The Sound of Rain
by Leslie Avon Miller
What informs the compositional choices one makes? Whether or not you have a sense of self-discovery before or after the fact of “creation” it is helpful to be more conscious in your personal world of art making.
~ Margot Voorhies Thompson
10 years ago I stepped into a classroom on the wild Oregon coast and spent a week with fellow artists and Margot.
She didn’t instruct so much as she helped us discover what was ours. She asked us questions, stimulated our thought process as artists, and helped us to see.
Margot Voorhies Thompson
I invite you to visit Margot's website
What feelings do your brush marks, scrapings, scratchings, drawing, calligraphy, type and other marks lend to your idea?
~ Margot Voorhies Thompson
Winter
I’ve just spent time looking at some of my work from that workshop, and found my entire art language was present in my work even in its infancy. Soft, subdued palette of cream, sienna, white and black – and a touch of orange. Ink, graphite, collage and paint. Calligraphic marks, drips, finger painting, open space, grids, rectangles, abstracted figures.
What invitation are you extending to the viewer through your work?
~ Margot Voorhies Thompson
My work from that time has always been just within my awareness, but until today when I got it out again, I hadn’t realized how complete my language was even then.
Why am I revisiting that time? For one, I know I had an outstanding learning experience. For another, that was my first art workshop. At this time I am in an archeological mode, looking for the essential, the authentic, the elemental components of my work.
I’m clearing my personal airwaves so I can hear myself. I am clearing, so I can create authentically.
Visuals = the language of intuition.
~ Eileen M. Clegg
The works I have posted here are recent works. My works from the workshop are not imaged.
So, what do you know about your personal visual language of intuition?
The sound of Rain , Love the title Love the work
ReplyDeleteits just great to see your work and FEEL it
Great posts
Sound of Rain
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful title. This is very inspiring.
The two works I like very much. Soft, transparent, but also strong. Light and dark, soft and hard. It's just all there. ..great.
And as I said .. the title is so beautiful.
greetings
j'aime ton travail et aussi la calligraphie!
ReplyDeleteYou have a wonderful distinctive style Leslie (something I wish I had), I believe I could select your work from among thousands of others.
ReplyDeleteThese two works are very evocative, I particularly like 'Winter'.
The sound of rain - I'm listening to how it falls off my new home....
ReplyDeleteTales of the lines, the stories of life ... traces of life ... beautiful pictures ... :-)
ReplyDeleteLAM- what a great way of articulating how we review what we are doing to find what artist we are -"archeological mode, looking for the essential, the authentic, the elemental components of my work" - I think it is good that from time to time we stop and ask ourselves what is-are the thing/s that fire us. Thanks for the reminder. B
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting my blog, Leslie. I have just joined yours and am looking forward to perusing it. Your work is just beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYour post and work speaks to my heart. It is time to quiet myself and listen... It is time to paint and just be.
ReplyDeletelovely calligraphic marks there...
ReplyDeleteAn inspiring post, Leslie. You give me much to ponder over.
ReplyDeletelove your new work. interesting you are looking back at your workshop work and seeing the threads to who you are now.
ReplyDeleteas i unpacked and skimmed through my written journals i was surprised also by those threads drawn from the me then to the me now. i have changed a lot and in some ways not changed but just enlarged and deepened the same threads. Yea for John and Yoko and Peace. You do know of the tower of light for peace she erected in Iceland???
I love "The Sound of Rain"! Beautiful. I wish I could paint like that. Stunning!
ReplyDelete"The Sound of Rain" looks so much like a landscape to me. I can see trees, snow covered land, rain (or snow) falling from above. Very nice Leslie! Maybe this is not what you had in mind when you painted it but it is what I see when I look at it. It's really nice!
ReplyDeleteJust want to say, Leslie, that of all the blogs I read, yours is consistently the most inspiring! Love your work!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pieces, Leslie. I think most artists are tuned-in to their intuitions. Wonderful post.
ReplyDeleteHi everyone and thank you for visiting and commenting.
ReplyDeleteThe link to Margot's site is a fun one to follow - at her web site she has a couple of short movies of her work. She also was interviewed by pubic broadcasting. That video shows her fabulous studio. She explains how she made up her own alphabet.
The title The Sound of Rain came from drifting to sleep to the sound of a rain storm on the day the piece was finished. I got up to write it down, so I didn't loose it.
"winter" and "the sound of rain" are really wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI find my language is different depending on what I am responding to. Nice post. Thank you
ReplyDeleteOur past memories, experiences and passing feelings are what informs us today- there are always past threads entwining in with our present threads in our thinking which will always have a lasting affect- always go with your intuitions.
ReplyDeleteLove your painting "the sound of rain" Leslie and the title too. ...And the post title ... very much!
ReplyDeleteI just read another recent post where you were talking about swooning over other's work and yet having feet planted firmly in the ground of your own work.
I will never cease to be amazed at how one can view the work of another and almost feel you want to be there doing that....and yet it can be a long way from what lives in oneself to do. Dont know it you know this feeling.
Ive found it quite mysterious at times to feel Im drawn to a certain fields of work quite powerfully and consistently yet that is not what I'm about at the end of the day....I have to stay true to what issues forth from myself even if i doesn't always make sense!
Being authentic no matter what is the stronger pull.
Sophie
working today
ReplyDeletewith these tools
that you express so well
always beautiful Leslie
thank you for your clarity
I too
love the sound of rain
and
this blanket of quiet white...
xox - eb.
It is fascinating to think that the roots of who we are as artists today have always been there.
ReplyDeleteFabulous post, as always, Leslie.
ReplyDeleteLove all the work you're showing,,,and your header is gorgeous!
I will be saving the link you provided,,,,I know I'll want to jump into and absorb it when I have more time.
(love the Picasso quote in the sidebar)
Leslie, Thank you for taking us back to your very beautiful and inspiring roots--and to introducing us to Margot. I'll be taking her words into the studio to keep me company.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful new works here. I can't escape my core-protecting myself through mystery.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful work, with beautiful titles, Leslie.
ReplyDeleteI love that your voice was present from the beginning. For me, there are colors and an organized disorder that carry through everything I do. Or at least, when I like it the most.
ReplyDeleteCool post.
ReplyDeleteI love how hints of painters' "mature" works are visible even in their early work. Fascinates me.
Off to check out her link now.
Leslie, always a pleasure to find your words and your gentle images. A softness like the sound of rain, the whisper of the breeze... My work has more of a churning, a vast earth movement caused by the turning of a grain of sand and color vibrations. Be well and keep reminding yourself of where your path has been and now goes.
ReplyDeletejust discovered your blog through my friend Donna Watson's....how I love your work. I think for me, the continuous linguistic visual thread is seeing beyond the surface into the transformation...the movement from one state to another...abstractions take me deeper to essence. It does not always show in my photos or old collages or textiles from years ago...but usually...this is the language I seek and find...I don't know if this makes sense to you but it does to me.
ReplyDeleteI find that when my intuition speaks, it's as though it wanders out from the shadows and whispers "SURPRISE." It startles by the rightness of what it has to say, not by its loudness.
ReplyDeleteyour blog is so inspiring Leslie in images and words , thank you very much for sharing :)
ReplyDelete