Sleep Cycles

You know how you go through sleep cycles at night, moving from light to deep sleep and back again several times? Seems that I am going through similar sleep cycles in my hibernation.

A few days ago I rose up from deep sleep to light and came fully awake briefly. Just had to paint bookmarks for Caroline and Emmy to accompany the books that are gifts for Christmas. As ever, SOOO satisfying.

Then … zzzzzzz.

       An illuminated novel by Dana Kumerow with 
        illustrations by Brittany Tate and Jen Walls 

                                     House of Dreams: The Life of L. M. Montgomery
                                   by Liz Rosenberg, illustrated by Julie Morstad

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.

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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]

Changes in Elevation

Dave and I will be doing miles of hiking in the mountains of West Virginia next week. I will love all the hiking … but I'll love the level parts of the trails more than the steep parts.

Meanwhile, I've done plenty of steep with this bookmark.

Remember when I said I didn't do a trial run with the masking fluid ahead of time? Because, you know, I was impatient?

Joke was on me.

Turns out I did three trial runs—directly on the bookmark itself.

The first time, the masking fluid was poorly mixed. I rubbed it off after it dried. No harm, no foul.

The second time, the masking fluid was well-mixed but awkwardly applied. Ugly mark-making. I rubbed it off … and it took with it most of the text I wanted to protect. Sigh.

The third time, with repairs made, mark-making to my liking, and negative spaces painted, I rubbed off the masking fluid, only to lose key collage bits once again.

So much to learn.

Several more uphill climbs and one sweet downhill run later, however: a bookmark!—the third and final in my Brené Brown Dare to Lead series.

As If Feelings Finally Made Any Difference at All
1.5 x 6"; acrylic, collage, and oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[not for sale]

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]

Transposition

About a year ago I posted a rhythmic chant from camp days that periodically comes to mind:

Left foot, left foot,
Left foot, left foot,
Left foot, left foot,
        Right right foot!

As was the case a year ago, the words today transpose themselves, this time to the following:

Bookmark, bookmark,
Bookmark, bookmark,
Bookmark, bookmark,
          Post post card!

I'm feeling feelings today, yielding to many transpositions swirling around me.

Responding to intuition, to what I see in front of me, to what pops into mind.

Pushing Like a Storm Surge into Unexpected Places
4 x 5 "; acrylic, India ink, and transfer letters on drawing paper, mounted on cardstock
abstract
2018
[gift]

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]

Staying Very Still

Not for the first time, I take a found composition and excise it, this time from an exercise of monochromatic origin.

I move ahead, mount it on cardstock to make it travel-worthy as a postcard, think it is ready to go as is.

It is not.

Then, nothing.

I land smack in the middle of I-don't-know. Can see no way to resolution.

I have to practice stillness and more stillness.

And still more stillness—one day, another day, a third day—before it offers up the gentlest of whispers, barely moving the air.

I translate the whisper and, today, give the card a stamp and an address and blow it like dandelion fluff on a southward journey.

Morning When the Air Is Blue and Soft

3.75x5.75"; acrylic and oil pastel on paper, mounted on cardstock

abstract

2018

[gift]

Did I?

You may remember my crying "Uncle!" a few weeks ago when I was feeling overwhelmed and knew I needed to adjust my painting practice. I needed to create some kind of workable fit with the abundance of competing demands clamoring stridently from every direction.

For several weeks now, I've painted in little snippets, grabbing a few minutes here and a few minutes there catch-as-catch-can.

Today I didn't paint.

Or did I …

I certainly 'painted' internally, by which I mean I participated nourishingly in facets of the creative process. Using a metaphorical backhoe, I cleared just enough space for two of my sisters and their husbands to sleep at our house on wedding weekend (we'll be in absentia ourselves, at a hotel in Boston!), a task that offered chances to interact with completed paintings, piles of collage paper, boxes of pastels, a bin of high-flow paints, a tissue-paper storage box, yogurt containers with water and brushes in them, and a pile of canvases I scored at a September neighborhood give-away. All part of painting, all part of my creative adventure, all feeding what will soon flow from my brush in one form or another.

Artist friend Jen said much the same thing back in the summer:

Organizing is … something I can do when I can't paint.  If I'm too tired, unmotivated, cranky or whatever to actually make art, I can still get things in tip-top shape for when I am ready once more.  Sometimes I will just gesso boards and leave them out to dry, where they will whisper to me on another day.  Other times I will purge old drawings and cut them into bits and pieces for collage materials.  On a really bad day, I'll scrape paint off the floor.  But to me, it all counts as part of the process.  It keeps me in the studio, putting in my time, waiting for the muse to stomp in and demand attention.  

And now I am off to paint.  Or maybe alphabetize my art books.

Here's what I 'painted' today, along with photos of earlier stages of these masterpieces:

work in progress, Green Room

completed diptych 'painting,'
Green Room Perks Up #1

completed 'painting,'
Green Room Perks Up #2

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work in progress, Lemon Drop Room

completed 'painting,'
Lemon Drop Room Brightens