Unexpected, and as Expected

My day took an unexpected turn first thing this afternoon and I felt discombobulated, unfocused. I was off kilter internally and didn't feel sure I'd go to my studio.

Ha, ha!

Of course I went to my studio. What was I thinking? When did feeling sure ever have anything to do with studio time?

Pulled a third cut-up from my collection and ran with impulse and intuition.

Till tomorrow:

work in progress
4x5"; unstretched canvas
working title: q&q cut-up #3

The River of Not Knowing / Q&Q Cut-Up #2

Had no idea where this painting would go when I began, but I stepped into the river of not knowing and let myself move with the current.

Jay and Christine had no idea where their first date in December 2004 would go either, but they stepped into the river of not knowing … and on Saturday we celebrated their wedding. The best!

Helpers of Each Other in All the Chances and Changes in the World
4x5"; acrylic, ink, pencil, collage, and pastels on unstretched canvas,
mounted on painted wood
abstract
2017
[gift]

Christine read a passage by John Muir when she and Jay exchanged vows; I composed a haiku from those words and inscribed them on the back of the painting:

Every bird song,

wind song, storm song, water song

is ours, sings our love.

Instead Of, 10/21/2017

Someone curious about my life as an artist might ask, You haven't always painted and blogged every day, have you?

Dotty: Nope.

Curious: So, that must take considerable time. There must be a whole bunch of ways you used to fill your time that you now don't?

Dotty: Ya got that right. Let me count the ways!

---

Holy mackerel. There are so many things I don't do that I might if I weren't painting.

Today (post written 10/21), for example, instead of vacuuming our lemon-drop-yellow room for guests, I fiddle around with a second q&q cut-up.

Instead of writing lesson plans, I rummage through accumulated paper to explore a collage idea.

Instead of loading the dishwasher, I get out matte medium and a brush.

Instead of rounding up supplies to make a photo display for Jay and Christine's wedding celebration, I now sit on my front porch in warm October afternoon sunlight writing this post, while a dozen wild turkeys walk from our neighbor's yard into ours.

Here's the cut-up I selected:

Here's a tease of my exploration with collage:

OK, off to the lemon-drop room.

Q&Q Cut-Up #1

On a deliciously warm sunny October day, I sneak a little studio time to bring my first quick & quixotic cut-up to completion.

When first extracted from the 16x20" whole, as a 4x5" part, it looked like this:

Now it looks like this:

Surface, Sky, Whirlpool, Wave
4x5", acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel on canvas,
mounted on manila card stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

Liar, Liar!

Confession: after I posted yesterday, I did pick up a brush and play for a short while after all.

Started fiddling around with one of my quick & quixotic cut-ups.

I see potential in two orientations.

work in progress
4x5"; unstretched canvas
working title: q&q cut-up #1

work in progress
4x5"; unstretched canvas
working title: q&q cut-up #1
opposite end up

Not only that, but also … you will recall all the horizontal surfaces that were cleared off yesterday. Today they're covered with everything entailed in my mounting photos on matte board for a display at J&C's wedding celebration on Saturday. Paper trimmer, matte board, backing paper, scissors, ruler, pens, pencil, matte medium, brushes, photos, scraps, boxes: you name it, it's taken up residence.

Did I?

You may remember my crying "Uncle!" a few weeks ago when I was feeling overwhelmed and knew I needed to adjust my painting practice. I needed to create some kind of workable fit with the abundance of competing demands clamoring stridently from every direction.

For several weeks now, I've painted in little snippets, grabbing a few minutes here and a few minutes there catch-as-catch-can.

Today I didn't paint.

Or did I …

I certainly 'painted' internally, by which I mean I participated nourishingly in facets of the creative process. Using a metaphorical backhoe, I cleared just enough space for two of my sisters and their husbands to sleep at our house on wedding weekend (we'll be in absentia ourselves, at a hotel in Boston!), a task that offered chances to interact with completed paintings, piles of collage paper, boxes of pastels, a bin of high-flow paints, a tissue-paper storage box, yogurt containers with water and brushes in them, and a pile of canvases I scored at a September neighborhood give-away. All part of painting, all part of my creative adventure, all feeding what will soon flow from my brush in one form or another.

Artist friend Jen said much the same thing back in the summer:

Organizing is … something I can do when I can't paint.  If I'm too tired, unmotivated, cranky or whatever to actually make art, I can still get things in tip-top shape for when I am ready once more.  Sometimes I will just gesso boards and leave them out to dry, where they will whisper to me on another day.  Other times I will purge old drawings and cut them into bits and pieces for collage materials.  On a really bad day, I'll scrape paint off the floor.  But to me, it all counts as part of the process.  It keeps me in the studio, putting in my time, waiting for the muse to stomp in and demand attention.  

And now I am off to paint.  Or maybe alphabetize my art books.

Here's what I 'painted' today, along with photos of earlier stages of these masterpieces:

work in progress, Green Room

completed diptych 'painting,'
Green Room Perks Up #1

completed 'painting,'
Green Room Perks Up #2

---

work in progress, Lemon Drop Room

completed 'painting,'
Lemon Drop Room Brightens

Location, Location, Location Redux

Another of my paintings, this one originally painted on paper, then mounted on painted wood, and here displayed in a setting akin to its original underlayers which evoked the outdoors in autumn.

Haiku on back:

The world deposits

layers, makes hills, whispers clouds.

We steal sweet kisses.

Location, Location, Location

I love the role that location—or context—plays in so many life situations.

A favorite example: I picture myself at a beach on a hot summer day, seeing a colleague, stopping to catch up on news, both of us in bathing suits soaking up the sun and loving the sea breezes. Most of the time I don't think twice about such a situation, but every now and then it'll cross my mind to consider how totally bizarre and uncomfortable it'd be to see that same person in the context of our workplace and stop for a conversation with both of us in our underwear—i.e. the same amount of clothing—or lack thereof—as a bathing suit!

That hilarity aside, I'm fascinated by the impact location can make to my perception and enjoyment of a painting. There are pronounced differences—any one of which can be favorable or not— between a painting posted online surrounded by white space on a virtual 'page,' and the same painting displayed in a home setting, or propped in a gift shop, or hung in a gallery show, or photographed outdoors with a natural backdrop.

Here's Holding Vrksasana, Finding My Edge, posing in the context of my home before being mailed off to one of my collectors.

Quick & Quixotic 8

I haven't strayed at all from the quick, capricious, unpredictable, only-have-few-minutes-to-paint modus operandi that has characterized the unfolding of this current work in progress from day #1 back in late September. 

And, in keeping with that modus operandi, looky what took place in my studio today as I followed an impulse and made a split-second decision …

work in progress
8 4x5" and 2 2x8" pieces of unstretched canvas
working title: quick & quixotic cut-ups

Quick & Quixotic 7

Have I mentioned that Jay and Christine's wedding celebration is taking place in ten days?

So exciting—such a happy, busy time for this mother of the groom!

Again today, I grab just a few minutes to paint. I'm so glad for those few quick minutes of capricious unpredictable adventuring in a day otherwise filled mostly with tasks requiring the services of my left brain.

Love the transformation that took place on my bit of unstretched canvas!

work in progress
12x16"; unstretched canvas
working title: quick & quixotic 7

A few spectacular detail photos—look at these volunteer compositions:

Quick & Quixotic 6

Yesterday, at the top of my list of intentions for today, I wrote this: decide early in day what my focus will be during afternoon studio time.

Bright and early this morning I saw that note to myself and went into my studio to look at Quick & Quixotic to see where I might want to go with it this afternoon.

Twenty or so minutes later, I wiped off my paint brush, screwed the lid back on my matte medium, and surveyed where I did go with that work in progress … first thing in the morning!

work in progress
12x16"; unstretched canvas
working title: Quick and Quixotic 6

---

Memory refresher—Q&Q last seen 11 days ago looking like this:

Painting Connections

I wrote about this piece's partner maybe ten or more days ago, in a post about staying connected to other artists, especially those who "express interest in and resonate with what you are doing" and whose work lights you up.

This post is also about connections.

First, I love when paintings connect to each other—when they're siblings, sharing considerable DNA but also having distinct personalities and experiences. Such is the situation for today's painting and her born-first sister. They now live in different states, have their own lives to live, and often go whole days with nary a thought of each other. At heart, though, they are still connected.

Second, I love the connection I have to my experience of painting this piece. It evokes instantly a day that had dawned chilly, at 42 degrees, but became a gift of bright sunshine, radiant warmth, yellow leaves that drifted occasionally to the ground, cloudless blue skies, and crisp dry air. My internal weather was more of the same. Happy. I was in my happy place—adding touches of paint, sorting through my scraps box for backdrop papers on which to mount the painting, applying matte medium, tucking the emerging card repeatedly between carefully designed improvisational weights to let one layer after another adhere as I assembled.

Partying with Norman and Sebastian
2.5x3.5"; acrylic, ink, pencil, and pastels on postcard stock,
mounted on card stock and wallpaper sample
abstract
2017
[gift]

---

Check out this awesome photo shoot that We Drink and Partying agreed to before their lives took them in differing directions.

Friday, Watoga

white-tailed, elegant,

doe and fawns mow the lawn 

while I meditate

The Broad Back of the Earth Beneath My Feet
4x5"; acrylic, latex, and pastels on paper
abstract
2017

Thursday, Watoga

a dry-leaf shower

weaves whispers of color to

blanket the earth's spine

---

Wish I'd taken some process shots so I had a record of how abortively ugly this was, until suddenly it wasn't!

The Path Shrilled with Insects
4x5"; acrylic, latex, and collage on paper
abstract
2017

Wednesday, Watoga

Light rain in the night

gives way to daylight hikes on

T.M. Cheek, Pine Run

work in progress
wednesday, watoga

Tuesday, Watoga

Greenbrier River
Trail, Lake Trail, Honeymoon Trail,
ascent, ridge, descent.

work in progress
tuesday, watoga

Monday, Watoga

Flames dance in fireplace,
owls toss hoots to each other,
paint graces cardstock.

work in progress
monday, watoga

Quick & Quixotic 5

Did I know I was anywhere near a shore?

Did I have any inkling I might be shoved out to sea?

Well, nothing for it but to float, to yield to the gift of buoyancy.

work in progress
12x16"; unstretched canvas
working title: Quick and Quixotic 5

---

Dave and I are off to Virginia and West Virginia for the coming week to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Quick & Quixotic will not be joining us on this holiday.

I will bring a tiny art kit, and I do plan to paint. Won't know about wifi and blogging till I'm in situ.

Stay Connected

Another way to thrive as an artist, in the words of Nicholas Wilton, is to

3 Stay Connected

Your success, energetically, financially and even spiritually, is directly connected to those that support and follow your artistic journey. Never lose connection with those that express interest and resonate with what you are doing. Cherish them.

Yes, yes, yes! I do stay connected, I don’t lose connection with those who express interest and resonate with what I’m doing, and I do ferociously cherish them.

To wit, I first bumped into Simone Nijboer and her art two years ago online, and connecting with her changed my unfolding experience as an artist dramatically. A new friend! Someone with whom to talk art! 

She is a key player in my art life. We’ve had an almost daily blog-to-blog conversation in progress for two years now along with periodic personal email communication. It was Simone's art that, for the first time and to my complete astonishment, drew me to abstract art. I was mesmerized by what I saw in her work, and I was compelled to explore abstract painting myself. Life changing. Literally.

Simone was the direct spark that lit my speed-painting yesterday and today. And what joyful painting it was—I flipped to the blank side of what started its life as a professionally printed marketing postcard. I received it in the mail and transformed it in just minutes, minutes inspired by Simone's enduring belief in painting even if she has only the smallest snippet of time and limits her materials and scope.

We drink / one from the other / still
2.5x3.5"; acrylic, ink, pencil, and pastels on postcard stock,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

Show Yourself

One of the artists whose blogs I follow is Nicholas Wilton, who recently wrote a post entitled 5 Ways to Thrive as an Artist. The first way:

1 Show Yourself
Show yourself. Let people see what you have made. Show your enthusiasm generated by your art. In return you will receive additional energy and illuminating feedback that will help sustain your momentum from those around you.

One of the best things I've done since opening the door to painting three years ago is to let people see what I've made. I started my blog in 2015 and started posting to Instagram a few months ago. I made the decision to put the good, the bad, and the ugly out there where others can see it, and I've never regretted the decision.

Admittedly, some days I hesitate or grimace before pressing 'publish' but I always go ahead anyway and often get a surge of energy from the sheer recklessness of doing so!

A huge gift, as Wilton points out, is the additional energy and illuminating feedback I get as a result of sharing. I meet terrific people around the world, learn in ways that fit my self-directed learning style, see amazing and unamazing art, feel abundantly supported and encouraged, and am nourished beyond measure.

Today I "show myself" enthusiastically via a little piece painted in the spirit of my current don't-have-much-time have-to-work-fast modus operandi. Had so much fun! You might notice if you look closely that, small as it is, it has already been cut in two. I'll take a few additional minutes on subsequent days to complete each half.

tiny art
quick art
work in progress

Quick & Quixotic 4

Ground cover is holding steady, but I've traveled the byways away from town. Telephone poles become a fading mental image as I approach open skyscape.



The limitless great beyond lightens as day advances.

work in progress
12x16"; unstretched canvas
working title: Quick and Quixotic 4

Quick & Quixotic 3

Feeling yanked hither and yon by my recent blog posts?

Wondering if you've developed attention deficit disorder?

That's how I feel, and I'm the agent of the disorderly approach style, for Pete's sake!

I seem to be jumping from one task to another in both my personal and professional life, and from one painting project to another in my painting life, which—of course—is responding directly to the nonlinear nature of both my personal and professional life.

A bit of a wild jaunt, a scattershot bucking leapfrogging joyride, I tell ya.

Anyway, today I am back with Quick & Quixotic.

The blueberry fields have shifted color as the earth has continued to trace its path around the sun. A few neutrals have replaced color leached from the flora. Small patches of early morning ground fog make themselves known.

work in progress
12x16"; unstretched canvas
working title: Quick and Quixotic 3