 "The Return of Bubbles" - mixed media on reclaimed wood, 20" x 17". Ready to hang. This piece will be on display at World & Eye's "Stories of Home" exhibit opening this Saturday, March 25th. Inquiries: imajenation@gmail.com.
Post-festival Monday and the studio is in a shambles. Thank goodness I was super productive last week, because I may just have to dig out before I can paint today. :) In the thick of reading Clear Seeing Place and a chapter called "Counting Sand", in which the author tells a tale of wanting to count every grain of sand on earth when he was a child. His point is a grand one: "Art is part skill and part insanity..." So many ideas seem outrageous when we begin, but oftentimes those either ARE the very best or lead us to another one that is. "Shout your nutty ideas to the world; we need more crazy," says Rutenberg. And that has me asking the question - how many of our own nutty ideas do we even explore, let alone shout to the world? I am more likely to embrace my own loony projects when I feel supported and confident. Or very pissed off. Either one will light a fire under my creative time and foster bravery. The very best environment for nuttiness is when surrounded by a tribe of other nuts. You know the ones - they wear crazy hats when they want to, and do their own thing no matter what people say. I love creating art surrounded by folks who let their wild child run amok. On the opposite end of that, there is nothing quite like a bunch of sensible folks and hard and fast rules to drive creativity into the compost heap with the cow dung. "Insulate your foolish self from sensible people," Rutenberg stresses. "If you're lucky, that insulation will last a lifetime." This chapter, this book, fills me with the determination to follow my own yellow brick road to wherever the magic appears. I want to know, where do you, dear reader, feel most empowered to BE YOUR WILD SELF?
4 Comments
3/21/2017 01:00:12 pm
Jen, I value tremendously your explorations of what you read. You invariably send me into deep enjoyable thinking. In answer to your question: I feel empowered to be my wild self under many conditions—when I am in the embrace of trust and love; more often when I paint than when I do just about anything else; when I have nothing to lose and suddenly the door to recklessly being myself opens; and once notably in response to months of high-functioning but pay-attention-to-me depression, and in that case I created an entrepreneurial business that I had for seven years : )
jen
3/22/2017 07:12:21 am
Dotty! "suddenly the door to recklessly being myself opens"...wow. That sentence made me stop in my tracks. Beautiful. It sounds like we are kindred spirits in that adversity pushes us to take risks? So amazing that depression can lead to a business - who knew? What kind of business was it? I am always in awe of entrepreneurs - the bravest and boldest of them all. :) 3/22/2017 03:04:33 am
Thanks, Jen for the reminder that we can be crazy and think new crazy thoughts and do crazy stuff in our art. Love her hat and dress! An what texture on the donkey! Oh and his eyes asking " so what crazy thing have you done today?"
jen
3/22/2017 07:14:04 am
Ha! You are so right! I wondered what he was saying...and you nailed it! The donkey texture is partly because of the reclaimed wood. The rest is just layers of paint applied with a scrunched up paper towel. My favorite way to make hair and fur. :) Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLola Jovan 
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