going to walk a little in our neighborhood when we got home but he pointed out it would be Sunday by then so we stopped at a strip mall in Newton where were we walked until midnight. Luckily for me I made it over 20,000 steps, which is the second time this year (so far). On Sunday morning, a yellow icon was collaged on my walking painting.