High Tide In the Studio

In the flow of life there are daily tides, and waves. 

There are storms followed 

afterwards with calm seas again.

I am only human and I find myself bemoaning the storm, 

fighting the waves and wishing for perfect conditions....

which are not happening.

And this too, is forgiven. I forgive myself this as I write. 

This being in the moment business has its challenges....

I find it less challenging when the moments are full, 

ripe and rich for the picking. 

My moments now often contain obligations, chores, 

and multiple voices calling for attention. 

One of those voices is my own true self and though I hear her, 

I attend to the others. 

I say to myself 

"Wait. Wait a little bit. Soon, soon." 

My voice and I have been through this before. 

I know about these times, and that rather than writhe against it, 

I may as well put on my raincoat and keep walking.

Right now the tide is high, the winds are strong 

and the beach I walk is narrow. 

I have the same 24 hours as everyone does, 

but it seems not enough.

So I make tiny art. 

Small art. Palm sized art. 

And I console myself with this during stormy late winter high tides.  

  

And in those moments I am most myself, 

in love with being and making.

If you would like one of these tags to arrive in a handmade envelope 

to your mail box, please leave a comment. 

I shall include your name in a draw. 

I’ll announce the winners next weekend. 

So stay in touch so you can send me your snail mail address 

if your name is one of the ones drawn.

Meanwhile I will probably make more small art, 

until time opens up and I start painting again. 

Soon, soon.

Just A Weird Kindergartner!

I learned that you should feel when writing, 

not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, 

but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten 

– happy, absorbed 

and quietly putting one bead on after another.

~Brenda Ueland

Returning to the studio after a long absence,

I found all kinds of art in process. 

Some of it was well under way and I really liked it. 

Some, well not so much. 

I also found I was a tad bored with black and white 

and wanted to try something different. 

Circling around reddish tones yet again, I began. 

Colors, brush, water, paper. 

Time to get in sync with my own weirdness. 

Stringing beads. 

Thoughts accompanied me. 

So weird, I thought. 

I’m so weird.

It was a happy weird.

.

.

.

.

I simply kept on with brush, water, color. 

Stringing those happy beads.

In the end, Brenda said it so well. 

The best of times in the studio are when 

I am a happy weird kindergartner, 

absorbed in stringing my beads 

and letting it happen as it will.

What kind of beads are you stringing in your studio?

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around...

Today.

I want to make art. I have time.

Walk and take photographs.

Paint.

Flat efforts.

Tidy working space.

Look at my art.

Tidy living space.

Look at other people’s art.

Read about other people’s art.

That’s what that’s about?

Look up the word oeuvre.

That’s a big word.

Not in size. In meaning.

Read poetry.

Read more poetry.

Organize poetry collection.

Stumble upon rich quote.

Laughter and gaiety.

Thinking, thinking.

Feed the cats, and find comfort in the

familiar.

See the daylight begin to fade.

Realize what it’s about for me.

Make a list of words.

A map for my work.

It’s all ok.

I kind of know what I am saying.

I am exploring, seeking, finding.

Choosing. Integrating. Releasing.

Look up the word imbue.

That one will work.

I’ve found the door to get

back in

my art.

The poem:

On Becoming the Poet You Were Meant to Become

(note to self)

Many poets are not poets
for the same reason that
many religious men are not saints:
they never succeed in being themselves.
They never get around to being the particular poet
or the particular monk they are intended to be by God.
They never become the man or the artist who is called
for by all the circumstances of their individual lives.

They waste their years in vain efforts
to be some other poet, some other saint…

They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor
to have somebody else's experiences or write somebody else's poems.

There is intense egoism in following everybody else.
People are in a hurry to magnify themselves
by imitating what is popular—
too lazy to think of anything better.

~Thomas Merton

The quote:

I tell you, we are here on Earth

to fart around, and don't let

anyone tell you any differently.

~Kurt Vonneget

They mean the same thing.

Rhythm of The Day

Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture your heart.

Old Indian Saying

Rhythm of The Day, 20 inches by 20 inches, mixed media on birch panel, by Leslie Avon Miller

After a six week hiatus during which I connected with people I love, tended to things around home and had a vacation I went back to the studio today. I had completed this painting prior to my break and forgot about it, so it was a nice surprise to find it again. I decided it was done.

Nancy Natale was kind enough to send me some information she had put together on photography of art work, so I worked with that today. Thanks Nancy. I’ve spent the day making marks, adding colors and shapes and playing more than working really. It’s been relaxed and satisfying. I look forward to creative time tomorrow. I feel a little greedy about it actually. Wishing everyone a lovely weekend.

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration. – Igor Stravinsky

Art Gone Amuck

So, alright I do talk to myself. Not out loud though. That’s where I draw the line. My conversation has been running along these lines in the studio. “Gosh it’s hot!” Then I spray a mist of water in front of the fan and feel it hit my face with refreshing coolness. Misting water aside, it’s still not very comfortable in the studio. Not only due to heat, but due to feeling like I’ve gone amuck with my art making. I paint something and it looks like something I’ve painted many times before. I try something else, and then it just looks odd. Then I paint over the whole thing. Then I do it all over again….I am making myself tired and its b-o-r--i-n-g! Boring art.

I was taking with an artist friend yesterday. She said may be I need a break. Now there is an idea. I hadn’t thought about taking a break. When things get tough I usually just try harder. I put my nose to the grindstone and grind. How Zen like to step back and pause.
So this week, due to hot weather and the need for something to be different, I’m taking a break.

Of course I can’t stop thinking about art completely. I see the earthy brown colors I love in a leaf as I pick the wild blackberries that grow along our drive. I see the beauty in a feather one of the birds lost near the feeder. Last night the sky was almost red.

As I take my break, I’m writing and reading. In an old book called Water Color Bold and Free, by Lawrence Goldsmith I read “One effective way to become bolder in your work is to experience the shock of discarding your ordinary procedures in favor of a new one.” I’ll ponder Lawrence’s words about understatement – simplicity, suggestion and brevity. He asks “does the painting make its statement economically?”

And because I have no new art to show you, I’ve posted a photo of the inside of my favorite used book store, where I find great older (and sometimes newer) art books. The floors are wooden and they creak as one walks down the narrow isles. The art section is eclectic and fun to peruse. I’ve got store credit from selling my gently used books, and I’ll be in the vicinity this week. Maybe I’ll stop by and find a new book to read on my self declared art break.

So what do you do when art making goes amuck?

Jeane's Studio Visit

Jeane’s Visit to the Studio

Hello!
Tour the studio
Art work
Jeane’s art work is so deep!
Technique talk
Oils
Wax
Acrylic
Canvas
Birch Panels
That great soft yellow bag
Talk
Laugh
Bits of life stories
Tea
Dreams
Visions
Intensions
To brush or not to brush?
Scrub is a good thing
Laugh
OMG!
Show and Tell
Meet the kitties
Meet Wire Man
Talk
Laugh
Little gifts
Good By until next time

Great Energy!

I loved your visit Jeane!

Nothing Like A Good Moodle

Typewritten Painting 12 x 12 by Leslie Avon Miller

Collection of Seth Apter

So you see the imagination needs moodling-
long, inefficient, happy idling, and puttering.

Brenda Ueland

A good, long two day moodle. I always try and resist it, but the moodle wins, every time. I took my thoughts with me to the studio. I picked up this piece, that piece, and put them down again. I looked at work in progress. I sorted papers. I mixed paint and didn’t know where to put it. I sighed. I picked up a graphite pencil and began to write those thoughts, jumbled as they were, on a larger painting. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Then I knew where to put that paint – on top of the partially obscured words. Perhaps these are the Old Bones I am seeking to move into a new white series. The old bones of thoughts, past and present. Old bones buried under paint, gnawed at, left to dry in the sun, bleached and washed clean by the elements. Old bones clumped together in a pile, old bones scattered about leaving a trail and telling the story.
The next day, relieved of some of the jumbled thoughts for the moment, I rested. I sunk down into the quiet. Silence held the space open for something new, evolving, and still unknown. Occasionally thoughts of what I could be accomplishing came to mind; art, writing, progress, at least laundry, or a pot of soup. But resting in the silence won out. And today, the sun shines, my thoughts are flowing again, and I greet the day with renewed energy, enthusiasm, and appreciation. I go on.

Here are the answers to question #3 What gets in the way and frustrates you in your efforts to create?

My answers: Limited time. Tedious obligations. Sometimes the inability of my hand to create what my mind can see. That part is getting better. Once in a while falling in love with someone else’s work can get in my way for a time. That’s getting better too. Fatigue. After a long day I need to rest, when I might like to continue. The fact that no matter how much I want every weekend to create, sometimes I have to tend to other things. It’s all a dance, and I keep moving in the right direction. I don’t always care if I get the laundry done….


Readers answers: accepting my self and my art
long list of “have to’s” and “shoulds”
being a task master and pushing too hard = stress
letting less important things keep me from the studio
physical stamina and health, repetitive stress injuries, exhaustion, fibromyalgia,
limited opportunities to show my work
interruptions; the buzz around me
lack of the right kind of studio space
wanting to treat art as my job, but not doing that
I need a wife
loss; family members illness and death
need to expand my market
time
scheduling my time
finding a new audience
negative voices, inner critic
my task master production work ethic
validation from family and friends; they don’t
making a living
inner critic
day jobs
very high expectations
recharting my creative compass
how to stay motivated and inspired
negative thinking
expressing my individualism
lack of inspiration
self care; everyday problems
marketing; something that will sell that I want to make

Of Dots and Falling in Love

This collage is another of my recent series. I’m rather fond of it. Perhaps this will be the one I keep for myself. I feel an interest in dots coming on….finger painting is so tactile. Perhaps a dotty name for this collage will come to mind.

Dave King at Pics and Poems blog brought up a discussion about liking art. Do you need to understand art to like it? Or is it enough to know you like it? That issue was pretty well discussed at his blog. I must say, Dave is good at causing me to think about things.

Years ago, I took a week long class at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. It was a large gathering, with many individual classes. It was a symposium of contemporary basket makers from all over the country. The structures made by contemporary basket makers are wondrous sculptures. I’ll add some links to some of my favorite artists.

The course I took was all about nurturing and developing ones own creativity. I was really excited! Here I was flying across the country and going to one of the well known national colleges of arts and crafts, to attend a gathering of many of the best know artists in contemporary basket making. I would be part of all that creative energy!

So I looked around for examples of my teacher’s work. And I discovered that, well, it was ugly. Really, well, ugly. I thought about changing classes. Still I was so very interested in working around development of my own creativity. So I just went anyway. I told myself I could work around the ugliness of the teacher’s own work. I would just ignore that part.

The first day in the class we did a lot of exercises. We “drew” with whole arm motions in the air. We drew lines with charcoal on paper, expressing emotions and qualities such as joy, excitement, and calm. Soon we had an assignment to make something using items in their opposite function. If it was a material usually used as a fastener, then we used it as the structure. If it was usually the structure, we used it as the fastener. I wound coils of metal wire and placed metal binder clips affixed to the wire, but the clips didn’t hold anything. It was a stretch to think in opposite directions, and I could tell my brain was working. We learned about critique, which is an art in itself; expressing truth while honoring someone else’s vision and execution in making an art object. We began to learn about telling a story, about having something to say with our art.

By the evening of day two I was invested in what I was doing, excited, and really getting value from the teacher’s guidance. And I really enjoyed who she was. I stayed up late at night along with everyone else to talk about art and creativity, to share what we were doing and to be part of that intense energy. The excitement in the air was palpable. The multiple conversations created a din of noise. But still, in the back of my mind, was the knowledge that my teacher’s own work was so unattractive to me.

Wednesday morning our class went to the auditorium and saw slides of our teacher’s work and listened to her talk about her work. She had started out as a painter. Her paintings were of faces of people, somewhat abstracted in a Picasso type of style. And the faces were always in relationship, looking in a similar direction, or at each other, or away from each other. Then her path took her to making of structures. Her structures were unique, made of thousands and thousands of knots of waxed linen, and did not have a cavity as a traditional basket. She called them contemporary baskets. And her structures were usually in relationship to one another. Touching, or leaning, or wound round one another. Or very alone. She began to tell us what these structures represented to her. They were her family members, her loved ones, in relationship with her. They experienced struggles as always occurs in families. Conflicts. Love. Hate. Differences. Breaking away and coming together. These were reflected in her work. No words, no objective images, but relationship, proximity, and gesture.

During the course of that work shop and in the hours we studied our teacher’s work I began to fall in love; with her work, and with her vision. Because I learned about the artist, and about her vision and who she is, my response to her work had completely changed.

Studio Views Sunday

Real snow, pretty to look at. And it’s snowing again as I write. We are cozy and warm, and tired, after the long night last night. There are a lot of birds at the feeders today, including a beautiful Flicker. I love the coloring of the birds; gray, soft browns, cream, orange, and black. I have started three more pieces this weekend. This is one in its initial stages of layering textures, and starting to create a design. Working on the birch panel boxes is fun. The surface is absolutely resilient. I have been sanding these pieces this morning. I love the way it allows some of the under surface to show through in interesting ways, and creates new edges. I am thinking about the six foot piece I saw in the gallery window last night. Could I work that big? Do you?

Pray for Peace

What could you create in a world at peace?

Make the brushing of your hair a prayer, every strand its own voice, singing in the choir on your head. As you wash your face, the water slipping through your fingers, a prayer: Water, softest thing on earth, gentleness that wears away rock.
Making love, of course, is already prayer. Skin, and open mouths worshipping that skin, the fragile cases we are poured into.
Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace, feed the birds, each shiny seed that spills onto the earth, another second of peace. Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Ellen Bass's fourth book of poems, The Human Line, was published by Copper Canyon Press in June 2007.

I found Ellen's poetry on line today. I asked her if I could share some with you. She was happy to have you read her work. These are just a few stanzas of her poem which is avaliable in its entirety at her web site, along with a few others.

So I have been thinking about this poem today. Yes, the Zen of feeding the birds, making love, or washing our hair is a prayer, so certainly the movement of a brush across our canvas is a prayer, as is the thought behind it. Make art, make a prayer for Peace. It’s all good.

This piece is another of my collages from last year’s International Collage Exchange.

Ongoing Exploration

This image is from an ongoing exploration focusing on using a limited color pallet, mark making and texture. I am thinking about this series in terms of communication. I love the subtleties of neutral colors, rich textures, and “mark of the artist.” I am beginning to use these same symbols and design elements on a series of wooden boxes my husband has made for me. I hope I can successfully transfer from small format to larger. And with the wooden substrate I plan to be able to create even deeper textures. Don’t you just love to make art?