the window, Monotype of the Day #356

It's very late. I've fallen off the sleep wagon, but only temporarily for a beautiful holiday night of family bonding. I won't say much more because sleep is calling except I love tonight's poem. This daily print making process has revealed so much to me that is really hard to put into words. I hope some of what I feel and experience in this intimate conversation between artist (me) and the Universal Artist, source of all creativity, spills over to you. xo

This work is paired with by "[Of all that God has shown me]" by Mechtild of Magdeburg, trans. Jane Hirshfield

the artist is alive, Monotype of the Day #355

Ten days to one year! I'm feeling excited about day 365 even though I have no plans to stop my daily prints. I've already pre-sold my one year print. This makes me feel some pressure but, I am determined to treat it like any other day. We shall see what happens. 😊 Today a piece to welcome the holiday. Wishing everyone a beautiful holiday filled with connection, joy and love.

xoxo

the whispering moon, Monotype of the Day #354

Feeling more relaxed than last night! Something interesting came up while working. I had the urge to put the large circle on my image again. Immediate resistance came up, "people will think I'm repeating myself". I almost didn't notice it at first. Luckily, I have a practice of sitting quietly before my empty plate and opening to the inner messages of where to go. The circle kept coming up. It is so important for me to listen deeply and act upon the direction received. If I had let my ego rule and worried about the perception of others, this image and it's message would have been lost. It was important for me to experience this message, something shifted inside. I felt healed. Maybe, hopefully, it's meaningful to someone else too, but that is out of my hands. I wish my work to be like a jar overflowing into the world with the energy of healing and transformation I feel while working, just and the Universal creative energy overflows into me. But I can't know the result of my work, only the process. So, back to the studio ... 😊

From moon wreathed
by Matsuo Basho, Trans. Stryck

From moon wreathed
bamboo grove,
cuckoo song. -

the artist is frustrated, Monotype of the Day #353

The artist (that's me 😊) is frustrated today. So much, but that has to be okay because it's part of life. I'm sitting here and half of me is seething because of all the difficulties I have to deal with just to get into my studio. Sometimes I feel my work is progressing at a snail's pace and I'll need to scream just to release the energy of all the projects still trapped in my head. But, the other half of me is patiently watching because this is just another wave passing through and soon enough things will change.

One happy thing though, I have no idea how I got this effect in the print. It looks much more like a drawing than a print. This will be fun to explore next time I'm feeling out of sorts 😊

Holy Ground
by Ivan M. Granger

Let the vision
of the vastness
you are
leave you
in glorious
ruins.

Pilgrims will come
to imagine
the grand temple
that once stood,
not realizing the wreck made this empty plain holy ground.

Side note: This poet runs the website Poetry Chaikana. It's an amazing resource for sacred poetry. I have his book, but here is the link to the website and poem online: http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/G/GrangerIvanM/HolyGround/index.html

dreaming, Monotype of the Day #352

My mind feels empty of so much of the muck that filled it for so many years and I am grateful. When did that happen? I think it is a combination of showing up everyday in my studio to work (a type of meditation) and my meditation practice, which though sporadic at times has been part of my life for many years. There is so much to just showing up. You can show up for years to what feels like no results and then bam, one day it clicks. Our conscious mind is aware of so little of what is really going on under the surface. All winter the earth rests for spring. It's hard to see the same process in our own lives, but it is there. So I will continue to have faith in my own process even when it make no sense, as is often the case, and keep showing up. Getting the sleep (that elusive friend) I need will come.

When They Sleep
by Rolf Jacobsen, trans. Robert Hedin

All people are children when they sleep.
there's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
-- God, teach me the language of sleep.

the face, Monotype of the Day #351

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 clock, Monotype of the Day #350

I wasn't happy with yesterday's image so I reworked it today. Even though, I'm trying to stretch myself by using the grey, I need the bright colors. They give me life. It's like a physical craving. So I compromised here and used some grey and some red. I feel happier.😊. The past few days, I've been looking at why I often deny myself these critical moments of rest and non activity which are so essential to the creative process. The hands of the clock have faded from yesterday and my image is done a few hours earlier than usual. This is progress. Change is good.

tick tock, Monotype of the Day #349

Interesting evening. I was so determined to go to sleep early and stop working after midnight, but as you can see this did not happen. I have many, many excuses, but I won't bore you with my "stories". Instead I am thinking deeply about the cost to the creative process. Busyness is poison to art. Emptiness, moments of spaciousness and boredom are essential. Although we flatter ourselves that we have such great ideas, truly all that comes is a gift that we filter through our beautifully imperfect forms. Tonight's poem is one that has always brought me solace when I was held back from working, but now I find it is also a message about the importance of down time and in my case sleep. Just a note on tonight's print before the poem. I am so much more comfortable with bright colors. It's really interesting how easily we stick to something that was successful in the past. Comfort is another enemy of art so I am pushing myself to try and make friends with grey 🙂

Gitanjali #81
by Rabindranath Tagore

On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands. Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness. I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers.

xo

contemplation, Monotype of the Day #348

The luxury and problem of my old ink is it never dried. I loved coming to work on a dirty plate with ghost images smeared into it. It was a beautiful source of inspiration. The new ink must be cleaned up everyday, something that goes completely against my nature! 🙂 Greeting an empty plate is more work and requires more contemplation. It's okay though, I stand before the plate and try to mirror its emptiness. This is good practice for other moments in life.

We are the mirror as well as the face in it
by Rumi, Trans Coleman Barks & John Moyne

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the sweet, cold water and the jar that pours.

the artist has heart, Monotype of the Day #347

I struggled with tonight’s print. It’s been a very busy few days and I found it physically arduous to make. I wonder if you can see that in the print? The ebb and flow, easy and struggle, are part of the process. It’s important that seems impossible to fulfill because it inspires you to keep going during the ebbs. I think of this poem by Rumi which expresses such a gigantic wish for his work:

My Work is
By Rumi, trans. Barks and Moyne

My work is to carry this love
As comfort for those who long for you,
To go everywhere you’ve walked
And gaze at the pressed-down dirt.

How that desire must have propelled him forward and cushioned his downs, and, in the end he did accomplish his goal. The take away is dream big and let that dream carry you like a river safely through the rapids. The artist must keep working and and trust in the value of their own process.

the artist and the moon, Monotype of the Day #346

Tonight's print is a bit of a surprise for me with it's simplicity and muted colors. I had intended a flash of red tearing through the moon but I found myself unable to follow through in the end. The print said no. I had the good fortune to visit the National Portrait Gallery this weekend and I was inspired by the subtleties of of many of the pieces. I mixed up a grey and this is what appeared, and with no birds! There is an emptiness and spaciousness here that bodes well- the vessel emptying in order to be filled. Silence is hard to come by, but I found some earlier and it made all the difference in this print. PS I decided to post print details every few days. This a compromise between the yes details people and the no details people 🙂 Click in the photos to see the details at their correct size.

On this summer night
by Jusammi Chikako, trans. Edwin Cranston On this summer night

All the household lies asleep, And in the doorway,
For once open after dark,
Stands the moon, brilliant, cloudless.

xoxo

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

the prayer, Monotype of the Day #344

No commentary tonight, just lots of love. xo

Untitled, Monotype of the Day #343

1) The title on this one is eluding me. Take your best shot 🙂 Sometimes, most times, it's best not to force the issue. Things tend to become illuminated in their own sweet time, even that time is not on the schedule we want. Pausing has it's uses, it lets the energy unfold and and run it's course. When you work like I do, it's all about the flow and transformation of energy. So, I'm happy to let this marinate and wait for a title to reveal itself.

2) What's the verdict on the detail shots? Do they add something or should I just post the completed piece? Inquiring minds want to know!

3) xoxo

Alive, Monotype of the Day #342

I posted an image similar to this several months ago when I was in and out of the hospital. It was all black with a touch of blue, rather than red. (Here's the link if you'd like to see/read it https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvsvx1CDNkQ/.) That image was about being held and supported even when we don't feel it, the dark night of the soul. This image feels alive to me. It's the feeling of being okay and supported anyway and also knowing it. It's fascinating how images come up again and again but carry very different meanings. I've included some closeup details for fun 😊

Variation On A Theme By Rilke
by Denise Levertov

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

xoxo