May

This has been a true roller coaster of an month for me, both emotionally and physically.
I'm looking back somewhat prematurely because of my mercurial state, which is reflected in my artwork. In the course of this month, this has gone from spontaneous to systematic. I have been living my life concurrent to the schedule of the people who are working on the house-sanding and finishing the floors. This seems ridiculous-but this has been the kind of deal where you have to have furniture delivered-sure, the store gives you a date for delivery-and you can plan nothing until you have the furniture in hand...I hate running on other people's schedules.
I've never been very good at working around these schedules at all and really hate being in thrall to them-the past week, for instance, I've been waiting for a machine to be fixed so the floor sanding could proceed. Furniture and possessions in the house are stacked every which way until this process is completed-a virtual state of limbo.
I'll complain just a bit more to say that painting and real writing have been out of the question and my work at the studio has been getting done in a somewhat staccato manner-in bits and pieces, with no great flurry of spontaneous and even continuous action...pretty much an unsettled state, in which any kind of concentration has been near impossible.
The good news? It's been somewhat easy to spend time to paint the porch on the house, which i looked at before as a truly daunting task. It's almost done. If this state keeps going on, I'll tackle the rotting sills at the studio...and the eaves there need painting...and I need to replant some errant maples and....

Two Things

One: Read Wendell Berry's essay "Hell Hath No Limits" in Harper's magazine for May 2008.

Two: Does anyone have a used working laptop that has Microsoft Word and a Flash Drive port to trade for some of my artwork? I need something just to write on that is portable-don't think I haven't thought about dusting off the old Smith-Corona, but I just make too many changes....

You know where to reach me, but just in case: handmade@netcarrier.com. Please don't forget that there are many pieces still up on the blob-you just have to go back through the older posts button (at the bottom of this page) to see them.

I finished this piece on Wednesday. It's 20" X 15" and entitled "Birdcycle". Guess that you'll have to trust me when I tell you that my artwork looks so much better than my photographs of my artwork.

A Brief Moment

At the end of a long dreary day at the studio-you know, when EVERYTHING you do seems ordinary- boring enough to qualify for sale at "The Art Shoppe"...and there are those pieces that you just keep doing over and over again and all you get is the same thing: close, but no cigar-still something missing...today was that kind of day.
But, for a brief moment, toward the end of the day, two pieces seemed to come together-one, I'd been working on for a while (see previous paragraph). The other was a start-only a start, but a good one. Just the combination of two elements -one of those elements relatively new; the other, years old. Magic. You can just see the possibilities.
This didn't redeem the day or change my sour mood, but it still counted for something. This was the proverbial ray of light on a (literally) cloudy day.
By the way, I'm making good my threat. Barring cold feet (which I've had all day, the day being cool and my studio being downright cold) at the last minute, I'll be starting a writing group. People have been responding to my "Writer's Group Forming" sign and advertisement. Of course, now I'm wondering just what the hell I've gone ahead and done-you know, I have no real credentials for this sort of thing. And I'm pretty damn shy. And I really can't write, either. Throughout my life, I've made a good joiner. Now I get to be the leader.
Stay tuned, this is gonna be interesting.

Early Influence

My Blog looks so drab without any images, so I thought that I'd post a "Picture of the Day."

This image is the "River Otter Man" courtesy of the Smithsonian collection. I'd look up more about it's history to share with you, but I'm too lazy to do that right now. This image has been with me since I was very young-if you know my work, you'll see where this little guy has influenced me time and again.

He sure looks like a trickster to me. That pointing finger has intrigued me for the greater part of my life. As Mrs. Doyle, Father Ted's housekeeper (played by Pauline McLynn) said (while pushing tea sandwiches from the immense mound she had made) , "Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on, Go on , Go on, Go on."

Guess you had to be there.

Dienst

Even though I feel the desire to write (like I mean it), I can't seem to get centered. While I am producing movement in my hands, peppered with a few thoughts, a few feelings, nothing cohesive is coming forth. No full meal-only side dishes-some scattered peas, a stringbean or two.

Maybe this is not even worth noting, not even worth posting. What I offer should be somewhat cohesive, legible, sensible. Here's my official "mea culpa"-an excuse for not producing.

But the rest of the picture is here, too. For everything we write or draw or sculpt, there needs to be throwaway-waste. Mistakes, false leads, roads taken but abandoned thereafter.
Although my Germanic background calls out for daily product ("Dienst" comes to mind-the German word for duty or service) -be it painting, writing , sculpture, I can't escape this fact: nothing can be made from scratch without the scratchings, without the seemingly useless ramblings. Maybe there are those out there who would prove me wrong, but the whole scenario seems to follow scientific law. Later comes the efficiency, along with assembly-line perfection. Art needs to have erasers as steady companions.
To digress-one of the toughest habits I ever tried to break was not using an eraser in my work as a surveyors' helper. The idea behind this was that visible revisions and corrections might help later as evidence in solving inconsistencies. This (in not using the eraser) was like being a smoker suddenly deprived of cigarettes-the hand keeps reaching for the pack in the pocket, then feels that momentary melancholy and disbelief. I never did stop reaching for my eraser.

Ah, nature!

Drained. On this beautiful day, I painted (the porch) all day almost nonstop.
Thought a great deal about my Aunt Carolyn today. She had an inordinate fear of worms, snakes and low-riding slithery things in general. Freud would have drooled over her, even probably taken her to lunch. The reason that Carolyn, dead now quite a few years, was in mind today was because it was raining caterpillars. Really. All day long, I heard the plop of their fat bodies, countless and unrelenting. They hit the porch, they hit the newly painted steps, they hit my van, they hit piles of leaves-I'm sure they are still falling out there (almost) noiselessly in the dark.
They have few predators- heard a long time ago that they've got a very nasty taste (nope, I never tried one) and that keeps them off many menus. Moving around today was an exercise in caution-it seems as though each and every step brought the possibility of several attempted caterpillar suicides. Everytime I was about to make a stroke with the brush, I'd find these critters in the way and have to gingerly sweep them away with my hand.
They move swiftly, with purpose and direction. When you stop or try and redirect them, indecision paralyzes them-or maybe they just play dead. S'pose I'm being presumptive in thinking that I can read these little buggers, but I did spend quite a few hours in their company today.
Occasionally, clusters of them would gather, lined up like miniature wriggling busses, waiting for a dispatcher to send them hurtling off. I never did understand why they gathered or what they were attracted to. Probably rallying for a mass attack. That's what they are doing in the dark-like a Hitchcock scenario...
When I was a kid, I remember my father making a long handled pole/torch out of an old rag and some gasoline and burning the caterpillars and their tents up high. I did this myself a couple times, but I missed the point. These guys come back whether wanted or not. I just hope that they'll spare my vegetable garden, the first one that I have planted in many years. I was hoping for some salad later in the year, but these little creepers might beat me to it.

Rain today

We've certainly been spoiled for the past few weeks. Seems as though each and every day was more beautiful than the next-perfect to work outside.

Today, the skies have that wet, grey look-it feels cold outside even though the temperature is pretty mild. I will not be painting the porch.

Being raised by someone obsessed with time (and her Timex), I am somewhat sensitive to the characteristics of light during the day. To me, morning light carries the promise of all things-I truly believe that anything can happen in the morning. I always have a great degree of excited anticipation to see what the day holds in store-how could it be anything but positive, given the absolute beauty of the morning?

By the afternoon, I'm somewhat less elated. Things become a bit less promising and deadlines and reality loom closer. The quality of the light seems more diffuse, more uncertain somehow. I grow more tentative and uncertain with it. The afternoon has always been my least favorite part of the day. When I was younger, I used to think that the perfect day would be to sleep through the afternoon, waking a half hour before sunset. Ideal. Vampiric. Antisocial. That's me.

At the end of the day, I once again find the light beautiful. It carries less promise than the morning (just because the day is ending). Also because I'm tired by this time. But nonetheless, it is breath-taking. Recently, Cara and I were on top of a tall building and watched a beautiful sunset that was accompanied by thousands of birds traveling in groups. Each group formed a dark mass, like bees in a cartoon. The birds just seemed to swirl around, creating huge dark circles and arcs in the sky, all in contrast to the blue/orange/yellow/red of the sunset. Wow.

But rainy days always meant that telling time by the light was an impossibility-10 am looks just like 4 pm. My energy level on those grey days was freed from the clock. That is, until I fell over from sheer exhaustion...I kind of think of myself like a dog when I'm in my studio-as a dog eats until it no longer can, I tend to do the same with working on art. Sitting down is something I'm not very good at. I seem to cover miles in my studio-the wear marks in the paint offer evidence on this. Whenever I've had a part time job, it's been a real pain to stay still and seated. Coupled with the fact that I was working on something that I considered pointless never helped much either. Sisyphus in a Barcolounger....

Carpe Diem.

Still painting the porch

This is the third week that I've had paintbrush in hand (and paint in hair, on glasses, on clothing, etc.)-I'm actually enjoying the process, but maybe that's easy to say because finally, the end is in sight!

Looking back, the work looks pretty damn good if I say so meself. Spent yesterday rebuilding the porch steps (relatively easy as the risers were all intact) and then priming them. Today looks like it might be a vacation day because of the rain. Oh, yeah-I should mention that the weather has made it an absolute delight to work outside-you know, your Spring days that just happen to be the epitomy of perfection. I even got a little color...unusual for this under-rock dweller at any time.

I have been feeling neglectful of my blog. I suppose that this has to do with my Protestant Work Ethic, but nonetheless, I've been remorseful of just how little time (and thought ) I've spent writing.

This morning (after dipping into more of Anne LaMott's "Bird by Bird" book on writing and life) I thought that maybe I would try and get a writing group started locally. Am I a writer?

Well, this depends on whether or not you want to get technical: I just started at this later stage of life to actually write-I've always been interested in doing so. I've never been published nor even submitted anything for that kind of consideration...I'm a sculptor, for Christ's sake.

But I do enjoy reading...and, as some of you folks reading my drivel may have noted, I have been enjoying the process of typing one word after the other. For me, this writing has had an almost addictive quality to it.

So, about the writing group-much like my experiments in painting, stretching into unknown territory-this could be a good thing.

Not only would I step up my drive to write with the benefit of a actual audience, but competition and critcism would follow. Good stuff. Starting something like this is something I never would have dreamed of earlier in life, but now? What's to lose?

Anyhow, back to my daily chores-as I said before, the end of my painting project will get put off today as the rain is making itself known...so, instead, I'm adding to my ramblings (the written ones, that is) and in a little bit, it's off to the studio to work on sculpture.

By the way, just finished a DaVinci book by Serge Bramly (Leonardo: Discovering the Life of Leonardo DaVinci) and I thought that it was quite good-if you are into artist bios, this one will be a good read for you. I happened across it a the flea market (along with another really intriguing and great book, The Medieval Machine by Jean Gimpel) for $1. Lucky me.

Later, baby.