Art Is My Teacher

My work is loving the world.

~Mary Oliver

Paying some attention to what my art has been teaching me, I have noted a few thoughts. Like all lists, and all awareness, it is in flux, incomplete and evolving. I'll share my observations with you here.


Go with what is happening. Art will teach me what it needs.

It is good to ask "I wonder what will happen if I..."

Swooning is allowed when seeing another artist's work, but feel my feet firmly planted on my own art path.

No matter how much has been mastered, remain a student of everything and of something - photography, on-line presence, or new technology. The world will always evolve and I must also.

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.

~Lao Tzu

When in a growth phase, protect incubating ideas. They may be shy. Retreat from scrutiny, like a snake that is shedding its skin. Emerge fresh and ready to shine.

Attend to nature, the original muse.

I learn, yet again, to see, really see.

Share with other artists. They get it. Encourage others as I am encouraged.

Experience gratitude.

The answer is almost always "keep working."

Happy New Year!

What is your art teaching you?

The first image: Untitled, 12 inches by 12 inches, watermedia on birch panel. By Leslie Avon Miller

The second image: Untitled, 30 inches by 22 inches, watermedia and collage on watercolor paper. By Leslie Avon Miller

Readers are adding:

• patience
• resilience
• curiosity
• exploration
• discovery
• renewal
• the value of looking within
• to be more brave
• go to work!
• follow any leads
• always allow time to experiment
• the beginning
• letting go
• dare
• now it's good
• look carefully
• be brave
• have an open mind
• look closely
• be excited
• be open
• share

And more words from you:

• • nourish the spirit
  • be kind to myself
    
  • Play and explore
  • Celebrate life
  • Be present
  • Push
  • Feel
  • See the light within and in the world
  • Keep pushing the envelope
  • You can’t win if you don’t play
  • Allow
  • Accept
  • Sustain
  • Stillness/action/aloneness
  • Share
  • Acceptance
  • Reflection
  • Perseverance
  • Connection

What a rich and fabulous list. I'll keep adding to the list as you share your thoughts. Thank you all!

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.

Artists Books and Some Things To Like About Art

My intrigue with artist’s books goes back to the second grade, when I fell in love with my teacher’s grade book. It was a truly magical book with multiple interior pages of different widths.

All our names were entered down the left hand column. Each interior page flipped to show our grades for a variety of subjects, the column of names on the left remaining constant. The beautiful Miss Monroe entered marks in blue, red or black ink, creating a random pattern of visual interest. The weight of her entries made an impression that created depth to each page. I was truly enthralled.

No other book I experienced had any handmade marks –books were stored on shelves, pristine and sterile. It was sacrilege to make a mark in a book, except for the teacher’s grade book. When ever my BF and I would play “school” I would always start by making an elaborate grade book, with pages of differing widths, filled with columns and rows. Heaven!

I seldom make a model book – I may as well just make another book. But I knew a model would help to test the weights of different papers and how they interact with one another. I used tape to secure the papers since this was only a model. But now I like the model book, so I may add content and hope the photo quality permanent tape will hold for sometime.

To add interest I used some of the paper I do warm ups on when I am starting a studio session. My warm up papers are like a sketch book of ideas. I hang a large piece of light weight paper on the studio wall so I can work on ideas in larger format. I also practice making gestures and marks.

I like a lot of things about making art. I like to work with my hands. It’s something that occurs right here, right now somewhat within my control. I can’t have much of an effect on world peace, but I can make art.

Do you know what I mean? I work out thoughts and responses to being human, especially the parts for which I can’t find deep enough words.

I like to see what happens when I create. I’m just so curious about the whole process. I’m always finding new ways of doing things. One day I may make marks with a stick dipped in paint, and the next day I may use a razor blade to scratch out lines and marks. Curiosity is real fuel for studio time.

When it comes to art, I get to do it my way, and create my vision. No one else is making the decisions, or setting the course. It’s all mine. As said in Art and Fear – art is about “a rolling tangle of choices.” We have to make our choices. And then roll with it.

What are some things you enjoy about making your art?

Speaking of rolling tangles of choices, my new life coaching for artists web site is up and running. So I’m offering a new session of the popular course for artists called Re-Fresh Your Creative Practice. The dates are Tuesday, November 2^nd to Tuesday, December 7^th. If you like you can participate in a complementary call to find out more about it on Tuesday, October 6^th. Head over here and also sign up for my newsletter to find out more about it. The next time I offer this course will be June, 2011, or thereabouts.

If you have signed up for the newsletter and haven’t gotten your complementary gift, check your spam folder. Once you confirm your subscription, an email will be sent to you with your gift. The spam folder is no place for your present to be!

Old Papers, Insects with Wings, and Stencils.

Collectors are happy people ~ Johann Goethe

Old papers, insects with wings, and stencils.

What is a collector? It’s an innate trait. We start as children, collecting leaves, or stamps or stones and, as we get older, teens collect friends, CDs and, as an adult it can be anything. ~Edgar Paulik

Vintage photography paraphernalia.

Post office stamps, beyond their original usefulness.

Collecting seems to bring out that primitive instinct for the hunt in some of its devotees, who stalk their prey with skill. ~Alicia Faxon

Did I mention leaves with spots and dots?

Bulldog clips and every kind of vintage office item.

I have yet to meet a collector who feels bad about his collection. Collection is also about the story – the story behind how someone found it and purchased it. ~Edgar Paulik

Of course, keys.

More, I have so much more…to be continued from time to time.

What do you collect?

I have a new coaching web site here. The small collage above is by Leslie Avon Miller. Thanks for stopping by!

Black and White: The Yin Yang of Colors

Neither Completely Black Nor White 1
Leslie Avon Miller
mixed media collage
5 x 8 inches

My art is created intuitively as I seek to visualize and share this very moment on the continuum of time, just as it slips into the past.


Yin and yang energy are in constant motion and cause everything to happen.

The Nature of Things 1
Alan Bates
45 x 45 cm

From the Dockside series. Alan explains the resources that informed his work in this series; the jangle of boats, slipways, boat sheds, wharves, and old rusted hardware lying in shipwrights yards provided the colours and textures which held my interest.

Yin and yang are the foundation of the universe.

There Are Many Different Sounds
Mirjam Pet Jacobs
mixed media

The art I make is slow art. It is a response to the fast moving, technical, impersonal age. I make unique objects, created with dedication, passion and love.


Yin and Yang are two parts of the whole.

Burnished Double Walled Bowl
Jane Perryman
Saggar fired
23 x 19 x 19 cm

For many years my work has investigated the vessel through traditional techniques of hand building, burnishing and smoke firing. Recently I have developed ideas which allude to the timeless vessel form as well as referencing contemporary urban structures such as buildings, walls, and bridges.

Yin is not completely black.

Tiny Treasure
Noela Mills
ink and mixed media

My art is now almost entirely consumed by the concept of "wabi sabi" - the Zen Buddhist philosophy of finding beauty in things old, worn, incomplete, imperfect and common place.

Yang is not completely white.

Virtues Undiscovered
Bridgette Guerzon Mills
encaustic
6 x 6 inches

I am drawn to the inherent beauty and spirit of the natural world, and my artwork is a personal dialogue that reaches into the stillness of that spirit. Through both imagery and medium, I create organic pieces that speak to the cycles of life, growth and decay, memory and the passage of time.

Yin and yang cannot exist without each other.

Completion
Donna Watson
hand painted rice papers and small scroll
12 x 12 inches

I view my work as an ongoing process of search, and self examination. I am interested in the passage of time, and what remains.

Together yin and yang form the harmony of the opposites.