Soft

On Blue

2011-05-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Molecular

2011-05-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

My Body will Feed Flowers

2011-05-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

The Saint of Open Spaces.

2011-05-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

The crow so swift, so close,

feathers sifting air, scattering thoughts.

Sunlight,

His gleaming black,

The open space.

This is watercolor and gouache on an acrylic under-painting on wood. It didn't turn out anything like the sketch below but I love it.I'm not sure how the pious, solemn figure fits in with the poem but I did grow up Catholic, and I was going for something iconic so I shouldn't be surprised.

I left my part-time receptionist job to work more at the cafe. It's a good change for me. I absolutely wilt sitting at a desk all day talking to strangers. It does mean that I am hardly ever on the net; not so good for my blog life, but I have to admit, it suits the rest of my life just fine.

Rush Hour on Burnside: from the archives

2011-04-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

I am afraid to be all alone here, watching the seagulls float above the swollen, branch-twisting river. The metal, glass, and paved crushing of careers and homes and promises, fading behind me into the silence of wings lifting.

I painted this even before my large tempera paintings, so I’ve been attempting to paint poems for my whole adult life, it’s nice to know there is some consistency to me. I feel like I flit around from one experiment to another without a lot of development. But if I have a common theme then it’s just one really long experiment.

This painting is in acrylic. I lived a few blocks from the Burnside bridge at the time and would walk downtown almost daily. I loved being that close to the river.

Under-painting

2011-04-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

I’m starting to think that gesso isn’t my perfect medium for creating layered surfaces. I thinned it with acrylic matte medium, used a thin coat and still the under-painting was too obscured. The next layer took the painting in a whole different direction, literally, as I doubted my sideways text and began to see the words depicted more literally. I believe it will take another drastic turn.

The Last Leaves

2011-04-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

Steadiness

2011-04-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just need to paint lines. It is like the animal that still owns my body, despite all the ruckus in my head, rises up, grabs a paint brush and attempts to erase all my ideas about art and trees and personhood. It feels good, like drawing on the earth with sticks as a kid.

These began as very different color schemes and somehow ended up very much alike.

Influence

2011-04-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Every journal and paper has a different influence on my writing. Trying to journal on handmade paper is a bit like trying to jog in formal wear. It doesn’t feel right to empty, indiscriminately, the contents of my mind onto such a lovely surface. But journaling doesn’t have to be a record of one’s thoughts in the way I have always believed. One can journal from their heart, or collect creative free-writes. I’m not sure what this is yet but it’s more about experience than thinking. These are my favorite pages so far.

Underbrush

2011-04-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

When I first started making paper I would put a lot of colorful things in the pulp: glitter, string, leaves, pieces of paper. It was so exciting, all the things you could collect and include in the pulp. I loved watching them take their place naturally as the water drained through the screen and everything settled perfectly in its place. These papers seem a little over the top to me now, but since I have been coating everything but myself in gesso I decided to paint these over, too. I love the way the gaudy underbrush adds an interesting texture and history beneath the gesso.

Final Serenade

2011-04-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

The last layer didn't turn out quite like I hoped but I still like this piece. I am losing interest in most of my gesso layering pieces but I am excited to try making a painting on wood with some of the knowledge I learned doing all these experiments.

Sizing

2011-04-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

I have a large box of handmade paper that I am barely using so I decided to size a bunch of it and make a journal out of it. I always thought of it as too precious to use for journaling but it is far better than having it sit unused in a box, and it is disappointing when an art-journal gets interesting but is on cheap paper.

I use an external gelatin size. I love how crisp it makes the paper and it is so beautiful I had to take a picture.

City Trees on Waterleaf

2011-04-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

Here I used my bus-tree-sketches to experiment with using water-leaf (unsized) paper from my handmade paper collection. It is difficult to paint on water-leaf, but when I paint over it with gesso or acrylic medium it doesn't smear much, the ink and paint has absorbed into the paper instead of drying on top.

City Trees

2011-03-31T09:29:00.000-07:00

These are based on my bus sketches. I used acrylic paint instead of ink so I could continue my experiments with layered gesso. The paper I made with old spices, the coriander pods were especially interesting aesthetically and of course, the paper smelled really nice. Some sheets have torn up sketches of trees in them so this batch of paper seemed especially appropriate for this project.

Trees in Transit

2011-03-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

Instead of complaining about the fact that I don't have enough time to make art I decided to start sketching on the bus. Tri-met don't pull over for an indefinite amount of time at the sight of each beautiful tree, so it is a challenging endeavor. The clockwork schedule does have its benefits: I get to work on time (Portland has SO many gorgeous trees no one would get anywhere if I were driving,) and I don't get caught up in trying to draw the whole tree or drawing realistically. I'd like to think I am studying the essence of tree shapes. And because I made my sketchbook out of tracing paper the layered sketches make irresistible photos!

"Love is" and Other Accidents

2011-03-28T16:10:00.000-07:00

I can't make myself paint over the piece above. It is not one of the strongest layered-gesso pieces, but I love the shape of the back paper I glued on it. The text underneath was a speculation that love is as ocean to fish, but between people it is an unclassifiable, unpredictable organism that simply can't be defined. I wrote it in response to one of Dale's posts. Moon, Rain, Diligence is still one of my favorites and I still have a couple more layers for it. One Lone Crow bit the dust and I'm not sure if it can be resurrected other than to totally obliterate it like The Darkness of Each Night. We'll see what happens.

Holding Color

2011-03-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

I couldn't help myself from painting in watercolor even though I know it is just going to smear all over the place when I paint more gesso on top. For the one below I thought I'd try colored pencil instead:

This Apple: A piece from the archives.

2011-03-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

This apple breaks its skin under my teeth, cracking wet percussion mingles with Ma* pouring Bach into my rain-lit room. I sit cross-legged, red-socked, in thick corduroys and an old chair, remembering...now.

* Yo Yo Ma

This is a large painting in tempera on banner paper. I find it interesting that I was painting crows back then, too. I never really decided to paint crows all the time I just kept working with poems that starred crows, and my poems have always come from what I notice around me that I find particularly beautiful.

Serenade

2011-03-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

Some pieces are hard for me to paint over because I like them just fine after the first painting. A few I have kept as they are but some I paint over anyway and then I get to try to make it interesting again. So far this is one that I think has worked the best...not that I'm done with it.

Since I don't have the internet at home right now, I've been making all my posts at once and scheduling them out. It makes me feel like a robot, but also, it feels that my blog has a life of its own, which I like. I also spend a lot less time puttering around with things I don't need to since I have such precious little time to get things done.

Walking

2011-03-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

One Lone Crow

2011-03-22T17:07:00.000-07:00

The Point was Never Lost

2011-03-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

Giving Way to Flowers

2011-03-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of problems with my layering process. One is that I like to use water-based mediums which smear when they contact another water-based medium. some smearing can be nice but sometimes it just obscures too much of the piece. The other is that the gesso obscures a little more than is ideal, I should experiment more with acrylics but I just don't like the feel of them that much. It is like wearing polyester instead of wool and cotton.

I am in the process of selling my car. What that really means is that my car is at my brother's house and he is selling it for me since I know nothing about cars. For a day and a half after getting back to the city without a car I felt a little panicked and odd. I'd been pretending I didn't have a car for several months, and felt confident enough fulfill this dream I've had for years of not owning a car. It did feel a strange at first, though. Now I am delighted. I feel more tuned-in to the weather, seasons, birds, and the trees of course. It also slows my life down in a really pleasant way. I read on the bus, I organize my time more purposefully and I don't have a large, expensive chunk of resources parked prominently in my list of things I should care care of but don't. One day while I was on the bus I thought I saw a silver deer out of the corner of my eye and thus the piece above.

I don't think cars are pure evil the way I did in my 20's, and I have no issue with using a zip car or a rental. But I do think the whole thing has gotten out of hand. We put too much into owning personal cars and arranging our cities around them when we could be improving public transportation and creating more human-friendly spaces.

Archaeological

2011-03-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

I've been very interested in layering things lately. I keep painting gesso over drawings and paintings and writing, then drawing and painting and writing some more, then more gesso and on it goes. It's like an archaeological dig in reverse and I feel compelled to document as many of the layers as possible because I often bury things so deep they get lost or just generally take things too far.

Light, Wood

2011-03-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

New Stars: a piece from the archives.

2011-03-04T14:51:00.000-08:00

My fiery fingers unfurl into the night leaving new stars on the sky.

This is one of my early attempts at illustrating poetry. I think the line is charming but there was a magnitude of unfounded arrogance behind it that is a little embarrassing and very amusing. I especially appreciate that I had no compunction to make the woman's form make sense visually, why is that so hard for me now?

Incomprehensible Serenade

2011-03-02T20:51:00.000-08:00

Beneath

2011-02-24T13:06:00.000-08:00

terror and anger and all the rest. what is it anyway...spirituality. I do not know how to devote myself to truth or growth, and love is incomprehensible. All I know is beauty. That even in this moment my body is perched in the sunlight beneath the roaring jets. Time and memory flow around it like summer air.

Sky

2011-02-21T16:34:00.000-08:00

waiting

2011-02-19T14:24:00.000-08:00

ink, pencil, gesso

2011-02-18T13:41:00.000-08:00

Life has been challenging lately. So has getting anything done on my free, public internet connection. All the same, I've mostly been art-journaling. I started painting over old ink sketches with gesso and then drawing/writing on them (above.) I really enjoy it but the ink sketches were all on thin cheap, paper which makes the pages look thin and cheap. The below pieces are ink sketches I did on both sides of a thick printmaking paper that I am going to cut into page sizes (it is quite large right now) and then gesso. I am hoping it will be more fun to work with.

The Mossy Oak and the Terror of Eternity

2011-01-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

Over

2011-01-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

Out of the fog....into the fog. The geese trail over the brushy, naked trees.

In Progress

2011-01-18T09:24:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe the piece above will go anywhere nice but I am trusting the process of not thinking. Not that I believe it will ensure that everything I make is beautiful but just that my art in general will be more authentic and interesting. I thought the top painting would not go anywhere nice after I finished the under-painting but I am starting to like it.

Becoming Soft

2011-01-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

I've decided to stop thinking. I know that technically I am supposed to wait until I am enlightened to enjoy not thinking, but I can't wait that long. I'm tired of wrestling the same demons to the ground every week and feeling like I have accomplished something. Of course, I can't actually stop the thoughts from being there in my noggin. It's just that I am ignoring them them they way I ignore anyone who talks compulsively without saying anything genuine or ever listening to anyone else. "Uh huh," I might mutter while going about my business.

So far this is going well in the realm of painting. I can't say as much for my personal life, but you have to start somewhere. Painting will be my gateway drug into life outside the mind. It is a very soft place to be and I renamed my blog Soft in celebration.

The piece above is a self portrait I made in a drawing class several years ago. In case it is not obvious, the figure in the forest is a priest and he is weighing out my goodness and badness, the scale tipping grossly to the bad. He looks more like a small child not altogether pleased with his task which was not my intent but makes it a more accurate portrait. I found it when I was digging around in a paper drawer yesterday and found it a delightful reminder to let go of constant judgments, like a crow has landed irreverently on the rock pile and broken the scale.

Pods

2011-01-10T17:57:00.000-08:00

Geese

2011-01-08T19:10:00.000-08:00

After I made my paper conglomerate I pasted the words onto it and waited for it to dry. Now I can start painting.

Steam

2011-01-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

Out of the Fog...Into the Fog...

2011-01-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

I'm still following impulses to get over my hesitations about making books. After typing up the poem I began exploring the lines with ink and tracing paper. This gradually led me to a new version of the poem about half as long.

Later, I encountered the work of Jeanie Tomanek and was inspired by the way her paintings are all stories, with no words or pages of course, and decided that it's stories I want to make more than books or paintings or even poems. Then I was talking to a friend about the feeling I had that Tomanek has already painted all the stories I wanted to paint (as if she and I are the only people making art out of birds and trees.) He laughed at me of course, and reminded me that I will tell my stories in my own way. I decided it isn't even stories I want to make but the art that already lives inside me.

This morning I found further agreement reading Dale's post about how one should not attempt to make a novel unless one has no other options. I decided to let go of the vision I had of multiple illustrated pages so I could follow whatever impulse has been blocked in me lately. The next time I sat down with my pen and ink I whittled the poem down further into three small moments. Then I started to make paper, not pages, but one large conglomerate of pulp:

This photo doesn't capture the beauty of wet pulp but it'll do for now. I hadn't made paper since I left for Olympia, maybe two years ago. It was a barely controlled catastrophe. My equipment is all wrong now. Some of this I knew and had been planning to change way back when, like making a new deckle with the screen supported by dowels instead of hardware cloth so I don't have the grid showing through. Some things though I have grown out of.

When I realized how much I liked to make paper I decided I wanted to make a living at it so I figured I should set myself up to make paper efficiently. Thus a larger mould and deckle which requires a larger vat which requires a bigger work space, and on and on and on...It sounds sort of like the U.S.A. in general. I don't know how we lived without Costco or a double car garage growing up, but we did.

It was awkward, to say the least, trying to make one art piece in a small bathroom on equipment geared for production, but I managed and have a pretty good idea of what all I need to change for next time.

Philosophical thoughts aside, when impulses are blocked the best thing to do is to make anything at all. This is how I got going this morning:

Pages

2010-12-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

The holidays are mostly over, I just turned 37, my apartment is complete enough to ignore all ensuing tasks for several weeks if necessary and it's time to make paper. I have two batches of pulp waiting for me at home. I made them a week ago and have been stymied by my desire to make book pages that go together. All my practice at making pages that don't necessarily make sense and somehow I have fallen into my old habits. Well, it would be nice to finally make a whole book. The photo above is a collection of sketches I made after I made the pulp, thinking I wanted to use the Before Coffee poem that I just painted. I felt like there was some promising illustrations brewing there but I couldn't figure out how to be spontaneous with the actually making of pages if I had illustrations all planned out.

Yesterday I went for a long walk in the forest which reminded me of how I most like to live and make art. So today when I sat down to work I went with my first impulse: tracing paper, pencil, and writing about the moments from the walk that were still fresh in my mind. Next impulse: type it up and edit out the fluff. Then it was time to get ready for work but I feel a book beginning to form within me. And I feel like all I have to do is keep following my next impulses. We'll see how it goes.

Birthdays are always a really good time to take stock of ones progress in life and get really uptight or depressed. I had a brief moment yesterday when I thought something was terribly wrong for the fact that I am not redecorating a home I've owned for many years and watching children I reared graduate from college. Then I went into something like Tortilla Flat consciousness. It's a story by John Steinbeck and I read it so long ago I can't tell you anything meaningful about the plot or the characters. But it was the first time my mind opened to the fact that ambitions and success, and not even health or intelligence are what make us happy. Being with life as it is in the moment is the real joy. Of course, in the novel the characters used a destructive amount of alcohol to achieve their bliss, but it left a lasting impression on me that has not translated into such abuses. Instead it just promotes this intense endearment in me toward all my past failures, poor decisions, and lack of worldly ambitions. Then I can appreciate my life as it is without needing to pretend like it is some act of transcendence that I should live so simply.

Before They've had Coffee.

2010-12-21T16:55:00.000-08:00

A woman walking.

The forest is dark.

No one has thought the trees

into existence yet,

so the woman slips between

their naked spirits.

Of course the first thing I do upon settling into my tiny apartment is begin a large painting, 30'' x 22''. But I had several things going and it all works, and is so much fun. Who knew being organized would be so fun? It is distracting having my life and art take place in the same room. It is easy to get side-tracked by the claw foot tub. It is also easy to get sidetracked by the unfinished painting and let the noodles overcook.

This is another one of those paintings that makes me feel like I am finally beginning to make the work I want to make. For as often as I feel that way you'd think I'd be deep into this work, but it runs from me as I chase it. Always the task seems to be presence. If I am present with myself and the materials and let go of ideas, painting is satisfying. All of life seems to be that way and somehow I come up with more and more excuses to think and fret. Oh well. Here's the under painting:

Getting Settled

2010-12-20T16:38:00.000-08:00

The moving-in process is one that grows exponentially. The small space leaves little room to hide from boxes and piles and paintings leaning against the wall waiting to be hung. And I've had to start my kitchen over from scratch which requires constant trips to the thrift store for the occasional find of a necessary tool in good shape. Of course I'm also adjusting to a much longer commute to work, an hour on the bus instead of a 20 minute walk. Aside from taking full advantage of the claw foot tub, I have had precious little down-time.

The time I have spent painting is reassuring, I really like my new space: lots of light and the parking lot outside, rather than being a drab feature, lends an active energy. This is not a place to hole up and gaze at my own navel with existential questions, but a place to participate in life.

At some point in my apartment search I realized that I wasn't looking for particular features as much as I was looking for good energy. Apartments that don't have any place for energy to linger were easy to dismiss because I felt so unsettled in them. Ones with stagnant energy were challenging because they felt really good to be in since I am sort of cat-like and gravitate to stagnant chi. But I always had some reservation that made me hesitate to apply.

The one I chose felt totally neutral. My brain had a few reservations but the rest of me wanted to apply for it very badly. I was hoping for the decision to come obviously from my heart and I was afraid that my eagerness was just impatience. My heart however, was quiet so I had to go on my best guess. I had to decide if I wanted to hold out for the possibility of something better, or follow the energy in me that was trying to say, Now...this is a perfectly good place for you to live your life, you don't need to manifest some dream apartment on a shoe string budget. Well, who could resist such down-to-earth advice? Though, I think I am manifesting a dream apartment, it's just different than I had imagined, probably better, too.

These photos are close-ups of a window shade I made out of my handmade papers. Individually they look kind of like paintings, mmm....

Moving

2010-12-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

Today I am not an artist, mystic or trying to achieve some special feeling. I am alone on the gravely beach in the snow. I am a wreck by the world's standards. Everyone could decide they hate me, that I have a social form of leprosy. My heart would break several times a day but I could still come here and sit.

I have spent the last week moving. Quite a chore, but I really like my new place. It is the smallest apartment I have ever lived in, about 320 square feet. It is well laid out so I was able to set up a cozy living space with a nice table to work on and even a place to make paper in the bathroom. I used to think that I needed a separate studio to work in but now I am content with a system called putting things away. Many artists, at least young ones, do not like to clean-up or put their tools away, they want to be messy and "spontaneous." For some people this truly is a part of their nature, but for some of us it is just laziness. I find that cleaning up and putting away is a good meditative time to keep my work grounded in reality. It is sort of like paying respects to the endeavor.

I came across some old work in the process of moving. This is an ink painting I did while visiting Eld inlet everyday. It is rough but I love it.

2010-12-04T19:42:00.000-08:00

The ground hardened into winter. She walked under the melting sky.

This did not turn out anything like I was imagining, but I like that the unpredictableness of watercolor over acrylic and handmade paper makes things feel earthy. It seems to have the some rusty quality of trees in mossy, wet northwest.

Each Tree

2010-12-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

Each tree, its own asymmetrical song of time.

I've decided to embrace redundancy. It is a totally normal thing for artists to do variations on a theme for whole series and even entire careers. Somewhere I got the idea that every piece I made had to say something different and look very different than my other pieces. Of course then I worried about whether or not there was any cohesive voice to my work. Now I'm going to be content making art about trees and talking about how beautiful they are with little variation. I have already overused the word soft in my writing...why not make it a motif?

Magnificence

2010-11-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

I do not enter any magnificence only the cadence of rain and the darkness of the gull.

She dove from the power line straight to the ground again and again while the geese flew south.

I have entered the land of I-have-no-idea-what-I-am-doing. It is terrifying, will I ever make another piece of art I can call good again? It is also lovely...forging into the unknown for the stories my heart wants to tell, letting go of the need to make sense and create something that demonstrates my ability to be artistically professional. I have often visited the places I want to go with art, but now I want to live there and stop trying to keep one foot in the realm of acceptable.

Stretch

2010-11-23T15:00:00.000-08:00

I trace the horizon across the sky and realize I only need to know myself the way an oak tree knows itself. Our branches stretch out in their own patterns, regardless.

Nesting

2010-11-19T20:48:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of experiments with different mediums lately. Uncharacteristically, I have not been paying much attention to the content of my pieces, I'm just working off-the cuff to get things done. It's helpful to learn quickly but I don't feel attached to any of the pages. Normally I am quite fond of even the most ridiculous experiment. These two are my favorite.

Of course I've also been very distracted lately looking for an apartment. As much as I love the companionship of my housemates, and their gorgeous woodsy neighborhood, I have reckoned with the fact that I am not in my natural environment. Their home is a beautiful rambling house, full of beautiful furnishings, perched on a beautiful hill away from town. Just looking at tiny apartments in my old neighborhood has given me an incredible sense of peace. Being a home-body makes me long for my own sense of order, and being an artist makes me long for more solitude. I tell myself the apartment search is a necessary diversion; when I finally get settled, I can go even deeper into my art. I can't help but notice however, that there are always things that need to be done that distract us. I'm trying to find the middle ground, to accept that I'll have less time for a while, but to make a greater effort to really settle in while I am working.

Piper's Song

2010-11-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

There was so little to hang on to

but the stars were there every night,

she never got over the beauty of rough bark holding the sky,

and the trees rarely fell.

It was as if her life was a love song between heaven and earth.

2010-11-09T20:13:00.000-08:00

Something I have been trying to learn for many years now is that the best thing to do when I don't know how to do what I want, is to do anything at all even slightly related. I have been wanting to make books lately and as usual I feel overwhelmed by how to combine words and images in a way that will track over several pages. I thought I was on the verge of figuring this out lately and made some promising projects but somehow I find myself at a total loss again. I figured the best thing to do was to start making pages without needing them to go together or make sense. In fact, only a couple have words on them and you can't even see them on the green piece. I'm using Piper Tupelo as a character. She is a young woman who was raised by trees and is trying to figure out how to relate to people.

The under-paintings:

Threes

2010-11-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

Experiments...these are pencil, ink, gouache, and acrylic on handmade paper.

Autumn Fog

2010-11-07T20:01:00.001-08:00

Each Leaf

2010-11-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

2010-10-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

Shadows of Leaves

2010-10-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

This is an experiment I did painting in watercolor and gouache over acrylic on handmade paper. I’ve always been more at home using water media that oils but the first time I painted in oil I felt like I had arrived home. The vibrant colors and smooth blending made me feel like I was creating much more substantial, expressive pieces. Previously I was mystified as to why I was in art school at all. I hated drawing from life, painting in acrylics, and I really didn’t see my self as a watercolorist. Oils seemed to put everything in perspective. Acrylic isn’t really paint, I decided…it’s anti-paint. Drawing from life is not an end in itself, it is just a way to collect information for oil-paintings.

Since then I have had to admit that I don’t like using oils as much as watercolor, I just like the effect. This was an experiment to see if I could bridge the gap between the qualities I love about various media. I used anti-paint to make a more vibrant, textural drawing and then I used watercolor and gouache to make a real painting over the top. Of course the handmade paper also seems very promising to me, partly because I love any excuse to make paper and partly it makes me feel like I am creating an artifact or story more than I am transposing a picture onto a wall-ready surface.

Oxygen and Iron

2010-10-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

Autumn has turned grey and every live thing goes soft. Each branch, each particle of air feels to be rusting and in my heart oxygen and iron carry more weight than gold. The tiny birds flit from one branch to another. The clouds cover us.

2010-10-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

Thirty-three

2010-10-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

To Bandelier

2010-10-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

Santa Fe

2010-10-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

Showing Work

2010-10-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned, the transition from making art at school to making art out in the world can be challenging. There were always at least two shows a year through school that I could participate in and I was starting to miss showing my work. I didn’t want to submit to galleries though, until I felt I had a strong portfolio of pieces I had finished on my own, post-graduation. I liked the idea of showing in alternate spaces like coffee shops, but I hadn’t made an effort yet and was concerned that I was just avoiding the risk of rejection. Then a co-worker mentioned that OmBase yoga studio in Hillsdale had an artist wall. I looked it up on their web-site and was suddenly motivated to send in a submission.

It was a relief to know that my motivation was still intact. I used to do a lot of yoga and knew that the community has similar values as I do. Just knowing that made the opportunity feel more worthwhile and approachable than other venues.

I showed my work there last month and it was a delightful experience. The owners of the studio are really supportive, genuine people, and I received some wonderful feedback on my art. I also learned some of the things I need to do to be more prepared next time. In school I learned all about making portfolios, business cards, etc. But there is nothing like actually submitting work and encountering the need for those things to drive the lessons home.

I didn’t sell any of the pieces but that wasn’t so much the point. Ultimately I do want to sell work. I know some artists can get very attached to their work, but the more I like a piece, the more I want to have it out in the world. For my first show, I was happy just to get my work out in public and learn about the process. I'm sure that I will grow a lot when I take the risk to submit work to venues I know less about, but it was nice to learn that sometimes the comfortable path is easy because its the one I belong on.

Under

2010-10-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

Page One

2010-09-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

Here is page one of the story I am painting. It doesn't look anything like the watercolor contemplations that served as inspiration but it does look like the kind of art I first set out to make when I went back to school. I like the way it looks but am wondering if it should be more legible since it is a story.

The rain is heavy this morning, warm and sensuous on my skin, each drop plummeting into mud. The sky is dark, an eerie blue, the deep brown tides swallows a turbulent creek.

Certainly not a traditional story, more like a haiku story which is, of course, an oxymoron.Here's the under painting:

Rembering to Listen

2010-09-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

One thing I've noticed about cultivating any kind of personal or spiritual growth is that its really easy to ride to crazy places on any improvements. I get really quiet and content with the as-is and it feels so good I am inspired to get involved in new and exciting things and forget to practice being quiet and content with the as-is. It's not really a problem, but it was good to spend a moment making some ink and watercolor meditations the other day. This one I did on handmade paper that I gessoed in the middle. I feel a little sad when I gesso an entire piece of handmade paper because then you can't see the paper anymore.Painting with watercolor on the gesso was strange but I liked it. The piece feels a little too faux-Japanese-calligraphy to me, but Sumi ink can do that to the best of us.

Left

2010-09-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

This is another attempt to make book pages in the style of my watercolor meditations. The words were a few of many interrupting my dot meditation on the right. I weeded them out from the normal nature poems I have going on just to do something different. I've started another as an actually story that will have several pages and I'm pretty excited about it. It's painted with oil on gessoed handmade paper. I love to look of it, especially the edges but I have to be much more aware of the surface as I work than I do when I paint on wood.

I liked changing the painting from my original vision as I went. Many of my favorite artists work without any idea of what they are going to paint (Squeak Carnwath, Jo Ann Mace, Shannon Richardson) They all have different techniques but what I admire is how they respond to the painting as it develops. Occasionally I get glimpses of what it is like to be totally responsive with a painting and I love it. I don’t think wanting to work with a set story or poem has to mean having a plan but I haven’t quite figured out how to get the same spontaneity with words involved. Luckily, I can experiment all I want.

A couple of my co workers are really inspired by the story of George Clooney. Apparently he had many rejections before landing any work as an actor. This didn’t phase him at all because he was enjoying the rest of his life so much. My co workers were inspired to revamp the old What would Jesus do? to be What would Clooney do? As useful as that is to me while I work to develop my art I have found it even more useful to ask myself, What would I do if I weren’t uptight? I have not mastered this but it is making my life and art much more enjoyable.

Trees Before Rain

2010-09-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to decide if I should make the hillside more yellow or not. Either way I like this painting. I decided to do a landscape without any text because I thought the words were distracting me from getting to know trees as much as I'd really like to. I have to admit when I first finished the painting I was a little appalled at how soft and beautiful it is, I thought I had totally lost my edge and would deteriorate into an artist painting things only to match people's couches. Well, that's just ridiculous. I have become a softer person, of course my paintings would follow suit. And there is no possibility that I will ever get a grasp on the latest trend in couch colors, so I think I'm safe.

Sieve

2010-09-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

Since I been listening more attentively to my heart I've noticed that I am living my dreams more than I am striving to attain them. Previously I thought I needed to be a more ambitious person, to really assert myself to make my dreams happen out in the world. It was exhausting and a roller coaster of exhilarating successes and depressing failures. When I stay focused in my heart though, I realize that my dream of being an artist isn't about showing in a gallery or seeing my work on coffee cups in Target as much as it is about experiencing the beauty of life deeply and creatively. Well, that's already happening and has been for a long time. I feel really lucky that I have the chance to pull inside and actually enjoy my dream unfolding instead of missing it entirely while I impatiently try to drag it out of myself into the world. I still have material concerns to address about finding or creating the sort of work that will support my art more fully. But those will always exist no matter how much worldly success I encounter. It's simply our nature to always improve and refine our lives. I feel though, that if I stay focused on my heart and its deeper dreams, that I will find a more natural and fulfilling way to address the surface complaints.

This painting is one I started a year ago, I got stuck with it and just couldn't figure out what to do. Usually no matter how lost I am in a painting, there is always one thing I know I need to change. I change it and it frees me up to see the next thing I need to do, so I can avoid getting stymied. But sometimes I get attached to passages in a painting that don't work with the whole thing and then I get stuck. One nice thing about it in this instance is that, after a year, I figured it didn't really matter if I ruined the painting or not so I felt free to be really spontaneous. I really like how it turned out, though it doesn't seem to photograph well. Photographs really flatten space, but since my painting is already flat I find it weird that the space in the painting has been flattened by the photo.

From the Archive of my Youth

2010-09-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

Strange and wonderful things are happening to me lately. It is as if there is a gnome inside my head who suddenly woke up and decided it was time to clear the place out. I feel like I can focus more, and be disciplined with my time without being inhumanely ambitious.

I also feel a complete loss of mystique about being an artist. This is wonderful. I don’t feel like I have to be on the edge to be legit and I don’t feel like a pipe dreamer for wanting to make a living at it. It seems perfectly natural now that I should want my livelihood to come from the things that I do well and enjoy. Everyone should have that. I used to think it was a choice to be an artist, that I had romanticized it and was looking for fame and escape from responsibility more than a legitimate field of work. I do alright at my current jobs, but I don’t use up the entirety of my soul while I’m there.

Another lovely realization is how much I love to write and how much I have to say. I think I finally sense how I can talk about issues that are important to me without feeling like I am being overly righteous or afraid of sharing too much personal information in the wrong place.

I have suddenly come to terms with my 20s, too. For the last few years I’ve really been struggling to accept the choices I made during that time. I seem to think I should have been developing worldly skills, advancing in a career, saving money, finding a mate (or at least having a constant string of amorous lovers.) After I made the commitment to go back to school and follow my passions I felt really disheartened that I had so little in the way of resources to get by with. Now, I look back at my 20s and see what an interesting and rich time it was. I was a nut! I spent my time hiking in the parks, painting enormous paintings in my tiny apartment, writing poems and reading at poetry open-mics, having occasional and ridiculous romances, waking up every morning to do yoga and meditate. What is so wrong with all that? Sure I was lonely and miserable a lot of the time, but I was always trying to find happiness and connection, what more could I ask of myself?

The paintings in this post are all ones I made in during my fateful 20s. They are mostly 3-4 feet wide and 3-5 feet long, tempera on banner paper. I like the idea of posting more of my old work to appreciate how I spent my time during that decade, to see it as the precursor to the work I'm doing now rather than a waste of time.

Autumn Light

2010-09-10T15:31:00.000-07:00

The most difficult aspect of poetry for me is editing. Perhaps I have pared this down so much it no longer says what I intended it to. Perhaps it is too contrived. Maybe I should just say: I was walking home form the park and the light was so gentle on the dry grass it made the whole world seem soft. And there were apples nested perfectly in the straw, glowing like embers, like they just had the most amazing fling with the sun, who was now resigned to leave his wildness behind and settle down for the winter. That's not quite poetry. I mean, Raymond Carver can pull it off, but maybe I don't want to write poems anyway.

Also, I think the painting might be a little contrived. But its alright because I saw this beautiful thing and I put it on paper and later when I've done it hundreds of times it will all come out in my real voice and I will not have to think about things like art and poetry.

The Trees Rest

2010-09-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

This painting is based loosely on a part of Gabriel Park in Multnomah Village. I am so sad that I cannot find the picture I took of the under-painting, it was a particularly good one. I posted one of my sketches instead. Something that fascinates me lately is that I really like to paint flat, meaning I don't create a lot of depth with shading, or muting colors in the background, amplifying details in the foreground. But what interests me most about landscape are the spaces that are created be trees and branches. I'm not sure if my flatness is something I need to overcome or if it might help me say what I need to about space if I just explored it more. I have no interest in painting realistic landscapes so there's really no reason not to explore the virtues of flatness for a while.

The Inklings of Autumn

2010-09-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

Autumn is my favorite time of year. Someone told me once that the Celts believed that it is the time of year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest. Maybe it wasn't the Celts, but the description fit for me. I have to think that I am more at home in that other world because I feel more at home and homesick all at the same time during the fall. Most people I know have far away places they'd like to go for their dream vacations, I just want to save enough money to take the entire Autumn off, to go outside everyday and watch the minutest changes from summer to winter.

I'm not sure what I think of the poem illustration but I want to do more. One thing I've noticed about amateur artists is that we are often most satisfied with our work when it reminds us of something we've seen somewhere else. It's not conscious, it just resonates in a familiar place in our brain that we associate with good art. There's certainly nothing wrong with working within an established aesthetic, but there is also no reason to stave off our uniqueness just because we have no reference point for what we see. One of the most useful benefits of keeping a blog is that I can occasionally scroll through the archives. If I am brave about posting things I don't necessarily like I often find they inspire me later. Now I want to make use of that and keep working in this vein to see what develops from it.

The Crows Slip

2010-09-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

Rough Draft #467

2010-09-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

More Crows

2010-09-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

When I look at a bunch of my watercolors together I feel like they should be a book but I can't quite imagine, yet what would tie them together. I experimented with taking a poem and trying to make it in the same style as my water colors. So far, no luck. The piece above feels right but I just can't figure out what black blobs say about crows settling in for the night.

Crows Turning In

2010-08-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to really enjoy the identity crisis I've been having for the last year. Having no external bearings has forced me to find some internal guidance and it's really lovely. My heart feels like a fuzzy little kitten purring away for no reason. I have little concern with thoughts about where my career should be by now or what I should be doing to make it go where I want it to go if I knew where that was.

I have been wanting to follow my heart for many years and the effort mostly filled me with consternation. I could never figure out what it was telling me and I was afraid I didn't have the courage to hear. I was being too literal, I thought I could glance at my heart, ask it what to do and receive an answer through the linguistic part of my brain. I finally decided to listen without expecting an answer. It did not feel like a fuzzy kitten at all. It felt like cardboard, plywood splinters and barbed wire.

The more I listen the closer I feel to my own life so I keep at it even when it's not so comfortable. Now I see it more as dwelling in my heart. I feel what is going on in there without interpreting and find I make better decisions which makes life more joyful. It really isn't so mysterious. If your home is a place to crash in between work and social obligations but you start really dwelling in it, you will probably find yourself making it more cozy...cleaning it up a bit, planting flowers outside. You don't agonize over it, you just feel the chair would be better in the corner by the window so you move it. I'm trying not to expect that it will always be so easy, but I am really enjoying it.

The piece below is my original sketch for the poem. The piece above seemed totally unrelated, but inspired the top painting because I loved working on the handmade paper so much. I don't remember if I made it out of just abaca or an abaca/cotton-linters blend but I do remember sizing each sheet individually with gelatin. Using it makes me long for the days before mass production and plastic, but maybe it wouldn't feel so special if everything were so crafted. I'm not sure what I think about the crow at the top but I love the piece, it reminds me of the work I made before I went back to school and seems wholly of my own voice.

Listening

2010-08-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

Meditations on Water

2010-08-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

Tumble

2010-08-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

I'm really happy with this painting, I feel like I took a giant step towards doing the work I'm really excited about. I love the other pieces I've done recently...it's very satisfying to develop an idea and then work it out with paint. But, when I sit down to a gessoed board with a pencil, an unwritten poem in my head from the previous day, and no plan...the painting paints itself and it is a tremendous gift that I get to experience it's creation so intimately. I do not feel at all like a painter, but the painting impresses me.

Reconciling myself to Poetry

2010-08-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago I had my first Tarot reading. I didn't ask a specific question, I just wanted to hear what the cards had to tell me. One idea that came up was that there was something I used to love that I shut out of my life and it was the thing I needed to get my life-endeavor on track. I knew the endeavor was art, but I had no idea what the missing thing was until I was walking home from the bus-stop at dusk. The moon was tangibly a poem and I realized that I had shut poetry out of my life. I still use poems in my art but I don't seek them out, write them, or get excited about the fact that my art is made from a poem.

The whole reason I went back to school to study art was because I had a very intense desire to illustrate poems with the words incorporated into the picture. But as I've discussed in previous posts I became self-conscious about that drive for various reasons. The reading informed me that my reasons were only hindering me and have no bearing. I can see that clearly now. It's hard to be a poet to decide that what you want to say about life should take up space in other people's lives. It's hard to be an artist for the same reason. But modesty and repression are two totally different things. Now I understand more fully how there is room for everyone to create and to share, there are no qualifications to be met. If we do what we love, it is worth sharing and it does not matter the size of the audience.

It's an odd reacquaintance so far, but already I feel more like I am paddling my boat instead of being tossed about by the waves and wind.

Close

2010-08-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

I love this painting but it was such a challenge to resolve it I am particularly eager to put it away and not look at it for a while. In many ways I find my under-paintings more interesting than my paintings, but they don't feel finished to me. I feel like if I tried to pass them off as finished pieces just because they are interesting it would be like showing up to a formal event in pajamas and saying, but aren't they the loveliest shade of purple?

Perhaps I have just become too limited in my color choices, and that is what is so appealing about the under-paintings.

Tolerance

2010-08-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

I'm very enamored with the simple watercolor sketches I've been making lately, and thought I should start making them on nice watercolor paper so I could frame any favorites. Somehow the bumpy, crisp, starchy-smelling paper commands more of my time, so it's hard to stay simple. I do like the integration of text in the above piece.

I also tried making one on handmade paper with lots of thin layers of acrylic, but there was just no spontaneity in that. I realize that the sketches may just be their own thing...a mediation that is not meant to produce finished pieces but they compel me to explore the options.

Stories from When I Had the Flu for Two Weeks in the middle of Summer

2010-08-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

Snow at Eld Inlet

2010-07-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Painting Questions

2010-07-10T09:06:00.001-07:00

I experimented the other day with painting what I don’t know. It wasn’t as fulfilling as I’d hoped. I was really just journaling, the pieces were mostly too personal to share, and since love was the topic of my exploration I felt I was setting myself up to feel ingenuine, as if relationships were just source material for my artistic explorations. Journaling is always useful, but it isn't the thread of consistency I thought I needed to create a meaningful body of work right now.

It was a very useful experience in that it disengaged my notion of needing to disseminate a grand truth or save the world through art. I have worked hard to overcome that desire; to be humble and receptive, but the need to do something obviously helpful has gnawed at me the whole time. Somehow painting questions instead of answers created enough space to finally see through it and the academic pressure to do something unique and conceptually interesting. It makes me really uptight to feel like I need to know what I am making art about before I make it. So instead of painting about love itself, I am just going to paint what I love and let the pursuit form its own content.

The Manuscript of Listening

2010-07-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

The Manuscript of Having Nothing to Say

2010-07-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

Paddles

2010-07-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Last night I had some bizarre dream about college. I don't remember any more than sitting at a picnic table with my family when this very hip music student sat down right next to me but wouldn't talk to me. I do, however, remember waking up and thinking quite clearly, Oh, yeah, school's over I need to leave. I had noticed the other day that I was still telling people, Oh well I just graduated...blah, blah, blah.... While I have come to appreciate that transitions can take longer than we expect, I realized it was time to move on.

The dream clarified something important for me. I loved school SO much I thought the trick to life after school was to somehow create a similar structure. Now I suspect that the task is to go into the outside world and do something new with what I've learned. The tricky part, is deciding what to do. So far I've been thinking about it as what to say. I used to really want to say, the world is so beautiful would you please notice it, every moment is like a poem. But somehow I feel stifled by that now. Maybe I am ready for new content or maybe I am just afraid that I sound preachy.

The problem with wanting to say things is that I am mostly interested in the things I know the least about. Love, for instance, is my favorite topic and it remains a complete mystery. Every time I think I learn something important it soon becomes obvious that the knowledge doesn't hold water in a new time and place.

Now, if you are a normal person who wasn't raised with a placard on your wall that said, Alexandra, helper of mankind, you might be thinking, so make art about what you don't know, why do you have to disseminate wisdom or answers when you could ask questions? Well, maybe I will look into that.

Visiting the Beach

2010-07-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

The Manuscript of Having Even Less to Say

2010-07-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

Glisten

2010-06-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

I love underpaintings so much I make an underpainting-underpainting.

The Manuscript of Having Little to Say

2010-06-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

Snow Manuscript

2010-06-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

Water Manuscript

2010-06-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

More experiments, it's strange to me how fascinated I am with simple shapes and colors. I'm curious to see where this takes me.

Pilgrimage

2010-05-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

My latest painting started from a couple of unrelated watercolor sketches:

Half way through the background I found myself thinking I had seen this painting before...maybe I was imitating Klee?

Well, lots of calligraphers and artists use all caps, and maybe they are all influenced by Klee, but I went to the library and looked at all the Klee I could find.

I didn't see anything I was obviously copying but I thought the painting was kind of boring at this point. Adding blue made it worse so I scraped the whole thing down:

I'm not sure what I think of the finished painting, but it was nice to get away from trying to literally illustrate something. It's been a compulsion for me that I think stifles my work a bit.

Unpredictableness

2010-05-25T21:48:00.000-07:00

something I have been keenly interested in is depicting the beauty and unpredictability of nature without actually rendering a likeness. The previous are some of my favorite sketches/experiments along those lines. I had intended to post experiments every week whether or not I thought they were any good. There is something about revealing work to an audience, however small and electronic, that helps me see my work from outside my own head. Sometimes life makes other plans for us, though. I distinctly remember thinking, after I made my last post in February, that it would NOT be my last post for an undetermined amount of time. I seemed to think that getting artistically way-laid by a sad heart was a sign of a weak character. Recently, though, I've been reading Providence of a Sparrow by Chris Chester. It is a beautiful book, and has informed me that sparrows form very strong attachments with their mates and grieve heavily when they lose them. Since I believe that birds are happier and better adjusted than most people, I've decided that slacking off on a blog after a break-up is a perfectly sane and reasonable thing to do.

Crow Studies

2010-05-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

Touseled

2010-05-24T16:11:00.001-07:00

Adaptations

2010-05-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

I knew when I graduated that I would have to be prepared for a period of adjustment: looking for work, getting used to work, moving, not having weekly classes with friends, peers, and professors. I thought this would last a few months, maybe even six considering I had an injured achilles. I remember thinking it was going well at one point, I was painting, I was glad to have more independence. But the weekly grind of full-time work, the constant search for medical providers willing to work with Washington State Insurance, and the trials of romance, seem to have frittered away most of a year. sometimes I am horrified and dismayed by this, I really only have two new pieces that I would consider finished. But aside from the stacks of studies, and things that didn't work out, I feel like I have traveled through the layers of an onion. Each skin a question, a worry, a piece of indoctrination about what art and artist are and should be. Of course, in the middle is just another piece of onion. And for that I pull myself out of the quicksand of excuses and hesitation to embrace the fact that the art inside me has its own life, and it is not what my mind has been envisioning.

Blue Night

2010-05-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

Made for Crows

2010-04-29T21:19:00.001-07:00