Whoops!

Well, I don't seem to have the knack for this blogging activity yet! I think about it at all the wrong times, falling asleep at night, in the car on the way somewhere. But I have been busy in lots of creative ways, including practicing humility as I struggle yet again with the watercolor technique in a wonderful class with Carol Carter, one of the world's best watercolor artists, as far as I'm concerned. After being an artist for more decades than I care to admit, and having taught many art classes myself, it's like being back in kindergarten, both terrifying and exhilarating. 

I also finished another of my dream houses and started setting up to photograph - only to have to stop to charge the camera battery. This was a photo I shot with my iphone while waiting - I'm still learning how to use it too. 

Art in general is like that, stopping and starting activities, learning new techniques, picking up the threads of old work, re-charging one's battery - like life in general, come to think of it....

Art is...

Combining the thoughts in one's head with the energies in one's soul.

I drink in energy from the colors around me, especially in flowers. I am turned on, filled up, saturated with the infinite variety of hues, the subtleties of shades, the intensities of contrasts.

In the studio, all that passion of response flows back out into the color I use - in recent years on a series of dream houses, somewhat surrealistic, all drenched in color  accented by images.

I don't know where the impulse to make houses comes from. Each new piece of this personal architecture is an adventure into that realm of thought and soul-energy. It started soon after I moved into a "new" old house., although certainly the created houses bare no resemblance to my actual cottage. I enjoy making things in general and the steps of designing and building these structures before immersing myself in the color applied are an important part of the process. The images are drawn from nature, history, graphics - whatever seems right to me for that structure. Then I add the accessories...

Garden inspiration

My front flower beds are in glorious bloom these days. The abundance of rain this spring and relatively cool temps, until this week, jump-started the blooming season early and it has     continued non-stop. Starting with the tulips months ago the color flow has shifted from pinks into purples with a large pop factor of neon orange poppies. 

I am constantly  inspired by the color but, alas, I'm not a water-colorist who can capture the glory of hue and shape on paper. I am a colorist though and use the inspiration found through the seasons in other ways. 

I've been having fun photographing not only the flowers but the foliage - the greens, the textures - and plan to use those images in my collages...

I hope there are flowers in everyone's life for whatever inspiration is needed - for joy or for art. 

Art is...

... an experience of the spirit.

I always started my art history classes with a slide of one of the hands from cave paintings. The import of these images, from the earliest days of humanity, still astounds me. We will never know for sure why these works were done but the idea that the artist had enough self-awareness of her endeavor to include a "portrait" of her hand just rocks me to my core.  The paintings in general are thought to be spiritual in nature - possibly an attempt to capture the spirits of the animals in preparation for a hunt, or to celebrate a successful one, or an effort to appease or to appeal to the gods that provided the bounty of nature.

When I am in the studio, deep within "the zone,"I too am in a spiritual place, sometimes clearing the path in preparation for a new direction, or in celebratory mode for the bounty of the seasons, or just feeling thankful for all that is - this day, this place, this life - but always streaming the energy from deep within.

A wise artist-friend once said that periodically cleaning the studio is as much a part of the creative process as any other activity we do there. I think she meant that we are also clearing out old energies, gathering new ones, preparing for new work and new insights. I gather in-spiration (taking in spirit?) from the bits and pieces of previous work, from a bit of painted paper, from a pile of painted sticks, until I am so filled with the need to create that I can hardly force myself to finish up the cleaning-up before I start again.

And so it goes as I feel the link to that Mother Artist of the Cave. Hmmm, an image for my next Dreaming House...

Art is...

... Creating order out of chaos. Isn't that what we all do each day as we wake up to a world full of choices to be made in order to tame the unruliness of life? Maybe this is true only in the developed world where we have so much from which to choose. The chaos in my studio of late is just a microcosmic version of that bigger picture - too much stuff, too many choices, too little time. But I'm making progress.

I've even documented the process, a creative endeavor in itself. To wit: a photoshopped "painting" of a before shot of the worktable... and after I played with it some more...

We are all artists when we are creating our lives. I hope you all have a good weekend with beautiful choices before you.

Steep learning curve...

So here's the trusty sidekick expressing her horror who was supposed to accompany the previous post. It took a while to figure out the system. It was only right in front of me while I was looking  everywhere else for the magic button. This is all magic, isn't it?

Beginning again, and again, and again...

After an extended absence from the studio, I'm trying to find my way back to where I was when I stopped my work there, then decide where I am now. But first, I must conquer the chaos now living in that space. (Yes, chaos is a living energy - ask any scientist.) My trusty sidekick expressed her horror at her surroundings...

Just  for fun, or possibly torture, or to jump-start my thoughts re my new work, I looked up the definition of "art". Dictionary.com has a long list of definitions, but the first -

"1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance."   

opens the door to lots  more questions. For instance, whose "aesthetic principles" and who decides what is  "ordinary significance"?

Obviously, I'm on my own here to once again define for myself what my art is about.