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 …

Salt Marshes

Like estuaries, salt marshes are also located in the intertidal zone. In my neck of the woods, these dynamic biological communities are marked by salt-tolerant vegetation often found among a mosaic of meandering tidal creeks.

Glaciers scoured the Northern Massachusetts coast thousands of years ago and mud, silt, and clay sediments settled out of the water to form extensive mudflats in many of the protected areas of the coast. Twice a day at low tide, in what became a perpetually repeated process over millennia, portions of these mudflats were exposed to open air. Seeds from Spartina alterniflora and Spartina patens took root in the mud. As grasses sprouted and spread through underground rhizomes, the thick growth began to trap more sediments and organic matter which raised the level of the marsh. The organic matter and dead spartina grasses accumulated underneath the new growth as peat. Over time, rich, complex, interconnected living ecosystems evolved.

Um, is it just me, or does this sound like my painting process?!

You Need Only Breathe In, Breathe Out
10.5 x 13.5"; acrylic, latex, ink, collage, and oil pastel on drawing paper
abstract landscape
2019

Estuaries

Estuaries are ecosystems that can be found along both bay and ocean shores in what is known as the intertidal zone—any area that is regularly inundated by the tide where fresh water and sea water meet. 

Deriving from the Middle Dutch root brak, the term brackish is used for intertidal water which has more salinity than fresh water but not as much as sea water.

During the making of this painting, I was abundantly immersed in brackish water, with tides moving in and tides moving out as I went back-and-forth-back-and-forth between free intuitive expression and thoughtful intentional refinement, feeling at a core level how rich and abundant the multidirectional flow is, every part of the flux vital.

You Need Not Name the Inbreath, Nor The Out
10.5 x 13.5"; acrylic, latex, ink, collage, and oil pastel on drawing paper
abstract landscape
2019

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]

Wide-Eyed in Wonder Yet Again

I stand in humble wide-eyed wonder yet again, wonder that passes understanding.

How does this …

painting start from summer solstice with friend Joan:
building layers with acrylic, watercolors, and stamped ink

become this … ?

work in progress

Big Magic, I'm tellin' ya. Big Magic.

Sketchbook

I love looking through artists' sketchbooks. I'm intrigued by the many ways artists use them as part of their creative practice.

Off and on, I think about starting a sketchbook of my own.

But I never bring action to intention.

Today, I looked at Core Values, my huge sheet of foam core with its grid format, and saw it for what it is.

A sketchbook!

newest patch painted onto grid-format work-in-progress

underpainting for today's patch

offloaded paint from today's patch

detail from today's patch

today's patch as seen in the context
of the whole work in progress;
working title: Core Values 

   

Engaged Unpredictability

Being all in and staying the course without any guarantees …

Engaged unpredictability is the term Rhode Island School of Design president Rosanne Somerson uses. In a message to alumni in RISD XYZ Spring/Summer 2017 (thanks for sharing the magazine, Carol), she asserts that engaged unpredictability is the starting point for positive transformation. 

My experience with painting The Plainspoken Beauty of the Place is well captured in Somerson's message as she makes reference to a particular drawing assignment she gives students:

Time and again, right after [an] "antsy" point of total frustration, something completely unexpected … emerge[s]. When the body [is] forced to sit still and persevere, the brain [takes] over, spewing out new possibilities.

Yes!

The "force" to persevere came from my own curiosity and commitment, but I sure did get antsy with frustration, discomfort, and flagging spirits more than once.

But then.

Then.

Something transformatively different came into play and I scrambled to keep up with the possibilities playing out through my paintbrush.

Way cool.

The Plainspoken Beauty of the Place
12x24"; acrylic, collage, ink, pencil, and pastels on canvas
abstract landscape
2017

---

a brief history:

    

One Degree

I am fascinated by how huge an uplift in spirit the littlest shift in orientation can create.

Something transposes maybe 1º, maybe even less, and suddenly I am all flow and intuition again.

At a surface level I don't know where I am or what I'm doing any more than I did two days ago, but now I find myself accessing a wordless, mind-less inner knowing that propels me forward with engagement, working as if in a different world altogether from the one where I usually reside.

Details of that inner knowing:

Is That a Clearing?

After bushwhacking with varying degrees of good humor for several days now, I think I spy a clearing ahead.

Hot damn!

My step feels lighter, my heart lifts, I hear myself humming a tune.

Not home yet, but here are some details from the thick of things:

Where Am I?

If I were working on paper I'd be at my paper trimmer, isolating a whole buncha volunteer compositions, and making a whole buncha greeting cards.

But I'm working on canvas, hiking through a holler somewhere in the hills, without a path, putting one foot in front of the other, getting scratched by prickers and slapped by low branches, all in faith that I'll eventually find my way.

Investigative details:

Dulse

Turns out our vacation location is just minutes up the road and a ferry ride away from the island of Grand Manan, where roughly one million pounds of wet dulse are harvested from the island's Dark Harbour annually, supplying markets around the world with this wild sea vegetable.

Dulse's health benefits include its ability to improve vision, protect the immune system, build bone health, improve the thyroid gland, and boost blood circulation.

Almost as good as painting!

Today, again, I set up my make-shift en plein mer studio in the early morning sunshine.

The best.

I experimented with half-formulated ideas related to abstraction-of-place that have been percolating for a couple of weeks now.

My venturing took me to a few unexpected ports of call but, in responding to the prevailing wind, water, and weather conditions, I think at minimum I improved my vision and boosted blood circulation.

Who knows, I may even have enhanced the health of my thyroid!

work in progress, working title: Dark Harbour Dulse