congregation, Monotype of the Day #822

congregation. monotype, 12 x 14”
Sybil Archibald

Day 90 of year 3

I finally cleaned my studio up about halfway. Such a relief! Mess is good for creativity up to a point and I crossed that point long ago. 😊Art doesn't happen in a vacuum, everything in an artist's life is linked. Get out of balance in any area and it effects the studio.

Effortlessly
by Mechthild of Magdeburg, trans. Jane Hirshfield

Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.
Thus we move in His world
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note,
Humanity sings --
The Holy Spirit is our harpist,
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound. –

From Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Cebturies of Spiritual Poetry by Women: https://amzn.to/2GMmQuk

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annunciation, the wait, Monotype of the Day #758

Day 26 of Year 3

All day I tried to get a good watercolor print with no luck. Mess followed mess, much of it due to technical problems. It was terribly frustrating so I went back to my friend, the ink for a few prints at the end of the day. One thing is certain, I definitely appreciate my ink a lot more! Both watercolor and acrylic have lots of possibilities so I'm going to keep at them and see what happens. For now though, I'm still in that uncomfortable in-between place waiting for my flow to return. A new wave is coming but when it will arrive is a mystery. The trick is waiting and remaining empty, holding the space for when it arrives. Waiting doesn't mean stopping work, it means not grasping and not trying to make something happen. It means putting one foot in front of the other and being present so you know when it happens. I think this print captures some of that needed inner spaciousness.

The Avowel
By Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

From The Stream and the Sapphire https://amzn.to/3a97hqO

through the window and morning warmth, Monotype of the Day #704

Day 334 of Year 2 (Actually Dya 339)

Today I couldn't decide which one to post. Which do you prefer, the layered print or the ghost print? All of a sudden, I have a deep urge to take these prints bigger, I mean really big. I have plexiglass on my large table. I'm going start experimenting and see if it's possible to print from it. I normally use a gelli plate which is a bit soft and allows you to print without a press. I'll have to see if the hard plexi will work. But, in order to do this, I have to clean my studio. Ack!!! Since I haven't had a studio assistant to help in a few months and I'm not generally focused on tidying, the place is a bit out of control to say the least. It's definitely nice to feel things shifting inside once more, a new adventure is about to begin!

eyes, Monotype of the Day #665

Day 295 of Year 2 (Actually Day 300)

It's been a month since we got our puppy and the house was an absolute wreck until this evening. Puppy shreddings everywhere. I have limited energy so I don't tidy up as much as I'd like. One day I looked and the piles had become too much. I literally couldn't think straight. Especially in my studio, I felt that mess bearing down on me like a weight. It's a good reminder that art isn't just what happens in the studio, it's the woven threads of the artist's whole life creating a framework for the universal creative flow to come through. If an artist is stuck in the studio, the answer often lies elsewhere. If we tend to our lives patiently, flow will return. This is the cyclical nature of life on earth, every ebb must be followed by a flow. Change is constant and nothing stays stuck forever. xo

tree of life, Monotype of the Day #640

Day 270 of Year 2 (Actually Day 275)

I'm focusing on setting my house in order. Each day my family and I are spending an allotted amount of time stripping away the clutter of 7 years in this house. It feels liberating. The alchemists believed that every external act of healing has a corresponding internal one. I usually feel this effect in my studio. The studio is my great teacher and the lessons learned there spill out into my life, And this goes both ways, strides made outside of the studio inevitably show up in my work. So although I would love to be spending every minute in my studio, I must follow the energy and trust that it all serves my work. At the very least, I will finally have a clean and organized home, I hope! :)

the gift, Monotype of the Day #539

Day 169 of Year 2 (Actually Day 174)

With just 8 days until I deliver my work to the gallery, I've been very busy. With no time to clean my studio at all, today it was just so far out of control I couldn't stand it. I've attached two pictures of the mess and one picture of a light clean I did just so I could think again. After the work is delivered there is going to be a major deep clean and studio organization. I'm generally against spending too much time straightening up but sometime you need to let the old energy go to make room for the new. This is another one of those non-art related tasks that people never think of when they romanticize artists working away in their studios. 😊
Today's print is about the wounds we all carry. The way we chose to carry them determines so much of our experience. I'll delve into this more deeply on another night when I haven't spent so much time cleaning! xo