Launch Time

• What knowledge gaps do you have?

• What classes are you dying to take? Creative, professional, technical, etc...

• What resources do you feel are essential to the growth of your creative or entrepreneurial practice?

  

  
  

  Having been a teacher for 35 years, I am now a voracious learner. I love learning new stuff. I have a great deal of curiosity and that sometimes leads to too many diversions. There will always be gaps in my knowledge. But practically speaking I have no sense of turning a passion for making art into something more career oriented. I like making the stuff, thinking about it, and storing it. More than that: Meh

• Having said that I am excited about taking the C4 Ignite program. I am not sure I am ready for the full blown "embrace your inner entrepreneur" state of mind but I am curious enough to put aside my resistance to give it a try. I am already doing things to get me on the highway to success, the blogathon, really snazzy business cards, and sending work off the juried exhibitions and award applications. I was nominated for the Anonymous Was A Woman last month. The application is due at the end of the month and that caused me to rethink my resume, exhibition record, etc. It goosed me into action. 
  
  
  One thing I need to learn is how to organize all of this, set priorities, know when to pay someone else to do something rather than keeping things on my "To DO" list and then never getting them done. An example is getting the best photos of my work to send to museums, etc.  AND having a plan with a check list for success. OK, now let's do it.

Falling with the Birds

Every morning while drinking coffee in the kitchen I watch the birds come to the feeder just outside the window. One day I noticed that when a bird decides to launch toward the feeder from a tree branch, it just jumps off the branch, wings still tucked in. It FALLS  headlong into space, embracing gravity for a split second. And then its wings open and it glides to the feeder for breakfast. Me and the birds, one of us taking the ultimate risk, the other sitting comfortably in a warm kitchen day dreaming. So I am taking a lesson from the little birds that fall into the air every time they leave a branch.

At this time in my career I need to jump into the air and find my wings. Making my work visible is the feeder I am heading toward when I blog, send my work to exhibitions, engage in the art community that also supports my thinking and my work. Putting it out there, going for the golden ring on the carousel, listening to the wisdom of many friends and valuing opportunities, make falling from the tree possible. I trust the process, so off I go. Wheeeee!

Moving Lines, o/p
(one of a series of paintings that re-imagines the I Ching)

Little Words

Cut It Out, 

Oh dear! I have never spent so much time worrying over so few words. They just won't arrive in any meaningful order so I forgo this assignment for musing on language.
Image and text have been a fascination of mine for decades. The question of which came first troubles me less that the curious difference in codification. One seems limited (words) in relation to the other (image). I know writers wouldn't agree.

Did the image become the word or did the word become an image?

Henri Michaux's small book Stroke by Stroke challenges this idea by rendering small strokes that morph between marks and images. They seem to reach for meaning through mark making, hovering between image and scribbling. I am drawn to that interface. So I made up drawings that look like writing with the intentionality of making unreadable writing, drawing that approximates writing. The image above is an example of a drawing  that came out of series about language that I revisit from time to time.It is clear polymer over a watercolor painting. I then cut out the negative space around the clear polymer.  I am not interested in answers in this work but rather in opening the space between the two forms of meaning. What could be in-between?

Blue Moon

January Moon, woodblock 22" x 22"

I took the dogs out for their evening jaunt and looked up at the sky tonight. We have been so weighted down by grey that I was startled by the deepness of the night sky and the tiny flickers from so many stars. The space of the night sky, the space of the blue ocean offer mystery, curiosity, and comfort. What I share through my work is a sense of wonder. I don't think my work provides anything more than the knowledge that we are human and that we share the same longings, to love and be loved. 

During an open studio a man walked into my space and looked at a large painting. He stopped and inhaled, then took a step back like he had been softly pushed. He remained there for the longest time looking at the painting while I sat quietly in the corner. Then he walked out with his head down. That's what I want my work to do, change a state of mind.

In my practice I weave beauty to mystery through paint. I honor the history of painting and work to expand its possibilities, to move it forward, and to give voice to the present moment.

Studio Hobo

Mattress Factory Studio

Studio I built in back yard

Basement kitchen studio being rescued

Mountain studio 

Mountain studio

Mountain studio

Mountain studio

Mountain studio

Drawing Room Studio (present)

Finally I moved my work out of the tiny basement studio and into the the drawing room of this old house. (photo) This is where I work now on small paintings. I still use the mountain studio for larger works. And that is only the last 15 years of studio habitation. 

Lost and Found

Mediator, charcoal on paper, 1989

I love the title of Anne West’s book, Mapping the Intelligence of Artistic Work; an Explorative Guide to Making, Thinking and Writing. If we accept that the creative process is a way of knowing then finding out how it works for each of us makes sense. The strategic questions that lurk behind my process are: Is this work necessary? Why? What difference can this work make in the world? How would it feel to not make this work? Agony and ecstasy follow the search for answers. 

These questions push me to examine my work and its relationship to the past as well the present. The past is present even if we ignore its influences. If I want to be relevant I need to know what other painters are doing, thinking and writing about. I need to be able to situate my work in the long trajectory of painting's history.

Wintry Fever

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever."
Dylan Thomas

I lived a life of setting goals and now I am retired from all that. Now I have the time to reflect on all the hurry scurry of my former life. Now I can choose how I want to spend the last third of my life. 
Having said that I want something for my work as an artist: visibility. So plans are taking shape. First, a classy business card. Then restarting my blog. And sending images to juried shows that might be matches for my work. Bravely signing up for IGNITE at C4 Atlanta to discover what it means to be an artist entrepreneur. Being with a community of artists. 
My work will be seen but only as the river flows.