Taking Note

For a number of days now, I have been especially thought-full, noticing alternating current in my day-to-day living, noticing the back-and-forth in play between peaceful engaged presence and agitated internal chatter as I created this piece.

In a Hurry has become a visual meditation: a reminder to breathe, a signifier of the space between an in-breath and an out-breath, an invitation to move at a slower pace, a nudge towards mindfulness.

In a Hurry as the Babysitter's Meter Ticks
7x7"; acrylic, latex, India ink, and handpainted collage on canvas paper
abstract
2018

Who Cares?

Sometimes the universe gives me a hug when I least expect it. Well, when I don't expect it at all, truth to tell.

My thought process yesterday: OK, I'm frazzled. Too much on my plate. No focus. Maybe I just won't paint. Or post. What does it matter? Who cares? It's my own gosh-darned idea to paint and post daily. I'm just creating stress for myself, for Pete's sake. Enough!

But I paint for a few minutes.

Then, an hour later I snap a studio shot.

After dinner I see the following comment in my The Height of Summer post:

Breathtaking, Dotty. And I can't believe we got to see it all emerge!

I've always hated spectator activities. Baseball? Snore. Football? Please stop! Dotty Seiter's blog? Yes, Carolyn! You're definitely a spectator ... you have no background or frame of reference. But fasten your seatbelt! You're in for a multisensory, mind expanding exploration that will take you places you've never been! 

Dotty, you have no idea how exciting it is to share your work/play. Thank you so much for every single post!

Thanks for the hug, Carolyn!

studio shot, work in progress;
had no idea I was going to move in this direction

Positive Negative

Took a start from a few weeks ago, part of which I'd previously used to make a postcard using negative-space painting.

Decided to use negative space differently this time. Embellished my start from June to my liking first. Loved the process, love the product.

In fact, I think I need to get a job painting collage paper. Wouldn't that be so cool?

But I digress.

Next, painted a sheet of canvas paper to be my negative space, so to speak. Again, loved the process, love the end result. It was hard to photograph to satisfaction, but the subtleties here delight me.

Started putting the two together. A perfectly positive 'negative' experience!

work in progress

Lake Champlain, Day 2

[entry drafted at Lake Champlain 6/9/18]

Improv.

I notice the surface pattern on a duvet in our vacation cottage, play with elements of it on my big piece of drawing paper.

Lines seen in stained glass window art at a local gallery travel through a paint marker onto my drawing paper.

A wildflower leaf pattern transplants itself into the lush tangle of mark-making growing in front of me.

As the day unfolds, I ad lib in short little snippets of three minutes here, ten minutes there, creating without preparation from whatever I have available: I press a few pieces of collage into place, spread some paint with my finger and spritz it with a spray bottle to trigger drips, draw angular lines with a China marker against a metal straight-edge tool, use a brayer to veil.

work in progress
18x24"; mixed media on drawing paper

detail

Simply and Fully

All that’s asked, to bring about potent receptivity to what wants to be seen, is to be nowhere but now. No urging forward to the next moment, no mental processing of the current one. No agenda, no vigilance, no avoidance. You’re simply and fully attuned to the outer reality and to the interior one. In this mode of utter receptivity, there’s not the slightest effort exerted. No searching, no expectation or wishing: simply a resting in whatever is here, now.  (Jan Frazier)

Gobsmacked by the Green of a Fine Day in June
1.5x6"; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, and collage
abstract bookmark
[gift]

Front Stoop Refreshment

SOOO lovely, after waking to the brittle fricative click-click of sleet on our skylights last Wednesday, to have the day warm enough by early afternoon that I could take myself outdoors to make finishing touches on my Core Values patch-du-jour while sitting on our front 'stoop.'

The fact that Core Values is by no means a lap-sized project? No matter.

Birdsong.

Fresh air.

Neocolor pastels softened by the sun.

Heaven.

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

detail from patch

patch in the "big picture"—
working title: Core Values

Quiet Gray Winter Afternoon

Moseyed into my studio on a quiet gray afternoon last week and enjoyed the weatherlessness of starting another card for my pink collage postcard series.

Fun:

• tearing pieces of handpainted pink collage paper;
• tearing and cutting pieces of handpainted black collage paper;
• cutting a piece of black and gray collage (the vertical strip left of center) from a Shutterfly calendar I made using images of paintings from a Jane Davies class I took in 2016;
• arranging and rearranging all the bits and pieces into a composition;
• spreading glue;
• pressing all the bits in place; and

Funny:

• discovering, once done, that instead of covering the printed side of the piece of card stock I'd garnered from a recent solicitation from my son's alma mater, I had covered the blank side, leaving myself no place to write a message on my postcard!

This piece has been under refrigeration for a few days. It could stand as is (once I paint over the message side of the card!), but I'm going to take one more look tomorrow, after it's been online overnight, and consider some possible tweaks before making a final decision.

work in progress

oops!

Placeholder

When our wild-child Bomb Cyclone Winter Storm was forecast last week, I wasted not one second before securing essential supplies—made an immediate beeline to my local library (not the grocery store for this gal). Because do not ever leave me without a stack of books at the ready.

Ever.

Transported my satisfying haul back home and indulged in a favorite followup activity—pulled out my stash of handpainted bookmarks and matched each book with just the right placeholder.

So satisfying.

---

Painted a new bookmark today. Actually, to be more precise, I took handpainted collage papers and cast-aside painting studies and collaged a bookmark.

Don't You Cut Your Visit Short on Our Account
1.75x6.5"; acrylic, oil pastel and collage on paper
abstract
2018

Making Hay

Years ago, I copied out the following lines from Agnes Rossi's novel Houseguest—"pardon my French" for quoting some profane language here, but the profanity is essential to the impact:

     There are difficulties and there are difficulties. It’s one thing to be moving along a sidewalk in winter all but overwhelmed by grief for a beloved wife recently dead. It’s something else entirely to be faced with the prospect of getting a large suitcase without a working handle halfway across town. 
     “Son of a bitch,” Edward said. “Jesus goddamn Christ.” 

The lines came to mind this morning.

I've had a headache for four weeks now, but it 'was something else entirely' to be taking on the tiniest of tasks in my studio, painting the edges of a canvas I started several months ago, and to knock my water container over all over everything. 

What Edward said!

Anyway, headache and spilled water notwithstanding, we have a mega-blizzard forecast for tomorrow, with EVEN COLDER temps than the past couple of weeks predicted to follow. I decided to make hay while the sun shines—to finish the edges of this painting, take a photo outdoors, and then set it on my dresser as a nod to the new year.

Might be finished. Might not. Doesn't matter.

Bring on the blizzard.

free canvas #1
16x20"
work in progress

Slapstick 12/19/17

Part of the deep pleasure of creating the geometric series I recently completed was its having just enough structure to offer a sense of direction as I worked. Within that structure I could do whatever I wanted, working as intuitively and experimentally as I wished, all the while scaffolded by having parameters.

I was reminded of writing certain kinds of poetry. Express whatever it is that you want to express, go wild with word choice and metaphor, but here's where you have to have a rhyme and here's the number of syllables you're allotted.

By contrast, when I painted up a new start a few days ago, I felt as though I were in the wide open formless space of free verse. Whoa, where are the boundaries?

Then, hooray! An online art friend, Gabriela, whom I met recently in the ArtNow Community, posted some collage-and-ink stick figure paintings that fired me right up and suggested an inviting limit-to-freedom ratio. My 'controlling idea' became locating and bringing to life a figure somewhere within the confines of my start, and I gave myself full freedom to do so in whatever wild way I wished.

F - U - N!

start

figure

Oh, wait! She wants to turn a cartwheel!

Shameless Delight and Exuberance
4x5"; acrylic, India ink, collage, and wax pastels on paper
abstract
2017

Slapstick 12/18/17

Today: some random collage scraps handpainted with black latex—can't remember when I painted them. Plus, a cockeyed notion to make something out of nothing. Slap. Stick.

I fiddle a bit and then, the first time I feel any sort of visual satisfaction, I stop.

Without evaluating whether or not the piece is 'complete.'

Without worrying it like a dog with a bone.

It's an experiment. It has fulfilled its creative purpose.

Now it will go on to live a happy life as a postcard sent from me to my dad in Maine. Hi, Futh!

4x5"; acrylic, collage, and pastels on paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

Pass Intercepted

Another fabulous field.



---

Same team as yesterday, same play.

Pass intercepted.

No score.



---

Same team, different play.

Flag down on the field.

Penalty.

Still no score.



Practice scheduled again for tomorrow.

Throwing a Pass

Well, it's football season—maybe that's why I played around with a gridiron format today?

I think the coach has additional plays in the playbook, but here's the one that the team ran in practice today.

work in progress
4x5"; unstretched canvas
working title: q&q cut-up #10

Awesome field, don'tcha think?

Keeping the Barns Full / Q&Q Cut-Up #7

A passage in the middle of the lightest of carefree novels, Miss Buncle Married, by D.E. Stevenson, jumped right off the page and into my artist's heart recently, carrying with it depth and resonance in abundance—enough and to spare:

…  the truth is that authors have no idea at all how or where they garner their harvest. The harvest is garnered by some busy imp that watches and garners daily, hourly, keeping the barns full, so that when the day of threshing comes, and the wheat is winnowed from the chaff, there shall always be enough and to spare for the making of the bread.

I actually do have an idea where my busy imp harvested a handful here and a handful there, keeping my barns full so I could make a little bread today. Thank you, Betty Krause, Jane Davies, and Simone Nijboer, for planting seeds.

For Five Minutes She Suspended Judgment of the World and Fell Silent
4x5"; acrylic, ink, collage, and oil pastel on unstretched canvas,
mounted on card stock
abstract landscape
2017
[gift]

Can't See the Flowers for the Vase

My time in the studio today is an inquiry.

All questions, no answers yet.

detail, work in progress;
working title: Making Messy #3

detail, handpainted collage paper