Grab and GO!

I continue to grab what's at hand and then just GO!

Today I grab the 1927 Funk & Wagnalls Practical Standard Dictionary originally owned by Mrs. Carr Brackett of Monhegan Island, much later available for the taking at some kind of help-yourself clearing out of books somewhere on the island (perhaps set on a table in front of Monhegan's L. Brackett & Son grocery?), picked up by artist Judy Caldwell, and generously given to me by Judy when we painted together one summer morning.

I tear out a page, grab my Sharpie chisel-tip marker, and I'm off and running. I have a loose 'plan,' a plan that has an intended end 'product' and an intention to go where the painting takes me in the making.

grab-and-go work in progress

Stringing Moments

Remember the first time you ever strung beads, or macaroni, or popcorn—tied a careful knot at one end and added one bead after the other to your piece of yarn, collecting a long strand to tie into a necklace?

Today, no careful knot. No knot at all. Just one moment after another slipping onto the string of my attention and off again, each making space for the next. And the next.

Startlingly high tide in the salt marshes; brilliant late-season red leaves; a huge tractor trailer that puffs diesel exhaust my way; a parking kiosk that shortchanges and befuddles me; India ink that flows unpredictably from an applicator tip; brisk wind that tugs a corner of my painting out from under masking tape; a solution for blocking spam iMessages.

work in progress

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