Lola Jovan Art Musings and Random Thoughts

Wonder and Grief

4/23/2022

"Wonder and Grief" - mixed media on cradled wood panel, 8 x 8 x .75. Ready to hang. Available here and at Artfinder.

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief.

from "Adrift" by Mark Nepo

I am one of the very, very lucky ones.

Nearing 60 years old, and I am able to (and do) wander and hike and witness some of the most beautiful places, in the company of an extraordinary human, and then repeat that experience again and again. Sometimes, it just leaves me in a puddle.

Wonder and Grief

Nepo's poem goes on:

In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

When all that I've lost (in nearly six decades, in my case) meets all that I have (which is more than I ever imagined), I catch my breath. There is a holiness, an unmistakable sacredness, to this. Wonder and grief, in a beautiful duet, leaving me smiling and brimming with tears.

Here are some of the recent gems in the realm of overwhelming beauty:

About the art: beginning with a panel covered in black gesso, mixing a limited palette of colors and applying them with rubber wedge, paper towel, chopstick and brush. Allowing the paint to move and dictate its direction, resisting the desire to drop more color than a small piece can handle. Finishing with colored pencil applied with a very loose, non-writing grip to keep the marks organic.

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Cosmic Octopus

4/14/2022

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"Cosmic Octopus" (a commission) - acrylic on wood altar. SOLD

The madcap laughed at the man on the border
Hey ho, huff the Talbot
The winds they blew and the leaves did wag
They'll never put me in their bag
The raging seas will always seep
So high you go, so low you creep
The wind it blows in tropical heat
The drones they throng on mossy seats
The squeaking door will always squeak
Two up, two down we'll never meet

Please, leave us here
Close our eyes to the octopus ride

Please, leave us here
Close our eyes to the octopus ride

from OCTOPUS, by Syd Barrett

Cosmic Octopus

The wild Pacific is surging through the studio, and a cosmic octopus dropped by.

This piece was a commission request from one of the most sparkly humans I know. So when she asked "would you?" I immediately said "yes!" Personal altars are just that - personal. They speak to your insides while sitting on the outside, gathering your special talismans and holding your hopes and wishes in a sacred place. And if you are a very colorful, very sparkly human, your altar needs a candy-coated cosmic octopus.

I'm going to want one of these for myself!

About the art: beginning with a solid wood, two-tiered altar, the areas to be personalized were taped off and coated with black gesso. A colored pencil sketch followed, along with the requisite 80 million layers of color in both acrylic paint and Uni Posca Paint Pens. Finished with a coat of cold wax to protect paint and wood.

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Cosmic Malarkey

4/13/2022

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Works in Process - mixed media on paper. Coming in May to Artistic Souls Gallery.

Here at Malarkey Central, we've had a lovely, long adventure vacation.
Even the pooches got away from the city and out into the wild in the Samuel H Boardman Corridor on the Oregon Coast. As much as we'd like to keep wandering and playing in tide pools at the beach, the work and world beckons and - poof - I am back in the studio.

In a mash-up of vacation inspiration, the round, tumbled rocks of the beach ran headlong into a sci-fi novel we just finished and cosmic malarkey erupted. Cats in space, anyone? Intergalactic deer? These littles (approx 7 x 10 inches) will be done in time for the next online auction event in May.