The Spirit Moves Through

The Spirit Moves Through, 2014

Styrofoam, Gold, Ash, Clothing, Acrylic

There have been many snow days, many hard days.  There have also been studio days.  Some of which I was certain affirmed my diarrhea abilities as an artist and others that affirmed that all I wanted to do and be was in those four walls.  Yo-yo times.

Perhaps I think, feel, lament and talk so much about fear because I am so engaged in it.  I think being in dialogue with it I am also in dialogue with courage.  Courage is not painless, its full of agony!  Courage takes your hand and walks you through the glass sharded gates of fear in to the unknown, scraping all your uncertainty raw.  Then when you get through those gates you may still have lingering vulnerability, which no one can take away from you...you just have to wait to see if the sky falls or opens.  Eventually those blue skys open within, expanding you with courage to do it all over again.  Compassion does nurse the wounds well.  We should all have buttons attached to a direct line of compassion, like an opiate drip.  PUSH NOW, MORE SELF-COMPASSION PLEASE.

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.

Jump_er and Skirt

Jump_er, 2013 Fabric jumper, nails

Skirted Around, 2013, fabric skirt, nails

I am here now.  There is something beautiful and tender happening and I suppose that's why I feel so undone these past couple of weeks.  I don't know whats happening?  Just that its beautiful and tender...when something is tender it hurts to the touch.
I worked this week cleaning and painting my very rustic out-door studio, to prepare it for nailing clothes to the wall.
A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in a dream in Sicily.  Sitting between the sky and sea on a cliff.  Sitting at a little table I had dreamed about.  I sketched there each morning, etching the blue in to my psyche.