Working

Twenty years ago, I read Studs Terkel's' sizable book, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.

I've had a lifelong curiosity about what people do all day and how they feel about what they do.

Here's what I've done so far today: exercise in my Strongboard class at the Y; prepare food; post and comment on Instagram; prepare billing for clients; plan meals for the coming week and write a grocery list; respond to comments at my blog; prepare lessons for tutees; try and fail to order postage stamps on line (didn't know my password and had no success with the process of establishing a new one); meet with a friend for a coffee date during which we sat outdoors; meditate, also outdoors; write a postcard to my dad; partially clean up my email inbox; research local sustainable sources for nutritious meat; read an article about bone health; read several chapters in a young adult novel; and paint.

I moved yesterday's mark-making forward—selected a limited palette, painted with my fingers, blended colors directly on the canvas. While I painted I was all in, nothing else going on but the exquisite choreography of hand/eye/canvas/paint.

Next up: meeting with tutees.

Tomorrow: more interaction with this patch-in-progress.

Alive, Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic

If you've ever gone to summer camp—as I have, you might well know the alive-awake-alert-enthusiastic song—as I do.

There are days when I ask myself why I paint, what's the point, where am I going with my painting, and blah blah blah, as though I should have an answer, as though in the absence of having one I am failing.

Other days I'm alive awake alert enthusiastic, alive awake alert enthusiastic, alive awake alert, alert awake alive, aliveawakealertenthusiastic!

Today I was totally in my happy place—making marks, letting them dry, spraying them with fixative, brushing over them lightly with matte medium. Sun was shining, air was warm, grass was green, I was painting in my front yard. Complete contentment.

Why do I paint? Because, it appears, I do!

I could leave this patch of perfect fun as is, it occurs to me. And, at the moment, I will, since my first tutee of the day arrives momentarily.

But I am itching to see what happens next with this little square of sunshine and enthusiasm.

new patch, first marks

Winds of Change

Sometimes the idea of following an emerging painting wherever it leads is just that: an idea. A thought in my head that makes sense but nonetheless remains no more than an idea, a mental concept vs. a physical action.

But sometimes I let go of directing where a painting will go and actually give myself over to following wherever it takes me.

In fact.

In practice.

Right in front of my eyes.

With the current patch in my bigger Core Values work-in-progress, I was all over the place. I went in with a starting idea and put paint on my blank canvas accordingly—paint that didn't land or look the way I thought it might.

But I liked it, so I followed it for awhile and got a new idea. Put paint in place in accordance with that idea and, of course, it also went other than where I intended.

Back and forth it went: I took the lead, then followed, took the lead, then followed.

Eventually I pretty much let go of bringing ideas to the painting and instead let the winds of change blow me along. I became so thoroughly curious, so entertained, so participatory.

This painting and I went from the iterations posted yesterday,

to here,



then here,



next here,



and finally here:

newest patch

new patch in the bigger picture;
working title: Core Values

Look at these breathtaking close-ups:

detail

detail

Never Knew

Before I started painting, I never knew how painters painted.

Never knew how *I* would paint. Sure didn't have any idea I'd be painting the way I do.

Here's the start to my current patch-in-progress:















Fortuitously, once I got this far on Thursday last week, I had to stop painting so I could pack and then head to Maine to visit my dad on the weekend, leaving this start both unfinished and at home. Putting it on hold felt like the exact right thing to do.

Something that Grew

Yesterday's something continued to unfold today.

My favorite parts during the unfolding:

• the see-saw process of making marks, painting over them, making marks, painting over them, making marks, painting over them, and
• painting mostly with my fingers.


What I like about what ended up unfolding:

• the delicacy, unfussiness, and scribbliness of the lines.


My current wonderings:

• done? or
• maybe needing some bold lines for contrast?

newest patch;
done?

newest patch, in the big picture;
working title: Core Values

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newest patch, with a test piece of acrylic skin resting on the surface …

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue?

Something old: a square on my Core Values work in progress, waiting weeks for its day in the sun.

Something new: a fine line marker.

Something borrowed:

(a) Simone's first-layer approach: do anything; it is early yet

(b) Jane's model of fearless veiling to create depth

(c) Betty's spirit of mark making on top of mark making

(d) Sylvia's vivid warm application of color

Something blue? Not so much!

This patch-in-progress is going to sit as is till tomorrow.

Simplify

Loved everything about Gillian St. George's Instagram post on April 11. Her art caught my eye, as it invariably does, and so too did her words: decided to simplify—used a small size of paper, with just a few lovely colors and simple strong shapes.

Gillian inspired my painting today. In little snippets of time over the course of the morning, I taped off a new patch on Core Values, gessoed it for a clean start, painted several collage papers in different values of raw umber, and raided my box of existing collage scraps to cull additional pieces for possible use. This afternoon, after some snips, tears, arranging, rearranging, and gluing, I created a new patch.

I moved it from beginning to end in short order. Woo hoo!

It is simpler in design and detail than at least half of its fellow patches, though probably twice as complex as I'd envisioned—an engaging first time out of the gate with my intention to use just a few lovely colors and simple strong shapes. 

Next: absorb today's experience, and experiment again.

newest patch

detail

new patch in the bigger picture;
working title: Core Values

Nosegay

Back at our cottage, bursting with the important news of our wildflower finds, my sisters and I select a vase from the tiny open-shelved kitchen, fill it with water and, with great ceremony and a fair amount of mess, create a nosegay—or tussie mussie, as such an arrangement is also called—of

• daisy fleabane,
• buttercups,
• blanketflower,
• purple asters,
• scarlet beebalm, and
• cornflowers.

Summer magic!

newest patch

detail

new patch in the bigger picture;
working title: Core Values

Wildflower IDs

I remember my dad's taking my younger sisters and me on a walk around our Old Kelsey Point summer-rental neighborhood in Connecticut one summer evening when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old.

He carried a small book.

Not just any book, but what turned out to be a field guide to area wildflowers.

What excitement!

We'd spy a flower, find it in the book!

Discover its name!

Today, I've created a scrappy patch of summer lawn.

activating a new patch

I've spied some wildflowers!

work in progress within a work in progress

Staying Awake

First, I have to vent my frustration at how impossible it is sometimes to get a photograph that feels true to what I see in front of me.

Grrrr.

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I set out today with a loose idea in mind to slap a variegated monochromatic background onto a new patch in Core Values, add a bunch of layers and bright chaotic playful 'flowers' of color, carve a lush bouquet out of all of the above by painting negative space.

Bouquet?

Never got past the variegated monochromatic background.

I liked staying awake enough as I painted to stop there.

New patch: done.

hooker's green acrylic on top of layer of gloss medium;
marks from a texture sheet and catalyst tool

scribbles from four different green paint markers

four more greens brushed and fingerpainted into place,
scribbles made with metal stylus
---
newest patch

new patch in bigger picture;
working title: Core Values

What?

I stop here, resting in I-don't-know.

newest patch

detail from patch

newest patch, in the bigger picture
working title: Core Values

No Man's Land

I'm in such an awkward place with this patch in my Core Values project. A no man's land. Although I trust that the layers I've built have the potential to go somewhere awesome, I don't particularly like what I see now, nor do I have any idea how to proceed.

I can detect some of what is needed.

But, I can't yet imagine how to create what is needed.

Artist Marion Hedger recently wrote about the phases of creating a painting, referencing an interview by Nicholas Wilton of Mark Eanes in which Eanes talks about three phases each painting moves through and how each phase has three phases.

So far, the one or two times I've tried in the moment to identify where I am in the process? No clue.

Today, when I stopped for the day, I thought, I am smack in the middle of the middle.

But maybe not. I may be at the beginning of the middle.

Or, possibly, the middle of the end.

The one fact of which I am certain: you'll see this painting at least once more, and it will have changed.

patch in progress

Overflowing

A plethora on my mind today.

A plethora on my plate.

Decided not to paint.

But danged if I didn't find myself in my studio, brush in hand, all details and tasks related to bathroom renovation, tutorial correspondence, bill paying, osteoporosis, and estate planning abandoned.

Started another patch. Used iPhoto to look at it in grayscale.

Arthur's Weed Patch

I was living in the Netherlands when I first connected with Miss Peach comic strips. The reason I remember the character named Arthur and, more particularly, his weed patch* is that my youngest sister was born while we lived in the Netherlands and had hair that stood straight up from her head as an infant, hair that my parents referred to—with great affection—as Arthur's weed patch.

It was during those same two years of living in the Netherlands that a school friend and I, sixth graders at the time, spent a bunch of happy hours playing across the street from her house at a construction site after hours. As I've played with my current Core Values patch yesterday and today, memories have surfaced of the engaging pleasure of making something out of 'nothing' at that building site—arranging and rearranging cinder blocks, scraps of wood, bits of metal, and other stuff lying around in the gravel and weeds.

Here I am doing the same thing all these many years later.

added white shapes, scratched through layers

pasted tissue collage, extended color, added veiling

new patch, with final tweaks

detail

new patch in the bigger picture;
working title: core values

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* I kinda shrugged off my homework yesterday, not persisting in searching for online evidence of Arthur's weed patch, but look what my friend Carolyn found:

Miss Peach is a really sweet and kind teacher but, still, I hope she doesn't find out Carolyn did my homework for me.