As the World Turns

I sit in the living room of my grandparents' home in Connecticut as a child of maybe seven years. An ironing board is set up in front of a television. My grandmother's part-time housekeeper, Bertha, presses a hot iron to dampened cloth, creates hisses of responding steam, and brings each item of clothing to crisp wrinkle-free majesty while I am simultaneously introduced for the first time to a soap opera, As the World Turns. 

As the world turns, and turn it does, change is the name of the game. As 'my' bit of this world has turned, a year has now passed since my last 'routine' overnight visit to hang out with my dad in his home in Maine. An emotional touchpoint. So many changes.

detail, work in progress
one change after another as I move along

Behind the Curtain

The Wizard of Oz told Dorothy to "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" in an effort to distract her and keep his true identity from being revealed but, hey, let's go behind the curtain anyway! 

I love me some art history.

Accordingly, I pull back the curtain to reveal the emerging identity of the painting I posted yesterday, exposing a few of the stages involved in getting to what it eventually became:

Wrangling with Ideas and Romping Through Possibilities

As I wrangled and romped with this painting I became my 5-year-old self—sneaking off the bed where I was supposed to be napping, losing myself in make-believe, playing on a highly textured colorful hand-hooked accent rug. Do you know the kind of rug I mean?

All My By-a-Self

I am mindful today of my younger granddaughter Emmy's former oft-used toddler expression of independence, all my by-a self!

I pop in and out of my studio between various other adventures this morning, with a clear intention of creating a highly layered, intuitive, organic, free-form painting on paper that I can cut into smaller found compositions to send as postcards. My plan is to follow the lead of artists who act as beacons to me in building layer upon layer, a process that intrinsically includes letting go, letting go, letting go as one layer lands on top of and changes another.

Here's what happens when another part of me—another part? who's the first part?—has different plans, doesn't want my help or interference, and shouts, I do it all my by-a self! 

The by-a-self part pulls out a sheet of paper. Has the idea to create some underlying texture. Riffles through a pile of thin translucent sandwich paper to collage to the substrate. Is drawn to a torn sheet previously used to catch wayward splatter. Crinkles it into a ball. Flattens it out. Glues it to the substrate. 

We—the make-layers part of me and the don't-tell-me-what-to-do part—both get fully attached to what emerges. Don't want to add more layers—not one! Can't let go of the terrifically textured wrinkles. Can't let go of the uninhibited splatters.

Hahaha!

So we're letting this afternoon's art have its fame and glory.

No layers today. 

No layers until further notice.

Everybody's happy.

work … not in progress!

Pressing My Nose Right Into Freshly Cut Grass

I get to press my nose right into the freshly cut grass of my new painting but, what with pandemic-induced physical distancing, you don't get to hang out in my dining area and do the same.

So, as in multiple other situations these days, instead of inviting you to open the screen door at my home and walk right in, I invite you to a screen:

detail,
The Smell of Freshly Cut Grass Itching at My Nose

detail

detail

detail

detail

detail

detail

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (17)

On my nightstand

She didn’t think Jack 

had ever felt 

the coming and going 

in quite the same way 

she had. 

To leave, 

               after all, 

was not the same 

as being left.

Anita Shreve, The Pilot's Wife

On my easel

work in progress, 40 days in, 5/28/20
24 x 48" canvas

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (15)

On my nightstand

You've perhaps noticed
how window plants
wind and grow
toward the light,
pressing their leaves
against the pane.
This turning toward the light
has a scientific name:
… heliotropism.
Jung spoke of a 
'human heliotropism.'
The True Self
seeks the light,
winding and growing
toward realization,
pressing against
the windowpane
of consciousness.

Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits


On my easel

heliotropic work in progress, 36 days in, 5/24/20
24 x 48" canvas

The Other Half of Another Then and Now

Again, I play with an old piece from nearly four years ago, a piece whose other half recently became a birthday card while this half becomes a postcard to send to my dad. Alone in my studio, I get completely lost in the textured richness of creating a tiny world on a few square inches of paper. I confess I will feel a little tug of loss when I place it in my mailbox to begin its journey away from me to Maine. Away though it will go, I will cherish and hold onto the little gift of gain that comes from becoming aware of how much making I have done in the past four years—I am delighted by the ways in which the get-messy exploration of those years infuses itself into this revised piece.

A Sequestered Saturday Morning
4 x 6"; acrylic, oil pastel, and collage on drawing paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2020 upgrade of a 2016 piece

Changing Course

I thought I was painting a field of wildflowers.

Work-in-Progress said, Nope.

I mixed up more greens and grays, covered the pops of wildflower color, added texture with gel medium, used India ink to introduce asemic writing, waited for my next operating instructions.

detail; greens and grays

detail; texture

detail; asemic writing

work in progress

Positive Negative

Took a start from a few weeks ago, part of which I'd previously used to make a postcard using negative-space painting.

Decided to use negative space differently this time. Embellished my start from June to my liking first. Loved the process, love the product.

In fact, I think I need to get a job painting collage paper. Wouldn't that be so cool?

But I digress.

Next, painted a sheet of canvas paper to be my negative space, so to speak. Again, loved the process, love the end result. It was hard to photograph to satisfaction, but the subtleties here delight me.

Started putting the two together. A perfectly positive 'negative' experience!

work in progress

Exams

Once I (a) recognized and (b) set aside the unconscious mindset that I was taking an exam upon which my life depended and for which I hadn't prepared, and (c) saw this work in progress as the basic color-mixing and composition study that it is, I (d) relaxed more receptively into the process.

However, calling this a study puts a whole new spin on the word.

I sure never studied this hard when I was in school.

Just sayin'.

Could stop here and might be wise to do so.

…

newest patch (finished? not finished?)

detail

new patch in the bigger picture,
work in progress,
working title: Core Values
[and, yes, our lawn does need mowing]

Horticultural Happy Place

Sometimes ya gotta roll up your sleeves, risk a few prickers, do some gentle dead-heading, tease out a weed or two, and get soil under your fingernails.

Who'da thought I could rescue these blooms?

Risk a Few Prickers and a Bee Sting
4.5 x 6"; acrylic, ink, collage, and pastels on paper
abstract floral
2017
sold

The photo below shows where I started today.

So much hands-on learning here. I had to cover up the bits I wanted to "undo" in such a way that they wouldn't bleed through. I had to interact with all four major color fields in the painting, remixing those colors from scratch based on vague memories of what I'd created six days and one country away from today's starting point.

And I did it!

Green Thumb

Dave is the master gardener in our family.

I am a humble apprentice.

The Saturated Dreams of Chlorophyll and Sunlight and Water
4.5x6"; acrylic, ink, and collage on paper
abstract floral
2017