The ruminations of an artist on art & life...art quilts, beading, knitting, drawing, painting, printmaking, bookmaking are all my passions, I love to explore creating....
I started this painting in mid-winter and it languished until spring...at the time I wasn't sure why I didn't feel like finishing it. But now I see it is about the return of the sun---SPRING!---one of my favorite seasons.
painted with gouache, prisma colored pencils and ink....
this piece also honors all beings...and various areas of our Mother Earth...
The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in Her heaven -
All's right with the world!
~Robert Browning
(April is National Poetry Month..so I will be posting fave poetry here all month.)
I have been ill and so I am remiss in holding the drawing for a HAT hand knit by me. Feeling much better now and so pulled a name out of the hat ;-) and the WINNER IS: ROSEMARY! thanks you Rosemary for your kind comment here, I hope you enjoy the hat!
I wanted the share with folks one of two painting I created for my Grandson's room---when he turned 2 last August I painted two painting for his room. Well, technically, these are more drawings than paintings--since they are created with pen and ink and prisma colored pencils.
One is already framed and hung up and I am shipping this one off this week (why that is so delayed is another whole story...suffice it to say that I suffer from STARTITIS when it comes to projects...not from "end-it-is"). Each painting contains a surprise in the randomness of the alphabet....(hint: what is my Grandson's name?). These were really fun to create.
here is a close up of the little birdie in the tree....
I am currently working on a few more children's designs....zoo animals and so on...so check back.
For my family Holiday gift this past December I created a calendar...for each month I lettered and illustrated a favorite quote...so I will be featuring some of my fave calendar illustrations from that calendar here throughout the year...
These are all painted with gouache paints, and each month used a different font for the hand lettering.
My latest hand painted textile design....
It's all about texture.....with subtle colors.
Quote for today:
"Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future." — Robert L. Peters
a small study for a larger piece I'm now working on.....(I am so determined to finish at least one piece of artwork while I am here in Alaska!)
Creative Every Day : SILENT WISDOM
I once had an art and Jungian psychology teacher who told me it was especially important to pay attention to animals that show up in one's dreams--an animal in your dream usually has special significance. For some reason--unknown to me--I have been attracted lately to images of owls, and so they have been showing up in my artwork and my dreams. In my research of owls and the mythology a surrounding them I have learned that owls are a symbol of the feminine, the moon, and night---a bird of magic and darkness, of prophecy and wisdom. To the ancient Greeks the owl was a symbol of higher wisdom and associated with the Goddess Athena.
To early Christians the owl was associated with Lilith---the wife of Adam who refused to be submissive to him.
Owls have excellent night vision and are nocturnal--and so owls are considered be able to see what others are hiding, or into someone's "dark soul."
My owl artwork here, titled : SILENT WISDOM is on archival paper with pen and ink and prisma colored pencils, and is 9" x 6"
Painted with gouache, pen and ink details, and prismacolor pencils on archival cream colored paper. She's up on my Etsy shop --- so stop by there.
Mermaids have always had a special meaning for me--for many years working on the sea I always "dreamed" I might catch a glimpse of one.....
Today I'm working on a new fabric design in gouache with a bright palette and owls....here is the work in progress:
Over on her blog 37 Days, Patti Digh sent out an invite to artists to illustrate some of the essays from her blog for her forthcoming book. If you have never read her blog---get right on over there and check it out! she has some of the best thoughtful and poetic essay writing on the web, in my opinion.
I decided to try this challenge (as she termed it) and she sent me this essay titled Just Wave to illustrate. She wanted the illustrations to be ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) in size--and we had to have 37 days and the name of the essay somewhere in the illustration.
I chose to make mine a mixed media piece--with my own drawing and artwork, and lace and sewing on the papers with my sewing machine.
I created the art for this essay, Just Wave, in a "creative frenzy"---I just started selecting images from my stash of papers and old sketches, and added lace and started sewing. I sewed on more layers, cut off parts and sewed more--- the piece basically grew as I made it. I did start with an image in my mind, but only a vague image---which included hands and a house---or the shape of a house. The bird is a photocopy of a small part of another painting I made---and I'm still not sure how the bird relates to this essay, but it fit with the art, so into the piece it went. I worked on this all day without stopping at all--even to eat--until it was done, and I was totally absorbed in the creative process the whole time---"in the zone" is how I think of this state. This is one of the highest pleasures for me--finding that creative zone--completely in the moment, creating one piece of art. So for me, most of the time---art making is more about the process than the end product. I found this essay an inspiration, and so slipped into the zone easily and the piece just formed without much real effort like sometimes happens in the studio--on a very good day.
I created a computer illustration for another of her essays the next day; I created this one totally on the computer and I never quite got into "the creative zone." Upon reflecting on the 2 very different creative processes, I began to wonder if I require working with more tactile materials than a computer to find that zone.
OWLS --nocturnal, a bird of myth and mystery. The owl in some cultures is the symbol of the feminine, the moon, and the night. The ancient Greeks associated the owl with the Goddess Athena. This owl just grew from my pen one day while I doodled...sometimes I dream of owls, which are the eyes of the night, seeing what is not in the open....wisdom and secrets. Many consider the owl a bird of magic and darkness, of prophecy and wisdom--so what does it mean when an owl inhabits my dreaming?
And the blue feathers? they just happened one day, also--bluebirds? blue jay? a feather is a symbol of balance and the wind....
I have been obsessed this past week with painting an intricate flower design in the Jacobean style---a large design (17"x 24") in 9 colors. This is an assignment for my Fabric Design classes.
Here are some examples of the details---a small part of the overall design which I have completed so far. These photos were taken at my work desk inside--so the colors are not quite true. First I painted a "ground"--the background color (a beige, with some green in the color)---covering the whole 17" x 24" area, then I traced my design onto the ground, then began painting the design. The designing of the pattern and palette took several weeks--with many changes. I painted several "roughs" of small areas of the design, and revised my colors from these roughs--several times. It was a relief to finally get to the actual over-all painting, once I had my colors all mixed to match my approved roughs. The paint is gouache. The outlining is a red archival Pigma felt tip pen.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts." ---Rachel Carson
Why I Am Not a Painter
by Frank O’Hara
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.
I think I was attracted to this poem because I struggle most of the time to "title" my own artwork--usually after the work is done. For me, much of the time, an artwork's title provides some clue to the artist's intent--but shouldn't the artwork do this without words?
One night a few years ago I could not sleep-- I woke up in the middle of the night and went into my art studio and created this mixed media piece I now call " Button Boy."
A few days before this I had bought on old wooden puzzle back--the part the wooden puzzle pieces were meant to fit into---minus the actual puzzle pieces---at a garage sale. That become the base for "Button Boy"; it wasn't until a few weeks later I figured out just what this piece of art was about. At the time, I was working (my artist's day job) as a nanny for 9 year old triplet boys---this piece was about the triplets and the energy they brought into my life each day.
Over the years I have fairly consistently used my artmaking to unconsciously reflect my life at that moment. Whatever is consuming most of my time comes out of me in some creative way---whether in knitting, painting, drawing, mixed media, or beadwork---if I reflect on what I am creating, there is always a connection. Usually I am not aware of the connection when I am making the current piece---but afterwards I will have an aha! moment and suddenly see the correlation to my life right then.
Most of the time art I create in this mode I end up keeping because the art doesn't fit with the body of artwork I am making at the time and has too much personal significance to part with. I have used this process some--in therapy--to heal myself--but working with a therapist is not the same--if only because we were consciously using art to delve into my unconscious. Whereas, when I just go into my studio and create something--THEN discover later how what I just created is significant to my life---whatever I make is totally unconscious--much like acting out a dream. I am curious if other artists also find themselves creating "unconscious art"?
This morning I decided to share some images from my small art studio walls; some of these are works in progress, some are studies for larger fabric designs, some are just unfinished drawings(or "doodles"), and some are unfinished beaded pieces. Those of you who know me (in person) know I doodle all the time--rather obsessively. I fill notebooks, and sometimes a doodle becomes a fabric design or morphs into a large painting...and or course in between the partially finished pieces, are inspirational quotes and bits of beadwork I have picked up at thrift stores and garage sales. To some, my studio walls may look cluttered--but I only hang up images or pieces that I find pleasing to my eye--and the walls are constantly changing; I think of it as a sort of art-in-progress collage.
This beaded white owl I am creating by embedding the seed beads in wax---someone gave me this bird's nest they found---the nest and finding the "white owl" cigar box were inspiration for this piece. For awhile now I have been doing art mostly about animals and our natural world because much of the time our only interaction with wild animals is destructive to them or their habitat. I believe we must find new ways of thinking and seeing that allow us to approach our relations with other creatures in a way which balances our power over them with the dignity, reverence, and gratitude every living creature deserves.
If you read my bio here, you know I spent over half of my life working on commercial fishing boats in Alaska--hence I have a life-long fascination with sea creatures and mermaids, and with whales, and all aspects of ocean life. Mermaids tend to show up my my artwork quite often--this is only a "doodle" sketch in pen/ink, colored pencils and water color gouache.
Just some of my creative endeavors this past year
Instructions -- Copy the first sentence that you posted in each month of 2006. Post it in the following format:
January
No blog yet...
Febuary
Welcome to my world of beading, knitting, drawing, painting---oh! and I like to play cards and read in my off time--when I'm not in the studio making things.
March:
Well, what a week! I participated in CODEPINK'S March 8th International Women's Day anti-war in Iraq demonstration on Wednesday.
April-May
Oh dear! no posts those months
June
Here you see two examples of some of my latest obsession--beading.
July
An artist friend said to me the other day--"You can use craft as fine art--but you have to make it cutting edge--and have some content to it."
August
"Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art....It is a privilege to be alive in this time when we can choose to take part in the self-healing of our world."
----Joanna Macy. I found myself thinking about gratitude this morning, and then came across this quote.
September
Today I went to the flea market---found some nice fabrics pretty cheap! here are a few photos from the market--just colors and images that caught my eye.
October
The NOT-TO-DO LIST for PROCRASTINATORS (like me)
November
Above are a couple of photos of outdoor sculpture from the Di Rosa Preserve, which I took on out outing yesterday.
http://www.dirosapreserve.org
December
Packages are in the mail...holiday cheer is in the air...I only wish for actual snow.
This is my Perpetual Monthly Animal Calendar (for the New Year), An original inter-active handpainted Calendar; the outer wheel turns to reveal 12 different animals---you can decide which animal you want to show up in which month. This is a perpetual "Calendar" which I really designed and painted more as fine art---painted in guache (opaque watercolors) on archival museum board, with copper trim. I also used some Prisma colored pencils --so this is a mix of guache and colored pencil, with ink outlines. The calendar measures 15" x 15". Animals depicted include: bear, whale, butterfly, racoon, seal, mountain lion, raven, deer, porcupine, mouse, skunk, and fox.
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