Flights of Fancy: Ottoman Dreams

The most recent call for artists at Fuller Lodge Art center was "Things with Wings". I finally followed through on an inspiration I'd had sometime last year: paint my living room Ottoman! The ottoman was old and showing wear, so painting would certainly not ruin it, and honestly, I think the scenes actually improve it quite a bit.

Flights of Fancy: Ottoman Dreams, mixed media, 2014. View 1

I thoroughly enjoyed the painting part, and continued to explore mixing printing, painting, writing and drawing on the panels. I was excited by the quote "The Affliction is Fiction" and had been thinking about it some time, especially because of the possile multiple interptretations of it. Is it the affliction (whatever it may be, from a physical malady to an emotional hang-up) ficticious and not really a threat to well-being or potential flight? Or is having the affliction itself a fiction, an imagined barrier or perceived impossibility that just simply doesn't exist? This idea not only applies to this ottoman– is it just that it's an ottoman that prevents it from flying, or is that we don't believe an ottoman can fly that keeps it grounded? (wink, wink)– but also to many, many other challenges in life. Being honest about what the roadblock is to a creative, fulfilled life can be enough to bring the barrier down.

Flights of Fancy: Ottoman Dreams, mixed media, 2014. View 2

In my life, I am fortunate enough to read a lot of children's picture books, since my kids are young and we read a lot in the family. I'm constantly inspired by the many fantastic illustrators who take simple stories and make them into visual oddysseys. The two scenes above were influenced by such books, though they look nothing like the pictures from which I was inspired. I'd like to explore more with the white wave doodles on a dark background.

Flights of Fancy: Ottoman Dreams, mixed media, 2014. View 3

For the above panel, I used a print of a woodcut I did in college. It's been hanging on my wall for so many years, and while I like it, I was ready for it to become more than an old print. After underpainting and adhering it, I printed wine-cork circles and doodled on the figure. The original concept was that one of the ottoman's wings would be coming from her back, and another wing would be painted on the panel to look like she had two wings herself.

Flights of Fancy: Ottoman Dreams, mixed media, 2014. View 4

Because I wanted my ottoman to reach for the stars (ha!), I painted a spacy scene on top. I looked through many gorgeous books about the images captured by the Hubble telescope, and other artists' imaginings of what distant solar systems and nebulae might look like, and wow! are there some beautiful ideas. It turns out lots of outer space isn't really all that exciting without some imaginative manipulation, which was an interesting thought to ponder as I painted a very densely packed star and dust cloud corner of my ottoman's universe.

The wire monstrosities attached to the ottoman are the basic armatures for wings. Thankfully, I was rejected from the show in preference for finished artworks, so I don't have to ever finish those wings. It turns out I'm just not a sculptor, and struggle with thinking and working in 3 dimensions. I have been wanting to do something with the pile of piano wire we have from a piano my husband gutted, but I think I'll stick to some homy sort of project like a piano wire wreath rather than try to sculpt with it.

The best part now is that we have a unique and fun ottoman in the living room! There's nothing like sitting back on the couch with your feet up, resting on a star-filled corner of space, contemplating your own potential for flight.

Happy Tuesday!