On Drawing: Food for Thought

"Drawing can be a potent problem-solving aid for both children and adults. A drawing can let you see how you feel. Putting that another way, the right brain, by means of a drawing, can show the left brain what the trouble is. The left brain, in turn, can use its own powerful skills--language and logical thought--to solve the problem."  -- Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

December 2, 2016

"The scribbling of any....child clearly indicate how thoroughly immersed he is in the sensation of moving his hand and crayon aimlessly over a surface, depositing a line in his path. There must be some quantity of magic in this alone." 

-- Edward Hill, The Language of Drawing

December 3, 2016

"The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence...We make our discoveries while in the state because then we are clear-sighted." 

-- Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

December 4, 2016

"To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large--this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone." 

-- Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

Notes From the Field: Creative Play

snapshot of the jumble from the bulletin board in my studio...

the photo is of of my mother at the age of 10....

I looked just like her when I was 10

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

— Heraclitus 500 BCE, philosopher

I'm going to return to a theme that I revisit on these virtual pages rather regularly....the importance of play in the studio...to feed our humanity and the creative spirit, which lives in each and every one of us. I take my play rather seriously, actually, as I explore it through the daily drawing practice. But even I need to be reminded now and then of the purpose and the importance.

March 3, 2016

May 17, 2016

May  14, 2016

May13, 2016

As I sit down with my tiny torn 6x4" sheet of Japanese paper, I put pen or pencil to paper and let my hand move as it will. The time spent making the drawing is not about making "art", nor is it about outcome, but is experiential in a process that is perhaps akin to "call and response". Through the process I let go of any idea of what will happen or should happen and respond moment by moment, in tune with where my hand wants to move. Do I switch from making these marks to making tiny circles?....go.....Do I now want that white pen to make contrasting lines, white against the rich gray of graphite?....go.

When we are truly engaged in play, we are not concerned about the future moments and how it will all end....we are in the moment, enjoying the experience and the flow of being. There is no competition....with the self, with another, only the act of moving and thinking through the body in a process of discovery. 

But the best part is....the moments of discovery end up feeding the "art making" process, in which there is an end, a product, a culmination. And too, these little artifacts of the process, as shown here and in my Etsy shop are a reminder, a kind of document of some moments in time. They bring joy to me and I'm happy to see that they bring joy to others. I sell them in my shop on occasion and am happy to know that they touch people in simple ways. 

Hope you take some opportunities to play during your day, whether through drawing or any of a million other ways to engage in the present moment. Cheers!

Flow in the Studio and a Commonplace Book Entry

When I recently found my commonplace book, the one I began keeping years ago and then neglected for probably at least a decade, it was stuffed with a few newspaper clippings and torn bits of paper with entries on them. I picked this one up off the floor where it had fallen and found the short quote from the artist Carrie Mae Weems suited my sentiments perfectly....still, after all these years. I wish I'd said this, but I'm glad she did:

"I want to make things that are beautiful, seductive, formally challenging and culturally meaningful." -- Carrie Mae Weems

The Art of Wonder, Suite 2, no. 4

The Art of Wonder, Suite 2, no. 5

The Art of Wonder, Suite 2, no. 6

I've gotten behind on my plan of ending each week with a studio update posting, so this should get us caught up. Above are a few more pieces from the second suite of mixed media drawings from the Art of Wonder Series. As you may remember from earlier posts, there are 3 suites of 9 drawings each....27 in all. I'm slowly adding them to my Etsy shop, so you can find these there, if you like, by following the links. 

But, as far as an up-to-date update, the works below are from a new series that started late last week almost of their own accord. I'd been working on some pieces that I'd thought of in my head and tried to execute and things weren't going so well, which is the usual way with me. Working that way, from a preconceived idea, is always a bad idea and comes to nothing but frustration. I felt nothing for them--they were clearly forced and I was just plain trying too hard to make something work. So, I called myself back from the field, so to speak, and went back to my beloved Japanese paper. I grabbed a few pens and began making dots. As I worked mindlessly, I realized within minutes that I was completely happy, the chatter in my head....all that second guessing, had stopped. I began to wonder as I watched the piece unfold....what can be said with a dot...or a series of dots?

Flow Chart no.1

Flow Chart no.2

Flow Chart no.3

Flow Chart no.4

After the first one felt finished, I realized it was like a map, which made me happy because I've always loved maps and have wanted to make map-like works. You've not seen any from me, because once again, if I try to make a map of sorts, it just doesn't work. The secret for me is not to "try" to do anything, if that makes sense. Once I understood the map-ness of these pieces (there are six by now), I tried to think of a suitable title for what was clearly a series in formation, but I came to understand that these pieces were a kind of record of the experience of flow....not thinking, just the act of making and letting my hand move where it chose. And so, I guess they have to be known as "flow charts."  I'm curious to see how the series will evolve....as long as the flow lasts! I'll share more later in the week.

Hope you have a fine week...creative and inspirational! Cheers!

Recent Entries From The Commonplace Book

Hello.....welcome to a new week of spring! The focus of my Monday posts will be sharing some passages I've recorded in my commonplace book from recent reading. My post from April 4th was an introduction to the idea of the commonplace book and a bit about my rediscovery of the one I started decades ago, if you are not familiar with the commonplace book.

I've been doing a fair amount of reading lately and such wonderful books (non-fiction) that I have been filling the pages in my commonplace book at a pretty rapid clip. Today, I'd like to share some of the inspiration I got from reading and seeing the work of Edmund de Waal, a British artist and author that you may have heard of by now. Some years ago he wrote a memoir The Hare With Amber Eyes, which I cannot recommend highly enough.

photo courtesy of Hazlitt.net

I was anxious to read his new book, The White Road, which focuses on a search for the history of porcelain. De Waal is a beautiful writer and speaks of himself as a potter who writes, rather than a writer who makes pots, but I find both his writing and his work breathtaking. While I was glued to The White Road, I began reading the monograph on Edmund de Waal and his work, both of which kept me reaching for my commonplace book to make notes. Rather than making simple individual pots, the works are transformative installations of multiples, often by the hundreds. If I have a chance to see his work in this country, I will certainly make a concerted effort to do it.

De Waal's writing speaks to me, to my own artistic practice and his work, well...it fills me with longing, which I've come to realize is the highest complement I can give. I think the deepest reaches of our being are beyond language and when I see work or read language that strikes that chord of deep longing, I know I am in love.

Here are just a couple of passages I've noted in my commonplace book from the monograph, Edmund de Waal:

I make porcelain. I make objects out of porcelain. I sit at my wheel It is low and I am tall. I hunch. There is a ziggurat of balls of porcelain clay to my left, a waiting pile of ware boards to my right, a small bucket of water, a sponge, a knife, and a bamboo rib shaped like a hand axe in front of me. I have a cloth in my lap to wipe my hands. There is music. I pick up a ball and throw it into the centre of the wheel. Today, like yesterday and like tomorrow, I am making nothing grander than a cylinder. Barely a vessel, more a sketch of a pot, an inside and a straight profile, the merest impression of my hand and then my impressed seal. All those iterative movements of art, wrist and hand, time after time after time. I am making a series of volumes, contained spaces: each vessel is a breath, and I am counting time.

I turn, and there are my boards of porcelain vessels, still damp. They gleam softly. And then I ask myself, which story shall I tell? What is tellable and what is untellable. What do I pick up and where do I put it down?

....and a few pages later....

...Why not start with objects and make a room in which to hold them, a space where the light comes through porcelain, hold them in the air like thoughts or clouds? A shelf is an open line, just as a vitrine is a kind of page. A shelf can act as a pair of brackets, objects can sit like the 'five stanzas stalled in brackets', to borrow Anne Carson's phrase of a poem of Paul Celan's. 

Where shall I put this jar? Above you in the attic where your most treasured and problematic objects are consigned? Below you in a vitrine sunk into the ground, so that it is chanced upon? It matters, because where you find things in the world, how near you are to them, if you can touch them or not, is as much a part of the language of objects as their colour, their use.

If you've not seen the poetic ceramic installations of Edmund de Waal, nor read any of his writing, I urge you to seek him out. You will be lifted up...and out...and returned to yourself richer for the experience. 

Delicate Dots

Hello, I'm back to share the first daily drawings of January....well, these are the first week of the set made in a circle format (circle diameter is 4" on a 10"x10" sheet of BFK Rives). The drawings from January made in the square format are hanging in the show. The exhibition ends next week (already!) and eventually, I'll get them photographed as well. The drawings are all available for sale, as single days or even as a month (discounted!).  I'll be listing these over at my Etsy shop MissouriBendStudio. These are daily drawings and I would list them at MissouriBendMusings, which is the shop I created that is dedicated to the daily drawing practice, but I'm planning to consolidate and go back to just having a single shop to make life easier. There is now a big 50% off sale at MissouriBendMusings...be sure to use coupon code CLOSEOUT when making a purchase there. So, I hope to have these new drawings listed this evening....just finishing up the photos. The progression of the drawings, if you follow them week by week, is kind of interesting, as they become more complex over time. At the beginning, I was trying to just work with dots and circles, but eventually that system completely broke down and the each day's drawing took on a life of its own with its own personality. More drawings to come!

January 1, 2014

January 2, 2014

January 3, 2014

January 4, 2014

January 5, 2014

January 6, 2014

January 7, 2014

The drawings are made with pencil and ink....there is actually some color there (earthy red, warm grey, payne's gray), but it's not coming through so well in these photos.

Hope you have a great weekend....hope to see you back here, as I post more of the January drawings.

Cheers!

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 Real Work

It's the end of another week and I've had a busy "day off", running to Sioux Falls to deliver a piece of artwork, making the daily for today, adding it to the pile from the last few days, photographing, posting, etc. etc. All is still well here....that is, I still love the job and the people I work with and although there is a learning curve in the kinds of tasks I'll be doing, I will be growing and gaining new insights and skills...never a bad thing. I have some thoughts to share for this post, but first I'll show you the drawings from the last few days...all of them are now listed in the MissouriBendMusings shop.

April 24, 2012

April 25, 2012

April 26, 2012

April 27, 2012

I made a new friend some weeks ago and now I'm not quite sure how I first found her, except that I was struck by the fact that she was also posting a new piece each day in her shop. I was dumbfounded that she was making a beautiful art quilt that was a bit free-form around the edges with the expressive qualities of drawing and painting....one each day.  We began an online correspondence and found we share many similarities in our thinking and the kind of obstacles we were facing when we began our little daily practices early in the year. In the course of some conversation, as we'd been "talking" about the daily pieces as opposed to our "real work" she said something that made me pause...."maybe they are the real work". Oh. Oh. Oh. That notion is still echoing in my head as my life shifts with the currents. Once I began really to see this daily practice and the drawings that result, not as something separate, but as an integral part of the "real work"....well, I can't quite describe what has happened. At the end of the week, when I show you some newly finished pieces of what I was calling the "real work", you'll see that it is all the real work...the marks, the images, the ideas conveyed....it all comes from the same place. I'd toyed with the idea of giving up the daily practice when I began working at the library, but I quickly abandoned it....this is just as much the real work as anything else I do. And yet, that notion still echoes....it's a VERY big idea if you let it sit next to you in the chair....pretty soon, you feel crowded out....what IS the real work? What am I called to do by my innermost being, the one with the almost audible voice? When you are doing that thing.....I think that you are truly inhabiting yourself in the fullest sense of the word. So many people never find their real work....I hope you are finding yours.  Oh, my new friend's name is Karen Anne Glick and you'll meet her on Monday...she's the feature for the Inspirations post.  Have a great weekend!

Living and Working From Core Values

I've been thinking about core values again....a subject I return to periodically in my life.  I believe each one of us has a set of values out of which we are operating and living our lives....or not.  That is, we are sometimes living our lives not in line with our core values.  That's when life doesn't feel so good anymore....out of sorts, depressed, etc.  Our bodies know what is going on and if we are quiet and listen to our inner selves for long enough, our minds come to an understanding too. Maybe things just aren't right and we can't figure it out.....I'd say that's when it's time to stop and take stock.  First, you have to understand what your core values are....I'm certainly no expert on this, but I think that many things in our lives contribute to our core values and they are what make us who we are. Often we have resolutions or things that we want to do and yet we don't do them, in which case my experience has been that there is some kind of conflict with another value that we hold dear, which perhaps we're not willing to see.  These things can shift and change over time, but I think it's really important to have a handle on what you value, not just in your head, but in the core of your being.

All this leads up to a meeting I had with my core values this week and once I understood that I was down and depressed because I was no longer operating out of my core values, everything shifted....I felt lighter and back in my own skin, in a strange way.  The tipping point was the realization that I was chasing after a job, any job, even one that could possibly take me farther away from myself, just to have a paycheck coming in.  My aspirations and values to surround myself with people and environments which will help me grow and learn and be in line with the kind of life and lifestyle I want to lead, somehow were no longer at the forefront.....I could tell I was afraid that I might get myself in a situation in which I'd be miserable, just trading anxiety about money into some other kind of misery.  But, it unfolded a little further as, at the same time, I understood that my own artistic practice had strayed from the values I hold dear.  Where I value a process that is slow, one that builds over time, layered with history and meaning, I had been in a sort of production mode, short circuiting all my values for the "marketplace".  Not only was the "marketplace" mode not working (hence the need for a job!), it wasn't as satisfying to me as it might be for others....I had somehow lost my trust in those long held values I'd been carrying for a long time.  All those realizations happened in an instant as I tried to focus in my whole body as to what in the world was wrong with my world....and I must say, although nothing on the outside changed, everything in my world felt immediately okay.  A shift....here's how I can say it the most simply.  Perhaps now, as I've slowed down to enjoy the process of making, I am aspiring to sell the work that I make (translate: find loving homes) rather than making the work to sell.  It's huge....that difference is huge and it requires a great deal of trust.....but it makes me happy and I feel more in line with my values.  You might guess that I don't have any new finished pieces to show you....but here are a couple works in progress.  Lots of stitching on handmade paper dipped in beeswax....so satisfying.

There's a long way to go on both these pieces, but that's okay.....it's the way I used to work!  I'll keep you posted.  

In the meantime, our balmy winter weather has disappeared for a few days.  Although we didn't get the snow many folks did, it got mighty cold and now we've returned to a usual winter scene (minus snow on the ground) of ice flowing down the river, which is really quite lovely!  The bald eagles are visible most days, fishing over the water, perching in the trees behind the house....beautiful!

Once the flood waters receded early in the fall, we were left with a HUGE sandbar the size of a small island....perhaps it will become a favorite place for birds to hang out....eventually, I suppose the river will claim all that sand once again.

Enjoy your weekend! And thanks so much for listening!

Here And There

Life is getting pretty busy and I continue to struggle to have enough time in the studio, with all there is to do here on the computer.  I seem to be here more than there and I'm still trying to figure out how to create the balance.  I'm sure I could do things more efficiently here, but I don't have time to stop to figure it out...quite a ridiculous statement, I realize!  So I continue to be mostly here....

because often times, even when I'm there...

or there...

I can't relax enough to work because I'm thinking of all the things I need to do here...

But this is the thing....wherever you go, there you are!  Being in the moment is possible no matter what the situation, so I'll just have to trust that I can be one with the flow of the river at any point in time.  These pictures I just snapped of the studio downstairs (I sit here now at this little desk area just off the kitchen...how very convenient!) makes it quite clear that it's time for a bit of clean up...no wonder I can't concentrate!!! 

I also want to extend a big thank you to Hazel Terry for the lovely feature this morning on her blog, The Art Room Plant! She has a wonderful blog, which I've followed for some time, and I encourage you to check it out!

We've had our first snow now, beautiful....that is, until you have to run errands and try to make your way through the fierce biting wind!!!  We are on the wind-swept plains after all. Good thing you forget, at least to some degree, from season to season, what it's like to be cold....it does come back to you VERY quickly!

If any of you gentle readers would like to share your own time management tricks and tips, I know I'd be interested in hearing them....and I bet others would, as well.  Feel free to leave comments!

Hope you all have a lovely week...I'll see you in a day or so...hopefully with some new work to share!

Cheers!

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com

A friend forwarded this TED Talk to me a couple of months ago...it still haunts me and thought I'd share it. Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity and genius...making you proud to be part of the process and always willing to do the work that's required.

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com

A Grounding

I realized today that this little embroidery hoop that's been hanging so quietly on the wall of my studio had never been posted in MissouriBendStudio, my etsy shop...don't know how it got missed, but I posted it this afternoon.  Seeing it anew, this afternoon, was a gentle reminder for me...a kind of reining back in, as I've been a bit frantic of late, exploring so many avenues in the studio that I found myself getting frazzled.  I think it's so important to remember that we need to make the work that is inside us...because that's our job...no one else on the planet can make the work that we are called to make.  It's just another way of saying, be true to yourself and not what you think others would have you do and be. It's the way to stay grounded.

This little found text poem on the right is accompanied by cropped circles from photographs my mother took when she was a young woman in the 30's and 40's.  The poem reads:

this time
around still
many questions
but what of golden
spinning bees glistening
in the sunlight
by and by
open the glass door
into a reluctant
farewell