ee cummings

now is a ship

which captain am
sails out of sleep

steering for dream

ee cummings

Sailing, 2014 aprox 20" x 14" x 3" watercolor, postcard, acrylic, ash, styrofoam, embroidery thread

side view of piece

drawings inspired by plant Magic dust

 

	plant Magic dust expect hope doubt (wonder mistrust) despair and right where soulless our (with all their minds) eyes blindly stare life herSelf stands   ee cummings

Sneak Preview

(detail of 3rd piece in a group of 4 each piece is 24" x 24" x 2.5"), Recycled Styrofoam, Spraypaint, Gold, Ash, Acrylic, Cloth, Antique Dish

I am working.  I found new love in new materials.  I feel shaky most of these days.  I feel afraid all the time, isn't that amazing.  I wonder what does fearless look like?

Someone posted this today and I relate:
“Get scared. It will do you good. Smoke a bit, stare blankly at some ceilings, beat your head against some walls, refuse to see some people, paint and write. Get scared some more. Allow your little mind to do nothing but function. Stay inside, go out - I don’t care what you’ll do; but stay scared as hell. You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself" ~ Albert Camus (Notebooks 1951-1959)

"To feel confident and successful is not natural to the artist.
To feel insuffucient, to experience disappointment and defeat in waiting for inspiration
is the natural state of mind of an artist."-Agnes Martin

I suppose the comfort is knowing that the discomfort we feel is the normal we are often hurriedly looking for.  So I'm getting comfy in these banks of snow-white not knowing and staying open for inspiration.  Open me up, tear me open until all thats left is inspiration, sacrifice the ego and leave me fearless.

That sounds a little spooky.

The rest of the 30 collages

I thought to share the remainder of last months collages.  I am thinking to continue on with the direction I fell most in love with.  I fell for the quite groups...I am really into exploring what shakes me up the most which is: "Enough"  where that point is in my work.  I am interested in stripping down to the "simple breath, the origin, the infinite space in openness"  all of this requires a lot of constraint and trust on my part-constraint of habit, habits that want to fill in all the space to be "enough", habits that want to work fast and furious. Trust; to trust my own affection towards the work is "enough".  Today I was lucky enough to be visiting with my neighbor who is also a painter.  We we're talking about her work in the morning at her studio and later in the day about mine at my studio.  I think as an artist that no matter what your subject or artistic investigation may look like, it always comes back to being the artist themselves. 

 

  

More Abstract Collages

Collage 13

Collage 14

Collage 15

Collage 16

Collage 17

Collaging Away!!!

Collage 1

I started a collage challenge-I joined my friends Facebook group 31 collages in 31 days.  I decided to join so I would practice a small daily creative something.  Admitedly at first it felt stiff and silly.  I felt as though I was just regurgitating material, uninspired and meaningless.  I was almost thrown off the horse.  But...but...but then all of a sudden (as does happen!) something tiny and exciting started happening out of the seemingly banal.  In fact the one collage that was doomed to destruction was the miracle worker...and I'm off and running with bells on my toes! 

I also saw that it is part of the process to start where I am familiar ("the banal, the old, flat..") and just to keep going through until the process leads to "what if.."

I am thrilled to be playing, I am thrilled to be fully immersed in an exploration that I don't know the meaning of yet?  I am fully in for the collage ride! 

You can go backwards below with the collages and see the progression.

collage 2

collage 3

collage 4

collage 5

collage 6

collage 7

collage 8

collage 9

collage 10

collage 11

collage 12

Still Life; Under the apple tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still Life; Under the apple tree in the shadows.

36" x 48"

Mixed Medium on Paper

I did this painting/drawing yesterday, you know how I felt? 

I felt terrified.  I realize that every time I begin something artistic, it feels like jumping in to the deep end of a dark pool without swimming skills.  I resist and I am scared, every time!!! (Especially when there are longer periods between each dive.)  In the moments of creating I have seconds of joy, bliss, peace and other moments full of faithlessness, fear, self-loathing, and mostly the darkness of the unknown.  Yes, perhaps it's like I jumped in to the very deep dark water with a small flashlight on my head that as I spin downward, uncertain I will come up, my headlight flashes for moments and I see something, but it is still unknown.  When I do find my way back up, I am tired and then I begin the 'assessing' of what I saw or didn't see and how were my swimming skills?  The doubt that I should ever try again, the feeling of not really liking what I pulled up?  Wanting to throw it away as unvaluable and replace it with the more familiar.  

But......I will have patience.  I will honor my curiosity with courage-and fucking jump again.

Second Nature

A new piece of work will be shown at the Tivoli NY Artist Co-op for their next show titled 'Second Nature'.  My good friend and artist Gretchen Kelly who is a member of this co-op invited me to participate as a guest artist.  I am intrigued by the concept of 'Second Nature' and am happy to be included.  The show opens tomorrow evening from 6-8pm, please do come if your in the area!  Below is my statement for the work.

Dawn Breeze, 2012

Second Nature, originally Latin secundum naturam, "according to nature".

I am coming in to my accordance with nature; I am coming in to my authentic and original nature as a person and as an artist.  I am coming in to my innate self through my second nature, through my artistic process. What is this?  What does this becoming look like?

Oneness.  My artwork is a communion with nature; it is a collaboration that is not a depiction of nature but rather a shared experience with nature that culminates with a creation.  However, I consider the art to begin at the same point of ending in a constant state of transformation and flux.  My art is my experience of life and my art practice is my second nature.

To watch ‘Daydream’ in process go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEqYBVpve00

 “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn…It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful, but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts.”-Henry David Thoreau Walden

Plein Air Painting A Day Dream 1.

Daydream 1. 

Acrylic, Oil Crayon, Graphite on Twin Bed Sheet

2012

What to say about something I love? 

A wonderful opening

 Untitled (for now...) 2012

aprox 26" x 20" (will check that tomorrow too, for now its a guess)

Hand made paper, muslin, acrylic paint, pastel, netting

This week I found myself in the studio wanting to do light work...simple, fresh...I am really inspired by all the green and chartreuse surrounding me in springs glorious rousing, and the landscape is enchanting me...so I started working on a group of works on paper, paper that I made!  Last month I took a paper making workshop, which is definitely a process that suits me.

And that painting that I was loving before the show opened is actually rolled up and put away for a while...too heavy.  Right now I just want to blow in the breeze with the lightness of spring, in celebration of  birth, in life's awakening.

Untitled (also for now..) 2012

28" x 36"

                                                           Acrylic, Dirt, Grass, Seeds, Oil on Canvas
Thank you all who attended my opening last week, Enough at McDaris Fine Art in Hudson, NY.  It was truly amazing to see so many friends and people turn out for the opening.  I am truly blessed.  For anyone who missed it, the show will continue through May 26th and we are discussing presenting an artist talk at the gallery, about the process of my paintings, the book and Iceland.  I will let you know!