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

keyhole, Monotype of the Day #538

Day 168 of Year 2 (Actually Day 173)

Happy new year! The colors of yesterday's print (12/31/19) felt dense and heavy though the imagery was open, I didn't want to bring that into the new year. So something more dynamic and light was needed for today. I started with the heavy ghost ink from last night's plate and physically shifted the imagery and ink to be energetically lighter. I find this to be a powerful tool for change. Often when I am making a piece, an image comes out that makes me feel uncomfortable. Generally I know the meaning of what I've made, but when my discomfort causes me to change it, I no longer understand my work. This shift into the unknown actually causes me to feel freer and lighter. I am physical changing the external world and shifting the internal world at the same time. It is a magical, alchemical process. xo .


No end to the journey
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Trans. Robert Bly

No end, no end to the journey
no end, no end never
how can the heart in love
ever stop opening
if you love me,
you won't just die once
in every moment
you will die into me
to be reborn

Into this new love, die
your way begins
on the other side
become the sky
take an axe to the prison wall,
escape
walk out like someone
suddenly born into color
do it now

From https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/R/RumiMevlanaJ/Noendtothe/index.html
https://amzn.to/39vnzJT