Bo's Arts!

My friend Bo, who had to drive out of her neck of the woods past my neck of the woods for an appointment in yet another neck of the woods today, suggested that on her way back home maybe we could hang out together for lunch and then play with art in some way.

Yup, we could.

And did.

I am totally lifted up by what I'm going to refer to as our afternoon of Bo's Arts!

We stepped out of head space and into creative energy—out of chronos into kairos—to make some starts. Oh, the places we've yet to go—can't wait to see what emerges.

Sneak preview of things to come …

Seeking Story

I need an enclosure card to place in an envelope with a check. I open a drawer in my studio, pull out a folder, find a postcard-sized start. Didn't really like where it was going at the time, couldn't think what to do to rescue develop it, tucked it away. Don't even remember when that was.

Today it presents itself with just enough of a new light that I think, Huh. Maybe some neurographic lines. Then, Maybe some meandering asemic writing. Finally, Maybe a few white veiling scribbles.

Yup. 

Gonna stop there and put this little layered and enlivened bit of line and lettering into an envelope and let it head south.

The Story Is Inside If I Know What to Look For
3.5 x 5.5"; acrylic and ink on paper
abstract neurographic
2022

On My Nightstand, On My Easel 8/11/22

On my nightstand:

The implied belief is that we are wasting our time/materials/resources if we are not working towards a product, a finished piece. This belief, so ingrained in our daily lives, is probably one of the most challenging habits of mind to break. And yet I know that if I am trying to make good art, I make mediocre contrived, superficial art. When I get absorbed in a visual inquiry, absorbed in process, allow myself to go "off-topic" or make a mess or try combining ideas to see what happens ... this is when the good stuff shows up. 

Jane Davies

On my easel:

Carol Edan, thank you for sparks of ideas flying through your recent blog post. I grabbed a brush, a few tubes of paint, and covered a sheet of 9 x 12" drawing paper a few days ago. With select folds, a pair of scissors, and a glue stick, I created a simple 3 x 4.5" sketchbook with front and back cover, and six interior pages to play with. Today I developed the covers using a uni•ball ink pen.

9 x 12"; acrylic on drawing paper

9 x 12" page of drawing paper
folded into 3 x 4.5" sketchbook

sketchbook covers, work in progress

Exploring, 4

What I brought with me on vacation: a sheet of collage paper I'd handpainted with a green I'd mixed. No idea how long ago, no idea where the pieces I apparently cut from it were used as collage. Ignoring the irregular shape of the page, I began exploring with ink scribbles and one fully inscribed circle touched by four partially inscribed externally tangent circles:

What unfolded in between outdoor explorations and infusions of sea and salt and salmon and scallops and susurrations and sunlight and scents and stillness and strolls and strides and surprises and sweets and star-studded-skies:

untitled until I decide if this will remain a quirky-shaped single piece 
or become several smaller found compositions
roughly 6 x 9"; acrylic, watercolor, gouache, ink, and oil pastel on paper
 neurographic abstract
2022

Exploring, 3

I've read Cynthia Voigt's A Solitary Blue more than once—in fact, four times since 1989. I was reading it yet again, this time as an audiobook, when the following passage—a passage I've quoted more than once in this blog—filled my ears last week while I vacationed in downeast Maine. 

This had been the pattern

of his days 

on the back creek:

he would move the boat out

until he felt more frightened

than he had the courage to match;

then he would anchor

and wait.

—Cynthia Voigt, A Solitary Blue

The words offer such a fitting metaphor for my typical way of painting. The moving-anchoring-waiting-gathering-courage-moving-again pattern is exactly what was playing out when Voigt's words came my way as I was painting last week. 

The piece I was working on already had a considerable history of moving-anchoring-waiting when I'd set it aside as a finished (or so I thought) painting in 2016. 

After a six-year(!) wait period, I'd pulled anchor and included this piece in what I packed for vacation, thinking I might use it as the backdrop for a new neurographic exploration. 

Use it I did. I added neurographic linework and, for good measure, also threw in a semi-blind contour drawing of trees seen out my cottage window.

I totally lost myself in the joy of process—created messes, anchored, waited, let my courage and investigative energy recover, ventured forth again, resolved one mess and inevitably created a new one, anchored again, waited again, gathered courage again, moved forward to resolution again, created yet another puzzle, and so on. 

Loved every moment.

A Greatness of Air
8 x 8"; collage, acrylic, gouache, watercolor, ink, and
oil pastel on watercolor paper
abstract landscape
2022

History:

'completed' piece from 2016
that became a start last week
for the new work above