"Teach Us to Sit  - acrylic, gesso and walnut ink on aquabord, 11" x 14".  Available here and at Artfinder.

Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks
              - T.S. Eliot

This quote, tucked within ​The Five Things We Cannot Change, made me chuckle.

Oh yes, I've been learning about caring and not caring, being still among the rocks and sitting with this feeling and that thought and watching without being defined by it.  And I'm learning to say yes to whatever conditions the universe presents, dropping my resistance and following the flow.  Mostly.

But I've also been teaching Wonder Mike to sit.

This really means I am teaching myself to sit among the rocks of dog training.  Patience, repetition, eye rolling (whoops!  did I say that?) and more patience.

"Rodomontade"  - mixed media on cradled wood panel, 24" x 26" x 1.25".  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

Portland is a crow mecca. They gallop across the road in front of my little dog, as if to say "we can't even be bothered to fly away from you, tiny creature."  They accept offerings in my front yard and ask for water during the dry summer months.  They fly the same path past my back door each evening on their way home to roost.  And I do believe they hold sway in the Portland fashion world, as so many of us here have a wardrobe which is 99.9% black or dark clothing. :)

As I sit with the work of Rick Bartow, there appears the crow archetype as viewed by First Peoples - the trickster.  We might be tempted to make a host of assumptions given the word "trickster".  But, dear reader, you know crows like I know crows.  We aren't fooled by their antics and charm.  They bring us secret messages -  if we dare to open them.

"The Ferryman Proves to be a Rascal" - mixed media on 300 lb watercolor paper, 15" x 22".  Available here and at Artfinder.

I will be moving on from my self-directed study of Rufino Tamayo this week, as I dive back into one of the artists who grabs my gut with every painting and wrings out emotion like a merciless washerwoman....Rick Bartow.   His ability to both capture the essence of something and often use unexpectedly joyous colors even for the most somber of  topics makes me catch my breath.

His work does not invite sketching and skewing.  Rather, contemplation and an invitation to archetypes and peculiar proportions and colors.    And again, as you hear me repeat, repeat, repeat, a willingness to keep your mitts off the paint and relinquish the need to hone and refine.

Returning to today's "ferryman", this one was completed over several weeks using Stan Kurth's method.  It has been turned around again and again - I couldn't settle on a composition - until finally there he was.  This piece was a lesson in sticking with something, even when your frustration level is going berserk in the studio and you'd really like to tear it into smithereens.  There are many potential meanings behind the title (courtesy of a line from the book The Five Things We Cannot Change by David Richo).  But it also applies to a rascally figure, who gave me quite the runaround before appearing with a wink.  Wishing you a rascal-free day, dear reader! :)

"The Whole Sky to Fly In and No Eye Watching" - mixed media on cradled wood panel, 24" x 36" x 1.25" .  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

The rains have arrive in Portland.  Rains and a wind that bangs the deep-toned gong in my backyard.  It is tempting to make the act of going outside a thing of necessity instead of the fun frolic of summer.  But a walk in the forest in the rain (thank you to a sweet friend for that), mud-covered boots, leaf-littered dog and the sound of an owl reset the mind to seek these soaking adventures.  Now we are ready for fall in the PNW.

This piece, perhaps the last in a series of weeping women, is the largest in a good while.  She's seen me through some sleepless nights, angsty self-questioning and ultimate surrender.   

"Creative work needs solitude.  It needs concentration without interruptions,  It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching, until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. "  MARY OLIVER

"Things the Heart Knows" - mixed media on 300 lb watercolor paper, 15" x 22".  Available here and at Artfinder.

This is the final piece from the Freedom in Watermedia workshop with the incredible Stan Kurth.  Ten  paintings in four long days.  Many of them already sold and delighting the eyeballs of others.  Artists - if you are considering a Stan Kurth workshop - do it!  (this message brought to you by FANS OF STAN KURTH, an imaginary organization of which I fancy myself to be the head cheerleader)

There are many shadowy images layered within this one.  I find another each time I look.  Kurth's process facilitates this.  When you suspend planned paintings and launch yourself into a fully intuitive process, the things your heart knows but maybe your mind can't see end up sandwiched in the paint.  Your job is then to keep your mitts off of it and resist the urge to polish and perfect.  Let it be what it is.  Hmmmmm, what if we could do that with ourselves?

I'm trying, in my newly upended life, to notice the imperfect beauty in others.  To place weight on the vulnerable and quirky and odd.  To allow space for others to let their authentic selves be present and restful.  And to keep my own imperfect self front and center.

"Dreams and Maps of Memory" - mixed media on cradled wood panel, 24" x 18" x 1".  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

This week's painting took a little side road into the peculiar.  It happens now and again when my heart is wide open and my inner critic and director are banished to the sidewalk.  Let's find out what she's whispering...

"The deepest place on Earth is not a physical place, but the stillness we enter at the bottom of our pain, at the bottom of our fear and worry."  MARK NEPO

I imagine you have been to this place, dear reader.  The place from which there is nowhere to go except to sit still and feel.   Something about fall - shortening days, dying blooms, chilly nights - acts like a high-speed elevator to this place, dredging up memories and ghosts of feelings; maps of where we once were.

In the stillness of this deep place, Nepo says, "too tired to deny that there's nowhere else to go" we find the spaciousness of joy.

"Holding Opposites" - mixed media on 300 lb watercolor paper, 15 x 15.  Available here and at Artfinder.

Sometimes I just have to stop, take a breath and say whoa.  When wrestling with life (who is a slippery, strong sparring partner, by the way) I am just giddy when a friend, a book or a bit of wisdom drops into my lap just like the universe was listening in on my whispered thoughts.  And, of course, it is. :)

This week it was a worn and heavily underlined book loaned to me by an artist friend.  The Five Things We Cannot Change and the Happiness We Find By Embracing Them, by David Richo.  From the first page, it was my life in print and some very profound (if challenging) wisdom for, well, NOT controlling it. 

"Freed Beyond the Telling" - mixed media on gallery wrapped canvas, 16 x 20.  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

Women are appearing in the studio.  Pushing out from the canvas, telling stories with their eyes.  I sit quietly with them, listening with something other than ears. 

"All we want is to be freed beyond the telling of what went wrong or how we failed.  All we want is to be freed into living the one song that keeps lifting through our hearts.  Sometimes I think that what we call coincidence, what we call obstacle, what we call the miracle or surprise ---are all notes of the one song bringing us alive, throwing us into each other."     MARK NEPO,  Things That Join the Sea and the Sky

The one song throwing us into each other...echos of Hafiz (a Sufi poet) "​God and I are like two fat people in a small boat - we just keep bumping into each other and laughing" (my favorite poem of all time).

"Full of Beautiful Mistakes" - mixed media on 300 lb watercolor paper, 15" x 22".  Available here and at Artfinder.

​Another of my favorites from the Freedom in Watermedia workshop with Stan Kurth, this strong woman appeared early in the workshop, and continues to speak volumes in the studio.  She's declared herself done, and that's good enough for me.

I don't often talk about what I see in my own paintings.  Letting the viewer decide without my input is better, usually.  But this one speaks loudly to me, so I'll share some  thoughts.
​

• She's facing the dark - holding a shield, horizontal lines stopped by her boundary...the shield is part of her and yet a separate shape.  And she's relaxed - confident  her shield will protect her.
• She's scarred - her thigh, her knee, her face.  She's taken some hits, but they are now a part of her person, beautiful markings.
• She's inscrutable - no expression to interpret.  Or to misinterpret.  She doesn't care what we think.
• Her legs are large and tree-like.  She supports herself.  No weak-kneed schoolgirl, this one. She's formidable