Gone Fishin'

As I write this post, I'm in Maine with my dad to share a week-long vacation. Later this morning (Saturday) we leave Bethel and drive to Port Clyde where we'll take a ferry to Monhegan, a one-square-mile island I've never visited before. Ten miles off the coast. No cars allowed. Watch out for dangerous cliffs. Woo hoo!

I've packed a tiny travel art kit, but don't know what shape this vacation will take—don't know if I'll paint, don't know what my wifi situation will be, don't know if I'll post, don't know but what I might extend the internet part of my vacation even after I return home.

Just know I'm getting on a ferry and heading to Don't Know!

Below, a place holder until I return.

color study
4x4"; acrylic on canvas
abstract
2014

August Benchmark

Stepping into painting/creating almost always lets me step out of whatever is on my busy mind. I slow down and 'get lost' in the act of painting. Often, thoughts and memories bubble up from my subconscience. Today's meander:

August 1975. Teaching in the summer program at Landmark School. Lunchtime. Sitting with a few women at a picnic table overlooking the Atlantic. None of us married, then-new acquaintance Sylvia and I with weddings on the near horizon. Topic of discussion: would we keep our maiden names or take our husbands' surnames?*

August 2018. Sylvia and I have been BFF's for 43 years now, and our respective marriages are very much alive and kicking. Pretty awesome.

Happy Anniversary, Sylvia and Dan!

As We Go Along, Ways Open Before Us
4x5"; acrylic and ink on paper
abstract
2018
[gift]

* We took our hubbies' names.

Emergency Preparations

When dire weather warnings are broadcast, some folks rush to the grocery store for food and water. I make a beeline for the library.

As I've said before, do not ever leave me without a sizable stack of books on my bedside table.

Painted up another bookmark today. On the back, I wrote a few lines from the following excerpt, an endearing passage that appears in Rebecca Wells's novel Little Altars Everywhere:

The library will only let Sidda and me
check out two books at a time,
which drives us nuts.
We live in the country, I tell the librarian,
we need more than two books to last us!
My daughter and I are fast readers,
we are avid.
But the old bat behind the counter says,
Two books a patron, that's our limit,
no matter where you live.
Sometimes I watch my daughter smuggle
an extra book out and,
even though I know I should,
I just cannot bring myself to stop her.
Sometimes you just have to reach out
and grab what you want,
even when they tell you not to.

Even When They Tell You Not To
1.5x6"; acrylic and oil pastel
abstract
2018
[gift]

Speedy Delivery, II

Last week I hung out with Joan of Art again for a day of messing about with paint.

Painted quickly, intuitively, impulsively, experimentally—Sylvia, I was trying to imagine and then channel how you feel as you paint!

activated paper by painting a bunch of colors
and scribbling through them while they were still wet

layered with more paint and some ink

more paint

ink, stenciling, paint, done

What did it feel like to paint this way? Terrific! Satisfying! Fun! Expressive!

Another speedy delivery.

Speedy Delivery

Belting Out was delivered after a protracted, sometimes painful, contraction-by-contraction-by-contraction labor.

Lonnnng delivery if ever there was one.

One day recently I was emotionally preoccupied and had no focus to bring to my studio. I grabbed a ready-for-reuse calendar poster from my stash and did nothing more than spread gesso on it and then scribble through the wet paint with a metal skewer.

I ended up using the start as a wipe-off-my-palette-knife page. That baby was born and breathing on its own after a labor—if it could even be called that—of no more than seven effortless minutes.

Speedy delivery.

Speaking of Speedy Delivery, a phrase I've borrowed from Mr. Rogers, if you haven't yet seen Won't You Be My Neighbor?, do.

While She'd Been Inside, Someone Else Had Arrived
11x14"; acrylic on paper
abstract
2018

Color Theory

My theory of color: I wonder what will happen if.

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collage paper painted with acrylics hand-mixed to match 'grenadine' bathroom towel

Salle de Bain Gallery

Many moons ago I enjoyed an active correspondence with my friend Anne—lots of postal art flying between our homes. I set a clear acrylic easel on the marble top of the master bathroom vanity and rotated Anne's art through my Salle de Bain Gallery frequently.

Bathrooms and art! Great combo!

Ever since my hubby and I completed (well, almost) our recent bathroom reno, I've had the idea to create a painting as a final decorating touch.

The bathroom grays inspired the background color for this now-completed-but-in-process-almost-as-long-as-the-bathroom-took-to-renovate abstract floral.

Two days ago, I did some acrylic color-mixing to match our pop-of-color hand towels.

Yesterday, the wrought-iron hardware on the vanity suddenly sparked a solution to my bedeviled conundrum of how to anchor the busy pink-and-red flowers.

Today, white porcelain offered up an idea.

Belting Out a Song in the Shower
11x14"; acrylic, latex, India ink, oil pastel, and collage on paper
floral pastel
2018
[not for sale]

Of the Field

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

abstract floral detail, work in progress

abstract floral detail, work in progress

abstract floral detail, work in progress

Still Along for the Ride

To any of you still along for the ride and cheering me on: thank you.*

My thoughts as I put away my paints today:

• I have enough artistic sensibility to be able to identify many of the visual problems I've created;

• at the moment, I have next to no idea how to resolve them; and

• I have just (barely) enough stubbornness and curiosity to keep me from tossing in the towel.

where I stopped today; WIP

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*I went outdoors to photograph today's progress and was suddenly aware of thrumming as I stood editing the image on my phone. Looked up to see a hummingbird hovering inches from my face and looking me in the eye. I'm taking that as a vote of confidence!

Wreckless > Reckless, II

Wreckless painting.

Reckless painter.

I have no idea what or if wallpaper covered the walls at my Great-Grandma Collins's home in Cobalt, Connecticut. But I stepped out of time and place to about age seven as I moved my paintbrush today and found myself in Bertha Jane's front parlor staring at the flowers papered onto the walls.

where I left off yesterday

where I stopped today

Romper Room

I don't often paint in the morning.

But today?

I relish nourishing early-day moments in my studio.

And I romp.

Windows and doors wide open to the fresh air and sparkle of a stunning summer morning in August.

Paintbrush and paints wide open to the unpredictable play of creating conundrums, puzzling out predicaments, ruining resolutions, and indulging impulsivities.

Really, though, what is that blue vase still doing there?

work-in-progress after today's romping

Wreckless > Reckless

I start refining the mayhem layers I created the past couple of days.

In no time I consider covering the whole mess with gesso.

But I tap into the notion that this painting is wreck-less, and that viewpoint nudges the needle away from fussy towards reckless.

I throw color onto the 'vase' and scribble all over the 'blossoms' with India ink.

Who knows where this will take me.

Down to the Studs

I have a favorite story from our recent bathroom renovation.

One weekend morning, Dave and I were companionably engaged in parallel play across the upstairs landing from each other, I in the study at my laptop, Dave in the bathroom tearing walls down to the studs.

I heard him pause and say, "Huh."

Then, more construction noise, another pause, another "Huh."

Then, more construction noise, another pause, and, "Dotty, come here for a sec."

He pointed, I scrutinized.

"Oyster crackers," I pronounced.

Indeed, about two dozen intact oyster crackers nestled in fiberglass insulation in the space between the wall of the bathroom and the wall of the adjacent bedroom.

Defies imagination, but there you have it.

I think of those oyster crackers every now and then when I paint. In the end, most of my paintings have more layers on them than we had layers on our bathroom studs. Usually, well over half of what lies beneath the surface of my completed pieces isn't visible.

Defies imagination sometimes, but there you have it.

Those of you who follow my blog or my Instagram page, however, often get to see the oyster crackers as I tuck them into place.

where I left off yesterday

rotated my paper end-to-end,
added yellows, orange-pink, and orange-red on top of India ink

rotated my paper every which way, flung some drops of India ink, and dribbled yellow latex

Mayhem and Messing About

Decided to aim in the direction of floral again today.

Grabbed another outdated calendar poster printed on quality card stock, and started laying down mayhem. Messed about by doing some scribbly journaling first. Then stenciled, brushed, flung, stamped, and dabbed some browns, earth-yellows, blue-greens, and purple-blues willy nilly.

OK, base camp staked out.

journaling

making mayhem

messing about

Time-Travel Tuesday

Here's a little piece of art I crafted sometime right around the turn of the century. Mind you, I still equate 'turn of the century' with 1900, but this piece came into being about thirteen years ago at the turn of a different century!

I used to have a small entrepreneurial business called art❤️warmers for seven years, but that is a story for another day.

Today's story is the fun of remembering the origins of the various layers of this piece, each layer of which is a larger fuller story in its own right, also for another day.

For now:

• the hearts were drawn into a styrofoam meat tray, inked up, and printed as part of a once-a-month get-together of yore called Round of Art at My Table with friends Anne, Joan, and Linda,

• the hearts were printed on paper that was from a stash of remnants from the printing business where the husband of a friend worked,

• the printed music came from a hymnal sold at a fundraiser yard sale,

• the black foam was scrap from the gasket company where my husband used to work, and

• the mat board was garnered from a frame business willing to donate its scraps.

Happy anniversary, B&K!

The Real Deal
4x4"; mixed media assemblage on matte board
[gift]

Taking Note

For a number of days now, I have been especially thought-full, noticing alternating current in my day-to-day living, noticing the back-and-forth in play between peaceful engaged presence and agitated internal chatter as I created this piece.

In a Hurry has become a visual meditation: a reminder to breathe, a signifier of the space between an in-breath and an out-breath, an invitation to move at a slower pace, a nudge towards mindfulness.

In a Hurry as the Babysitter's Meter Ticks
7x7"; acrylic, latex, India ink, and handpainted collage on canvas paper
abstract
2018

Hobby Nook

My current project-in-progress takes me right back to Hobby Nook at Camp Takodah when I was maybe nine years old and making a ceramic-tile-and-grout trivet for my mom. I had no concept whatsoever of a to-do list, no sense of having to get anything done by a certain time.

When I was at the waterfront I was at the waterfront. When I was on the badminton court I was on the badminton court. When I was in Hobby Nook I was in Hobby Nook.

Hobby Nook was entirely sensory: chair legs scraping on the wooden floor, fragrant candle wax melting on a hotplate, dust drifting in through wide-open doors and windows leaving an earthy taste on my tongue, woven wicker making a pattern against the backs of my legs, the colors and sheen of half-inch ceramic tiles lighting up my eyes.

When a cabin leader clanged the bell on A Field, I put away my trivet till the next day, with nary a thought about its being 'finished' or not.

Today in Hobby Nook—a few tiles here, a few there, some grout, and then off when the bell rang.

detail, work in progress

detail, work in progress

Who Cares?

Sometimes the universe gives me a hug when I least expect it. Well, when I don't expect it at all, truth to tell.

My thought process yesterday: OK, I'm frazzled. Too much on my plate. No focus. Maybe I just won't paint. Or post. What does it matter? Who cares? It's my own gosh-darned idea to paint and post daily. I'm just creating stress for myself, for Pete's sake. Enough!

But I paint for a few minutes.

Then, an hour later I snap a studio shot.

After dinner I see the following comment in my The Height of Summer post:

Breathtaking, Dotty. And I can't believe we got to see it all emerge!

I've always hated spectator activities. Baseball? Snore. Football? Please stop! Dotty Seiter's blog? Yes, Carolyn! You're definitely a spectator ... you have no background or frame of reference. But fasten your seatbelt! You're in for a multisensory, mind expanding exploration that will take you places you've never been! 

Dotty, you have no idea how exciting it is to share your work/play. Thank you so much for every single post!

Thanks for the hug, Carolyn!

studio shot, work in progress;
had no idea I was going to move in this direction

Positive Negative

Took a start from a few weeks ago, part of which I'd previously used to make a postcard using negative-space painting.

Decided to use negative space differently this time. Embellished my start from June to my liking first. Loved the process, love the product.

In fact, I think I need to get a job painting collage paper. Wouldn't that be so cool?

But I digress.

Next, painted a sheet of canvas paper to be my negative space, so to speak. Again, loved the process, love the end result. It was hard to photograph to satisfaction, but the subtleties here delight me.

Started putting the two together. A perfectly positive 'negative' experience!

work in progress