Staying Open

Oh!

Where am I?

work in progress, moving across new landscape

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Changing Course

I thought I was painting a field of wildflowers.

Work-in-Progress said, Nope.

I mixed up more greens and grays, covered the pops of wildflower color, added texture with gel medium, used India ink to introduce asemic writing, waited for my next operating instructions.

detail; greens and grays

detail; texture

detail; asemic writing

work in progress

In the Practice of It

I took my 18 x 24" page of preliminary mark-making started in early July and ran with it for several days.

I began following an idea of wanting to paint abstracted wildflowers in a field of grasses.

work in progress
18 x 24"; ink, acrylic, and latex

Artist's Statement

From a book not about painting, this statement:

You learn how to do it in the practice of it.


That's exactly what I do when I paint—learn how in the practice of it.

In early July, I turned to a new page in a notebook of Canson 90-pound 18 x 24" drawing paper. I began making marks and mixing up shades of green using yellows and blacks. Practice, practice, practice.

18 x 24 " start

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Following My Nose

Eighteen months ago, in March 2018, I started playing with a huge sheet of foam core given to me by a friend when she moved to a new home previously owned by an artist who'd left some materials behind. I covered the foam core with a thin slapdash coat of gesso, penciled off a grid of 40 six-inch squares and various rectangles, adhered tissue and magazine collage randomly, and started playing. I considered the 'canvas' to be an erasable space, so to speak, where I could follow my nose to try out this and that.

activated canvas

After a few months, I ended up with a 'patchwork quilt' painting roughly 3 x 4 feet in size. 

close to completion

Fast forward to May of this year when I took a photo of one patch and used it to make an email birthday card for a friend. She asked if I still had the original painting and if it was available for sale.

Yes, I still had the original. 

Was it available for sale? Uh … sort of.

Well, you know me: I'm all about cutting up my paintings. Even, it turns out, my paintings on foam core! I pressed my husband and his skill saw into service and proceeded to keep on following my nose. 

The Song of the World So Often Rises
in Places We Had Not Thought to Look
5.75 x 6.5" in 9 x 9" frame
acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract floral
2019

detail
left to right: birch frame, green mat, cream mat,
whitewashed 1927-dictionary-page collage,
painted edge of half-inch-thick foam core, and
The Song of the World on surface of foam core

Better Later than Never

Look what I picked up from my studio table today—a paint quilt exercise I did in 2016!

monostripes paint quilt; exercise for online Jane Davies course
October 2016

I'd uncovered it two weeks ago—in a folder in a stack of folders in a drawer—and set it on the table. When I received a postcard from my granddaughter Emmy two days ago, the exercise jumped off the table and begged to be prepped for her.

Here's what I wrote when I created this start three years ago:

In traditional pieced quilts, fabric is used from cast-off clothing that is still good enough to be repurposed. The quilts are a means of making something useful and often beautiful from leftovers. They are improvisational in the sense that the quilt maker does not buy new fabrics for the quilt.

A 'Paint Quilt' such as the one featured above is a piece made from leftover paint from another painting. No planning ahead, no squeezing out fresh paint. I was directed to use only paint leftover from the monochrome-stripes lesson I'd worked on.

As I noted at the time, I didn't 'finish' this piece in any way, and it read as unfinished when I looked at it.  My intention was to play with it further, possibly cheating by squeezing out new paint, and for sure using ink or pastels before later sending it as a postcard.

Well, sure enough, today I 'played with it further,' and made it into a postcard—three years 'later.' No new paint per se. Just paint markers, pastels, and collage. Off it goes to Emmy!

Life's Simple Pleasures
4 x 5" postcard, acrylic, pastel, and collage on card stock
abstract
2019

The Quantum Leap

Here's what's resonating, lifting me up:

To tap into the creative power 
of our minds, 
we must release 
our belief that
we need to know 
how 
first. 
We must make a quantum leap 
from separation thinking 
into the unified mind 
where all things are known.
As we make this leap,
we must trust that, 
in the moment we choose it,
we will create, receive, 
or teach ourselves
the tools we most need to learn.
                              —Tatiana Sakurai

I am trusting.

Monhegan Island work in progress,
incubating

Monhegan Island work in progress,
incubating

Monhegan Island work in progress,
incubating