Risks and Itches

Taking risks, scratching itches.

Willing to Risk Being Vulnerable
3.5 x 5.25" postcard; acrylic, ink
and collage on card stock
abstract landscape
2021

 

Like Snow, Falling One Flake at a Time

pray for wisdom to
be an agent of change, use
your voice. celebrate!

work in progress

all paths lead where truth is here [e.e. cummings]

in winter after-

noon light I am a pilgrim

hark! revelation!

work in progress; 
lost myself in the pure joy
of mixing paint and applying it with palette knife
over roughly and irregularly textured surface

Decision Distancing

We're all well acquainted with physical distancing, that set of measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. Thank you, COVID-19, for affording plenty of practice with that guiding principle. 

Then there's what I call decision distancing, that set of measures intended to prevent decision burnout by making one overarching decision with clear mental distance from a particular set of circumstances, and then sticking to the decision in the heat of any moment that puts one into close contact with the identified set of circumstances. If you want to cut back on desserts, don't do your decision-making with a piece of chocolate cake on a plate in front of you and a fork in your hand!

In the heat of a moment, late yesterday afternoon, in my studio, while I stood with paintbrush in hand, and work-in-progress in front of me, my gremlins started yammering. Ugly, ugly, ugly. You don't know what you're doing. This is stupid. Who has time for this nonsense? 

I was ready to throw in the towel. My chest was heavy, my mood horrible.

But I backed away, got a good night's sleep. This morning I reasserted—this time from a distance, away from my studio—my overarching decision to commit to daily painting, adding to the decision the words regardless of outcome. 

Whew! Much better.

Back to painting. Decision made. End of discussion.

Back to experimentation. Back to engaging with discovery. Back to attuning myself to the flow and therapeutic energy of process. Back to the physical act of playing with paint.

didn't like this postcard, got out the black gesso

buh-bye, red and green

wanted to play with blues, played with blues

happy hand with paint on it

Oxidation

 I think I might need to up my antioxidants. I'm feeling rusty.

Huh. As I take in the opening sentence above it occurs to me that maybe the challenge facing me is conveyed in the first two words: I think. 

Thinking isn't working.

But, here I am. I went to my studio again today, fiddled around with cutting postcard-sized pieces from my evolving in-process painting, added a bit of collage.

Action.

OK.

rusty postcard!

Staying the Course

I've got sort of a reverse of advent going on here—instead of counting down the days to Christmas, I'm counting up the number of days I get to my studio, the number of layers I add to my December exploration. My inquiry: what happens if I keep showing up in my studio and taking micro-actions? 

After four days:

zoomed in a little on work in progress—
layers of acrylic, texture stamping,
 Posca paint pen linework, and India ink

Cyber Snafus

After too many months, I finally take action against many perceived odds and much ineffectual spinning of wheels, get myself to my studio, put some paint on paper, post at my blog. Not just once but three days in a row now.

And then run into cyber snafus. Not all subscribers receive email notification of my posts. Others do but are not able to comment.

REALLY??!

For now, the only step I know to take is to keep returning to my studio to paint. That's my repeat ACTION plan.

having fun playing with posca paint pens,
popping in touches of purple and blue

more application of paint directly from tubes,
with fingers as tools for mixing and moving color

Let It Flow!

My internal weather is frightful;

Can't get calm, though, try as I mightful,

But since I've got paint set to go,

Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow!

paint straight from the tube,
moved around with my finger

detail;
more colors, finger painting and mixing

Motion, or Action?

I recently shook my feathers from head to tip of tail just enough to loosen up the inner gumption to subscribe to mailings from copywriter Meg Peery <megpeery.com>.

She promptly rattled my cage (am I mixing metaphors? maintaining one? doesn't matter) with a discussion of motion vs. action. 

If I stop now to examine metaphors—feathers, cage—or explain the difference between motion and action, I'll be in motion but not taking the action that aligns with my inner inklings.

I need to take the action of posting to my blog for the first time in weeks to document the first time I've picked up a paintbrush in my studio in months.

Studio as repository for all manner of items related to renovations going on elsewhere in my home:

Action taken just now:

grabbed a page of quality paper
from an old calendar,
grabbed a paintbrush (marketed as a makeup brush),
grabbed a jar of black gesso,
painted gesso onto paper:
ACTION

Bittersweet

 

Bittersweet
3.5 x 5.25"
swatch cut from a poster (not painted by me) to create a postcard

The opening lines of the message on the card above read as follows:

Sunday 11/1/2015

Hi Mack,

Bittersweet: I'd set up this postcard w/ stamp and address to take w/ me on vaca to VA/WV to send to Muth way back 100 years ago in early Oct. Then I forgot to pack it … and now I've updated the address label and I'm writing to you instead of Muth—sad not to be writing to Muth, glad to be writing to you.

---

For a year or two preceding my mom's death in October 2015, I wrote postcards to her regularly. The written word, in small doses, allowed for sweet and successful connection and communication as her dementia advanced. 

The postcard above became a transition postcard following her death, marking the turning point at which I began painting postcards for my dad so he'd receive personal mail—by post, at the end of his driveway, in his roadside mailbox—as he lived by himself 150 miles away from his nearest daughters in the home he and my mom had previously shared. I wrote several times a month, sending the cards between in-person visits with him in Maine.

He kept all the accumulating cards on the small table beside the love seat in the dining room niche that we referred to as Narcolepsy Nook. As the stack of cards grew higher, I once offered to give him a box I had as a container. "No," he replied. "Thank you, but I like them just the way they are, in a stack."

When he died this year, five and a half years after my mom, I took that stack of postcards into my own keeping. Now, as 2021 draws closer to its end, I am continuing my tradition of recent years of making a wall calendar of my art to give as presents and offer for sale—this time featuring a dozen of my Postcards to Mack, this time using phrases extracted verbatim from the postcards to title them, this time creating the calendar at my desk at home and not in front of the wood stove in Maine with my dad in the chair beside me. 

'Tis a bittersweet labor of love.

Composed

I don't always feel composed.

But a post by Jane Davies grabs my attention, lights me up, and gives me new fodder with which to think about composition.

“Throughout my process of painting, I am engaged in the act of composing. The visual elements and their relationships to one another change many times during the course of creating a painting. The composition is in constant flux until it isn’t. The composition of the finished painting (if it finishes, which not all my paintings do), is an unknown until it reveals itself through the process of composing.”

Life makes a mark; I respond. Throughout the process of living each day I am engaged in the act of composing, engaged in call-and-response, always in flux.

I don't always feel composed.

I am always composing. 

Yes.

The Friend Who Asks to Paint with You and
Drags You into Your Studio
4 x 5.25" postcard; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, and collage on card stock
abstract 2021

Attunement

Emmy got me into my studio for a few minutes at a time on her recent visit. No small accomplishment. She painted; I took the leftover smidgens of any color we mixed to activate some blank postcard-size card stock.

Today, I went into my studio all by myself!

Sometimes the Answer Comes Before I'm Even Done
Asking the Question
4 x 5.25" postcard; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on card stock
abstract
2021

Releasing

So much transformation.

So much letting go.

So much seeing the world through changed eyes.

Even the United States Postal Service had a finger in this pie!

Where Peace and Love Are Still Alive and Well
2 x 5" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and collage on card stock
abstract
2021

Bookmarking Moments

My days are robustly, resoundingly, generously, (sometimes) overwhelmingly, and unfailingly filled-to-the-brim of late.

I bookmark moments as I move through each day.

This morning:

• smoothing out blanket wrinkles together with Dave while we make our bed first thing;

• walking at 445a in a world filled with birdsong and sunrise and fresh air;

• searching high and low for—and then locating!—at Stop & Shop the sandwich 'slider' rolls requested by Caroline for her upcoming visit;

• writing up reminders for my tutorial schedule for next week;

• plucking a ripe ripe red red strawberry from our garden and popping its burst of juice in my mouth;

• restocking toilet paper in our bathrooms; and

• making a bookmark—an actual physical bookmark for marking a stopping/starting place in a book—from a postcard I painted earlier this year.

Not Following National News
1.75 x 5.75" bookmark; acrylic, ink,
pencil, and collage on cardstock
abstract
2021

Testing, testing …

The following YouTube clip recently came to my attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7G7xOG2Ag*

Huh?

I hear the words, I hear a cadence that indicates there may be meaning in them, but the meaning eludes me completely. 

I admit to several moments of similar feelings of being lost when I set out to follow steps to deactivate the Feedburner subscription service at my blog and activate a new service, faced as I was with computer-related gobbledy-gook that had me shaking my head, muttering, Huh?

However, I quelled my fleeting panic and here I am to do a test run to see if existing subscriptions to my posts are still functional.

If you've received this post in your email inbox, please either comment at the blog or send me an email.

Thank you!

---

*I just watched this clip again. Totally hits my funny bone every time!

Perfectly Normal

Thursday 27 May 2021

the day was just another day

and then something stopped.

something else began.

    Eliza Minot, The Tiny One

godspeed

Third in a Series

Each Moment Undertaken
Simply for Its Own Self
1.75 x 5" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Make me a match,
Find me a find,
Catch me a catch!

The Sweep

When I lived in the Netherlands, the folks in my neighborhood in the Hague swept their front paths and the sidewalk space in front of their homes regularly, with purpose and pride, keeping those walkways fresh, clean, and inviting.

So it is when I sleep. In the night, great sweeping takes place. The tracks of one day are swept away. I wake to the fresh, clean, inviting spaciousness of a new day and step into it.

Today, already—

a walk before dawn, 

rain pattering on my umbrella, 

a vast puddle, deeper than perceived, that only gets deeper as I aim to step out of it!,

nascent Japanese maple leaves kissing brand-new dogwood blossoms in Betty's shade garden,

the tying of red ribbon around a gift,

the sweet-tart pop of blueberries for breakfast.

We Are Going to Start Dealing With Feelings

by Deciding, Once and for All, To Just Do It

1.75 x 5" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

Psalm Sequitur

Look what falls into my lap while poking around a file for something else today:

“I once knew this little girl,” 

Father Barry was saying, 

“who had to do a reading in church. 

She’d memorized the Twenty-third Psalm. 

And she got up, 

all confidence, 

and she began, 

‘The Lord is my shepherd ...’ 

And she was stuck. 

She tried again. 

‘The Lord is my shepherd ...’ 

And she couldn’t remember another thing. 

And so she just looked out 

at the congregation 

and said, 

‘Well, that’s enough for now.’ 

And that, I think, 

is going to have to be the way 

we all approach this ...”

The words of that little excerpt from Jacquelyn Mitchard's A Theory of Relativity turn out to be just the right words for me, right here, right now.

bookmark

Mark Making

The Bible is a collection of religious texts sacred to Christians, Jews, and others. It contains 66 books, one of which is the book of Psalms. 

The book of Psalms contains 150 Psalms, one of which is Psalm 23.

Psalm 23 consists of six verses, the last of which rose to the surface of my mind several days ago in reference to my writing about mondegreens.

Yesterday, words from Psalm 23, line 5—my cup runneth over—came to my attention in a text message from my daughter.

Psalm 23 is thought to have been written some three thousand years ago (three thousand!), in Hebrew, by King David of Israel, though most of what is known of David comes from biblical literature, the historical authenticity of which is uncertain. There is little detail about David that is concrete and undisputed by historians.

But someone felt called to create, to put into form, and to share this sacred song, without knowing if or how making the marks of it would 'make a mark,' so to speak.

And so it is with all of us; we are called to create, called to make marks. 

I Shall Not Want
4.5 x 5.25" postcard; acrylic and ink on paper
abstract floral
2021

Where Would I Be?

Where would I be without books? 

Without marks? 

Without bookmarks? 

If You Listen, I'll Tell You a Story
1.75 x 5" bookmark; acrylic, latex, pencil, and collage
abstract
2021

Grow A Pansome

As a child my mom was admonished, through a school child's rhyme sung to the tune of Frère Jacques, to maintain a straight spine. The lyrics as she recalled them:

Perfect posture, perfect posture,

Do not slump, do not slack,

You must grow a pansome, you must grow up pretty,

Do not slump, watch your back.

Um … grow a pansome?

Indeed, grow up handsome!

This was my first exposure to what is referred to as a mondegreen, a misheard lyric or line of poetry for which the brain supplies a substitution, usually one that alters meaning or is nonsensical.

A broader term for misheard words or phrases, also filled in with substitutions but in this case usually applied to those that retain their original meanings, is the term eggcorn. A few examples, substitution on left, original language on right:

eggcorn/acorn,

doggy-dog/dog-eat-dog, and

hare's breath/hair's breadth.

I never tire of such language tom-foolery! I lost myself online today enjoying many belly laughs!

But surely good Mrs. Murphy* shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

For All Intensive Porpoises
1.75 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2021

* Surely goodness and mercy … (Psalm 23:6)

I Pick Up This Little

Even though I wake 

feeling hemmed in 

and crowded by 

the schedule of tasks 

enumerated for the day, 

I choose to lengthen my spine

and open my heart.

I pick up this little 

rectangle of paper, 

with its mark-making 

and light washes of color, 

place a paint pen in my hand,

begin to make new marks,

add more color,

and step completely out of 

time into 

grand spaciousness.

Be Joyful Though You Have Considered All the Facts
4.5 x 5.5" postcard; acrylic and ink on paper
abstract floral
2021

All By

Today I'm mindful of my older granddaughter Caroline's former oft-used toddler assertion of independence, all by! 

In cahoots, I think, with the same part of me that wanted to assert its independence yesterday, All-By yammers at me this morning. I go to my studio again with the idea of creating a multi-layered intuitive organic piece on paper from which I'll cut found compositions to use as postcards. My thought is to start with random mark-making.

All-By gets her own idea and wrests the paper from me insisting, all by! What emerges is of course not at all what I'd planned but I put up no resistance. All-By wanders from spot to spot in the house adding snippets of blind contour drawing and patches of doodles. Ends up with this:

work in progress,
9 x 12"; blind contour and doodles on paper

All-By looks at me; I look at All-By. 

All-By keeps the reins. No way is she going to add layers that cover the blind contour mark-making. Cut this into six rectangles, she states. Then go outdoors for a walk. I've got this.

Pulling Out a Slim Volume of Poetry
4 x 5.5" postcard; acrylic and ink on paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract floral
2021

All My By-a-Self

I am mindful today of my younger granddaughter Emmy's former oft-used toddler expression of independence, all my by-a self!

I pop in and out of my studio between various other adventures this morning, with a clear intention of creating a highly layered, intuitive, organic, free-form painting on paper that I can cut into smaller found compositions to send as postcards. My plan is to follow the lead of artists who act as beacons to me in building layer upon layer, a process that intrinsically includes letting go, letting go, letting go as one layer lands on top of and changes another.

Here's what happens when another part of me—another part? who's the first part?—has different plans, doesn't want my help or interference, and shouts, I do it all my by-a self! 

The by-a-self part pulls out a sheet of paper. Has the idea to create some underlying texture. Riffles through a pile of thin translucent sandwich paper to collage to the substrate. Is drawn to a torn sheet previously used to catch wayward splatter. Crinkles it into a ball. Flattens it out. Glues it to the substrate. 

We—the make-layers part of me and the don't-tell-me-what-to-do part—both get fully attached to what emerges. Don't want to add more layers—not one! Can't let go of the terrifically textured wrinkles. Can't let go of the uninhibited splatters.

Hahaha!

So we're letting this afternoon's art have its fame and glory.

No layers today. 

No layers until further notice.

Everybody's happy.

work … not in progress!

Way to Go! (part 2 of a miniseries)

The way the most delicate

beech tree twigs send out little candles

of buds waiting for the sun to ignite them

so they can flame into leaves;

the way a loose strap on the outdoor grill cover

moves in the wind, beating a tattoo 

with the musical industry of a woodpecker;

the way a sparrow answers with its beak

as it furnishes the birdhouse under the eaves

of the garage—hanging art on the walls?—

even though starlings will

soon enact an eviction, 

as they never fail to do;

the way pale gray-white catkins fatten up

furry and sleek, showing off

on the pussywillow beside the back deck;

the way the internal work of winter

materializes out of hiding:

way astonishing!

A Soul in a Physical Vessel That Is Tiny but Strong
5 x 7"; acrylic, ink, pastel, and collage, mounted on mat board
abstract
 2021

The Way

The way one raindrop

acts as an image-disrupter 

of branches reflected in a puddle,

leaving the branches 

just enough time to reassemble

before another raindrop

starts a fresh shimmy;

the way, after months of winter,

birdsong suddenly 

accompanies me

on a predawn walk

in the last darkness of night;

the way the slightest of breezes

sets a desiccated oak leaf

skittering like a mouse

across the path on which I walk;

the way one thing ends

and another glorious thing begins:

astonishments one and all.

They Was a Little Breeze Stirring
4.25 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, pastel, and collage
abstract
2021

More Open to the Possibility

Earthworms

    by Lynn Ungar

Imagine. The only thing that
God requires of them
is a persistent, wriggling, moving forward,
passing the earth through
the crinkled tube of their bodies
in a motion less like chewing
than like song.

Everything they encounter
goes through them,
as if sunsets, drug store clerks,
diesel fumes and sidewalks
were to move through our very centers
and emerge subtly different
for having fed us — looser somehow,
more open to the possibility of life.

They say the job of angels
is to sing to God in serried choirs.
Perhaps. But most jobs
aren’t so glamorous.
Mostly the world depends upon
the silent chanting underneath our feet.
To every grain that enters: “Welcome.”
To every parting mote: “Be blessed.”

We Can All Use a Little Illumination
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel on paper
abstract landscape
2021

IV Infusion

Investigative 

vulnerability. 

That's the infusion that penetrates the cells in my body as I conduct my surrender experiment. I move organically and intuitively from mark to color to splatter to snip to adhesion to completion. 

I generate a rectangular tiny-art painting and then cast about my messy studio for materials with which to create finishing touches. I mount the painting on black paper just barely larger than the painting itself so as to contain the composition by outline. Then, in riffling through a bin of potential collage material, I bump into a gardening calendar page featuring up-close-and-personal, larger-than-life Gerbera daisies.

Bingo!

A frame!

Telegram From the Heart: Sit Out in the Sun
4 x 5.5" greeting card; acrylic, pencil, ink, and collage
on canvas-textured paper
abstract
2021

Surrender Experiment

Mid-afternoon, I let myself stand still. 

Fully.

Physically and mentally.

Cleared the kinks from my body, the clutter from my mind.

Decided to act on inspiration from a post written by my friend Simone.

Grabbed a tiny piece of paper canvas.

Scribbled with a mechanical pencil.

Grabbed quinacridone nickel azo gold.

Used my finger to spread some color.

Added some white gesso.

Felt great to surrender to whatever transpired.

tiny art start on paper canvas

Pausing to Paint a Postcard

In my previous blog post, I began exploring an invitation (exhortation?) from poet Mary Oliver to stand still and learn to be astonished.

Subsequent to posting, I quickly realize I need first to learn to stand still. 

To fully press pause.

My daughter once told me she carries a mental image of me in which I appear as a head moving full speed forward trailing my body and feet behind.

So, yeah. Starting point: learn to stand still.

Place
4 x 6" postcard; acrylic, ink, and collage on card stock
abstract
2021

Faces 21

Good thing Jen Jovan posts on her blog regularly, so as to blow life into me when I've lost my blogging steam. Today she reminds me, via poet Mary Oliver, to stand still and learn to be astonished.

I am so in need of this reminder, this reminder to practice.

Every moment is a moment to stand still and be astonished.

In one such moment I notice the village vicar in a novel set in post-World War I English countryside. He refers to his work as being called to hatch, match, and dispatch.

Delight and astonishment! Hatch, match, dispatch!

The Friend Who Teaches Me How to Knot Thread
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, pastel, and collage on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$70

back story:
chaos layers, blind contour drawing,
and tissue collage

Faces 20

 I'm all hesitation I-don't-know-where-to-start this morning. Again.

Then, a Jen Jovan blog post arrives in my inbox. With these words from a poem by David Whyte:

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don't want to take.

Ok, ok, ok.

work in progress

Faces 19

For the past few days, woven into the spaces between daily activities—making the bed, taking walks in the great outdoors, chopping vegetables, tutoring, reading, paying bills, shopping for groceries, resolving a glitch with an online order—I've had chances to hang out with this guy, often chatting companionably, sometimes lost in our separate thoughts, periodically venturing into artistic tomfoolery, and more than once exploring differences of opinion. 

He has strong integrity, a clear way of being in the world, a reliable compass guiding him. 

The Friend Who Isn't Afraid to Hold a Fierce Optnion
and Later Change His Mind
9 x 12"; acrylic and pastels on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$70

Faces 18

Today, I just want to create in my visual diary an in-process record of the mark-and-response going on with a new abstract face. 

My attention to illumination and shadow as part of the Rembrandt lighting exploration has led somehow with this particular face to a more highly representational mode than with other faces recently. My inner guide is telling me to get my need for a somewhat photographically-faithful rendering out of my system first. 

Then, let's see what else I might want to do. Or not. 

I'm thinking more playful and pranky and improbable is a distinct possibility.

Faces 17

When I'm ten years old, my family moves to the Netherlands for two years as part of my dad's job. More than once we drive to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam to pick up family or friends who come to visit. On at least one of those occasions, when a flight is significantly delayed, my folks opt to visit the Rijksmuseum to fill the interim before we return to Schiphol. This might be my first visit to an art museum. 

What a place to begin! I have vivid memories of the paintings of the Dutch masters whose works hang in the galleries there, dark dark backgrounds but with strong light illuminating faces and other details. I remember being drawn in to those paintings to explore them.

Now, all these years later, I am taking an Amanda Evanston art-of-abstract-faces course, and lesson 2 turns attention to what has become known as "Rembrandt lighting." 

Way cool idea, but I study my chaos-layer-plus-blind-contour-drawing-start and think, Rembrandt?, really?

I can't imagine how I will complete this painting.

chaos-layer-plus-blind-contour-drawing-start

But I don't need to imagine its completion. I need to make a mark. So I do. I let it inform my eye, then make another mark, and another, and then—awesome!—I'm totally in flow.

The Friend Who Takes the Bus from NYC
to Surprise Me With a Visit in College
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$70

I'm guessing Rembrandt had to start by making marks of some sort also.

Heart and Art, Unlimited

Live on FaceBook on New Year's Eve, Amanda Evanston offered an end-of-2020 activity which I watched even though I was away from home and not able to participate.

But this week I cut a heart shape from cardboard, painted it, tore some strips of colored paper, wrote words of gratitude, folded the strips, wrapped the heart with string and ribbon, tucked in my gratitude and more, and now I have a little magpie nest of love and gratitude, so much gratitude that it cannot be contained! It is popping out in all directions, boundless!

painted cardboard heart

strips of colored paper
inscribed with words of gratitude

folded strips 

Tying My Laces and Walking Out of Myself
Into This Sunny Winter Day
7 x 7"; acrylic, paper, ribbon, cord, and cardboard
in shadow box
mixed media Valentine
2021

detail

detail: side view of gratitude
popping out in all directions