Fits & Starts

Greetings! Spring is here, at least on the calendar. The reality is that it feels like spring only in fits & starts, as the temperatures fluctuate and we cast our eyes on the forecast, waiting for the steady upswing in temperatures. There are some days pushing 80 degrees, with the ones in between sometimes in the upper 30s or 40s. And, with so little snow (the big secret from this tiny southeast corner of South Dakota is out!) this year, we are desperately in need of moisture. I'm anxious to get moving outdoors, working in the garden beds and shedding the winter weight gain. Soon....

In the meantime, life in the studio has also come in fits and starts. As I've probably mentioned, my husband, Johntimothy, and I have a show together here at the university that will open in just a few weeks. We've based the exhibition on the notion of a daily practice and have both been making new works each day. His is based in printmaking and the process of taking a plate through an amazing array of changes, so there are over 100 prints based on the same two plates. I have been making daily drawings in the same format, so whatever time I can muster in the studio is dedicated to making sure I get my drawing finished. The pieces are all based on a 4" square or a 4" circle diameter format on 10x10" paper. Mine will be shown in a grid, like a calendar and his will be shown in a linear format, reflecting the sometimes subtle changes in his engraved plates, day after day. We are also collaborating on some works that will be in the exhibition, so that process is becoming more intense, the closer we move to the installation. All this is to explain my absence....well, my presence here in the blog world only in fits and starts. My library job takes up a lot of my energy and I find that I want to spend more time reading than ever before....as we all know,  there are not enough hours in the day, that is, if you value sleep as much as I do. If anyone unlocks the secret of being able to do it all, please pass it on!

Once the exhibition goes up, I will have extra pieces that I will share here and in my Etsy shop for sale. But for now, everything is still under wraps! However, as I look around the studio, I see so many pieces....a lifetime of work, much of it from the recent past, staring me in the face. I've just listed the framed piece below in my Etsy shop, Missouri Bend Studio. This is no. 6 from the Nocturne series, made a couple of years ago. The piece has been in a few exhibitions, but here it is, needing to find a loving home. The work is fabulously framed by Mary Selvig in Sioux Falls....when it was shown at the Bemis Center in Omaha, I swear as many people commented on the framing as they did on the drawing itself. I've listed it with the shipping included (the trusted folks at FedEx do a fine job of packing and shipping) within in the US. If you are interested and overseas, please let me know and I will get an exact shipping cost to a particular location and adjust the price accordingly.

Well, hope you are enjoying a lovely spring where you are....or autumn, as the case may be. Here, we are just seeing signs of leaves on the trees....flowers, not yet. Soon.....

Nocturne no.6

Moments of Transcendence

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

I've been listening again to one of my favorite pieces of music, Monsters of Grace, by Philip Glass. Beautiful, ethereal and otherworldly, the text is based on the poems of Rumi. These fields of dots take me to such places and that's why I love making them....I am transported to that opening where the two worlds (any two worlds....infinite worlds) touch....where an unnamed presence is able to move unseen. I cannot find ways to speak of it, except by laying one dot, one small particle, next to another. 

I've been trying to think of the name of this series (more are in progress), but it occurred to me that these are also nocturnes like the ones I began last fall at the residency in Wyoming. For those of you that haven't seen any of these, here is one from the series and the rest can be seen on my website. For now, the series is called The Second Nocturnes.

Earlier in the week, as I was making dots, I began to realize that the world these dots evoke could be superimposed on something more concrete, an image more tangible. I immediately found some of the old photographs my mother took from her youth and made some photocopies to see what happened.

This field of dots is layered on a copy of a photograph of my own mother and father in their happy youth while my father was in the Navy during World War II. They are both gone now, my mother's an unhappy ending with alcohol, my father's a long life lived even with a weak heart. I know how those lives unfolded....in their innocence at the moment of this photograph, how could they know where their life would take them. Maybe that's the reason I find it so compelling and I'm curious for your reaction. Does this layer of dots perhaps evoke something unnameable and does it hold possibilities for creating a new layer of meaning, for moving an ordinary snapshot closer to the threshold where the things move easily back and forth. Perhaps for you it is just an old photograph with a pattern of dots. And that brings me to another big question....what is it that makes something transcendent? And what does it mean to be transcendent? That's what I'm after in the work. I am so happy when there are even momentary glimpses.

If we can make our daily lives more transcendent....wouldn't we be floating through life? I don't feel as if I'm floating, but as long as I have glimpses through art, music and literature, my life feels connected to something much larger and I am lifted ever so slightly from my plodding. I'll leave you with the latest dailies from MissouriBendMusings. Have a great weekend!

May 29, 2012

May 30, 2012

May 31, 2012

June 1, 2012

Holiday Cheer and a Holiday Sale!

Hi everyone....hope all is well in your world.  Here, in southeastern South Dakota, we've had our first real snow, which came down most of the day on Saturday, creating a magical winter wonderland.  Something so lovely about the first snow!  The holiday season is quite upon us and as a way of saying thank you and spreading good cheer, I've decided to have a sale in my Etsy shop, so everything is 15% off through December 17th.  I'll be traveling during the holiday season and that will be the last day for shipping for most of the rest of the month....so please feel free to browse MissouriBendStudio and see if you'd like to take advantage of the sale...remember to use the coupon code at checkout: HOLIDAYS

I've added three more Nocturnes to my website in the last several days....you won't find these in my Etsy shop, but only on at robertspizzuto.com under the Artwork tab.  Everything on the site there is available for sale as well, but not with the discount at this time.  Here are the latest, Nocturnes no.3, no.4 and no.5....enjoy!

Nocturne no.3

Nocturne no.4

Nocturne no.5

Back to the studio for me...more works in progress!  Have a fine day and see you soon!

A Month of Tiny Dots

Nocturne Series, no.1

Hello friends!!!  Thanks for all your wonderful support during my month-long absence....I could feel the energy in my studio in Wyoming. What a wonderful experience I had at Jentel!  I shared an amazing 6-bedroom house with a group of very engaging writers and artists in a spectacular setting in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains.  It was very hard to tear myself away!  

I took a lot of newly purchased Japanese printmaking paper, a handful of my husband's homemade handmade paper, plenty of paint, ink, etc.  My plan was to work on exploring the map ideas, but you know how these things go....nothing goes according to plan.  The lessons we have to learn all over again!!  I know my creative process and yet many times I find myself fighting it, wanting to be able to work in ways that don't suit my nature.  Needless to say, my attempts at making map inspired work went nowhere, because I was trying too hard....but by the end of the first week I had settled in to make a new series of work on the handmade paper that I came to think of as nocturnes....inspired by that last little piece I shared with you before I left in the post here.  As you can see from this first finished piece from the series, there are a LOT of tiny dots in white ink.  From across the room they look like little jewels dotting the page, but no, just row after row of tiny white dots.  What can I say, except that I am never happier in the studio than when making repetitive marks such as this, watching the magical transformation as the marks coalesce into a meaningful whole.  So far, there are eight of these pieces I believe....the lower sections are finished....thousands of white dots later, but am adding the night sky roof sections to them, so the rest are still in process.  I'll be adding these to my website at www.robertspizzuto.com, so check back in the near future.

Time in the studio is interrupted (who can complain having just had a month of nothing but time in the studio!) by visiting family and travel plans for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Soon I'll be back though, getting those other Nocturnes finished and posted on the website.  

Hope you all have a fine weekend ahead and enjoy the many treasures life has to offer!  Thank you again for all your support!