Subtle Shifts
April 12, 2010 by Janice · 3 Comments
Color Pencil, Graphite, Somerset Paper and Mont Blanc Ink, Janice Cartier, April 2010
I like this piece. A lot.
Funny thing, it doesn’t exist…well not really. Not in this exact form. Not yet.
But it could.
This morning I was looking through the pictures of this drawing. It’s rendered in very delicate hues and tints in its present form. Soft grades of greys, whispers of colors. Bits of juicy ink.
Hm… “I really like this composition”, I thought, “but I wonder what if…
It had a bit more color?”
And then I pushed the color levels in the photo.
Just moved the left bracket a little to the right and ooched the right one in to the left just a tad…
And pow…
Suddenly more color,
suddenly more depth,
Suddenly I could see this in a different light.
On a larger canvas,
printed,
assembled.
Constructed even.
Made on any scale.
Hm.
Now that’s exciting.
It goes into the “green light” project box…
The artist smiles.
Sometimes it’s subtle shifts that lead to new ideas and pull all the zone work forward.
And those seem to be abundant on this Organizing Monday. It’s one of those sorting, reviewing, hm, how about this kind of days .
Subtle shifts in my thinking…and doing…
No big to do, no parade, no super aha..just lots of little shifts that are pretty wonderful in themselves.
How about you? Monday going to be good for you?
Folded Painting
April 7, 2010 by Janice · 3 Comments
Watercolor on Handmade Thai paper, Scissors, Pencil, Color Pencil, Janice Cartier, April 2010
This folded painting is either a map or a detour. I am kind of speechless and scratching my head this morning because I had so much fun doing this piece and it looks like nothing. Well it kind of looks like fabric. When I drew a landscape on it, the lines flowed intuitively, great exuberant lines. Not needing to check accuracy lines. Just flowing lines in pencil.
Yum.
Then I pulled out the pan color. Rich luxuriant pan colors and dipped my brush in, anticipating large puddles that oozed and shifted and breathed. More flow.
That did not happen. Color, stop. More color, stop…I had forgotten this paper does not allow watercolor to flow easily. Smudge yes. Thin washes will slightly seep maybe. But flow? No.
Hm.
Well, I ‘ll add some color pencil, see if that melts when wet, digs a bit into the pulp…makes more color impact.
Detail Watercolor on Thai Paper, Janice Cartier, April 2010
Hm…very subtle.
Hm.
Time to get the scissors out. Do some collage.
For me this is not yet a believable plane, it’s only a layer….I think.
A nice layer. But it needs something else ….so there will be cutting…and gluing… fashioning..some something…that has no words only actions….
Why folding? Why cutting? Why assemblage without knowing?
Shouldn’t I know?
I only have hints.
And impulses.
But in private studio, sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes that’s ALL you have.
So in comes the trust part. Trusting yourself and doing anyway
Makes maps and detours into works of art.
Or not.
But you have to do them, work them, to find out.
A folded painting? Not sure what that means.
The doing is leading the way.
I’ve surrendered to process…
So anything I need to know…will eventually be revealed.
There’s that trust thing again.
Sometimes you have to just lean into that.
the artist smiles…not always easy, but it’s one way through….
Raw
March 26, 2010 by Janice · 3 Comments
Mixed media, Moleskine, Janice Cartier, March 2010
Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, there’s a word waiting for me. Gently requesting some space. Some attention. This morning, it wasn’t a word. It was a color. A specific color wash.
Golden yellow ochre.
A fully formed puddle , liquid, painted..running down a page was there…just waiting..asking to be let loose.
And wouldn’t go away.
I had stayed up late last night watching silly TV. Then read about the 4 qualities of mind in the recent issue of Yoga Journal.
Hmph.
Loving kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity.
I’m on board with the first three and puzzled at the fourth. No, I get the fourth, but the explanation…become indifferent toward bad things..non-judgmental, observant, but indifferent…
Hmph again.
For peace of mind, of course.
I am actively trying very much to become ‘indifferent”..retain equanimity in regard to a certain personal relationship at the moment. And trying very hard not to let it impede my work in the studio. But it’s there in the background.
Indifference is not what I would call what runs through my head at the moment. But I am working on it.
And this morning I get a golden ochre wash begging for space.
So I got out the paints and gave in.
Just went with one thing then the other and the next.
I gave over to it, this wordless need…
And this, this raw “thing”
Is what I got.
I started to say, I have no idea what it is..but then I looked closer
And saw without a doubt, I had painted that pine tree again.
That one that caught the golden orange of the light, on the evening after the storm. It had cracked and shifted, but still stood tall amid a brilliant blue sky when all around….
Destruction. Tossed and tumbled everything. Everywhere.
But there on its edge, there was a sliver of golden light,
An image emblazoned in my mind’s archive,
There while the fresh scent of sap still perfumed the air and birds began their return…
There amid what would get far worse before it got better,
was a pure bit of golden orange amid a blue…on the trunk of that tree.
raw…
but bright and insistent.
Hmph.
That simple brown vertical over on the left whose top most part edges under the orange of a color pencil rectangle..has a edge that glows under close inspection..purely random, purely in the moment of response to a puzzle…I have made that pine tree survey all over again the rampant destruction.
And if I dissect the visual vocabulary, I can see that it is site specific. There’s Tulane and St. Charles…the bend of the river…the tumble of trees…the influx of the water…and yet there are bright spots…and an adobe wash and Western blue sky and flow. Bright colors of hope and heart…
I see the result of going back into my archives yesterday. Beginning to review them one by one..
And trying to find those four states of a peaceful mind…
And personal equanimity.
And I see that allowing the space for raw…and flow…
With a mind to re-structuring, reframing,
Might just have some golden moments….if we look for them…
But indifference?
Can’t say I have achieved that yet.
Maybe I just need to play in the puddles, the splashes my tracks make…
Dunno.
It’s like this in private studio…toss out questions..and see where they lead.. follow silly washes with a “vacant mind”…
There’s my day : more puddles, more splashing, more open to response…not knowing…but knowing all the same..that I am on the right path.
And that’s invigorating….but thirsty work.. LOL.. yes.. you’ll join me later, right ? Naughty Beverages all round. Have a great weekend.
Too Soon
March 12, 2010 by Janice · Leave a Comment
Wash and Pencil on Hand made paper, Janice Cartier, March 2009
It’s too soon to draw any conclusions, but the marks and cuts I am making this week seem to have a direct reference to the marks I made last spring…like these. And this strong desire to cut things up..that started last spring too.
Random, responsive marks in different materials..and yet like an elastic band that stretches and returns…I am noticing similarities.
I wonder, are these my spring marks?
Is the cutting up some kind of sloughing off?
An attempt to break out of winter’s cozy embrace?
I wonder …
do we all have seasons in our creative work?
Do small ideas unfurl like ferns uncurling,
Pushing up through dried and decomposing leaves of old thoughts and familiar ways?
Or do we break the ground up, soften it to help them on their way?
Hm.
Maybe a bit of both?
Maybe that urge is a timeless one, that we can’t override…
And maybe …
we wouldn’t want to.
Maybe this is the time to watch for tender shoots
And help prepare more space for them to grow…
It’s too soon to tell, but I really like some of the things I am seeing…
In private studio.
Too soon to share them yet…
Too soon to know which ones to grow…
But I am leaning toward a few..
Oddly, I have a sense of persistent memory…although the work is tender and new… or perhaps it is my seeing that is new and the marks are ancient. It’s too soon to tell.
Ahh..we may have met our old friend paradox once again…
And that will require friends and sharing and beverages …it’s Friday, we earned it..and we all could use a healthy dose of Naughty..it’s not too soon for that. See you there?
What’s Up For Your Week?
March 8, 2010 by Janice · 5 Comments
Source Material, Pencil , Waterman Pen, Red Ink, Sharpener, Janice Cartier, March 2010
That’s the question my friend asked me as we ended our weekend phone call yesterday “What’s up for your week? We are kind of our own accountability bar as well as life long friends.
I glanced quickly over to my worktable , grimaced, looked at the open notebook on my desk, stifled another groan, and replied…
Lots, lots and lots of conversion.
Conversion you may ask?
Yes, converting ideas into action.
Drawings into studies or formal pieces, experiments into ah hahs…random into oh wow..
Stacks of that.
And I promised Paris Breakfasts to count some Mondays which made me take a look at how soon this first quarter of 2010 will be history. We have 4 Mondays til, zip zap it is done, done , done.
And next Saturday is the first day of spring. Rest assured it is. My allergy /”spring is upon us” head cold will vouch for that.
4.
If I looked at the huge overall of it..
well..
Let’s just say a spring break would look verra appealing, in say some remote location.
So this week, we’ve ink, and pencil and collage, more of that…
But we also have some watercolors that will be laid out. Because with spring comes more work on the huge piece underway and some works along that line and series. And work along the Across the Tracks Blues series. I am loving bringing it all along together. Which is unusual for me.
But those are merely details, it’s easy to get bogged down in details and this and that. With demands upon our time and all those unknowns..so…
So it’s a perfectly wonderful time to consider your vision and keep that in mind.
Hold that above all in the next 4 weeks….and remember the why we do it all in the first place.
I believe that creates decisiveness, and a decent rate of conversion…no matter how high the stacks may be…
Be willing to fight for that vision no matter what our individual details may be.
And if you don’t have a vision..
Then 4 or 12 , or 20…Mondays…won’t matter..spend the next few Mondays..working on that.
Knowing the why , knowing what we are bringing into being…is just as important as the bringing it is. Maybe this is not your usual first quarter conversation..but it is the most vital thing you can have in your toolkit, the why you are accessing your zone. Huge energy to be had there for conversion. Like going to the well…and then all that work…feels a bit more like play…and aren’t we lucky to be able to access that?
Ways into the zone. That’s what artists find and explore.
And it all starts and flows from that vision.
That’s where we are this Organizing Monday. How about you? Energized this week, or no? Do you have your why firmly in place?
Framing Things
February 24, 2010 by Janice · 2 Comments
Views From My Santa Fe Windows, thumbnails on graph paper, Janice Cartier, February 2010
Framing things…or maybe reframing things is a better choice of words as I work through some of these sketches. One of the 4 series I chose for this year is a windows series. It’s a recurring thing with me that I have only taken to a formal level a few times….maybe three that I can remember.
But I love windows and views.
There’s something of a barrier and an opening.
Something of exclusion and expansion.
Something of geometry and organics.
Paradox.
There is something of that.
And it depends a lot on where we put the frame.
What reaches into that space inside us…
And what we have a view to do…with what we are looking at.
What’s inside and out…
Time of day, light, terrain..
and what goes on inside we silly artists as we pause and contemplate.
As I ‘ve sketched these this week, the pieces in this “Peace Of An Island” folder,
It has afforded me, oddly, little peace at all..
Oh, the odd bits, of sheer ooh and ah when I ‘ve uncovered a juicy bit to paint ( no small thing that), or recover an idea I had only graced with a cursory glance before and dismissed as you don’t do that, or maybe someday just to play…and scurried onto paint what everybody wanted, expected…what I had created before…
But here..
In some of these windows..
I found moments, pure and fresh..
Contemplation yes,
And restlessness…
New geometry to hold some thoughts,
New shapes,
New ways of expression,
New breath,
And some very, very old holds on me..that I’ve never painted,
Some deeply rich and lingering.
Others..what if’s that seem… new…or maybe just dormant, and coming to life
Choosing form to fit them,
To engage and put them into process,
Well there’s little peace in that..
But there is excitement and sureness of being on the right path.
It feels odd, AND comforting to come back to this kind of knowing,
This knowing nothing,
But looking freshly,
Into this re-framing things,
And doing.
Complacency is not a path to mastery…
Apparently, discomfort is.
How about you? How do you carve new space for yourself?
Random and Abundance
February 3, 2010 by Janice · 7 Comments
Sumi ink, Color Pencil, Watercolor Washes, Graphite, and newsprint, Janice Cartier, February 2010
Found materials are a goldmine to encourage flow. They reduce impediments that you may subconsciously or consciously have. And besides, newspapers have great texture to play off. They can be subtle co-conspirators actually with all their shades of grey.
These are some ink contours I did yesterday to play with a few forms, some shells and my hiking boots in these three. There are others but these three, I rather like. Not because they are so great as is, and exactly because they are so great as is, for where they may take me.
Have taken me already.
Because something strangely weird and oddly puzzling happened as I was doing this, picking up one piece of collected paper, doing a casual ink drawing of one thing, no plan, then doing the next. It was just “found” paper.
Later, when they dried,
I noticed the headlines and the text on the pages:
The shells in the lower front in the photo happen to be done on the weather report, and the ad on the page is for a collection of treasure boxes with maps and badlands, ducks and chiefs on the top. That’s the back side where the ink seeped from the drawing I did on the front. I liked it better. It’s the side I used color on to explore shape within shapes. Straight against curved. On the inside, the page I drew on , the text was about stories within stories…things not apparent on first glance.
The shells above that piece, the deep dark ink on that blue block and sterile office photo, the flowing spirals and ruffled edges, is drawn across a story with the headline: “Climate legislation would cost chipmakers.” I had imposed a natural form on a grid and asked them to accommodate each other. Not knowing.
And the third, my hiking boots, rather badly drawn and foreshortened, hike across an article about an island in Croatia “buffeted by history retains ancient rhythms”. I had merely picked up something with a little color on it, the next sheet in. My Island hiking boots. Ancient rhythms. That I have traced.
Random.
It strikes me as odd, that the words on the pages could very much be a part of what I had just done. Apt in some form or fashion. And yet I did not consciously choose them.
But I DID choose to impose organic forms on geometric pages.
I AM choosing to come at things from some opposite directions than I normally would in doing a formal piece.
And yet, what crops up? Things that have very much to do with the heart of my work.
Only I don’t know how I’ll put these together.
Well, not yet.
But I am choosing to look and ask and maybe see.
Paths.
Some things to play on and with today…
And as I snapped the pic this morning for you, I noticed, hm…they actually could work together as a composition….they could be explored…colored, collaged, cut…or even painted…to find out more about scribbles and a vacant mind….organics and geometry, or warm and cool, and nothing made into something, or how an artist finds a way in…using fragments from her former life, experiments…to get into her next one.
A vacant mind, some time…and a little random….putting yourself in flow.
Small things, small steps, small what is this? are exactly what we’re after…
To keep, or discard.
Who knows?
Better not to judge just yet….just follow the path a bit.
Explore.
Yep, private studio.
You just never know….
And that’s actually a very good thing.
It keeps a sparkle in your eye and an eagerness to your work.
The artist smiles.
How about you? How much time do you spend on the map and off, in what you do? Do you leave space for exploring?
Not There Yet
January 27, 2010 by Janice · 9 Comments
Gouache, Color Pencil, Graphite, Janice Cartier, January 2010
Like an unfinished story way before the editor sees it. That’s a day in the studio. In private studio, even more so. In private studio playing with only an inkling of an idea…even more so than that. But we play anyway.
The difference here, is that I am showing you things that dispel any notion that I solidly understand what it is I am after.
There is only the tension of desire and movement toward it.
With maybe a hint of a clue.
I was talking about this yesterday with a very dear friend who knows my work, who gets it.
He writes,
But he gets painting.
And we were discussing how I used to immerse myself in wetlands landscape, fully breathe it in, go wandering out, and bringing back. Hunting, harvesting, just being open to whatever I would come across that caused that little hum to begin. Light on form, a special place, an intimacy of recognition. Passion ignited. Compulsion set in motion.
I am not surrounded by those wetlands here.
There’s more geometry, more unnatural here than natural, more cultivated than chaotic.
And then I said to him, “I’ve decided to go toward those scribble series as half my work this year, those abstract things, John suggested, and it is so different, trying to get comfortable with the idea of just the shorthand, just the form that causes the tingle in the first place. ”
As always, he listened attentively.
I have always done those quick notes of pure line, pure response to color as field notes, or painting plans, as quick drawings. They are scattered all through my work. Always have been. They zing with energy. Pure motion and impact. I have always layered on more though. We seemed to need more. And that’s what sold. The more.
We discussed our writer friends who have made compromises with their publishers to make it to the bestseller lists. No judgement there, just acknowledgement of that thing there is in levels of audience and art and sales.
And here I am stripping away those layers. Will form, and line and color be enough?
Can I strip away enough, but not too much?
Can I find the simplest way to do them and still make them tell the story that I want them to? Tell of that burst, that spark, that thing that compels me? That thing in the thing that is an intimate recognition.
And we decided, it may be like the difference between writing a novel and writing a short story. That shorthand I want to develop into full blown works, and master if truth be told, puzzle me. There is no little fear involved in developing them. Murikami says he does short story and novel writing from completely different places. And not at the same time. They require him to think differently about what he is doing.
So I have two opposite sets of series I am playing with.
More, abundant more.
And less.
But they both need to end up at the same place.
Brilliantly captivating.
Just like their source.
We are not there yet.
It’s a risk.
But it is going to be a very interesting year, I do believe.
Uncomfortable, uneven, edgy, with bits of oasis and clearings and glimmers of light.
It’s my hybrid kind of exploring, adaptation if you will. But also, it feels both like something new and like coming home.
The tension has always been there.
So this artist is going toward it.
Again in those places in between.
Half of them known and seen, half of them from within. Hm, not sure what kind of boots to put on, but that’s the course we’re setting.
It feels like a very good thing. Even if it’s scary.
“It feels like more, like getting more of me back now,” I told my patient friend.
I just hope that that’s enough.
And I hope you find it interesting. You’ve got boots right?
No telling where this will take us.
And I wonder, how much of what you do…how much is on the map and how much …no map at all?
Ink, Paper, Scissors
January 22, 2010 by Janice · Leave a Comment
Collage, Graphite, Color Pencil, Gouache, Janice Cartier, 2010
It’s not there yet. And yet here it is out there again for public consumption. This assemblage has another layer to go, darker darks, and warmer colors, hopefully some cobalt violet will sneak in, even though that is a “favorite” color on my palette. And we have competing ideas here about using favorites and hey try this at the moment. In any case, here it is. A second experiment in deconstruction.
In translation.
Play.
Am I getting more comfortable doing this to pieces that I love?
To pieces there is nothing wrong with at all?
To successes I have known?
Hmph.
Depends.
After all, at this stage, we are suspending judgement.
But here’s one thing I am noticing:
I am loving parts of these.
Not only when I feel the marks being made, but after they are done.
Like now.
I purposely stopped on this one right at this point. I see some areas that hold real promise. And there are decisions to be made. The next medium to go on, should it be ink and brush, should it be cut, should it be paint that I know? And how much should I stick to the original plan? The original is way darker than this.
But right now, it reminds me of a Dior fabric on a dress that I almost bought years ago. I opted to just get the solid color jacket that came out with it in that collection. But the silk of the dress had colors that skimmed and skirted and moved on its surface like this. It was a breath. A souffle of joy. It was horrendously expensive. It was one of those either or, but not both, moments in Saks. I bought the aqua raw silk jacket. And was happy every time I wore it.
Decisions.
Like now.
Enjoy the moment as you are in it. That’s what I want from my work. And amid all the tension of going off my usual path, of knowing these are only little jumps,
On bits of paper,
With things I have on hand,
I paused.
Right here.
And smiled.
Just because I liked it.
And now I must choose.
Even if I take it to a much darker place, or even if I totally destroy it,
I still have this moment.
And the nifty little treasures that I see.
And those…
I’ll take with me, into the bigger work.
And be happy that I found them. That for a moment they are mine just as they are.
Oh, I’m getting out the brown, the ink, the scissors….the darker darks…
We’re exploring after all.
But I’m sneaking in some cobalt violet …right next to those yellow twirly things that look a lot like sails…
How about you? Are you good about “killing your darlings” to serve the greater good?
And yes, five o’clock, we’ll be needing a Naughty beverage, or maybe even two. Whoever gets there first, order a pitcher, please…
The Offending Piece
January 20, 2010 by Janice · Leave a Comment
Graphite, Collage, Color Pencil, Ink, Janice Cartier, 2010
Never. Look outside and see if pigs are flying because never would I show this piece in public. If, and it’s a big if at the moment, I ever decided I actually thought well of it, it might be a bridge piece. One that comes after one thing and before another in a successful series.
We have not had time enough for that to happen… yet. This is still playing in the mud puddle time.
Clearly.
And here it sits.
Out there now.
One of my “pick 42 ways to fail”examples.
I was examining form last week in some drawings. How things fit together, movement. Parts of real things and part of an important piece of the large Deer Tracks multi paneled piece. Looking for essential energies, vibrance. And I have 2 series officially on my schedule that require comfort with failing. Trys. Starts and uh ohs, and guesses.
I have to live with those guesses too.
And suspend judgement.
Because we are just in the making of the story on those series.
Granted it’s a visual story. Visual stories have their own struggles with visual language too. Illusion. Suspension of disbelief. And they have basic elements like line and color and texture, to name a few.
So we play.
This is only a mild attempt at play. On a piece of paper. No huge leap. Small ones. Small play with ways of saying . Of taking something known to an unknown place. Of pursuing impact. And essences.
Hmph.
I have two more to do like this this week.
Central cores from major pieces I have done. I am deconstructing. “Translating” .
Because I have always wanted to.
And because my dear John T. Scott said go there. “It’s a very rich place for you”, he placed a finger on one of my pieces and tapped it. “Right there. That place in between.”
So that’s where those 2 series are going.
Sheesh.
And in public no less.
Can you see me shaking my head?
And surrendering…
To whatever “going there” is to be?
Are you good at suspending judgement when you are trying to shift yourself a bit?