The Repetitive Mark

We were paid a memorable visit by winter storm, Kayla, this week. She was quite something! Johntimothy and I were nestled safely inside for a beautiful day of snow and more snow. I'm quite sure we got at least a foot of it, wouldn't you say? I heard that in Vermillion, just 8 miles away, it was 17 inches. We had an amazing sculptural overhang, as seen below, along the length of the roofline in the back....alas, we had to knock it down. So, we eventually got ourselves dug out and life has returned to normal. 

Shoveling after the blizzard delayed my getting into the studio by a bit, but I got back in the rhythm of making marks on yet another series of new pieces. There is something so meditative about making repetitive marks....I just love it! I'm sure my focus on tiny marks would drive many others quite mad, but for me, it puts me right in the zone. What's been interesting in making these drawings is that, while I often use hand stitching as an extension of drawing, these are basically drawings that come to resemble stitches. And it's funny how the finished pieces almost look like bits of cloth. Here are a few details of this new series. I'm not sure I'll have time to properly photograph all the work before the show, which is installed next Monday, but will certainly do it after the pieces come back.

Hope you are having a good week....the weekend is nearly here! Enjoy!

The Touchstone Voice

The tug-of-war has gotten underway....well, maybe that's casting a rather negative gloom over the creative process. But, there are moments when it feels like a tug-of-war! Do you often feel there are countless voices at work inside you, each with their own take on giving you just the right advice?

You can't listen to everyone of course, and for me the secret is tuning out the others and just listening to the unnamed voice that I learned to trust probably 15 years ago. I'd been making art before that for decades, but somehow I began to trust myself and the work that is truly my own began to come forth. It was only then that I knew that I'd slipped into my own skin as an artist. Maybe I'll call it my touchstone voice.

It's a quiet voice, one that encourages letting go and trusting. And there's the big struggle....giving over control and allowing the process to unfold in its own time. Patience is required.

Of course, my ego wants to control the work, wants to bring to life the vision in my head. That's the first step in letting go and eventually it happens with me, because I'm forced to admit defeat by hitting the wall. When the work goes badly session after session, I know, if I'm listening to the touchstone voice, it's because I haven't let go. Here's how the touchstone would speak to me, if it happened in straightforward English, which it doesn't, because I think the touchstone speaks in a kind of pre-language.

"Forget that idea in your head, it's coming from the wrong place....you'll see the essence of that idea come to be, but it's not going to happen the way you are going about it. You are waiting and pacing by the front door for something to happen, but the work is going to come to you through the back door, wearing clothing you won't at first recognize. It will come like an apparition, in layers, building slowly. It may take some time to materialize, but you'll recognize it when it does."

And it's true. At least for me, the best work I've made happens that way. You've never seen the other stuff, because it never gets finished. Those pieces get tossed out or those first "cognitive thinking" attempts get painted over and I let the work emerge as it wants to. I quit watching the front door and sit quietly, waiting for the creaky sound of the back door opening.

So the photos here are a work in progress...the back door is unlatched and open. Lots of layers of gouache, lots of letting go, building I know not what exactly. I don't know where this is going....the "me" with the old worn out brush in my hand....I'm the last to know. Sometimes that conversation and the struggle happens in another room out of my hearing and I can actually enjoy the process. Like here....I'm enjoying watching this piece unfold. This is gouache on a luscious, sturdy handmade paper. Eventually, I'd like to have some sewing on it as well....and just whose voice is that?

I must leave this piece for a time as my husband and I travel to visit family for the holidays. Wishing you peace and joy this season. I'll keep in touch on my travels. Cheers!

Reclaiming the Practice, Revisiting Gouache

I'm back in the studio....and it's no longer an office! The desk is now strictly for painting, drawing, sewing and associated musings! In honor of being back in the saddle, so to speak, I finally opened the set of gouache paint that I bought last month. Kind of daunting....as I haven't worked with gouache in decades. Back in those days, when I was in art school, all the color and design assignments were done in gouache. I believe the philosophy was that if you could master gouache, you could handle anything. I'm not sure if that's the case, maybe they were just trying to whip us into shape and toughen our spirits. I don't know what will happen now, but it's a new day and I'm willing to give it a go again. After roughly two years in the academic world, I want to see what I have to say about it all, now that I have time to reflect. 

Now that I am back to painting and drawing, I am anxious to see what is revealed through my hands. Everyday I look at this postcard by one of my painting heroes, Edouard Vuillard. I so love the luscious paint quality, the pattern and the rich color. But alas, I'll never paint like Vuillard, because that's not who I am.

Below is a lovely gouache painting done by Vuillard...probably a study for a larger painting, but not sure.

If there is one lesson I've learned through my creative practice, it's the one of learning to trust yourself. So, I am back to being me, rediscovering the trust in who I am as an artist. The marks on paper below are the ones that come naturally to me. I've broken the ice....opened the gouache, begun the dance. I feel so at home letting my hand glide across the page. Let's see where this goes. I'll go on appreciating Vuillard, along with countless other artists who make works that I wish I'd made. But, the lesson I learn each day in the studio is that those were not my works to make....my works are the ones that come through my hands when I allow myself to dance.

Cheers to you!

Inner Language: The Individual Mark

Hello again! I've been meaning to do a post about something that I hope will touch a chord...a glimmer of recognition, and that is...the power of the individual mark. That's a rather ambiguous term, I realize, but it's a way of talking about how each one of us, whether or not we consider ourselves artists, has a way of making marks that is unique. And that is a very powerful thing, it seems to me. I have spent years drawing, making my marks, and I've come to understand how impossible it is to deny that we have a personality that expresses itself in the marks we make.

I believe it still holds true that our fingerprints belong to us alone and I think we all agree that each person has a unique handwriting. So, if we are free from fear, from the inner critic, along with all the "shoulds" and "musts" that follow us through our day....and if we let go of thinking to let our hand wander, I believe that our inner language flows through the ink tracing its path across the page. 

I spend a few moments in this activity every day, in a kind of ritual that I call the daily drawing. I don't try, I don't think, I let my hand go and watch the dance unfold. Day after day I watch this process, as if looking over my own shoulder, and the same thoughts occur. The marks I make are absolutely consistent....across time, across media...my body expresses itself in an effortless dance

in this daily ritual.

Below are a couple of pieces I started a month or so ago...just as drawing on handmade paper with a layer of acrylic. These drawings will be heavily layered with alternating and intertwining paint and drawing that both reveals and conceals. It seems quite obvious that I can't quite get away from myself, as the marks on these upper drawings absolutely resonate with what comes through my hands in the daily drawings seen below. I've just posted a couple from the last few days, along with one that reveals bits and piece from the November pile....now ready for their long-awaited dip in the beeswax!

All this is not to tout these drawings in any way, but to express the notion that each one of us has the capacity to express ourselves in unique ways. Rather than follow all the latest trends out there that have you following the lead of others, why not experiment with a simple practice that allows you to find your own voice and your own mark. 

Try this. Take seven small sheets of paper and a favorite pen (or other mark-making tool). Find a quiet space and a quiet time each day...even 5 minutes is enough. Close the door and leave that inner critic outside. Without thinking, let your hand move the pen around the page, stopping when something inside says stop now. Tomorrow do the same thing...and again for the rest of the week. I have a sense that what you will find is that, if you have really let go and not tried to make a "Drawing", then you will begin to see yourself in a new way. You will find that the way you put pen to page will be gaining consistency and that you can discover and recognize yourself in the marks you make. These drawing don't have to be "good" in the eyes of anyone else....there is nothing better than you being you. It's a dance and you are free....don't think, just be in the moment. I think the discovery of your own creative self is a very powerful thing.

I'd love to hear from you if you want to share what you've found! Hope the rest of your week is full of hope and moments of inspiration! 

The Space In Between

Hello everyone....it's the start of Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S.....any special plans you are excited about? I'm having a quiet time, as my husband is at a family reunion which I couldn't attend since I'm now a working gal with a new job! But, I'm going to enjoy the time in the studio, reading and musing about any number of things....in fact, I've already begun. When I was last here earlier in the week, I mentioned my revisitation with the humble dot as a repetitive mark. I will say that sitting quietly at the studio table, making unlimited points of ink on a page allows me to muse endlessly....about the dots as moments in time, individuals in a sea of humanity, grains of sand that was ashore with each new wave. And the proximity of those tiny marks....well, that's another whole catalog of thoughts. The pattern that emerges on the page relates to the proximity of the dots. As I played with varying their distance from one another I thought about the space between things and how one can always find an empty field between two "somethings" to insert something else....and isn't that a way to think about infinity? There is always space between, even when it doesn't seem so at all. When two things appear to have no space between them, it's really just an illusion, isn't it....a function of our limited perception? There are always moments between moments....when time opens up and out. There is always a space between.

And all that reminded me of my astonishment some time ago when I relearned a little something about the basics of the universe in the wonderful and quite aptly named book by Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything. I've just gotten my worn copy off the shelf. Not that I have any real understanding of quantum physics or physics of any kind....yet, these notions on page 141 give me pause....

"....if an atom were expanded to the size of a cathedral, the nucleus would be only about the size of a fly--but a fly many thousands of times heavier than the cathedral....." and a sentence or two later "It is still a fairly astounding notion to consider that atoms are mostly empty space, and that the solidity we experience all around us is an illusion. When two objects come together in the real world--billiard balls are most often used for illustration--they don't actually strike each other. 'Rather', as Timothy Ferris explains, 'the negatively charged fields of the two balls repel each other...were it not for their electrical charges they could, like galaxies, pass right through each other unscathed.' When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimeter), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy."


Many more dots to go, but I have to say that I really enjoy making these tiny marks....watching the spaces in between open up like a floating whisper. A small but infinite joy.

There are some fresh dailies for the week posted over at MissouriBendMusings if you'd like to check them out. Now, it's time to wind down the day and get some shut eye. I'm working tomorrow, but then Sunday and Monday are mine for the musing!  Hope you have a fine weekend....see you in a few days.

Endless Repetition

Monday greetings! Hope you had a great weekend. A few things to share with you at the beginning of this new week! May as well start with the dailies....as I didn't make it back here on Friday as planned, there will be quite a few.

May 15, 2012

May 16, 2012

May 17, 2012

May 18, 2012

May 19, 2012

May 20, 2012

May 21, 2012

Today's daily brings me to the ultimate topic of this post.....repetition of a single unit....in this case, the humble dot. I've recently been finding myself longing for a new direction of sorts....maybe not a new direction, but a new voyage of exploration. I'd also been hearing the little voice in my head reminding me of my desire to get to the essence....often it comes to me as the notion of "the one thing" and the search for the "one thing" that will let me express the unsayable. At some point over the weekend there was a convergence of those desires and I realized that what I wanted was to find the "mark" that I would make....the single mark that would be repeated to see where it led. This sounds rather mundane as I describe it here, but I thought that it would help me move away from dependence on the recognizable image, so that I could get to some new landscape of mark making that might let me talk about the layers underneath....the longings and yearnings we might never be able to put in words. As you all probably know, especially from the Nocturne series, I am often most happy when making repeated dots. The dot would be "the mark" and I would set off to sea making random dots to find out where they led. There are endless possibilities, it seems, with just one mark. I'll explore this and see what happens. I did it with today's daily and then this afternoon I started another piece....multiple dots of white ink on a very delicate, almost translucent handmade paper made with cornhusks....hard to see, but here is a section of it. It will probably get dipped in beeswax at the end, but not sure yet.

And one last bit of good news to share! If you have a chance to see the upcoming issue of Sew Somerset, I'm one of the featured artists! I got my issue on Saturday before it hits the news stands...very exciting to see your words and work in print.

It's back to work-work for me tomorrow, but life will continue developing along other fronts as well. Thanks for reading....enjoy your week....may you be inspired and find joy in the simple pleasures.

Time to head on the deck for a glass of wine and the last few chapters of my latest book!

The Language of Mark Making

I was walking up the gravel driveway the other day and chanced upon this charming stick!  I think it's quite charming anyway and have decided to take its portrait.  I'm quite jealous of the intuitive drawing ability of whatever creature made those marks on the stick, so reminiscent of counting and marking time.

My first thought was the squirrel, the same culprit who has not only foiled practically all our attempts to hang a bird feeder but who chews away at the recycled material in the posts on our back deck when he is especially peeved.  Perhaps he is doing some sort of counting there....is that the number of times he has chewed a big hole in the thistle bag, causing the contents to spill everywhere...or maybe that's the count of the number of times he has been able to yank the whole bird feeder contraption (feeder, sturdy pole and clamp) off the railing of the deck!  Oh, but doesn't the world just revolve around us?!  My husband thinks bugs or worms drew those lines...what could they possibly be counting, I ask you? 

I've had quite a week, just too busy, with a list of so many things to do and so many things to take care of, that any short window I had in the studio was nothing but frustration because, with so many things left on the list, I couldn't relax!  But, today I'm feeling better and spent a bit of the morning finishing up this little meditation drawing...random marks, entirely intutive, no pressure, no wrong moves...it is what it is.  I wish it could always be that way when I'm working and now, I'm heading back to the studio, before the spell is broken!

Winter Meditation no.1

Thank you so much to all the new followers who came this way, no doubt, through Bridgette via the interest in her Monday feature on The Walk Through The Universe!  Welcome to all and wishing each of you a fine weekend!

Your Marks Are Your Fingerprint

So I just have to share this discovery I made in the studio the other day.  I found one of the hardbound sketchbooks that I have sometimes used....I'm not actually one to make good use of a sketchbook, since I work so intuitively most of the time.  This one had hardly been touched...in fact, the few pages that had been used dated back to 1997!  I leafed through those initial pages and was astonished to discover this page...it's like I made it yesterday!  I can't quite say why I found it so odd, except that I saw that my mark making language is so consistent....as much as I like to think I've changed and moved in other directions, there it is...I'm the same me that I always was.  This is a comfort in some ways, because it's like a fingerprint...your language is always a part of you and probably always has been, even before you knew how to "speak" it.  It's all there...the book page, the whimsical drawings, the intuitive marks.  And on an adjacent page, a short list (always a list maker!) with these words....flight, ritual, intimacy, self, place...I might have written that list a moment ago...all those same concerns and ideas.  They are big ideas...it takes a lifetime.

The Hand Drawn Line

Pearls on a String no.4 was posted in my etsy shop a few days ago and continues my exploration of line...there is something so direct and beautiful about that movement of your hand across the page that creates a line, however halting or clumsy.  The allusion to writing, to the history of our collective lives...we are all pearls on a string.  

A pattern is emerging for me and Thursday seems to be create a Treasury on Etsy day!  It's just so fun to explore all the great work, even though, with only 16 slots, it's often very difficult to choose.  I always find new shops, new artists and artisans to learn more about and today was no different!  No surprise I'm sure, about the title for today's treasury The Hand Drawn Line.  Have a look at all the work and those oh, so beautiful hand drawn lines.  In case anyone has a question about what makes a hand drawn line...for me it can be in any medium---sewn, scratched into clay, made with marker, paint, anything....you know a hand-drawn line when you see one--it bears the mark of the maker.

Meditation Drawings

When I was in my late twenties, I decided to go back to school to get a teaching certification in art.  At The University of South Florida, I had a number of wonderful professors, but one of them, Richard Loveless, taught me some particularly valuable lessons, many of which had to do with being an artist.  One of the exercises we did individually involved taking a stack of 50 sheets of blank paper, along with a favorite mark-making tool, and sitting in a quiet place, without interruption, begin making marks on those pages.  The rule was not to think about it...make marks, without judgement, without thinking, without planning and without editing.  Page after page, we weren't to make finished "drawings", but making marks that came from the inside out, turning the page and beginning the next when the moment felt right.  On a certain day, we all came together as a class and laid out our 50 drawings at the same time on the floor, filling the room entirely.  What was immediately clear, and this was obviously the point of the exercise, was that each person in that room had a very individual inner landscape of mark-making...a way of "drawing" that was unique to them.  It was a very powerful moment for me...to see my own marks, pure, having come from the place where my intuition resides.

So, even now, when I find that I'm overthinking my work or  I have a sense I'm trying to make art from a place that isn't my own in order to please an audience, I come back to making what I call meditation drawings.  I still have that original stack of 50 pages, which I cherish, but the drawing above is from another time, a decade or more later, when I came back to make those very intuitive meditation drawings.

And here I am again, yet another decade or so later, making mediation drawings, now more minimal, along with bits of text pieces collaged on during various stages of the layering of paint and drawing...but there it is, the recognition of my own voice...my own voice loud and clear.  As an artist, there is maybe nothing more important than discovering and rediscovering your voice.

By the way, I never did get that teaching certification...I found that really what I needed was to be back in school...and perhaps it was just in order to have that experience of finding my own voice.  It's an exercise I recommend to anyone that is willing to let go in order to find their own set of marks.