Breaking Up a Logjam

I notice what catches my attention today.

These words:

To fall into that

which is unidentified,

untethered,

undefined by phenomena,

for one brief moment,

allows the possibility

of knowing—

that knowing 

that is already inside you—

knowing that which you are

as awareness,

open awareness

prior to the arising 

of phenomena,

prior to the arising

of identity.

It’s in this that you see clearly.

You see beyond opinion,

position taking,

narrative.

You see beyond the matrix

of conditioning,

the matrix of the world.

—Amoda Maa

I notice what art catches my eye as I scroll through a feed online.

The logjam inside me breaks up and I begin making marks and changes on my previously-dubbed 'work in progress paralysis.' 

Grateful for movement!

work in progress

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (1)

As I work on my current painting, in each post I plan to share a snippet from that day of whatever I'm reading and whatever I've painted.

On my nightstand

I wish I could go to the store myself, 
but nothing is walking distance from here 
except a church at the end of the block. 
It's Catholic. 
It has a very quiet smell of incense all the time, 
which is nice, 
and it has very pretty windows, 
the stained-glass kind where the red looks like wine 
and the blue is so deep and beautiful 
you wish you could put in your pocket and take it home with you. 
I like to sit in that church when no one is there, 
although I do sit in the back row since we're not members. 
The cushions are a dark-red velvet 
that turns lighter if you rub it the wrong way. 
Sometimes I kneel there, 
not to pray, 
just to make my head that kind of empty still 
that has a person feel more comfortable than they thought they were. 
The priest there is named Father Compton. 
He doesn't mind my being there. 
He calls you "child" like he's in the movies. 
He's old and has whole tufts of white hair 
growing out of his nose 
and he walks bent over, 
but his eyes are clear and smart 
and they notice the right things. 
When he's looking at you, 
you can tell he's thinking kind thoughts, 
but he doesn't embarrass you by saying them out loud. 
You don't have to do anything back.

—Elizabeth Berg, Joy School


On my easel

work in progress, day 1, evening, 4/18/20
24 x 48" canvas

Noticing #3

noticing:

• alternating current—right brain, left brain, right, left, here, there
• my breath moving in and out
• beech leaves scribbling in a breeze
• the fun of intuitive mark-making with graphite crayon followed by intuitive partial erasures
• how much of the language i use when i speak—to others and to myself—reflects comparison, judgment, differences/differentiation, discernment, discrimination

detail, work in progress
16 x 20", mixed media on drawing paper
played with oil pastels found in our vacation cottage

detail, another start
also 16 x 20", mixed media on drawing paper

Listening to Whispers

put on your hiking
shoes, could be mud. nourishing
unexpected walk.

Whispers of the Heart
12 x 12"; acrylic on masonite board
abstract
2019

Jumble

Jumble bells, jumble bells, jumble all the way.

Or something like that.

So much calling out for my attention, daylight hours diminishing by the day, tasks started but not completed, plans leapfrogging other plans, studio time disjointed—jumble all the way, I tell ya!

Apropos of nothing, and with unfinished paintings to the left of me, unfinished paintings to the right of me, here's what I started painting today, letting my inner jumble out onto a large sheet of paper.

marks, scribbles

leftover paint from previous projects

work in progress

Dish of Milk

A frequent dessert when I was a young child was chocolate pudding prepared in individual bowls and served with milk poured on top. My dad would often carry my bowl from counter to table, saying, "Here's your dish of milk, Dotty!" I'd laugh and laugh, dip my spoon below the layer of milk, and prove him wrong by lifting a scoop of pudding.

Except for the time when he actually did give me a dish of milk.

Cruel, I tell ya!

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When prepping for my recent West Virginia vacation, one item I packed was the hand-painted anniversary card I'd made for Dave—another card made from a painting started on Monhegan Island in August.

On the 11th, I pulled it out to perch at his place on the table.

Turns out that, although I carefully wrote his name on the envelope and carefully placed the envelope in a protective folder for safe travel, I left the card itself under the cover of our scanner at home.

Dish of milk!

anniversary card
4 x 5.5"; watercolor, acrylic pen, and water-soluble pastels on canvas paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2018
[gift]

Juxtaposition

The day before I went on vacation to Virginia and West Virginia, with all sorts of packing and other last-minute details and tasks crowding my every moment, I popped down to the basement to add a bath towel to the wash I'd just started.

Discovered an unfolding event. A jumbo-sized container of liquid laundry detergent had fallen to the floor, landing on and shattering its cap. I arrived to see a mess of concentrated (2x the power!) detergent spreading viscously onto and soaking through a piece of indoor-outdoor carpet, the 'lake' already larger than the circle I could make with my arms if I stretched them out.

Oh.

A welcome juxtaposition: making a card using a watercolor-turned-mixed-media exploration from my time on Mohegan Island in August. Sweet!

birthday card
4 x 5.5"; watercolor, acrylic pen, and water-soluble pastels on canvas paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2018
[gift]

Connection

Have you ever been at a meeting or presentation of some sort, or in a class, with facilitated exchanges of information taking place among people who've never met before, and you know exactly with whom you'll strike up a one-to-one conversation—and make a lasting connection—the minute the formal part of the event ends?

Yep.

That's how I got to know Bo.

A birthday bookmark for you, dear friend!

Small and Still and Tender
1.5x5"; acrylic, India ink, oil pastel, and collage on watercolor paper
abstract bookmark
2018
[gift]

Casual Elegant

On Monhegan, my dad and I made our own breakfasts, snacks, and lunches and ate them at our apartment at Tribler Cottage, but for dinner we walked the lane to the dining room at the Island Inn. In short order we learned how to snag the reservation that would give us the best chance at a window table overlooking the inn porch, the harbor, and Monhegan's little offshoot, Manana Island.

Dinner was an exquisite experience of 'casual elegant' each evening—with guests just a tiny bit dressed up, dark green bottles of artisan balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil perched on each table, an exhibit of Joan Harlow's oil paintings gracing the walls, windows open to the refreshment of sea breezes, and edible flowers bedecking each entrée.

---

A few edible flowers jumped ship to one of my watercolors.

The Air Smelled of Honeysuckle and Hay
7x9"; watercolor, ink, and water-soluble crayon on canvas paper
abstract floral
2018

Speedy Delivery, II

Last week I hung out with Joan of Art again for a day of messing about with paint.

Painted quickly, intuitively, impulsively, experimentally—Sylvia, I was trying to imagine and then channel how you feel as you paint!

activated paper by painting a bunch of colors
and scribbling through them while they were still wet

layered with more paint and some ink

more paint

ink, stenciling, paint, done

What did it feel like to paint this way? Terrific! Satisfying! Fun! Expressive!

Another speedy delivery.

Inspiration-Wind

In her charming and informative book, Mozart's Starling, Lyanda Lynn Haupt comments, about her writing process:

I have come to terms with the sad truth that inspiration never visits at my convenience, nor in accordance with my sense of timing, nor at the behest of my will. Most of all, the inspiration-wind has no interest whatsoever in what I think I want to write about. 

Yeah, about that inspiration-wind.

Started fiddling today with a new patch as part of my still-ongoing project, Core Values. Every now and then, the tiniest tease of a breeze. Mostly, nothing.

journaling and mark-making

adding color, scratching wet paint

penciling irregular pentagons

Furnishing

I recently read an exquisitely written memoir by David Giffels entitled Furnishing Eternity.

When I paint, I think I furnish not eternity but right-now. At least sometimes. Often enough, in any case, to bring me back to my studio day after day.

Giffels, telling the story of using a router outfitted with a tongue-in-groove bit to shape the edge of a long pine board, gives words to what I think of as the now of painting: An hour passed, then another. Eventually, I became one with the process, a transformation I've always savored. First one enters the work, then the work enters oneself.

First I enter the work, then the work enters me. I am grateful each and every time the work enters me.

There has already been much back and forth with my patch in progress below. I enter the work, the work enters me, I enter the work, the work enters me.

Gonna let it "chill" overnight and see what I think tomorrow.

 

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History thus far:

    


     

        

          

Attunement

I attune to an inner whisper today that keeps saying, mpjkenyon.

Jane Kenyon is a Canadian artist whose work I discovered through Instagram @mpjkenyon some months ago.

mpj, thank you for knocking on my door with mark making that is all-in carefree, careless, reckless, uninhibited, haphazard, playful, intuitive, childlike, and uncensored. Every time I see your art, I feel resonance.

Well, that would be the tame way of putting it.

Let's get down to brass tacks.

Every time I see your art, you smack me upside the head and bark in my face, This is what you yearn to do. DO IT. Crack open your safe shell.

OK, OK!

And, thank you.

I played with this kind of mark making a few days ago but then lost it to subsequent layers. Today I wanted to stay immersed in—and stop while still immersed in—pure mark making, mark making from—to use your words—somewhere inside my body other than my conscious self.

√.

newest patch

detail

new patch in the bigger picture;
working title: Core Values

Riding Roughshod

Oh my gosh, it's been one of those days where something deep inside wants out. Don't know what it is. It may not know what it is. Just know it hasn't shown up yet on my canvas.

I gessoed over the patch I'd been working on the past two days, expanded to three contiguous patches, and then turned my energy to not getting bucked by the reckless horse that's running roughshod with me on its back.

Alive, Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic

If you've ever gone to summer camp—as I have, you might well know the alive-awake-alert-enthusiastic song—as I do.

There are days when I ask myself why I paint, what's the point, where am I going with my painting, and blah blah blah, as though I should have an answer, as though in the absence of having one I am failing.

Other days I'm alive awake alert enthusiastic, alive awake alert enthusiastic, alive awake alert, alert awake alive, aliveawakealertenthusiastic!

Today I was totally in my happy place—making marks, letting them dry, spraying them with fixative, brushing over them lightly with matte medium. Sun was shining, air was warm, grass was green, I was painting in my front yard. Complete contentment.

Why do I paint? Because, it appears, I do!

I could leave this patch of perfect fun as is, it occurs to me. And, at the moment, I will, since my first tutee of the day arrives momentarily.

But I am itching to see what happens next with this little square of sunshine and enthusiasm.

new patch, first marks

Something that Grew

Yesterday's something continued to unfold today.

My favorite parts during the unfolding:

• the see-saw process of making marks, painting over them, making marks, painting over them, making marks, painting over them, and
• painting mostly with my fingers.


What I like about what ended up unfolding:

• the delicacy, unfussiness, and scribbliness of the lines.


My current wonderings:

• done? or
• maybe needing some bold lines for contrast?

newest patch;
done?

newest patch, in the big picture;
working title: Core Values

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newest patch, with a test piece of acrylic skin resting on the surface …

Arthur's Weed Patch

I was living in the Netherlands when I first connected with Miss Peach comic strips. The reason I remember the character named Arthur and, more particularly, his weed patch* is that my youngest sister was born while we lived in the Netherlands and had hair that stood straight up from her head as an infant, hair that my parents referred to—with great affection—as Arthur's weed patch.

It was during those same two years of living in the Netherlands that a school friend and I, sixth graders at the time, spent a bunch of happy hours playing across the street from her house at a construction site after hours. As I've played with my current Core Values patch yesterday and today, memories have surfaced of the engaging pleasure of making something out of 'nothing' at that building site—arranging and rearranging cinder blocks, scraps of wood, bits of metal, and other stuff lying around in the gravel and weeds.

Here I am doing the same thing all these many years later.

added white shapes, scratched through layers

pasted tissue collage, extended color, added veiling

new patch, with final tweaks

detail

new patch in the bigger picture;
working title: core values

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* I kinda shrugged off my homework yesterday, not persisting in searching for online evidence of Arthur's weed patch, but look what my friend Carolyn found:

Miss Peach is a really sweet and kind teacher but, still, I hope she doesn't find out Carolyn did my homework for me.

Miss Peach

Did any of you ever read the Miss Peach comic strip? Do you remember Arthur? Arthur's weed patch?

To my surprise, I could find no link to Arthur's weed patch online.

No matter.

I think I wandered into Arthur's weed patch this afternoon. Either there or into a neighborhood vacant lot with a few scraggly weeds and some litter … which is to say, into the littered vacant lot of my mind.

Great place to play! I added discarded items from other sources into the lot and fiddled around with arrangements and rearrangements. Will return tomorrow.

playing in a new patch,
work in progress within a work in progress

Quick & Quixotic

Taking "2. capricious, unpredictable" as my definition, I am including the word quixotic in the working title for my current painting.

When last seen, the painting looked as follows, and I enjoyed its appearance for as long as it lasted:



Today, a few capricious unpredictable minutes of painting yielded underground rabbit burrows and aboveground communications cables.

work in progress
12x16"; unstretched canvas
working title: Quick and Quixotic

Fast and Furious Redux

My intentions for the day were unrealistic to begin with, a story for a different day.

Then, each undertaking to which I turned my attention took longer than expected, in one case way longer.

But, I had to paint, just couldn't not scratch that itch.

So today, vs. yesterday, I did paint quickly.

I took Betty Krause as my telementor. She starts paintings with quick intuitive scribbles and marks. Really quick. No thought or design in mind. Just scribbles and marks: GO!

Thank you, Betty, for sparking me today.

I bumped into a pad of unstretched canvas, tore off a sheet.

Scribbled and marked with a PaperMate pencil, a grease pencil, pastel pencils, and a graphite crayon.

first marks, three minutes

Added marks with a graphite crayon dipped in water. Disappointing, too light, not soluble enough.

second marks, 90 seconds

Found an applicator bottle with some India ink in it. Much more fun. 

third marks, 30 seconds

Done for today. 

Stopped because I have to make phone calls, gather financial data, do some handwork with needle and thread, research a gift idea. 

Stopped because I love this start and want to enjoy it for a day before I add layers.