Embracing Unsteady

I have a 9 x 12" Cachet sketchbook. No memory of when or why I purchased it. I can see that I filled about 5 of its pale gray pages with notes and thought exercises two and a half years ago following the lead of an artist I'd discovered online. I don't think I purchased the sketchbook for that purpose, though, and I jumped ship on those exercises in less than a week.

Starting in July of this year, I began painting in the sketchbook.

I like painting in a sketchbook currently; I like having the work become a spiral-bound visual diary. I feel a little more experimental and exploratory painting in a sketchbook than on stand-alone substrates.

Though not experimental and exploratory enough, asserts an inner voice.

Enough that I am wildly unsteady on my feet, I retort.

Perfect.

working title:
She Wobbles on Shoes With Tall Heels
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, oil pastels, and watercolor chalks
on paper
abstract floral
2022

Breaking Up a Logjam

I notice what catches my attention today.

These words:

To fall into that

which is unidentified,

untethered,

undefined by phenomena,

for one brief moment,

allows the possibility

of knowing—

that knowing 

that is already inside you—

knowing that which you are

as awareness,

open awareness

prior to the arising 

of phenomena,

prior to the arising

of identity.

It’s in this that you see clearly.

You see beyond opinion,

position taking,

narrative.

You see beyond the matrix

of conditioning,

the matrix of the world.

—Amoda Maa

I notice what art catches my eye as I scroll through a feed online.

The logjam inside me breaks up and I begin making marks and changes on my previously-dubbed 'work in progress paralysis.' 

Grateful for movement!

work in progress

Scaredy Cat

I painted this 'chaos layer' on a page in my sketchbook with freedom and delight a couple of weeks ago.

Since then so much topsy-turvy going on here, what with Dave's knee surgery and challenging ongoing recovery, Caroline's being here and then not being here, driveway's being dug up for repaving, front entry and stairway's being painted and prepped for eventual wallpaper, carpeting's being installed, fall tutorial schedule's starting up, and driveway's getting its base coat put in place.

But, seriously, all of that is nothing. 

It is piffle.

What's really going on is my own inner paralysis. I notice my hesitation, my resistance to the possibility of not 'liking' whatever I do next. I can't seem to get out of my own way.

And that is all I have to say!

work in progress paralysis
9 x 12" on paper

Therapy

Midafternoon yesterday, I got the itch for ink pen in hand. I grabbed the first thing that caught my eye, a piece of card stock which had as its first life to sport a table number at Scott and Alisa's wedding and to invite guests to Save Room for Dancing*. I'd painted the start of a so-called chaos layer on it at least two years ago to obscure the text on the card. Then it sat in my studio since pre-pandemic days.

Perfect.

The therapy is palpable.

Haven't yet decided if this is a 'completed' sketch or work in progress.

Have decided to see what else is up for grabs and up for neurographia in my studio this afternoon.

Save Room for Dancing
5 x 7"; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on card stock
abstract
2022

* If you look closely, you might discern some of the text!

These Littlest of Pointers

 So much gratitude when I notice the littlest things: 

    • the miniature tchotchke Meg gave me years ago—a half-inch-high wooden planter holding tiny faux sprigs of pussywillow perched on my desk beside a miniature wooden bench on which two dollhouse figures sit smiling at me;

    • garlic bulbs whose leaves are nosing out of our side garden;

    • a patch of sunlight created by the skylight over my workspace, framing the 120-year-old pine floorboards in the study where I sit typing;

    • the blades of grass sprouting on the canvas in my studio.

These littlest of pointers open my heart in nearly imperceptible increments to a grand sense of mystery. 

work in progress,
little pointers to life in my studio

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 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.

Faces 14

I have a fierce urge to shove this guy out in high winds to rough up that mop on his head—he is in desperate need of a hair out of place!

I'm laughing to myself as I realize this is not the first time I've had an urge to take charge of someone else's hair. Years ago I tutored an engaging bright boy who was middle school age. For the two or three years I worked with him he sported a 'rattail' hairstyle, a style characterized by a long thin braid growing downward from the back of his head. Can't tell you how many times I fantasized pulling out a pair of shears and snipping off that 10" braid! It was just begging me to make mischief!

The Friend Who Signs Every Single Photo
of Himself in My Senior Yearbook
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, pencil, and collage
on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45

messy middle flashback:

blind contour drawing 
on top of cool-colors chaos layer

Faces 13

Years ago—maybe as many as 30? is that possible?!—I jotted a postcard to my friend Stu, whom I'd met at Takodah family camp in NH at least 10 years prior to jotting said postcard, to ask what kind of pen he'd been using at camp that August to doodle in his pocket sketch book.

A week or 10 days later, I found an empty water bottle in my mailbox and wondered who'd picked up street litter and placed it in with my mail. 

But, ha! This was no litter. It was an 'envelope' inside of which sat a small bit of paper with the pen info I'd requested from Stu.

Even though "OMG" was not yet in the common vernacular, my internal reaction was, O.M.G! My immediate next thought was, Two can play at this game!

And I was off and running, viewing correspondence by mail in a whole new light. WAY fun.

The Friend Who Uses an Enamaled Spoon
as a Postcard
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, and pastel on drawing paper
abstract face
$45
sold

Faces 10

Offsetting some of the loneliness and isolation of precautionary COVID-19 constraints, I make new friends in my studio—even if I have to conjure them myself from paint!

The Friend Who Isn't Afraid of My Pain
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, and collage on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45

Faces 9

After my family moved to London in August 1967, one of my first tasks was to get busy raising hemlines so I could be part of the mini-skirt scene. Truth to tell, I raised the same hemlines more than once, going up an inch at a time until—I recall—I was sitting on the scant front edge of my seat in Miss Tranoy's Problems of Democracy class so as to have some miniscule bit of fabric between the tops of my legs and the chilly chair.

How funny is it that at the same time I was baring my legs and couldn't get my miniskirts short enough I was also pleased as punch to purchase a maxi-coat, a regal purple coat that went stylishly down to ankle length, barely leaving my stylishly trendy boots from the Way In shop at Harrod's visible!

Loved that coat.

Loved that purple.

The Friend Who Writes Letters Longhand
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, pastel, and collage on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45
sold

Faces 8

Oh my gosh! Faces!

Who knew? 

I've never turned my attention to drawing/painting faces or portraits before. Well, that's not entirely true. I drew a self-portrait, as directed, for the front of my kindergarten report card. I drew a Raggedy Ann doll—replete with face—in a junior high school art class. I replicated my kindergarten self-portrait decades after kindergarten and now use it as my profile picture online. But that's all that comes to mind.

What was I waiting for?

In a day otherwise crowded with tasks and challenges, I drop out of rush-rush-rush, out of hurry-up, out of monkey-mind chatter, and into flow and inner stillness as I paint another abstract face today.

The Friend Who Voices Strong Opinions
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, and collage on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45

---
art history

Faces 6

Simple pleasures:

• color-matching paint and print advertising

• tearing paper with quiet intention

• smoothing torn print onto painted paper, feeling the adhesion of one to the other as my finger glides through applied matte medium

The Friend Who Makes Awesome Art
From Found Objects
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, and collage on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45

Faces 5

   chaos layer 

+ blind contour drawing 

+ neutral-ish background to bring face forward 

+ highlighting of one feature, maybe two         

   new territory

The Friend Who Is a Major Dog and Cat Person
9 x 12"; acrylic and ink on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45

Attending, Befriending

OK, let's roll with unanchored, distractible, impulsive, unfocused, droopy, in a fog. Let's see what that-all looks like if I situate myself in my studio.

work in progress
adding new layers to layers added in October
on top of a painting originally done in 2015 
6 x 6" canvas board

 

Blast from the Past

During my junior year in high school when the Beatles and Stones were rocking the pop music world, I simultaneously held a soft spot for the three-part harmony of the Letterman as they sang sentimental tunes such as Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.

That tune surfaced today as I reflected on the history of my recent painting below. I found myself singing the following in full voice, with the imagined swell of several violins in accompaniment: art is a many-layered thing!

Once on a High and Windy Hill
7 x 9"; acrylic, pencil, color sticks, collage, and oil pastel on a book page
abstract floral
2020

History of a many-layered thing:

  

 

Wrapping Up

Soaking up stillness as 2018 wraps up and ties a bow around itself.

5 x 7" work in progress

A Certain Quietness of Mind
9 x 11.5"; acrylic, latex, and collage
abstract
2018

A Certain Quietness of Mind
matted and framed, 12 x 16"

Running on Empty

Not for the first time at this point in any given astronomical year, I find myself running on empty, yearning for a snug little cave in which to curl up for a month or two.

This feeling was especially strong yesterday when I called the customer service number for an order gone wrong and was informed by a recorded voice that the wait time to speak with a representative was 209 minutes.

209.

Really???

Good night.

In the absence of a suitable cave, I picked up a paint brush.

 WIP, first marks

WIP, layers of greens

WIP, more color and texture

WIP, scribbles

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.