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Thin the Window
"Thin the Window" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 18” x 24” x 1.5” . Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need to frame. Hanging wire is attached) Part of the collection "A View From the Gorge." Available for a limited time exclusively at Get the Gallery.
Love, honesty, and expression are what clean the window of our heart. And each time we inhabit love, honesty, and expression, we thin the window between in-here and out-there a little more, and this thinning between our inner world and the outer world bring us closer to life.
from Drinking From the River of Light by Mark Nepo
It is tempting to stand in the gorge and view the beauty through the window of a camera lens in a (mostly) futile attempt to capture its vastness and grandeur. It has become my practice to make time to sit - to feel the wind, to watch soaring falcons and crows, look at the movement of light and the enveloping mist and let my mind capture the moment, unfiltered.
Love, honesty, and expression are what clean the window of our heart. And each time we inhabit love, honesty, and expression, we thin the window between in-here and out-there a little more, and this thinning between our inner world and the outer world bring us closer to life.
from Drinking From the River of Light by Mark Nepo
It is tempting to stand in the gorge and view the beauty through the window of a camera lens in a (mostly) futile attempt to capture its vastness and grandeur. It has become my practice to make time to sit - to feel the wind, to watch soaring falcons and crows, look at the movement of light and the enveloping mist and let my mind capture the moment, unfiltered.
In that moment of openness and looking, sometimes I can also see. See the woman inside. See the expression of that woman on the outside. See where the window between inside and outside wants thinning. Here in this space - this blog and these words, the art and its inspiration, dear reader, I move closer and ever closer to in-here and out-there sameness.
I am so grateful for you and the incredible encouragement and positivity you have given me here since the blog's inception in 2014...whoa. Wherever you are, here is a hug from me to you. xo
I am so grateful for you and the incredible encouragement and positivity you have given me here since the blog's inception in 2014...whoa. Wherever you are, here is a hug from me to you. xo
About the art: Taking a cue from a recent portraiture course, I created first a representational painting of the gorge from one of my hike photos, and then bravely, BOLDLY vandalized that painting with with painter's tape and fluorescent paint.
December 6-7: Artistic Souls Gallery's final art auction of the year! Featuring a mountain of malarkey and a rather loud whisper of whimsy. :). Head on over to their Facebook page to take part in what is sure to be an energetic, enthusiastic bidding extravaganza!
Stellamoona
Shimmerglisten
Wintermoon
Sorbet Deluge
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"Pining for You" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 12” x 24” 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 for a limited time exclusively at Get the Gallery
Pining for you
who do not come,
I am like the salt-making fires
at dusk on the Bay of Waiting -
burning bitterly in the flames of love.
Fujiwara no Teika, One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each
I stand at the base of a vast, winding tree deep within the gorge. The top is invisible - part of a wide sky. The trunk twists and turns, chasing sun and rain over decades, just as I lift my face to sun and sky and this tree. Time seems abstracted in the moment.
I've been thinking a lot about time lately. Feeling the press of age and the clock ticking alongside a growing desire to do more, explore more, live more.
Pining for you
who do not come,
I am like the salt-making fires
at dusk on the Bay of Waiting -
burning bitterly in the flames of love.
Fujiwara no Teika, One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each
I stand at the base of a vast, winding tree deep within the gorge. The top is invisible - part of a wide sky. The trunk twists and turns, chasing sun and rain over decades, just as I lift my face to sun and sky and this tree. Time seems abstracted in the moment.
I've been thinking a lot about time lately. Feeling the press of age and the clock ticking alongside a growing desire to do more, explore more, live more.
Pining for You
It is tempting to hurry when I feel this way - to pack the day with all the things and bustle from one thing to the next. But the only way to slow time is to stop and be very, fully, completely present. The vastness of everything can be felt in the moment. It gets lost in the busyness of hurry. Maybe my spirit animal should be the slow loris or the turtle?
About the art:
I return again to unprimed wood, fluorescent paint and carving tools. Allowing the wood grain to be excavated and become a tree again. Playing with hot and cool colors, light and shadow. Allowing just enough realness.
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Resolute Folds
"Resolute Folds" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 18” x 24” x 1.5” . Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need to frame. Hanging wire is attached) Available for a limited time exclusively at Get the Gallery. Part of the collection "A View from the Gorge."
A thing too perfect to be remembered;
stone beautiful only when wet.
Blinded by light or black cloth-
so many ways
not to see others suffer
Too much longing.
it separates us
like scent from bread,
rust from iron.
From very far or very close -
the most resolute folds of the mountains are gentle.
Sentencings, Jane Hirshfield
A thing too perfect to be remembered;
stone beautiful only when wet.
Blinded by light or black cloth-
so many ways
not to see others suffer
Too much longing.
it separates us
like scent from bread,
rust from iron.
From very far or very close -
the most resolute folds of the mountains are gentle.
Sentencings, Jane Hirshfield
Though the gorge is rugged, rocky, sharp and angular, it is blanketed nearly year-around by mist. It sneaks into valleys and between trees, obscuring jagged edges and steep drop-offs, making everything softer, gentler. I, too, am softened by the gorge - by views that make me teary, elevations that test my mettle, mists that roll in and obscure the world below.
About the art - working with a limited color palette, I focused on building texture using paper towel, rubber wedge, palette knife, beat-up brush and spray bottle. To my surprise, I have no process pics to show you, as I was so caught up in the soft mood of this abstraction that I forgot to get out the camera. As always, fighting the urge to overly define the details. No "happy little trees" here! Just blurred blobs of suggestion.
I am so grateful for all the love and support for my art this year, especially through this wild rollercoaster that 2020 has been thus far! THANK YOU to each and every one of you who commented, liked, loved, shared, rented or purchased my art...and if you want a little more of my brand of malarkey (for you or for someone else), now through Monday get 25% off with coupon OMGSOGRATEFUL on this site.
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"Immensity Taps at Your Life" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 12” x 24” x .75”. Available for a limited time exclusively at Get the Gallery Part of the collection "A View from the Gorge"
It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.
Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.
That great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books--
Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
Tree, by Jane Hirschfield
Immensity Taps at Your Life
Vast roots hold trees of unbelievable size on cliff edges and along rock walls, defying the howling winds that whip through the gorge and push the branches forever in one direction or another. Standing next to this immensity after hours of climbing higher and higher leaves me feeling small. Sure, I climbed the mountain. But this “great calm being” has been holding on to the same mountain for a lifetime.
About the art: I return to scraping back into unprimed wood panel - this time on a much larger scale. Allowing the movement of the paint to dictate the tree branches and the revealed wood panel to become the texture of the tree. This requires some fast, intuitive work as the surface paint must not be allowed to fully cure before scraping through to the wood. I continue to focus on unexpected colors and in resisting the urge to perfect every branch, instead allowing the viewers eye to follow the suggested movement of the tree into the fluorescent canopy.
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Robustness
"Robustness" - a Diptych. Acrylic on cradled wood panel, Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need to frame. Hanging wire is attached) 24 x 12 x .75 For a limited time, exclusively available at Get the Gallery.
“Robustness and vulnerability belong together. To be robust is to show a willingness to take collateral damage, to put up with temporary pain, noise, chaos or our systems being temporarily undone…Robustness is not an option in most human lives, to choose its opposite is to become invisible.”
from “Robustness” - David Whyte, Consolations
Nearly annual wildfires raging through the gorge leave burn scars on the trees, which become a beautiful testament to the tenacity and strength of these silent sentinels in the fall. The leafy canopy gone, what appear to be the bare bones and skeletons of scorched trees remind us of the resilience and robustness of life.
As I pass by these beauties, I pause and touch them with my hands. They, like me, bear the scars of living in the world - events beyond their control, sometimes the carelessness of others, sometimes just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet they stand, they bloom, they shelter, they grow. And so can I. And so I do, out here amongst the trees.
As I pass by these beauties, I pause and touch them with my hands. They, like me, bear the scars of living in the world - events beyond their control, sometimes the carelessness of others, sometimes just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet they stand, they bloom, they shelter, they grow. And so can I. And so I do, out here amongst the trees.
About the art: Beginning with a mess of paint on unprimed wood panel, keeping it wet and carving through the paint with palette knife and scraper. Allowing re-exposed bare wood to become the texture of trees. Slowly adding layers. Using spray bottle, paper towel and rubber wedge to add texture. Allowing strong diagonals to connect the two pieces. Resisting the temptation to overly detail while pursuing some color intensity.
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"Harvest Moon" - Acrylic on plywood, 24” x 48” x .75” Ready to hang (Sides are painting; no need to frame. Hanging wire is attached) Available for a limited time exclusively at Get the Gallery.
Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleepin'
We could dream this night away
But there's a full moon risin'
Let's go dancin' in the light
We know where the music's playin'
Let's go out and feel the night
Because I'm still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon
from “Harvest Moon” - Neil Young
Harvest Moon
Light in the forest teases and taunts. Sun-breaks in the clouds illuminate moss-covered trees by day, creating temporary pathways of dazzling green. Moonlight plays tricks on leafy branches and trunks by night. The bigger the moon, the broader the mischief. It is a bit of a dance in the forest. My eyes should be on the ground, seeking firm footing, watching for slippery spots and loose rocks. But the light! THE LIGHT! I can't look away. Whoops! :)
About the art: another piece in the new series, "A View from the Gorge". This piece painted on plywood. Using many layers of liquid acrylics and a spray bottle to form the underpainting. Painter's tape to mask the underpainting into tree shapes. Several layers of glaze to create the background.
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"Inescapable and Inevitable" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 12" x 12" x .75". Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need to frame. Hanging wire attached) Available here and at Artfinder.
Our hope to circumvent heartbreak in adulthood is beautifully and ironically child-like; heartbreak is as inescapable and inevitable as breathing, a part and a parcel of every path, asking for its due in every sincere course an individual takes, it may be that there may be not only no real life without the raw revelation of heartbreak, but no single path we can take within a life that will allow us to escape without having that imaginative organ we call the heart broken by what it holds and then has to let go.
- David Whyte, Consolations
What is it about the forest that unlocks my heart and lets the floodgates open? It seems I cannot enter that holy place without the rawness of what is real inside spilling over into the daily normal I so carefully cultivate as a modern human. Nature, it seems, is there to strip away the outer shell of my humanity and leave me with the very real essence of what is me.
Our hope to circumvent heartbreak in adulthood is beautifully and ironically child-like; heartbreak is as inescapable and inevitable as breathing, a part and a parcel of every path, asking for its due in every sincere course an individual takes, it may be that there may be not only no real life without the raw revelation of heartbreak, but no single path we can take within a life that will allow us to escape without having that imaginative organ we call the heart broken by what it holds and then has to let go.
- David Whyte, Consolations
What is it about the forest that unlocks my heart and lets the floodgates open? It seems I cannot enter that holy place without the rawness of what is real inside spilling over into the daily normal I so carefully cultivate as a modern human. Nature, it seems, is there to strip away the outer shell of my humanity and leave me with the very real essence of what is me.
Inescapable and Inevitable
I don't mind it, that place of real being. It reminds me of what I have chosen - to be open-hearted and vulnerable in the world. The price of admission to open-heartedness is that moment of surrender to what we cannot control or change. Acceptance. I open my two hands and release that which I have held closely, allowing it to transform into whatever it will be,
About the art - This is the first piece in a new series, called "A View from the Gorge". There is an experimental technique here - choosing wood panel for its very woodiness, scraping through very wet paint to expose the wood grain as part of simulated trees. As always, trying to hover on the edge of abstraction and realism. Choosing a fluorescent underpainting as the most unlikely of starts, but knowing that sometimes the light in the gorge actually does have an otherworldly luminescence.
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Living Openly on the Edge
"Living Openly on the Edge" - mixed media on repurposed wood panel, 12" x 12" x .75". Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need to frame. Hanging wire is attached) Available here and at Artfinder.
We are nothing but shores
laying ourselves before the
clear depth of all that is,
letting it wash over us.
In this, we are forever
translators, not through
our minds or by how we
conjugate verbs, but by
living openly on the edge.
- Mark Nepo, Drinking From the River of Light
The studio has become a mountain, a forest, the sky. Boards strewn about with landscapes - mountain-scapes, forest-scapes, rock-scapes - all the things my mind continues to see long after the hike is over.
We are nothing but shores
laying ourselves before the
clear depth of all that is,
letting it wash over us.
In this, we are forever
translators, not through
our minds or by how we
conjugate verbs, but by
living openly on the edge.
- Mark Nepo, Drinking From the River of Light
The studio has become a mountain, a forest, the sky. Boards strewn about with landscapes - mountain-scapes, forest-scapes, rock-scapes - all the things my mind continues to see long after the hike is over.
On a recent day-trip to Cape Horn in the gorge, a hop over a barrier fence led to the edge of a cliff at the top of a mountain. A place I wouldn't normally go (this girl has a bit of a thing with heights) and yet there we were. Standing, then sitting. Staying. There - at the edge of all that is.
Breathing in, I am the mountain. Breathing out, the mountain is me. And so I become the shore, high above the waterline, able to feel the clear depth wash over me.
About the art: using watered gesso and a rubber wedge to carve "rocks" into a piece of repurposed wood. Allowing the random patterns to present opportunities for further definition, and allowing the natural wood grain to peek through and become the striations in the "rocks". Resisting the urge to overly delineate one shape from another- to allow the painting to live on the edge between abstraction and realism.
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Do not be too fierce,
little one.
The hard shell breaks.
Yield a little,
little one.
Lean where you can.
Not compromise - your steel
will flash still-
but it brings nothing
to be broken
against the heart, it
leaves a bleak room
and dry tears
nothing more to do.
-from Edwin Morgan, Collected Poems
"Lean Where You Can" - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 12" x 12" x .75". Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need to frame. Hanging wire is attached) Available here and at Artfinder.
Lean Where You can
We all need a place to lean sometimes. A person to lean on, a hand to hold. Perhaps words of encouragement in a book, a poem, a social media post, a blog. And hugs! Where we can - hugs.
As the nation awaits resolution, and as our lives continue to unfold in our own little corners of the world, I wish for you, dear reader, a place where you can be less fierce, where you can be soft and rest your spirit.
As the nation awaits resolution, and as our lives continue to unfold in our own little corners of the world, I wish for you, dear reader, a place where you can be less fierce, where you can be soft and rest your spirit.
About the art: painting on bare wood using a limited color palette, with a focus on painting from the shadows. Moving the paint with rubber wedge, allowing the creating of happy accidents. Allowing the happenstance creation of texture to define the hair. Seeing both softness and resilience emerge.
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"Of Fossiled Escarpments" - mixed media on gallery-wrapped canvas, 16 x 20 x 1.5. Ready to hang (Sides are painted; no need to frame. Back has been pre-wired for hanging) Available here and at Artfinder.
Stay, to the earth
of riverine valley meadows,
of fossiled escarpments,
of limestone and sandstone.
It looked back
with a changing expression, in silence.
from "The Promise" by Jane Hirshfield.
The studio has been re-invigorated with mojo.
A flurry of outrageously gorgeous hikes, up steep mountains, overlooking the gorge, whipped by wind and clouds and mist - have filled my noggin with breathtaking beauty. And, just as with the portraits of October, I reach for the elusive border between realism and abstraction. That border, much like standing on a cliff edge in a white out of wind and mist, feels both perilous and exhilarating at once.
Stay, to the earth
of riverine valley meadows,
of fossiled escarpments,
of limestone and sandstone.
It looked back
with a changing expression, in silence.
from "The Promise" by Jane Hirshfield.
The studio has been re-invigorated with mojo.
A flurry of outrageously gorgeous hikes, up steep mountains, overlooking the gorge, whipped by wind and clouds and mist - have filled my noggin with breathtaking beauty. And, just as with the portraits of October, I reach for the elusive border between realism and abstraction. That border, much like standing on a cliff edge in a white out of wind and mist, feels both perilous and exhilarating at once.
Of Fossiled Escarpments
Simultaneously, I've found books of poetry in my hands every day. Mary Oliver, Jane Hirschfield and one new to me, Edwin Morgan. The combination of pitting my body against physical challenges and the elements and the overwhelming beauty of nature AND the heart-wrenching poetry of these people who paint with words has my spirit cracked wide open. Which, in itself, is much like standing on the edge of a cliff.
About the art: I have exceeded the 80 millions layers requirement in this piece! Beginning with an older painting on paper, mounted on a canvas, painted over with a portrait. Add to that a thick layer of textured gesso, the ephemera of torn palette paper from old oil paintings, and layers of acrylic paint. It only makes sense that a painting rocks and sediment should contain the heavy layers of life.
