One Thing
August 31, 2009 by Janice · 13 Comments
Ah- HAH! Our week’s just got simpler. Yep. Stanford University just announced that people who do one thing at a time do things BETTER than multitaskers. Yes. See the little orange smiley and frownie faces in the photo, that’s what they are here to tell you.
Researchers at Stanford University were looking for the advantage, the edge that multitaskers have over everyone else, and they found, to their total shock, they don’t. Have an advantage that is. In fact. they are worse at doing all of it than those who do one thing at a time.
In fact, “multitaskers are suckers for irrelevancy. ”
Hah.
Really, that’s directly from the sources mouth.
One thing at a time is better.
“The core of the problem,” Professor Ness said, is that multitaskers “think they’re great at what they do; and they’ve convinced everybody else they’re good at it, too.”
They are not.
Hm.
I am looking at that little striped to do list of mine a bit differently. I like Leo’s Zen Habits ( he is a huge cheerleader of one thing at a time) and his 3 Most Important Tasks. And Keep it Simple Silly is not a bad rule of thumb. And while I shake the cobwebs out of my Monday morning brain… I am thinking one thing. One thing that is most important for each day this week. Put just those down on those stripes and let the others go. See how that works out. Just one thing until it’s done.
Of course my mind is actually drifting up to that Hollywood Swimming Pool. Could be the last days of summer exerting their pull. But I wonder actually, have we become so accustomed to more than one thing that we have unwittingly trained our brains to skim over, dart, and hurry on…. rather than linger?
Because that’s the myth that is out there.. that we can have it all. Right now even. We live in an immediate gratification world. Real time technology reinforces that doesn’t it?
Ideas move through time and space easily. Physical things take a bit more time. I think sometimes we forget that and expect a little more from our physical selves than maybe is reasonable. As if we had mobile apps that did away with things like resistance and gravity and process.
The artist is smiling… wishing she DID have a mobile app that would take care of all those little time robbing things at the wiggle of a nose, or a phone. Has any one come up with that?
I ‘d like to point that app at my studio table. ( Scary) And at my desk ( a little less so but not great).. maybe the laundry ( easy peasy)… the fridge. ( Double scary).. correspondence ( behind)…my closet ( don’t open the door)…my sketchbooks ( (sigh)….my notebooks (waiting patiently)…those paintings( sigh again)…the writing ( oy )…
Oops… One thing. Pick one thing. Then the next.
They all call me equally on Mondays now. And as I begin to feel better, it’s actually harder to put them into order…not up to full speed yet so it seems like mountains and mountains of work. Well, it actually is.
So one thing. The concept is very appealing… but which one?
First these cobwebs in my brain this morning. I am wiggling my nose.. anything happening?
How about you? Organized yet this morning? What do you do when your work load seems overwhelming and your energy is not quite up there yet?
Color Is Quiet Today
August 28, 2009 by Janice · 13 Comments
Color is quiet today. It won’t even whisper. As soon as I woke way before dawn, my body felt it. Memories living and breathing. Color gone to grey.
Not that I want it this way.
I don’t.
I so don’t.
So I thought I would not write. Maybe not even paint.
But it’s hard not to do something.
Maybe I’ll work out. Push myself beyond my limits. Physically exhaust my muscles. Be in that moment. Not the ones intruding.
Maybe that would keep the bells at bay. The images receding. Maybe that would keep me present.
I looked to see what I had done before on this day, at this time. Where was I ? What did I show you?
Was color quiet then too?
No it wasn’t.
It was cake filled and effervescent, or still speaking of islands to me.
Where has it gone today?
I’m listening. Waiting. Eager even.
No.
Not a sound.
Just memories of hunkering down.
Of getting ready, of drawing in.
Maybe it’s knowledge crowding color out now.
Maybe it’s acceptance.
Mourning.
I thought I could be done with that. Let it go . Let it go . Let it go.
I try.
It just won’t let go of me.
Maybe color wants me to say something. Maybe color wants me to feel all the color gone missing. Swept away. Washed by wind and water. Lost. Quiet. Not to be the same.
It’s too big to ever be explained, or ever adequately painted.
So just for moment I’ll be quiet, just like the color gone missing from me today. I am thinking of friends of course, and a life I once had. Color. Spicy. Rich. Unique.
Color I have to find again.
Can’t change anything. Have to accept. And deal with what is.
So just for a moment. I’ll join color and be quiet.
In acknowledgment.
Maybe then color will come back to me…
Some gentle something calling me,
asking me to just wet the brush and dip it into some paint.
Take it slowly.
Softly.
And go for that walk.
And then later, later maybe a margarita…just a quiet one though. A toast to some ghosts and some friends.
A Splash of Purple
August 26, 2009 by Janice · 1 Comment
Back to the passion blooms today. Early morning paths of purple. Hm. Yes. Looks like a splash. Or a volcano ring. It’s just paint. But in the piece it has a role. Oasis and agitator. That’s why you see the strands of yellow not too far away. Yellow excites purple as much as it neutralizes it. A paradox. Yes. But that is the nature of color relationships.
There’s only one passion bloom open on this particular painting, a sideways glance at that. The majority of the piece is green. So yes, you can expect some subtle use of reds to do the same thing for all of that. There are two tree trunks auditioning for the part. But it will have to be less obvious, maybe a little sneaky. Already I have smuggled a little into the violet. It will only take a touch of red, like lipstick, not too much, but yes, you’ll notice a difference. Maybe not obvious, but it will be there.
Restraint.
Not enough to throw off the balance, or make something classy take a walk of shame.
Just something extra to add the oomph.
Some people will not even know what hit them.
Using color like that is kind of like wearing mink on the inside as the expression goes. Maybe no one knows that it is there, except you, but it’s there all the same adding richness. And more. Making everything come alive. Fuller.
So yes.
That’s what I said.
Using restraint and limits to make more.
Heightened creativity.
I don’t know about you. But that can be awfully exciting.
A challenge.
Today for me it is playing with this area of purple. Just making that one bloom into an oasis and an invigorator. And finding my way with some subtle reds. All because of the green.
Paradox. Limits. And richness.
From one bloom.
We’ll see how it goes.
The artist is smiling.
It’s only paint.
But look closer.
It’s you and me. And what we make of our world.
You see that don’t you?
1.34 Billion In Gifts To An Artist
August 24, 2009 by Janice · 11 Comments
I have some reading to catch up on from yesterday’s paper. Mostly about art and money. Always a scintillating topic. And I have yet to read the magazine cover story about the “cause of our times” which it seems they have determined is women’s rights.
Not sure they are very zen like, but I made tea anyway.
Here’s the truth: amid all the paint at the moment, I am almost equally drawn to juicy tales in the arts. It has to do with researching collectors. And the stories just happen.
It’s a funny thing about art and money. They are inextricably bound. And no matter how you feel about the two, where you find one, you find the other. Not always as you want it, or when you want it, or how, but there they are. And things get interesting because of it. Because money and art both have a strange and intriguing pull.
Check out he story of the L’Oreal heiress who has so far gifted 1.34 billion to a single “artist”. (You’ve probably seen his cover shot of Johnny Depp this summer on Vanity Fair.) Her daughter is not a happy camper even though it is a small fraction of her mother’s wealth. The French are taking it to tribunal…ahh, who will buy the movie rights?
When great quantities of money and art are involved it seems there is an equal and opposite reaction…like the other article on corporate sponsorship of exhibitions. Yay, sponsorship, yay, great art on exhibit. What’s the rub there? It depends. If you are corporate and the public- big win. You get to see work not usually seen. The Corporation gets lots of good will. If you are a museum or a curator your “purity” is called into question. Two reasons: who is calling the curatorial shots? ( hugely important discernment, it’s the story of the show) and the corporation can up-value the work if it puts said exhibition pieces on the market after a museum show. (Get more money if they sell them afterwards, using the prestige of the show. ) It’s a sticky wicket requiring the utmost care. Does it matter? Well, yes, it does. You can see the temptation to use the event as a way to create pricier prices on not so great pieces peppered into the mix. And curators/museums could get a very “I can be bought” reputation. So there is a fine line.
Art and money create strange bedfellows. There is no getting around that. To an artist, we keep it out of the studio, out of the process as much as possible. There is a taint associated with an over concern with money. But it is right there at the door, certainly a necessity, and it certainly permeates every aspect of the art world outside the artist’s studio. We usually are the ones hoping it trickles in as well as up and down. Well, we do, don’t we? No matter what art we are engaged in?
It’s always an exchange isn’t it?
And it is a statement on human interests and nature that most of the art stories that ever get printed in a big way, are the ones that have some big money attached to them. The process stories are more buried, require a bit more looking.
So while I am organizing my painting for this week on this Organizing Monday, I am also organizing a trip down to see an exhibit of privately owned contemporary pieces in exhibition. Works hauled out from collectors homes that normally we wouldn’t see. No, no corporate sponsorship, just Medici like bucks involved here. It will be verra vera nice.
I want to see what kind of pond I may be swimming in. And what kind of stories they may tell.
And where could I fit in? Me, just a splasher and puddler of paint.
The artist smiles…I sense a small adventure.
How are all of you this Monday?
More From My Lunch With Frank Stella
August 21, 2009 by Janice · Leave a Comment
Walking around a corner and coming upon all 23 feet by 7 feet of Frank Stella’s “ Fountain” is quite an experience. Especially when it is as unexpected as it is enchanting. Imagine, you think you are just going down to grab a turkey sandwich in your doctor’s building and boom you encounter art rarely seen outside a museum, unless you are at the Ritz Carlton in Singapore. (It has its own Stella Gallery “for intimate business meetings”.)
I don’t want to bore you. I really don’t know how to quit jumping up and down though. AND my visual intake meter is way over capacity so the words are a struggle at the moment. As Frank Stella would tell you himself, the digital representation of the work is barely a hint of the real impact of the art. For one thing, it is warmer. Much warmer in person. But I found you a picture of the Fountain. Remember though, it is very very large.
You really have to stand in front of it, experience it to get the full force of the piece.
That is its full exuberance. Its full hi, how are you, and isn’t this so? And its texture. Because art is a living breathing thing, it needs to be enjoyed as you would a conversation with someone truly fascinating ( if we are lucky).
So while I ate my turkey sandwich and sipped my ice tea, we talked, the Fountain, Frank Stella and me.
I have some notes.
But more.
I have a mystery to unravel.
Like who is the incredible person/people that brought it here? How did that happen?
I have found many times that the story of the collector is at times every bit as fascinating as what has been collected. After all, they are the person sitting on the the other side of everything we artists make. No, art does not exist in a vacuum. It takes someone to get up every day and make it. And it takes someone to get up everyday and enjoy it. Even care enough to buy it. Or preserve it. Or make sure it is given its due.
And this is one piece that had paper made just for it, a press invented just to print it. Just 8. To make just 8. Mountains have been moved.
And there it was, my lunch companion.
An artist’s vision from a trip to the aquarium with his two sons and a book called Moby Dick.
Paths. And visions.
Intersecting.
Stories I want to know.
I hope you have a great weekend. Meet you for margaritas at five?
(The above photo is from the Australia National Gallery of Art. Part of its archives of the Ken Tyler Collection.)
Lunch With Frank Stella
August 19, 2009 by Janice · 1 Comment
I am practically speechless, still. And I don’t exactly know how to write about this, but on Monday, I had lunch with Frank Stella. Well, not exactly him in person.
Let’s see how do I tell you about this without coming off like a star struck blithering idiot? And how do I convey the impact of a rather large piece of paper with color on it? Just a piece of paper, right?
No.
Not at all just a piece of paper.
Here’s where the blathering comes in… and maybe some blithering.
It was a piece of paper that had changed my life ages ago. Like a beacon. Do this. See what this can be?
So when I turned that corner in my doctor’s building and came upon “The Fountain” by Frank Stella in all it’s 23 x 7 feet glory, I literally stopped in my tracks. My patient escort to the food court had to wait for me to double check the plaque to the left of the giant print on the wall. I turned and stammered,” it’s real… it’s a real Frank Stella.”
“Is it?”, my escort smiled and looked. Not wanting to seem crazy. Merely dazed. I rejoined our mission, my lunch.
Outside of New York and Houston I had never come upon one in the flesh. Oh sure lots of images, I pour over them in catalogs, books and on line, but to be walking to get a sandwich while waiting for your doctor to return from an emergency and meet one face to face… no, I ‘m checking… a first.
And not just any Stella. This is “The Fountain”. THE most major piece from his Moby Dick Series. There are only 8 of them in the world. I looked around at the med students and doctors sitting nearby. No they were calmly eating.
Did they not know?
Or was it something else?
Was it that I was in a place that actually knew that great art belonged exactly there where it was?
Now wouldn’t that change everything?
Well, yes.
Yes indeed it would.
So I walked on, got my sandwich and came back to a table that allowed me to get to know this brilliant piece of work just as if I had met a new and exciting friend in this city.
Everything shifted.
To be continued….
(The photo above is a press photo by Rex Larsen of Frank Stella and the Fountain at the Grand Rapids Museum opening 2009.)
Skin Simple
August 14, 2009 by Janice · 3 Comments
Yesterday a friend asked me how I was doing. He’d read my recent posts and liked them. Well, actually he said they were “hot.” Yes, I am laughing here. But I ‘ll take that, especially from him. He’s a writer. And a man of good taste, obviously.
Here was my response:
“I seem to have let go a little bit. Feel kind of simple really. Skin simple, in a physical world. Breezes on it seem highly important. Kind of basic. You know? “
He said, “See that’s hot too.”
I laughed.
That may be, but it’s true.
And he knew.
He always gets it.
Gets me.
And right now, I seem to be very enamoured of water. And walking. And simple puddles of paint. And feeling that breeze on my skin. Enjoying each breath that isn’t a struggle. And how my hair kind of shines in the sunlight. And I even like sweat.
That’s what being brought to the edge will do.
It’s not the first time. There have been countless other times.
But each close experience like that. Makes simple things seem like a great gift.
Something to be cherished.
And even work that had to be put aside, looks like treasure…that I get to do.
So catch up is not the phrase I am using.
Relish. Enjoy. Feel.
Those are closer allies.
It’s that skin simple to me.
Now, about those Naughty Magaritas? It’s Friday isn’t it? Don’t they sound like just the thing?
Hope you have a good weekend.
Beginnings in Green
August 12, 2009 by Janice · 2 Comments
“When forced to work within a strict framework the imagination is taxed to its utmost – and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom the work is likely to sprawl.” ~T.S. Eliot
Once upon a time, one of my best mentors ever, Patricia Tobacco Forrester , said that greens were “tough to do.” And they are. It’s very easy for green pigments to look like nothing you would see in nature.
So of course from time to time I just have to go there.
I am perverse like that.
So here I am beginning these unopened blossoms.
For the most part a barely there spring green.
Some cerulean, some viridian dipped into it, for form , shadow and reflection. Little tucks and folds that will read “blossom” eventually. With enough blue on them to make the air around them alive.
And to make matters even more taxing, these blossoms to be are nested in leaves that are very close in range. The layer beyond that, against the sky? You guessed it. Green on blue. So we have a few planes to distinguish, one from the other. This is this and that is that and oh by the way, make them lovely. And make them “read” when all is done, the way you want them, so the story is just so.
Narrowing of choices. But not of challenges.
Making a few colors seem like more. Putting breadth and breath into some little bit of something. Creating a believable world from that. That is what this little piece requires.
Instead of feeling restricted though, it makes me smile. Because not seen yet, not really called into play are all those greens’ opposites. You may have heard me say that when you pick up one end of a stick you also get the other. With that range of green, we get a range of reds. Already the red of orange is working in one of the greens… that’s how you get olive. Warmth.
And you get green’s analogous mates, adjacencies on that color wheel, the range of blues….see? Already we have full spectrum. So it is not as restricted as you would think. You just have to figure out when to call in an assist , and when to not. What family says blossom, what group says sky, what group says leaves in the shade, or leaves in the sun…push…pull…distinguish, let recede. Make one shout, let another whisper…and let another just be.
Managing, orchestrating, coaxing…..greens and friends to behave like a well trained chorus that sings the song you want. Or leads you into the story. A bit of dance on a hedge.
Too much to ask from one little bit of something?
Well, we’ll see won’t we? Because this little bit of something seems to matter to me. It seems to speak of time and place and of a moment.
Of unexpected pleasure.
Of something I have even yet to see, but I sense it. It is known somewhere deep within. I just have to pull it out. And apparently in green.
A pause, an ah ha and some continuity. A challenge to make it come alive….so we can all see …what is it?
Not fully sure. But here we have beginnings in green.
How about you? Ever narrow your playing field for the challenge? Do you keep moving your comfort zone enough to keep your skill set honed?
Mistakes Were Made
August 10, 2009 by Janice · 3 Comments
Yes, yesterday mistakes were made. From a viridian green that overshot its banks to way over doing my power walk, there were plenty of oops sprinkled over my afternoon. But it did not start out that way. I wanted a “regular” day. A day to be. A good pause between the rest of the week . You know, a Sunday, to set a rhythm for the week.
It started beautifully. Poems and pictures and resonant sounds…all good centering things. Lovely and worth taking into my week as I paint. All from this creative clan that is building on line. Here are some of the gifts of yesterday morning:
From the lovely Joanna Young The Art of Paying Attention. Wildflowers from Scotland and her own blossoming. Having A Little Faith, from the multi-talented Amy Palko. The picture here is one of my favorite things of all things and as usual the words go just right with it. Visions of magical dragons in a Sunday poem by the truly magical HiroBoga. Everyone should have a Hiro in their lives. Remembering Through Resonance uniquely Fabeku’s walk through our sense of sound to bring us back to our essential self. Big on my to buy list.
So Sunday morning , even before tea and my paper, started off very nicely, with small chats with some of my favorite creative people. It seemed like a day made for walking through all of my senses, and to paint just a little on the new piece while I felt so mellow and strong. Felt more myself. And my breathing more relaxed.
Until the afternoon. As I painted gently on the unopened blossoms, greens of all sorts ran amok. Including that staining viridian green, down it drizzled when I shifted the paper. Oops. I held my breath.
No worries. That’s the beauty of 300 pound paper and off wiped most of it.
See that sunlight on the unopened blooms above? That is 93 degrees or better sunlight. Hot. Instead of the one mile I had been doing, (I wanted to gain some distance, increase my strength), I went a little further. “Just up to the next big stoplight”, I thought to myself. Round trip 4 miles I found out later. In almost 100 degree weather.
I ran out of water. The sun beat down. “Shade. Need Shade.” My brain was saying.
“Just five minutes more” every five minutes on the last half mile. Talking myself home.
I blame Santana. I had worn my ipod thinking it would increase my stride, HAH it increased my idiocy. Note to self, maybe walk in the mornings or at dusk. Not in the hottest part of the day.
So this morning I am surveying the wreakage of my “regular ” day. My yesterday. Rubbing moisturizer on my sunburned nose. Re-hydrating my entire body. Noticing the oops is all gone on the painting. Wiped off or covered over by the greens that followed.
My relaxing Sunday. Hm…not bad actually. When all is said and done.
Here’s my Organizing thought this Monday. Keep the poems and pictures close. Paint. Walk stronger ( but smarter) and add on 5 more “regular” days. Mistakes will be made. But gifts will be had.
And that is not bad at all.
How about you? Any thoughts guiding you this week?
First At Bat
August 7, 2009 by Janice · Leave a Comment
Those two tree trunks. And the bouquet that reaches toward them on a diagonal. That’s it. That’s all that decided me on this one to begin. Not the showy, in your face aren’t I gorgeous head shot of a blossom that truly is a show stopper. I am saving that one for later.
But this one. A gentle circle of green opening blossoms and then the full one but a side glance, a come hither that is more subtle.
And color that is almost all the same.
But it isn’t.
Close.
Very analogous.
But not the same.
Here’s the challenge: to make it all seem like an event.
To find the slight differences that say here is this part, that is another, and to move you around the picture. To walk your eyes in such a way that you are pulled right into a story.
A subtle story, true.
A restricted palette to tempt,and tease you there.
Under those trees, into the shade, to praise something simple and yet so extraordinary.
Maybe it’s a longing to go back to the garden of Eden.
Dunno. I am exiled. So maybe there is a bit of that.
But I think it is quite simple. Like a taste of fresh greens in a salad, crisp and clean. Fresh.
And then a hint of passion….
call it foreplay
… an appetizer.
But it was an event. And we’ll explore it.
Ahh, is it Friday then? Are we ready for Margaritas?