Ooh And Ahhh
October 30, 2009 by Janice · 1 Comment
It’s raining here and it got chilly last night right before my very quick mile or so at dusk. The last thing I wanted to do this morning was get out of my cozy down comforter, turn on a light and greet the world. My cocoon was so darn perfect. Just one more hour please?
But no. My feet hit the carpet, I set the kettle to boil and pulled out the panel to shoot a pic. Thinking hm…what will it be today…? The minute I put the piece down and stood back, the ooh and the ahh jumped out at me.
Can you see the windows opening up? the bits of blues in between and the pop of those in front of things?
Here’s a closer look. It’s just sticks and vines and a bit more water behind them, but it’s a window opening up. This, this right here is fun for me. Big fun, balancing not only the what’s up front, the now you can push this back or the don’t forget to leave a spot for that, but the colors start to interact. And the shapes. And the brown in the blue that is a horizontal stick in the water suggests a shore, hm…and the movement in the front stands out with estuarine energy. Another paradox you see. restful, safe, havens…on the edge, in between, that gives birth in every one of it’s layers.
I could stop right here and it would be complete.
No need to paint anything more.
But this is only one window, one drop…
in a very fertile bucket…
There are canopies and panels galore….
So this morning , I am basking in a bit of possible littoral haiku in paint, looking at it for a while…and
Relishing this edge, this pause, this glimpse of core.
The heart of the piece, has to show up this early on.
And it makes me ooh and ahh.
The whole of the piece in the paint you see here, as it stands…and I am smiling…to be on the right path.
So not so bad to be pulled from the warmth of my bed to spend some time with this.
To bask for a minute and look.
Reaffirm.
Yes.
And to ooh and ahh a bit.
And for those who asked… The paint, the paint drives the words…the paint drives everything…For those who asked me that this week…it’s a question that kept recurring all week long online and off…funny…that window? That was my instinctive response, one without words until I looked at it this morning…not a bad question to be asked:
What’s driving what you do?
Now, around five? That would be the desire to see my friends around a pitcher of Naughty Margaritas, at the Dragon Room would be fantastic, just to relish their energy and their hearts…You’ll join us right?
The Sky is in the Puddle
October 28, 2009 by Janice · 10 Comments
Blue. A tiny bit of blue, in the water. Like a hint of a scent on the wind perhaps that drew our deer to this oasis. We have just a peek through the window of branches in the near ground, just a first glimpse.
Brushing that into its place set in motion a subtle change to come in everything I’ve brushed already. Those warms, those gold ochres and browns, and Davy’s Greys will soon start to shift in your eyes, and come more alive. Any bit of orange pigment hidden in anyone of them, will start to be more orange, and also try to balance the whole to neutral. And to… believable. It’s a paradox.
And it is physics.
Sounds kind of heartless doesn’t it?
Maybe sounds like a trick.
A manipulation.
Hm.
It is.
In a good way.
Here it is paint.
And it is feeling.
All good art is physics in the service of spirit.
To know color, to really know color, and how it behaves is to have its music, its dance, its grammar work for you. To know how you can use it.
Calling it into being, using it in ways it can be used to move, well that is purely the artist’s personal point of view. Why tell a story, or why paint anything, unless we are moved to do so? Unless there is something in the experience and the expression of it, that is compelling us to visit it time and time again? And to want to take you there too? Why bother?
It is the heartbeat we put into it.
It is the call we send out for your response.
It is the why, behind the how, that moves the paint, that’s where the artistry lies.
It’s the passion in the paint.
That calls the physics to come here, be right there at that moment to say this please. It is to set up seeming contradictions that actually work to make a whole.
Like putting the sky in the puddle. Not where you will expect it to be.
It serves what this is to become.
The idea.
The intent.
Behind the piece.
So this little bit of blue, the first of more to come, is in a puddle that contains a sky…..but it’s also part of something more…it’s there to shift your eyes a bit so your heart can sing or dance or read its verse.
And be with me…
Let you believe in the place I am taking you.
And here, the sky is in the puddle.
Now why would I do that?
Muddy Waters
October 23, 2009 by Janice · 3 Comments
I am going to be out of the studio Friday and Monday, but I did start testing browns on this panel today for the muddy waters surrounding this deer oasis off the Pearl River. Why won’t one brown do? And why not just my favorite minky sepia? I’ll use that too, save that for special on this panel, but using one brown, uh huh..that would be wrong for soil like this…
It needs to be rich and changing, shifting with tides and time….and yes…surges… but more because of this:
If you even say muddy waters in this part of the country no one thinks of dirt.
It’s a sound.
Capital M. Capitol W.
Not one note.
Not one tune.
But a legendary, incredibly sweet, American sound.
Rich and fertile.
Like this estuary ground I am painting.
So no.
Not one brown will do.
I want this ground to move you.
Yep.
I don’t have a slide guitar.
But I do have a brush…
and I know a thing or two about color…
So we want some browns that will slip and slide from cool to warm, from wet to dry-ish, from expected to surprise… from squish to a bit more firm..
Like that.
I have yet to find a way to separate the experience of walking this ground,
From the music of this ground….
And I am thinking…
Why should I?
I will be thinking of you all around fiveish…and hopefully having Naughty Margaritas.
Have a good weekend.
Staying Loose
October 21, 2009 by Janice · 3 Comments
First marks are exhilarating, like getting on a plane and taking off for an adventure, leaving gravity behind. Middle marks, and marks that can be repetitive need that same excitement. Even if there are lots and lots of them.
Lots.
Not done with all the background grasses yet.
But they need the same love and attention.
The same freshness as first marks.
How do we do that?
Careful, quiet persistence?
Sure.
A personal grass painting mantra?
Maybe.
Or
You could dance.
When shoulders start to tense. Or my sense of direction gets tedious or drifting…
I move away from the paint for a minute, and put on some music. One of those no way to stand still songs that you can move into effortlessly. Like this one.
Which came to me by pure chance.
I think.
While sitting on a bench at Kinko’s on Oak Street waiting for copies. You know, doing one of those detail things we all do when we work for ourselves?
The guy sharing my space on the bench turned out to be a musician.
Doing his little detail stuff too.
But he kept getting calls about an upcoming gig.
He would apologize, take the call.
Explain, “I have a gig coming up on the Costa del Sol.”
Then he’d sneeze.
“Bless you.”
“Thanks.”
We were both knee deep in our allergies at the time.
My mind was half there, half on the painting I had left drying back at the studio, I needed to get back to it. But it was nice talking to a fellow artist . So I relaxed. Went with it.
Waiting for copies.
I could tell he liked making music.
He found out I liked making paintings.
Just chat.
This and that.
Back and forth.
Just being. Two artists. A painter and a musician. On a bench in a copy store.
Time out, taking care of business. Passing some time in conversation.
Then Kevin’s name was called and we took our leave, wished each other well and went on with our separate artist days…
But I asked the guy who was with him, would Kevin have any music out that I could listen to? He seemed like he would make good music and by the way what kind did he make?
The other man said, ” He does acoustic blues, do you like that?”
Yes. I do.
Then he said,”Well, Kevin has some out, but he goes by this….”
And he scribbled down a name, not Kevin, and said, “Here, you might like this one.”
Then my name was called . “Oops, that’s me”
” Cartier?”
“Yes”, I said.
“We’ll keep an eye out for your paintings.”
I smiled. Thinking, nice guys. So…
I went to the music store and bought it.
Yes.
That’s how I found my loosening up song.
On a break, staying loose in my ” hood”,
Taking time to chat with a fellow artist through tissues and sneezes and phone calls from the Costa Del Sol, talking about paint and travels and playing music..
I got one of my favorite dancing songs.
My shoulders visibly lower about two inches at the first notes on this one …and then I slide…
Yes slide right into it.
Glide.
Turn a bit and smile.
By then the music carries me away into pure painting territory.
Only it’s my body painting movement in space,
The rhythm shaking out all the tense…
Loosening up my bones.
Putting me back in the zone.
And then…
The paint flows from unrestricted muscles, from fluid rhythmic thoughts,
transported,
refreshed,
Ready to give those middle marks the same energy and feeling, the first marks got.
And yes, I always remember sitting there on that bench in the copy store…
With Kevin.
Who goes by the name Keb’Mo.
Muses and masters come from all sorts of places.
Just takes being a little open,
Sometimes just being open to a chat,
Sometimes just being.
and sometimes…
From just daring to dance.
How about you? How do you stay loose when you are into really deep work?
Chanda Mama, Beatrix and a Palanquin
October 19, 2009 by Janice · 1 Comment
Last Monday on this counting of Mondays, I promised you some of my very smart cohorts and colleagues. And I’m delivering. But I have to warn you, there’s a song stuck in my head. Yes. Happens doesn’t it? And luckily it’s not one of those creepy obnoxious ones that children sing. Uh oh…No no thank you, I ‘ll keep this one thanks. ( For a sec, I saw the spectre of a large purple “he who shall not be named”, phew, close call ) Just saying. But this one, it’s liable to spill over into what should be a serious tribute to two really exceptional and remarkable women I met through Brian Clark.
But Chanda Mama wants her due.
Not through with me yet… here’s the Playing for Change video I listened to this weekend, but I am warning you what’s likely to happen:
a) You’ll like it.
b) You will have trouble holding still.
c) You may be tempted to play it again.
Trust me. It lingers. So play at your own risk.
Now here’s the thing. I needed a picture to go with the words this morning. And I wanted something to show you the wisdom that these two women deliver regularly, the power they both have as individuals and as part of a crew. I wanted to give them some serious props. ( Even though one of them has pink bangs and the other is prone to bizarre gallic phrases.) Some respect. Know what I’m saying?
I have some fairly notable advisors in those books you see. Good sound do this, hey, look at this. Here’s a way to do that.
Then I noticed the princess wand and some of my crew. Some of my touchstones.
Reminders.
That make me smile.
The Mouse with the cheese.
My Birthday Monkey I picked up in Santa Fe.
…Cause I was going to tell you these women should be up on that shelf too.
And I chuckled.
And thought…They already are. Up there, I mean. I realized that barely a week or sometimes barely even a day goes by that something they say or do or tweet or point out, I am doing. Or nodding , yes, and … and the conversation goes on. That we are on the same page a lot of the time. Influencing each other’s work. Gifting our point of view. Ever since we met in Brian’s beginning forum. And sometimes they say something that is like waving a magic wand over some something I am noodling around. Voila, forward I go again. Confirmation in hand. Validation, I suppose. Support for sure.
So I now need to get a Beatrix Kiddo figure for Sonia, who just gets out there and goes punch punch punch, and something magical as my Scottish Joanna who would probably know what that Chanda Mama palanquin is. She’s brilliant with words and getting to what matters and look at her gorgeous photographs.
Because not only are they fabulous at what they do, they make it fun. Lyrical, dancing fun…
Which is what Chanda Mama turns out to be about. It’s a lullaby from India. A request actually to the moon for honey and flowers and all good things to be delivered for a baby’s pleasure…a gentle happy , all will be provided…sweets, and lovely blossoming… delivered on a palanquin.
Now how is that for a coincidence? It’s what I would wish for Sonia and Joanna for all their dreams.
The artist smiles, chuckles a bit, and waves to two women who have my utmost respect and affection.
It’s Organizing Monday, only 11 left in the year, I am counting Mondays. Eleven opportunities to really make them count.
Now Chanda Mama…. I’m all yours….one more time… then we have to get to work.
Join me? Chanda Mama, Chanda Mama…for us all.
You Will Find Me Here Today
October 16, 2009 by Janice · Leave a Comment
Writing takes a different part of my brain than painting. One that accesses the same source, but still a little different. Left and right I suppose. With a bridge built across the two. I’ve spent more time with words this week than with paint. And with some eye opening thoughts. Some discoveries and re-discoveries. Some paths to follow in a bit.
But today. I need to be here. Right here in the cradle of those two trees with a brush full of color in my hand.
So that’s where you will find me,
Up to my elbows, exploring wet paint.
In the paint.
Listening for rustles,
Evidence of life,
Nudging a few ochres into place.
Some tinted with subtle green.
Some whispering a lavender lullaby .
Thinking renewal.
What color exactly is that?
And there are some gentle golds.
Shhh. It needs some quiet pigments here, too…
Gently receding.
Some hints of shadow,
but not too much.
I’ll try some not usual for me colors, some newly born combinations…
Explore a slight shift to keep it fresh.
Brush those into place.
The birds outside this morning echo the ones that were there on that November walk. And it got chilly again here overnight.
That helps.
Cues.
And muses pulling me back into
… that cradle between two trees.
Yes… almost there.
The words recede…
only a few linger…
Just the important ones now…
and then the paint comes in…
intention set…quietly now…
That’s where you will find me today
Across that bridge …
Creating story with a little paint.
I’ll be back out around five. In time for a Naughty Margarita. Some Patron and some Triple Sec. Yep. See you then?
Have a great weekend.
Make it Real
October 15, 2009 by Janice · 2 Comments
This is a post for Blog Action Day on Climate Change.
These are some of my Chandeleur Island notebooks. These three little notebooks were rescued from my home after the storm. The barrier island itself was reduced by half. The ground I walked making the sketches in the bottom notebook does not exist anymore. It’s scattered or under water. The base camp houseboat is back up and running for sport and science after extensive repairs and rebuilding. The Jet Ranger helicopter the red notebook sketches were made in still flies all over the region. Still available for making movies too. Me and my notebooks are expats. The region is toxic for me and my lungs. I hope that won’t always be so.
What does this have to do with Climate Change?
Well, the one thing I know from experience is that abstract distant concepts will not cause people to take meaningful action. It has to be something people can see and feel and touch to make any change in choices made on a daily basis. Abstract doesn’t work.
I know this as much as I know that too much mold will kill me.
As much as I know that money spent planting grasses and mangroves will rebuild that barrier Island.
And barrier islands protect.
I know that you have to make it real, and small or people get lost in abstract and overwhelm. And sometimes people die.
I know this as much as I know that those cost cutting contractors who took a short cut so many years ago in that industrial canal levee, caused the deaths of many people and storm loss much larger and extensive than if they had done it right the first time.
I know that choices made on a daily basis have consequences that can bite us all in the butt somewhere down the road.
So shouldn’t we stop making them?
What if mere common sense was the best currency we could spend?
What if we changed the climate of our mindset?
And demanded care and stewardship above monetary gain?
What if?
We had clean air, fresh water and healthy bodies and extended that to all things?
What if we measured in real costs every choice we made?
Wouldn’t that be us awake, living and leaving things just a little better than how we found them?
I am not an expert in the whole climate picture, but I am a boots on the ground, years of experience, expert on coastal wetlands. Yes an artist. I was in the go to crew on those issues. Scientists, engineers, politicians, bankers, writers, educators, children who cared and more, we were doing something. I spent years doing that in and for my community. And for myself.
And I am saying prevention is less costly than the cure.
And that abstract doesn’t work, it has to be real.
So even if we just suspect that just maybe we are doing something in the short term that will bite us in the collective and individual butts in the long…shouldn’t we stop doing that?
Trust me, dealing with those things on a catastrophic level is no fun.
So ask for something that you can do today and everyday, something within arm’s reach that ensures you are not adding to the problem. Ask for something, some guidelines on how to choose better. And how to choose better industries to support. Which ones not to. Which projects to fund which ones not to. Ask for infrastructure that is solid and well executed. And ask for health and care and wise stewardship in all things…ask. Don’t delegate your real safety. Don’t settle for a false sense of security. Ask yourself, who really has your back? Ask how exactly your environment, yours right there where you are impacts you and how you impact it. Don’t our children deserve that? Ask for a bit more conscious wisdom about how we use what we have. And pass it on to them.
That to me is true wealth. And aren’t we a wealthy nation?
Ask and then do it. Choose better.
Make yourselves and our children truly rich.
Make it real.
Make a mindset climate change. And then we’ll be on course to deal with all the rest.
Brave New Worlds
October 12, 2009 by Janice · 12 Comments
Discovery is an exciting thing. An artist’s best friend actually. There’s a moment in the process when something happens that you know changes your perspective maybe for all of the rest of your work. A surprise sometimes, planned for at other times. One of those bonuses that we set out looking for, but may not always find. But we do set out for them. Tools in hand. Concept, or the notion of a concept firmly in tow.
We provision, pack, set a course and hope.
Sure, experience tells us maybe where to look. But we don’t always know if we’ve found a tributary, or the source.
Maybe we all are looking for something ( thanks Annie Lenox) maybe spices, maybe for water on the moon, maybe a clue, but artist’s are usually looking for that something that brings them more into their artistic voice.
We strive to find our own way of saying what we are compelled to say. Visually, yes. We learn our visual language. We hone those skills. Always wanting the clearest flow we can get. It’s not a straight line on a map. Or a known river. A suspected one maybe. But we always want to find it. Like salmon maybe, looking for their home stream.
I have painter mentors. Have had some brilliant ones. Genius ones. Colorful ones. And enduring ones. Who push and pushed me further. Into brave new worlds in the studio.
It’s nice to have that kind of support. Believers. Cohorts, and colleagues that we trust. Yes, we rarely make anything of substance totally alone. Mentors, supportive friends. Ones who tell you true. Or erm, you might want to rethink that, or ooh, now we’re talking.
Pathfinders. For we who would be pathfinders too.
But I never had writing mentors. Reading mentors, sure. Writer friends, some really good ones. But I had not yet set my course in writing.
Until now.
I really did set out to write because it had always been a sore spot ( in my eyes) in my career. Ugh. A big old stone in the path. No make that a boulder. Being able to write and write well in an artist’s career can make a difference in getting the project and not. Making the cut and not. Sounding like an idiot and not. And don’t get me started on the dreaded artist’s statement. Grr. So I could write. But write well? Well, I survived, but it always made me a bit nuts when asked to write yet again. And still, I have been asked to write books. HAH.
I could speak well. Hah, again. Isn’t that supposed to be the other way around? I thought that’s probably what fooled them. I wrote only privately. In journals, in sketchbooks, notes, plans, thoughts. I make pictures, not words. I thought those publishers had the wrong person. Those writers were just being nice. Those interviewers just misplaced. And those dinner co-conversationalists courteously kind for the evening.
Until… a series of circumstances brought me here.
To this brave new world on line.
To this format.
To the necessity of finding my way, again.
To deciding enough of feeling so awkward in writing for public consumption. I am a private person. But I thought to myself, ” Just do it, improve it as you go. Be present, show up and give it your best shot in that moment.” Just like in the studio. It still gives me big butterflies in my stomach. But here’s the funny thing about practicing, about setting out on a course of practice.
It can lead to discovery.
Discovery of one’s voice.
Even in words.
Hah.
Who knew?
So right here, right now I have to say thank you to someone who pointed me in the right direction, who gave me me strong ships to sail on, and who continues to chart the unknown territory as smart as any smart person can.
And here is probably one of the smartest things he’s ever written. Thank you Brian for telling me to write about my process way back at the beginning in your forum. And for well, being Brian.
Next Organizing Monday? Some very smart and clever cohorts Brian lead me to.
To Brave New Worlds…and to those who continue to set out for them. It’s a very good crew.
Compare and Contrast
October 9, 2009 by Janice · 6 Comments
Even when I am painting blades and blades of grass that are all basically the same color and shape, I compare and contrast with my brush. Some blades need to be the same, or similar, in fact if I did that all the way across the top of this painting, it would be okay. Okay. But we’re not after okay. Not even in the minor cast of players here. We’re after a bigger game.
We want vibrance. We want to breathe life into something that is essentially paint and paper.
We want shimmer.
So same is made slightly different. Curve is opposed by straight line. Warm is challenged by slightly cooler. And still is made to move. Just a little. This area is background. It needs to breathe, but not overstep its role.
But it needs to be as vibrant as the whole.
The essential parts need to work on their own and within the bigger picture.
And that’s a balancing act.
A consciousness of what the bigger picture is about while working in the small.
They exist in the same space and time and will be fixed, bound there in the finished piece. But our attention…
Well that has to be kind of linear doesn’t it? One thing at a time.
So how do we do that?
In a painting, you hang everything on good bones, on the structure and intent that gave you enough incentive to paint the piece in the first place. The what and why of it. The thing you most want out of it. That. That’s what you hang it all on.
So that each blade of grass is born from that place. Not tacked on, not rendered in just okay. It’s not just a blade of grass. It’s not just a minor player. It’s an active part of an idea. Each part has to have some bit of that central idea in it. Each part has to know the whole. THAT’s what you’re painting.
The thing is to know what that bigger idea is before you even begin. To own that. Live that. Brush with that in mind. And then those blades of grass breathe it too.
So not just yellow, but golden yellow and cobalt violet added in. Not just grey, but Davies Grey with that same cobalt violet added here and there. Not just golds that go to red, but golds that go to green too. Make the lines. Here fat, here lean. Here long, here never having end. Compare and contrast.
Set up shimmer here too, while working in the small.
Breathe it into life.
Yes.
Do that.
Weave the big into all the small.
It’s Friday. And rainy here. I am going to continue painting blades of grass today ( LOL, Walt Whitman where are you? ), but I have to give a huge thank you to Jonathan Fields for something he wrote this week on playing a bigger game. And, well, for being Jonathan. Go over there and give yourself a treat.
Almost time for one of those tall, chilled, Naughty Margaritas. Yes? A Prickly Pear one for me I think. You?
And have a good weekend. Watch out for all this rain.
When A Painting Starts To Come To Life
October 7, 2009 by Janice · 11 Comments
A fluttering. Right there in my tummy. That’s what it feels like when I see a painting come to life for the first time. Not every painting, usually only the ones that are going to knock even my socks off. Just the beginnings and plenty of white space, but huge whispers of what is to come. It always gives me pause. And a thrill. I feel a physical flutter.
And last night, for the first time in a very long time, it happened.
The quickening.
Propped sideways against a wall, the painting framework just barely in place, bits of lightest colors scattered to set the stage, I walked by on my way to bed.
There it was, the fluttering.
I stopped.
And looked.
Really looked.
And felt happier than I have felt in so, so long.
You see I can see the whole of it right now. I can see where the shimmers go, where the deep dark loam holds the wet, the sticks, the random, the grasses all circled round , the oasis that brought my deer there to sip …
And colors…I see colors, side by side that are so much more than what they are alone. This blue in the brown making that coral in the red glow. That watery lavender bringing out the hungry gold to glow. And softness next to hard. Birth next to death. Vigor next to entrophy. Richness. Wealth in the wild.
My tidepool in a Mississippi puddle. The one I’ve longed to paint for forever.
A fluttering.
For just a moment last night as I got ready to sleep.
I stared for just a bit longer.
Smiled.
Went on to read my book a bit.
Turned out the light.
And smiled again.
Happy.
Finally.
And then I slept.
And had a not so nice dream.
Not going to let that stop me.
We are going back to that puddle. And make it shimmer, just like it did on that day in November. We’re thirsty, that deer and I. And this one’s ours.
We’ll talk about the rest, later. Maybe when I start to paint the clouds in that water.
For now.
I just want to savor happy.
As THIS painting comes to life.
What about you? Do you get that tickle of a thrill when you see a project take form? That little bit inside that says yes, this is going to be a bit special?