Two Meditations

These are the two most recent drawings in the group of Meditations. Both are 4″ square and begun on a liquid graphite ground (see previous post for more on the ground).

Catch Up

Playing catch up here. Time flies (I’m sure I have written that before), and I haven’t kept up with posting the small (4″ x 4″) Meditations that I continue to make. With many of these I begin with a colored ground (either gesso or acrylic paint) and more recently I have been using a liquid graphite ground. This provides an interesting starting point (once the ground has dried), as it works into the Caran d’Ache wax crayons that are layered on top and also shows through in the texture of the paper. The graphite offers something to work with and against, often yielding surprises along the way. Here are a few from the backlog. And I’ll post a couple of newer images soon.

Learning How To Make the Work

Learning how to make the work is one of the primary aspects of a creative life. It might even be right to say that it is the whole point. Every drawing, painting, or project involves learning: learning how colors mix or work together, learning how a new material goes down on the paper, learning what the work is about, learning the ways that I work best (or the ways I don’t!), and on and on. I am fairly certain (and I tell my adult drawing students) that if one ever feels as though it is all figured out, understood, and under control then that is the time to worry, because the work will die – quite literally cease to be alive. Making art (and I mean here all creative efforts) is messy and uncomfortable stuff, and that awkward and unfamiliar place, that is where the learning and the life reside.

Beginning a new project often involves an especially steep curve for learning how to make the work. And it is not unusual to encounter the conundrum that it is difficult to begin without knowing what the work is/is about, but one can’t know what the work is without beginning. Apparently this puzzle can be just as true for a collaboration as for a solo project. My friend Kasey (a poet) and I have just begun working on a collaboration that we know very little about. Actually, our conversation began about two years ago, and finally we have begun to trade bits (my scraps and scans of fragments) and pieces (Kasey’s word combinations) as a way to learn how we will make this work and have this conversation. This is a lovely way to roll into the New Year: a delightful adventure with a dear friend as fellow traveler!

Read more about our bits and pieces at Kasey’s blog (http://kaseyjueds.com/pieces/) and find other treasures there as well! The images above are some of the bits that I sent Kasey, and you can see them in the photo on her blog as well.

Take a Break

Taking a break can be energizing even if the break is only a small one. This is true for life and art. Over the weekend I took a short break from home and went to Blacksburg to help my friend Christy celebrate her birthday. Although just an overnight, it was rich with wonderful people, beautiful weather, breathtaking landscape, fabulous food, and warm hospitality. Before the trip, I took a break from the pastel drawings I have been working on in the studio to put together a small collage to take along for the birthday celebration. It is the one posted here called Circle Note. The greenish dots are the holes punched from the piece I made last year with the help of friends, Collected Stories, which is described in earlier posts.

Slow Art

As I have been working on the most recent 3-D piece the notion of “Slow Art” (akin to the Slow Food Movement) has arisen frequently in my thoughts. The current piece is extremely labor intensive. I knew before I started that it would be, but the approach seemed like the right – no, the necessary – thing to do. Somehow, I am not the one in charge here. The piece involves collecting true short stories and anecdotes from friends and relatives, copying them on lokta paper, rinsing the paper to fade the ink, layering two sheets together, tearing the pages in strips of appropriate width, stitching them together, and folding them accordion-style. That is what you see in the image above. When that long accordion is complete, it will be put in a found box by threading it on a rod. Well, that is difficult to describe, so I will post an image when it is finished. For now, I am so very grateful to all those who have entrusted me with their stories, and I love the way that the story gathering has changed the piece and given it a collective history of people and stories around the world. The project has changed me and, seemingly, made a difference to many of the participants. So, perhaps “Slow Art” is a sort of cousin to “Slow Food”…

Rehab

 

There is a curious phenomenon that often occurs in the creative process. Sometimes there are pieces that I can’t begin, because I don’t know what they are about. But I can’t know what they are about until I begin. So there is nothing to do but stumble along… and pay attention. Creativity can be messy and uncomfortable. I often think that I would like to be comfortable in my work and feel as though I know what I am doing, but the truth is, I think it is even more frightening to imagine that I might ever reach that place!

I am currently working on some three dimensional pieces in preparation for a group show in September. When I began this work, I slammed into that curious conundrum of beginning. This image is a bit from the first piece that has put itself together. One layer that you see here is a stack of old journal pages that I “rehabbed” by gessoing both sides. I like the white, imperfect surface that results as well as the idea of writing that can’t  be read (something which occurs in another part of this piece). I will post more bits as I can along the way.

And if you are interested in thoughts on creativity, Elizabeth Gilbert gives a great TED talk on the subject.