Change and Little Boxes
July 5, 2010 by Janice · 3 Comments
Look inside those little boxes. Just look at all the swirly, moving goodness inside each one. And then look how contained they are. How clean the space between them.
I like them.
A lot.
Every time I look at them.
Now live in this, this excited, crazy making place of question:
How to set them free to become what I envision?
Because I love them as they are. I find that crisp clean-ness ever so thrilling.
A kind of strength if you will, harboring very delicious richness.
Structure.
Tension of containment.
Vision.
A wishing.
And I know that next comes a whole lot of possible messy.
The messiness of executing a vision.
Can get awkward.
Can be confusing.
Can be not at all what we think it is going to be.
Can be whole lots and lots of fun.
Can be scary.
and unexpected..
and exhausting,
And invigorating..
Yep.
Messy and uncertain, living in the question.
But the vision of what they want to be,
The concept the heart behind them
Sees and feels and wants
Beyond almost anything in the world
That thing they want to be..
Will help pull them
Irresistibly
Along.
It’s Organizing Monday, and I am organizing nothing, except feeling that energy in them. And looking in that heart. Yep… these.. these little boxes.. I love them dearly.
And that alone is kind of exciting.
The artist smiles.
Truly.
Silly little boxes are making me smile as if they contain a key…
Love At First Sight
June 14, 2010 by Janice · 4 Comments
Photo by Phillip Macdiarmid/Getty Images Europe
I fell hard in love with this image the first time I saw it this spring and searched madly to find out more. I had seen bits of Roni Horn’s work thanks to Hauser and Wirth. A pink cube of glass. In a gorgeous light filled space. Simple in design, exquisitely fabricated and somehow perfectly presented right there.
Hm.
An idea had been kicking around in my head with some of my small inquiries. I have some sketches, but the form had escaped me.
Perhaps writers go for a walk, kick at leaves, or pebbles along the way until the verse is nudged into what it wants to be. Or perhaps a scientist tinkers in the lab, let’s try this or that and see what comes of it.
Artists sometimes wander and look. At timeless pieces, or newly made, visit studios, or read what art writers are writing. Look a trails others leave. We are part of a rich fabric of context. I personally love that the Met has been endowed with this. I wish I could tell you what happens to me when I gaze at ancient Chinese bronzes. Or neolithic art. A sigh and an uptick both come cozy to my heart.
Art for me is a professional calling. As much as I try to escape that at times, it would be idiotically stupid to succeed. It’s who I am. How I view the world. But it isn’t narrowing. Quite the opposite. It’s a huge window on our world like science or philosophy. So wandering among the history of it, or the right nowness of it, is part of what I do. It can be overwhelming.
If you let it.
My little sketch of what if….
can pale in comparison…
With all that has come before or is now in the making.
Unless you realize
that it all begins with a small what if.
Every effort, every piece, every ism..begins that way.
And then the chill bumps start..
the artist smiles
Our little sketches of what if’s
Are our membership cards
into this ancient and enduring practice.
And my heart settles once again with the sheer richness of that.
And you want to honor the practice.
When I see something like this magnificent pink glass cube, I marvel at how simple and how complex it all can be. How diverse and how full of wonder… and I look at my sketches… my small inquiries.. and think…
Perhaps ….
glass
Birds…like fossils..
in and out of glass…
Maybe…
And I wander on…
Totally in love with this pink cube and what it took to make it.
I am looking for fabricators…and prices…
Another path of passion.
That’s just one more thing I am Organizing on this Monday. Sigh. The artist looks at her stack of tasks…
Then back to this.
It’s important to keep our dreams and loves in mind.
Especially on Mondays.
How about you? Got a touchstone for a dream? Something you are working on?
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?
Piddle and Random
January 29, 2010 by Janice · Leave a Comment
Watercolor, Color Pencil, Graphite, on paper, Janice Cartier, January 2010
Sounds like a law firm, maybe a jeweler, or a publisher, but piddle and random is a discovery tool. One I’m using for part of my day today. I know, sounds and maybe even looks like, it’s just doodles…and it is. But these little color sketches are, hm..a kind of free association to both get away from and come into something.
Ever set out on a walk with no particular thing in mind except the walking? Just follow your feet where they lead? And did you ever notice what happens the more you warm up, the more you cover a bit of distance going to that no place in particular?
Just being in the walk?
That nothingness of walking openly…
Is kind of an emptying out,
And an inviting in.
Things happen in that space, thoughts drift,
Responses happen,
Curiosity can take you here or there.
Ease.
No have to, no this way only,
No must cover x number of miles.
Just walking until it’s time to go back in.
It’s raining here today, and someone borrowed my umbrella…so I may not go outside.
But I will be walking,
Color sketching,
Making puddles,
And marks,
Covering a little bit of distance,
With nothing particular in mind, except two things:
It cannot be of anything,
And there cannot be a plan.
I just have to follow where it leads.
That’s all.
Oh, and I have to use colors that are favorites, and colors that I rarely use at all.
Piddle and random.
On a rainy day.
Discovery.
From intentionally
Doing something,
With a vacant mind.
It takes practice.
The artist smiles.
But you get some delicious bits that burble up to the surface.
See you around five for a Naughty beverage?
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?
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…
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?
Mark Twain’s Guide To Life
April 1, 2009 by Janice · 9 Comments
Consider being foolish. Yep. Take a nap, get some sleep and that’s what I come up with. I have no idea yet, but I will bet that those who are up to no good, those who revel in Beavis and Butthead are already at it. It is April Fools.
Me? I am not that clever. But I like to smile. So I thought for a minute and I actually did sleep in. I seem to need a nap these days. Lots of stuff ( very specific term there huh?) is going around in my head.
Some of it makes me wonder . What is going on? Is it spring? Is it the aha just about to happen?
I don’t know.
Chaos has become the norm. Now that may have made me uneasy once upon a time, but I found out this week from a very learned source ( The Tate Modern) that contemporary artists are homo viators. Yeah, I had to look that up too. It means we are more than ever about being on a journey, translating across disciplines and methods. Looking and moving in between the signposts. We are indeed about our chaotic time.
Well, isn’t that handy?
As I said on Monday, we live in fascinating times. And lately I have had more questions than answers. I am thinking it might be a good idea to get comfortable with the questions. Grow the questions. Thrive on letting them lead.
And that’s where Mark Twain popped into my head:
“Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.”
— Mark Twain
So maybe, just maybe, we should all be a little bit foolish. Grow some of those ideas, play with those what if’s. Share a little more laughter. Let the what if’s lead.
What do you think? Feel up to some innovation? Are you working it into your work? Foolish? Maybe. Maybe not. (See. Questions. I have plenty of those.)