Keep some room in your heart

Untitled Collage by Leslie Avon Miller

The Guest House


This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.


A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.


Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

Untitled Collage by Leslie Avon Miller

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
 

~ Rumi ~

texture sample by Leslie Avon Miller

I have been a guest house to a number of fluctuating emotions of late…

Sadness and feelings of loss on top of feeling adrift as I am no longer working with paints, acrylics…. I don’t know what to do. I have also felt annoyed. I don’t want to change mediums! I don’t want to go on yet another up hill learning curve. I want what I want! (See me stomping my feet?)

I also have feelings of joy and gratitude because I certainly feel much better now that I am no longer exposed to intense VOCs. Living in harmony with my physical self is delightful. There is a spring in my step. I am quick to laugh. Life is good!

Because my painting routine has been interrupted, I have found myself with more time and space, which has been freeing. I had a day of total silence this weekend to explore where I am now, with my art, my well-being, and my process as a creative individual. I simply listened to the silence. I felt at peace about it all. I don’t know where I am going; I only know where I am right this minute. 

Texture sample by Leslie Avon Miller

The painting sample above is a guide I have used in my studio for years. I think of it and the one further above as "samplers" of the textures I make with acrylic. I miss this technical knowledge, these things I know. 

Explorations with water color and collage have been engaging and enjoyable. I have no real expectations, so it’s all an interesting foray into new worlds.

Researching options for art products, techniques, and the general process of detoxing has lead to a lot of information. 

I wanted somewhere to keep this wealth of information, so I started a new blog. It’s called Detoxing My Art Practice.

As I research and try the art materials I already own I am posting my thoughts and those of the manufacturers and other artists. Today I experimented with oil pastels. I will be posting about those on the new blog soon.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

~ Mary Oliver

Any Small Thing

The poets know of morning sun, 

falling snow flake and the things we circle around, 

like the book ends of birth and death 

and the space in between.  

 They write what we remember 

at the half edge of sleep and awake.

The poets have words 

and they have the white space between 

where they leave us room 

to feel the words pierce or comfort, 

room to breathe in and breathe out. 

I have lines, and dots and I draw them. 

These lines and dots form a story or maybe a poem, 

perhaps of the woods and birds and the feelings 

I have for the glorious world and my very temporary place in it. 

Wanting to speak of these things I retreat to the alphabet I know.

Dot. Line. Crossing. 

I love this artistic language of ours. 

On canvas, in wood, with paper, thread, 

clay, twig or found object an artist makes her marks, 

sings in her own voice, dances with the elements.

Any small thing…..

A small color

Texture

Happily exploring my way into the new year 

with small things created in the evenings 

near the warmth of the fire, 

I am inviting awareness, openness, and acceptance. 

These attitudes are meant for my art, 

to see what will come, 

to remove myself from the front of the equation, 

to drop my bucket deep into the well.

This attitude shift, shifting, shifting 

feels like vital work to me, to step back, and back, and back, 

to get very clear that I am not driving the bus, 

but that I am invited to create. 

And that I humbly accept the gift. 

My art. My life.

Do you know words for this?

Dots

Dot and line together

Lines

Lines crossing

Planes

Circles

There are so many kindred spirits in the blogging world. 

And I appreciate you. 

I would like to introduce you to an artist and blogger you may not yet know, 

but she is another kindred spirit, 

living her life with quiet gusto, 

being true and blogging about it.

Here, at “to live poetry” you can find Anca Gray 

who today has blogged some of my thoughts and work. 

I am honored Anca.

Thank you.

Anca is an artist friend of mine from tumblr 

who has graciously included me in her blog post series. 

Anca describes her series as

“a regular friday feature, a series of quick interviews with strong creative confident women that inspire me”.   

I found Anca’s questions enlightening. 

You might answer them for yourself and 

see where they lead you. 

One word rolls across the floor,

Lodging under the slipper

Of the man who has felt uncomfortable

All day.

Now he knows what to say.

~naomi shihab nye

From a poem titled 

Listening to Poetry in a Language I do not Understand

For me, 

I am following the lines and dots to the well. 

It’s probably also sometimes called the rabbit hole……See you there?

Any small thing can save you.

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?

An Overdose of Satisfaction

There are some days when I think I'm going to die 

from an overdose of satisfaction. 

~Salvador Dali

There is something about creating collage on paper that I find very satisfying, more than any other substrate. Paper is friendly, tactile and receptive. It’s easy to manipulate during the process of creating a painting or collage. Paper has it’s own language.

 

Since I am the creator of the painting 

and the first real 'viewer' – 

when I feel satisfied, 

I put the brushes down and hope 

that someone else will feel satisfied too. 

~David Lussier

Presentation of art is important to me. I feel my work is enhanced by a simple, clean surrounding that allows the viewers eye to make the journey through the piece in a leisurely manner. 

Each piece is unique and takes its own time to be realized. 

I am not concerned with the quantity, but only that they

communicate my understanding of life and my craft at that particular time. 

~Sharon Knettell

When we started building the studio/wood working shop building, about 5 years ago, I was certain I needed a mat cutter so I could frame my works on paper. A local frame shop was going out of business, and I had been gifted a coupon from Kurt for a mat cutter once we decided which one to get. As luck would have it, the mat cutter was available when we got to the shop. We also obtained the wall mounted cutter for cutting glass and making straight cuts on anything from large paper to mat board. I use it often. 

The only person you have to please, 

with your art, is yourself. 

~Don Getz

For a time while the building project continued the cutters were stored where they would fit; awaiting the day they could be moved to the studio and put into use. We moved the cutters to the studio awhile ago, but this weekend we began to cut mats. 

 

You learn the essential skills, 

how to manipulate the brush and how to handle paint, 

and you study the works of artists you admire. After a while, though, 

you have to be yourself. 

That's scary, but satisfying. 

~T. M. Nicholas

I thought I would cut the mats, but Kurt, wood worker that he is, could not resist trying out the new equipment. My turn will come. We thought we would start framing up a few things for ourselves as practice. We laughingly set out to challenge ourselves to find out how many ways there are to make mat cutting errors. And we have found several!

 

The painter goes through states of fullness and evaluation. 

That is the whole secret of art. 

~Pablo Picasso

 

I have a real sense of satisfaction seeing the works set off by nice clean mats. We have some frames on order and once they arrive, we will compete the presentation. 

I love an art which allows me to 

document my place in this mix... 

This is my past and my future. 

It has its own logic and finally, 

its own sense of fulfillment. 

~Burton Silverman

I hope you all found satisfaction this weekend too. 

Space and Light

Thirteen Moons

by Leslie Avon Miller

14 x 11.5 mixed media on paper

I want painting to be my flashlight.

~Squeak Carnwath

On my studio wall I have written the words space and light.

Space and light are my anchor, my rock, my beacon if I become lost.

Space is the breath of art.

~Frank Lloyd Wright

I like space in a painting, space to breathe, space to wander around, space to explore.

Space to be.

Space Abstracted


by Leslie Avon Miller


10x10, mixed media collage on paper

In my pictures there are tiny forms in vast empty space, empty horizons, empty plains, everything that is stripped away has always impressed me.

~Joan Miro

I like light in a painting. It adds to the feeling of spaciousness.

The reflections of the moon on one thousand rivers are from the same moon:

the mind must be full of light.

~Hung Tzu-ch’eng

Choreographer of Space
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by Leslie Avon Miller
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22x22, mixed media collage on paper

I have always been drawn to light over dark and dark over light, with each allowing some of the other to peek through.

There is a dance that happens when light and dark are mingling together. I like to watch that dance.

Be a full bucket, pulled up the dark way of the well,

then lifted out into the light.

~Rumi

I enjoy the hints of something from before, traces left which I can just see if I look closely that other marks were first, that there are layers and layers built one upon the other.

I like empty spaces that are no longer occupied,

although you can tell that people were there once.

~Dick Cole

Before Darkness
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by Leslie Avon Miller
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15x10.5 mixed media on paper

Intimacy is important to me in my work. I enjoy looking at the work from a distance, but then finding rewards for coming closer, to see and experience the little things that enrich the experience of viewing the surface.

When you look into the abyss,

the abyss also looks into you.

~Friedrich Nietzsche