palimpsest

acrylic, collage, pen, Sumi ink on w/c paper, 10 X 11″

voice booming out on the airwaves

fierce and strong

soft as a whisper

twirls in spiraling pearls

ricochets into the ionosphere

creates a web, an internet, a worldwide voice

step through that doorway, shyly up to the microphone

listen as the words come softly

blowing through the space between my ears

PAL – imp – sest – noun,  a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.

In the Tuesday evening Muse group last week we turned our usual sequence (painting, collaging and writing) around and started out by doing our free write directly onto the watercolor paper with pen.  We each picked our own theme of current interest to write about.  Then we spent the rest of the evening creating a palimpsest by covering most of the words with paint and collage while allowing some to show through.  This was both frustrating, as when the words seemed too “important” to cover, and liberating when the words were covered with metaphoric images capturing their essence. At the end of the evening we added yet another layer of meaning to our pieces by writing about them again, with further insights arising.

My original free write (underneath the painting) was about how there’s always a way to tune into the quiet inner voices if you can just silence those big booming repetitive voices that keep you stuck in the same old groove.

But when I did the art, the voice became an outer voice, a bigger one than I usually allow myself.  An invitation or exhortation to speak in a larger voice those words that come softly from within.

Demo at WASCO or how did those chickens get into my paint?!

acrylic, collage on illustration board, 15 X 11″ (unfinished)

Yesterday afternoon I did a demonstration of acrylic textural painting at the Watercolor Artists of Sonoma County (WASCO), a wonderful group of artists, many of whom I’ve painted with over the years.  My topic was a bit daunting.  How does one do a painting with layered textures in the one hour I had to present?  I picked a subject I know well, since I couldn’t imagine starting in my usual open-ended abstract way.  I brought a dry illustration board, textured with tissue paper collage, so that I wouldn’t have to wait for the surface to dry before I started putting the fluid acrylic on.

demo-ing the paper collage texture

When I started painting in the second half hour the strangest thing happened.  There was an overhead mirror so that people could watch me paint while sitting comfortably in chairs in front of me.  However there was a big enough crowd that the people way at the back couldn’t see what the heck I was painting, even though I told them it was a chicken.  So they started seeing chickens anyway, only not in my painting – on my palette!

Here’s what they were looking at (while I was doing this fabulous painting demonstration, ahem!)  Now I ask you.  Where’s the chickens?  I see a camel with a football helmet and another helmeted dog (must be on the other team) poking his head up behind a tree stump, but a chicken?

So afterwards people came up to see what my chicken painting looked like up close, not nearly as realistic as the paint blob ones I guess.  But all kidding aside, they were a great audience and very appreciative.

Tomorrow I get to teach a workshop in my studio on this technique, which I thoroughly enjoy. Note the Golden fluid acrylics bottles.  Golden paints are fabulous and I use all the fun gels and mediums and irridescents and interference pigments!  They have generously given me samples to share with students who come to workshops.  Also, please note my new apron, long enough to cover my knees (which always seem to get splattered with paint).  I just purchased it at ACE hardware for $20!  Such a deal.

Traveling Muse Journals

inks, collage, pen

Play a Little Muse Music

. . .and tap out the beat.

Set those girls a dancing and don’t take a seat.

The world’s going round and it won’t slow dound,

swirling and twirling and picking up the beat.

Trouble on the horizon, keep it there by dancing.  Put on a smile, even if you don’t feel it.  You’ll feel it when it’s been on a while. . .then the world will come lapping around your ankles and pulling more smiles from you.  Pretty soon you won’t be wearing those smiles and grins.  They’ll be wearing you!

The Saturday Muses shared their pages in the Traveling Muse Journals that are working their way around the group.  This was my entry from the past month, in Paula’s book whose theme was “Play a Little Muse Music”.  I can’t wait to share the pages done by the rest of the group, but have to wait for photoshop help from my husband Bob to put them in format.  I was just blown away by how artful they were, how totally out of the box creative they were.

Anchored

adobe and yellow ochre powdered earth pigments, sands from two continents, acrylic, pen, collage, etc.

Anchored – sun without warmth, moon without tides

A demo piece from the Tuesday Evening Muse group.  We mixed these wonderful powders (from Mexico, used in construction there) with matte medium and water and painted with them, with fingers and brushes and thinned them down to delicate washes.  Then sprinkled sands onto wet medium for even more texture.

The tribal women (from my antique book “Illustrated Travels”) became part of this desert landscape and the word “anchored” arose in me.  They are anchored in place geographically, culturally, through their traditions and in many ways that seem a kind of bondage to me, the western woman.  Thus the sun without warmth.  And the moon without tides. I cannot imagine living landlocked without an ocean nearby with its tides to remind us of the ebb and flow.

And so, anchored as I am in my own place on the planet, I can still esteem this life so different from my own, and send my prayers and blessings to those who live there.

from pipestone, minnesota to jamaica

coffee, watercolor, acrylic, collage, pen on Lama Li paper

From Pipestone, Minnesota to Jamaica by way of the Studio in the Orchard on the cusp of nature’s wild.

My demo for the Tuesday evening Muse group this week.  We had all prepared our paper with strong coffee stains to give that aged feel.  I had started this piece weeks ago and left it hanging with the image of my Norwegian grandmother’s home on the Minnesota/South Dakota border.  That and the frozen land with skiers trudging and then a palm tree?  Just the kind of nonsensical to get the Muse interested.

I have some Daniel Smith “Pipestone” watercolor that seemed like a good start.  Pigment mined in the town where my grandmother lived and I believe the stone is used in Native American ceremonial pipes too.  It’s the Indian red/pink color.  But when I got to the palm tree the colors got more tropical and then I thought the somber Lutherans could use some color too.  In fact I think I’ve spent a lifetime seeking out more color, more Wilde to mix into my very practical WASP inheritance.  The Studio in the Orchard (mine) has become the bridge into the land of color.

And lately I’ve been spending time with Bob Marley who sings, “Don’t worry, be happy”  “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” under my palm tree painting Jamaica colors.  I finished Andy’s painting last night and now it’s hanging in his room.

collage, acrylic on canvas, 24″ X 18″

love inna your heart mek ya rastaman

acrylic on collage texture

It’s not the dread upon your head, but the love inna your heart that mek ya Rastaman!

The beginning of the painting Andy has “commissioned” me to paint for him.  (I’m afraid I don’t know who to attribute the above quote to) He’s drumming now in a Reggae group and has already painted another portrait of Bob Marley for his room and now is giving me the opportunity, along with some new tunes to listen to – Groundation for one.  A new favorite.

Then I remembered that in my 20’s I listened to Jimmy Cliff.  So I downloaded some more tunes and realized I knew all the lyrics by heart.  So now I’m grooving to Bob and Jimmy and others and feeling those warm Jamaica breezes blowing through my studio. . .The painting’s not finished, but here’s the next step. . .then I’ll figure out what I want the guitar to do. . .

This is the kind of acrylic textured fun we’ll be having in the Layering With Acrylic Textures Workshop I’m teaching November 14 and 15 (in my Sebastopol, California studio).  You can come for one or two days and you don’t have to paint a Rastaman.  To register contact me.

And meanwhile, the book writing is under way and I have a working title, “Conversations with the Muse”, but don’t hold me to this title yet.

a book is born

Sumi ink, photo transfer, Sharpee pen

I finally got around to start writing the book that’s been taking up a lot of space in my imagination for some years now. It’s about the practice of Contemplative Sketchbooking that has been my partner in life for the past few years. The book is in the, shall we say, advanced fetal stage at this point, but it promises to be born by the end of the year.  Yesterday we photographed 150 of my images for print.  Going through my books I found myself reliving not just the external events but the internal landscapes of these past five years and more, since some of the sketches dealt with early family history.  Now the pressure building up behind the dam of ideas is so prodigious that I will be siphoning some off here on the blog.

Starting with this sketch, one that I did back in 2004 I believe.  (I didn’t think to enter a year back then, not realizing I was discovering a healing practice that would be with me for many years.)  I  had so little time for things like blogs back then, so I would dash out to the studio, dip into my Sumi ink, play for a few minutes and find myself restored.

Where the time will come to write this book I do not know, but it is definitely on its way.  Mark my words and hold me to it!

For all the parents

photo transfers, gesso/salt texture, acrylic, pen on w/c paper

Breathless. . .the waves of their leaving crash and i come up gasping. . .my two young men, stepping into that vast ocean of life where i will not be able to save them.

If you’re a parent I’m sure you can relate.  My boys are 17 and 19 now, though as you can see in the picture, they are still all the ages that have come before, images preserved forever in a mother’s safe keeping.  One is far away in college, the other at home, barely, and living his own life, driving around on these perilous country roads. . .gulp.  Breathless sometimes.  That’s me.  Why do we hold our breath as though that holding could stop the motion of life so that we could take a minute to get used to the changes?  Just a minute, really, and then I’ll breathe again and be ready for the next development.

All is well with them at the moment, truly,  and I breathe – for the moment – deeply and trust.

And a big compliment from Andy (pictured upper left with the glasses at 5) – he has commissioned me to paint him a Bob Marley-esque rastaman in my abstract style and given me a collection of his favorite Reggae music to inspire me.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

I was a third grade kiss up

collage, inks, acrylic, pen on w/c paper

i was a third grade kiss up goody two shoes brown nose (with horns in my backpack).

It’s true I guess.  And to this day I would have regrets about all the fun missed if i hadn’t managed to make up for it somewhat later on. My mother was a third grade teacher – not mine mind you – but she had a reputation to uphold and I was clear about my part in that.  But none of that explains why this goofy horned creature appeared out of nowhere onto my paper and demanded that I cut up an old grade school class picture.

I have now achieved the reputation in my little family at least of being the rule breaker, always ready to bend boundaries, make up my own definitions for things, my own weird recipes, and stubbornly contrary opinions (at least that’s their perception)  The horns of the matter no doubt.  And isn’t it quite obvious here how absolutely delighted I am with these horns. . . still trying to make up for being an incorrigible goody two shoes, no doubt.

Ordinary things

inks (with salt and plastic wrap), collage, acrylic and Sumi ink

Offering up the Word

She takes strength in ordinary things.

This piece began as a demo for the new session of the Tuesday Evening Muse group.  I like to start with colored inks, dropping them onto wet shapes and watching them explode.  It invites the pre-schooler in us to come out and create.

One of  the high school art students who came to open studios with their clipboards of questions asked me “How do you decide what to paint?”  My answer was that I paint my inner life, which is effected by the nature and birds and people I experience every day. Or something like that.  I’m a porous creature and whatever goes in circles around inside and comes back out in a day or week or more in my art.