Shades of Grey
April 29, 2009 by Janice · 6 Comments
I love to draw. Always have. There is something about that pull of graphite across paper that does it for me. And when I hold another artist’s drawings in my hands, or look at them on exhibit, I feel about as close as one can get to the person making the marks. There is no middleman, no embellishment, no interpreter of medium necessary.
Just pure and simple graphite tracing impulses on paper.
In the real world of artistic currency, show me an artist’s drawings and you’ve shown me the keys to the kingdom. Pure line. Pure form. And some shades of grey. Rudimentary or refined, drawings are the most direct line to pure thought for a visual thinker. They are concepts, origins, pulse points in shades of grey.
They are story.
I spent most of yesterday drawing. Tangles of trees. Organic lines. Large shapes for areas that need to be left alone, or graded ever so much in 6B. I need some of the paper left open, some of the lines made dark, some of them need to twist and turn. Others not so much. This is ground I have trod. Steps I have taken. Familiar textures and shapes. But this is only part of the piece.
Like leaving a place set for another guest, I’ve left room for more to happen.
In the little orange Rhodia pad are new spontaneous doodles. Four so far. Each one of them capable of being a full fledged piece to work on. They came to me after I let myself get still and relaxed. I was playing with an intersection of what I thought were two entirely different things. Not so. We’ re going to put them together. That pad is for capturing things just like that.
Yes, set some experiments up, step out on a limb a bit and ideas start presenting themselves.
Capturing is essential. Because after I saw those doodles, I pulled out another sketchbook and saw some similar sketches done immediately after the storm. And the notes that I had made with them. Hmph. This experiment series has been waiting for me. Patiently, but waiting nonetheless until I could stop and listen.
Oh, it needed some more elements, it needed some time to pass, but here we are now. Right here, right now. I am present… and I have plenty of pencils. I have a few sheets of paper. I am listening and capturing and playing in shades of grey. And things are getting good. Really delicious, I hope. Because the marks are pure and real and right for just this moment in time.
This is what it is like in Private Studio.
What about you? When you get down to the real nuts and bolts of what you do, does it give you shivers? Does it set your heart racing? Do you get a thrill over the tiny bits of magic that appear?
Mum and Pup, Process…and a Thunderstorm
April 27, 2009 by Janice · 5 Comments
We have one of those nice rumbling thunderstorms this morning. It’s still dark and very wet outside as I type. Delicious really. And just made for some of the work I need to do today. Drawing mostly. I need to make another pencil drawing on Somerset paper of that tangle of trees you see in the picture. One that I will cut up. Yes. It’s a bit of a thing now that goes with this experiment series.
It came to me over the weekend, this next step, as I was looking over the assemblages I showed you on Friday. Those need to sit. Just be for awhile because they are telling me something. But the pencil drawing and a photo mosaic, those need to be done next.
How do I know?
Because they came to me Saturday morning fully formed as I was sitting still and listening. I did some research on the Duke Ellington arrangement that is driving this work, although it was Wynton Marsalis Live at the Lincoln Center who brought it to my attention. And I learned an eye opening slap your forehead what a muse I have kind of tidbit as I read about it. And the images were just there.
Discovery is a very fine thing.
It’s all about being in the moment. Not necessarily of changing art or music for all time, but of listening carefully, using your skills and trying something intriguing just because it belongs in your time in your place in context at the moment.
That is called relevance I think.
But first I have to finish that story Chris Buckley wrote about his Mum and Pup. I have a feeling something in it is something I need to hear. Maybe, maybe not, but there is something about it that is saying pay attention.
So I will pay attention to its call.
Which is what Duke Ellington was doing. He was being so himself in very trying times, taking it all in and then he just gave it a tweak and one of his best all time songs came from it. From his play. From his tweaking things a bit. So while the thunder rumbles and the rain hits the metal vent on the roof I will take some time this morning to play the music again…and draw.
Yes, it is Organizing Monday and it seems most of the important things are being done by my ears. Listening while ecstatically still. It ’s an exciting kind of zen. Very active listening is. And how wonderful that it’s thundering, that I ‘m sheltered from the rain and I have pencils and paper calling out to me. This is what it’s like you know. Process in Private Studio. Delicious really.
How about you? How much does listening come into what you do?
Welcome to Private Studio
April 24, 2009 by Janice · 10 Comments
As promised on Wednesday, here’s a peek at what happened after I cut up the painting.The 16 little cut up paintings became 3 assemblages for the Across the Tracks Blues Experiment Series. Look closely and you can find the pieces of painted Thai paper in the three Somerset paper assemblages below. What you’re looking at is raw material. Usually this is kept private until the “finished “form of it, whatever it is, is judged ready for public consumption, or exhibition. These are intuitive, unplanned, uninhibited, UNJUDGED marks and washes on paper. This is play. Better, this is play without expectations. This is me setting up some restrictions, some challenges, some questions….and letting go. There’s music that goes with the experiment. Music that brought this on. We’ll go into that next week. And while we’re at it, that part about suspending judgement? That, above all is the most important thing about Private Studio…and the hardest. That’s the part where you have to just have faith that the meaning will be found. That integration will come, and that your muse, and your heart are on the same team. So take a look, make comments, I welcome that… we’re just in the middle of this…and so far I am just as puzzled as I am excited. Just as uneasy as I am reassured. Just as much wanting to go back as to go forward. Yep. That means we’re on the right track. So welcome to Private Studio. It’s a place where maps are cut up, reassembled, tossed or made more deeply whole …it’s where we listen to our internal music and hope it doesn’t come up short.
Been there lately with your work?
And now, I really think we all get big pitchers of Naughty Margaritas. Make mine a Prickly Pear one. It’s Friday and it is not easy being naked in public…
Like a Well Worn Map
April 22, 2009 by Janice · 6 Comments
I carefully folded the now dry painting into half, turned it and folded it again, then again and again until it looked like a well worn map. It was easy to do. Or easier than I expected. I loved feeling the texture of it. The soft Thai paper had travelled far and been through a lot. And now it could fit into my pocket. I smiled. Wondered at the irony of that.
What was this piece really about?
I reread the poem from the paper that had held my attention:
I remember flying back from Montauk.
I was flying the plane,
The instructor asked me, “Notice anything?”
Yes, the plane was absolutely stuck–
Speechless–ecstatically still.
The headwinds were holding us in place in space.
Ecstatically still. A plane invisibly held by forces greater than will. Stuck. Yet ecstatic. There’s a picture. And a concept. I traced the edges of the folded painting with a finger, thinking ahead to the tearing of it. The cutting it up. Feeling the softness. Looking at the lines and marks I ‘d made. Smiling at the spill of water all over it. Now dry of course and fine. A little worn, and fragile. Not whole, but resilient.
Hm. Deep breath.
As I reached for the scissors, I thought, okay, let’s see what still is like, what just free marks and no expectations look like. Let’s see what happens if I get ecstatically still. So I picked up the scissors and began to cut my well worn map into sixteen little pieces. No thoughts but the cutting. Right here, right now.
Cutting up my map.
Yep. I did it.
I can tell you so far that life and creativity in the studio do not exactly mimic poetry, at least not in a straight forward way. Or if it does, someone has a wicked sense of humor, and I want revisions. But we may be a little too close to it yet. In fact, I am still scratching my head at what has happened since I cut it up. Good thing I am not actually IN a plane. Stuck, but not up in the air, well only metaphorically.
But I have had good mentors, one in fact, who is nagging me from the grave. “Okay, okay, Scott, I am still just going with it. Yes, I remember. “After all he’s the MacArthur Genius. It would be silly not to listen.
So cut up maps, a stuck plane and a ghost for a mentor. See not quite poetry, but I am hoping. Now I must get ready for another session of ecstatically still, a phrase I am stealing for resumé purposes to go with private studio time.
And sure, I ‘ll give you a peek on Friday.
How about you? Cut up any maps lately?
Notes To Self
April 20, 2009 by Janice · 1 Comment
“Go laser-like toward things we love”~ Me
In the photo under one of my chief editorial assistants, er, CEO’s, you’ll see snippets of my favorite things from the paper yesterday. There’s a note to self, and a Texas Cattle Drive postcard too that I picked up in Grapevine, Texas last week. And there’s a pencil. A nice 9B soft graphite pencil. What do these all have in common? Why would I put them together here?
To play with edges and ideas.
If you missed last Friday’s post, here’s the thing: the house cat that I share some space with here in the Lone Star State batted a full glass of water over the painting I was working on. Yep. The watercolor. But guess what? It dried just fine. Well, a little worse for wear, but essentially whole.
It’s time to approach that piece now with a beginner’s mind.
Edges and ideas can take us to new places, or bring us right back to ourselves. In a good way. Having a beginner’s mind, or approaching something as if we are seeing it for the first time, is the mindset of discovery. And that is truly rich.
Discovery.
And that is where the handy dandy words in the quotation above are driving the next actions. It is no accident, that 9B pencil. It is no accident, only openness, that that particular grouping is in the photo. They are gentle nudges. Reminders to go ahead. That I actually know how to proceed. There’s a thread that runs through them all. A wetlands thread if you know where to look. I instinctively pulled those pages out of the pile this morning. It makes me smile to see what those choices were. Like getting an unexpected present.
So today, another Organizing Monday, will have me hauling out a nice piece of Somerset paper and sharpening that lovely 9B pencil. I need a playground for the painting to play on. Here’s the very big thing. In spite of cats, or catastrophes, I have learned three very important things: 1) Befriend random. 2)Experiment. 3) The constant becomes you.
Upon finding a strange patch in the artistic process, those are three good points to remember. So here I am in a strange patch in the process. Oh sure, I set it up this way. (See point two above. ) It’s still a strange place. It’s a good place to listen… to nudges, and to notes to self. Listen, and go laser-like toward those things you love.
How about you? When you are at a spot that is uncomfortable, even though you know it’s part of a good thing, do you calm yourself and listen? Especially to yourself?
The Cat, The Flood and Rothko
April 17, 2009 by Janice · 4 Comments
Hmph. I am no longer in control. Last Saturday, the cat woke up especially early just to spill water all over this piece. Yes. Flooded it. No. The irony did not escape me. Water seeped quicker than a lake through a faulty levee all over everything I had done so far, and rendered the paper tissue. Soggy, wet, fragile tissue. Would the paint run? Would the paper tear? Was this piece history?
Yes. Ironic.
Do I panic when things like this happen? Nope. Nope, nope, nope. THAT doesn’t get you anywhere. Do I think about all the unfinished, in progress work, the bits of marks where my ideas trace their existence. Oh, yes. They are evidence that I exist. Trailings of who I am. Marks of the creative impulse that one feline swipe has overtaken in a second. Sheesh, an art critic?
Or just another piece of what I am to discover.
There’s a tear in one part, some edges are more frayed, it is no longer pristine, but the color seems to be holding. It would all depend on the body of that Thai paper. How much of what can it take? So I let it rest, I would know more when it dried.
Breathe. Just breathe. Surrender again to a moment beyond my control.
Hm, maybe I would read some more in the Power of Art. I have been wanting to get to the part about Rothko. I flipped open the book and began. Oh no. Just great. The first paragraph opens with lines about fear, grief, anxiety and art. ( What’s up with this particular Saturday?) And Simon Schama opens with questions. I cannot seem to get away from those. Although I could sure use a few answers at the moment. And here’s his big one. Here’s one of the things he opens with:
“Can [art] slam the brakes on the relentless business of life, fade out the buzz and cut straight through to our most basic emotions: anguish, desire, ecstasy, terror? ”
I raised an eyebrow and cast a glance at that pitiful rumple of soaked paper, looked back at the book. “Not likely at the moment,” I scoffed, and read on. Because Rothko was on a journey. Hm, a fellow homo viator? His time was between the wars, tumultuous transitioning time. And he was feeling his way to his place. I wonder if he lived with a cat? One who now wore a smirk as it licked it’s paws.
What happens to artists when the world as we know it changes? Rothko felt deeply that art too needed to change. The narrative, figurative work was not the ticket for him. He wanted color to act. He wanted it “to be breathed” onto the canvas. He wanted more than NOW. He wanted timeless. I so get that.
So he poked and prodded and insisted until he broke through. Hm, I turned the pages, saw new paintings I had not seen at the Rothko Chapel or anywhere in D.C. or New York either. I saw one that looked amazingly like a Dali, a Miro, or a Kandinsky…wow. Hm, intuitive searching, trails of questions asked.
And then the phrase appeared, the one that I most needed to see: ” Ragged indeterminate borders are crucial to Rothko’s emotive picturing both at the perimeter of the painting and in the frayed seams he tears between the large color zones so they don’t read as boundaries at all….but as a visible glimpse of some glowing bed of light. “
Without those intentional imperfections, frayed soft edges of color, that glow he’s setting up, his paintings have no heart? Remember his times. Hard edges, were all the rage. Pop art about paint was in vogue. Screaming everywhere. Cubists were fracturing space. And here he makes soft edges, a tear in the paint, a whisper of some other layers. He’s showing you his heartbeat.
I looked over at that cat. Who was now smiling like my little Buddha.
Well, edges, huh? You want me to play with edges? I reached for the hair dryer…
(I hope you have a great weekend. Just so you know, I found a new Naughty Margarita here in town, made from Prickly Pear. Yes, calls for a bit more research I am thinking. )
Being Present
April 10, 2009 by Janice · 9 Comments
This Thai paper is responsive to whispers. That’s one reason I chose it. Handmade, a little imperfect, perfectly sensitive to catching nuances. That’s very good. Because this piece is all about listening. These are gentle marks. Not tentative ones. Just gentle marks. If you look carefully you will find them in the painting in my banner too. I did not realize that would happen when I picked this part of the painting to show you today. But that alone, encourages me that I am on the right path.
Because I am making this up as I go.
And I am liking that a lot. I don’t know if I am out to prove a point to myself or show you that we are essentially ourselves even when we try something new. Not stuck in a rut ourselves, but core essential ourselves. If we give over to it. Or at least, I am thinking that is what we’ll see here. I am letting the lines lead me.
Listening carefully, reaching instinctively.
I wanted the power of a whisper in these parts. I want a muted , restricted palette, neutral even. I want the nature of the essential lines to carry this piece to where it is going. So I am trying to get out of my own way a bit, just let it come to me. So I listen, gently sometimes. And play.
Process between the signposts requires that we be fully open to play.
What does that mean? It’s a lot like summoning up the zone. You know, the zone. Chi. That space where we just are, where time kind of slips away. Where we ask a question, bring ourselves fully to it, and just respond. That place where flow happens. That is where we are most likely to find exactly what we are supposed to find. So this piece has me fascinated. And yes, I am still going to cut it up when the page is filled. That’s part of the design of the piece. And to be honest, that’s kind of freeing.
Are you letting yourself go to the zone? Are you trusting yourself there?
And now where is my Naughty Margarita? A Good Friday to you all.
Letting Go
April 8, 2009 by Janice · 11 Comments
To get to another shore you have to let go of the one you are on. I am really not sure what the next piece is. But I am excited about it. Really. I have no idea, except that it is about migration, travel, and letting go.
Welcome to process between the signposts.
Yesterday as I was working, tracing some thoughts, the drawing for another painting planted itself clearly in front of me. It is the pencil drawing in the photo. It has notes attached to it that tell me I want to explore the lines intensely, tonally. Become absorbed in them. Give myself over. And when I am done, cut it up. Yes. You heard me, cut it up, an exquisite drawing or painting. 16 equal parts and then place them at random. Like a puzzle of itself. The graph paper for the plan is just under the drawing you see. And there’s a blue post-it too with some brilliant notes on it about this becoming an abstract piece on raw canvas. Unstretched canvas. Very refined lines on a raw edgy ground. I did this drawing some time ago. And put it aside.
It’s been there waiting for me.
And now when I am listening to jazz about “across the tracks blues” and working on the Chaos series, it plops itself right down in front of me . “NOW. Trust me. Now.”, it seems to say.
So I pulled out a brush and some subtle color and some handmade paper from Thailand. NOT watercolor paper again. It’s a paper that Kiki Smith uses. I have so far used it for drawings of shells. But there’s something I want to try. This seems like the time to do it. The pencil drawing was planned before the storm. The graph is recent. And this seeming randomness, well that is the hand of John Scott gently putting this here, now. There is something I haven’t discovered yet. There is something of trains and travel and letting go that I need to know in this.
And there are necessary lines.
Really. I picked up the brush and the lines flowed. Not perfect, not fussy, just the ones that have to come out of me. The necessary lines. And they felt good. I just let go and did it. The brush fairly floated, or it floated in some places. The paper responds quite differently than “normal” paper. And in those places it did not float, where the resistance was, I went back to the well and added a bit more water and wash.
Hm, this feels very, very good. Breathe. Flow. Let go.
The best, most relaxed simple lines and washes. First washes, first lines. And then the next step came to mind. It requires another different paper and maybe some pencil lines. Hm, or maybe ink. Or maybe both. Not sure. I’ll try them all. See what needs to be there.
Letting go to get where I want to go. This feels very right. As a friend recently said, just commit and jump in. So that’s what we ‘re doing.
And by we I mean you, too…Hah, you think I ‘m jumping alone? Got a project that’s been niggling at you? Why not experiment?
Hug The Queen
April 6, 2009 by Janice · 8 Comments
Lots of travel tips out there. Lots of mystery too. In between the signposts, if there are any, we kind of have to wing it. Where do you look for guidance then? How do you set your compass? As you can see here, I have summoned several Shaman. They know we are about to start a new painting. They know it hasn’t yet fully formed and there are as many questions, more actually, than answers. They are kind of excited.
So am I.
They know I need to spend spend some time with my notebooks today ( It’s Organizing Monday) and they know there are a few spots missing on the last painting. It’s sifting around a bit. And they know I need to let go of some other things. What? We really don’t know yet. But that’s what decision means. Cutting off something to go toward something else.
Are we frantic yet?
No. We’ve been here before.
It’s a sifting, drifting place that is full of tempting choices. It’s a matter of listening. Of really being present. The right ones will drift up. Or jump out and say pick me, pick me. I just have to give them room. I just got a huge hint in looking at the composition of this photograph for example.
Sifting and drifting.
I am still bugged by this reference to trains and tracks that I keep getting. And I see some clues in the picture about that, and some surprises about possible color. And from about four o’clock this morning these words kept repeating , ‘Hug the Queen, Hug the Queen”
Hug the Queen?
An instinctive arm around that Royal shoulder by a confident woman in a new situation. One that signaled, hey we’re all in this together. And we’re good. It was a move I recognized immediately. It’s the way leadership looks woman to woman. Really. Maybe it is a southern thing, maybe it is an all girls’ school thing, but it took no words, no discussion for me to understand what was going on in that room. Been there done that. That’s how we roll.
So what was this phrase doing circling around my head this morning?
It was telling me I knew how to proceed. We set our compasses by trusting our finely honed instincts. That hug for the Queen took me to a place I know very well. And it has to do with trains. That one, the train thing? That one is definitely a pick me, pick me.
So, we will go with what that means…to me. The job then is to find out what it might mean to you. But I am up for some experimenting. Hope you are too.
When the Little Buddha Comes Out
April 3, 2009 by Janice · 10 Comments
At a crossroads. When the little Buddha comes out (yes that little red one there) we, and by we I mean I, but you’re here too, so WE are at a crossroads. I wasn’t exactly aware that that is when I would put him in photos in my starter blog, but this morning I reached for him and then the aha struck. So read “homo viator at crossroads” when you see him. Sometimes signposts are clear. Sometimes we haven’t a clue. Sometimes I grab the little Buddha and look at his silent smile.
Doesn’t everyone?
Because I did not sleep last night. Oh, maybe for a couple of hours, but not much. I did not paint yesterday. Oh, I worked a bit, but not much. I researched some ideas and watched a performance by Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz group. Several times. And I puzzled while I enjoyed it so, right down to my bones.
That song.
And everything it brings to me. It has me mesmerized. It is speaking to me so strongly that I know I have to listen. It’s a blend of warmth and cool. Of blues and sheer strength of harmony, resilience, and trains. Trains? I. Had. To listen. To that song. It came to me in sheer randomness. And again I say, or did it?
Could I base a painting on a song? I’ve done that before, but not in the way this is coming to me. I have just three spots on the current piece to finish up. That song is not about this piece.
So what’s it doing here?
And then I got an unexpected email last night. One that is a personal challenge. The reason I couldn’t sleep. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a very very difficult thing. We can be as brave as we want, but pain still hurts. Even if it leads to something better. Finding a way to deal and live with that anyway, that’s the trick isn’t it? Not letting it lead.
So the little Buddha is out. The orange and color that surrounds him up there is a comfort to me. And a message. Just as is that song…so I think today. I will just listen. Trains and jazz and me? What’s it saying? Well, I suspect there is a wetland in it somewhere. Wanna bet?
So far that little Buddha is not talking.
What about you, do you have some kind of touchstones that you gravitate to when you’re standing at a crossroads? When you have to dig down deep? Some little thing that when you hold it, steadies you or just feels good to the touch?
And could you please pass me an extra Naughty Margarita? And get one for yourself. WE have earned it don’t you think? Have a great weekend everybody.