Day 36 of Year 2
I totally overdid yesterday. I was at a family wedding and sometimes it's worth it. But today, I barely moved, that is until I got into the studio. Somehow the energy I find in there is always enough to squeeze out at least one print no matter my state- exhaustion, fever, truculence ☺️, you name it. It is the generous gift of The Artist to the artist and I am grateful. Now the creative surge has ebbed and I am off to bed. xo
Day 35 of Year 2
Most of my work depicts an internal landscape even when it looks like a traditional rendering of the external world. I have had an exceptionally busy week. The noise from the grit and grind of life sometimes drowns out the inner voice an artist needs to hear to work. When that happens, an image of emptiness and quiet like this one is salve to a disordered mind. It acts as promise of what can be and also a remembrance of that deep interior spaciousness that allows the creative flow to come through. Images can hold the power to change and reorder energy. Many times it doesn't matter whether an image is "good" or "successful" as an independent work of art. A working artist will make hundreds of images. Some of them will be successful in terms of color, composition, etc., some will be successful because the change their maker even if visually they are not as strong, and some will do both. This is why I try to reserve judgement while working. Later after the work rests I can see more clearly what type of work it is. For tonight, it is enough to see and experience the empty space in this piece and to feel it shifting my internal landscape to a more peaceful place.
When I Met My Muse
By William Stafford
I glanced at her and took my glasses
off—they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. “I am your own
way of looking at things,” she said. “When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.
Day 34 of Year 2
I'm really loving orange tonight. It moves me deeply, I feel it working it's magic, warming my cranky heart. I was a bit out of sorts earlier. Colors do work magic on an artist, you can't help but be changed by the energy and vibration each color holds. My use of color has often been instinctive. That instinct is more about the energy I need to feel flowing through me than what a piece rationally needs, eg blue for sky or the spectrum of skin tones for flesh. Here I needed orange and blue to get my head back on straight. Thankfully they were happy to oblige.
No poem tonight.I was lucky enough to see an amazing live performance this evening. I want it to fill my head a bit longer. There is no space for even the beauty of poetry.
Day 33 of Year 2
Titles are the worst. 😜 It's hard to switch your brain from making images to defining them through words. I reserve the right to re-title any monotype in this series in the future!
Experimentation is tonight's theme. The orange and blue are ghost ink from last night's print. I rolled them over with white. The old white ink was extremely opaque and would have yielded very different results. This is too subtle for my tastes, the birds around the orange are just barely noticeable. The second layer, the face, is also more muted than I had hoped. But, part of this project is posting the successes, failures and experiments, so I am. I miss my old ink though. It was a different kind of partner, one that encouraged abandon and experimentation. Unfortunately though, it had some technical issues that became problematic. The newer ink demands carefulness and is more intellectual to work with. I am going to start experimenting with mixing the two. The new ink is better for color and doesn't have the same technical issues. Where there is a will, there is a way and I will find that way! 🙂
You and Art
By William Stafford
Your exact errors make a music
that nobody hears.
Your straying feet find the great dance,
walking alone.
And you live on a world where stumbling
always leads home.
Year after year fits over your face—
when there was youth, your talent
was youth;
later, you find your way by touch
where moss redeems the stone;
and you discover where music begins
before it makes any sound,
far in the mountains where canyons go
still as the always-falling, ever-new flakes of snow.
Day 32 of Year 2
If you look closely at this monotype, you will see the ghost image from the leftover ink of last night's print. I'm becoming obsessed with these ink remnants because I can feel their purpose. My first memories of making art are from about 4 years old in preschool. I made faces of strange and monstrous creatures from clay. It was clay that first taught me art materials have inner purpose and desires. Clay is teeming with life, filled with microbes and molds, and is an active participant in making art. If you don't listen to the clay, it won't cooperate, structures will fall apart and cracks will form. Sometimes you will come to clay with an idea only to find it has other, better ideas if you will only listen. The same is true with ink. From the moment it is applied to the plate, it leads the way, gently nudging me to a final image. We are partners in exploration, each made better by the other's creative impulse. Letting go of fixed ideas and surrendering to this partnership is an important part of making art. The leftover ink on my plates calls out. I can feel its desire to express itself. Who am I to deny it its purpose?
Let it go
By Danna Faulds
Let go of the ways you thought life would unfold:
the holding of plans or dreams or expectations–Let it all go. Save your strength to swim with the tide.
The choice to fight what is here before you now will
only result in struggle, fear, and desperate attempts
to flee from the very energy you long for. Let go.
Let it all go and flow with the grace that washes
through your days whether you received it gently
or with all your quills raised to defend against invaders.
Take this on faith; the mind may never find the
explanations that it seeks, but you will move forward
nonetheless. Let go, and the wave’s crest will carry
you to unknown destinations. Let it all go and find the place of
rest and peace and certain transformation.
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.
Day 30 of Year 2
Proverbs and Songs V
By Anthony Machado, trans. Robert Bly
Between living and dreaming
there is a third thing.
Guess it.
Day 29 of Year 2
Tonight, I really got caught up in chasing this idea. I made many monotypes and, as usual, I am up too late! But it's important to follow the energy in the studio. If you're in the midst of a creative wave, you have to ride it not waste it. And if you are in an ebb, you show up and trust that the next wave is on its way.
Tonight's poem is by Fakhruddin I raqi, a 13th century poet writing in Persian, Trans. Chittick and Lamborn Wilson
As sunlight is attributed to the moon, so is the Beloved's form ascribed to the lover; but in truth
each image painted on the canvas of existence
is the form of the artist himself.
Eternal Ocean spews forth new waves.
"Waves" we call them; but there is only the Sea.
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.
Day 27 of Year 2
This one is subtle, look for the head at the bottom. It’s hard to get the detail in the photo. ...that passeth all understanding
By Denise Levertov
An awe so quiet
I don’t know when it began.
A gratitude
had begun
to sing in me.
Was there
some moment
dividing
song from no song?
When does dewfall begin?
When does night
fold its arms over our hearts
to cherish them?
When is daybreak?
Day 26 of Year 2
I wanted to work more on last night experiments, but again my ink had other plans. I've noticed over the past month that the images coming through are much more peaceful. I feel them slowly changing me as a river erodes a rock, carving out a space for this new energy to enter my life.
A Celtic Blessing of Light
By Anonymous
May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine upon you and warm your heart till it glows,
Like a great peat fire, so that the stranger may come
and warm himself at it, as well as the friend.
And may the light shine out of the eyes of you,
like a candle set in the windows of a house,
Bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain be on you - the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up,
And shed their sweetness on the air.
And may the blessing of the great rains be on you,
that they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool, and sometimes a star.
And may the blessing of the earth be on you - the great round earth;
May you ever have a kindly greeting for people you pass
as you are going along the roads.
And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly.” https://allpoetry.com/A-Celtic-Blessing-of-Light
Day 25 of Year 2
Today I had another really lovely studio visit. It's always such a pleasure to have people over and get to know them better. During the visit we looked through some monotypes from a particularly difficult time with my health. It was wonderful to see how far I've come and I'm grateful I have moved past that time. But seeing those images again felt like a weight. It's not good to carry that energy around, so I decided to let loose in the studio and play to dispel it. I started experimenting with overlaying images last night and pushed it a little farther tonight. There is a certain excitement that comes when you have absolutely no idea how something will come out and no expectation of creating a "finished" piece. It's strange that something so benign can feel so risky, but it does. Really all of life can be found in the studio, love, grief, joy, pain, adventure, risk, courage, it's all there for the taking.
Hawks
By Lynn Ungar
Surely, you too have longed for this --
to pour yourself out
on the rising circles of the air
to ride, unthinking,
on the flesh of emptiness.
Can you claim, in your civilized life,
that you have never leaned toward
the headlong dive, the snap of bones,
the chance to be so terrible,
so free from evil, beyond choice?
The air that they are riding
is the same breath as your own.
How could you not remember?
That same swift stillness binds
your cells in balance, rushes
through the pulsing circles of your blood.
Each breath proclaims it --
the flash of feathers, the chance to rest
on such a muscled quietness,
to be in that fierce presence,
wholly wind, wholly wild.
Day 24 of Year 2
I really love working from the ink left over from the previous night's plate. When I changed inks in May, the ink was too stiff and wouldn't give up a ghost print (a second, but lighter print from a monotype plate). But I've finally gotten the consistency worked out and it's such a joy to have this way of working back. You learn many lessons while making art, not the least of which are never give up and patience. If something isn't working, I set it aside and practice patience. In art as in life, you can't force things to turn out the way you want, but this doesn't mean you have to give up. You can hold your intention and wait for the proper time remembering everything cycles. Have faith.
Seek patience*
By Maya Angelou
Seek patience
and passion
in equal amounts.
Patience alone
will not build the temple.
Passion alone
will destroy its walls. *This poem/quote is all over the internet. I didn't get it from a book and I can't find any source for when/where it was said. However, I also don't find anyone disputing Maya Angelou said or wrote it. Anyway, I love the sentiment none the less and I'm ordering a book of her collected poetry to explore her work more. xo
Day 23 of Year 2
So today I had someone advise me to stop writing posts with my images. They had never looked at my work, they just thought writing about art is boring. I was irritated, I won't lie. ☺️ You have to develop a strong backbone to be an artist in the world. So many opinions, most from a place of trying to help, but some that try to pull you down and control. I planned to make a piece titled "the artist stands up for themself", but as you can see the ink and the Artist (with a capital A) had other plans. The artist (with a small a), that's me, had no choice but to follow along. Some images are instructions to the artist. This one is demonstrating a place of peace and emptiness that comes from detachment. Art is a calling and I do what I must. Once a finished piece leaves my hands though, my job is done. The world is encouraged to have it's opinions, but an artist must hold the space for more work to flow through and not get distracted by the judgments of others. xoxo
Day 22 of Year 2
The hanging person is back. The meaning of this symbol is not clear to me yet. I only know it needed to be made again to stop it kicking around my head demanding attention. Images are like that, they are not passive. Some float through without much ado while others pester you, throw tantrums, and generally make trouble until their message is heard. I hear by making.
The Law that Marries All Things
By Wendell Berry
1.
The cloud is free only
to go with the wind.
The rain is free
only in falling.
The water is free only
in its gathering together,
in its downward courses,
in its rising into the air.
2.
In law is rest
if you love the law,
if you enter, singing, into it
as water in its descent.
3.
Or song is truest law,
and you must enter singing;
it has no other entrance.
It is the great chorus
of parts. The only outlawry
is in division.
4.
Whatever is singing
is found, awaiting the return
of whatever is lost.
5.
Meet us in the air
over the water,
sing the swallows.
Meet me, meet me,
the redbird sings,
here here here here.