What Are We Waiting For?

What are we waiting for?

Any of us.

Ever.

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Never know where I'll go when I enter my studio these days. Here's where I went today with unstretched canvas, acrylic paints, a #12 bright, a 2" hardware store brush, ink pens, oil pastels, and a little metal skewer do-hickey whose original purpose is, I think, somehow related to trussing a turkey.

Went in with questions.

Came out with questions.

Vigil in Room 2
10x8", mixed media on unstretched canvas
abstract
2015
$80

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The journey:

vigil 1, in progress; acrylics

vigil 2, in progress; skewer

vigil 3, in progress; ink pens

vigil 4, in progress; acrylics

vigil 5, in progress; acrylics

Vigil in Room 2
acrylics, ink pens, oil pastels

Downriver a Bit

Still floating, drifting, splashing. Swirling in the eddies of the deep river of the soul. I go where the currents go.

Without a compass, without a plan.

Knowing, not knowing.

This afternoon the stretch of river I traverse is sparkling with sunlight, warm on the surface. I float on my back, face to the sky, no eye to the horizon, no map in hand.

I tear bits of newsprint, glue them to my work in progress. I tear tissue paper, glue pieces in place. I scribble and outline with colored ink pens, scratch out some wordless words.

And that is where I am.

buoyancy 3, 11/4/15
work in progress

Buoyancy
9x12", mixed media on canvas paper
abstract
2015
$108

Deep River of the Soul

Grief is the deep river of the soul.

I float in that river. I yield to the bouyancy of the water, and it supports me.

Where it goes, I go.

I walk into my studio these days with few ideas, no photo references. I float in the river.

Where it goes, I go.

I tape canvas paper to the cafeteria tray I use as support when I work on paper at my easel. My hand reaches for a #12 bright. I dip my brush into one color. Into another. Into another.

The gentle friction of brushing paint onto paper feels just right.

My eyes take in the surprises that emerge.

I grab my hair drier to hasten the drying, then park myself outdoors in the warmth of a sunny November afternoon. With a pen, sitting in a river of light, I trace shapes.

I stop painting.

I keep floating.

buoyancy 1, 11/3/15
work in progress

buoyancy 2, 11/3/15
work in progress

Tuning In

The paper prayers I paint are not prayers of petition but prayers of tuning in, of paying attention, of listening, of becoming still.

Working small often acts as a gift of self-care. Any frenzy or kerfluffle I bring to my studio falls away. I feel myself slow down and become focused.

I am peaceful.

Unhurried.

Open.

I receive it all gratefully.

Amen.

Paper Prayer 19
study/appropriation of a painting by Anne Wood
2x6", acrylic on watercolor paper
abstract landscape
2015
[not for sale]

What Have I Got to Lose?

How is it that absence can have such pervasive presence?

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I just recently became aware—at a rudimentary level—of a technique called negative painting. I know next to nothing about it. But I have my sunny little bedroom-turned-studio, and I have my paints, and I have a canvas board that I found in a pile of supplies.

What the heck—why not experiment with negative painting? What have I got to lose?

I use a plastic palette knife to get a bunch of colors onto my canvas. I work fast, go with my gut. I spritz water over the canvas and scrape with the tip of the palette knife to create some thin twig-like lines of absence.

Instead of painting trees and branches and leaves, I take a brush and paint the negative space that might exist around trees and branches and leaves.

The experience and the painting itself don't quite match what I had in mind when I started.

But what does!

Screw Auger Falls Birches
14x11", acrylic on canvas board
landscape
2015
$154

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Sneak peek at Screw Auger Falls Birches in process:

Sunny Monday, Sunny Heart

[A painting and commentary from the first Monday of October, now being posted on the first Monday of November]

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Today, a prayer of gratitude for a sunny Monday and a sunny heart.

Bright colors on my paintbrush.

Dry air and blue sky.

The keen warmth of early autumn.

I lose myself contentedly in the amblings and softnesses of this little bookmark with its simple radiant joy and its tidy white border.

Paper Prayer 20
2x6", acrylic on watercolor paper
abstract
2015
[not for sale]

To Every Thing

Saying goodbye. Those are the words that came to me when I saw the cornfield on Fellows Road in Ipswich a week ago Monday.

Repeatedly over the summer I'd tried to get a decent photo of that field filled with its growing, then ripening, then ready-to-harvest crop, but what I captured in photos didn't match what I saw live with my eyes, and I didn't paint it.

It wasn't until the day after Muth's death when I saw the field empty of its yield that I snagged a mental image and felt moved to paint.

Here's the thing:

I'm saying goodbye to corn,
to summer,
to an intensive time with my family,
to my mother.

But, to paint any of that goodbye, I need to say hello.

I need to plant a seed, water it, shine light on it, grow it.

I need to take my palette knife and bring an empty canvas to life, layer by layer, tone by tint, scrape by stroke, breath by breath.

Goodbye means God be with you.

I'd say that about covers all the bases.

Saying Goodbye
20x16", acrylic on stretched canvas
landscape
2015
$320