Surrender's Strength

With my paintbrush, I ground myself by sinking roots deep into the earth, uplift myself by stretching to my fullest height towards the light.

With gratitude.

No Longer at a Distance from Life Itself
6 x 6"; acrylic, latex, and oil pastel on gessobord
abstract landscape
2019

---

art history:

Little Neck Road, 2015,
lies underneath No Longer at a Distance, 2019

Dialing In

At first, I fight and resist and strike out and punch and rant and thrash and gain no ground. I think I'm up against an immutable law of physics.

Then, exhausted to the point of stillness, I see that I have created my own uproar, am up against my own mind.

Again.

I let self-compassion wrap its arms around me.

Also again!

I dial into being present to simple pleasures:

• managing the intricacies of using a rewards card and my credit card successfully at a gas pump on the way home from the gym on an unexpectedly balmy predawn December morning;

• collecting from our mailbox a bank statement, a payment, a magazine, and a postcard featuring a first-day-of-issue postage stamp;

• building layers and layers and stories and stories into a veritable skyscraper of a new painting!

Reading the Braille of Bark and Lichen
6 x 6"; acrylic, latex, ink, and oil pastel on canvas board
abstract landscape
2019
sold

art history (backstories can be read at links):

In the Wake, Long Lake, a study
9/19/15
first layer/one story

In the Wake, Thinking about Watters, a study
9/20/15
another layer/another story

In the Wake, Emmy!
another layer/another story

layers painted over In the Wake, Emmy!

painters' tape on top of layers

Reading the Braille …

Art History

I took at least one art history course in college: American art, I think.

Do I remember anything from that class that I could tell you? Nothing comes to mind.

Maybe I'd recognize a few correct details if presented with a multiple-choice format?

Hard to say.

But I digress. The art history that has me captivated at the moment is that of this little painting. It has brought me such satisfaction in the past few days. Inspired by a here-today-gone-tomorrow mini-tutorial offered by Amanda Evanston, it offered me the perfect balance of messy-intuitive and intentional-but-largely-uncontrollable.

Soooo much joy!

The Many Grays of This Winter Morning
6 x 6"; acrylic, latex, and pastel on canvas board
abstract landscape
2019
sold

the art history:

Camp Root System
9/4/2015

layers painted over Camp Root System

painters' tape on top of layers

The Many Grays …

Negative Space, Positive Space

Just have to post this next step in a piece that is still in process—as I played for a few minutes in my studio creating negative and positive space on my canvas, I moved from a negative internal space to a positive one! Grateful!

work in progress
6 x 6" canvas board

Seeing

Practicing seeing elements of visual language, turning my attention to a work in progress that's maybe halfway to its eventual stopping place. Up to this point in the process, my intent has been to establish multiple layers that cover the canvas vs. to make a composition.

I notice:

• cool color palette
• predominantly matte paint, with black splatters of gloss
• black spatters mostly of similar size
• black spatters that create contrast
• a shadowy hint of the circumference of a circle whose diameter is about 2/3 the size of the canvas, located roughly in the center
• scribbly lines
• repetition of small mulberry squares throughout, all same size
• depth created by layering
• texture of canvas evident in varying degrees
• no particular directionality

work in progress
6 x 6" canvas board

The Occurrence and Development of Events by Chance in a Happy or Beneficial Way

Two years ago in November I started a bookmark. A day or two later I added the finished piece to my growing collection.

I never know, as I make bookmarks, when one of them will pair perfectly with the jacket of a book I've borrowed from my local library.

Two days ago, in the dizzying swirl of an unusually busy day, with mind and body moving in one direction and another and another, I fell into the grace of inner stillness and deep satisfaction at the serendipity of having a two-year-old bookmark be exquisitely just the right partner for the book that was next in the stack on my nightstand.

Like having all my chakras lined up.

And fun!

book and bookmark hanging out together

Learning Style

Although I did well as a student when in school, I had a metacognitive epiphany after I finished my formal education and could step back to think about learning: following my own nose and lived experience are far more engaging to me than following a pre-established curriculum set out by someone else ever was.

So it's no surprise that when I took up painting a few years ago, I just started mucking about, trusting that I'd learn by doing.

Every now and then, though, I wonder what I've retained of the countless in-the-moment lessons that have come from my studio time. What have I come to know about 'how to paint' that is so deeply internalized I don't know I know it even though I put it into practice intuitively?

In any given moment, it feels to me as though I don't know much of anything! I just paint.

And that is fine by me.

A few days ago, however, I had the fun of discovering that I have learned at least one solid lesson that I'm able to consciously put to use. If I don't clean a brush thoroughly, or forget it altogether and let it dry out with paint-loaded bristles, soaking it in Murphy's Oil Soap for 24-48 hours dissolves the paint and returns my brush to good as new …



… which was especially helpful knowledge to have at the ready when I painted An Unrolled Bolt of Raw Feeling and looked down to see that in the process of expressing my raw feelings I had dripped a bunch of white paint on the recently-purchased jeans I was wearing.

They Began to Sing Very Softly
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic, oil pastel, and canvas and paper collage on card stock
abstract floral
2019

No Filter

rough day yesterday.

gray skies, 

gray spirits, 

heavy heart. 

an uproar 

of my own 

gray making. 

went into my studio, 

grabbed a finished painting, 

reached for gesso 

off a shelf.

and a brush.

painted right over 

that sucker.

black gesso. 

white gesso. 

whatever came to hand.

threw my raw feelings 

directly onto the canvas 

with no filter.

felt

much

better.

An Unrolled Bolt of Raw Feeling, Saturated with November
12 x 24"; acrylic, china marker, charcoal crayon, and collage on canvas
abstract
2019
SOLD

-------------

earlier history: see 2017 post

Wellspring

… a wellspring of gratitude: a few minutes in my studio when I thought no such minutes might be available. I come away with a lift in my heart and spirit.

Blank canvas becomes canvas with marks and colors, a starting place, a wellspring for whatever the next marks and colors might be.

detail from a start

Simple Pleasures

• spying a bright pop of winterberry (Ilex verticillata) color against monochromatic wetlands on my way home from the gym
• laughing out loud when the last of eleven November poster calendars I'd affixed to the family room walls as seasonal decoration fell to the floor because the masking tape had no sticking power
• feeling my just-sharpened chef's knife chop through bok choy at lunch time
• spreading black gesso onto card stock with a brush

Out of the Early Morning Darkness
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic and collage on card stock
abstract
2019

November 12

November 12

     4:30 a.m.


     On mornings like this, as hours before dawn
     I walk the dark hall of the road
     with my life creaking under my feet, I sometimes
     take hold of the cold porcelain knob
     of the moon, and turn it, and step into a room
     warm and yellow, and take my seat
     at a small wooden table with a border of painted pansies,
     and wait for my mother to bring me my bowl.

                             —Ted Kooser, Winter Morning Walks

Save Room for Dancing
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic, pencil, collage, and oil pastel on card stock*
abstract
2019

* card stock = table number placard from Scott & Alisa's wedding reception

An Afternoon in November

contentment,
ease,
effortlessness and
experimental energy
today—
open heart,
open mind,
unfettered partnership
of hand
and muse

A System Joyously Disarranged Past All Reassembly
3.5 x 5" postcard; collage, pencil, ink, acrylic, and oil pastel on card stock
abstract
2019

Intrepid

Here's what sculptor Henry Moore asserted when asked in an interview by writer Donald Hall, "What is the secret of life?"

The secret of life
is to have a task,
something you devote
your entire life to,
something you bring
everything to,
every minute of the day
for your whole life.
And the most important
thing is—
it must be
something
you cannot possibly do.


That is where I find myself: devoted to something I cannot possibly do, paintbrush in hand, pulled to reach for an ineffable something which I am not even able to name.

I feel intrepid at the moment, newly determined to push through my own kicking and screaming to become less fussy and deliberate, more experimental, more willing to walk with awkward, more able to tolerate that which is unpleasing to my eye.

Funk & Wagnalls Walk the Field Beside the Cottage
6 x 6"; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, graphite crayon, and collage on gessobord
abstract
2019

---
A partial history of this painting:

Singing at Singing, 2015

6 days ago

6 days ago

5 days ago

today!

Movement

Start.

Stop.

Turn upside down.

Done.

Stay in motion—on to another.

Groundless Theory
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic, pastel, and collage on card stock
abstract
2019

Five Bob's Worth of Roman Candles

'B-but, Mr. Jimson, I w-want to be an artist.'

'Of course you do,' I said, 'everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat it out.'

'But, Mr. J-jimson, there must be artists.'

'Yes, and lunatics and lepers, but why go and live in an asylum before you're sent for? If you find life a bit dull at home,' I said, 'and want to amuse yourself, put a stick of dynamite in the kitchen fire, or shoot a policeman. Volunteer for a test pilot, or dive off Tower Bridge with five bob's worth of roman candles in each pocket. You'd get twice the fun at about one-tenth the risk.'
                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                          —Joyce Cary

Why Go and Live in an Asylum Before You're Sent For?
6 x 6"; acrylic, pastel, and collage on gessobord
abstract
2019

Reckless Conditions

… the point is
that not only does time fly
and do we die,
but also
that in these reckless conditions
we live at all,
and are vouchsafed,
for the duration 
  of certain inexplicable moments,
to know it.
                               —Annie Dillard,
                          Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Vouchsafed
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic and ink on cardstock
abstract landscape
2019

This Is It

This is it, I think, 
this is it, 
right now, 
the present, 
this empty gas station, here, 
this western wind,
this tang of coffee on the tongue, 
and I am patting the puppy, 
I am watching the mountain.
                         —Annie Dillard,
              Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

This Is It, I Think
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic, ink, collage, and pastel on card stock
abstract
2019

Absolutely from Scratch

Every year a given tree

creates absolutely from scratch

ninety-nine percent of its living parts.
A big elm

in a single season

might make as many as 

six million leaves,

wholly intricate,

without budging an inch;

I couldn't make one.

                                     Annie Dillard

                     Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Without budging from my studio, scratching my head in wonder and bemusement, unlike Annie Dillard I do create—absolutely from scratch—a handful of wholly intricate leaves! Woo hoo!

Firebursts
4 x 6"; acrylic, ink, and collage on card stock
abstract
2019

An improbable history:

Firebursts

Dans la Salle de Bain, Enfin!

A little virtual tour, at long last.

bathroom renovation coming together
with salt marsh paintings in place

paintings offer 'windows' to nearby salt marshes,
reflecting our by-the-sea shower tile selection
and our by-the-sea corner of the world

light from wall sconce intensifies texture in painting 

more pretties, flowers from Dave's gardens

salt marsh, by-the-sea tile, and sea glass