Surprises and Changes in Direction

Scribbling my way to wherever this painting may take me.

scribbles in progress

At the Water's Edge

I spruce up yesterday's messy-middle work in progress—I mix colors to match early layers, paint additional layers for more depth, bring more fullness and polish to the piece. I get out my ink pens, sharpen the definition of lines, clean up edges. 

Then, nothing. 

The painting isn't in a mood for conversation. It still seems to be in a middle place, now a tidy-middle, a cleaned-up version of itself, a middle that nods off and falls asleep.

I turn my attention to other pursuits.

Some hours later, I return to find that little painting wide awake, chatty, and interactional. It's not shy about prodding and nudging. 

Get messy, it exhorts. Splash around a little! Get some sand between your toes!

So, I do.

Splashing at the Water's Edge
4.5 x 6"; ink, acrylic, and oil pastel on drawing paper
abstract
2022

Coming to Life (4)

If something is going badly,

there are two possibilities:

Either we are going about the right idea

in the wrong way, or else

it is simply a wrong idea in the first place—

in which case

there is no right way to go about it.

—Polly Berrien Berends, Coming to Life

Before:

After:

To Discover What Is and What Isn't
3.5 x 5.5" postcard; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel on card stock
abstract
2020

"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

Complaint Department

Complaining comes naturally to me.

Totally second nature.

A ready default response to all manner of circumstances, no circumstance too small.

Hold that thought, and picture me waiting in the checkout line at Stop & Shop overhearing the following conversation between Louise the checker and the customer ahead of me.

Louise: Hi, how are you? 

Customer: Nothing to complain about.

Graphic-novel-style thought bubble above my head:

SERIOUSLY???

NOTHING???

I CAN HELP YOU!!!

-----

Gratitude/simple pleasures:
• the quiet sifting-down-from-the-sky of just-barely-accumulating snow;
• the reflection on windows above the kitchen sink of metallic decorations from Emmy's 10th birthday party, creating the illusion of flickering colored lights on the leafless pear tree in the back yard; and
• remembering from Camp Takodah days this breakfast-time 200-voice-strong chant—
     ToDAY I'm going to be happy,  
     ToDAY I'm going to be glad,
     ToDAY is the day that's GOing to be,
     The BEST day I ever had!

yet another layer of pasta-pot steam on the window; WIP

Camp Program

When I attended Camp Takodah as a camper, and later as a cabin leader, the programing structure was tight, the rules strict. Infractions tended to be slight, in amusingly inverse proportion to the severity of feared punishment. Sneaking a box of Dunkin Donuts onto camp property after a leaders' night off, for example, was high crime, and we went to great lengths not to get caught.

Lyme Camp is characterized by neither tight structure nor strict rules. And yet I find myself doing some 'sneaking' even here, keeping an eye trained—in this active, busy, be-ready-at-all-times-to-respond-in-the-moment kind of operation that calls for significant presence of mind and availability—for little snippets of time in which I can pick up my paints and a brush without getting 'caught.'

another layer of pasta-pot steam on the window; WIP

What's Cookin'?

You know how pasta boiling on your stovetop expresses itself in steam on your kitchen windows? Its energy and story make themselves known graphically, without words, without sound. And then evaporate, giving a fresh view out the windows.

That's what painting here at Lyme Camp often reminds me of. In about the same amount of time it takes to bring dry orecchiette or linguine to a lovely al dente, my internal energy and story express themselves in paint, without words, without sounds. And then, a day later, or three, dissipate, giving a fresh view as—in this case—a new layer covers a prior one.

today's pasta steam on the window; WIP

What Does She DO All Day?

I have a vivid memory of coworker Mary Jane's stopping by the supervisors' office at Landmark School over forty years ago with her weeks-old son. She was the first of my group of colleagues to have a baby. She reported that she couldn't get anything done—could barely get to the bathroom or take a shower or eat. We cooed over her baby's soft skin, took turns holding him, admired his cute little outfit.

Several of us scratched our heads after Mary Jane left, asking each other, "What the heck does she do all day with that baby? How hard can it be?"

hahahahahahaha.

Not only did we find out soon enough on our own what she was talking about, but also …

here I am at Lyme Camp, scratching my head again at how a life situation can turn a previously orderly, intentional, productive, and in-control modus operandi upside down, inside out, and sideways.

Control?

An illusion.

We're never in control.

We just suspend disbelief.

Or forget.

The Thresholds Where Dualities Meet Each Other
acrylic, color sticks, oil pastel, and pencil on a book page
abstract landscape
2020

Noticing #7

noticing:

• how curious I am about life stories as I meet people on Deer Isle

• how lost I feel of late about ‘my’ ‘painting life’

• how I tighten when I think about packing to leave

• how drawn I am to folks’ stories of decisions and dreams

• how lost I can get in the creative act of painting

detail, work in progress

detail

detail

detail

Summer Morning Amusement

I noticed recently that the quilted spread on the bed in our spare room at the top of the stairs had a bleached spot on it. My knee-jerk reaction was to want to mix up some acrylics, do the necessary color matching, and fix it the way I might fix a painting.

Each time I'd go in that room, the offending spot would catch my eye, irritate me, and have me itching to get out my paints.

Today I could stand by no longer.

Good as New!
88x108"; mixed media—oil pastels on cotton bedspread
2018
[not for sale]

Lake Champlain, Day 8

[entry drafted at Lake Champlain 6/15/18]

Sweet sweet summer day, slipping now into evening's hush as I write from the porch of our vacation cottage with our car mostly packed for our return home tomorrow.

3rd Lake Champlain work-in-progress,
18x24"; mixed media
fifth layer,
paint marker shapes, stencils, ink doodles

final layer for now,
ink and paint-marker doodles, oil pastels, veiling, print collage

detail

detail

detail

Lake Champlain, Day 7

[entry drafted at Lake Champlain 6/14/18]

The days of our vacation layer one on top of the other, each day distinct in its textures, shapes, nuances, saturations, and hues, and all of them together more than any one.

I start a third painting in my vacation series, laying down one idea at a time—before breakfast, after a hike beside a bog where we talk with wildlife management folks installing a beaver baffle, between a trip to the St. Albans Historical Museum and a lakeside walk, after indulging in the guilty pleasure of Island Ice Cream.

first layer,
India ink applied with new calligraphy pen and then a calligraphy brush

first layer,
India ink,
detail

second layer,
oil pastels
detail

second layer,
oil pastels
detail

third layer,
latex paint dripped and manipulated with the handle end of a paintbrush,
detail

third layer,
latex paint dripped and manipulated with the handle end of a paintbrush,
detail

third layer,
latex paint dripped and manipulated with the handle end of a paintbrush,
detail

fourth layer,
gelli plate monoprints,
detail

Lake Champlain, Day 6

[entry drafted at Lake Champlain 6/13/18]

Huh. 

This painting has surprised me more than once as I've worked on it at our little vacation cottage on this little island at the north end of not-so-little Lake Champlain.

Today, still a work in progress but 'finished' for now, it surprises me again when I step back to photograph it: I’ve painted a little self-contained island!

work in progress
18x24"; mixed media on drawing paper

detail

Lake Champlain, Day 5

[entry drafted at Lake Champlain 6/12/18]

We sleep all night with the French doors in the bedroom open to the attached screened porch overlooking Lake Champlain. A Mary-Poppins-like wind blasts the day in with vigor.

I let the fresh-off-the-lake bluster gust through me all day. Love its cleansing, invigorating energy, the intense feeling of charged weather.

collage and neutrals added to work in progress

more shapes, more neutrals

detail

detail

Lake Champlain, Day 3

[entry drafted at Lake Champlain 6/10/18]

We visit Fisk Quarry and Goodsell Ridge on Isle la Motte, a few miles from our vacation cottage, where we see 480 million-year-old fossils. I still can't quite wrap my mind around the following information from a Lake Champlain Committee article (boldface mine):

Imagine sitting in a lounge chair with your feet in the water looking out over a tropical sea. The sun blazes away and the reefs around you teem with life. There was a time, nearly half a billion years ago, when the area we now call Lake Champlain hosted such an environment. This was before life existed on land, before the bedrock of the region had even formed.

At the time, the continental plate upon which Lake Champlain sits today was located in the lower latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Carbon dioxide levels exceeded today’s levels by 14 to 16 percent, and the earth was so warm that practically no ice existed.  As a result, sea levels were much higher and the continental shelf was covered by a shallow arm of the Iapetus Ocean. In this arm, some of the world’s earliest reefs developed.  

Today, most biotic reefs are formed by coral, but at the time of the original reefs, corals had not yet evolved. The first reef builders were instead small branching organisms called bryozoans. Later in time, large cabbage-like stromatoporoids (related to present-day sea sponges) dominated. Over time, other organisms came to occupy the reefs along with the stromatoporoids including the first corals, though corals never dominated these early reefs.  “These structures represent a pivotal moment in the evolution of life on earth, because they are the oldest known, multi-organism constructions on the planet.”

For three days I have been playing with collage, paint markers, acrylics, stencils, pencils, and more, enjoying what I think of as mark-making—until now when I realize I have been layering small branching bryozoans and large cabbage-like stromatoporoids, building an older-than-time reef right here on a piece of drawing paper on a picnic table in front of a cottage in Vermont near the border of Canada.

work in progress
18x24"; mixed media on drawing paper

detail

detail

detail

This Whisper

Painting can yank me completely away from whatever thoughts are swirling in my mind and drop me into full presence.

That's the way it goes today—woo hoo!

I am awake to this whisper of bristles, this buttery blue mix, this wrinkly collage-textured surface, this blazing sunshine on my shoulder, these small muscles in my hand and wrist.

newest patch

detail

new patch in the big picture
work in progress
working title: Core Values

Winds of Change

Sometimes the idea of following an emerging painting wherever it leads is just that: an idea. A thought in my head that makes sense but nonetheless remains no more than an idea, a mental concept vs. a physical action.

But sometimes I let go of directing where a painting will go and actually give myself over to following wherever it takes me.

In fact.

In practice.

Right in front of my eyes.

With the current patch in my bigger Core Values work-in-progress, I was all over the place. I went in with a starting idea and put paint on my blank canvas accordingly—paint that didn't land or look the way I thought it might.

But I liked it, so I followed it for awhile and got a new idea. Put paint in place in accordance with that idea and, of course, it also went other than where I intended.

Back and forth it went: I took the lead, then followed, took the lead, then followed.

Eventually I pretty much let go of bringing ideas to the painting and instead let the winds of change blow me along. I became so thoroughly curious, so entertained, so participatory.

This painting and I went from the iterations posted yesterday,

to here,



then here,



next here,



and finally here:

newest patch

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

Look at these breathtaking close-ups:

detail

detail

Watering and Currying

Slowed down to a four-beat walking gait and headed back to the stable for water and grooming.

Great ride.

The First Time This Happened, I Was Twenty-Eight Years Old
12x12"; acrylic, latex, India ink, and water-based and oil pastels on canvas
abstract
2018

To Unfold Exactly

Deep inside, almost from day one, I've trusted my art to unfold exactly as it will unfold. 

My shallow outside, however, gets a little antsy and doubting at times, wanting to direct and control more than trust. Wanting to hurry things along or achieve a particular result. But for the most part, it is also surprisingly trusting. 

Really, what else can my art do but unfold exactly as it will unfold?

Jane Davies recently wrote about painting studies she'd done, saying: To me, it is important that these "studies" have no pressure on them to BE anything other than the result of a process. If they went directly into the wood stove now, it would be fine; their purpose has been served. I've made them, and I've looked at them.

Those words stopped me in my tracks. I might trust my art to unfold as it will unfold, but I do get attached to outcome.

I would LOVE to experience what Jane describes, to engage wholeheartedly and fully in studies that need be nothing other than the result of a process, to generate pieces that could go directly into a wood stove having served their purpose, with no backward glance from me, no pang of indecision, no grasping. 

My first impulse? Make it happen! do it! set it as a goal! start now! …

Oh.

Yeah.

Trust.

That experience will either unfold in my life or it won't.

Today I painted happily and freely, wonderfully open to intuition and play and experimentation. I was so content in quiet timeless flow in my teeny studio in my little house in the deep cold of winter.

free canvas #2
8x10"
work in progress

Slapstick, an Inquiry

I've been experiencing pronounced inner turmoil in my painting practice of late. I'm hoping the situation will prove to be like occasions I remember from when my children would go into stretches of wild disequilibrium as babies and toddlers, only to suddenly pop out the other side sporting two new teeth or pulling themselves to a stand or surprising me by speaking in complete sentences.

In the interim, in the thick of my own current wild disequilibrium, what to do?

When the word slapstick bubbled up yesterday, I paid attention.

I looked it up. The definition was pretty much what I expected, and it satisfied my curiosity about the literal origin of the word.

The best part, though, was the language used to define:

boisterous action
farcical situations and jokes
broad comedy
horseplay

Yes!

Sounds like as good a way as any to frame a new painting inquiry!

So here's what I'm thinking—controls: slap it on, let it stick; variables: everything else.

I'll work in quick short bursts, letting boisterousness, farce, and horseplay find their way into expression without regard for outcome. Then I'll stop. No fussing, no revision, no extended time.

I'll let whatever emerges, whether little jokes or large disasters, stick, and I'll post as is.

Today, putting the above into practice, I moved along guided by impulse and intuition.

I experienced bunches of discord as well as periodic moments of flow.

I didn't 'finish' this piece—I stopped.

Here it is, as is.

Probably Out of Earshot
4x5"; acrylic, ink, pencil, and oil pastel on heavy manila stock
abstract
2017
sold