Time As A River

Book of Lost Time

The Secret of Winter

My musings this week have led me to some new insights, which may seem fairly to you, which they no doubt are, but which have provided an important subtle shift in the way I move through the day. It sounds almost cliche to say that "time is like a river" and yet, I realized that living through that understanding was not what I had been doing. I spent a very relaxing, nicely paced day on New Year's....it was a lovely balance of work in the studio, reading, reflecting, and simple joy in the good things my husband and I have in our lives. The day flowed....yes, like the river outside my window, without hitting a snag. I felt as if I was moving with time, immersed in it and not struggling or fighting against the current. There was a moment during that day when I understood that the difference in the way I was feeling had to do with the fact that I'd been thinking and behaving as if time was a commodity....a thing to be clutched close to the heart, lest it be frittered away or taken from me without my permission and spent often like a miser. So much effort required to keep time from flowing as it will....somehow on New Year's Day I had gotten into the river and was at one with the flow. Such a relief!

Now that I've posted a couple of the newer pieces shown above, I see that the title of that top piece, Book of Lost Time, which was done at the end of 2013, certainly echoes my earlier view. This piece is about more than that however...buried history, the loss of ancient knowlege and the limits of our collective memory. The second piece is a simple book page reflecting the quiet of a winter landscape.

Any new insights in the first few days of January? I do hope you are having a nice start to the year. While it's colder than I'd like, the winter landscape is beautiful here in South Dakota, and I am plenty warm inside....about to head back into the studio. Best wishes!

The Daily Practice of 2013

Greetings! This has been a good week....productive on many fronts. As is so often the case, the creative process itself, when it is truly flowing, will allow the simple solutions to all manner of conundrums to bubble up to the surface. I've been wrestling for quite some time with the daily practice, as many of you know. Because I am someone who loves a routine and a rhythm to my day, I love having a daily practice that takes place in the studio. Before the holidays, I shifted gears in my daily practice and began a series of small 2x2" collages that were private....that is, they weren't meant for my Etsy shop and they weren't for sale anywhere. I've continued that practice into the new year, but the question of the MissouriBendMusings shop still hung in the air. I toyed with closing the shop, but I've met so many people through the shop and through the daily practice....so many people had written to me over the year to let me know that the practice had given them inspiration in some way. What more can any artist ask, except to touch people? I decided that, not only could I not let it go, I didn't want to let it go. So....how to incorporate a second daily practice that would end up in the marketplace, but one that would not require too much investment in time and energy in the "marketing" end. Somewhere in the process of working this week, I saw the practice as one of small works (these are 4"x4") in ink and wash. Another important aspect of the daily practice is that it should be one that allows for a sense of discovery, that the process of making becomes a vehicle for my own explorations. I think I have it....here is the first week of January....you can find them all at MissouriBendMusings.

January 1, 2013

January 2, 2013

January 3, 2013

January 4, 2013

January 5, 2013

January 6, 2013

January 7, 2013

I also found myself returning to book pages....one of my favorite themes and formats. This piece reminds me of a long lost diary page....

Page From A Lost Diary

This is made on Japanese paper coated in beeswax....the pseudo handwriting is all hand embroidered.....fragments of earlier ink drawings are also hand stitched to the paper. Hard to capture the nuances og the warm, buttery yellow Japanese paper....it looks worn and aged...lost and found.

My weekend is Sunday and Monday, so tomorrow I go back to work at the Library....when I return here I'll tell you about the Absence series. Hope you have a great week ahead....cheers!

Page From The Book of Frozen Moments

It's been a long week, trying to get caught up with all the things that didn't get done over the Thanksgiving break...but I think I'm back on track.  And today, finally, a relaxing day in the studio with a flow of bringing new things into being....like this little book page from The Book of Frozen Moments.  It's so nice to be able to relax once I remind myself that there are no rules....we are most ourselves when we are free to play....I had a nice play day in the studio!

Hope you all have some time for play...and enjoy the weekend!  See you on Monday for new posting in A Walk Through The Universe!

Papernstitch Studio Tour with MissouriBendStudio!

Good morning everyone!  I was greeted today with the wonderful news that the interview/studio tour of MissouriBendStudio has been posted on the Papernstitch blog.  Hope you  have a chance to take a look!  For the earlier followers of MissouriBendStudio, some of those images may be familiar, but you may also learn a lot in the interview!  It's nice to have such a feature and the exposure to a wider audience!  Papernstitch is a wonderful place to discover artists and artisans and a fine venue for gaining exposure....find out more here.

In the meantime, I've posted a couple more book pages in my shop, but here is the latest!

This one is titled, Page from The Book of Words Blowing in the Breeze.  Sometimes I think about all the words spoken in a day, issued forth into the ether...and while they are most often part of a conversation, what about all those words that don't make it to the intended recipient...or perhaps are rejected, or they fall shy of their mark, or should never have been uttered.  Where do all those words go...aren't they perhaps floating in the breeze, invisible to the naked eye?  Perhaps they are the stuff of puddles in ditches, or the tarnish on metal posts...I don't know, but they have to go somewhere.

Hope you are all thinking creative thoughts and generating memorable moments this fine day!

Until next time...

Sticks and Stillness

Page from The Book of Broken Branches

Hope you are having a fine weekend...restful and rejuvenating!  We just got back from a lovely drive out in the country....bee line to the farm/orchard about a half an hour away from here, before they closed, to get fresh apples and a homemade apple pie and then a long meandering drive through the rolling farmland on the way back.  Such exqusitie color, subtle yellows and reds and the light in the blue-violet sky against the land at sunset was pretty breathtaking!

So now, here I am with a portrait of the little stick I found on the ground as I came out of the music museum on Wednesday, along with the book page it inspired....titled page from The Book of Broken Branches!  Other views, including details available here.  As I made tiny stitches I thought about so many things, including the book page as a format.  Here's what my moving hands reminded me as I put needle to paper.  The reason I am drawn to the book page (at this moment I can't quite recall the proper term for this open page format) rather than making the book itself, is that I am very much about the still image. What I have to say can be said in the single still image. Stillness.  Somehow I need stillness to see clearly, to look, to process what I am seeing.  In a culture totally obsessed by the moving image, I feel rather lost in time, as I struggle visually to keep up.  Our times thrive on bigger, faster, louder and we move too quickly....it's no wonder we can't remember anything in such a blur of rapid movement. In watching a film, I am often transfixed by the momentary flash of a scene that I process in the exquisite composition of the  still frame, but alas it's gone so quickly, the script has moved on and I am mourning the loss of that moment of perfect and beautiful stillness.  I'm sure this is why I work at such an intimate scale and in a process that demands a length of time, both for me and for you, the viewer.  I ask for the slowness that approaches stillness. In viewing, the work demands a one-on-one experience.  These are not works that can be even remotely seen across a room, in a space shared by others...a moment of privacy is necessary to view the work, to slow down, to look, to see and to be...all alone.  Whole worlds can unfold inside us when we slow down.  

Here's to slowness...a gentle reminder to myself!

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Page From The Book of Tattered Fragments

Page From The Book Of Tattered Fragments

I've been so busy lately on this computer that somehow the days have gotten skewed.  It seems as if an artist should be spend the bulk of his or her time in the studio engaged in the creative process, but somehow lately, I find that perhaps 3/4 of the day is spent here at the computer, juggling all the sites I'm trying to keep up with.  I think it's been a subtle shift, as more and more time has been spent each day here at my desk, even as I try to get back into the studio.  The other day I realized how very little time I was actually in the studio in any given day and now I'm trying to figure out how to get things realigned.  We won't even talk about not having time to read a book!  I am happiest when there is a delicate balance to my days...time in the studio, reading, banjo practice, blog reading and writing and other computer tasks, a bit of fresh air, good healthy food and a nice glass of wine....not to mention relaxed, quality time with my dear husband!  Hard to pull that off...and I don't even have children....hats off to those of you who do all these things and raise your children too! 

So, having said all that, for whatever it's worth, I also just want to say that I sure do love making these book pages and would like to focus on them entirely, but feel I should keep my shop balanced with a variety of work. And what can I say about the delicate color and patina that a used teabag imparts laying softly against a bit of cream colored Japanese paper....so wonderful.  I've got three new ones just starting, so I'm headed off to the studio for a bit!

Hope your week is going well.  Big midwestern storm passsing through and we've had constant wind for days, it seems, with 50 mile an hour gusts (no snow down this far thankfully!) and whitecaps on the Missouri River.  Winter is just around the corner!  Cheers!

Page From The Book of Tiny Houses

Mid-week greetings!  First, I must apologize for all the on-again, off-again business with the photos for these Walk In The Universe posts the last couple of weeks.  I can't explain the problem of their disappearance, nor can I explain their inexplicable reappearance!  With the post from this week, each time I tried to get the photos back on the blogs, my last paragraph disappeared, so depending on when you read the post, you got version no.1, 2, or 3!  I think I figured it out now and hope the photos of Peter Brown's will stay put.  I also figured that the post of work by Fiona Dempster from the previous week would have gone AWOL again,  and sure enough when I checked this morning, they'd gone missing and who knows how long they'd been wandering around, floating freely in the ether.  I tried what I thought was my sure fix and couldn't make it work.  Just now, I had another brainstorm and went to get the photos back on the post and there they were, as if they'd never gone off wandering on their own!  Is this some plot to drive me, barely able to navigate this technology anyway, completely off my rocker!?!  On to something more interesting than wayward posts....I hope!

After several false starts, mishaps and fatal errors (for the artwork anyway), I was able to call another piece finished yesterday!  I'm trying to stay focused on these book pages, whatever strange form they want to take...and see where it goes.  So, introducing a Page From The Book Of Tiny Houses.
It's pencil and ink on two pieces of Japanese paper dipped in beeswax and held together by the strip of lace-paper sewn to either side.  In the middle are two parts of a drawing on a teabag dipped in beeswax that are sewn on.  You can see in the second photo how yummy and translucent the paper is once it's been dipped in beeswax!  I'd better not push my luck, but adding anything more to this post!  Have a lovely day and enjoy the season (fall or spring!) wherever you are.  Once more, thanks to all the followers and other bloggers out there for giving me such inspiration on a daily basis!