This post reads chronologically in reverse. That is to say, the most recent developments on my El Duende project are at the top of the post and where I started is at the bottom. Enjoy!

Completion (maybe) (3/2624): “Gold Wings”

It was hung on the wall in our room with the other group members work. Mine proved too heavy for the Command Strips, so it fell. Rocky and several other pieces fell off. I took it home and repaired it. Then I applied gold leaf to Ifrid’s wings. I was truly winging it. I applied it using white paint as adhesive on the wing on the right and then I watched a Youtube tutorial on how to gold leaf. I did it over along with the left wing, a bit better, still not fully following recommended procedure. I don’t have all of the tools, or the correct adhesive, but it’s pretty.

Week Eight (2/22/24): “Cranford’s Horde”

As it turns out, this was our last week in this experiment in the group. We can choose to continue, if we wish to, on our own. I feel like I may have finished it today. I added a several more of my antique, political buttons, which I had been hording for over half a century. I scattered more of them among my classmates, as well. I scattered more of Ifrits’s jewels all over the canvas. I added some silver and gold squiggles to her wings and various colored lines to her scales, as signs of wear and tear from guarding her horde.

I have learned tht I have been a dragon, hording useless trinkets and shiny things. As we have downsized from larger living spaces to smaller, we have lightened up and simplified, but I still have much more to get rid of. Let’s see where this journey takes me.

I don’t think Ifrit & Rocky are finished with me yet.

Week Seven (2/15/24): “Ifrit & Rocky”

Each week, the work is given a different name, as it changes. This week, before I went to art therapy, I asked my grandchildren to suggest names for the dragon. Jacob suggested Ifrit from German mythology. The squirrel had been named Rocky by me almost eight years ago, when I received him as a gift when I was recovering from open heart surgery.

This week I used tempera sticks to add rainbow colors in six textured stripes arranged from top to bottom: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. I a painted blue wavy line across and one up the canvas. I painted a couple of random, orange, wavy lines, and a red, wavy line. One of the orange lines is a bit jagged. I added more antique, pinback buttons from my horde, including my first SEIU pin from 1975 and one of Emil’s union pins from 1933.

Week Six (2/8/24): “Dragon Scales”

This week, I did not rotate the canvas, since that would cause the dragon to lose too many jewels, and to take a nosedive. I used hot glue to affix the dragon’s scales, which are DVDs which I had cut in thirds. I cut a couple of the thirds in half again. I melted four black, plastic spoons enough to bend them for legs and tucked them under the scales. I added a few random jewels and pinback buttons and tore up some cotton balls and glued them to the canvas representing pinkish smoke billowing up above Ifrit’s nostrils.

The squirrel died. He no longer speaks when you squeeze him. I think Rocky was 8 years old, after all.

Week Five (2/1/24): “Dragon”

As usual, I started by rotating the canvas a quarter turn, on the obverse side. I glued various “jewels” roughly across the middle of the square, horizontally. They are plastic, clear and several colors, using Mod-Podge. I glued metallic, gold, lacy fabric across, loosely, on top of the jewels as the start of an abstract dragon. I pinned Grandpa Emil Haapaa’s Mpls. Chauffeur’s License (expiration 1955) pinback button on the face of the dragon as its eye. I used the pin from another larger button to attach a stuffed squirrel, that I had received when I was recuperating from open heart surgery in 2016. He chirps when you squeeze him. Rocky is sitting on the neck of the dragon as pilot. I stapled a few silver fabric “blossoms” around the edge of the canvas and added a few more random pinback buttons from my collection. I’m collecting obsolete CDs & DVDs and cutting them into thirds to glue between the layers of the gold fabric for the dragon’s scales, next Thursday.

There is much more to the story of Grandpa Emil. He was not my grandpa, but he was a dear friend, and played a key part in my formation.

Week Four (1/25/24): “Chatter, chatter,chatter, chatter.”

This week, I painted on the back of the canvas. There are few rules in El Duende, since the end game is to lose control. Being an artist, my apartment’s walls are covered with paintings by me, and by others. Then there is the TV screen that talks to us and spews incessant text; and the laptop screens; and the stupid-phone screens: “chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter.” Text, type, code, words, screens, decor, cluttering our eye-space and minds. We see it all of the time. What do we perceive?

I rotated the canvas before I did anything to the obverse or the reverse side. The first thing you may notice is the larger patches of blue. I adhered shiny, rather sheer fabric pieces of random shape to the canvas and varnished over them. I added a couple of patches of red paint and re-coated the inside of the oyster tin with a fresh coat of cerulean blue. Then I affixed some old, political pinback buttons from the 1950s and 1970s, as well as some supporting social and environmental concerns. from my collection. I have hundreds of them. I gave a friend in the room my “Jesus Loves Gays” button. One of the buttons says “”L.R.Y.” I have never known where that came from or what it means.

Meaningless chatter? Are we starting to lose control?

Week Three (1/18/24): “Quilt Deconstructed”

On the third Thursday, I gave the canvas another clockwise quarter turn. I also measured it. It is 40″ x 40″. I had incorrectly reported it as being 4′ x 4′ on Week One. I continued with the theme of found objects. I chose a floral fabric, a rainbow stripe fabric, and a silver lemay fabric from Bethann’s quilting stash. I also raided our therapist’s faux fur and felt box for a piece of red felt and a few pieces of off-white ‘fur’. On some of the fabrics, I traced shapes of a vodka bottle (which we now use for our olive oil), a hand sanitizer bottle, our screen cleaner kit, a decagonal jelly jar, and another, simple round jar. More of the fabric I cut into triangles.

I used water based varnish and painted it where I wanted to place the fabric patches, then pressed them into it, then varnished over them; with the exception of the furs, the felt and the lemay.

I still don’t know where this is going. It is the most exciting project to date in art therapy.

Week Two (1/11/24): “Found Objects”

This week, I traced more found objects: a roughly triangular shaped, vodka bottle, a smoked oyster tin, a soda bottle cap, foam stuffing out of a new shoe, a needle-nosed pliers, and a butane lighter. I cemented some of the items to the canvas, as well as the gasket that I used to paint the smaller dot last week. I also rotated the canvas.

Week One (1/4/24): “Wonder Dots”

I am currently enrolled in an art therapy group at Penn Foundation. We meet for three hours, once a week, on Thursdays. For January, we are each creating an El Duende. If you followed that link, you realize that this is not a simple concept. It is art that is out of control, like the Flamenco is dance that is passionate dance out of control. Above is my first week’s work, before I hardly knew what El Duende meant. I still am learning. Our therapist will not allow us to take our work home, so we only have three hours each week to work on it. Not hardly enough. I started with a 4′ x 4′ canvas, which was a used drop-cloth I stretched on bars and primed with scraps of various shades of yellow paint. The small dots were painted inside a gasket I found on the sidewalk on the way to the car on my way to class that morning. The larger circles were traced around the top and bottom of a paper cup from the water fountain in the hallway outside of class. I am painting with white, red, yellow, blue, and orange acrylics. I will try to update this post weekly until this project is done.

It remains to be seen whether or not it will be for sale or will be worth buying.