Women's History Month

For 12 years, I painted nothing but jazz musicians. As I traveled with my late husband, Kai Winding, htmlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxUj2fKFX7A,  I always had a sketch book in hand and rapidly drew ink sketches of the performers. Even a few years after Kai's death, I continued to focus on the mostly male jazz musicians. One day I realized that that subject was not part of my life anymore. I am not a musician, I am a painter. Females were the biggest part of my life. I have 3 daughters, my partner in the gallery we co-owed in Scottsdale AZ, was a woman; most artists are women...

Then I started my women focused work. It is interesting that I was asked, "What's the matter?
Don't you like men?" All those years that I was drawing and painting men, no one asked if I didn't like women.

The Jazz Festival in Holland

Stan Getz in Nice, France

"I Open My Hand And Let Go from the series, "Her Journey"

"The Maiden and The Crone" from the series, "Every Woman is a Goddess"

Last year, I completed a series of women artists.

Here is one of them:

As I write this, I realize how many series have been focused on women.  I DO LIKE MEN.

Here is a series that I made 2 years ago; "Women Who Changed the World" I removed Suu Kyi, destroyed the painting, after she changed and ceased to be a hero. Here is the short video of that series.
https://vimeo.com/146562085

The Rewards of All That Work

March is women's history month and our show is part of that energy.

Months of work went into the open house we had last Sunday. My daughter, Cynthia Hamilton created our living room into a showroom for her pillow designs, "Once Upon My Pillow" and I showed my series" Women Who Change the World" to the public for the first time.

All the pillows are made from recycled natural fabrics, hand embroidered

Patti uses her treadle machine to construct the pillows. She has no electricity and can only work during daylight hours. Her husband has been without work, so she supports her family with her sewing

Candaleria does the hand embroidery so she can be home with her daughters

Just a few of the 90 pillows that were on display

Cynthia said “I created Once Upon My Pillow from a long-felt desire to do my part, my part for my community, for my fellow-woman, and for the environment.  With the help of women in San Miguel, and under my guidance, we created these pillows from cashmeres, silks, cottons, and the most unique trims and buttons, to design and make one-of-a-kind, boutique, pillow cases, all hand-made from 100% recycled materials. I had a desire to help local women work from home; stay close to their children, and explore and expand their natural creativity; hand embroidering and sewing with a treadle sewing machine, using 100% recycled materials.  I do most of the cutting and all of the designs and encourage my Mexican assistants to use their creativity.”

The attention that goes into each pillow is similar to a Chanel jacket but without the price tag.


Her Mexican assistants lives have become interwoven with hers. Of course it is challenging and time consuming for her to find the perfect garments to cut up to make beautiful designer pillows; however these are pillows with a purpose.

Ezshwan researched for months, deciding whom she would include in this series. ”I learned much about women that I knew of only superficially. I choose women whom I thought made significant changes in our world. There are many more, but I focused on 15. I could have continued indefinitely, but I felt it was time to move on to a new series.”

A Celebration of Change, You Are Invited

A Celebration of Change

Sunday March 6^th, Itzcoatl #6 , Tematzcallis

Detailed directions found at www.ezshwan.com

Ezshwan Winding and Cynthia Hamilton will be celebrating Women’s History month by opening their home/gallery/shop for one afternoon, Sunday March 6^th from 2pm to 5 pm.

Ezshwan will be showing her new series of paintings, Women Who Changed the World and Cynthia will introduce her boutique of one of kind pillows; Once Upon My Pillow.

Cynthia said “I created Once Upon My Pillow from a long-felt desire to do my part, my part for my community, for my fellow-woman, and for the environment.  With the help of women in San Miguel, and under my guidance, we created these pillows from cashmeres, silks, cottons, and the most unique trims and buttons, to design and make one-of-a-kind, boutique, pillow cases, all hand-made from 100% recycled materials. I had a desire to help local women work from home; stay close to their children, and explore and expand their natural creativity; hand embroidering and sewing with a treadle sewing machine, using 100% recycled materials.  I do most of the cutting and all of the designs and encourage my Mexican assistants to use their creativity.”

The attention that goes into each pillow is similar to a Chanel jacket but without the price tag.


Her Mexican assistants lives have become interwoven with hers. Of course it is challenging and time consuming for her to find the perfect garments to cut up to make beautiful designer pillows; however these are pillows with a purpose.

Ezshwan researched for months, deciding whom she would include in this series. ”I learned much about women that I knew of only superficially. I choose women whom I thought made significant changes in our world. There are many more, but I focused on 15. I could have continued indefinitely, but I felt it was time to move on to a new series.”

Call cell 415 115 9646 for private appointments that can be arranged after the opening exhibition.   

Creating and Solving Painting Problems

I put a painting that I liked out in the sun to lightly fuse some oil paint into the encasutic. Ops! I didn't lay it flat and I forgot about it. I lost the freshness and had to scrap off the mess.

Working over it , I finally realized that the figure on the right was ruined and the best thing to do was get rid of it.  I created another problem. What am I doing to do now? I'll keep you posted on the progress. At least I hope their will be progress.

detail

detail

I realized the figure on the right was ruined

Now what?

Scraping away the dark

 I finished another painting in the Memories series, ( I think that is a better name than Remembrances ) . I am going to take a break and clean the studio and get ready for an encaustic student tomorrow. It's a good thing, because I feel as if I have stopped seeing the work. When that happens, the best thing I can do is put the work away and not look at it for a while.

charcoal sketch on milk paint on board

several layers of encaustic and oil glazes

transfers and charcoal

I did a lot of scraping. I though it was too dark

I Need a Title

 I started this series, thinking of old black and white photos with a touch of sepia to add to the aged look. This is the 6th painting in the series. I started with a charcoal drawing, then layers of encasutic, that I struggled with because my studio is sooo cold. The wax sets up immediately and it is hard to get it smooth. After the encasutic, I add oil glazes and do a lot of scraping; then add charcoal to emphazise the blacks. All that needs to be fused for permanency.

I am missing color. The next one will be more colorful. I am planning 6 more paintings. I feel a series needs at least 12 paintings.

charcoal on milk paint, on board

Last "Women Who Changed the World"

Here is the last painting in the series, Women Who Changed the World, Hermila Galindo Acosta (also known as Hermila Galindo de Topete) (1886–1954) was a Mexican feminist and a writer. She was an early supporter of many radical feminist issues, primarily sex education in schools, women's suffrage, and divorce. She was one of the first feminists to state the Catholicism in Mexico was thwarting feminist efforts and she was the first woman to run for elected office in Mexico.

Birth, Death and Resurrection - of a Painting

I claimed and thought I was finished with the  series, Women Who Changed the World, but I was convined by another artist that the last painting I made when I was in pain, just didn't hold up to the rest of the series. I had to admit that it really didn't.

Now that I am feeling well, I decided not only to paint another Rosa Parks, but included a Mexican women in the series. That painting will shared in another bog posting.

Here is the first Rosa Parks

Next step; I asked my studio assistant to scrape off the oil paint, down to the encasutic.

Now, the new Rosa Parks is finished:

How I Make a Painting, Video

Here is the video of the process of one of the portraits in the Women Who Changed the World.
Don't bother telling me that I left the "s" off the word "come" in "here comes the oil" I didn't want to do the whole thing over again. I have made many movies in iMovie, but it seems as if as soon as I decide to make another one the format is changed andI have to learn the whole thing over again. I am getting too old for this.

https://vimeo.com/146433859

Rosa Parks,finished

I know I shouldn't  work when it feels like a struggle. What happens is that I just start moving paint without really seeing the direction I need to go.

When I carefully analized the portrait of Rosa Parks with a fresh eye, I saw that not only was the mouth wrong, but somehow during the painting process, her eyes had moved and were out of line.
Here is the completed and corrected painting.

New Painting, oil over encasutic

I am able to spend an hour a day in the studio now. The pain and exhaustion of Shingle is lessening.

I am continuing with my series; Women Who Changed the World. This one is Rachael Carson.

As with all of this series, I am painting over older encaustic paintings that no longer hold any interest for me. I fuse the first coupe of layers of oil over the encasutic to permanently bond with the back ground. This requires very good ventilation and I wear a mask.

I will be making at least one video of the entire process of how I work. Below, is the starting place; a non-object color study  in encaustic, and yesterday's work. I am almost finished, jut need to work on her hair and the background.