November 2010
8 posts
Adapting
Flying out of Ottawa yesterday, we looked down on a beautiful snow covered landscape - ribbons of road through a glistening white patchwork. Coming in to D.C., we flew in over affluent winter green suburbs changing to government barrack type neighborhoods. With my head pressed against the window, I thought about how life is a serious of adjustments. Not only in subtle ways like a changing...
Can't see the forest....
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is step out of our lives. Staying immersed feels safer and being tethered to our routine eliminates the need to think! And of course, there is the deeper delusion of staying so booked that we stay securely in one place - moving neither forward or back.
The same trickery that we apply to our lives also applies to art making. Adjusting my course as an artist...
Dumping Duty
I love when I figure something out on my own….then read about it in a “how to” book. I know I’m on the right track and I’m reminded that none of us have a unique experience!
For years, I’ve painted obsessively - some years with passion and other years I’m driven by an inner compass that won’t let me consider doing otherwise. I had decided it...
6 tags
Two steps forward....
As the wax shavings were piling up yesterday, I thought about the rhythm of my progress. I bet I’m not alone in this. I didn’t realize there is a definite pattern to learning until I started working with encaustic.
After many years in watercolor, I started experimenting with casein. This was a few years ago and I felt like a coward. I’d struggle with casein for a month or...
6 tags
Lurking in the shadows
They say if you are an addict, you’ll always be an addict. Well, I think the same goes for phobias. They lurk in the shadows forever.
I did a short talk at the Carnegie Art Center today and I was reminded of my lifelong fear of public speaking — you’ll notice the past tense. I confronted my fears a couple of years ago with two major speaking commitments in one summer. I...
4 tags
Are we there yet?
“I’m not an artist. I paint.” I said that for over ten years while I painted every day, dragged paintings to art shows, and spent evenings studying or shuffling paperwork. I didn’t know when I would get there — to that place where I had earned the right to be called an artist — but I was sure I wasn’t there yet.
I knew that getting an art degree...
Today's experiment
Here’s a glance at my newest experiment — might a well take a peek before I drive it off the cliff! I’ve cut a chunk out of a failed watercolor and I’m going to use it as a base for an encaustic piece. Right now, I’m trying as many different ideas as I can come up with — ideas that seem natural for me, that is. I still want to paint with encaustic rather...
Karate Chopping Art
The simple concepts are usually the best, aren’t they? I read a lot about creative thinking and motivation — and I internalize a lot of what I read and think it is my own idea! But a concept that has defined my work style was actually spoken in broken english to a bunch of karate students.
My sons took karate for years and one of their goals was to break a board — it was...