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Lions and Ants

1/28/2021

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 It's the end of JENUARY at Get the Gallery , where this artist has been tickled and delighted to be named Artist of the Month.  After a fun art drop in the Denver area (congratulations lucky art hunter!), we're going to end the month with a virtual art drop!

Go to Get the Gallery's Facebook page and find a piece of art you love!  Share it to your own page and tag me!  My studio hound, Wonder Mike, will choose TWO taggers to receive these mixed media pieces in the mail.  Woot!  Read? Set?  Share and TAG!

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the
way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter
never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up
forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the
scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he
always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once
that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about
a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he
used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and
apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's
thus with worldly troubles; when the big ones come along, we
serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but
the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts,
put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our
hearts. - "
Lions and Ants", by Walt Mason
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I've been pondering my ability to fiercely slay big challenges, but be anxious and nearly undone by the small ones.  Oy!  Mason's words captured this so well for me.  I smile at the thought of "lots of language of a deep magenta tint."   

I mean, we've been weathering a pandemic, political, social and racial issues, wildfires (here on the west coast) gun violence and (insert your current "lion" here).  You, dear reader, are finding ways every day to make the best of it, get involved, keep yourself sane, stay healthy AND find joy!  (I see you out there - well done, you!)

And yet, if you're like me... some small thing can cause the heart to crumble a little and have you wondering how the heck CALM was maintained when dealing with the lion.  This week, I am going to examine those "weary little worries" and find the beauty and the lesson in them.  Like our fluttery, creepy-crawly insect friends, there are golden nuggets there.

About the art:  these insect studies were created as inspiration for a graphic novel project (currently in process).  Pen and ink and watercolor on watercolor paper, with hand printed paper collage.  In the moth piece, old-timey cap=gun caps were detonated with a rock on the paper to leave a tiny vertical trail.  Because with mixed media, anything goes!
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In a Trust So Gentle

1/25/2021

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"In a Trust so Gentle" - acrylic on deep cradled birchwood panel, 12" x 16" x 1.5".  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached). Available here and at Artfinder.

When you go,
if you go,
And I should want to die,
there’s nothing I’d be saved by
more than the time
you fell asleep in my arms
in a trust so gentle
I let the darkening room
drink up the evening, till
rest, or the new rain
lightly roused you awake.
I asked if you heard the rain in your dream
and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.

​ - "When You Go", Edwin Morgan


​
The poetry of Edwin Morgan (Scotland) continues to mesmerize me.  It began when I was introduced to his poem, "Hyena" and continues.  He has an ability to be visceral and dark, and  also exquisitely tender as in today's poem.  

I've been contemplating tenderness lately.  And the phrase "in a trust so gentle" made my heart melt a little.  
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In a Trust so Gentle
That's not hard to do, lately.  The heart melting part.  As my edges soften, the light gets in (and comes out, and moves through) and I feel things even more deeply.  As I learn to speak gently and tenderly to myself, my thoughts and words toward others become ever softer.  I trust again.

About the art:  beginning with an unprimed birchwood panel, an inspiration photo and a limited color palette, painting from the inside of the figure outward, and then from the outside of the figure inward.  RESISTING the desire to define features.  EMBRACING the abstracted background and shapes/textures made by rubber wedge, brush and fingers..
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6 Comments

Comfortable With Being Human

1/21/2021

8 Comments

 
"Comfortable With Being Human" - acrylic on deep cradled wood panel, 12" x 16" x 1.5".  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached).  Available here and at Artfinder.
​
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Comfortable With Being Human

​Vulnerability is....something Brené Brown asks everyone she interviews.  It's a good question, and one I've been contemplating recently.
If someone asked you what vulnerability
means, what would your answer be?

Perhaps you’d rattle off the dictionary
definition, and remind them that vulnerability
is the quality or state of being exposed to the
possibility of being attacked or harmed, either 
physically or emotionally.


Perhaps.

​Or maybe you’d tell them something else.

Maybe you’d say, “vulnerability is being able
to say, “no, I am not ok” right now, but that
doesn’t mean that I won’t be ok tomorrow.”

Maybe you’d say, “vulnerability is letting the
tears fall freely when my heart feels as if it’s
about to burst, and there seems to be a waterfall
coming out of my eye sockets.”

Maybe you’d say, “vulnerability is being able
to say, I don’t know. I don’t know where to go,
I don’t know what, and I don’t know the
answer to this question or the solution to this
problem — and I need help.”


Maybe

If someone asked you what vulnerability
means, what would your answer be?

Perhaps you’d tell them, “vulnerability is being 
comfortable with being human.”

- MEGAN MINUTILLO
I like to think I embrace vulnerability.  It sure feels that way as I approach the rocky end of a narrow cliff ledge on a mountain.  And it sure feels that way when I post my art, my words, my thoughts and feelings on social media and in this blog.  It sure feels that way when I open my wounded (but resilient) heart to another human.  And for darn sure when my aging, scarred body is revealed to another.  But am I really being vulnerable?

There are "waterfalls coming out of my eye sockets" that I often hold back or feel sheepish about.  There are parts of my life where "I don't know.  I don't know where to go" and yet I don't ask for help.  And I do struggle with saying "I am not ok right now."  Mostly, I realize upon this path of inquiry, where my hiking boots are not helping and my resilience doesn't make it any easier, that perhaps I have not yet reached the summit of vulnerability.  Sigh.  I will keep climbing.

This week the GoPro is on loan to an improvisor and visual poet, so I'll give you a little pictorial journey of this piece in lieu of video.

Beginning with a notanized selfie as a loose inspiration image and an underpainting of fluorescent paint mixed with titanium white.  Drawing with my non-dominant hand in charcoal and then layering in colors while trying not to try...in other words, to keep it loose, to let the paint play, to resist realism and allow peculiarity to dominate the piece.  Tools include fingers, paper towel, rubber wedge, brushes and a spray bottle of water.
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Born to Tame Dragons

1/18/2021

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"Born to Tame Dragons" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 8" x 8" x .75".  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached). One of a gaggle of goodies available at the Jan 17-18 auction at Artistic Souls Gallery.
Girls like you
were born
to tame dragons,
​to fight in wars,
to lead armies.

Girls like you
were created
to swallow darkness,
to quell monsters,
​to destroy obscurity.
Girls like you
were given life,
to bring tempests
and hail gales,
​unto their enemies.

Don't let a king
or a prince
or a fairytale
tell you you are smaller than that
​or who you are meant to be.
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Born to Tame Dragons (reserve piece)
​Dragon's Breath, Nikita Gill - Wild Embers - poems of rebellion fire and beauty
I've been channeling some fiery females in the studio this month!  Taking the technique I began last year in creating trees and bark - fluorescent underpainting on unprimed wood, keeping the paint wet, carving into the wood through the paint - and applying it to flame-haired girls. What fun!  But there is no telling these feisty broads what to do - they rule the studio right now. :)

And so it was. no surprise when Nikita Gill's Wild Embers landed in my lap and began pummeling me with words of rebellion.  Which is, perhaps, appropriate for this woman in this world at this time.  Watch out monsters, you are about to be quelled. 
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Welcome Home Your Emptiness

1/14/2021

4 Comments

 
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Welcome Home Your Emptiness
"Welcome Home Your Emptiness" - acrylic on repurposed wood panel, 24" x 10.5" x 1" .  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached). Part of the series "A View From the Gorge".  Available here and at Artfinder.

When the old ghosts come back
to feed on everywhere you felt sure,
do not strengthen their hunger
by choosing to fear;
rather, decide to call on your heart
that it may grow clear and free
to welcome home your emptiness
that it may cleanse you
like the clearest air
you could ever breathe.

from "For Loneliness" by John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us


Now and again (and again, and again) the "old ghosts" return, shredding confidence and making me question all I thought I knew of the thing that is me.  They are sneaky, those ghosts, gliding in on the back of words spoken, looks cast, a song that brings back a time when....

I am learning.  Learning to recognize them, to call them what they are, to set them firmly outside and ask them to leave.  Sometimes I win.  Other times the ghosts win.  O'Donohue asks me to "welcome home my emptiness" - that very thing I am always trying to fill.  Sigh.  I am learning.  

About the art:  First, my apologies!  I have no process pics and no video.  This piece began between other paintings, as an intuitive attempt at the feeling I had while hiking in the gorge two days prior.  The sun!  The mist!  The imposing cliffs!  A surreal view that made me gasp and think "is this really my life?" and become teary at the wonder of it all.  The muse had her way with this one.  Acrylic paint directly on old, heavily textured board. The striations in the board informed the cliffs, which are vertical chunks of basalt in the gorge, evidence of their rugged birth and the pressure of being born.  Painted with palette knife, paper towels and a rubber wedge. Here are a few of the actual views from that hike:
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When Your Heart Wants to Break

1/11/2021

6 Comments

 
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When Your Heart Wants to Break
​"When Your Heart Wants to Break" - acrylic on cradled wood panel,  11" x 14" x .75".  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached). Available here and at Artfinder.

When your heart wants to break, let it break. If tears want to come (or perhaps a flood of love or gratitude), allow that to happen. Grant your heart all the space it asks. To do so feels deliciously alive, because it locates you in what’s real in the moment.  - JAN FRAZIER, "Be Kind to Yourself"
Many thanks to artist Dotty Seiter, who introduced me to the wisdom of Jan Frazier in her blog post this week.  I've spent hours noodling this article and the concept of being kind to ourselves - which includes ​resting from wishing things were otherwise.​

It's been a wild week in the world.  It is temptingly easy to spend a lot of time wishing things were different.  Instead, I'm trying to let my heart break if it wants, to cry if I feel the tears, to give my heart the space it wants.   It is a feeling of overwhelming relief to think of this allowing as a self-kindness.
In the most recent Studio Visit with Brian Rutenberg,  Rutenberg says: Feel your own pain.  All art comes from sadness.   So, with my miner's headlamp firmly strapped on, I spent a day mining my own sadness in the first self-portrait of the year.  Again, thanks to Dotty Seiter for reminding me of the unbridled joy of blind contour drawing, which became the base start of this painting.

There was a kind of joy in the mining of sadness, tears in the allowing of heart breaking space, and relief in the self-kindness of not wishing for other than what is.  And as Frazier suggests in her article, it was ultimately restful.

I am only disappointed that the whole exercise did not include a big slice of pie. :)
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Beckoning Hand

1/7/2021

10 Comments

 
"Beckoning Hand"  - acrylic and charcoal on cradled wood panel, 14" x 11" x .75".  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached). Part of the series "A View From the Gorge."   This painting will be part of an ART DROP courtesy of Get the Gallery.  Follow them on social media to find out when and where this painting will be "dropped" for one lucky collector to discover!

There is a faith in loving fiercely 
the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.

from The True Love, by David Whyte.
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Beckoning Hand
The view inside my mind stays firmly in the Columbia River Gorge...vast skies, basalt spires, misty horizons and every shade of gray.  It is becoming so much a part of me that I feel it in my spirit deeply.  It makes me sing and laugh, smile and weep, catch my breath and sigh.  It is softening my heart.  I feel myself opening and becoming braver, even as my thighs scream at the final assent, even as my lungs beg for mercy at the millionth steep switchback.  With each step, each hike, each view - my edges are becoming polished and the light begins to come through.  


​About the art : this is the second piece done on a neutral underpainting of raw umber and titanium white.  Using mostly rubber wedge, paper towels, fingers, the back of my hand (thanks for that, Pauline Agnew!  Now it is my favorite tool!) and acrylic paint.  Unlike the last one, I was able to work quickly and instinctively here.  The key is the inspiration pic was well-composed and allowed me to veer away from it rather quickly without losing the gist of the idea.  Very satisfying session.

I made a couple of small adjustments to the painting after the camera was turned off and I could step away from it for a minute.
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Afraid of Everything But Not Afraid

1/4/2021

7 Comments

 
"Afraid of Everything But Not Afraid" - acrylic and charcoal on cradled birch panel, 14 x 11 x .75.  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached). Part of the series "A View From the Gorge."  Available here and at Artfinder.

A dozen or more walking soundlessly east at night,
a half moon rising before them.
I like the long deft brush stroke
as each hoof swung into and out of the snow,
​and the little splash kicked out ahead
​as they stripped sweet bark from the darkness,
afraid of everything but not afraid.
from Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison​ by Ted Kooser.
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Afraid of Everything But Not Afraid
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Well here we are in January.  I am not a maker of resolutions, but was asked on New Year's Eve what I might choose if I were a resolution-maker.  I'd like to not be afraid.  

I mean, I am pretty fearless in a LOT of ways!  But when it comes to people - friendships, romance, relationships, love - there is a fear monster perched on my head.  With good reason, perhaps, and yet...I'd like to free myself of that monster and just live brilliantly fearless. So when I read this passage from Winter Morning Walks, I thought, huh, I can do that!  Afraid but not afraid.  I'm going to try that on for a bit and see if it fits.

About the art:  I'm working with a more neutral palette for the next three pieces.  Today's painting was a big OH NO during the videos, as I tried to recreate an image from the gorge.  It just wasn't working.  So I turned the camera off and fully vandalized it.  A more abstract expressionist landscape resulted.  When I let water sit on it long enough, I was able to push through to the underpainting (raw umber and titanium white) to expose some highlights in the verticals.  Yay!
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Here's the blue wild, where
tiny dreamers ride beasts, speak
​ birdsong, hold the moon.

(by poet Mary W. Cox)
​


​Art prints available on request
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