Rebecca Odessa

The life and times of Chicken-Geoff

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Painting, Research Project, Week in Review

Chicken-Geoff, my fella’s name-sake, lives at my friend’s allotment. When he was born on my birthday last April, he was going to be called Rebecca, but the tell-tale yellow spot on his head indicated he was a male, so he was named Geoff.

Chicken-Geoff soon grew big and strong, due to his fondness for mealworms and treats. However, he was a gentle sort of fellow and would get pecked-on by the other cockerels, so it was thought best to put him in with the hens, where he soon made himself at home.

Chicken-Geoff adapted so well to life with the hens, that he recently took to the nesting box and laid an egg.

Along with Chicken-Geoff’s exciting news this week, I am pleased to say I have been running every day for Run 62 Miles in March for Cancer Research UK. So far, I have raised £450.00 which is well over my target. Of course, getting out of bed at 5.30 every morning hurts a little, but I wouldn’t feel too sorry for me, because this is where I am running:

Also, my lovely fella gave me some very fancy ear-pods, so I have been running along listening to Audible. I am currently listening to a series of lectures on The Pagan World, which I am thoroughly enjoying. The lecturer has a slow, methodical way of talking that makes him very easy to follow. I highly recommend the series for anyone interested in the subject.

Before the lecture series, I listened to a wonderful book about hares, and have bored my fella silly with what I’ve learned. I even had a dream last night that I was telling someone all about hares.

Yes, I am still nutty about hares, and can’t seem to get enough of them. To my utter delight, my fella and I saw a hare the other day. It was having a snack on the side of the road, and we managed to get a really good look at it. We then noticed a few more in a nearby field. They were too far away to get a really good photo, but if you zoom in, to the wee fella on the left, you’ll see his black-tipped ears, which means its a brown hare.

I have been busy in the studio painting untold hares. I am attempting to find the right balance between the different components of the paintings – i.e., hares, lace, water, bones.

I am also trying to figure out the level of detail I want in the hares themselves, so I am trying lots of different things. I really like having see-through passages of paint.

I am currently subscribing to the more is more philosophy of aesthetics. I am aware of the criticism that too much detail in a painting can be suffocating and that breathing space is important in a composition. However, I would counter that a sense of suffocation is precisely what I want in the paintings, to convey the sense of being underwater/drowning.

Protected: March hares

Experiments, Painting, Process Deep Dive

I’m desperate to see a hare!

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project

Spring has almost sprung, and top on my list of things to do this spring, is see a hare. My fella’s Pa saw one on the top field near our house, so I have a good chance of seeing one if I head out at dawn or dusk, keep down wind, hide behind a bush, be very quite, and don’t move. If I’m very lucky, I may even see them boxing, as it will be breeding season, and to fight off unwanted male attention, the females give the fellas a clip around the ears, quite right too!

Hares have become one of the central elements in my paintings, and the more I learn about them, the more they rightly deserve that place. There are currently 4 visual elements in the work that I am trying to weave together: Water, Bones, Lace and Hares. There are also two conceptual elements: Pain and Receptivity.

The Manx word for hare is cleaysh liauyr – which means good listener (also: slow to answer, forbearing person, long-eared). I love this meaning associated with the hare, and would like to incorporate it in my paintings somehow.

Hares are a very important animal in Manx folklore. They are associated with witches/wise women, or “they that have the charms” (as my Manx family do). Hares are also thought to be inhabited by the souls of old women. For this reason, as in other Celtic lands, hares are not to be eaten.

Here is a delightful recording of Johnny Crellin talking about Manx folklore regarding hares.

Protected: Finding my visual language

Experiments, Painting, Process Deep Dive

I’ve got the t-shirt, now I have to do it!

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project, Week in Review

The other day, while scrolling in bed, I came across an ad for the Cancer Research UK Run 62 Miles in March challenge, and in a bid to allay my napping-in-the-daytime guilt, I signed up. Post-nap, and failing to rope my fella into it, I considered not doing it, but then a Cancer Research t-shirt arrived today, so now I have to do it. To be honest, the t-shirt is a little snug, so, not only do I have to run 2 miles everyday in March, I also have another challenge – to fit the t-shirt by the end of it.

I have been all over the place with my painting this week. One minute I love the big painting and feel committed to finishing it, the next I think it’s going in the wrong direction, and I seriously consider abandoning it. I oscillate between these two points of view a few times a day. I am quickly approaching the point of no return, and will have to make a decision soon and stick with it.

In the mean time, I have been painting my folks.

My fella came home from his work travels last Monday. It is so lovely to have him back, though now he has a fancy job, we don’t have as much time for day drinking. A spot of day drinking and hearing each other’s newes is one of our fondest gettogethers. The most memorable occasion was the time we were in Tuscany, and we ordered a Moscow Mule – which is vodka and ginger beer and one of my favourite tipples. When relaying the recipe to our Italian waiter, something got lost in translation and he bought us a vodka and gin. Naturally, we drank it to be polite. Sure, it packed a punch, by the end of it, it didn’t taste too bad at all.

Protected: Is more, more?

Musings and Misgivings, Process Deep Dive

Protected: Finding the confluence

Painting, Process Deep Dive, research

Hare hare!

CSM MFA - Progress Blog

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the studio. I started the big painting, and as with the experiments for it, I go from confidence to doubt regularly. I will continue for another couple of weeks, and if the current idea I’m working on doesn’t pan out, I may return to the experimental works on paper, and work things out a bit more. I can always show some of the paper works for the exhibition in June. Hopefully, the big painting will work though. It’s a good idea, and could be a really good painting, if I get it right.

I get a break from the painting when I stay at my fella’s on the weekends. Instead I take my sketch book, and doodle away while he plays video games (which he assures me is for work). I am still obsessed with hares, so they have been getting top billing in my sketchbook.

I just found out today that hares can swim if need be. Here’s one a guy filmed in Frampton Marsh in Lincolnshire:

Last week I gave a presentation of my paper (on the Ars Moriendi) to the class. I was very anxious about it, but it went better than I thought it would. I’m glad it’s done, because now I can just concentrate on the painting.

My fella is away for two weeks – first London, then L.A. I miss him terribly and hope he brings me back lots of presents!

Protected: Painting progress.1

Painting, Process Deep Dive

My bread and butter diet is a dud!

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project, Week in Review

Like most people riddled with Christmas-gorging remorse, my fella and I are on diets. We opted for different plans; my fella choosing Keto, and me, a bread and butter diet I designed myself. After sticking to our respective diets since New Year, my fella has lost 10lbs and I’ve put on 2.

I was back at school this week, and am quietly bricking it that there are only 19 weeks of term and a couple of weeks holiday left before it’s all over. I will be focused solely on my research project until the end, the main part of which is a large painting. I have been preparing for the painting the past few weeks, and am pleased to report that I finally started it this weekend.

It’s an ambitious painting, and there is no guarantee it will work. Currently, I am oscillating between hope that it will work, and freaking out that it won’t. The latter got the better of me this morning, and I bought a huge roll of paper so I can at least do some smaller paintings in case the big painting turns out to be a dud like my bread and butter diet.

To help improve my chances, my fella took me to a local river confluence so I could make an offering to the painting gods (assuming they hang out down there). It is the place that initially inspired my research project, and is one of my favourite places on the Island.