On Drawing....The Search

November 28, 2016

The ongoing conversation about drawing continues in this post...there's much to talk about, it seems to me! Do feel free to chime in anytime, as I'm happy to have a dialogue and hear about your experiences with drawing. For the past couple of posts, I've been talking about my daily drawing practice, as a form of mediation and as a way to let go and watch what unfolds. 

It helps to approach the process from the inside out, rather than the outside in. That may not make much sense at first glance. Drawing in this way uses your brain, but the "thinking" comes through the senses, through the body, rather than just a cognitive approach. As a kind of meditation, you are open to the conversation and to what is happening within as well as without. 

I'll share some specifics with the drawings from the last couple of days to illustrate what I am talking about. Yesterday morning, I sat down with my little 6x4" sheet of Japanese paper and my trusty mechanical pencil. After dating the page, I began with a dot toward the top and without picking up the pencil, had the sense to let the the line wander from there, in a kind of aimless search...for something....for the drawing itself, I think. The meandering lines continued, making one shape then moving to another when the moment felt right. I understood through the mark-making that this meandering line was about "the search"....both in a literal sense and as a metaphor. 

I respond to drawings, to paintings and all manner of works that allow the sense of the search to come through. Some artworks appear to have emerged into being fully formed, but I need to see the quest, the false starts (there are none, really), the evidence of the search in the process of making. As a maker, it is through the search that I find the meaning, just as that little moment was revealed in the making of those meandering lines yesterday. After the initial pencil lines, I picked up my white ink pen and overlaid more searching, meandering lines.

The notion of "the search" reminded me that the process of drawing from life, from observation, is also fundamentally about the search. On another larger sheet of paper I began to draw the not-so-well-tended-geranium in a pot on my desk. If you want to draw from life, it begins with seeing....with looking, with the search. I allowed a searching line to flow from the pencil (and later that white pen again) as I let my eyes wander up and down the stem, following the edges of leaves, as they overlapped and intersected. My hand became an extension of my eyes...Drawing from life is fundamentally an act of eye-hand coordination. As many of my readers know, I'm not all that keen on drawing from life, as my work takes a much more indirect route. And yet, it's all a search....for being in the moment, for meaning, for discovering and describing what we see or what we know to be true.

November 29, 2016

Today's drawing began much as the one yesterday, but the dots came first, for the most part, and then a meandering line was back, wanting to connect these dots in most indirect ways....circling, looping, wandering in ways that made loose connections between these random dots. And there it was again...the moment of understanding through the work. We all attempt to construct meaning in our lives and this process of making connections between points, between events, is how we do it. Sometimes the connection between dots is a pretty direct, straight line...a kind of cause and effect, but so many times, it seems that the line between this point and that is meandering, looping, intersecting and overlapping with other lines. It's the never ending search.

Maybe this gives you a bit more understanding (maybe not!) as to how the process of drawing tells me what the drawing itself is about. It is a process of "inside out" where the meaning emerges through an evolving understanding as my pencil moves across the page, rather than one where I know what I want to say and set about saying it. The insights come through the searching marks.

I make many of these drawings available in my Etsy shop with the hope that they bring some moments of contemplation as well as joy and delight to others. I'd love to hear from you with your thoughts and experiences about the power of drawing.

Uncharted Waters

Uncharted Waters

Hope you are enjoying your weekend! The piece above is a new listing at MissouriBendStudio, a companion to one I shared recently titled Dead Reckoning. They both started with that graphic and ink lined background, which was originally one long narrow strip. I was trying to break out of my comfort zone and change up the format, but I seemed to go nowhere with it until I tore the piece into two equal pieces, roughly 12" x 9" and then they seemed to make themselves. 

So, now I realize it is a little bit ironic for me to write about the notion of uncharted waters the way I intended....since, in a sense, I reverted to a safer zone and an already mapped territory. I understood this piece to speak about the notion of uncharted waters in terms of daily life. The sea, for me, is a metaphor for the journey we are each traveling through life. 

Since I'm not working (at a real job), but home in the studio, I struggle to stay motivated and I struggle with the balance of making work that is meaningful to me and making work that I want to sell to bring in at least a modicum of income. Ideally, those two are not separate realities at all. Yet, sometimes I feel like I am in some sort of vacuum, insulated from the outside world. I look about the studio with the nearly 200 pieces of art listed in my Etsy shop for sale, not to mention the decades of other work that lean against the walls several pieces deep and I wonder why I need to make another piece of art to add to the piles. 

When I am there, in that low place, I remind myself of the journey....that life is what we make it, despite the way it seems that each day is much like another, merging into a blur. The metaphor of sailing on uncharted seas, allows me to see each day as unique, full of possibility and my tiny boat as a vessel for navigating new territory. Each day we must be open to discovery. In the spirit of charting new waters, I hope your day is full of new possibilities!

Discovering Logbooks

I had a small revelation yesterday during one of my many laps around the indoor track at the gym. I love how those moments of epiphany can come at you, seemingly out of the blue, when really it's probably just a simple thought, like the strike of a match, that ignites them. So, there I was, moving along at a brisk pace, congratulating myself on my persistence in actually going to the gym consistently over the last month and looking forward to recording that day's workout activities in my little log book at home. In order to keep myself motivated and to create a history of what I've actually been doing to try to lose a little of my middle-age weight, I started an exercise log (see below).

It was then that I realized that "logging" is the idea behind so many things I do! It dawned on me all at once that I am engaged in all manner of activities that involve logbooks, of sorts. My daily drawing practice (the last three days of which can be seen in the top photo) is, at heart, a way of capturing moments of time, leaving a trace of the day in a small drawing...a kind of log, just not contained in a book. But, I have delicious moments of satisfaction by making notations in my many other logs, which are contained in books.

It may seem silly, but I find a little moment of bliss in recording in a tiny green log any book that I actually finish reading. I write the date, the title, the author and sometimes if I really love the book, I give it a few stars! I've been doing this for several years now and I look back in it sometimes to see how many books I've read in a given year. Reviewing the titles reminds me of the pleasure of reading each one of them. I do start and don't finish all manner of books and alas, they never get recorded in the little green "Books Read" log. But, I could start yet another log and record all the books I started and never finished....alas, that one might fill up first!

Okay, so now I am revealing my truly obsessive nature with the logbook above. Don't ask me why I do this, because I actually have no credible reason, except I love to document things....and more than I ever realized! The notebook above is a log I keep each day of the number of views on this blog. I record the date, the number and the time. Any time I create a post, I record the number of views at that point and the time I made the post. I know that there are online trackers and analytics for this kind of thing and I can look at those, but there is something very satisfying about the practice of making the notes myself. The information doesn't actually mean anything really, but I do it anyway. And, when you think about it, the blog itself is a kind of log.....the name "blog" is a truncation of web log. So, that little notebook above is a log of my blog.

When I came home from the gym, I wanted to investigate "logbooks" a bit more and of course, as many of us do, went straight to the Wikipedia entry:

A logbook (a ship's logs or simply log) is a record of important events in the management, operation, and navigation of a ship. It is essential to traditional navigation, and must be filled in at least daily.

Of course, we all probably think first of ship's logs when we think of logbooks. I've always found them fascinating and now looking at that definition I can see it as a metaphor for my own practices. Each of us navigates the journey of our lives and a log helps us to document that voyage. Many of us do it through keeping journals, diaries, blogs, etc. What else was out there, I wanted to know....what did these other logs look like? I was enamored with so many, as I love books, even just the pages of writing I find beautiful. Here's a wonderful image of an illustrated ship's log:

Pages from the logbook of the ship "William Baker"

Another image caught my eye, which was of a kind of visual journal....another kind of log.

Doug Neill

This is an image from The Graphic Recorder, a blog by Doug Neill and was seen in his post, Starting a Visual Logbook. I read the post with great interest and had another epiphany! My obsessive nature aside, I have never been one to keep a sketchbook or a journal of writing in any consistent way. It just never seems to stick with me, despite my desire to want to want to do such a thing. But this.....this way of documenting the highlights and activities of the day in a delightfully direct way appeals to me. I could do this without feeling the burden of an actual journal! I happened to have a thin blank Moleskin within so I began to my log....not so visual yet, but I'm just getting warmed up!

But, true to nature of the world of cyberspace, reading this entry on Doug Neill's blog, led me deeper to the source of his own inspiration to begin the visual logbook, which was a post by the writer and artist, Austin Kleon. My next stop was the entry on Kleon's blog, On Keeping A Logbook, which provided yet more inspiration and validation. He reports that, like me, he was just too lazy to keep a regular journal, but a log was a different story....just the facts, a documentation of the day. That's what I'm after....my interest is the documentation and beneath that, the desire to capture and hold the time which continually slips through our fingers. It's a futile quest, I know, but the traces left behind by the attempt are satisfaction enough for me. Thanks to Doug Neill and Austin Kleon for the inspiration!

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!

Rediscovering Creativity

Greetings in the New Year! Hope the holiday season brought some joy into your life. My husband and I had a much needed vacation with a meandering road trip across the country and a delightful visit with family.  We are finally back at home, settling once again into the winter weather with a good bit of snow on the ground. That's fine with me, as I have work to do in the studio and a whole parcel of new books to read!

The drawings above represent the transition to the new year. The one on the left is the daily drawing for December 31, 2015 (now dipped in the beeswax) and the one on the right is the first drawing for 2016. The practice of the daily drawings continues. I find it a delightful exercise and a source of surprise and wonder as the drawing emerges each day.

I am not a big one for new year's resolutions, per se, but that doesn't mean I don't think about changes I'd like to make in the coming year. I like to think in terms of recommitments and reconnections with the things I value that I've let slip by the wayside in the turmoil of life. If I call them resolutions, I already feel doomed to drop them. 

I am reconnecting with my trust in the body. I've said numerous times here on this blog, how I think through my hands when in the studio, which means that the best work comes from the flow that happens when I am in the moment. I am out of my head (only) and experiencing the moment through the body. In saying that, it still sounds as if I make a distinction between the mind and the body, which I don't think really exists....the mind/head is just a part of the larger whole. 

If I want to do my best work and live the fullest life I can, I must honor my body. The author Barnet Bain speaks of this in the book I am currently reading, The Book of Doing and Being.

Here are a couple of quotes that resonated with me:

"One of the greatest secrets to living a creatively vibrant life is to recognize that your feelings occur in the body and not in the head."

"Not only do our feelings occur in the body and not in the head, but creativity itself is born in the body. In other words, the body is the home of our creativity."

I think that we forget that we experience the world through our senses and thus our body. So it should not be a great surprise that the expression of our experiences, which is the essence of our creativity, would most fully come into the world through our body. For me, it is most keenly felt through my hands. 

Often though, I feel disconnected from the rest of my body. I become lazy and would sometimes rather nap than take a brisk walk or do yoga. But, I want to be in touch in a more vibrant way with my creative life, so I must commit to moving my body in new ways....for my health and to invigorate the creative life I want to live. I just finished a short session of yoga....rather than that nap I wanted on a gray, wintery afternoon. So glad I made the decision. 

I was also pleased to see another truth I hold dear quoted on the back cover of The Book of Doing and Being. "Your whole life is a creative act." Amen!!! We are creative beings and each play a part in the dance of life.

Hope you have an inspiring and creative year!

In The Round

Hello on this fine December evening! I'm excited about getting back in the studio to create a new body of work and am thinking that my upcoming show will be made in the round! I am going to play with this lovely 8" round cradled birch panel. I think I may attempt to do a small painting a day....well, perhaps I should call it a mixed-media drawing, which is more what I make.

I think a small gallery full of small round pieces could be rather enticing! But first, I must cross the last mountain hurdle, with one more final paper to complete by the first of the week. Today I passed the big exam I was dreading, so that's now behind me...whew! I guess this is like climbing some sort of mountain and I'm nearly at the top. I'm not sure if the view will look any different once I have a masters degree in Adult and Higher Education. January will be a time to focus in the studio. Then I will be able to think about my next steps....as I've said many a time here in these posts, I think with my hands, so the process of making will allow me to see the path unfolding before me. 

I'm so pleased the tiny daily drawings I've been adding to my Etsy shop are making people happy....just added the three below from the pile I found from a couple of years ago.

Hope you are having a good week. I had a birthday on Monday and am recovering from the shock of adding yet another year to my age. Isn't it funny how we feel so much younger inside than we often are chronologically. I read somewhere years ago that we each carry an image inside us of ourselves at a particular age, even as the years pile on. I think of myself as in my early 30s....say 33... and am often quite taken aback when I am confronted with the realization that I am a long way from it! Do you have this sense about yourself? What age are you inside?

Counting the Days, the Studio Awaits

The November daily drawings, seen in the two photos below, have been dipped in beeswax and now make a lovely (and much taller!) stack. They join the ranks of the September and October drawings seen in the background of this first photo. I'm not sure if these dailies will feature in my upcoming show at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City or not. The show opens in mid-February and I hope to make all new work for it, but first have to finish school (counting the days).  After the holiday travels, I will spend January devoted to being in the studio full-time....can't wait!!

These drawings were just listed over at MissouriBendStudio on Etsy. These are from the daily drawings done in February of 2014....seems so long ago!! I'm sharing some of my favorites from that group and hope some folks out there will give them a loving home.

After an amazing winter wonderland start to the week, seen below, our temperatures are climbing into the 40s for the foreseeable future....the snow is nearly gone.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. May moments of inspiration take you by surprise.

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! 

Farewell November....and What's New At Missouri Bend Studio

Greetings on this last day of November. Here in South Dakota, another snowstorm is blanketing our world in layers of white. This will keep up throughout the day and night, apparently totaling nearly 10 inches. I'm sure we'll get there this afternoon at the rate it's falling! Good day to be inside, finishing up the last chapters of reading for school and checking in on my friends here on the blog, with a steaming cup of cocoa in hand!

This photo was taken from the deck, looking through the neighbor's yard to the river....which has, of course, disappeared in the field of white!

This is taken from my studio window, which is partially beneath ground level, so the windows look out at ground level. The pattern of the window screen creates an interesting layered effect.

The little daily drawings from 2013/2014 that I started listing in my Etsy shop are showing a bit of popularity. I've already sold 2 of the 3 I first listed. They are quite affordable at $10 each, so can be purchased without much angst involved! I've just listed 3 more, shown below, and will continue adding them to the Daily Drawings shop section each day. Please remember that I'm open to doing a bulk discount if you are interested in three or more of the drawings. Just let me know and we'll make arrangements!

Also, just want to remind my blog friends that there is an ongoing 10% discount on anything at MissouriBendStudio available to you by using the coupon code ANCESTORS at checkout. This code will be available through December, so hope you will find something that suits your fancy!

I'll be back in the next couple days with a fresh post, but for now, must get caught up from the time away over the Thanksgiving holiday! Cheers to you all!

Edges of Knowing....Liminal Spaces

I can't remember where it was, but I came across the word liminal as I was reading the other day. Because I love that word and find it so evocative, it usually stops me in my tracks, so to speak. It was the same the other day....I paused and kind of savored it in an almost sensory way. The taste of that word and everything it summons up came back to me just a little while ago as I made this daily drawing. 

I've said this before in the virtual space of this blog, but the meditation drawings (which includes the practice of the daily drawings like this) are a way for me to learn what it is I'm thinking....I think through my hands and as I made those little branching forms clinging to the edges, I understood they were about liminal spaces. 

That's where I am right now....on the edges on knowing and not knowing, leaving one identity and claiming a new one. I'm drawn to the edge of the page these days....the spareness of this drawing reminds me of the sense of frailty I feel. Clinging to limits of the page, but about to break free, there is a tension in the spareness of the drawing, that I find compelling. And the nice thing is, it's a good thing to step outside of ourselves once in awhile to see things from another place and point of view.

Liminal....it's a lovely word and I am learning to appreciate the wide open possibilities of my life right now. Edges and boundaries are interesting places for exploration!

Liminal:

1. of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.

2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

See  you soon!

October Dailies Stack Up

The October 2015 daily drawings form a stack 1 1/2" high once they are dipped in beeswax. Such a transformation in surface and luminosity!

Each day's drawing unfolds, of its own accord, in a meditative way, so no two drawings look alike. Each is a trace, a kind of documentation of the day. Of course, even though I try to let them be what they want to be, by the end of the month, I do have some favorites. October 30th became my favorite for last month.

So, I'm toying with some ideas of how I might share these....or at least share the experience of them. Some part of me loves them as a whole, a stack of daily drawings of the month....as a collective record of the days. And that part of me is not willing to let them go....as, in a sense, they are part of a spiritual practice.

But, if they could also bring some joy to someone else's life, that would be a lovely thing and I could see making them available in my Etsy shop somehow. There are questions though, and I wonder if you, my dear readers and friends, might be willing to weigh in with your opinions.

 I can't quite envision breaking the month up into individual drawings....that feels a bit sacrilegious somehow. So, if it were possible to have them professionally reproduced (before dipping in the beeswax) on a similar paper that could also be dipped in beeswax, the entire effect could be replicated. I could afford to sell an entire month at an affordable price and more than one person could enjoy any particular month's drawings. Would someone want to have a stack of them wrapped loosely with strips, like ribbons on a package....or would they need to be more formally encased in a book-like cover? Or, this....what if the daily drawings became a kind of calendar...or an illustrated blank journal? 

As I think about it, there are lots of possibilities, but I am held back by my long ingrained one-of-a-kind maker point of view. Somehow, it still feels like I've let go of something if I have them reproduced, even if they are of high quality. For now, the stacks of September and October drawings sit side by side, waiting to be joined by November, December....and then January and beyond. The days continue to unfold and I must mark their passing. Would love to hear from you about this conundrum, if you care to share your insights!

Intersections, Cross Sections, Moments in Time

Greetings, everyone! We are definitely in the last days of October and here in South Dakota, temperatures are still unseasonably warm, it seems to me. Memory is faulty, though, and it occurs to me that perhaps I say this every year! Most of the leaves are on the ground, but still a good number on the trees, displaying all manner of beautiful fall gorgeousness.We had a road trip to Minnesota last weekend and admired the colors in the landscape along the St. Croix River that divides Minnesota from Wisconsin. Autumn is definitely a favorite time of year.

In my last post, I mentioned the idea of intersections and how at any moment we find ourselves reflected in the crossing of time with place. As in...you are here. We are crossing a river of time that moves swiftly from a past, through us in the present and on to the future. You can't hold it and there is no stopping it, as the current is swift. But something in the tiny daily drawing I made yesterday made me think about this a little differently.

Moments like this remind me why it is so important for me to engage in the practice of making the daily drawings. My best thinking, my best insights come through my hands. As I made this deceptively simple drawing, I was reminded of tree rings, which are a kind of mirror that reflect time and place. 

All manner of things affect the growth of a tree, all of which are reflected in the pattern of the trees rings. Rain patterns, temperature, conditions of crowding, insects and more leave their mark...a reflection of time and place in the cross section of a tree. 

This lovely photo below led me an interesting site, Urban Remains, that reclaims, recycles and documents antique building materials in Chicago. There is a fascinating blog that reveals Eric Nordstrom's intense interest in the history of these building materials and the other artifacts that are unearthed. I am heading back there to investigate further....porcelain, 19th century nails, ancient wood, all beautifully photographed and documented. This site is all about the intersections and cross sections, revealing lost moments in time. There is a lesson here connected to remembering and forgetting, even as we pause to acknowledge our place in the flow of history.

Enjoy the rest of your week....cheers!

Beholding the Ephemeral, An Exhibition

Well, it's high time I got back to you all with a report and some photos of the exhibition that Johntimothy and I have up in the John A. Day Gallery at the University of South Dakota here in Vermillion! We've both been hard at work on the show since January, each with our own daily practice of making new pieces for the exhibition and also collaborating on new possibilities for shared works. It was an intense several months, but we are both very happy with how it all came together in the end. It is very satisfying to say that the exhibition installation ended up looking just how we envisioned it! First the photos, then I'll share a bit about the intent of the exhibition and the work itself.

The top photo shows my daily drawings, made from January 1st through April 30th, hung by the month, calendar style. That image shows the drawings made from February through April....those are big walls! The two parallel lines of works seen in the distance on some of the other photos are Johntimothy's prints, engraved and printed each day from January 1st through most of March, I think. In the center of the gallery, we used the moveable walls to create an intimate interior space that represents our studio space at home, where the inspiration and the work of making takes place. We have transported tables, shelves, pinboards and various other items from the studio to this mock studio space that forms the heart of the exhibition. On the outside of the moveable walls are hung a series of 14 collaborative mixed media works....all a combination of screenprinting and drawing. 

Below are two truly ephemeral pieces...made with pastel directly on the wall on a square and a circle of chalkboard paint. Johntimothy's piece is on the left and mine is on the right. Tomorrow, part way through the exhibition we will alter the pieces....I'll work on his and he will work on mine and they will slowly morph, perhaps disappearing entirely by the end. Of course, after the show is over they really will disappear as we return the wall the white. 

I just realized that maybe the way to tell you about the ideas that went into creating the exhibition is through the artist statements themselves that were hung on the wall. I'll start with mine, then the statement about the collaborative works, the mock studio set-up and then Johntimothy's statement to round things out. Probably isn't a better way to sum it all up....

ARTIST STATEMENT -- BEHOLDING THE EPHEMERAL

Patti Roberts-Pizzuto

On the daily drawings from January through April

As a life-long maker of art, I have come to view my work in the studio as a spiritual practice. I find that my creative process through drawing, painting or sewing, is one that allows me to distill my experiences, coming to a richer understanding of what it means to move through life in connection and conversation with a larger whole.

We all live out our busy lives in a particular span of time, following our ancestors and paving the way for future generations. Our days are fleeting, the years passing quickly by as we immerse ourselves in life unfolding moment by moment. In the overflowing fullness of life, so much is lost….we forget over time and we lament that which escapes our grasp.

I am haunted by time, its current inescapable, carrying me far too swiftly down the river. This, in part, is what calls me to be a maker. The creative practice provides a way to slow down the current, to leave a trace, a marker of the moment and a record of the day, which is captured ever so briefly in the process of making.

I began the drawings in the exhibition, one each day, on the 1^st of January and ended with the last day of April. The idea was not too make “Art”, but to let whatever artfulness was possible, emerge from the discipline of a daily practice. The drawings are entirely intuitive, and were made in the space of time carved out for their creation each day. I fought the urge to belabor them, as the goal was to be present in the moment and not to have them become precious. Hanging the drawings in a calendar format provides a visual reminder of their origin in a meditative daily practice. One drawing leads to the next….the unfolding of time, an accumulation of days.

BEHOLDING THE EMPHEMERAL

COLLABORATIONS—Johntimothy and Patti

Conversations no. 1-14

We collaborated on the body of mixed media works hung on the interior walls of the exhibition. While this is not our first collaborative experience, it may be the most rewarding. This conversation was carried on between the layers of overlapping screen print patterns that Johntimothy created and responses made through ink and pencil by Patti. The pieces evoke a kind of yearning, as if memories had been rekindled or lost moments recovered from the abyss. The pieces represent a kind of call and response based on our shared explorations of time, memory, the lost and found.

Objects from The Studio

The studio itself forms the core or center of the exhibition, as well as the heart of our ongoing collaborative spirit. This is a reflection of our home studio, where the reflections and conversation take place, as we share ideas, feedback and inspiration.  In our studios, we surround ourselves with the objects and ephemera that hold meaning….they become the keepers of memory and silent partners in the collaborations that unfold. Our home studio is a source of sanctuary for us, as well as a place of discovery….what you see in the exhibition is a small sampling brought out into the world to be shared with results of our daily practice and our ongoing conversations.

ARTIST STATEMENT -- Beholding the Ephemeral 

Johntimothy Pizzuto

“Contemplation on Logic and Intuition” consists of 62, 4” circular and 62, 4” square intaglio prints. This series represents two ways of creating prints in order to explore my understanding of western and eastern modes of making art. The square reflects the “western” rational way of being and the circle reflects the “eastern” intuitive path, also described as wabi-sabi.

Dürer’s “Melancholia”, references a western perspective of the artist’s struggle for enlightenment and level of attainment, a logical approach. The circle embraces the Japanese wabi-sabi aspect of encompassing the random and unusual, and hence a more directly abstract type of imagery. Beginning with a blank set of copper plates, one square and one circle, and engraving into both each day, the objective was to work each image toward total black and then deconstruct each plate and image back to a blank state or white. Thus, the viewer has a glimpse into the process of building, destroying and reconstructing an image over the course of time. Questions and reflections during the course of work focused on how not to make art at the same time as making art. How to let go of preconceived notions of what defines and makes a print a work of art, while maintaining a clear focus on solid craft. The square plate obviously started with a composed image, while the circular plate was built upon chance.

The ephemeral nature of the work was addressed through the process of engraving into the plates each day, focusing on the changes being made and the practice of letting go of the preciousness of the image or marks on any particular day. Engraving and mezzotint were chosen for their qualities of deliberate mark making which requires the artist to slow down to really observe and listen. During the time it took to create this work, I had to remind myself that it was an exercise in discovery on many levels. It was an exploration into the two ways of working, a western/rational and an eastern/ intuitive path, while simultaneously holding these two very seemingly disparate ways of creating art in equal measure.

We are grateful to Alison Erazmus, the amazing Gallery Director at USD, for the opportunity to have such an exhibition, as well as for her encouragement along with way! We had a wonderful reception and are happy so many folks attended, even though the semester was over. At this point, we are still working on new collaborative works and I will share those with you, once we have some photos of the pieces. We are both excited about the direction these new works are taking us and look forward to the possibilities. 

In the meantime, I will be listing individual daily drawings from January and February (I started out during the first two months of the year making 2 drawings a day...a square and a circle, but only showed one set for each month) in my Etsy shop. I'll start photographing this week and will let you know when I begin listing them!

Well, this is a rather long post....thanks for hanging in there, if you've gotten to this point. I have other exciting news to share, but I'll save that for a few days from now when I'll be back to tell you about a new path I am taking!