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

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!

More Sweet Chaos

Activating Canvases

This, then, just before five a.m.—

Like confectioner's sugar

sifted lightly on gingerbread,

a dusting of snow on the ground.

I am the first 

to walk my street.

Well, the first in shoes.

Unobserved earlier, a rabbit

has tracked up the gessoed canvas

of our driveway to

pass between the corner

of the garage and the corner

of the back deck.

Another left the safety

of Dale's leafless raspberry canes

to dart across Prospect Street

for the safety 

of the leafless canes 

of our red-twig dogwood shrub.

So, too, no one observed 

the cluster of deer who

ignored social distancing

guidelines to walk flank to flank

up and down the length 

of our hushed street 

before I stepped outdoors

into the velvet dark of predawn

to make my own Thursday morning story

with quiet marks.

---

Later the same day I head to my studio for some indoor mark-making using paint, ink, and collage. Four new chaos layers ready to play with.

Faces 14

I have a fierce urge to shove this guy out in high winds to rough up that mop on his head—he is in desperate need of a hair out of place!

I'm laughing to myself as I realize this is not the first time I've had an urge to take charge of someone else's hair. Years ago I tutored an engaging bright boy who was middle school age. For the two or three years I worked with him he sported a 'rattail' hairstyle, a style characterized by a long thin braid growing downward from the back of his head. Can't tell you how many times I fantasized pulling out a pair of shears and snipping off that 10" braid! It was just begging me to make mischief!

The Friend Who Signs Every Single Photo
of Himself in My Senior Yearbook
9 x 12"; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, pencil, and collage
on drawing paper
abstract face
2021
$45

messy middle flashback:

blind contour drawing 
on top of cool-colors chaos layer

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (18)

On my nightstand

And then she moved 

from shock to grief 

the way she might 

enter another room. 

Anita Shreve, The Pilot's Wife

On my easel

work in progress, 47 days in, 6/4/20
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

On My Nightstand, on My Easel (6)

On my nightstand

When we were growing up, 
being sick was an occasion. 
Mother brought us meals on a pink wicker bed tray. 
Our family even had a separate set of dishes for illness—
blue and white with a dewy rosebud painted in the center. 
The plates were smaller than regular dinner plates. 
"You just don't have an appetite when you're sick. 
There's nothing less appealing 
than a big plate of food!" Mother would say. 
I can still see her shaking down the thermometer,
that whit-whit-whit.

Judy Goldman, Losing My Sister


On my easel

detail—tissue paper collage
work in progress, 16 days in, 5/4/20
24 x 48" on canvas

detail—tissue paper collage
work in progress, 16 days in, 5/4/20
24 x 48" on canvas

Unseen Forces

So many forces at work that we are not able to see with the naked eye.

Harnessing My Belief That Something Wonderful Is About to Happen
7 x 9"; acrylic, pencil, oil pastel, and collage on a book page
abstract
2020

Crawling Around

I invite you to keep crawling around in creativity with me—

last week: blank paper > journaling

yesterday: scribbling

today: collaging with tissue paper and instruction manual pages >
making marks with pastel pencil >
brushing matte medium over mark-making

detail

Namaste

Having a yoga practice helps me bow to myself when I paint, helps me tap the divine spark located in my heart chakra.

Gathered up a little prana today and finished the piece I worked on yesterday, part of my inquiry into painting negative space. I think this piece is the seventh in my series.

---

Before, during, after:

from this 8x10" start,

to this 4x5" quadrant, 

to this coverup, 

to a completed painting.

Holding Vrksasana, Finding My Edge
4x5"; acrylic, ink, collage, and pastels on paper
abstract
2017
sold