Hello dear readers! I'm busy these days in the studio, but really, you'll have to take my word for it, because for all the time I spend down there....well, it's two steps forward and one step backward. As you may remember from a recent
blogpost I have lately found myself enamored all over again with the notion of letters....that is, correspondence....of the handwritten variety....the kind rarely engaged in any longer. All sorts of layers of quasi-handwriting appear in the new work, in a variety of inks, many of which become a smeary mess when I scumble over them with a layer of paint. The idea is to build the work in layers, with the drawing/writing appearing through the layers, but even if an ink describes itself (or its manufacturer does) as permanent, that, it turns out, is not the same thing as waterproof. I was working with Higgins Indigo ink, which I loved and which I swore was permanent and waterproof when I bought it, but alas it is dye-based and it's the blue ink that is waterproof. The blue is just a bit too bright for what I want, so I continue to build the layers, even in the ones that have become a smeary mess, because it still retains the writing and with enough light, drybrush layers of paint, well the surfaces eventually becomes interesting. All this work, just to get the piece to the point where I can begin layering shapes or image or whatever else will come. And that became the next problem.....there are at least six of these pieces going now....and I get them to a point where the top layers of drawing or sewing will be and I'm terrified of messing something up and I'm confounded as to what it is I wanted to say after all!
Does all this sound familiar to anyone....I bet it does....you have your own version of the dance of the creative process. The other conversation going on in my head while I'm working is expectation and the desire to make something that I have an elusive glimpse of in my mind....probably based on other works out there that I love and the desire to make "that".....but "that" is not mine to make....I must make "this" and it's the work itself that must unfold in its own time.....the conversation, then, is not about that, but about this.....listening to the moment, allowing for the unexpected and for surprise. Humbling, isn't it?
So, what I can share with you now is nearly a week of the daily teabag drawings, which have taken a few twists and turns of late since I began using the water soluble crayons to loosen myself up a bit! Fun!
March 13, 2012
March 14, 2012
March 15, 2012
March 16, 2012
March 17, 2012
March 18, 2012
All these are available in my shop
MissouriBendMusings and a new one appears each day....so far, I'm still on track, whew! Have a great week....see you in a few days with some shots of those other works in progress.
