the drifting boat, Monotype of the Day #432

Day 66 of Year 2 (Actually Day 67)

Something simple tonight. I had to dig deep for last night's piece. Today everything flowed effortlessly mainly because my ink was in charge. I just love sticky old ink, it creates the most beautiful textures. More evidence that cleaning is the enemy of art. Not only does it waste precious studio time, but if I had cleaned up my ink from yesterday, I would have missed out on so much. Old ink has a louder, more forceful voice. It doesn't pussyfoot around with its plans, it lets you know. Interestingly, such a forceful voice wanted to make this image of a drifting boat, the perfect symbol of surrender.

I've posted this poem before, but it is perfect for this print and one of my favorites so it bears repeating 🙂

Midnight.
No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.

by Dogen
Trans. Steohen Mitchell
From The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry https://amzn.to/308LMnI

The Mirror, Monotype of the Day #431

Day 65 of Year 2 (Actually Day 65)

What goes on behind the creative process? Even the artist doesn't know. Hopefully a whisper of that sacred space comes through, something that can't be articulated, only sensed and felt. I can't describe the gratitude I feel for being called to this pursuit, for being allowed to even touch a small part of this mystery. This mystery of creation and change surrounds and carries us through life even when we are unaware of it. Each day in the studio, small and unrelenting, change.

behind the veil, Monotype of the Day #430

Day 64 of Year 2 (Actually Day 65)

Last night I discussed how the earthly and spiritual worlds merge in the studio. There is such a thin veil between between the two. We think they are so distinct, that the spiritual world is so far away, but with silence and listening the veil begins to crack.

This work is paired with "I was passionate" by Lal Ded (also known as Lalla) translated by Jane Hirshfield from Holy Fire, Nine Visionary Poets and the Quest for Enlightenment https://amzn.to/301qLfl & Women in Praise of the Sacred https://amzn.to/301Jw25. Both great books!

Emanation, Monotype of the Day #429

Day 63 of Year 2 (Actually Day 64)

The trip really took a toll on me. I'm moving like a snail around the studio. One of the many gifts of studio time is that when I am working, it's not that the pains go away, but they cease to matter. For that creative moment it's just me, the ink, and the energy flowing through, nothing else matters. It's such a privilege to be in that sublime energy. Strangely, it is as much an earth energy as it is a spiritual one. The two worlds exist at once. While working, I feel completely rooted in the earth and the present moment while feeling the hand of The Artist moving through me. the artist (me) and The Artist working together, master and apprentice. I will sleep and hopefully tomorrow I will feel better, but if not there is still the studio to nourish and heal in the loving embrace of The Artist. (Poem below the title)

Logos
by Mary Oliver

Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.

From Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver https://amzn.to/2LUFsqu

Home at last, Monotype of the Day #426

Day 60 of Year 2 (Actually Day 61)

I've been traveling the past week or so bringing my son back to college and now I'm happily home. It's challenging to print on the road but also very satisfying. I made today's print this morning because I wasn't sure what time we'd arrive home tonight. It felt strange to do that a good 12 hours earlier than normal, like my rhythm was disrupted. I think there is something important to my process in waiting about 24 hours to make each print. It allows time for things to cook internally. I think it effects the outcome. Now that I've done a morning print, I think I will switch to mornings for a while and see if the time of day effects things as much as the waiting period. xo

How to Be a Poet
By Wendell Berry (To remind myself)

i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

From Given Poems https://amzn.to/2Lqg116

This one I found on https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2015/11/06/wendell-berry-how-to-be-a-poet/, but I'm ordering the book tonight!

The Opening (2), Monotype of the Day #425

Day 59 of Year 2 (Actually Day 60)

Still approaching the keyhole. What will be inside? It makes me feel hopeful. I've seen lots of art this week so I feel hopeful and inspired too. However, lifting my arm has been a bit difficult which has made monotyping more challenging. Luckily it seems to be dissipating. I've learned to respect these pains because they always have something to say. Still, and surprisingly, the work is about this keyhole and not the pain. This tells me there are more important things afoot. Patience, work, and listening are all that's required for now.

The Spring, Monotype of the Day #423

Day 58 of Year 2

There is so much sacred poetry alluding to springs, fountains, and rivers. I've always seen these as symbols of creativity, the fundamentally generative stream that undergirds all of life.

The Fountain
by John of the Cross, Trans. Willis Barnstone

How well I know that flowing spring in black of night.

The eternal fountain is unseen.
How well I know where she has been in black of night.

I do not know her origin.
None. Yet in her all things begin in black of night.

I know that nothing is so fair
and earth and firmament drink there in black of night.

I know that none can wade inside
to find her bright bottomless tide in black of night.

Her shining never has a blur;
I know that all light comes from her in black of night.

I know her streams converge and swell
and nourish people, skies and hell in black of night.

The stream whose birth is in this source
I know has a gigantic force in black of night.

The stream from but these two proceeds
yet neither one, I know, precedes in black of night.

The eternal fountain is unseen
in living bread that gives us being in black of night.

She calls on all mankind to start
to drink her water, though in dark, for black is night.

O living fountain that I crave,
in bread of life I see her flame in black of night.

From To Touch the Sky, Poems of Spiritual & Metaphysical Light https://amzn.to/2NUpnnE

the keyhole, Monotype of the Day #422

Day 57 of Year 2

I'm thinking of Alice in Wonderland tonight. Specifically, when she found a key to a door which when opened revealed a tiny passage into a beautiful garden. She was too big to enter so she had to go through many changes to get in. First she grew very large and then she shrunk down very small. It's a wonderful illustration of how much we sometimes have to change to reach our deepest desires.


I'm still waiting to see what's beyond my keyhole, but I'm excited that it has finally appeared after several days of individuals key images. Maybe 6 months ago an image similar to tonight's peaked through. That happens, great shifts in energy are often foreshadowed and something is definitely shifting. What will tomorrow bring?

Excerpt from Chapter One of Alice in Wonderland

by CS Lewis

"Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head though the doorway;"

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-I.html

Something is Afoot, Monotype of the Day #420

Day 55 of Year 2

Something is afoot and I'm looking forward to finding out what it is. This is the adventurous part of art, the not knowing but trusting the process anyway. Just keep showing up in the studio and say yes... Yes

Yes
By William Stafford

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out — no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

From The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems
https://amzn.to/2UIt6WD

it's a mystery, Monotype of the Day #418

Day 53 of Year 2

Many of my images have to do with listening. One of my favorite poets, Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground." I think this applies to visual art too. When a core image repeats over and over even with all the variations, "The Artist" (the creative source) is trying to send a message to "the artist" (me) but it's "just beyond the edge of knowable ground" as Hirshfield puts it. So I have to grow and expand my edges to encompass new ground. Each time this imagery comes through it has evolved which echoes my internal evolution. One day the image will stop coming through all together because it's message and energy of change it brings will have been fully received.

woman, Monotype of the Day #417

Day 52 of Year 2

This is my son's last night at home for a while, he's off to college tomorrow so no commentary and a quick print. I experimented with soap on a plate with dried out ink. I like the effect. The plate is one I cut in half for printing on top of other prints. I love the misshapen, jaggedness of the edges. Filing it away for future use. xo