Along the Way

Demarking found compositions, two more bookmarks :

(a) I Can Effect Positive Change in My Life!
(b) Permission to Make Mistakes Along the Way
1.5 x 6" bookmarks; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel
abstract
2022

The Way It Is

One morning you might wake up

to realize that the knot in your stomach

had loosened itself and slipped away,

and that the pit of unfilled longing in your heart

had gradually, and without your really noticing,

been filled in—patched like a pothole, not quite

the same as it was, but good enough.

And in that moment it might occur to you

that your life, though not the way

you planned it, and maybe not even entirely

the way you wanted it, is nonetheless—

persistently, abundantly, miraculously—

exactly what it is.

—Lynn Ungar

---

And so it is with these found-composition bookmarks.

(a) Wandering the Banks of Ancient Rivers Like the Waccamaw
(b) Feeling Warm Pluff Mud Squirt Beneath My Toes
1.5 x 6" bookmarks; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on paper
abstract
2022

Property Management

A piece of undeveloped real estate, in the form of a page from a 1927 Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary, caught my attention back in May and I set about making some preliminary improvements.

A short while later I decided to subdivide the property into five narrow lots with the intent to develop them all further, making each distinct from the others but keeping all five cohesive in toto.

I finished up the fifth tract today!

We Play and Play, Humming With Summer
1.5 x 6" bookmark
ink, watercolor, gouache, and oil pastel
on a Funk & Wagnalls dictionary page
abstract
2022

———

preliminary improvements on original real estate (top)
developed subdivisions (bottom)

Figure-Ground Perception

Chop, chop!

I swung the blade of my paper trimmer today, extracting slim rectangles from my work in progress.

My eyes kept dancing between alternating perceptions as I worked on the extractions. With the larger context removed, a given piece would present as a deep fathomless black background with shapes floating in what appeared to be outer space, especially when I was working close. Then, I'd perch the piece at arm's length and suddenly I could see thick black lines superimposed over colorful shapes that had receded below those criss-crossed streets paved with a Sharpie chisel-tip marker.

And, of course, that is how my days unfold in any case, always shifting between figure and ground, sorting what in my lived experience is illusion from what is not.

In a State of Pure Attentiveness
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel
on a book page mounted on card stock
abstract
2022
[gift]

On the Receiving End of Unfolding Wisdom
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel
on a book page mounted on card stock
abstract
2022

[gift]

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)

Books and Bookmarks (3)

Re books:

Joe picked up the book, 

weighed it in his hands. 

“I could tell you this story, 

in a hundred words or less, 

and you’d forget it by bedtime.” 

He leaned toward Rusty 

and lowered his voice, 

as if he had secrets to share. 

“Or you could read a couple hundred 

thousand words instead 

and never forget the story 

as long as you live.”

—Lauren Wolk, Those Who Favor Fire 

Re bookmarks:

Hand-painted bookmarks dazzle me with their intrinsic freshness factor!

Someone like Malcolm Gladwell might know what the frequency/infrequency calculus is regarding what keeps a piece of art fresh and new and impactful when you see it repeatedly. I do not, but I do know experientially that hand-painted bookmarks stay fresh and impactful for me. When any given bookmark is doing its job, it catches my wonder each time I open a book-in-progress to read. Then it catches my eye again as I mark the place between later pages when I stop reading. It never becomes over-familiar. I love that freshness factor! 

No One Else, Anywhere, Anytime,
Has Ever Read This Book
2 x 6" bookmark; acrylic and oil pastel on paper
abstract
2020
sold

Books and Bookmarks (2)

Re books:

You can tell 

she’s really good at reading 

no matter where she is 

or what’s happening around her. 

There’s this look on her face 

like she’s not there at all, 

she’s gone wherever 

the book takes her.

—Rodman Philbrick, Max the Mighty

Re bookmarks:

Here’s another thing I like about a hand-painted bookmark: its beautility! A bookmark is an exquisite marriage of beauty and utility. It has an immediate chance to broadcast its beauty—it doesn’t languish, waiting to be purchased; it doesn’t end up stuffed in a drawer or box, neglected or forgotten. I can do the equivalent of putting it on display instantly. Not only that, but also it has a practical job to do and gets busy doing it the moment the paint dries, snuggling cozily for short naps between the pages of whatever book I’m reading, all the while holding my place with an expectant eye half open and its whole self ready to radiate creative expressive energy all over again when I reopen my book. The best!

When I'm Reading, Wherever I Am,
I'm Always Somewhere Else
1.75 x 5.5" bookmark; acrylic and collage on paper
abstract
2020
sold

Books and Bookmarks: Prologue

Re Books:

The year I am in second grade, I leave Dick, Jane, and Sally behind in the pages of the primers of first grade and read my first full-length chapter book, The Happy Hollisters by Jerry West. I perch myself in an upholstered chair in our living room in Cranford, NJ, curl my legs up into the chair, remove the illustrated dust jacket so my hands are in direct contact with the nubby, faux-leather, red book cover, open to the first page of chapter one, and I am gone. Pete, Pam, Ricky, Holly, Sue, and I have a mystery to solve. 

Do not get in our way. 

For any reason.

…

Several decades and nearly 4000 books later, I have not stopped reading.

To my delight, I discover today that the happy Hollisters have their own website, where I see the copywriting that promises to turn your young reader into a lifelong reader—truth in advertising there, I tell ya!

Re bookmarks:

What did I use as a bookmark when I read The Happy Hollisters? Perhaps a bookmark provided by the Weekly Reader Book Club? Couldn't tell you. 

Over the years, though, I've become increasingly particular about the bookmarks I use. No longer for me the torn scrap of paper, the wrinkled grocery receipt, the postmarked business envelope. Now I paint my own bookmarks, and one of the exquisite pleasures of starting a new book—an exquisite pleasure in its own right—is turning to my collection to select the bookmark that announces itself to be just the right one, with just the right je ne sais quoi element to pair it with the book at hand. The bookmark is a vital part of the experience.

from my collection

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

Millimeter by Millennium

Lichens often have a regular but very slow growth rate of less than a millimeter per year.

Deep underground as a result of volcanic eruptions, granite also forms slowly, enduring a great deal of heat and pressure for millennia—and even for as long as millions of years—to become the hard rock we see and quarry.

With my paintbrush as portal, I harden into granite, accessorize myself with lichen. I live timeless geologic eras in the minutes during which I create this bookmark. Millimeter by millennium, I am there the whole time.

Maritime Sunburst
2 x 6.25"; acrylic and oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

Grain by Grain

The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the coarse-grained structure of such holocrystalline rock. Granite consists of feldspar, quartz, mica, and amphibole minerals which form an interlocking, somewhat equigranular matrix.

Grain by grain today, a matrix of feldspar and quartz comes together, with scattered darker biotite mica and amphibole peppering the lighter-color minerals.

Then, grain by grain, the matrix develops cracks and brittle discontinuities along which the sides pull apart as splits open.

bookmark in process

Rockin' My Painting

How to create granite—a felsic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture—from the lava and magma in my studio?

I get a little melting, cooling, solidification, and cracking underway today.

Kinda fun to work in geologic time.

bookmark in process

The Wild Atlantic

I started this piece when I dipped my toes into water(colors) back in August.

Last week I dove all in to finish the piece as a bookmark. Before long, though, I got in over my head—one moment I was swimming around happily, adding marks here, color there; the next moment I used a paint marker that turned out to be too thick and found myself in a riptide of perceived wreckage.

Instant resistance, panic, thrashing, sinking: noooooooo!

But grace washed over me. I rediscovered that the same water in which I sink when I struggle in fear also supports me once I let go of fighting and rely on my oneness with it, which is buoyancy.

Buoyant, I move into open seas of wild possibility.

Waves Tapping Sea-Worn Rocks
1.5 x 6"; watercolor and acrylic marker on watercolor paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

A Slice of a Slice

Michael Singer asserts, Life exists with or without you. It has been going on for billions of years. You simply get the honor of seeing a tiny slice of it.

Today's tiny slice of a tiny slice:

Don't Ask Me How or Why
1.75 x 6"; acrylic, ink, collage, and pastel
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

Spinning Around on a Ball of Dirt

How crazy is it to be spinning around on a huge ball of dirt within a vast illimitable universe? And, if the universe is illimitable, then how come it is believed to have a 'measurement' of a diameter of at least 10 billion light years?

Further, if it is ceaselessly expanding, as is also believed, then there must be 'room' for it to do so. There must be some bigger something in which it resides … yes? Does that something have a limit, an 'end'? How can it? How can it not?

Pretty soon my brain can make no sense of any of it.

I remember the first time I contemplated infinitude. I was falling asleep one night in Cranford, NJ, at about age seven.

I couldn't make sense of illimitability then either.

But I digress.

I painted today. Some of the abundant energy of the universe flowed in and out of me in a steady stream.

Heaven!

She Doodled With a Fine-Tip
1.75 x 6"; acrylic and ink on drawing paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2018
[sold]

Changes in Elevation

Dave and I will be doing miles of hiking in the mountains of West Virginia next week. I will love all the hiking … but I'll love the level parts of the trails more than the steep parts.

Meanwhile, I've done plenty of steep with this bookmark.

Remember when I said I didn't do a trial run with the masking fluid ahead of time? Because, you know, I was impatient?

Joke was on me.

Turns out I did three trial runs—directly on the bookmark itself.

The first time, the masking fluid was poorly mixed. I rubbed it off after it dried. No harm, no foul.

The second time, the masking fluid was well-mixed but awkwardly applied. Ugly mark-making. I rubbed it off … and it took with it most of the text I wanted to protect. Sigh.

The third time, with repairs made, mark-making to my liking, and negative spaces painted, I rubbed off the masking fluid, only to lose key collage bits once again.

So much to learn.

Several more uphill climbs and one sweet downhill run later, however: a bookmark!—the third and final in my Brené Brown Dare to Lead series.

As If Feelings Finally Made Any Difference at All
1.5 x 6"; acrylic, collage, and oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[not for sale]

Just Enough Time

Very busy day—again!—with another long list of tasks.

Made time to go to my studio anyway, knowing I'd only have a few minutes but happy for whatever I could get.

Notice the differences between where I left off yesterday (left) and where I left off today (right).

    

Turns out I had just enough time to get myself … nowhere.

I tried my hand at using masking fluid I'd purchased some months ago. Impatient, as always, I did so without doing any kind of test run.

I did read and follow the directions, which included the instruction to rinse the applicator clean after use. To the sink I went.

Whaaaaat??!

Inside the bottle I saw not the clear thin fluid I'd applied but a thick coagulated substance that looked like liquid 'foundation' makeup (and well you might ask how I would know what makeup looks like).

Sooooo. I'll let the bookmark dry and see what sense I can make of things tomorrow.

17-Minute Painting Hat

I wear many hats. Today, it seems as though I wore each one more than once, often for only a few minutes before I had to switch to the next.

I did put on my painting hat just long enough to take bookmark #3 from my current series and develop it a bit, focusing mostly on color-mixing and seeing how close I could get to where I want to go.

Got closer.

Went from here to here:

    

Dare to Paint

I don't know how artists who paint commissions for a living do it, how they paint 'on demand,' so to speak.

It was all I could do to paint A Kind of Knowledge for Sylvia with the explicit target of pairing the colors with a particular book cover. Just that little bit of constraint and expectation—and, at that, only my own expectation—was plenty challenging.

Much less fraught for me is to paint purely from within and then wait to see what book or collector comes along to partner with what I've created.

I'm astonished and humbled by how much time and how many layers it took to get this little piece of real estate to a place where my gut said, Yup, done. So many misfires en route as I tried this and that. It's a wonder I dare to paint!

And yet, of course I dare to paint—so much engagement, so much to learn, so many captivating visual problems to resolve even when they're of my own making, so much life force wanting expression.

Cussing and Praying Are Not Mutually Exclusive
1.5 x 6"; acrylic, India ink, collage, and oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]