Streetable #8

It used to comfort me, 
as a little girl, 
to look at my mother’s jewelry. 
I used to try on 
the heavy gold bracelets, 
the pearl necklaces, 
the rings, 
all at once. 
I liked pinning the brooches 
in a line down my chest, 
the fabric of my shirt 
sagging from the weight.

Elizabeth Berg, Open House

"All You Need Now, Edith, is Lipstick," Little Bear Said
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic, ink, fabric paint, and collage
abstract
2020

before Edith and Little Bear discovered
the beautiful dressing room with the big mirror

Streetable #7

Every single damn thing 
that we are 
or ever will be 
is dependent on six inches of topsoil 
and the fact that the rain comes 
when it’s needed 
and does not come 
when it is not needed, 
everything, 
every … 
single … 
thing 
comes with that luck.

Gary Paulsen, Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass

The Comfort of a Tree's Spiny Bark
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic, pencil, and collage
abstract
2020

neither wearing makeup nor wishing to appear to be

Streetable #6

How have you been? he asks,

after a swallow of coffee,

which always smells so good

but when you taste it

you get a bitter surprise.

And you always

want to taste it again

because how could your nose

be so wrong?

but it is.

Elizabeth Berg, Joy School

After the Percolator Finishes Gurgling and Spitting
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic, pencil, and collage
abstract
2020

before any morning joe

Streetable #5

When I was in third grade, 
I told my fellow students 
that the woman who invented math 
had been killed in a fire. 
It was a good thing, I said, 
because she was putting 
the finishing touches 
on something even worse than math, 
something the schools 
were aching to get their hands on.

Michael Cadnum, Edge

Sharing Things You Found Out Only a Short Time Ago Yourself
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic and collage
abstract
2020

basic idea

Streetable #4

He called 
when he found a house for us. 
A nice ordinary house, 
he promised. 
'You won’t find a single adjective 
to apply to it. 
It’s the kind of house 
that destroys adjectives.'

Rosellen Brown, Before and After

On the Inland Side of Highway 1
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic, latex, pencil, and collage
abstract
2020

unedited

Streetable #3

She saw Georgia's quiet rapture—
she couldn't have been more than ten—
the first time she made
a tidy French embroidery knot.

Jacquelyn Mitchard, A Theory of Relativity

It Feels Like I'm Talking With a Friend
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic, pencil, oil pastel, and collage
abstract
2020

before revision

Streetable #2

Mr. Devlin keeps dropping things
onto the armchair:
a pair of brown leather shoes
all [worn and] creased,
some china plates with chips in them,
a tiny kettle, and
a rolled-up checkered blanket.
These are all things
that Leon would like to touch.

Kit de Waal, My Name Is Leon

Everything Is Old but Nothing Is Dirty
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic, paint stick, oil pastel, and collage
abstract
2020

rough draft

Streetable (1)

Success! I've completed—at least for now—the self-inspired and -directed exploration of neutral thinking and painting with neutrals that I started two weeks ago, and I have a series of ten postcard starts at hand to bring to the point of being 'streetable,' i.e. ready to be seen in the light of day outside the studio. I plan to tidy, edit, or otherwise gussy up each postcard and select an accessory of prose poetry.

- - - - -

And fabric! 
Big square wicker baskets 
lined up on deep wall shelves 
and full of solid or printed 
cottons, 
silks, 
batiks, 
woolens, 
blends—
you name it, 
I had some.

Elizabeth Berg, The Art of Mending

The Sort of Day Where It Never Gets Properly Bright
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic, latex, pencil, and collage
abstract
2020

before makeup

Is There a Purpose?

Artist Jane Davies recently posted a conversation in response to a question that came her way about the value of art if it isn't practical or doesn't make a salable piece—if, for example, as Jane had done, one was making small simplified works on paper with self-created 'rules' just to get ideas moving by keeping hands and eyes doing something in the studio. The question behind the question was: what to do with all those impractical unsalable pieces of art?

So many thoughts and ideas I have in response to that question but, for today, only this:

Keep them! Keep them all! You never know what might become of one of those pieces! Or when!

Part of the fun of this postcard, made before Jane posted the aforementioned conversation at her blog, is that the pieces come from exercises I did several years ago while taking an online class from Jane! What if I had pitched them because they weren't 'practical' or 'salable'? No thank you!

Deep Inner Space, Extraordinary Knowing
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic and pencil on drawing paper, mounted on cardboard
abstract
2020

Neutrals (12)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• Change takes place whether I notice it or not.

• The open window beside me admits air spun with wren song and sunlight into the room with me.

• Test scores are test scores.

Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #10, resting

Neutrals (11)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• Yesterday I placed holds online for several library books; there's no interlibrary activity yet per covid-19 guidelines so I had to select from only those books available on the shelves at my local library.
• One of my nephews is now affianced to his sweetheart.
• I will start picking kale from our back-deck-railing flower box this week.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #9, resting

Neutrals (10)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• Air at the moment is dry, sky is blue, sun is shining, indoor temperature and outdoor temperature match at 71 degrees Fahrenheit.
• I have heard no news yet today.
• The gray file cabinet in the green closet holds far fewer items than four days ago.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #8, resting

Neutrals (9)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• My day started itself moving in one direction and then veered off in a totally different direction.
• Blue spruce, in my region of the country, is susceptible to a fungus.
• Spilled latex paint can be cleaned up fairly easily.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #7, resting

Neutrals (8)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• My tutoring table—and central command post for almost all my deskwork—is a 1950's kitchen table with green Formica laminate top, chrome metal edging around the tabletop, and chrome legs.
• This morning's high humidity gave way to an afternoon downpour.
• Today I set about drafting my post by intentionally not including any headings initially. I entered my first statement above, and Grammarly identified the tone as joyful. After entering the second statement, the post as a whole was optimistic, and it remained optimistic as I wrote this very sentence. I then began entering the heading for this section; the tone remained optimistic until I entered the word exploration, at which point Grammarly indicated: anxious.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #6, resting

Neutrals (7)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• When I stand still for more than a minute outdoors at 445a, a mosquito finds me.
• When I sit two hours later beside Bass River, I am chilled by strong breezes.
• Our back deck, where I usually eat lunch al fresco, is today occupied by house painters, drop cloths, ladders, scraping tools, electric sanders, and a boom box.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #5, resting

Neutrals (6)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• A painting crew is sanding the exterior walls of our home.
• I received payment for a painting yesterday.
• I have a phone appointment this afternoon with someone I've never met before.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #4, resting

Neutrals (5)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• Grammarly is a free online writing assistant app designed to improve word usage, spelling, punctuation, and the like.
• In addition to having word usage, spelling, and punctuation checkers, it has a tone checker.
• Grammarly has identified the tone in this post and its three predecessors as anxious*.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

postcard start #3, resting

* !!!!! **
** And, yes, neutral is one of the tones Grammarly checks for.

Neutrals (4)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• My magic pants (Columbia® calls them something else) and walking shoes were comfortable for 51 degrees at 500a.
• I changed out of my magic pants four hours later in favor of a skirt and flip flops.
• A 5 x 6-foot closet can hold a significant number of items.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

neutrals postcard start #2, resting

Neutrals (3)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• This afternoon I will burn a bag of outdated paperwork culled from a file cabinet upstairs.
• I discovered in a stack of stored folders a pad of lined paper with a company logo at the top of each page and have been unable to decide where to give it a home for future use.
• I don't have criteria yet for facilitating my decluttering of the green closet.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

neutrals postcard start #1, resting

Neutrals (2)

Neutral-thinking exploration

• I learned today that pH stands for power of hydrogen or potential for hydrogen. If that information ever came my way previously, it promptly left.
• I encountered several lengthy interruptions in my plans today.
• My ankles are swollen, especially the left one.


Painting-with-neutrals exploration

Inquiring Mind Wants to Know; Neutrals (1)

Giving my 24 x 48" work-in-progress a rest, I plan to engage in two inquiries for the next week to ten days:

1. poke around with conscious neutral thinking to see what I might learn, and

2. poke around in my studio to see what I come up with by way of a bunch of grid-format postcard starts using mostly neutrals.

Accordingly, neutrals:

1. I pulled out the copy of Little Women I used as a painting journal while I was in Virginia in January and February, found some fresh pages, and applied white gesso.

2.

starting to neutralize book pages

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (18)

On my nightstand

And then she moved 

from shock to grief 

the way she might 

enter another room. 

Anita Shreve, The Pilot's Wife

On my easel

work in progress, 47 days in, 6/4/20
24 x 48" canvas

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (17)

On my nightstand

She didn’t think Jack 

had ever felt 

the coming and going 

in quite the same way 

she had. 

To leave, 

               after all, 

was not the same 

as being left.

Anita Shreve, The Pilot's Wife

On my easel

work in progress, 40 days in, 5/28/20
24 x 48" canvas

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (16)

On my nightstand

She took careful steps 

across the floor, 

as if moving too fast 

might set something in motion 

that hadn’t yet begun.

Anita Shreve, The Pilot's Wife

On my easel

something in motion!
detail, work in progress, 36 days in, 5/24/20
24 x 48" canvas

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (15)

On my nightstand

You've perhaps noticed
how window plants
wind and grow
toward the light,
pressing their leaves
against the pane.
This turning toward the light
has a scientific name:
… heliotropism.
Jung spoke of a 
'human heliotropism.'
The True Self
seeks the light,
winding and growing
toward realization,
pressing against
the windowpane
of consciousness.

Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits


On my easel

heliotropic work in progress, 36 days in, 5/24/20
24 x 48" canvas