Currents Flowing Beneath the Surface

Fluent

  John O’Donohue

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding.

---

Surprises of my own unfolding:

(a) A Chance to Risk Everything Without Being Injured or Deposed
(b) Everything Makes Itself Apparent at the Appropriate Time
1.5 x 5.5 bookmarks; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on paper
abstract
2022

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

Postcard Quilt Squares

I took pleasure in riffling through accumulated exercises and paintings done on paper (yet again) to select a piece to which I could give new life as a postcard, a postcard that will, in fact, travel farther from the four walls of the drawer in which it has lived for several years than I will have traveled from the four walls in which I live in the past ten weeks!

Mind you, this is a piece that took somewhat of a wild ride in my studio before it ever paused to land softly in a drawer in the company of other such voyagers; see the backstory that runs from 8/12/16 to 8/21/16.

Grateful to give it wings, to release it into a larger world.

A Perfect Breeze of Innocent Confusion
4 x 5" postcard; graphite, acrylic, pencil, and pastels
on canvas paper mounted on magazine paper and card stock
abstract
2020

Finding God 7

Final day of Finding God, up close and personal:

Finding God in a Tangle of Meadow
detail

detail

Finding God 6

Ongoing tour of Finding God, up close and personal:

Finding God in a Tangle of Meadow
detail

detail

Finding God 5

Ongoing tour of Finding God, up close and personal:

Finding God in a Tangle of Meadow
detail

detail

Finding God 4

Ongoing tour of Finding God, up close and personal:

Finding God in a Tangle of Meadow
detail

detail

Finding God 3

Ongoing tour of Finding God, up close and personal:

Finding God in a Tangle of Meadow
detail

detail

Hindsight Is 20/20 (Finding God 2)

Way back* in the thick of our busy family life, we lost an auto insurance claim check. What the heck? Where could a check we were so grateful to receive and so eager to deposit have disappeared?

We searched everywhere. Twice. Three times. Four. Logical places, illogical places. No check.

I knew it was likely to reveal itself eventually, at which point its path would make complete sense.

In the moment, though, I knew we were not going to locate that check. We had to let go of searching, we had to embrace not knowing.

We contacted the insurance company; they issued a new check.

Two years later, I went to tidy a small drawer in which we kept the Kodak envelopes that held negatives from photos we'd sent away to have developed (*As I said earlier, this was way back!). In retrospect, I could suddenly see what had happened, even though I had no ability to imagine the scenario at the time. The mail delivery that included the insurance check also included envelopes of photographs. We opened everything, set the stack of mail down, and later brought the Kodak envelopes upstairs to their designated place in the desk drawer in our bedroom, never knowing the stack of envelopes also included the envelope containing the insurance check.

Similarly, my painting process for Finding God only made sense to me retrospectively, after I'd found what I was looking for and could look back.

While creating my painting I was searching, looking everywhere, but couldn't find what I was looking for. Tried this, tried that, did logical things, illogical things. No discovery. Had to let go of searching, had to embrace not knowing.

Then, suddenly, days and weeks later, there it was—a compelling tangle of meadow! I found what I was looking for, and the whole process made sense.

---

Want to take a closer look?

For the next few days, I invite you to join me in ignoring the security guard who will surely reprimand us for putting our faces just inches from this painting to find God in the tangle.

Finding God in a Tangle of Meadow
detail

detail

Happenmagic

India ink
magazine pages
asemic writing
typeface
latex paint
paintbrushes
matte medium
oil pastel
acrylic paint
palette knives
scribbles
titanium white
texture sheets
mars black
catalyst tool
stencils
naples yellow

>>>>>>>>>

cordgrass
saltmarsh hay
spike grass
black grass
mud
silt
clay
lavender
seaside goldenrod
switchgrass
groundsel-tree
saltmarsh elder
glasswort
saltmarsh bulrush
salt reedgrass
narrow-leaved cattail
sweet flag
wild rice
climbing hempweed

>>>>>>>>>

Happenmagic, I tell ya!

detail, You Need Not …

detail, You Need Not …

detail, You Need Not …

Objets Trouvés, fini

At four thirty today 

in this very classroom,

I am holding a seminar 

for anyone 

and everyone

who has any questions 

whatsoever

about any 
scheduling concern

or any date 

between now

and the end of time,

Mark said.

—Michael Downing, Still in Love

How New This Is, How Strange It Is to Be Here
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up

Objets Trouvés, IX

He followed them to the classroom,

where he would not heal them 

or even console them

but only close the door,

shut out the world 

in which 

they found themselves wanting,

not to help them escape it

but to give them a chance 

to understand

all it meant to have limits,

to need limits,

to choose our limits, 

to be defined by those limits,

and to learn to love them.

—Michael Downing, Still in Love

Ready to Try This out for One Time at Least
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up

Objets Trouvés, VIII

When you write, 

do you really think about limits

and try to love them?

I really do. 

If I’m not assigned a limit

for a column or an essay,

I invent one. 

When I’m, say, writing a novel,

I set a word limit 

for each chapter

so I have a clear sense 

of how much time and space 

there is for me

to get done 

what needs to get done.

—Michael Downing, Still in Love

In Willingness to Risk
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up

Objets Trouvés, VII

Isaac in the chair said, 

I’m so sorry I cursed.

It’s just amazing to realize 

how far I’ve gotten

without understanding 

how to write

a simple sentence.

Max said, 
Yeah, me feels like an idiot, too.

A woman near the back added,

While you were saying that

—comma—

we were all thinking the same thing.

                  —Michael Downing, Still in Love

The Porch Light Came on Overhead and the Door Opened
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up

Objets Trouvés, VI

I had a superb teacher in third grade,

Mark said. 

She asked us to memorize two sentences,

which I am now asking you to write down

exactly as I say them. 

Pronouncing not only the words

but also the punctuation, 

he slowly said,

When the dependent clause comes first,

you need a comma. You need no comma

when the independent clause comes first.

Someone yelled, Holy shit.

                         —Michael Downing, Still in Love

I'd like to Come over Tonight If That's Still All Right
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up

Objets Trouvés, V

And you need only worry 

over

two kinds of clauses.

This was the key distinction.

The Professor said, 

Insubordinate 

and subordinate.

        —Michael Downing, Still in Love

When Would You Want to Start?
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up

Objets Trouvés, IV

His entire lecture 

could be boiled down 

to two distinctions. 

The first was a phrase

(a series of related words

with no specific 

grammatical function,

such as 
the red hat, 

last night, 

or 
forever and a day)

versus 

a clause 

(a group of words 
that included
a noun and a related verb).

            —Michael Downing, Still in Love

I'm Talking About Getting Through the Night
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up

Objets Trouvés, III

We’re not going to unravel 

all of your confusion

or 

anticipate every question 

that might arise

later in the semester, 

but 

you are going to leave today

knowing absolutely 

everything 

you need to know

to write perfect 

and 

perfectly grammatical 

sentences

for the rest of your lives.

                 —Michael Downing, Still in Love

You Probably Wonder What I'm Doing Here
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up

Objets Trouvés, II

Despite what you may have heard,

everything you need to know 

about English grammar

is regular, reliable, and 

remarkably elegant,

Mark said, 

turning to the blackboard

and urging everyone

to take notes.

                —Michael Downing, Still in Love

And Then There Was the Day
4 x 5" greeting card; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on canvas paper
abstract
2019

close-up