going deep, Monotype of the Day #819

Day 87 of year 3

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ― Thomas Merton , No Man Is an Island

The life of the studio has the same ebbs and flows as everywhere else. Some days or weeks are easy and joyful, some are difficult, and some can feel like trudging through mud. Right now I'm experiencing a bit of a malaise with my work. The darker more muddy colors this month seem to reflect that. When Matisse said "Creativity takes courage" he may have meant the courage to express yourself or to break norms, but there is another type of courage. I it see in my fellow artists, the courage to show up and do battle with the self, to create in the face of every self judgement, every moment of resistance, and painful or uncomfortable feeling that spills out in the work. I am grateful everyday for their example to guide me. More than anything else, to adapt Thomas Merton, being an artist is a journey of finding the self in order to lose the self. It is a journey of deep transformation leading the artist ever deeper to the loving arms of The Artist.

For more information about the process of monotype and the Monotype of the Day project click here.
You can purchase this monotype here.

boat, Monotype of the Day #685

Day 315 of Year 2 (Actually Day 320)

Tonight I made a print with 6 layers hoping each time it would work but it never came together. I had to force myself to stop and make this posted print for tonight. I will revisit the layered piece tomorrow. Sometimes work needs space to unfold. Tonight's piece is at the opposite extreme, it's under layered. But, that's okay, not every night is a success and success is not exactly my goal. Though I prefer successful pieces, my goal is to stick with the process, listen, and remain present. I am so deep into my garden that it's hard to pull my energy out and work in my studio. I tend to be extremely singled minded so I am happy I am able to keep this project going in the face of my garden's siren song. Tonight's poem relates more to my garden than this print I think, but you be the judge.

O Sweet, Irrational Worship
By Thomas Merton

Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.

By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,

Bird and wind.

My leaves sing.

I am earth, earth

All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.
A tall, spare pine

Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.

When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!

I am earth, earth

My heart's love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.

I am earth, earth

Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.

Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.

Selected Poems of Thomas Merton https://amzn.to/2M4DVyL

moonlit song, Monotype of the Day #630

Day 260 of Year 2 (Actually Day 265)

I hope you are all safe and well. I'd love if you would comment on this post and let me know how you are doing. Trying to loosen things up a bit tonight and work quickly. It's been a while since I did this and it's so important to do now and then. It gives the body and muscle memory a chance to reintegrate with the mind. Without these exercises, it's easy to get too careful and start thinking rather than listening. There is nothing more important to my process than listening. I've included a picture of the plate with ink just for interest. xoxo

In Silence
By Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?) be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves. “I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?” From The Strange Islands https://amzn.to/2UGe99k
Found on Poetry Chaikhana https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2013/09/27/thomas-merton-in-silence-2/
Poetry Chaikhana is an amazing amazing website for sacred poetry, check it out!

touched, Monotype of the Day #393

Day 28 of Year 2

Exploring and evolving yesterday's image a bit more. I did a number of monotypes on this theme today. Something about it fascinates me. There is a particular energy running through. I want the top and bottom hands to meet and communicate but it hasn't happened yet. The desired handshake may or may not be in the cards, tomorrow will tell.
Happily, I have been feeling well enough to start walking again for the first time since spring. Making art is a full body activity. As soon as I started walking, things started to move on some larger pieces I am working on for my solo show at Clerestory Fine Art in January. So much muscle memory, intelligence, and emotions are stored in the body. It has so much to communicate beyond what our minds know. If you leave the body out of it, you are robbing yourself of rich layers of meaning. I am grateful to be moving again and deepening the communication between my mind, body, and artwork.

Closing Prayer, Thursday
By Thomas Merton from his Book of Hours

And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.

the artist's hand, Monotype of the Day #303

I felt the circling birds in last night's print were too tight. They nagged at me all day wanting to be looser. They wanted to leave more space to be filled so I did my best to listen. A poem tonight by Thomas Merton.

In Silence
by Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves. “I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

Happy Birthday Thomas Merton

Oh Sweet Irrational Worship
Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.

By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,

Bird and wind.

My leaves sing.

I am earth, earth

All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.

A tall, spare pine
Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.

When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!

I am earth, earth

My heart's love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.

I am earth, earth

Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.

Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.
-Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk who believed deeply in contemplation and interfaith dialogue. The Website of Unknowing has a great overview of his life.The video below is of the dedication of Thomas Merton Square in Louisville Kentucky. It made me tear up around the 4 minute mark when they had representatives from about 8 different religions taking turns reading Merton's Shining Like the Sun Vision. He was a great man. I am really looking forward to sculpting him as part of my Mystic Vessel series.Here is the direct link for my email subscribers.

The Virgin Mary as Artist's Exemplar

Post Updated: I've bumped up this post from last month because I added photos of the sculpture it inspired at the end.This poem by Thomas Merton is, perhaps, the most beautiful and moving Mary poem I have ever read:

The Blessed Virgin Mary Compared to a Window
Because my will is simple as a window

And knows no pride of original birth,
It is my life to die, like glass, by light:
Slain in the strong rays of the bridegroom sun.

Because my love is simple as a window
And knows no shame of original dust,
I longed all night, (when I was visible) for dawn my death:
When I would marry day, my Holy Spirit:
And die by transsubstantiation into light.

For light, my lover, steals my life in secret.
I vanish into day, and leave no shadow
But the geometry of my cross,
Whose frame and structure are the strength
By which I die, but only to the earth,
And am uplifted to the sky my life.

When I became the substance of my lover,
(Being obedient, sinless glass)
I love all things that need my lover’s life,
And live to give my newborn Morning to your quiet rooms,
-Your rooms, that would be tombs,
Or vaults of night, and death, and terror,
Fill with the clarity of living Heaven,
Shine with the rays of God’s Jerusalem:
O shine, bright Sions!

Because I die by brightness and the Holy Spirit,
The sun rejoices in your jail, my kneeling Christian,
(Where even now you weep and grin
To learn, from my simplicity, the strength of faith).

Therefore do not be troubled at the judgements of the thunder,
Stay still and pray, still stay, my other son,
And do not fear the armies and black ramparts
Of the advancing and retreating rains:
I’ll let no lightning kill your room’s white order.

Although it is the day’s last hour,
Look with no fear:
For the torn storm lets in, at the world’s rim,
Three streaming rays as straight as Jacob’s ladder:

And you shall see the sun, my Son, my Substance,
Come to convince the world of the day’s end, and of the night,
Smile to the lovers of the day in smiles of blood;
For though my love, He’ll be their Brother,

My light – the Lamb of their Apocalypse.
-Thomas Merton- 1944

I feel this poem physically. It engages my spirit, my mind and my body. I can not put words to the way this moves me.I am devoted the Virgin Mary on many levels, but today I will talk about Mary as Womb, the physical location of creation. As pure Vessel for God’s Light, she is the ultimate exemplar for the artist. Just as Franciscan monks in the Middle Ages sought to imitate Christ as a spiritual path, so the artist must seek to emulate, in however imperfect a way, the path illuminated by Mother Mary. Merton describes her state:

"It is my life to die, like glass, by light:"

and

“When I became the substance of my lover,(Being obedient, sinless glass)I love all things that need my lover's life,And live to give my newborn Morning to your quiet rooms, “

The artist must strive to be empty, to be clear of "self", to become wholly filled with the fecund stream of Divine Creativity. Then this endless wellspring is constantly seeking to pour through the artist so that it may be joined with matter in the act of making art. This is the artist's sacred duty, channeling Above into below. (I written a lot about this see the "Making Art Category" of this blog for more.)This poem also tells us that true union and emptiness come without fear. Translated for the artist: true creation, without trying control Creative energy but in partnership with it, provides a release from creation anxiety and fear. It is the process of trying to control that creates fear. The artist must become, as Merton so beautifully describes "like glass". This is something I am beginning to know again after many years of intense creation anxiety.

Therefore do not be troubled at the judgments of the thunder,
Stay still and pray, still stay, my other son,
And do not fear the armies and black rampart
sOf the advancing and retreating rains:
I'll let no lightning kill your room's white order.

I am so grateful for this poem. Any poets out there, keep writing and take heart. Poems can transform lives.This sculpture was inspired by this post and visa versa. These are photos of it in process. I'll post more after it has been fired and glazed.Thanks for looking!

Freedom in the Studio

Oh Sweet Irrational Worship
Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.

By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,

Bird and wind.

My leaves sing.

I am earth, earth

All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.

A tall, spare pine
Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.

When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!

I am earth, earth

My heart's love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.

I am earth, earth

Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.

Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.
.-Thomas Merton

I had an amazing day at the studio! I was totally inspired by the video I posted yesterday. I realized that there is still a part of that edits my artwork in an effort to please people. I am sensitive to the fact that an image maybe too shocking, too unfinished, too too…. I never understood this before, and I see that I am unconsciously trying to control the way Divine Creativity flows through me.So talking Vanessa Hildary as my exemplar, I drowned out my judging thoughts. I took other people out of the equation and just worked on a group of clay sketches. Quick and fun and totally, totally freeing. I’ll post some photos soon. I didn’t have my camera with me. I can’t tell you the last time I enjoyed myself so much!