feeling particularly free: 4 new paintings that feel like the desert at sunset
hitting 3 years painting in the desert - a celebration of sorts!
sometimes it just feels good
When describing how it felt to paint my recent show, “from dreams i had of flowers,” I’ve been telling everyone the process was like going through multiple cycles of death and rebirth. It was dense — and it was intense. I tore myself apart to break myself open. The 23 paintings were painted in 110+ degree heat, across the deserts of Texas, New Mexico, and California. This new figurative work had me digging deep, seeing images I’ve never seen before, focused on smaller canvases, focused on oil paint, wading through the bright summer months as if I were in the darkest parts of a plant medicine ceremony.
It was thrilling and difficult and like I said, intense — intensely focused, intensely controlled. A lot of tears, a lot of laughter, a lot of release. I drove over 5,000mi in my car, toting all my materials from a 4f x 10f porch at Willow House to a massive studio in Tucumcari. I tore down and set up and got used to my new surroundings, both externally and internally, over and over again. I changed. I stayed the same. I became more of myself.
It was both what I needed and a call back to what I used to be. And the outcome was beautiful — the outcome of hard work.
September found me back home at my garage studio in Joshua Tree. A familiar and temperate room, open to the air but mostly hidden from the heat, with all my supplies where I am used to having them and with endless rolls of canvas before me. Comfortable, easy, and at home.
I am so grateful for the challenge that was this summer; it unlocked a new door that has led to work that I think is my most important. But it also made me crave what I didn’t realize I had gotten used to — chaos, freedom, soft washes and bright colors, tossed paint, by-chance brush marks. My process of abstract painting — painting in a way that feels easy, in a way that just feels good.
Painting in a way that feels particularly free.
And so, back home in September, I did just that.
Delighted to share a mini collection of 4 new paintings from the last month. A cleansing of a channel if you will. A celebration of the feeling of being with dear friends at your favorite outdoor bar, having a cocktail under a perfect desert sunset. A desire, as always, to create a piece that feels like walking into something outside of the city. An unbridled laugh, a scream that pushes you to be even bolder still. Audacious, and beautiful.
Doesn’t it feel good? Appropriately enough, two of these pieces are on view at my favorite local spot — Mas o Menos coffee shop & bar in Joshua Tree. The best place to enjoy a drink with friends under a perfect desert sunset. If you’re coming to the desert this month (the best month to visit, in my opinion), swing by and check them out!
Today, October 5th, also marks the 3 year anniversary of me packing up my San Francisco studio (“studio” being a generous description for a travel easel, a cart, and 10 tubes of paint) for the first time to come to Joshua Tree and paint in the desert. If you’ve been following along for awhile, you know I basically never left.
Time is a spiral my dears, that much I’ve learned. Patterns echo across years and space. Days pass and we return back to the same places and motifs, despite thinking we are moving away from them. In the words of my friend Lilian, “Everything is happening right now, yesterday, today, on this tender day in October. And it always has been, hasn’t it?” It’s beautiful, I think. I suppose this is a long way of saying, these paintings are just a celebration of life: that which we return to, consciously or unconsciously, again and again.
While I have you, I guess I should also share that I’ll be participating in Highway 62 Art Tours, my favorite event in the desert! This year, over 170 artists in the Morongo Basin are are opening up their homes and studios to visitors.
My studio is number 21 and will be open 10a-5p on Saturday 10/7, Sunday 10/8, Saturday 10/14 and Sunday 10/15 or by appointment. I’ll have new paintings of all sizes, new prints, stickers, postcards, works on paper and more. If you’d like to make the trip, please come visit! I’d love to see you.
All new paintings pictured here are $1550 which includes tax and insured domestic shipping. Paintings are available unframed for $1300. For more details or to purchase these or other work, reply to this e-mail or send me a note at hi@alexmaceda.studio. Blessings! xo