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"Like A Snow Leopard Falling" - oil on Yupo,  12 x 19 inches.  This item is unmounted and unframed. (click on the image to purchase)

I recently viewed a video of a snow leopard.  It was chasing its prey (some sort of deer perhaps) and they both ran off the edge of a cliff...the leopard grabbed its prey and held on, I mean held on even as the two tumbled on rocks, over more edges, bouncing and careening to the bottom, where the leopard got to its feet with its jaws still firmly holding on to the other creature.

It was an unsettling video, but also amazing.  What living things can and will do in pursuit of something.  What can be survived in the pursuit of that thing.  What can be endured.  I imagine the snow leopard didn't even do the thing I would have done, which is to look up, pause and think whoa!  I was just waaaaaaay up there, and now I am down here and  ALIVE.

And in a way, I think artists are a bit like that snow leopard, falling in pursuit.
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Really, Lola?  Yep.  Indeed.  Hear me out.

We get this vision in our heads of what is possible.  Maybe just an idea of our own, maybe seeing what others have created or are working on.  And we pursue that idea - relentlessly.  Falling, careening, bouncing, suffering, but hanging on.  Piles of attempted paintings (or pages of words written, or crushed clay or wood pieces, whatever your art may be) and yet we don't pay that any mind - we just keep pursuing.  

​I​t may take years.  We may feel injured (unmotivated, discouraged, disillusioned) along the way but inevitably we are back at it, trying again and again and again.  We get a little closer.  A little closer still.  And maybe we never actually get our teeth around that vision we're pursuing - but we can smell it, taste it, imagine it so clearly.

Abstract painting is like that, for me.  It is like a snow leopard falling - trusting I will land on my feet at the bottom with the thing in my two hands.  I'm still falling, by the way.  But never mind that - it is so close I can taste it.

And I don't personally hold the power to make it better.  Not in big ways, not in broad brushstrokes, not in grand gestures.  Nope, I am just one voice.

But I am one of many, MANY voices, which, if raised together, CAN make it better.  There is also the power to make things better on a micro scale - one kindness at a time.  One conversation at a time.  One tiny protest at a time.  

I believe making art during difficult times is itself an act of protest.  Creators who refuse to be stifled, muffled, robbed of joy and hutzpah can and often do instill a sense of daring in others.  They can reach across and say I see you​ with the work.  

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"Seeing and Feeling" - oil on copper panel, 12 x 12 x .25. This item is unframed.  (click on the image to purchase)

One eye sees, the other feels.
― Paul Klee

I think perhaps the life of a human is much about learning both how to see and how to feel.  

For sure, the creative life is about seeing - colors, shapes, texture, line, composition, shadow, value, hue.  Seeing what others see in your work, in your words, in your vulnerabilities or your barriers.

And we learn to see what other artists see (or saw) in the world and how they portrayed it.  Seeing is half of painting.  Half of writing.  Half of creating.

But feeling...well, we boldly go where others may not be willing to, when we create from the depths of our wells.  The muse sends me often to illuminate those places where I might prefer to pass on by.  But there is light in those dark depths, and so I go there and (luckily for me) many of you roll along with me (or run ahead with flashlights - thank you!) and thus we are not alone in the dark.

The best bits are often when we see what we're feeling, and feel what we're seeing.  Epiphany, illumination and understanding ensue. 

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​"Through The Voluminous Shroud" - oil on paper, 13.5 x 20 inches.  This item is unmounted and unframed (click on the image to purchase)

It's been said I was a vocal child.
demanding, wanting affection
As if basic needs like gentle words and hugs
were unforgivable.
I am tenacious, so
it took awhile
to punish the volume out of me.

Each time I got
the bright idea to say something
kicks ensued.
Why speak when
speaking hurts
So I did not say.

​When I was older
aging
fading
he saw me
under those layers
through the voluminous
shroud
pulled me out.
Breathing
what’s that?
My voice.

I finally used it
a croaking, awkward sound
it drove away the kickers
the hitters
the haters
because I no longer
fit the mold
they made for me.

​Am I sad?
Not really.
I am seen.
That is not to be traded
​ like a horse.
Rather
cherished like a lost heirloom
finally
finally
found.
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"The Highwayman" - oil on cradled wood panel, 18 x 24 x 1.5 inches.  This item is unframed but ready to hang (click on the image to purchase)

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.   
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.   
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   
And the highwayman came riding--
         Riding—riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
- ALFRED NOYES

Sometimes when the world is turbulent, poetry, prose, music and art is a lovely refuge.  A place to rest and rejuvenate.  And sometimes a place to find inspiration for creation.

Only this one happened backwards.  

This foxy dude has been subjected to layers and layers, all to let the artist play with drawing back into the wet paint with a rubber wedge, forming texture upon texture.  He has looked at me quizzically, wondering when on earth I would finally walk away and say ENOUGH ALREADY!  But it wasn't until being reminded of this poem that this fox could be called finished.  

I like to imagine another realm where foxes wear dashing clothing and traverse the highway on horseback, becoming fodder for legends of daring and perhaps mischievous acts.  Where they unexpectedly fall in love along the way under a ghostly galleon​ moon and we cheer them on, even though they might be ne'er-do-wells and rascals. 

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"The Loneliness of Being Ourselves" - oil on plywood, 19 x 29 x .5 inches.  This item is unframed but ready to hang. (click on the image to purchase)

Moments like these jolt us awake from the dream of perfect understanding, stagger us with the realization that no one ever really knows what it is like to be somebody else, that between one consciousness and another there always gapes an abyss black as the inside of a skull, and though we may try to reach each other with love and reason, they twine but a tenuous footbridge across it. The best we can do is hold on to the ropes and hope that they will not fray before we reach the rim of understanding, the outer edge of the other, which is all we can ever touch — and still it is enough, this sliver of salvation from the loneliness of being ourselves, this outstretched hand across the icy blue.  - THE MARGINALIAN 

Have you ever experienced loneliness when you were not actually alone?  As an inward leaning human, I often feel loneliest in large groups of people, far away from the outer edge of the other.  Somewhere in another galaxy, perhaps?

In one-on-one settings,  it is easier for me to hold on to the ropes and to reach for the edges of another person.  But even then, as the quote points out, I can see the abyss between myself and the inner workings of another person.

Now, place all of this into a society becoming more fractured, further apart in values and beliefs and there emerges a wide chasm of misunderstanding and non-understanding between people.  I gaze across that wide canyon and cannot see my way across, find myself leaning more and more in the other direction.  Turning inward, staying safe.

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"Strength" oil on paper, 12 x 20.5
"Wonder" oil on paper, 14 x 20.5
These pieces are unmounted and unframed.  (click on the images to purchase)

If we are to save the mind we must ignore its gloomy virtues and celebrate its strength and wonder. Our world is poisoned by its misery, and seems to wallow in it. It has utterly surrendered to that evil which Nietzsche called the spirit of heaviness. Let us not add to this. It is futile to weep over the mind, it is enough to labor for it. - ALBERT CAMUS

Here we are, the world beginning to surrender to the spirit of heaviness that is our current situation and how can it not?   Yet our job, yours and mine, is to find joy and fill our pockets with it - stuffed to overflowing if we can.  

We must, as Camus says, ignore [the] gloomy virtues of our own minds.  

I've been told my art can be rather dark - and so it is, as I feel drawn to shine light on things we often wish to look away from - things that are heavy and dark and hidden in corners.  And life itself can be rather dark at times, shadowy and menacing.  But within all of that malevolence there is a mischievous joy, a whimsy, a spirited sense of play, a game of tag if you will (in life and in art) to be seen, heard, felt and magnified.  

So to combat gloomy virtues this week I give you dark ballgown bots with baked goods.  There are times when even a cyborgian femme fatale wants a little something sweet.  Infused within these pies are not blackbirds or witchy spells - rather wonder and strength - a reason to indulge in a pastry or two. It is good for you, after all.

Well, dear reader, you see what's going on in the world.  The trend away from equality and uplift; the abrupt shift toward erasure.  This isn't a political post, but it cannot help but be singed and smoking around the edges by it all.

I try not to think about what other people think about me.

What other people think about you is not your business - who said that once upon a time?  I can't recall, but the words stuck with me.  And as an artist, thinking about what other people are thinking is a downward spiral of stifled creativity and the muse bound and gagged in the corner.

But as a human, it is hard to avoid thinking about what other people think about me when they are making decisions about my life, my freedom, my rights.  When their thoughts about me (and my kind) are defining many key aspects of how I can live in the world, well then I think that is​ my business.  And yours, too.

An overcast, brisk and drizzly winter in the PNW is a good time to pause.
 
The gloom and cold make ripe the conditions to process grief, heaviness and despair as well.  I think many of us have methods, rituals, tendencies for managing wintery emotions and thoughts.  For some, an altar - a place to rest your weariness, a place for hopeful talismans and reminders - can be part of those methods.  And so in the fallow season I sometimes create these altars.  The muse (in this case, the muse in the form of friend Thea, who was the catalyst this year) leads me there.

Fallow can mean the act of tilling the soil without sowing it.  We can mull and reflect and process and release things from the soil of our spirits and hearts without putting anything else there.  Just a clear, seeing place.  An open space for new growing things, without defining what those things are.

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"Rabbit, Aggrieved" - oil on yupo, 12.5 x 19 inches.  This item is unmounted and unframed.  (click on the image to purchase)

​"Hallo, Rabbit,” he said, “is that you?” "Let’s pretend it isn’t,” said Rabbit, “and see what happens. -  A. A. MILNE

Did I mention the rabbits have taken over the studio?  That rabbits multiply, on land and by paint?  The studio rabbits have determined it is their role to express societal emotions this year.  Aggrieved - feeling resentment at having been unfairly treated - hello, YES!

I'm not very good at feeling anger and its cousins (resentment, bitterness, irritation, frustration) because people have not really felt anger around me during my life - they've done anger.  And anger as an action is pretty shitty.

​So I've been given permission (homework, even!) to go ahead and feel aggrieved.  You mention one word of that to rabbits, and they've already made a banner and started a parade!  

It turns out there are benefits to feeling and expressing anger .  Anger is protective and reveals our boundaries.  Anger heals trauma.  And anger inspires action.

Anger unexpressed creates shame.  And shame resides in all kinds of places in the body.  Are your shoulders tight?  Got headaches?  Belly woes?  Anger wants you to stop leaving yourself.  Oh, oh and OH!

So what does healthy anger look like?  It is kind and firm. Think of it as assertive communication.  Something you pay attention to with kindness and curiosity before taking action.  

Unlike these rabbits, who just left the studio in a rampage and may end up on the evening news.  Sheesh!