I just completed photographing the new collection of heart paintings. They are encaustic and collage, 5″ x 7″ on hardboard mounted on 9″ x 12″ chalkboard and framed.
Photographs do not do them justice. They are really vibrant in person and so full of texture.
I’m contemplating what to do next. The ancient handbag series of paintings are on the floor of my living room resting on their chalkboard mounts, which I have infused with magnetic paint to simulate the electromagnetic resonance of the original objects, as they have been described in my research.
I’m also awaiting a couple of orders of mini dominoes to add to the hardboards. It is really fun to hunt for specific vintage items and thank you, universe for the interwebs, lol. What a godsend, really.
I also ordered frames for these paintings, as well as frames for the new heart paintings, some of which are also on the floor and on the dining room table. I will title them, sign them, get them in the frames and photograph them all by next week.
It is a gloomy day with rain – yesterday it was 70 degrees outside and beautiful. Tomorrow it is supposedly going down to 32 degrees. It is a sad day for me for personal reasons and yet, when I focus on this artwork it brings me so much joy and strength, and purpose.
My exhibition of butterfly paintings is still at Art Haus Syracuse. Selling them will validate me externally, and that is a sliver of an artist’s vocation. When you believe in yourself then the world will follow suit. But if people don’t want to share in your artistic vision, you don’t stop breathing. Buy them here.
I finished a new series of heart paintings yesterday – they are 5″ x 7″ mounted on 9″ x 12″. I used metallic embroidery floss on all of them. In addition I’ve used mulberry papers and origami papers, dominoes, playing cards, Scrabble pieces and vintage stamps. I love them. I never get tired of making heart paintings.
But, with that said – I did pivot into a new idea. I am fascinated with the Ancient Civilization handbag. You find them in Ancient Egypt, Gobekli Tepe, within Mayan sculptures and other places around the globe. I researched shapes then created my stencils – twenty-four different bags.
I decided on 6″ x 6″ boards that will be mounted on 8″ x 10″. I layered the boards with beeswax and traced the stencils onto them. Today I added the mulberry papers and some origami papers, and tissue papers. I didn’t finish that step because I started rethinking color. At first, I thought I should use a different color for the handles and then – no. I changed my mind. I might have to remove some of what I did because I think I want to limit the color palette, since these handbags are always depicted as made of stone with cuniform marks or hieroglyphics on them. I will let it go for now and trust that I will have clarity in the morning. (Stay tuned).
The art reception for Women. Art. Voices at Mohawk Valley Center for the Arts is tomorrow evening from 5:00 – 7:00 PM. That exhibit is only up for about three weeks.
410 Canal Place
Little Falls New York 13365
(315) 823-0808
There are only eight butterfly paintings left to purchase at Art Haus Syracuse, 120 Walton Street, Syracuse, New York 13202. You can make a purchase using this link .
Art Haus will be open tomorrow and Saturday noon – 7:00 PM.
This happened today: the art reception/art opening for Soulscapes at Art Haus Syracuse, 120 Walton Street, Syracuse, NY (in Armory Square).
It was such a lovely experience. There was food and drink, great conversation and each artist spoke briefly about our respective artworks.
My ten butterfly paintings look amazing flanking the Marc Safran photograph. I sold two of them during the party. Art can be puchased on-line here.
Visit the gallery Tuesdays and Wednesdays noon – 7:00 PM, Thursdays and Fridays noon – 8:00 PM, and Saturdays noon – 6:00 PM. Check the gallery’s Facebook page for any changes to these hours.
from the Art Haus web-site –
⭐️art haus SYR is proud to announce the opening of SOULSCAPES, a dynamic group exhibition featuring four local artists whose work explores the diverse textures of identity and the environment. The exhibition will run from 2/28 through 4/11, with a public opening reception Saturday 2/28, 2-4pm.
Soulscapes brings together an eclectic mix of mediums—from global photography to surrealist painting—to create a dialogue between the internal psyche and the external world.
The Featured Artists
* CJ Hodge lll: Presents a collection of surreal mixed-media portraits and bold abstract paintings that challenge traditional boundaries of form and color.
* Marc Safran: Showcases global portrait photography that highlights the profound beauty of human rituals, cultural traditions, and the dignity of everyday individual life.
* Karen Tashkovski: Offers a delicate and textured series of mixed-media butterfly paintings, symbolizing transformation and fragile beauty.
* Meghan Murphy: Explores the extremes of scale and subject matter, featuring a series of tiny landscape watercolors paired with a collection of outlandish looking portraits.
„This exhibition is a celebration of the unconventional,“ says Marianna Ranieri-Schwarzer Curator at art haus SYR. „By pairing the grounded, global reality of Marc Safran’s photography with the surreal and outlandish visions of Hodge and Murphy, we invite the viewer to see the ‚soul‘ in all its forms—the beautiful, the traditional, and the delightfully strange.“
Penny came by today to collect my painting, CAMARADERIE. She’s going to deliver it for me. The new art exhibition at Mohawk Valley Center for the Arts, Women. Art. Voices., begins next week with a reception on March 6th, 2026 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM. The show runs through March 28th.
On Friday, I dropped off my butterfly paintings for the exhibition at Art Haus Syracuse. The show starts on Saturday, February 28th, 2026, which is also the date of the art reception – February 28, 2026 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM. That show ends on April 4th.
So, I have two art shows in March. I will have a solo show at East Syracuse Free Library during May and June 2026. I’ll be displaying my new encaustic trees series at that show.
Today I started working on another set of encaustic heart paintings. I created a new heart stencil. They are 5″ x 7″ and I am planning to mount them onto 8″ x 10″ chalkboard.
What you are seeing here – not done! No – this is just first passes of color plus the colorful rice papers and origami papers.
What I’m loving right now is how they are both familiar and fresh/new. I have enough colors to fill five pancake griddles. When I first started with encaustics, I only had one griddle! The devices I add to my paintings has also expanded so this series is different, challenging and so fun! I love making them and I love love. <3
While taking a course in encaustic painting at Syracuse University in 2012, I created these paintings. This week, I revisited them and decided to remove them from their larger chalkboard mounts to hardboard cradle mounts.
I also wanted these 9″ x 12″ paintings to reflect the devices I’d used in the 8″ x 8″ crown series I completed last month, adding embroidery floss, ribbon, more playing cards and checkers, as well as cold wax accents and enamel paint.
I love that these paintings have a luster that comes with age. Time allows the wax to strengthen and the result is a marvelous sheen that only needs a bit of gentle buffing.
There are eleven paintings here because the one I’d titled Modern Pharoah is MIA. In my attempt to locate it, I found other things and made a note to self to take a day and reorganize my art storage and material storage.
Will Modern Pharoah materialize so that I can resurrect it? (No coincidences)
It was three below zero in Syracuse today. I did not visit my favorite trees on a hike – I draw the line at eleven degrees, thanks.
I spent the day completing my encaustic trees collection. These paintings are 6″ x 8″ encaustic & collage mounted on 11″ x 14″ chalkboard, and framed.
I added oil pastels, vintage stamps, keys, embroidery floss, checkers, cedar chips, ribbon, 1963 pennies and French bobbins – from France!
I am so in love with them. It is such a weird feeling – so happy to have completed them, proud of myself and the choices I made, but also sad that it is over.
I feel like I should expand the series. I created twenty-four of them, twenty-four different tree shapes. Do I make twenty-four more with twenty-four different shapes? Do I reuse the shapes and change the colors, as I did with the lotus collection? I don’t know yet.
I don’t even have a plan for where I will exhibit them. I am scheduled to show at the East Syracuse Free Library this May through June, so, maybe there.
I am actually still waiting for a back order of frames (four are technically not framed – I just set them in a broken frame in order to photograph them). Once they get delivered, all the paintings will be stored away and I will vacuum and reclaim my living room floor, and my dining room table – until the next project presents itself. <3
Yesterday I experienced a meltdown. I was adding the hardware to the backs of the frames and it was taking longer than I wanted it to, which led me to the inevitable existential crisis – what am I even doing and why??????
I took a mini-break to collect myself then continued until I finished that task. I went for a hike, came home and had lunch then continued to tweak the paintings.
Adding the collage materials makes me feel a bit like a fashion stylist. The items should enhance each individual painting while creating a cohesiveness that is essential for the overall arch of the series.
I began to have clarity and after hours of work… suffice to say that the new gold enamel paint had been delivered and I decided, at midnight that I had to apply it. The gold to me represents the Japanese art of kintsugi. So, it felt like a culmination of the emotional journey of this day.
I didn’t love it but I kept at it because it had worked nicely on the Lotus paintings. But it WASN’T WORKING!!!!
This morning I spent several hours removing it. A painstaking process but one that was entirely necessary. Metaphorically, it felt like I was erasing the negativity and the desire to fix something that is broken with something better, as kintsugi is known to do. It is supposed to be a form of respect.
But these new paintings weren’t broken. And they do not have any sort of negative emotion or melancholy infused in them. They are my trees – the ones I visit every day while on my hike. And if you believe in animism, they are strong, loving creatures that support one another in a storm, that provide shelter from the rain, that reach for the sun at all costs.
I wiped away the residue, like wiping away the tears I had shed earlier, and decided that what I am doing is important, because it is fun – and that is all that matters.
I am still waiting for a back order of frames and there is still more work to be done on this artwork because it is all about the layers – the depth of character and all that hidden stuff that creates my visual language.
Stay tuned for the big reveal….
Camaraderie, one of the paintings in my “Futura” series from 2017 and newly framed, will be on display in the upcoming exhibition at Mohawk Valley Center for the Arts, 410 Canal Place, Little Falls, New York 13365.
The exhibition is titled Women. Art. Voices.
It is scheduled for March 6, 2026 – March 27, 2026 with an opening reception on March 6, 2026 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM.
Thursday – Saturday: 12 pm – 4 pm
Sunday – Wednesday: Closed
Holidays: Closed
