For the Record

If I post a painting here, with a title, with its size and media specs, and with a date, it will implicitly and explicitly announce itself as a completed painting. You will most likely see it as a completed painting. You will like it or not. You might click on it to put it in viewfinder mode so you can get an in depth view of its nooks and crannies. Your eye might explore for a bit of time, or for more than a bit of time. Then you'll move on till I post again with either a new work in progress or new completed painting.

I'm going to post a piece here today as a completed painting. I want a record of it as it is right now, because it could be complete, if I say so.

Well, and if it says so. But it keeps telling me it is not. Even though it isn't telling me specifically what step to take, it is asking me to risk 'wrecking' it by doing something. I'm going to have to figure that out by a process of making changes and taking chances.

For right now, though, I present to you

Open for Business

11 x 14"; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on paper

abstract

 2022

"Curiouser and Curiouser!"

Lyme Camp now includes intensive education about neural retraining exercises that calm an overactive limbic system stuck in the on position. A component of the program includes becoming the Curious Observer of what is. 

To notice without being reactive.

To notice without buying into all the false messages the limbic loop presents as truth and repeats at full volume ad nauseam.

To stay curious, open.

I am no stranger to being a curious observer but my engagement with neural retraining here is a gift that increases my mindfulness and moves me to become a more steadfast and curious observer than I might otherwise be.

Seattle artist Jacqui Beck has a video that delights me every time I watch it, addressing as it does the curious observer attitude she brings to her work. 

Oh man, this thing, 

     Jacqui says, observing with curiosity and playfulness as she paints. 

This black,

I painted so much black over this.

Yes. Yes, I did.

Now what?

---

Oh man, this thing,

     I say as curious observer today while I paint.

This white,

I painted so much white over this.

Yes. Yes, I did.

Now what?

another layer; WIP

Steadfast

These homesteaders fought long and hard to get and keep a toehold on this patch of land, fending off wreckers, developers, and other bullheaded, short-sighted demolitionists hell-bent on 'progress' and 'improvement.' With patience and the long view they turned the earth, seeded, reseeded, tended, cultivated, and protected, called to steadfast stewardship, never wavering when it appeared that all might have been lost.

Everything There Seemed to Belong Where It Was
4x6" postcard; acrylic, pastel, and collage on drawing paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract landscape
2019

Noticing #2

noticing:

• my ambivalence about this start, and about posting it
• the background music of a foghorn 
• where I carry sadness and loss in my body
• the warmth of sunlight on my face, my shoulders
• that I can say So it is, yes, and thank you to runaway thoughts

detail, work in progress
18 x 24", mixed media on drawing paper
painted en plein air in morning sunlight

detail

detail

Noticing #1

noticing:

• how sunlight and shadow play on inches-deep moss and ferns in the Crockett Cove Woods Preserve

• how I want to be right when information is under dispute

• how I follow my own counsel and don’t argue

• how I’m pleased when my memory serves me and my information is correct

• how savory and satisfying my picnic lunch is

detail from a few minutes
 of starting to lay ground and color
on a large sheet of Canson drawing paper
on an exquisite sunny day in June