Questions and answers...

The Lines Are Down. Acrylic. 22.5 x 30.5

The internet connection in Alaska was cumbersome and I didn’t keep up with the blog so here’s a piece from sabbatical year. This painting was the result of a flippant question and I was stunned the answer so immediately and effectively presented. Art and life move along side by side. This past year has been a huge question for most of us and why questions get us absolutely nowhere. Why questions feed guilt, regret, sorrow and second-guessing ourselves. Why did they do that? Why did that happen? and on to undermine our confidence. Why questions waste energy and precious time we could be processing and moving forward. More effective questions begin with what. What’s the next step? What would happen if I…? As I posed in the question preceding this painting ~ what would it look like?

Artmaking, however inadequate we feel to the task, is willing to work for us and have our back as we resolve our questions. Here’s the story from the original post in Instagram

I’m pragmatic about art making. Begin at point A and proceed to the zed of signature with a death grip on realism. A few days ago, I positioned a primed watercolor sheet for a go at the series I’m working on. A bit flippant (and out of nowhere) I mused, “If a ‘good girl’ painted rage, what would it look like?” I came back to awareness stunned to realize this is an allegory for the 1964 Alaska earthquake and Tsunami. 9.2 Richter. I clearly remember the quake. The aftermath was a blank. A few years ago, I recalled huddling under blankets in the dark with no heat, on the sofa hugging a flashlight. The world had ended, the aftershocks kept coming and even now my chest constricts and hands shake as I write.

My father was the manager of the phone company with the only mobile phone in the area. Mother worked in the office. They left me alone for days to care for my younger sister while they went about restoring telephone communication with the outside world and doing whatever good they could along the way. When I asked her why they left us behind, she said, “When something like that happens, you do what you have to.” I went on to experience enough disasters across the country in the next 20 years the Red Cross wanted to hire me. The earthquake was my first presentiment of Mother Earth’s growing dissatisfaction with what the human race is doing to itself and the planet. If that’s not rage, I don’t know what is.

I'm back...

Work in Progress. Copper RIver Flats. Oil. 4 x 6’. Some of you have asked about the white lines and if there is more than one canvas. The white lines are chalk guides to edit while I work.

I’ve been on a self-imposed retreat for a year. Sorting things out. I was gloriously happy for eight months at my home in Alaska. Deep diving art and silence. Blissfully unaware, I flew out for business in time to sequester at the Portland studio and experience the global Dark Night of the Soul.

You’ve come to the place where I share ideas of possible interest to artists, healers, mystics, outliers and introverts. Muggles welcome. In fact, everyone is welcome. This blog is about concepts, art and technique, healing, spiritual possibilities and what makes life on this planet interesting.

I have an extraordinary capacity to ignore the artistic elephant in the studio. Walked by this painting with eyes averted while exploring other avenues of expression for months. Thought if I posted as a WIP I'd commit to make progress. Keep me honest. The volatility of the U.S. at this time affects even me. I want to be home again where the only thing that changes is the course of the river over time.

Copper River. Oil, 4 x 6'

Guppies and Goldfish

Fireweed. Acrylic 36x12”

During the cleaning frenzy of March, I excavated several unfinished paintings 15 to 40 years old in several mediums. They survived the moves and mayhem and all have several thousand miles on them. The images still resonate.
There’s a popular bravado in art cliques today to throw away, hose off, burn or paint over what we self-determine to be a bad or outdated art work. Lack of sleep, impatience or life issues often influence our assessment when we feel a painting doesn’t respond. Good or bad are words steeped in childhood injunctions and only serve as a reason to make up excuses not to paint. Ineffective is a more descriptive term.

Time is a faithful friend and if we patiently wait, we override the cultural disposability of all things. Often our consistent life symbols and archetypes manifest through older work. We validate ourselves when we recognize and honor the knowledge moving within us. We free the work to new interpretation. Old paintings are like having a guppy for a pet. We don’t flush the guppy when it doesn’t grow up to be the goldfish we thought we were getting.

Our Muse is devoted, however pouts like a neglected lover if we repudiate the proffered gifts. Intuition may get miffed and require coaxing back. We need to respect our artist and the work. We have an obligation to help the art become the best guppy it can be.

When the Universe moves us to birth an impression, quantum physics assures us it’s already complete. Even though we feel inadequate at the moment to see the concept through, the idea lives. Conception is exciting. Completion euphoric. Showing up to the work in the middle is where good or bad generates unless we stuff a sock in our critical voice and keep pressing on.

Before you take a hose to the work, assess the potential strengths of the piece. Enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to use skills you’ve developed in the interim to resuscitate it. Consider what could make the painting more effective. Are there new materials or techniques available to try? What about a shift toward stronger composition? Would values benefit from adjustment? Would nudging proportions or exaggerating color excite the surface?

There is a stunning piece in a local museum that took over 60 year to complete. The Mona Lisa? Over a decade. While goldfish are great, I advocate for the guppy.

Important things...

I came north to divide time between the vitality of the city and isolating to study subjects of interest, sequester for a deep dive into art making, figure out who I want to be for the third act of life. When The Spouse and I previously worked apart, kin quickly spread the news we divorced. On another occasion, a call from the east coast branch inquired if I’d died. We’re a really close family. If I’d been thinking, presumed dead might not have been such a bad thing.

2,866 miles later… work routine is established. I floundered for a time since Plein Aire was the goal while the weather is still good, however, the car died. No reviving. Dead as a doornail. Thankful it made the last effort to get me and the studio here safely. Woke up this morning with a series clarified to pursue. Even with all of that going on, extremely important things have been accomplished between the time of waking when the light comes and sleeping when I’m tired.

Staring out the window, I witness the leaves of the Aspen and Paper Birch trees turn to gold as the sap cools. The grey and blue stratus compete with the white of the clouds as they race weather across the sky and define branches early barren in preparation for winter. The fireweed has turned from brilliant magenta stalks to gold in the sun and tired browns with the impending rain. Their flowers have topped out as seed fluff blowing in the wind. The first snow is about 6 weeks away, give or take - the fireweed never lie.

Rode a small 3 point earthquake and smiled at the hello. Three of the 12 largest earthquakes reported in the world occurred in Alaska and I have vivid memories of the 9.2. A go bag is ready by the door. The mountains across the inlet are volcanic and active so volcanos, earthquakes and fires have been routine since birth. These reminders inspire meditation on cavernous questions such as what the heck am I doing here and why, even here, the Great God of the Washing Machine demands only one sock as tribute. Wouldn’t a pair make more sense?

Speaking of greetings, a bear dropped scat at the corner of the house. A courteous way to leave a message and let me know It was around. There’s an animal path coming up from the beach side and around the back to the front on the land side. I feel comforted and welcomed home although with the help of a friend and his weed-cutter on steroids, cleared a line-of-sight to both back gates.

Memory of long buried habits stir. While the temperature is still pleasant, I’m cultivating a practice of showering first thing rather than the city rush right before running out of the door. Hair needs to be dry after temperatures drop to below freezing. Clumps of iced strands breaking off is cosmetically disconcerting. The amount of sand piggybacking into the house would fill a child’s playbox in less than a week so shoes come off at the door. The sand blown into the screens on the beach side occlude the view so I had the bright idea to vacuum the screens from the inside but the sand is stuck on the outside windows. The windows are second story and I don’t have a ladder so it’s a moot point. Problem solved. It’ll wait until spring. Have to run. I absolutely have to watch the leaves turning to gold.

Freezer therapy...

Pastel on paper from aeons ago…

Most of us have heard the story of the guy who adopted an ill-mannered parrot. The parrot had a hard life so the guy vowed to woo the parrot into changing with unfailing kindness. No matter what he tried the parrot was incorrigible. The parrot swore abusively, was rude, disrespectful and yet the guy held forth with forbearance. The parrot mocked and ridiculed the very person who saved him. This went on for some time with no effort on the part of the parrot to repent and change. One particularly difficult day, the guy lost his patience and tossed the parrot into the freezer hoping the parrot would cool off a bit. A couple of minutes later he opened the freezer and the parrot sidestepped docilely up his arm.

“Sir,” the parrot said, “I’m profoundly sorry for my ill-mannered behavior after you were kind enough to take me in. What I said and did was rude and loutish. It will never happen again.”

Very quietly the parrot asked,

“Sir, may I venture to ask what the chicken did?”

We drop the friend who is all about themselves, adroitly negotiate the intrusive co-worker, confront the abusive boss, and have at hand numerous ways to leave the narcissistic lover.

So. Why do we let our critic beat us up every time we attempt to make art, write the novel, play the concert, design a building or invent an easier way to install plumbing?

Here’s the news flash. The critic is ours to manage not the other way around, so why do we tolerate the disparaging voice in our head? We wouldn’t consider letting someone talk to us that way in any other situation and yet we do the dance with our critic, and possibly our shrink who is making a lot of money off of a non-existent figment of our imagination.

I’ve read we should give our critic a persona and name. Identify the gender of our critic. Really? In the same amount of time we could make work to get the happy hormones flowing. In the last century we’ve invented as many propitiations to our emotional insecurities as our ancient ancestors did to the volcanos. We’re supposed to eschew victim mentality, yet we let the critic badger us to creative death. Is there a certain cachet if we have an especially cranky critic?

Why spend any time on this dark-side brain candy? The critic only exists as we allow it to. If the critic is ours to create let’s conjure up a well-mannered, cultured colleague. The critic must be trained as we’ve trained our family, friends and coworkers to respect our boundaries. When we need an edit or critique, we can invite the critic in as a trusted collaborator on our terms. Under those conditions, the expertise our critic offers is invaluable. Any other time, the critic should live in the freezer.