Friday, November 30, 2018

All the World in a Few Square Inches

A few quiet moments of nourishing contentment and absorption this afternoon:

• rounding up a scrap of textured watercolor paper,
• swishing the decisive blade of my paper trimmer to cut the scrap in half,
• gathering paint markers and red gel pen,
• poking around for tidbits of a trimmed painting,
• grabbing a glue stick,
• folding, gluing, writing.

A tiny bit of prep for my Saturday gig at open studios at Porter Mill.


Thursday, November 29, 2018

Scattered

I am going in multiple directions mentally and physically.

I am writing this post the day after Thanksgiving. It probably won't see the light of day at my blog until late next week.

I am grateful that I choose to paint, grateful for the moments of wordless expression, for the physicality of brush strokes, for the centering.

detail, new work in progress
detail, new work in progress


Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Walking Through Some of My Doors

I am always so grateful when I can take, and even welcome, life as it comes, when I can walk through some of my doors to see beyond what I have until then perceived as limitations.

The Ability to Respond Gratefully to Problems
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018


Blame and Battle No Longer Apply
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018


Others Have Gone Through the Door Before Us
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018


Each of Us Goes Through the Door for Others
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018



Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Whole New Way of Seeing

Early in my years of active parenting, a friend directed my attention to Whole Child, Whole Parent by Polly Berrien Berends.

I had no idea at the time that it was the gift of a turning point.

The Road That Leads to the Road
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

The Suspicion That I'm Not Seeing Straight
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Dying to Wake Up
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Please Tell Me What My Mistaken Idea Is
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Monday, November 26, 2018

Starting Point

Every feeling except love is not-love.

Love. Not-love.

Let's go with that as a starting point.

I Awake Under the Dome of Pre-Dawn
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, India ink, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Unmoving, I Yet Move with Everything on Earth
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, India ink, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Friday, November 23, 2018

Artist Friends

Painting is largely a solitary pursuit for me. I paint in space I've carved from a bedroom in my home. Only occasionally do I paint with others.

Nonetheless, I have many artist friends, mostly via the wonders of the world wide web.

An artist whom I know personally, however, is my 8-year-old granddaughter, Emmy!

When we last drove the 600 miles to visit in October, Emmy had painted a canvas for us. Whenever we visit, there it will be to dazzle us in the room where we sleep.

She's fearless—look at the energy in this piece! the color! the movement! the size of the canvas! the complete freedom of expression!

The sections in the center are for us: Papawi and Gma. Then, moving counterclockwise starting top left, we are held in the embrace of her dada, mama, sister, and Emmy herself!

A w e s o m e !

Emmy's painting
30 x 42"; acrylic on canvas
2018

Thursday, November 22, 2018

All the Time

A moment of zen is mine for the living whenever long-time friend Sarah, now a dog coach, posts on Instagram.

Recently:


Every living thing is learning, all the time. You can teach crazy or you can teach calm. The choice is yours.

Oh.

Yeah.

Now I remember. 

The choice is mine, crazy or calm. I feel myself breathing more deeply already.

No Boundaries Between Me and the Ground and the Grass
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, India ink, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

No Boundaries Between Me and the Planets
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, India ink, and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Perspective

I'm captivated lately by shifting perspective, those experiences of suddenly seeing through new eyes, whether spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and/or—more literally—visually.

Today I start with stuff. Stuff in drawers and baskets, stuff in boxes and folders—a transparent acrylic skin made in October, a painting exercise from 2016, calendar posters from 2014, a black envelope that came in the mail who knows when and bearing who knows what.

Cut a snippet of the acrylic skin, cut the painting exercise, cut the envelope, cut the calendar pages.

Blink.

Through new eyes unrelated stuff becomes two elegant greeting cards, completing a quartet whose other members stepped out together yesterday.

I think [s]he saw art 
where other people
saw nothing,
but that's the nature
of the artist
in the first place,
isn't it?

-Elizabeth George, For the Sake of Elena


Moon Lifts, Sun Drops, Pines Pirouette
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and watercolor pastel
abstract
2018
Lasso the Flames and Sparks If You Can
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, collage, and watercolor pastel
abstract
2018

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Holiday Open Studios & Small Works Sale Saturday 1 December 2018

Take a look at what’s been keeping me busy for the past few weeks.

I will have four pieces in a Small Works Show at Porter Mill Studios and I will be hosting an open studio on the 4th floor for in-absentia artist @meredithgisness. Both her art and mine will be on display and available for sale in studio 4-5. I invite you to visit!

Enter the front door of the building, proceed to the elevator down the hall in an alcove on the left; when you exit the elevator on the 4th floor, turn left and go through a door to where the studios are located. 4-5 will be on the left, 2nd studio. 

I look forward to seeing you!



Explore Porter Mill!

Experience the Beverly arts scene at our historic downtown mill building. This holiday market will feature four floors of artist's studios, with offerings that include paintings, prints, ceramics, photography, graphic design, jewelry and so much more. Enjoy demonstrations, refreshments, and a fabulous selection of local art for purchase. What a great opportunity to meet the artists, learn about their craft, and purchase directly from them! 

Gallery 95 will present the return of our annual Small Works Show & Sale. This exhibition features juried works drawn from the North Shore and beyond! You will find smaller artworks perfect for gift giving or for decorating!

95 Rantoul St Beverly, MA 
Conveniently across the street from the MBTA garage.

Open Studios 11am-5pm.

FREE and Open to the Public!

Monday, November 19, 2018

Multiplication

To multi-ply is to many-fold and, starting at a young age, my son Scott took a shine to folding paper airplanes, which led me to get him a beginner's book of origami instructions and a package of paper, which in turn led him, at age six, to have an exhibit at our public library of origami figures he'd folded, an exhibit that included an 18-inch-long Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton made from 21 squares of paper, each of which had many, many, many folds.

So it is that when I go rag-picking today, I find origami paper among my odds and ends, providing the perfect backdrop to two found compositions extracted from a 2016 improv exercise. Together, these elements become mono-fold greeting cards.

The Sun So Bright It Bounces Off the Water
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, collage, and watercolor pastel
abstract
2018
sold


The Moon Folds Over and Then Straightens Out Again
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and watercolor pastel
abstract
2018

Friday, November 16, 2018

Resuscitation

This trio started as an experiment on the front porch of a cottage on Beaver Harbor in New Brunswick, Canada.

June, two years ago. Bright blue skies. Fresh air. Early morning sunlight.

Played with acrylic and oil pastel on a long strip of canvas paper. Did some cutting up, fiddled with some superimposing. Brought it home in a pile of several such experiments.

Moved it from drawer to drawer.  Sighed more than once at its incompletion. Fell into some negative self-talk.

Then, a few weeks ago, a bookmark sneaked out of it.

Today, a triptych of greeting cards. Couldn't be more pleased.

You never know!

Just a Ferry Ride Away from Dulse
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018
Unexpected Port of Call
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018
Responding to the Prevailing Wind
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Ragman

Years ago I'd often head to a former factory in Cambridge, MA, with friend Anne. What we referred to as "Ragman" was a place that in post World War II years bought used clothes in bulk and cut them into rags for industrial customers. Then, in the late 1970's, the owner decided to separate out less-worn items from the raw materials and sell them on weekends for $1 a pound.

Craziest place ever. Big plastic garbage bags instead of shopping carts. Clothes heaped all over the old wooden floor. No changing rooms. Big scale for checking out at the end.

Initially paralyzed, I'd eventually pick a starting place and begin pawing through. My left brain had no option but to yield to my right brain. I found the best clothes clothes there! $23—new wardrobe!

My studio is a little less rough around the edges, though not much. I paw through piles of past paintings, let my right brain rummage through all that raw material. I find the best stuff there!

Another series of cards:

The In-Between Moments of Slack Tide
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and pastels
abstract
2018
The Sea-Rich Muddy Harbor Floor
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and pastels
abstract
2018
Redolent with Pungent Gurry
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and pastels
abstract
2018

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Chiffonnier

Rag-picker is a term for someone who makes a living by rummaging through refuse in the streets to collect material for salvage and reuse. Although solely a job for the lowest of the working classes, it was considered an honest occupation. 
Well, of course!
And, not only that, but also—fancy this!—another term for rag-picker is chiffonnier. La-di-da!
Today, as studio chiffonnier, I salvage a 2016 'busy & quiet' exercise—itself made of salvaged material. I cut it into a diptych, mount each half on scraps of a wallpaper sample from a 2013 kitchen renovation project, slip each card into a clear protective sleeve.
This chiffonier says, Voilà!
And Follow After
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, pencil, and collage
abstract
2018
The Day Together
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, pencil, and collage
abstract
2018

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

In Production

In limbo, waiting for some supplies on order, I've pressed pause with the WIP last seen at the paper cutter. I have shifted gears and am now in production making a bunch of greeting cards.

I do some more 'rag-picking' again today … and look at this sweet duo! The art comprises two found compositions from another piece done for an online Jane Davies class in 2016. The backing is the inside of an envelope—marketing material, I think. Way fun!

The Smell of Damp Wood and Sun
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, India ink, and pencil
abstract
2018
The Smell of Earth and Grass
4.25 x 5.5 greeting card; acrylic, India ink, pencil
abstract
2018

Monday, November 12, 2018

You Never Know

In my mind's ear I can hear perfectly the clop-clop of a horse pulling an open cart down Chepstow Place in London where I lived in 1968, adding its hoofbeat to the one-line chant voiced by the man running the operation: RAAAAGs'n'bones, RAAAAGs'n'bones.

A rag-and-bone man collects unwanted household items and sells them to merchants. In 19th century London about a thousand of these men lived in extreme poverty, surviving on the proceeds of what they collected each day. By the 1980's they were mostly gone.

I'm somewhat of an updated knockoff rag-and-bone person myself, of the sort portrayed aptly by Florian Roderi in A Weekend with Picasso:

We artists are a bit like ragpickers;
we like to have all sorts
of odds and ends around us.
They may seem completely useless
to other people
but
       you never know!

I experience such pleasure today as I decide which of the odds and ends around me to make into a greeting card, pressing into service a 'mostly monochrome' exercise done for a Jane Davies class—an exercise which itself pulled from several odds and ends—along with a promotional postcard salvaged from the mail. Scissors, acrylic matte medium, books and bricks to press pieces together, and finally a crystal clear plastic sleeve.

You never know!

Buzzing Bees, Like a Haze in Spring
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, India ink, and collage
abstract
2018

Thursday, November 8, 2018

Stringing Moments

Remember the first time you ever strung beads, or macaroni, or popcorn—tied a careful knot at one end and added one bead after the other to your piece of yarn, collecting a long strand to tie into a necklace?

Today, no careful knot. No knot at all. Just one moment after another slipping onto the string of my attention and off again, each making space for the next. And the next.

Startlingly high tide in the salt marshes; brilliant late-season red leaves; a huge tractor trailer that puffs diesel exhaust my way; a parking kiosk that shortchanges and befuddles me; India ink that flows unpredictably from an applicator tip; brisk wind that tugs a corner of my painting out from under masking tape; a solution for blocking spam iMessages.

work in progress

detail
detail
detail

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Good Thing I'm Short

At one point this summer I needed my studio to be the bedroom it used to be, so I collapsed my easel to its smallest dimensions and moved it to the basement. Then I got busy with bookmarks and postcards and didn't miss it. Finally, though, over the weekend I dragged it back up to my studio.

And I'll be damned if I can get it to expand to its full height! I know I'm pulling the right release gizmo, but the easel just won't cooperate.

work in progress



Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Crawling Around

I invite you to keep crawling around in creativity with me—

last week: blank paper > journaling

yesterday: scribbling

today: collaging with tissue paper and instruction manual pages >
making marks with pastel pencil >
brushing matte medium over mark-making

detail


Monday, November 5, 2018

Dissipation

Yesterday's stories are yesterday's stories—breaking up into little pieces, spreading thin, scattering, blowing away in the least bit of breeze like so much dandelion fluff.


work in progress


Friday, November 2, 2018

Bolus

Look at this bolus of (bogus!) stories I tell myself!

I am so grateful for the transformational act of journaling on canvas/paper to begin a painting. I love the energy that releases, the stuck discomfort that moves out of my chest, the expressed feelings that shift towards becoming a piece of art rather than a heavy dark tangle in my heart.

start of a new painting


Look at all the spaciousness around that bolus!

spaciousness

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Millimeter by Millennium

Lichens often have a regular but very slow growth rate of less than a millimeter per year.

Deep underground as a result of volcanic eruptions, granite also forms slowly, enduring a great deal of heat and pressure for millennia—and even for as long as millions of years—to become the hard rock we see and quarry.

With my paintbrush as portal, I harden into granite, accessorize myself with lichen. I live timeless geologic eras in the minutes during which I create this bookmark. Millimeter by millennium, I am there the whole time.

Maritime Sunburst
2 x 6.25"; acrylic and oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]