Figure-Ground Perception

Chop, chop!

I swung the blade of my paper trimmer today, extracting slim rectangles from my work in progress.

My eyes kept dancing between alternating perceptions as I worked on the extractions. With the larger context removed, a given piece would present as a deep fathomless black background with shapes floating in what appeared to be outer space, especially when I was working close. Then, I'd perch the piece at arm's length and suddenly I could see thick black lines superimposed over colorful shapes that had receded below those criss-crossed streets paved with a Sharpie chisel-tip marker.

And, of course, that is how my days unfold in any case, always shifting between figure and ground, sorting what in my lived experience is illusion from what is not.

In a State of Pure Attentiveness
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel
on a book page mounted on card stock
abstract
2022
[gift]

On the Receiving End of Unfolding Wisdom
1.5 x 6" bookmark; acrylic, ink, and oil pastel
on a book page mounted on card stock
abstract
2022

[gift]

Scrappy, part II

My dad and mom, born in 1926 and 1929 respectively, are the ones whose early childhood years take place during the Great Depression of 1929-1939. 

I'm the baby-boomer who grows up in a time of plenty but who has a mile-high stack of good-on-one-side paper at the ready for further service, who saves fabric scraps and buttons and ribbon and elastic bands, who reuses items until they are threadbare and beyond re-use.

At some point—before I start painting in 2014? after? can't remember—I begin amassing what becomes a scrumptious and sizable collection of print matter of every hue, collected from magazines, calendars, and junk mail, which I sort by color for use as collage. The best!

When I set out to make what becomes the series of postcards featured in my blog the past three days, I'm not thinking collage. But collage is what becomes the fun and flow of making those cards; collage becomes the fuel that sets my creative energy on fire. 

I rummage through my scrap collection looking first to match the background ink colors of magazine pages to the acrylic paint colors I've brushed into place, a very appealing visual task. Then I scrutinize for words that intrigue or resonate or bristle or surprise. Next come the very satisfying tactile tasks of tearing and gluing. Finally, after making discerning selections, affixing them with the greatest of care, and fussing attentively to detail, I subject the completed work to my paper cutter, letting the blade fall where it will with regard to the art, boldly chopping the completed piece into three postcards!

A scrappy little project from a scrappy little artist.

project as painted/collaged on a 5.25 x 11" piece of card stock

that was formerly a calendar page

project chopped into three postcards 

and rearranged just for fun

Coming to Life (1)

This is indeed the day

that the Lord hath made;

let us be glad 

and rejoice in it!

We have to start sometime.

Now!

We have to start somehow.

See!

We have to start somewhere.

Here!

Polly Berrien Berends, Coming to Life

Before:

After:

Holy Humdrum and Holy Hardship
3.5 x 5.5" postcard; acrylic, ink, and collage on cardstock
abstract
2020

Coming to Life: Prologue

Back in mid-August, I had an itch to generate another series of postcards. Truth to tell, it wasn't even fully an itch; it was more like a barely perceptible sensation that perhaps a stray hair had glanced across my skin and then blown away.

Nonetheless, I brought a hand to the sensation and gave it a quick light scratch.

You know how that goes!

Next thing I knew I was at my paper cutter with a painting exercise I'd done two summers ago.

Here's what had sat in a drawer for two years untouched:

August 2018 painting sketch
11 x 14"; acrylic and ink on card stock (calendar poster)

Here's what I have at hand now:

Scratch scratch scratch …

Making the Cut

I do love my paper cutter.

work in progress