the fountain, Monotype of the Day #794

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Day 62 of year 3

This is the ghost print from last night's plate with another layer on top. I've used tonight's poem by Rilke before but from a different translator who gives it a slightly different flavor. I so wish I could read it in the original German!

Sonnets to Orpheus II, XII By Rilke, Trans. Barrows and Macey

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

From In Praise of Mortality https://amzn.to/33tnNiq

For more information on purchasing this monotype click here or see “Buy Art” in the menu above.

an earful, Monotype of the Day #793

Day 61 of year 3

This is a black ink print over an older color print. It's challenging to get the right color on darker prints when editing photo but this is pretty close. I like the mystery of it. It very much captures how I'm feeling right now. There are certain poems that call you back over and over. Tonight's poem by Lynn Ungar is one. If you haven't read her work, a link to her book is at the bottom and she publishes new poems on Facebook regularly.

Salvation
By Lynn Ungar

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part — the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?

Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven’t you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything,
makes everything
beautiful, without exception?

From Bread and Other Miracles https://amzn.to/3bUHvYA

For more information on purchasing this monotype click here or see “Buy Art” in the menu above.

raising the bar, Monotype of the Day #792

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Day 60 of year 3

I'm returning to my roots. I haven't worked in black ink for at least a year. It's soothing, a mental reset. The colors of my current ink choices have me feeling a bit fed up. Because I'm only able to work with water soluble inks, my palette is considerably limited. Limits can be a good thing, they force you to stretch and think creatively but some times you just need to run free. So I'm giving color a rest for now. Overall, I'm in sort of a weird place with my work the last few weeks. It feels uncomfortable. I'm working on embracing this place of uncertainty rather than judging it. I know whatever is going on, it's necessary to my process. At the same time, my desire to spent more time on larger project is growing. Like many artists, my work has been upended by COVID. Projects that I had been working on for a traditional gallery setting prior to quarantine stopped feeling relevant. Finally though, new projects are beginning to sprout and I look forward to seeing what unfolds. I'm been reading a lot of Rilke lately, the poem below is speaking to me tonight.

I live my life in widening circles
By Rilke, Trans Barrows & Macy

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

From Rilke's Book of Hours https://amzn.to/2ZxWMJH

For more information on purchasing this monotype click here or see “Buy Art” in the menu above.

you are welcomed, Monotype of the Day #791

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Day 59 of year 3

I have been feeling unsatisfied with my work the past couple of weeks. I'm sharing this because it a natural part of the process of working. Interestingly it doesn't necessarily correlate to the quality of the work. An artist can make phenomenal work and still not feel good about it. This is an internal state, part of being human. Just like in other areas of life, some days feel better than others for no good reason, some weeks are just bad. Maybe someday I'll look back on this period and like the work. It doesn't really matter though, what matters is being in the process- whatever it is at the moment good or bad. It can be easy to let frustrated or unsatisfied feelings overwhelm and become reasons to stop working. Working doesn't necessarily mean brush to canvas, it can also mean doing the internal work necessary to allow creativity to flow freely. Once you accept that these states as a normal part of the process, they are easier to be with. They become a passing moment in time rather than a blockade. You only have to wait and the well will fill again. Everything is cyclical. Trust, have patience, and the feeling of flow will return.

Birdsong Brings Relief
By Rumi, Translation Barks

Birdsong bring relief
to my longing.

I am just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!

Please, universal soul, practice
some song, or something through me!

From The Essential Rumi https://amzn.to/3bKYTP6 

you must grow & you can grow (ghost print) Monotype of the Day #789

Day 57 of year 3

"You must change you life" is the final line of tonight's poem, Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rilke. After I named the first print it immediately came to mind. It's about a damaged sculpture of the Greek god Apollo. Although it doesn't exactly fit this piece, I've always loved the poem because it reminds me that there can be great power in brokeness. The speaker in the poem experiences this power and feels the call to transform. A variation of the last line, "You can change your life", has been my motto for many years. My deep belief in this idea, confirmed by my life and supported by my studio practice, has gotten me through some very difficult times. The circumstances of the external world sometimes, probably often, can not be changed but the inner world is always ripe for transformation. True and lasting change in the external world most often comes from healing the inner landscape. When our inner relationship to a situation changes, even though nothing in the world has shifted, everything feels different. These prints are depictions of change and growth in my inner world. (Poem below the title)

Archaic Torso of Apollo By Rilke, Trans Stephen Mitchell

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

From Selected Poems: https://amzn.to/2Zfc1an

roots, Monotype of the Day #788

Day 56 of year 3

The chair keeps coming up. I still have no idea of its meaning. I love that, it allows me to work in a purer way without my mind overthinking and getting in the way. I am curious though... When the time is right I will know. Usually I am working something out internally and once I do, the chair's meaning will become clear.

A blessing on your head and heart for beauty, love, and peace. xo

from seed to bloom, Monotype of the Day #787

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Day 55 of year 3

Saint Francis and the Sow
By Galway Kinnel

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;   
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;   
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch   
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow   
began remembering all down her thick length,   
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,   
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine   
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering   
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

From Three Books https://amzn.to/3haC5JD

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.

choose, Monotype of the Day #784

Day 52 of year 3

Last night's print was the ghost print of this image. It's been over a month since I cleaned my plate and so many surprising images came up on the ghost from prints many days past. Tonight I made several prints, but this image kept calling me. So I worked on it some more and added a few additional layers. This chair imagery is a complete mystery to me. Some times it takes months, even years for the true meaning of a symbol to be revealed. It was about two years from the first appearance of the keyhole to really see its complexity and meaning. This place of unknowing is a place of growth, a moment of filling. So much of deep change happens just outside of our view, beyond what we can rationally grasp. Like the opaque chrysalis, the mystery of transformation is shielded. Therefore, artists must put their faith in the unknown, in the mystery of working, and trust the outcome matters. The truth is that each of us matters (artist or not), what we do matters and who we are matters. The hard part is that most likely we will never know how or why. Our job is to trust that our footprints make a positive difference in this world and to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.