On Tuesday night I drove to Harvard Square to go to my non meditation class (the leader Joel, says that if you are meditating you are working too hard - it's really about relaxing). I parked near the Commander Hotel and walked through the Cambridge Common. It never ceases to amaze me that I live where I grew up. As I walked I mumbled under my breath: here is my old stomping ground (where I cavorted as a thirteen year old on Saturdays and Sundays when there would be free concerts....) Tonight was one of those spring evenings when EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED, the sky filled with Zeppelin clouds and great cobalt blue and grey rain clouds. Some bright lighter blue out there too closer to the horizon and the fierce sun crackling through everything. The trees were starting to bud out and fan out their copper and bronze color which was all lit up against the sky. I was taking mental notes: coppery mustard color against cobalt blue fudge color (Marion from the meeting said there was lavender in that blue color, she is a painter too and this helped me a lot because I was completely confused by that blue - just couldn't figure out what I was staring at). The Harvard spire was a gleaming white lance reaching into the sky, the clouds were moving, the illuminated tree buds were like lacy jewelry. I am trying to do something different these days with my inspiration. The old patterns are that I get overwhelmed and feel grief that I am missing everything - that I'm not painting and capturing what is so gorgeous and I might throw in some added self-torture by thinking of artists like Sargent or Fairfield Porter who would just grab it and paint it. The new patterns I'm working on are this: get inspired, fill up on it, take mental note and work in the studio tomorrow on it (that lit up coppery mustard against the cobalt bruised and pregnant sky!). Go to your wonderful meeting Alexandra, the one that is teaching you so thoroughly to relax in the present, to love the present, to understand that the grief, the panic and the regret are the old habits. I will do what I can, be filled up with awe and make a little painting about that night. And even if it is just a study of two colors I will be grateful to Cambridge and to the Springtime.
Rip Up and Cut Down
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I am learning something from taking pictures of the work with my iPhone. I photograph parts of my pieces and always like the details better than the whole thing. But it seems like the process requires making a bunch of stuff and then trying to simplify simplify and then simplify some more. Lately, I have been working on some biggish pieces (big for me), @ 24"x28" but find that I have to rip them up and cut them down. I constantly show people how they have made several collages in one and that there is too much going on. Hence, I make a big emphasis on making a really strong background and often people will say: y'a know I think this is finished. Because they have made a lovely space (all prepared like a garden plot ready for planting). It is visually more pleasing to have an underworked piece than an overworked one. Many of us feel that the main story is still missing (even with that gorgeous background) and that there just isn't enough. So how to fill up and whittle down? How to have breath and space yet a piece strong enough to work? Add onto this predicament another layer: the work that I personally want to do, that I dream of and chase speaks of something doubtful and sure, strong yet tentative, delicate but solid. I began making art and writing as a way to quietly and discreetly fit into my world. When I try to work big and boldly it usually crashes and burns. I might have to find my strength in the small, the delicate and the private places. I began earnestly expressing myself writing as a teenager and even now my artwork instinctively stays on the same scale as books. There is always this funny predicament: how to avoid clutter and overkill and how to get simplicity and strength. And how to be brave and expressive and feel safe enough to even do it.
Make Anything
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I get to my studio with a nice big full day in front of me and then I can't focus or work. I eat my lunch at eleven and my thermos of tea is finished by noon. The week end was very distracting. I pulled a muscle dancing at a party and feel best reading or sitting quietly. I walk around mumbling: do what you tell your students to do: Have fun, Do something joyful, Just draw or doodle to warm up. Instead I have laid out all these largish paintings that I thought about all week end and want to finish. But my muse is on vacation (or more like a dog on a leash who refuses to budge and sits down in protest) - working on these pieces is simply not forthcoming. So, I do what I constantly recommend to others: keep my hands moving by making ANYTHING. The terror and pressure of art making has to be picked up like a soccer ball and bunted with one's head swiftly out the window. I take one of my small blank mixed media books and I put Pandora on and I begin to play, glue, draw, splash paint. No pressure, no expectations - just the reason I became an artist in the first place: because it was fun.