humor |

inks, gesso, collage, pen on w/c paper, 10 X 11″

True straightness seems crooked
True wisdom seems foolish
True art seems artless
from the Tao Te Ching

Every morning while I was at Camp Winnarainbow I got up early for Zen Clowning with Moshe Cohen. We did all sorts of movements to wake up, loosen up, get connected, and align with universal energies. But we would take each movement, like opening up to sky energy, and “add humor into the equation”. Amazingly we seemed to know what that meant. . .just a little twinkle in the eye, a soft humming sound, a silly ripple of the fingers, and there it was. . .the cosmic joke that made our bodies and minds light as a feather, just by thinking it.

That humor, applied to art, makes it possible to step outrageously outside the bounds of previous knowledge/convention/expression.

I’m working on a Muse E-course offering right now and this piece will be available as a video demonstration of using inks and gesso for an art journal piece. On my collage table I have some little books of quotes and I immediately opened to this one.

My week spent in crookedness and foolishness at camp gained a new sense of clarity with the words “True art seems artless.” We must dare to be foolish and follow the crooked path. It’s really the only way to be original after all.

I’ll be “adding humor to the equation” this summer with a variety of different course and demonstration offerings which you can read about in my latest flyer.