worship & worship ghost print, Monotype of the Day $784

.Day 53 of year 3

Yesterday when we walked in the forest I saw the first colorful leaves of fall on the ground. I had that wistful end of summer feeling and today fall colors have shown up in my prints. Change is inevitable. The seasons turn by. Some change is easy and some is difficult, even unacceptable like illness or death. I have spent a good deal of my life learning to accept the unacceptable. I have been ill since my early 20s and I've missed a lot of things. I've struggled and almost died. But everything that I had to go through changed me for the better and opened my heart. This experience has grown in me a deep and abiding trust in my journey. Through everything I've experienced, there has been a greater purpose. I've learned to do what I can to the best of my abilities and trust that what needs to happen will. What needs to happen and what I want to happen are not always the same thing. Trust goes hand in hand with releasing control. This is a lesson that is also learned in the studio. the artist trusts in their own process, the artist surrenders to The Artist.

windows, Monotype of the Day #618

Day 248 of Year 2 (Actually Day 253)

Is this a sunrise or sunset? I wasn't sure until I realized it is both. One way of being is ending as another is coming into form. Now is a moment of deep surrender and trust. It is a moment of unknowing. Our old ways have, at least for the time being, come to an end. The studio teaches so much. In the studio the artist learns to let go and embrace the unknown, to let life force run through them and into the world. By doing this, the artist is changed and healed, enveloped by the greening, generative energy that undergirds all of life. What happens in the studio then spills out and effects the world. If you feel helpless think of the artist. There is little we can do right now to change the outside world. We must stay home, we must wait. But we can look inside, we can find kindness for ourselves and others, we can heal and reshape our internal world and thereby create ripples that positively effect everyone around us. We have lost a lot but all is not lost, we can still make these moments count. Sending prayers for healing and love to all those who are sick or in difficulty. xo

prayer, Monotype of the Day #518

Day 152 of Year 2 (Actually Day 153)

Making art is an act of prayer. The clearer this becomes to me the more, I begin to suspect that every moment of our lives is a prayer too. The seed of the sacred is there waiting to be watered. I learned this and so much more working in the studio. The process of making art changes, trains, and transforms an artist. The product, a work of art, is a bonus gift. Working is everything. It is a prayer of gratitude to the world.

the observer, Monotype of the Day #510

Day 144 of Year 2 (Actually Day 145)

I spent most of the day in the ER. Don't worry, I'm fine. One of the downsides of having a chronic illness is your doctors become overly cautious. After a battery of tests and a waterless day of fasting they sent me home with absolutely nothing new wrong. I arrived at my door at 12:30am. After taking a drink I headed right for the studio. I observed a lot of callousness in the ER today. It's a place filled with people wanting to help. They've devoted their lives to it and I honor them. Yet still, people are people and they get busy, they get upset, they have their judgements. It's a microcosm of the world at large. The trick to being in the ER is to not take it all personally. It's bloody freezing, your fingers are turning blue and no one remembers to bring you a blanket when you've asked. The best tactic is to watch what's happening and see yourself from above as a tiny cog or even an ant in the ER machine. If you attach to your upsets it only brings more suffering. I admit I struggled a bit with this today, more than usual, but in the end I accepted my position and left without carrying any emotional baggage. Every experience is an opportunity for spiritual training. I'm grateful for another day of learning. I'm grateful that I was still able to make my print. xo

like a window, Monotype of the Day #396

Day 31 of Year 2

When I first started the Monotype a Day project, I had strong feelings about going into the studio and let's just say they were not always safe for work. I had a lot of resistance and sometimes I was vocal about it. ☺️ Some days I just plain didn't feel like working but I always made myself anyway. There are still some days I don't feel like going into the studio, but the habit of working is so strong it overrides everything else. I notice I am sick, or cranky, or whatever, I observe it and then I just do it anyway. There isn't even a question so why argue with myself? It's amazing how strong habits are. They can carry you through so much emotional turbulence (worries, anger, resistance, distraction,...) like a strong, secure floor during an earthquake.


I Worried
By Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

midnight, Monotype of the Day #361

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I noticed my figures for the last 3 days have all been kneeling in prayer. It's unusual to make the same pose so many days in a row. Usually unusual things are precious and meaningful if we take the time to investigate. I meditated on my repeated poses and this print is what came. I know I've posted Mary Oliver's poem Prayer before, but it gets to the heart of this print. There is a deep silence, a quietness, which is essential to making art. It has been an incredibly busy few weeks and as much as I love being in the world, my artist soul still craves the emptiness from which new work is born. I am on a quest to find the balance between silence and sound.

Praying
By Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.

Found, Monotype of the Day #357

357.jpg

I am trying to clear my mind. I have been pushing to get all my prints catalogued, my website updated (coming soon) and complete a number artistic housekeeping items. It's a different part of the brain. So tonight I thought for a brief and sublime second I had photographed every print in my studio. But then I found one I had missed and it was so disappointing. Not that it matters really because I just went to my plate a made another. I would have had all my prints photographed for a total of an hour. These silly things the mind gets fixated on! So I knew I had to recenter and connect to what really matters. I love tonight's poem. xoxo

Moments of Joy
By Denise Levertov

A scholar takes a room on the next street,
the better to concentrate on his unending work, his word,
his world. His grown children
feel bereft. He comes and goes while they sleep.
But at times it happens a son or daughter
wakes in the dark and finds him sitting
at the foot of the bed
in the old rocker: sleepless
i his old coat, gazing
into invisible distance, but clearly there to protect
as he had always done. The child springs up and flings
arms about him, presses
a cheek to his temple, taking him by surprise,
and exclaims, 'Abba!' - the old, intimate name
from the days of infancy.
And the old scholar, the father,
is deeply glad to be found.
That's how it is, Lord, sometimes:
You seek, and I find.

the face, Monotype of the Day #351

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I had a really lovely day today with a dear old friend. We visited a botanical garden and I was reminded how important it is to step outside of the busyness of life and feel a different pace, trees and plants move to the slow creep of deep unwavering purpose. It's renewing and offers comfort that everything will find its time and place, even and not limited to an artist finding the time to sleep at night! 🙂

The Bright Field
by R. S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

the artist is here, Monotype of the Day #345

Making art, when all else is stripped away, is a form of prayer. It is an act of faith that working is transformational. Artists can construct all kinds of valid reasons for working, but underlying everything is the reviving, healing effect of making art. By tapping into the fundamental goodness of the creative process, more Light flows into and heals the world. To all artists out there, I say your work is important. The results go out into the world to do their own work, we can never truly know what impact may come. That's not an artist's job anyway, it's a distraction. Our job is the process, the act of creation is a prayer to heal the world.

PRAYER
By Humberto Ak'Abal

May the door of the sun be opened,
may the door of the moon be opened.

Let it be clear in the sky,
let it be clear on the earth,
let it be clear in the soul;

so that the light does not let
the darkness take over
and the markings of our road
will remain.

xoxo

for the birds, Monotype of the Day #328

Some days you just fight with your materials. Maybe it's the humidity or the fact that you didn't clean up enough last time, maybe the ink gods are on the warpath. At any rate, it's a wonderful opportunity to practice surrender. Somethings are just not meant to be and if the artist can let go of what they wanted to happen and let the materials lead the way it may lead to new discoveries. Tonight I learned a few things so, even with a bit of frustration, it was a good night. I can't judge the print without projecting tonight's experience on it so I will trust in the fundamental importance of the creative and let others worry about the result. xoxo

the prayer, Monotype of the Day #319

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When to stop? At the end of a piece, this is always the question. Recently, I've tended to overthink and go too far. So, the past few nights I've forced myself to stop before I think I'm done. The next day I will go back and see if I really needed that last later. Usually I don't. The end of a piece has to be felt, not thought. It's harder to feel when you are tired and this discovery may actually get me to start working earlier in the day. That would be miraculous! Tomorrow I will revisit this print and see if I made the right choice.
Tonight's poem is a new discovery for me. After I made this print, I was flipping through a book of women's sacred poetry. The last 2 lines fit so perfectly, I couldn't pass up posting it. The garden imagery also touches me.

We were enclosed- from Prayer 20
by Catherine of Siena, trans. Suzanne Noffke, O.P.

We were enclosed,
O eternal Father,
within the garden of your breast.
You drew us out of your holy mind
like a flower
petaled with our soul's three powers,
and into each power
you put the whole plant,
so that they might bear fruit in your garden,
might come back to you
with the fruit you gave them.
And you would come back to the soul,
to fill her with your blessedness.
There the soul dwells --
like the fish in the sea
and the sea in the fish.

xoxo