Books and Bookmarks (4)

Re books: 

Michelle Jaeger Shaw had been, 

all her life, 

a voracious reader, 

had delighted in everything 

from fluffy romances 

to serious treatises 

on the behavior of baboons. 

Television sets and radios 

could be blaring 

while Micky sat curled in a chair, 

her pale head bent over an open book, 

one hand playing idly 

with a strand of her fine hair.

—Marjorie Dorner, Seasons of Sun and Rain

Re bookmarks:

Not only are hand-painted bookmarks—artmarks!—appealingly tiny, with terrific beautility, and possessing an intrinsic freshness factor, but also they have a captivating contextuality. Between gigs, they go on sabbatical or into hibernation for varying amounts of time—sometimes months—before they are pressed into service again at which time their freshness factor is especially keen; each new book jacket offers new conditions that highlight different elements of a given artmark, bringing to life details that may have escaped notice previously. 

Have I told you how much I like hand-painted bookmarks?

She Loves to See Her Name
on the Library Borrower's Card
2 x 6.5" bookmark; acrylic, collage, and oil pastel on paper
abstract
2020
sold

Books and Bookmarks (1)

Re books:

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.

—Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

Re bookmarks:

How did I get started painting bookmarks? 

I don't recall. 

Maybe I took a painting I'd made that I didn't like and cut it into pieces? Or perhaps a narrow strip I'd trimmed from a larger painting caught my eye? 

No matter. What's not in question is that I began painting bookmarks.

One appeal of painting bookmarks is that they are what is referred to as tiny art. I love both elements of that descriptor equally: (1) the tiny amount of real estate in a bookmark and the resulting relatively tiny amount of time required to paint it make for satisfying short-order gratification, and (2) a 2 x 6-inch bookmark is no more and no less art than a 2 x 6-foot painting or a 2 x 6-yard mural; each is a self-contained world that knows no boundaries.

She Lived Inside that Book for Days
2 x 6"; acrylic, ink, and pastel on paper
abstract
2020
sold

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]

On Notice

Noticing.

Noticing how much of every day is given over to reacting.

Noticing how I see experiences as 'good' or 'bad.'

Noticing all the stories I make up.

Noticing how I attach myself to the good, the bad, the stories.

Noticing how tremendous is the challenge to let it all pass through.

---

I did paint a few times while in our log cabin in West Virginia. Today, I took one of those starts and made it into a finish—a bookmark!

Thornton Isn't the Only Place Anymore
1.75 x 6"; acrylic, latex, and collage on watercolor paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

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]

Wandering Down a Trail

Off on a new path today.

Same bookmark arboretum as previously, perhaps, but a different trail, with blazes of a different color.

So content to be following my muse and my paint brush.

started by journaling on a piece of watercolor paper

used a brayer and titan buff

added print collage;
mixed monochromatic colors with liquitex turquoise deep as a base;
used stencils and palette knife

resting place for today

Just That

What do I notice in this moment? Two ivy plants tucked in a tin planter on the little drop-leaf desk in my study.

I water them once a week, turning the planter around at each watering to give the back side a chance to be the front side. I notice midweek—today, right now—how the leaves have shifted, have reached with quiet reflexive strength of purpose, bit by bit by bit since Wednesday, toward the light coming from the window across the room.

Just that.

Like the Chrysalis Who Had No Idea
1.75 x 6"; acrylic, India ink, and collage on drawing paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]

Holy Cow!

I seem to be on a roll with bookmarks. A series!

A short while ago artist friend Jen Walls exclaimed in writing, I am a HUGE fan of your bookmarks! Holy cow! Tiny masterpieces with a purpose. It doesn't get better than that!

Well, shucks.

Thank you, Jen, both for the accolades and for so succinctly summing up my love affair with painting these little paper playgrounds.

Yes, yes, yes. When I paint a bookmark, I celebrate and fuel both the poet and the pragmatist in myself.

Today's celebration:

The Smell of Cookies Baking in a Kitchen Three Blocks Away
1.5 x 5.5"; acrylic, ink, collage, and water-soluble pastel on drawing paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[sold]