pulling radishes

If, by Rudyard Kipling

2011-01-26T10:35:00.000-08:00

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

2010-11-30T16:56:00.000-08:00

So here's what 45 minutes can produce, while listening to Yo-Yo Ma, which was the perfect music for today. But this is just a start. Still very rough and in need of refinement of planes, not to mention details. I plan to play with it some more (and hopefully know when to stop). One of the most enjoyable things about this particular work was that it felt as though my hands were far more knowledgeable about the subtler forms of the face and head. Much more confident. Clearly the skull sculpt has been a valuable exercise (although I didn't touch it today).

2010-11-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

I'm sure doing all these little "deep muscles" is overkill, but I'm honestly having fun. Still struggling with trying to figure out which muscles go under others and which go over, especially for these deep muscles, but I'm hoping it'll all work out in the end. I do have a 3-D model of a facial ecorche but these deep muscles don't show, so it's not much help at this point.

Both of the muscles around the eye socket and the mouth start with "Orbicularis", which I'm assuming means something like "circular muscle", since they're both uniquely round (I haven't yet drawn in the muscles fibers on the mouth below, so it looks more smooth and skin-like -- I'll fix that next time).

Front view -- it looks a little off proportionally, but I think that's because I haven't put in the cartilage and muscles around the nose. Once that's in the nose will appear a bit lower than the nasal hole that's there now.

2010-11-09T15:58:00.000-08:00

All that careful work I did on the right side of the skull, and now you're going to see the roughly-finished left side since that's the side I'm doing the musculature on. Oh well.. it'll soon be covered.

Now that I'm on to the ecorche' part I'm relying most heavily on a fantastic book -- Human Anatomy for Artists, by Eliot Goldfinger. A great resource as it isolates each individual muscle, showing exactly where it lies, where the origin and insertion points are and how thick it is. It's not a 3-D model, but it's the next best thing thanks to the thorough explanations and illustrations. It wasn't as helpful in modeling the skull, but for the muscles this book is great. My only complaint is that it doesn't seem to be laid out in the order that a sculptor would lay on the muscles, so I'm jumping around in the book and trying to figure out which muscles lie under and over each other. A bit of a challenge, but good for learning.

2010-11-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

Skeletal part is *done*. I added the first rib and the front of the clavicles since some of the neck muscles attach there. Not having a full size skeleton model, though, I mostly roughed these in. I went to check out an actual human skeleton that a friend of mine has access to, but while it helped to some extent there were limitations. Nothing beats having a model right next to your sculpture to refer to, but I could only take photos of this specimen for my use. And anyway, it was a 4' 10" tiny little specimen, so it was like looking at a somewhat miniaturized version. But finally it's on to the musculature!

2010-10-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

Felt a little bit like a dentist today, spending much of my time on the teeth. Thank god for those little rubber-tipped clay tools. They were perfect for this particular job. I still need to go back and lengthen the front couple of teeth a bit and adjust the gum line down in front (hmm... the bony part is probably not referred to as "gums", true?), but it's coming along. I also did some major tweaking to the mandible as well as the whole back half-hemisphere of the skull, removing a significant amount of clay. Still a lot more to do to get it refined to the level I want it, but the end is in sight. You can see the two skull models I've been working from below. Big differences between the two! The one on the right is a female skull, but the bony parts around the teeth are significantly eroded, so I'm glad to have the other skull to fill in the missing information.

A little glimpse at my work set-up. I've been keeping track of my hours on this project and it's been about 40 hours so far, not including the time on the armature.

2010-10-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up the cervical spine. I wouldn't call it perfectly rendered, but I think it's decent enough to call good. For now. Most importantly, I've learned a lot about about the specifics of the forms of the vertebrae, with much thanks to the model I purchased. I'm convinced that when it comes to learning artistic anatomy, your money is generally better spent purchasing quality models than taking a class. And what's next? Tomorrow I'll revisit the skull and start the final refinements. Not sure I'll get to the ecorche' this week, but definitely soon..

2010-10-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

Just wasn't in the mood to work on the skull project today. The tedium of working from educational models is getting to me and my hands want to do more expressive things. So today was more clay-doodling. Although it looks like one piece in the photo below, these are two separate pieces. Did the head study first (second photo below to show a different angle), then it was back to the mouth/lip studies that I find so fascinating. This one's way off. I feel out of practice. Next move will be to work up some drawing studies. Hopefully between drawing and modeling (over and over) I'll start to get this down someday.

2010-10-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

Ironically, my neck is sore from working on this neck. I've got my sculpture stand cranked up to the highest mark but with all of this detail and all these oddly curved bits and pieces I'm craning my neck plenty to get them all worked out. Spent the day on just this one profile side of the vertebrae and got about halfway up the front side (you can see below just how rough the upper part of the front of the neck is). The other side of the neck is going to be trickier because the threaded rod of the armature isn't on center and so will be exposed. I'll have to carve the vertebrae around it, which will be bothersome... so I've decided to make that side the one I'll do the ecorche' on. Which means I'm not going to fuss so much with modeling every last detail of the vertebrae on that side since it'll all be covered with muscle anyway. But *this* side I want looking nice. I'll put up with whatever neck pain I need to in order to get it looking decent.

2010-10-06T16:52:00.000-07:00

Reason #48 for why it's nice to live in a big city: It's no problem to skip down to your local anatomical models manufacturer and pick up a decent cervical spine model :)

Yes, I bought a decent model and what a difference it makes! In the same time it took me to (very poorly) model just one vertebrae yesterday, I roughed out all seven today, including reworking the one I took a stab at yesterday. Still lots of adjusting and tweaking and refining to do on these, but it's coming along very fast now --

And here's my new buddy, come to save the day (cue angelic choir):

2010-10-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

I've become quite stuck. With no good life-size model of the cervical vertebral column to work with I'm having a hard time modeling this part. I brought in a bunch of printed images today but vertebrae are like the pelvic bone, so full of twists and turns, strange curves and protrusions that you really need a 3-dimensional model to truly understand it. Spent several hours today *just* on the atlas, the top-most vertebrae. ... ugh ... But I'll tell you this -- the first two vertebrae of the spinal column, the atlas and the axis, are really cool and amazing bones (how's that for a truly geeky statement?). :)

So I'm debating now whether to spring for a (cheap) 3-D model of this part of the spine, or if I should just go ahead and create a very generalized (and probably incorrect in more ways than I want to consider) cervical column, remembering that my whole goal with this project is to learn the basic underlying structure of the head and neck. I don't need to model absolutely perfect vertebrae to get a good working knowledge of the musculature of the neck. But then, I love these sorts of challenges and take great delight in learning all the subtleties of form.

2010-10-04T17:07:00.000-07:00

Just the start of the rough shapes of the cervical vertebrae. A little challenging since I don't have any good life-sized models. I have one life-sized one that's only half shown (an ecorche' skull that includes the cervical vertebrae, which means that half of everything is covered in muscle), then I have my half-size skeleton. Between those two models and referring back to the video, I'm doing the best that I can. Even my anatomy books don't show these vertebrae very well. It's all got me thinking now -- maybe Santa will bring me a decent full-sized skeleton for Christmas? :)

All this technical work. It's good knowledge to have but is not what I want to do ultimately. I much prefer a sort of 'abstracted realism' approach. The other thing about doing technical "copy from sight" exercises is that they lack the kind of generative creativity I crave. Nachmanovitch writes, "Competance that loses a sense of its roots in the playful spirit becomes ensconced in rigid forms of professionalism." Precisely. So I did the following in the spirit of play. I'm calling it "Cheese Doodle In Clay" --

2010-09-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

When I have a terrible need of--shall I say the word--religion, then I go out and paint the stars.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

2010-09-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

The changes may not be all that apparent in this photo, but this is 6 more hours of work from yesterday's photo. I spent most of the day on the jaw, around the nose and at the zygomatic arch. The instructional DVD (which I've completely abandoned now) had the viewer take measurements of their own skull at different key points. I had wondered how accurate those would be given the thickness of skin and muscle, but trusted the guy on the video. But today as I worked from the models it became apparent that my skull was larger than life-size. Not by much (maybe 1/2", give or take), but enough to cause some difficulty when working from the life-sized models. So I did a lot of scraping down to get it a little more in synch. It's still larger than the models, but not by much. I also raised the ear hole about half an inch and took off about an inch from below the occipital bone, behind the mastoid process (can't see it in this photo), which may mean I have to rework the cervical vertebrae. We'll see.

2010-09-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

Today I chucked the instructional DVD I've been working with and instead just referred to the skull models I have. The DVD has it's merits (led by a guy who does a lot of CGI, I think) in that it was good for the first part of the sculpt, figuring out the general planes and proportions. But now that I'm getting down to the nitty gritty it's much better to be working with an actual model. I mostly reworked and refined the cranium today, ignoring the general CGI-like planes and going instead for a more precise realism. I also retooled all of the facial features. It's a bit of a challenge as I have two skull models that are quite different, plus I'm working off of my own skull's dimensions. So this is more "best guess" than an exact replica of either of the models I have.

A side view -- wish I'd taken some of these kinds of profile pics with the previous incarnations. Haven't touched the cervical vertebrae in a few days, so it's still in "blocked in" phase here:

2010-09-21T06:04:00.001-07:00

‎"Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain."

-Carl Jung

2010-09-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

Getting into the smaller details now. Spent most of the day refining planes, both large and small. Some adjusting of the eye and nose holes. Lots of work around the mouth and jaw, and also starting to delineate the cervical vertebrae. Next session I'll focus on the teeth, which I anticipate will frankly be a b*tch. But it must be done, and I want to do it. It's just going to involve lots of tiny work, with my tiniest tools. And I think I'm still off with much of the jaw and teeth-planes, so I'm sure there will be more adjusting of the form.

Lovely Seattle morning (if, like me, you love this kind of weather). Gray and a bit blustery. All day I could hear the clanging of cables against the sailboat masts as the wind had it's way with them. The afternoon cleared to some sun and a beautiful fall day.

2010-09-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

The subtler tweaking phase begins as I start to delineate the smaller planes and features. But I'm really enjoying this whole project. A lot.

2010-09-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

Further along although still dealing with primitive planes of the head stuff. I think the ghost of my half-size skeleton is haunting me on this one (hint: I've named him Massive Jaw Jim). That big jaw will be much-reduced in the coming week. I'm also struggling mightily with the eye sockets, but this is good for me. That's exactly what I need to be learning -- the underlying structure of the eyes. A lot of tweaking and reworking in the immediate future on this one --

2010-09-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

Day two of the skull sculpt (what the armature was for). I'm using my own skull measurements for it. Let's just hope I have a normal skull :)

beautiful black

2010-09-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

Wow -- look at that beautiful black ink! I took this photo after it had set for a short while. I can't wait to try this stuff out. I forgot to mention -- I used 5 oz. of iron sulfate to mix with the gall water. There are so many different and wildly varying recipes, so it's all just guessing and averaging between instructions.

Iron gall ink, part 2

2010-09-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well I finally braved the goo! I'm sparing you the gory pictures, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I strained the soaked and ground galls into a bowl (see picture below, and yes that's exactly what it looks like -- thankfully it doesn't smell like that). Then I mixed the ground galls with another cup of water, swished it around and strained it again. Finally, I took out handfuls of the mush and squeezed them hard in my hand to get the last of the liquid out. After it was all said and done I probably had about 5 or 6 cups of gall liquid.

I picked up some iron sulfate from Seattle Pottery, which is the yellow powder in the white bowl below. This matter of obtaining iron sulfate hasn't been an exact science. Online I saw pictures of everything from the grainy yellowy powder I got from Seattle Pottery, to a fine white powder, to a greenish crystalline powder that's also called copperas, but is apparently actually iron sulfate. Not being a true scientist I really didn't know which was what I needed, but I think what I used is working well --

My apologies for the fuzzy picture below. Had I known that the liquid would change dramatically after adding the iron sulfate I would have tried harder to take some good before and after pictures. But below is the best "before" picture I have. The iron gall liquid was a dark brown color and very watery and transparent --

But after adding the iron sulfate it changed quickly before my eyes, becoming a very dark black color. At first it was brown-black but as it sat there it became more purple/blue-black. It even stained my fingers black as I worked with it! Cool!! It's kinda hard to tell in this photo, but this is what it looked like after adding the iron sulfate --

Now to set it aside to sit for a few more days before the final step...

back to the studio

2010-09-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

Gearing up for the next step of the iron gall ink. I picked up some iron sulfate and just have to psych myself up to strain out that moldy mess of goo.

In the meantime it's back to the studio. Spent a good day cleaning and organizing it. Now it's on to new projects. The first is pictured below. Any ideas what this is? It'll become apparent soon enough. Spent the past two days building this thing. It was truly a b*tch, especially considering my lack of proper tools and all the time spent dealing with clueless people who work at hardware stores and yet know nothing about tools or construction methods. grrrr... But I finally got this thing built. I even managed to bend that 5/8" thick threaded rod myself!

2010-09-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

"Delight is a secret. And the secret is this: to grow quiet and listen; to stop thinking, stop moving, almost to stop breathing; to create an inner stillness in which, like mice in a deserted house, capacities and awarenesses too wayward and too fugitive for everyday use may delicately emerge. Oh, welcome them home! For these are the long-lost children of the human mind. Give them close and loving attention, for they are weakened by centuries of neglect. In return they will open your eyes to a new world within the known world, they will take your hand, as children do, and bring you to where life is always nascent, day is always dawning. Suddenly and miraculously, as you walk home in the dark, you are aware of the insubstantial shimmering essence that lies within appearances; the air is filled with expectancy, alive with meaning; the stranger, gliding by in the lamp-lit street, carries silently past you in the night the whole mystery of his life...

Delight springs from this awareness of the translucent quality in all things, whereby beauty as well as ugliness, joy as well as pain, men as well as women, life as well as death -- the grinding clash of opposites between whose iron teeth all systems of philosophy are crushed at last to pulp -- are seen as symbols; in the true meaning of a symbol, whose Janus-like face contains at once that which exists in time and space, and that which transcends it."

--Alan McGlashan, "The Savage and Beautiful Country", 1967

Aren't you glad you're not married to me? (iron gall ink, continued)

2010-09-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

(or three or four...)

Iron gall ink, part 1.5

2010-08-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

The gall/water mixture is still fermenting. The weather in Seattle has cooled so I might leave it to sit for awhile longer to make sure it's good and ripe. I found that the ratio of one part ground gall to four parts water was not wet enough to allow for the fermentation process. Once the galls soaked up all the water it made more of a thick paste and was just sitting and drying out rather than fermenting. So I cut the paste in half, discarded one half and added 30 ounces of water to the second half, making the ratio more like 7.5 ounces gall to 90 ounces water (let's see... that would be about one part ground gall to 12 parts water, if my dismal math skills aren't failing me here). Put the bowl back out to sit some more and it's looking much more promising now. Stay tuned...

Iron Gall Ink, part 1

2010-08-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have to wonder -- was I a medieval monk in a former life? All my fascination with "how they used to do things." Not 100 years ago, but more like 1000 years ago! From true marble dust gesso, to rabbit skin glue, to calfskin vellums (I seem to be amassing quite a collection of this stuff now), to illuminated manuscript, on and on. Or maybe I just like to make things from scratch instead of picking up a shiny new plastic bottle of something at the art store. I like to work with materials made from my own hands and whose ingredients are known and natural and completely pronounce-able. So it is with my latest project: iron gall ink.

I was down in southern Oregon recently, spending a lot of time in the dry woods there. Scrub oak abounds and every now and then you see these golf ball and baseball-sized light tan bulbs on them. Some sort of fruit? Nature's christmas ornaments? It turns out they were oak galls -- dry, lightweight, gourd-like growths on a very small percentage of oak trees. Apparently they're the result of the tree trying to protect itself from a parasite -- the gall fly, which is a generic term for any sort of insect that causes a plant to produce galls (oaks aren't the only trees to make these). Being the "medieval art techniques" geek that I am, I remembered that these galls were a key ingredient in the way ink used to be made so I brought home a big bag of them.

What makes these important for ink making is their high level of gallotannic acid, which (correct me if I'm wrong) is the thing that keeps the ink from fading. Probably also the reason why red wine stains so badly, due to the tannic acids. ... I think... (this coming from a Google-armchair-chemist so don't quote me!). Anyway, most of the galls are a light tan color, but color variations include blushes of pinks and peach, and sometimes the brown/tan color was darker, even nearly black --

When I first brought them home they were so pretty and pristine! I could have just filled a big bowl with them, making a nice centerpiece. I kept them in the bag for a day or two and then opened up the bag to look at them. They were full of holes!! Big holes, little holes.. not only that but when I opened the bag a couple of moths flew out! Apparently their larvae had been living inside the galls and hatched and chewed their ways out. It surprised me because none of the galls had holes when I'd gathered them. At the bottom of the bag were some telltale casings --

Pretty voracious eaters, too! Though most of the holes were very small (maybe 1/8" in diameter at most), some were huge --

But the moths had their chance to escape. It wasn't long before I had to proceed with the ink making. The monks of old would have used a mortar and pestle, but if they'd had these oh-so-useful motorized spice grinders I'm sure they would have sung praises to the heavens for the miracle of technology, probably drawing little Cuisinart cartoons in the margins of their manuscripts with happy little monk-dudes nearby --

Now that'za lot'za spicey ground oak galls!

Being that iron gall ink was pretty much the only kind of ink used for centuries, recipes are numerous. But typical of really old recipes like that, every single one is different, often drastically so. I've decided to try one of the fermented recipes as I hear they make the darkest ink. Proportions of ingredients are drastically different in each recipe, as well. But since I was able to make a considerable amount of ground gall (thanks to the wonderful folks who helped me gather a bunch) I'm going with a recipe that has a high amount of gall-to-water. Since I don't have a bucket of rainwater sitting around, and since I'm sure that modern rainwater is far more contaminated than what they had many centuries ago, I'm using distilled water. Four parts water to one part ground gall, by weight (here below I'm using 60 oz. water to 15 oz. gall)

Now to set it off in a sunny corner for a few days or a week to ripen it. I just hope the stink doesn't get too bad!

Art to the Nth degree

2010-07-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

Check out this artist, Keith LoBue's, blog starting from the June 3, 2010 entry titled "Poetical Modesty, In Progress -- Stage 1". The link is here. I think he posted 5 stages in all, with extensive commentary and photos all detailing his latest work. What's fascinating is to witness his creative vision unfolding with each entry, not to mention his impressive master craftsmanship.

And if you take art to the Nth degree and raise it to the level of the esoteric, you get Claudio Corallo's art. That's right.. chocolate. But this is chocolate like you've never had before. This is the pure cacao plant reverence. Seriously. This is beyond chocolate.

2010-02-16T16:40:00.000-08:00

You are not surprised at the force of the storm—

you have seen it growing.

The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.

The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees' blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit;
now it becomes a riddle again,
and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered
leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Tree Whisperer", by Sherer and Ouporov (egg tempera, acrylic, gold leaf on poplar and birch, 2005)

2010-02-11T14:09:00.000-08:00

When you want to give something presence, you have to consult nature.

- Louis Kahn, architect

Searching out the lines that already exist interests me more than imposing new ones.… Pressing leaves into the bark of a tree produces lines dictated by the tree's growth patterns. The intention is not just to make a line, but to draw the change, movement, growth and decay that flow through the place.
- Andrew Goldsworthy, artist

(Andrew Goldsworthy image)

2010-02-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

My time at the Sandpoint studio is coming to an end. Rumor has it the new developers want the place vacated by May 1st. I will miss it there, with the waterfront and the old wood floors and high open-beamed ceiling. But it will be nice to have my work back home again. No more commuting, no more too-hot-in-summer and too-cold-in-winter, and I can wander down in the middle of the night to work if I want. That will be nice. Still a lot to do to finish off the basement, but it's coming along. I have my work cut out for me these next few months.

2010-02-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

Been working hard at the studio, all to finish this piece for an upcoming auction. The title of the work is "The Measure of Her Fortitude." It's a mixed media piece incorporating found objects including a quail egg, sparrow's nest, Victorian brass hardware pieces, antique ruler, fossilized nautilus shell, animal bone, Bakelite and bone beads, beeswax, tarot card, watch face, hemp thread, vintage rusted tin container, old metal frame, powdered pigments, wood, wire, nails, paint and glue. It measures about 15" in height. There's quite a bit of depth and dimension to the piece which was hard to capture completely in the photos, so I've uploaded two very differently lit pictures to try to convey this. First, with top-down lighting --

And this one, lit from both sides which emphasizes the depth of the frame behind the central image --

I had so much fun doing this. It's actually a re-working of a piece I started in a deMeng workshop last fall and which I even uploaded a picture of here in this blog a few months ago.

My favorite element is the sparrow's nest material tucked into the lower part, inside a turned-up Victorian drawer pull. The color of the nest was much grayer than I wanted so I mixed in some gold colored hemp thread to warm it up. It worked out quite well (below hangs an amber Bakelite bead and an animal's femur bone) -

Up on top is the nautilus shell and the quail egg. I devised a way to reinforce the egg so that breakage is unlikely, even though it sits freely on the wire and can rotate around. I really love sculpture with moving parts -

And below is another "moving part" element -- the bone beads threaded onto brass nails on either side of the central image. The beads move back and forth giving the whole thing an abacus-like feel. Between the beads and the metal frame piece you can just make out the textured surface where I tried to match the rusted metal. I tried to keep as much of the rusted metal showing, but as I had to affix the metal frame pieces with some epoxy putty I needed to cover that up to match the rusted tin. Powdered pigments really helped with this --

And here's the back of the piece, showing the backside of the old rusty tin. I love that burnished and rusted gold surface and didn't want to hide it, although the other side of the piece is just rusted tin with no old gold paint on it. You can also see some of the ways I attached all the pieces together. I used rivets (hard to see, but they're there) to attach the wood rulers to the tin, and brass nails to secure the wood piece in the center (the tarot image is on top of the wood). Down at the bottom are a couple of Lowes-bought brass machine screws and nuts. They were shiny-brand-spanking-new, which I burnished on the front side of the piece to match the aged look, but on the back here I just left them new and shiny. I threaded some brass wire through holes drilled into the tin to create something to hang the piece on a wall -

2010-01-17T04:39:00.000-08:00

I'm fascinated by illuminated manuscripts. Always have been. So much to love about them, from the sacred texts that are made even more sacred through artistic embellishment, to the archaic secrets behind ink formulas and quills, to the gold leaf and the preparation of the animal skin vellums. And what got me started again with this interest? I’ve recently been reading C.G. Jung’s “Red Book”. It was made public for the first time ever last month. Jung, of course, touches on some other favorites--mythology and symbolism--which were richly portrayed in medieval times; the peak of production for illuminated manuscript. All of these converging interests of mine, going round and round, circling in toward that which draws me strongly, artistically. Here are some images from Jung's "Red Book"

So I'm prowling the internet again, searching for images of ancient texts, and tonight I hit the mother lode. It seems that palaeographists are so thankfully passionate about their discipline they’ve built enormous (and free!) online image libraries of historical texts and manuscripts. The sites take some patience to navigate and presume the viewer knows more than a little about the subject, so you have to do some poking around to get to the images. My favorite site is the Digital Scriptorium -- http://www.scriptorium.columbia.edu/. But unless you happen to know the precise name of a manuscript or the collection it’s held in, it’s easiest to start by clicking “more highlights” on the home page. Initially I gaped at everything without discrimination, but after awhile it got easier to discern the high quality manuscripts from the low. While all are wonderous, a few stand out as true works of art. The Book of Kells is of course familiar to most as an example, but of the hundreds I looked at my favorite by far is a manuscript at Harvard University’s Houghton Library -- the Calderini Pontificale dating from the late 14^th century Italy. It’s undoubtedly one of the most finely executed illuminated manuscripts in existence. Here are some goodies --

2009-12-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

"... art is the imbuing of matter with spirit."

-Christopher Day,

in "Places of the Soul; Architecture and

Environmental Design as a Healing Art"

(sculpture by Javier Marin)

2009-12-11T13:38:00.000-08:00

Been a while, eh? All I can say is life happens. Just like the moon waxes and wanes, so it goes. Been busy with a million things but creative endeavors have been creeping back in again. Most recently, this has been through a couple of classes I taught at Puget Sound Community School.

The first was a fun drawing class designed to teach the value scale by way of learning about the art of Chuck Close and then emulating his grid portraits technique. I can't lay claim to this lesson plan, though. Just do a google search for "Chuck Close portraits" to find many variations listed. We watched a slide show and movie about his life and work, then I took pictures of each student and posterized these in Photoshop, reducing the number of values to 4 or 5. Next, I printed these out and we gridded them and transferred the images to a larger piece of paper to begin the drawing. Each square on the grid was assigned a value (dark, medium dark, medium light and light) and the students would then do a doodle drawing in the squares. The darker the value of the square, the denser the drawing would be. Here's a demo I worked up to show the process --

Lots of little squares to fill in! I should have put more thought into that before choosing such a large piece of paper to transfer the drawings to. I think in total there were nearly 400 squares to do! And it's true -- work like this requires a very specific art-temperament. You have to enjoy doodling (should I say ENDLESSLY doodling?). Fortunately, one of my students had this and found the whole project very inspiring. She completed a fantastic drawing which she's planning to give to her Mom for Christmas.

Her finished work here. Pretty darn amazing, no?

For week two/class two I switched gears from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional work, doing a class on plaster masks. Though I don't have pictures from the first two days of class, we spent them paired in two's, as students would place wet plaster bandages on their partner's face to create the base of the mask. On day three we began the process of smoothing and refining the masks as well as adding sculptural embellishments like large cheekbones or protruding noses. Here the kids are doing just that --

The last two days of the class were scheduled for painting and finishing. The rest of the photos here showcase some of that process as well as a few of the finished (or work-in-progress) masks. The class itself was a big success and all were engaged for the whole process. I think the work speaks for itself --

2009-10-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

So many different interests pull at my attention, but it's all good. One of the perks of not having deadlines to meet, or a cohesive body of work to put in a show. I can do whatever I please. And there is much that pleases me. So on that note, below are some recent studio projects.

A few weeks ago I traveled to Portland, OR, to take part in a week of various art workshops. It's all good fun and a great excuse to play with abandon (not like I'm doing that already -- lol!). One class was all about resins, which I've long been interested in. I confess, I didn't do some of the intended projects for the class, but as I was working with the material my mind started buzzing about the potential it held for some other projects. Specifically, resin is a great substance to reinforce some of the natural materials I'd like to incorporate in other pieces. I have a growing collection of natural eggs of different kinds. Some of these are extremely fragile and hard to come by, so I'm not experimenting with those. But button quail eggs are a dime a dozen. I used a cutting wheel to cut off the top to make little cups and have been using the resin to reinforce the inner chambers. It's working very well and I'm pleased with the results --

Below is the piece I did in Michael deMeng's class. He's such a great teacher. His classes are mostly technique-based (my preference) but with enough of a "theme project" idea to get everyone over that dreaded hump of "what do I do"? Plus he plays great music while we work. I also like that he gathers us all at the end to do a group critique. Really extends the learning as well as the inspiration. Good stuff. I apologize for the snapshot photo here. Hard to tell what's going on, but it involves a nice rusty tin, various bits and pieces of.... well shoot. I'll just promise to take some better photos and discuss this in a future post --

The drawing below is not a recent one, but I pulled it out after going to a show recently of an artist/friend of mine, Ellen Garvens. She had several drawings in the show done on mylar and had used the translucent nature of the material to great effect, with layering and utilizing the impermanent and delicate quality of graphite on the surface. I've also used mylar for some of my drawing work and really love the surface and its possibilities. This is a mylar drawing done with graphite (on the right) layered over a graphite on paper drawing (on the left). Never did finish this piece, but may yet go back to it and continue the process as it pulls to me.

2009-09-26T23:16:00.000-07:00

Been a bit slow in the studio this month. So much going on with kids and family. It's my studio time that is often first on the chopping block (hmmm.. make that second -- housework is first!). But a time and place for everything. The moon waxes and wanes, and so does the work in the studio. Speaking of waxing... I'm experimenting with sculptural waxes right now. Still looking for that perfect medium. I have certain ideas brewing that would work great with wax, but need to find a wax that's easy to manipulate. Earlier in the month I tried sculpting with melted plain beeswax, since I already have boxes full of it. Came up with an interesting figure sculpture, but it's quite brittle and fragile, and trying to build form with dripping melted wax is... well, you can imagine. But there are several specialty sculpting waxes available, so I'm trying out a few different varieties right now. Soon I should be getting some wax samples that don't require heat to manipulate, but for now the waxes I have all need heat to soften. And to soften these waxes evenly, I've heard it's best to melt them down and pour them into thin flat sheets, which is what I spent my time doing at the studio yesterday. I think this particular wax is called "Victory Amber Sculpting Wax" --

Poured into the pan and starting to cool... you can see my face reflected in the sheen of the still-liquid wax in the middle --

Another recent project in the studio has been collage work. It's another experiment, really. I have no interest in doing collage work on any large scale. Instead, this was more an exercise in deep personal inquiry. I have a friend who speaks glowingly of something called Soul Collage, and since I'm a believer in the existence of meaningful imagery and symbolism lurking in the subconscious, it seemed like a potentially very interesting exercise for me. Still haven't done a "reading" on these yet (a Soul Collage thing). I tried to create these with very little conscious thought and simply guided by intuition, but am looking forward to revisiting these soon to see what might be there --

2009-09-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Nothing too much to look at right now. Just put the first layer of paint on, so there's a long way to go. But here's a glimpse of what's in the works (plus a distant view of the other large one by the door). All abstracts for now. In realist work it's largely about seeing with your eyes and translating that into the painting or drawing, but what I'm working on here is a whole different kind of seeing -- the kind I've longed to learn but which is rarely taught (only once in my years of classwork did I have a teacher/class that approached this both methodically and successfully, taught by artist Patrick Holderfield). So that's what I'm working on. Practicing, really (it's all about the process, right?). That's my single goal.

2009-09-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

Two themes for the week: "Livin' large" and "Playing with mud"! I've drug out my largest canvases and am having a great time playing with textures. The one pictured below is just the start of the many incarnations yet to come with the oil glazes. And today I pulled out the behemoth -- a 4'x5' canvas -- and began work on it. I'm really excited to see what comes. This is a whole new way of working for me. I'm just enjoying the ride :)

2009-09-07T23:33:00.000-07:00

I've been in the studio, but haven't been taking pictures and haven't been posting here. Got a couple of things in the works but they're just not at a place to photograph yet. Besides, I'm sure it gets tedious seeing images of every single incarnation of my many creative whims. But to make up for the lack of postings and images, I took a walk around the studio today and have a few pictures of the place. Behind my building is a small grassy area and a pathway along the waterfront. Here's a peek at the boats of Sail Sand Point, whose offices are right below my studio --

And here's that very pathway and grassy knoll, with a view toward my building ("Building 11", officially.. typical no-nonsense name, thanks to the Naval presence that originally built this place) --

Me and my botanical background. Can't resist a few flower pictures! This one of some really plump rose hips --

And here's my favorite Northwest berry -- the snowberry. Usually you see these bushes alongside the freeway, all scraggly and barely surviving. But behind the studio they're growing big and abundantly! Never seen such happy snowberries :)

The Ponds

2009-09-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

Every year

the lilies

are so perfect

I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding

the black,

mid-summer ponds.

Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming

among the pads and the grasses

can reach out

their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that

rife and wild.

But what in this world

is perfect?

I bend closer and see

how this one is clearly lopsided --

and that one wears an orange blight --

and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --

and that one is a slumped purse

full of its own

unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled --

to cast aside the weight of fact

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --

that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum

of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

-- Mary Oliver

2009-09-02T17:08:00.000-07:00

Broke out the paints again today. Usually I'm itching to do more three-dimensional things but today was all about paint. First, a glimpse at what I worked on yesterday (the lighting was poor so a lot of detail is fuzzed out in this photo). I added the vertical rust-orange elements but still have more to do on this. The orange verticals feel very much "laid on" and not part of the painting yet --

My growing family of patina'd mouths --

A sort of overall view of many of the paintings I've been working on --

And this is how I ended the day. Pulled out one of my larger canvases and tried my hand at texture work again. Was a whole different feel to be working on something this large. I'm usually hunched over much smaller things, working from a chair. But with this I had to be constantly moving back and pacing around, just to be able to take the whole of it in visually --

A peek at how the texture is coming along (this from the right hand side of the canvas) --

2009-09-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

Back in the studio today. Summer is over and I've been eager to get back to work. Brought a camera in as well but it was lacking a card, so no pics for today.

I ended up working some more on an oil painting I started while still in Mark's atelier. It's one of my favorite pieces from that time, but it always felt like it needed more. Spent a good part of the morning goofing around with sketches and geometry before breaking out the paints. This painting was originally done using Doak's balsam medium, but (of course) I didn't have that particular bottle at the studio this morning, so I ended up trying out his copal medium instead. Seemed to work very much the same. Maybe just slightly more viscous, although it's been so long since I've worked on this piece I'm not sure my memory can be trusted. But like the balsam medium it left a very matte finish, which I like (and which is in keeping with the original texture of the piece). Will be interesting to see where this painting goes...

2009-08-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is the work of Claire Burbridge, whose work I saw at a gallery in Bath, England. Really stunning. Three-dimensional sculptures created in resin through a lost-wax process. Her work carries all the qualities I love in a work of art -- luminescent, three-dimensional, organic, with strong elements of abstracted realism. As they say in England, "brilliant!"

2009-07-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

(I will be away from the computer for the month of August. Be back in September!)

2009-07-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again... So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art to conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know."

-- Rene Daumal

2009-07-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

A swelteringly hot day today, which means the studio is like a sauna. Went in early to catch what I could of the cooler morning air. Was wanting to do a larger full-face (half life size) sculpt in the water clay, but with the heat and the need for the fan it would have meant too much hassle trying to keep that much clay moist and workable, so I did another quickie smaller face. I like incorporating realism in these works in the form of roughly proper planes and subtle details, but don't want so much perfect realism that it covers up those fingerprints of the unconscious. Still, I feel I'm lacking a good working knowledge of the structure of the eyes. Struggled with that most again in this face, just like all the others. Something I'll continue to work on --

Put some finish wax on the blue patina'd mouth this morning and while I was buffing it out it rubbed off some of the blue, revealing the warm copper tones underneath. *Nice* --

Played around with that little waxed clay face again, this time setting it on a recent texture piece. Some potential here, I think. Kinda speaks to me --

2009-07-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

Didn't work in the studio today, but met a friend there so I was able to pull this piece from the fuming container. Twenty four hours in the fumes left this nice blue patina. Here's a photo next to the enameled piece from yesterday --

2009-07-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

Almost didn't get a blog entry today, even though I spent several hours at the studio. I worked very hard for several hours doing *crap*. No, seriously. I don't even want to go into what I spent my time doing. Couldn't bring myself to take any pictures of it, either. But toward the end of the session I switched gears and did a couple more of those molded copper mouth pieces, hoping to replicate the one I ruined yesterday. I've got one in the fuming container right now and the other I played around with the enamels on it. Sifted it on thick and blasted it with the torch. It turned out just "not bad" enough to warrant a photo. Definitely something that deserves more exploration --

2009-07-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

messy messy studio! bad-bad-bad! Not a lot of time to hang out today, so I cleaned the place up. But I just couldn't resist futzing with that copper lip piece from yesterday. The one with the patina from heating (the reds) and fuming (the greens). When I fumed it the reds were diminished somewhat and I was hoping I could get them to pop again if I heated the piece one more time. BUT, no dice. As the copper heated up, all those wonderful green specks disappeared! So it's back into the fuming container, hoping to get some green to return. Lesson learned :)

2009-07-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Now that the textured panels have dried I can start painting. It's all a learning process at this point. Trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. And (as always) trying to minimize as much as possible any evidence of human manipulation (like brush marks!), while at the same time move the piece toward something that has a certain "visual pop". Here's the current incarnation of one of the textured panels --

Today's studio time was another session of battling inertia. Sometimes when I work I slip into a good zone and things just flow, while other times it feels more like I'm constantly smacking up against one brick wall after another. Today was more the latter, but I was able to keep busy and not let it ruin my day.

There's a four-panel encaustic I did last year that I never finished and which has been stuck ever since in an "ugly phase". It still has potential, but needs a lot more work. One of the things I don't like about it is the shiny surface it has due to the shellac treatment I did on it last. So today I took the far left panel and tried melting off the wax and shellac like I'd done the other day on the paste/pumice panel. Can't say it improved it any, as you can see here. I decided to keep the torch away from the remaining three panels and set it aside once again for another idea in the future --

A little side-project pictured here. This is a large peeling off a mica rock (I think it's officially called a "book"? Or maybe a "page" of mica?). I was playing around trying to stain it with some pigment --

All weekend I had this idea in my head involving metal sheeting that's been enameled. It's been YEARS since I've played around with enamels, so I'm definitely rusty on technique. Didn't have all the right equipment, either. No pickle, no fiberglass brush, and my enamels have been sitting around for a good decade or more so are "dirty" and need to be washed. But that didn't stop me from playing around. Lately I've been hearing about torch-fired enameling. I've only worked with a kiln but have been wanting to try out the torch (in fact, I'm signed up for a workshop on this in the fall). So I prepared a piece of copper, sprinkled on some enamel and put the torch to it, hoping for the best. Below is the result. I was able to fuse the enamel on the top and bottom, but didn't heat the middle part enough, so once it cooled the powder just blew off. Still, I kind of like the result, especially how the half-baked enamel powder created rivulets along the border (I sort of helped that along, too) --

Not only did the enameled side turn out kind of cool, but the back side was impressive, too. The application of heat created a wonderful heat patina on the copper, pictured below. To the right is another piece of copper that I loosely formed over one of the clay lip sculptures. I did a heat patina on this one too, and then fumed it with some salt and ammonia for the specks of blue-green. Mmmmmmm... gotta love those patinated metals!

2009-07-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

mmmmm.. doesn't this look good? Just a pan full of wax scrapings, but beautiful enough to frame. At least I think so. Love the many shades of ivory and those delicate petal-like folds -

Another workday of many different projects. But I like moving between pieces and explorations. When one piece is drying or setting (or cooling down after the torch!) I can pull out another to work on. Keeps me busy and is a nice way to stave off the sort of blockage/inertia that comes up when I'm feeling stuck and without direction.

No clay-play today. Instead, I worked two-dimensionally in a three-dimensional way. That is to say, I did a lot with texture (inspired after looking at all those great Cousins pieces). Started several pieces (one panel and two canvasses) with a thick layer of modeling paste, then tried different ways of creating texture. At one point I was having a lot of success using a dried leaf as a 'paintbrush'. I've never much liked working with paintbrushes. Don't like the marks they leave. It seems that most of the work I do with brushes involves trying to hide all the brushmarks! Maybe I just need to get over it. Or maybe that's just how I work? Anyway, here's one of the texture pieces I worked on today --

Am I creating art? I don't know. That's not the goal anyway. Am I having fun and enjoying the materials and explorations? Most definitely yes! Here's yours truly, holding up the paste/pumice panel in one of it's incarnations today. This was after scraping (and then melting) off most of the wax I'd put on the other day --

Below is what it looked like by the end of the day. Put some layers of oil glaze on, though I have a feeling that might be a no-no on top of wax like this. I guess I'll find out soon enough --

2009-07-15T23:32:00.000-07:00

This painting is by artist Christopher Cousins. His work is amazing. It completely stops me in my tracks and throws me into an altered state (and I'm not kidding!). This stuff should be hung in the holiest of churches. It's abstract and yet carries the same weight of "wisdom of the ages" as the greatest of Old Master works. And following, a quote from his website:

"A true symbol takes us to the center of the circle, not to another point on the circumference. It is by symbolism that man enters effectively and consciously into contact with his own deepest self... "

-- Thomas Merton

2009-07-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

Long day in the studio today. Started with the panel I goofed around with last week -- the one with the modeling paste and pumice powder. Thought I'd fire up the wax again for the next step. I so love the smell of that beeswax! Here it is, just starting to heat up -

While the wax was melting I did some more playing with the paste/pumice panel. Got out the propane torch (woohoo!) and worked it over the panel, darkening and browning areas here and there. Then I got out some chalk pastels in a couple of earthy colors and dabbed them on here and there. I have a natural attraction to weathered patina'd surfaces, so that's the direction I found myself moving in --

Didn't get any pictures of the panel with the wax on it (except in the last picture below). But soon I set aside that project and picked up a small (about 2 inches high) face sculpture I did a few months ago. It was sculpted from water clay and simply left to dry. It's not fired. As an experiment I tried dipping the face into the hot wax. I like the result! An interesting surface texture, almost stone-like. The wax filled in the rough areas some and left the high points exposed --

Next I started a new water clay piece. I was going to go for a full face/head scupt, but doing the lips was such a good learning exercise. My knowledge of the structure of the eye is so weak, I figured it'd be a good exercise to just sculpt an eye. Wow -- eyes is TOUGH! Lots going on with planes going this way and that. I really struggled with this and didn't end up with a very good model. Much I need to correct on the next go-around, but here's my first try at an eye sculpt --

This last picture is just me goofing around with various objects in the studio -- the waxed panel from this morning, a couple of lengths from an old folding ruler I took apart last month, an old hand-carved wooden bowl, and the little waxed face in the middle. This isn't a final piece at all. But it speaks to my aesthetic. Maybe the bones for a future work --

2009-07-11T23:01:00.000-07:00

Watched a documentary tonight about Christo and Jeanne-Claude's massive installation in Central Park called "The Gates". I'll admit I was skeptical through most of it, as the film traced the history and struggles of the project. Even when I heard about it finally being unveiled a few years ago, my reaction was indifferent, at best. "Why?", I wondered... "what for?" While I could imagine that hundreds of fabric panels blowing in the wind must be a spectacle, maybe even beautiful, I could not appreciate any great meaning to the project other than one artist's hunger for massively bold statements.

The documentary was quite interesting. I had no idea of the nearly insurmountable obstacles that had to be overcome (including just the passage of time -decades- and the accompanying maturity of what can only be described as the collective psyche of New York city). About midway through the film there are scenes of Christo being interviewed publicly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When asked to explain the meaning of The Gates he insisted the only reason he embarked on this project was that he wanted to. There was no meaning or purpose other than his own inner urge to realize this vision of his. He was doing it only because he wanted to do it, no matter how irrational it may appear to others. Hearing him say this was a satisfying affirmation for me as this is exactly what I have embarked on, as well. Or what I'm striving for, anyway. To create just from the desire to create... no other purpose or big plan in mind.

The second half of the film is all about the final realization of The Gates, after it's been completely erected and is now a huge installation project over the whole of Central Park. Scene after scene of orange fabric panels, reflecting the light, blowing in the wind, still in the rain, quiet in the snow. Scenes of people walking under and around, looking up into them, curious about what this is, talking to eachother about the experience. Interviews of individuals here and there, giving their reactions and impressions, both positive and negative. As I watched I finally began to appreciate just what a tremendous work of art The Gates really was. Whether Christo actually intended this (and I think he did not -- he was simply being true to his muse) The Gates became something above and beyond the usual paradigm of "art". True to the purpose of art, it engaged people, eliciting reaction and introspection, but it did so on such a hugely grand scale. Although it provided the usual art experience between "viewer" and "art", it also engaged groups of people, whole communities, and an entire city. It challenged people not only to confront the art on their own terms, as individuals, but also as part of any number of larger communities. As such, it became a process of creation BEYOND the physical structures of gates and fabric panels. This is something Christo could not have orchestrated or had a hand in except only indirectly, in following his very personal and individualistic "urge" to create. All of which, for me, is great affirmation of the potential for generative results from simply listening inside and following one's muse, no matter how silly or irrational.

2009-07-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

Another mouth study today. This one more open than the others. But I wasn't pleased with it. Wasn't really what I was after, which left me frustrated. Spent the rest of my time today futzing with a panel (painting, not sculpture), but didn't have any of my paints or inks at the studio. Only had white acrylic molding paste and some white pumice powder so I was left to play with texture only. That wasn't a satisfying endeavor either. Finally ended up back with the oil clay head again. More futzing, but still nothing compelling happening. It was just one of those days where inspiration flew out the window and I'm left scratching my head over what to do next. ... blah...

2009-07-07T00:21:00.000-07:00

Looked at some art tonight. I went through a bunch of old art magazines, pulling out images of things that grab me visually. I've been doing this for awhile now (a few years?), and like going back to the images I've saved, which I keep in a binder or in folders on my desktop pc. Initially, it was just a way for me to learn about what I liked in art. I really didn't know at the time (talk about a lack of art education). So I started tearing out images from magazines. If something caught my eye and I found myself admiring it, I'd tear out the image and put it in a scrapbook. Nowadays I keep them all in binders -- pages of images I've torn from art magazines.

So tonight was one of those nights.. of paging through a stack of piled up old magazines and pouring over images, thumbing through pages with hardly a glance, trying to find those images that stop me and compel me look again. I found a few, including some from a couple of already-favorites of mine: Cristina Cordova and Jennifer Trask. I love how Cristina's sculptures are emanating an almost mythological psychology. And Jennifer Trask I discovered just the other day in an ad in a recent metals magazine. Very beautiful eye she has. Purely decorative, but her use of materials like teeth and bones and bugs, intermixed so gracefully (and beautifully) with diamonds and gold -- wow.

2009-07-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

2009-07-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

"... doing without being too attached to the outcome, because the doing is its own outcome."

-- Stephen Nachmanovitch

Thought I would have longer to work today, but was not to be. So here's what an hour can produce. Another quick lip study, smaller this time (and no bottom lip split). Nothing fancy, and again I cannot say just what I'm going after with all of this. But the Nachmanovitch quote above sums up my current work ethic -- it's all about the doing.

2009-07-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

Started another new piece. Just lips this time. Pottery (water) clay, once again. I really like the responsiveness. As I was working on the forms of the lips I was moved to split the bottom lip down the center. No reason, really. Just felt like it. Perhaps at a future date the split will be filled with something intriguing? We'll see. I'm not working with any plans at this point. I'm just going with what interests me..

Then I went back to the water clay face I had started earlier in the week. I was a little reluctant to work more on it. Fearful I'd overwork it and it'd end up losing something, but I did it anyway. Just refined some curves and added some realistic subtleties, going for something pleasing. The face, itself, is not very big. Maybe just 5 or 6 inches from chin to forehead.

2009-07-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

"Among the welter of material that comes up in an improvisation, we seek to simplify all that doodling and noodling up and down the keyboard and find the answer to the question, 'What is the deep structure of theme, pattern, or emotion from which all this arises?'"

-- Stephen Nachmanovitch

I decided to stop fussing with the oil clay portrait -- the one I've been posting pictures of for awhile now. It had lost it's soul. When I first began it, it was there. But then I got overly concerned with proper anatomy and changed it all around. It lost the emotion it once seemed to carry and became more an exercise in technique than a creative expression (not a bad thing -- it was a good learning exercise, but ultimately was not reflecting what I truly wanted). It was tough to put it aside at first. All that time and effort! But sometimes it's easier to start fresh. Much harder to make changes to something that already has it's structure and bones in place.

For the new piece I decided to go with pottery clay instead of the oil clay. My hand joints were really suffering from the stiff push/pull of the Roma Plastilina. The pottery clay felt so soft and responsive in comparison. Much nicer to work with. I threw all concern for "proper form" out the window and strove instead for a kind of call-and-response work between the clay form and an inner sense of "yes" --

2009-07-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

Me and my current anatomy obsession... got a beaut of a skull recently. A new girl for my collection -- a female skull from www.skullduggery.com. Truly an exceptional model. More like a museum specimen than a typical plastic model. In fact, it's not plastic at all. I'm not sure what the material is. Something more akin to plaster or ceramic, which is the only down side. It feels very delicate. I'm sure if it ever got dropped it would shatter into pieces. But I'm not complaining! This skull is absolutely beautiful. I love it. Here are a few side-by-side pictures with my Sawbones skull (on the left). Really highlights the differences.

2009-06-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

Reworked the face again. I liked what was going on when I first started it, seen in the photo from the June 11 entry. Then I got caught up in "shoulds" and "right/wrong" and "proper", and the sculpture lost all energy. So back at it today, trying to work it from more of an inner vision than an external "proper" reality (if that makes any sense).

2009-06-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

Speaking of inaccuracies in the Schlossberg model, check out these stick-straight cervical vertebrae --

... as compared with the much more natural curve of the same vertebrae in the half-size skeleton model --

And in the photo below (Schlossberg model again) it's the impossible lie of the pelvis, tilted far too forward and down. In fact, this is why I have two of these models. When I received the first I tried to return it because of how the pelvis hung down in a way that no human could physically assume (it was also twisted too far sideways). After much back-and-forth with the company that sold it to me, they ended up sending me a second model and telling me to go ahead and just keep the first, as well.

Below is the pelvis on the half-size model. MUCH better! For the price of this model ($49.99, cheaper than the Schlossberg one, too) it's a real bargain. Not perfect, but certainly usable.

2009-06-20T09:51:00.001-07:00

Not all anatomical models are created equal. It's something of a bug-a-boo for people like me who want and need a good "average" model to refer to. You'd think a good quality model would be all that's needed, but no. Instead, I'm becoming a collector of models because they all seem to have their good and bad points. Here's an example -- below is a good quality skull model purchased from Sawbones Orthopaedic and Medical Models (my first skull model and the one that set me on my search for an "average" model). Note the severely protruding maxilla and nasal bone. I'm guessing this is not a caucasion skull, but the Sawbones company doesn't specify the ethnicity and markets this skull simply as "Full Skull, Normal Anatomy" --

Here's my recent ecorche' model purchase, which better reflects the skulls I see pictured in anatomy books. The maxilla and nasal bone are much less pronounced. The flaw in this skull is on the other side (not pictured here) where the zygomatic arch has been curiously removed --

This guy below is from a 33.5-inch (half-size) full skeleton model purchased from www.skeletonmodels.com. Not a bad model comparatively, but the ramus of the mandible is unusually thick. Everytime I look at it I want to get a knife and scrape it down to size. I'm guessing it's thick like that just to make the model stable and reduce the possibility of breakage. But in doing so, they've deviated from normal anatomy, and so I've nicknamed this model, "Massive jaw Jim" --

Here's a skull from another full skeleton model -- this one is an 18" tall model that's supposed to be very accurate, designed by Leon Schlossberg from Johns Hopkins University Press, but it has it's share of flaws and inaccuracies like all the rest (not least of which is the very small size of the model itself). The most flat-faced of all the models I have, with a very pointy chin. But because of the tiny size and the ill-fitting plastic parts (not to mention a few other gross inaccuracies) I rarely refer to this model while working -

2009-06-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

New toy for the studio! Haven't named him yet, but I'm sure something will come to me soon. This head ecorche' model will be extremely helpful as I try to learn the muscles and structure of the face, although I wish there were another layer (maybe one you could take on and off? I've seen that on some models) with the skin and fat. (by the way -- I didn't sculpt this one. I bought it from a sculpture supply store)

And here is the shape my hand is in this week, unfortunately. I sprained the middle joint of my thumb very badly earlier this year and had to wear this splint for a good 6 weeks, 24/7. It's acting up again from all the sculpting. But this week is a busy one for me with family/kid issues, so I'm taking advantage of the time off to baby my thumb.

2009-06-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

It's the weekend now. I'm going to take a break from sculpting. It's no wonder painting has been the more practiced medium throughout the centuries -- sculpting is HARD ON THE HANDS! At my age, I need to be careful about taking care of my joints, I hate to say. My hands especially, which have been suffering from various incidents of tendonitus and strains and sprains in the last year or two. Yesterday on the internet I found a tool called a "sculptor's thumb". Basically it's a scooped-out thumb-shaped tool that you lay across the padded front of your thumb and cradle in your palm, essentially transferring the force normally exerted on the base joint of the thumb to the center of the palm. I must say, I'm seriously thinking about getting myself one though I'm sure you sacrifice a certain amount of sensitivity to the clay in using it. But for the initial pushing-around of big chunks of clay (especially if it's not thoroughly warmed up yet), it would be a great joint-saver! And it's that joint in particular (the lowest thumb joint, just next to the inside of the wrist) that's starting to bother me with all the sculpting I've been doing.

Thought I'd post some new studio pics. The last ones I posted were back when I still had a lot of my stuff in boxes, but it's all out now and roughly organized. Here's the desk area, where I sit and plan/write/research --

A couple of work tables just next to the window. On the left is the hot plate area, which is currently being used for warming up clay. On the right is the dregs of my last "tinker fest", where I hauled out some of the strange and interesting junk I've been collecting over the last few years and proceeded to deconstruct the items and break them into smaller, more usable elements --

A view of the south wall (note the sculpting table front and center! That's the one I made a few weeks ago). Since this photo was taken I've moved things around here a bit. The shelves on the far right have been moved further right and I've moved all the sculpting stuff into the center of the room so I can walk around the sculpture as I working on it. I've also set up the easel for some drawing, too.

2009-06-12T16:40:00.000-07:00

More work today. Moved the lips down, refined the features to be more delicate. Still much work yet to be done, particularly around the eye sockets, which just aren't flowing into the whole. No doubt I'm not understanding something about the planes of the face and the underlying structure.

Today I also added a lot more to the back of the head. I just can't work toward a realistic (ish) face without also doing the back of the head and working it as a whole. Still more to add to the back here, but this is a great improvement from the "face lacking a cranium" I started with today --

Just another view here. In this picture you can see the image of the Marin sculpture I had started out trying to emulate. I'm no longer working toward this, though. It was just a good way to start.

2009-06-12T08:16:00.000-07:00

"There is an impractical side of human nature particularly open to making sacrifices for the sake of creating objects that are more graceful and intelligent than we normally manage to be".

-- Alain de Botton

2009-06-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

Still at the head sculpture, though it's morphed from an all out "master copy" to ... To what? Well, kind of a conglomeration of many things, really. The master copy was proving to be quite difficult, partly because I'm working from a 2-D image and partly because I need to learn more about face/head anatomy. So with that in mind, I'm doing a lot of work from ecorche' images and also from images of other portrait sculptures showing more profile views (to help with my sense of depth and proportion and anatomy). Also, I'm just letting this face evolve into something that speaks to me, using the various images as merely guides. Still have a ways to go (like the whole left side of the face!) --

I recently ordered a 3-D model of an ecorche' head off the internet. It wasn't cheap, but it WAS a lot cheaper than taking a class. That'll help a whole lot, having a 3-D model to reference. I'm also getting a "planes of the head" model which will be of great help, as well.

What's cooking in the studio

2009-06-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

Back in the studio after a long hiatus. Feels good to be working again. I've had ideas flying every which way, but where to start? So easy being in school, where you're assigned a project and have a purpose to do it (namely, to show it to the teacher and get that approval checkmark). But on your own is different. Nobody's waiting to see anything. Nobody tells you what to do.

I went back to the studio with the sole purpose of enjoying my time there. Last year I'd gotten so caught up in the stress of production and impossibly high expectations of myself, I really did myself in. I needed the hiatus. Needed the time to get my mind calmed down again and approach what I love in just that way -- with the aim to really love it. And so far it seems to be working! I'm just there to do what I love. Whatever that is.. (me and my many interests..)

Currently, I'm working on a mastercopy of a Marin sculpture. I've never done a sculpture mastercopy before. Not even sure there IS such a practice. But this kind of thing works great in drawing and painting -- why not sculpture, too? I futzed around for a week or so, trying to sculpt a half-face (just front of the head) on a board, but this quickly proved to be less than ideal. I had to hold the board up with my left hand and try to sculpt with my right. I should know better (and I do). It wasn't long before I scrapped that idea and made myself a proper adjustable-height sculpting table, and started a new sculpture on a proper armature. But see... this is the thing about working on my own. I really don't know for sure if I'm using the proper armature. I mean, it's working okay for now, but I have no idea if there's a better approach out there that sculpture professionals know about. Probably is, but I gotta work with what I have (which doesn't include many sculpture classes or knowledge).

So here it is. The first stages of the sculpture. I decided to start from the ground up. In this case, to start by sculpting a skull. That way I would have the proportions figured out in advance, plus I'd learn some valuable stuff about anatomy.

It's rough, as you can see. Lots of proportions are out of whack, but this is "in progress". Still a lot of work to do on it. Besides, I don't want to spend weeks meticulously sculpting a perfect skull. I just wanted to get the basic major bony structures in place and then build the face from there.

One of the problems about doing a sculpture mastercopy (or at least how I'm going about it) is that I have only a single photograph of the sculpture I'm trying to emulate. A two-dimensional picture, which lacks almost all the things that sculpture is all about. I can't turn it sideways to check for depth... can't wheel my table around it to get a sense of the fullness. It's a FLAT PICTURE and I'm trying to extrapolate what a three-dimensional version of it would look like. Not so easy to do! That's another reason why I figured it'd be helpful to start with a skull (I have a skull model in the studio, so had a three-dimensional object to sculpt from).

I think, too, it would be helpful to lay a piece of tracing paper over the image I'm trying to sculpt and work out what the anatomy would be. I'll get that going tomorrow.

2009-03-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

"Who can open

the door

who does not reach

for the latch?"

Mary Oliver poem

2008-10-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

getting meditation

2008-10-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

Alright... no pretty pictures for this one. I just have to post a bit about some insights that are finally making their way into my brain about meditation practice and what that really means. Probably like most people, I've tried my hand at meditating for years now. I never kept at it regularly, but always placed it on things like New Year's resolution lists, or would attempt it for a few weeks at a time before getting distracted into something else.

This has finally changed this year... sort of. I call it my "cheater meditation". I listen to this hour-long recording everyday that's supposed to help the brain relax into those meditative brainwave states they've found when they hook monks and longtime meditators up to brainwave electrodes for research. It's basically just the sound of rain and some Tibetan singing bowls, and I can't say that it transports me off to bliss everytime I listen to it, though now and then it does. But I *can* say it's been very helpful in giving me a sense of "deep grounding" (not that I always go there or live from that place, but it's a whole lot easier to find it than it ever was before). Another benefit has been when I *do* try to meditate, without the help of these audio CDs. It's a whole lot easier now for me to reach deep meditative states. It's like my brain knows where to go and how to get there, much more quickly than I've ever been able to do.

Yesterday I was reading a really good book about meditation and mindful awareness and for the first time ever, someone (the author, in this case) was finally able to explain the real meaning of meditation practice to me. Everybody's big complaint about meditation is the frustration that comes when you try to keep those thoughts at bay. Let's face it -- it's HARD to keep the mind from rattling on incessantly, from one topic to the next. And I've tried it all -- focusing on the breath, repeating mantras, trying to imagine my thoughts like boats on the water and letting them glide past on the horizon. Still, I sit down and close my eyes and engage not so much in quiet meditation as something more akin to a no-win jousting match in my head. Thoughts come in and I chase them away. More thoughts press in and I give them a firm "No" and try to focus on my breath. Soon, those thoughts are at it again, literally hijacking my awareness sometimes several minutes at a time, until I realize that I'm thinking again and not "not thinking" and I get frustrated with myself and determinedly turn my attention back to the breath-focus. But here's the thing -- meditation practice is just *that*. It's PRACTICE. Duh! It's the practice of awareness. Having thoughts during meditation is not failure. It's what the practice is all about!! Thoughts come in and I practice turning my attention back to the present moment. More thoughts come in... it's just part of the practice. A very necessary part of the practice, too. I am practicing the awareness... noticing when my mind is pulling my awareness away, practicing turning my focus back to the here and now, practicing staying present, practicing awareness... learning how to become aware of when I'm no longer aware... learning how to become aware. It's about practicing awareness. I'll tell ya what.. that was a real revelation for me last night.

And it didn't stop there! Here's another "aha!" insight from last night. Have you ever heard the phrase "still point"? I remember years ago, back when I was in college, I attended meditation workshops taught by monastics at a place in Seattle called "The Still Point". It's a phrase you read all the time in mysticism literature, too. I'd always thought it was just the place you go when you quiet your mind, but last night I discovered a very subtle distinction about it. I was meditating and quieting my mind and had gotten to a good place of very few thoughts. No distractions. But while I was there I noticed that my inner awareness was still somewhat disquieted. Restless is probably a better word for it. It was as though my "sense of quiet" was looking for a place to rest. It was much more a felt sense though and not a thought process. It's hard to explain. When you get into that space of no-thought there is still a sense of awareness, and it's almost like you can pin-point a spot in your head for where it resides. Certainly behind the eyes, but where?? Up near the forehead? Back down where the hippocampus is? Where the brain stem meets the brain? As I was remaining in this place of no-thought it was as if this "spot of awareness" was searching about, looking for a place to rest. It was looking for that *still point*. That's what came to me last night. There is a still point at the very heart of awareness, a place where it can reside and rest. It's very definitely a *point*, and it's very definitely *still*. I can't say I found it last night, but I know now it's there. And perhaps that's another point to the practice of meditation? Maybe in the practice of awareness you can find a sort of sweet spot to it all? This thing called the still point?

my Portland week

2008-10-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from a loooonnnngggg week in Portland, taking part in a couple of workshops offered through the Art and Soul group. I had initially signed up for a variety of collage and art-journal type classes, but when Michael DeMeng's and Keith LoBue's classes were added at the last minute, I dropped most everything else to get the lucky chance to learn from these two artists. I was not the least bit disappointed. Both are not only great artists but wonderful teachers, as well.

My first class was DeMeng's "Tuna Tin Retablos". I had spent months compiling my stash for the supply list (not hard to do since treasure-hunting is one of my favorite activities) and arrived to class with -- no joke here! -- 5 large boxes of trinkets and goodies and tools and paints and what-have-you's. The idea was to transform a plain old tunafish can into a work of art. Here is my work-in-progress. You can see the tuna can in the middle, setting on the silver tray. At this point I had covered it with a piece of copper sheet that I'd tooled and embossed with a design and cut four tabs to hold a piece of an old light fixture (just above, a little to the left).

And here's what it looked like by the end of class. It's not yet finished, though. Those little pliers are eventually going to be placed just above the face, over that funny white spot (a shelf of putty to make a more secure connection), which will be a key visual element to the piece. Also, I plan to do more "DeMengian" painting on it to give it some age and bring the elements into a more cohesive harmony. I wish I would have taken a photo to show the piece from the side as the embossed metal around the tuna can really turned out great, especially after treating it with the paint techniques Michael taught (particularly his infamous "Uszhhhhh!!!!!").

And here is the master, himself. Such a cutie...
Next up on my schedule was a class being co-taught by Michael DeMeng and Keith LoBue (what was the name of it again?? "Boxed In, Hung Up and Dried Out???" LOL! Something like that..). The idea was that we would create an inner piece that would fit into an outer housing element. The inner piece could be removed and even worn like a piece of jewelry, and when not being worn could be displayed in a decorative box that would be a work of art in it's own right. Keith, being the jeweler/metalsmith of the duo, guided us through the inner part. This man KNOWS his tools and metal techniques! I've had plenty of metalsmithing classes in my past, but I learned a tremendous amount here. Best of all were Keith's "cave man techniques" which were essentially his own ingenious tips and methods to work around various problems, especially those encountered by artists trying to incorporate found elements in their work. Just these tips, alone, were worth the price of the whole week of workshops.

The class lasted two days and I regret that I didn't take very many pictures. But I was so into the work, and there was a lot to do. Here's a peek at my final project, which (of course) still isn't quite done, and this picture really doesn't show it very well being that it's a 3-dimensional piece. Once again, I added an embossed metal part which (once again) you can't really see here because it's all on the sides of the box. But the beaded-looking elements on either side are part of that embossed metal. It started out as bright, shiny copper but thanks to Michael's painting techniques I was able to give it a patina that nearly exactly matched the inner metal element that's holding and framing the small jawbone (that's what that ivory-colored thing is in the middle... I'm guessing it's the jawbone of a large rodent of some sort that I found in a bag of animal bones I collected a few months back).
The last two classes I had were both taught by Keith. One was on how to etch metal using toner photocopies as a resist, and the other was on riveting. Both worthwhile classes, and again Keith wowed us with his experience and expertise and his generousity in sharing his "cave man techniques". Truly "pearls of wisdom" because each one felt like we were being given a rare and precious gem, all thanks to his years of experience. Best of all, Keith is a quote-lover like me, and he would start and end each class with some fantastically profound little literary jewel. Oh! And his hats were to die for!

Ba Gua me

2008-09-28T00:04:00.001-07:00

hmmmm... did I get in over my head on this one? I'm taking an intensive this weekend on Ba Gua Zhang at the Taoist Studies Institute in Seattle. You can find tons of bagua zhang videos on YouTube, though none I've seen yet seem to fully capture what drew me to it in the first place. I first learned of it over the summer while I was taking a taiji class. I was amazed by the beauty of the instructor's fluidity of movement. Wow! In addition to taiji he was also a practitioner of bagua zhang and when he showed us those mesmerizing circular and spiraling movements, and then related how the forms of taiji and bagua zhang were the embodiment of the Tao Te Ching, I was hooked. But finding classes on bagua zhang is not easy! I know of only two places in Seattle that teach it. This is one of them --

The Taoist Studies Institute is located in an old church building near the zoo. I love old church buildings, and this one has all of that 'sacred space' ambiance that causes you to immediately go quiet when you enter and to know that you're in for something special.
I'm not a practitioner of taiji or qigong or anything like that, though I've always been attracted to it. In the last year or so I've had this constant prodding inside me, telling me I could really benefit from *practice* and *discipline*. Who wouldn't, right? But I'm talking about more than the usual "should's" ("I should practice.. I should commit to a regular work schedule.. I should stop eating all this chocolate!!"). It's one of the crucial niches that religion has always filled so well, and being that I'm no longer a church-going person it's something that I'm missing greatly in my life. (check out these beautiful stained glass windows!!)
Blame it on all this meditation I've been doing. Good stuff, but I want more. It's one thing to sit in silence for a period of time each day, but what of a moving meditation? What about mindfulness of one's body in a very deep and centered way? That's what I'm after...

some favorite things

2008-09-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

And *here* is the jewel of the day -- a perfectly ripe O'Henry peach. I think it was more than ten years ago now that I tasted another out-of-this-world peach -- the Angelus peach -- and as the name suggests, it was truly heavenly. I've searched for this variety of peach ever since but with no luck. I think I may have found a good rival, though, with this one. I could have sworn with the first bite that it had been marinating in vanilla sugar..

As I was enjoying my tastes-like-vanilla-sugar-peach breakfast, I was treated to some front row entertainment from this guy, a big 'ol pileated woodpecker. Though the Great Blue Heron rates #1 in my book for "majestic", this guy is a close second --

A windy overcast day today. Fall has started, and each breeze and gust of wind is nature's way of helping the trees to cast off this year's growth in preparation for winter. The leaves haven't quite started turning yet, but the seedpods on the Big Leaf Maples *have*. Right now they're mostly clustered on the branches, but they're brown and dried and ready to launch.
That's got to be one of my favorite "gestures" of nature -- watching the maple seedpods fall through the air like little helicopters. The show is just beginning... only the most-ready and mature of them are heading to the ground right now, but in another few weeks these fall breezes will have hundreds of them fluttering down from the sky.

Mary Oliver poem

2008-09-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

Landscape

Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky---as though

all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.

***
That poem just floors me, with awe. How that woman could pour so much meaning and imagery and 'moment-ness' into so few words... One of the amazing things about it is that it builds with each stanza, starting with the simplicity and almost childlike innocence of the first observation of moss. From there each verse draws more insight until finally landing on Consciousness, itself, in the image of the crows bursting into the sky. Masterful.

on the reading shelf

2008-09-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

Always, always there seems to be a dozen strangely diverse topics at the front of my attention at any one time. I was reading last night about some descriptions and advice for INFP types (me to a "t"). And the phrase of the day (for me) is?

"Pick one thing and do it well"

Yes, yes, yes... but it's SUCH a difficult thing for me to do! Still, I've long been aware of this and am working on it (believe it or not!). In the meantime, here's what's on my reading shelf currently:

Christopher Alexander, "A Pattern Language" -- It strikes even me as odd that I'd be reading a book on city planning, architecture and building, but this book is fascinating and highly readable despite it's 1171 pages of text. I've heard it referred to as a sort of mystic's approach to buildings and space-planning, though he uses very little spiritual language. It's just all very honoring of human beings' natural tendancies toward shared aesthetic and a "felt sense" of home.

Leif Peterson, "Normal Like Us" -- I've always had a certain awe for anyone who's a writer, so to be reading a book by someone I've known personally is a real treat. This is a collection of short stories injected with both a good deal of humor and a lot of wisdom and insight. Truly, my idea of a very enjoyable and worthwhile read. Highly recommended!

David Bohm, "Wholeness and the Impicate Order" and "On Dialogue" -- I just picked up these two titles over the weekend after learning about a philosophy called Process Theory. I was big into philosophy in college but haven't read much since then other than Integral Theory stuff. But learning recently about Process Theory has got all those philosophy-love sparks flying around in my head again. Can't wait to dive into these...

Bonnitta Roy, "A Process Model of Integral Theory" -- THIS is the article that catalyzed my interest in Process Theory. I discovered it online last week as I was researching a psychotherapeutic technique called "Focusing". This brought to my attention the work of philosopher, Gene Gendlin, which then had me googling him for more info. When I saw Roy's article linking Gendlin's (and other's, like Bohm's) work to theories that expand on Integral Theory... well, I read it and it got me all excited to read more. I love this sort of deep inquiry into the nature of reality and consciousness.

I should probably also note what's been playing non-stop on my iPod lately. When I go into the studio to work I like to listen to audiobooks. My favorite right now (and which I keep listening to over and over and can't get enough of) is Joseph Campbell's "Mythology and the Individual".

and it was all yellow...

2008-09-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

Back in the studio today. It's been a busy week, but more on that later :) Today was "yellow day" for the color swatches --

But I didn't want to just do boring old color swatches (though really -- these colors are not boring! I love what this wax does). So I grabbed a scrap piece of plexi and did some playing around. I had no plans for this piece other than to play and experiment, so I very consciously did NOT judge as I created. I wanted only to explore tactically, visually --

While the wax was melting I busied myself with general studio clean-up and organization. A long, long time ago I used to love playing with beads. I still have my collection (I don't think I'll ever be able to get rid of all those beautiful sparkly beads!), and maybe someday will find a way to use them again. As I was cleaning and organizing I found some of my old projects - some that I did on my own, and others I did for some classes I used to teach about beading --
This was a fun project, as I recall. Tedious and time-consuming, but I've always loved that sort of work. Truly meditative for me --

Mary Oliver quote

2008-09-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

-- Mary Oliver

got the blues

2008-09-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Playtime in the studio. This week's project has been an expansion on something I started earlier this year, when I made up separate batches of encaustic medium in every single oil and powdered pigment color I own. Now I'm taking those colors and painting them onto little squares of plexiglass.

Plexi is the perfect ground for exploiting the translucent quality of the wax. It allows light to enter from behind as well as in front.

LAKE AND MAPLE, by Jane Hirshfield

2008-09-09T00:50:00.000-07:00

I want to give myself
utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf;
as this lake that,
no matter what comes
to its green-blue depths,
both takes and returns it.
In the still heart,
that refuses nothing,
the world is twice-born --
two earths wheeling,
two heavens,
two egrets reaching
down into subraction;
even the fish
for an instant doubled,
before it is gone.
I want the fish.
I want the losing it all
when it rains and I want
the returning transparence.
I want the place
by the edge-flowers where
the shallow sand is deceptive,
where whatever
steps in must plunge,
and I want that plunging.
I want the ones
who come in secret to drink
only in early darkness,
and I want the ones
who are swallowed.
I want the way
the water sees without eyes,
hears without ears,
shivers without will or fear
at the gentlest touch.
I want the way it
accepts the cold moonlight
and lets it pass,
the way it lets
all of it pass
without judgment or comment.
There is a lake,
Lalla Ded sang, no larger
than one seed of mustard,
that all things return to.
O heart, if you
will not, cannot, give me the lake,
then give me the song.

a view from the studio door

2008-09-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

Back in the studio today. The weather's still gorgeous out, but I both need and want to get some work done. At this point, most of my work involves getting the studio set up. Can't do much work without an easel set up, or my paints organized and available, or a workbench ready and waiting with tools in easy reach.

I do love this new space. The largest, by far, that I've ever been in. It almost feels luxurious! Except that I have plenty to fill it with, with all the many mediums I've dipped into over the years. I've always fantasized about having a space where I could set up separate work stations... one for painting, one for drawing, one for encaustic, one for metalworking. Then there's the pottery, the enameling, the glasswork, the dry pigments/tempera/paint-making station... I could go on. Does it sound like I suffer from too many distractions and no focus? PRECISELY. But... I trust... Somehow I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and how I'm supposed to be doing it, meandering though it may be...

So here it is. All full of boxes and very little in the way of order... *yet*. I'm working on it. Bit by bit. Letting the space grow out from the first central "core" that I set up at the end of summer -- the desk area, which isn't really visible here (just left to the very center of the picture, behind the table with the meditation cushions sitting on top):

And the view? Truly amazing, considering this is a low-rent artist's studio. Views like this are why people tack on an extra hundred grand or so to the price of a house. I am *very* lucky to have this:

And this is Hubert, cheering me on with a paintbrush in his mouth. I found him over the summer in Republic, WA, looking all forlorn at a garage sale.

berries and bees

2008-09-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful berry-picking day. I went out with the intention of picking berries *mindfully*. Even meditatively. I had been thinking last night about the Issa quote ("The man pulling radishes pointed the way with a radish") and it occurred to me -- what about "The woman picking berries pointed the way with a berry"?? Sounded great in theory, but here's the thing... berry-picking is not meditation. It's work. Not that it's hard work or unenjoyable, and not that there isn't a meditative quality to it. But it's in a focusing-on-your-work sort of way that it's meditative. There are things to pay attention to -- scouting out the plumpest berries, keeping an eye out for menacing spider webs, navigating your footing through dense waist-high brush. I have to laugh at myself now for thinking I'd be able to pick berries with the same mindset as when I'm meditating. Duh.. :)

And then, my big adventure of the day -- out in the middle of a large swath of waist-high bushes a large fly started to buzz me, all around my head and into my hair. He wouldn't leave me alone. I kept shaking my hair and trying to swat it away, but the bugger was determined. Suddenly, I felt a sting on my shoulder! And then another on my arm! It wasn't a fly, it was a wasp (not sure if it was one or a couple). I had clearly invaded his territory and pissed him off. The more I swatted him away and shook my hair, the angrier he got. The only solution was to run away, which I did -- FAST. Thankfully, he didn't follow (or maybe he lost track of me through the tall bushes). Ouch! But it was still a great day. The berries I found today were even bigger and plumper than yesterday's batch. Here's a photo of a bunch of salal berries, right before I picked them:

And here's a portion of the bounty, along with a smattering of red huckleberries (note the berry-stained fingertips!):

In addition to salal berries, I also picked some Oregon grape today. While the salal takes a bit of work in picking (the berries are a little sticky and often hidden under foliage and don't fall easily off their stems), Oregon grape are wonderfully fast and easy to pick. You just wrap your hand around a stem of berries and gently pull forward with your bucket underneath. They fall off easily, with no sticky residue either. Within 20 minutes my bucket was full! Too bad they're so sour-tart. Nothing like the sweet salals. Still, I hear they make a great jam all on their own, although I'll be adding mine to the salal (plus the huckleberries and a handful of blackberries) for a sort of combo jam. Here's what the Oregon grape looks like on the plant:

And here they are after picked, along with some of the biggest, juiciest red huckleberries I've ever seen:

picking berries (like pulling radishes?)

2008-09-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

Spent most of the morning at a favorite local park, picking salal berries. For years I've wanted to make salal jam, and I noticed while I was in Gold Bar that the salal berries were ripe. So today I went to a park that I used to frequent when my oldest son was still a baby. I'd get him all rigged up in the baby backpack and take walks through this beautiful park (Hamlin Park, in Shoreline -- here's a link to one of those 'virtual tours', but it only shows the more wide open areas and not the dense undergrowth areas I was in today: http://www.vrseattle.com/pages/browse.php?cat_id=408). Inevitably he'd fall asleep while I was walking, which left me free to simply enjoy the beauty of that place. It always struck me like a sort of Notre Dame of nature (the cathedral, not the college!) -- tall conifers like cathedral walls, and light filtering through branches from above like a big stained glass window. The place is full of the usual Northwest natives -- salal, Oregon grape, red huckleberry (I picked a bunch of those, too).

I'll post photos soon. I was all ready to make jam tonight, but after researching a few recipes I've decided to go back and pick more berries tomorrow, along with some Oregon grape to throw into the mix. I tasted an Oregon grape berry today and it was TART! I kept thinking they'd make a nice addition to the jam (jam is always better with a little tartness added), but wasn't sure if the Oregon grapes were truly edible or not. I guess they are, *and* they make a nice addition to salal jam (salal berries tend more toward sweetness than tartness, so the Oregon grapes will be the perfect addition). So... back to the outdoors tomorrow! Let's hope the nice weather continues for another day.

Progoff workshop

2008-08-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

I just returned from five blissfully contemplative days at a Progoff Journal workshop. If you're at all interested in deepening your life's meaning and sense of connection and purpose, this is the place to go. We stayed at the Huston Retreat Center in Gold Bar, WA. The stunning grounds and outdoor pathways were the perfect complement to the work we did in the workshops. I'll upload a few pictures. I so love the glowing greens of moss and vine maple. Even on cloudy days it's almost as if the colors are illuminated from within. Here's a snapshot of one of the many pathways at Huston:

And the Wallace River nearby (my favorite finding-spot for cairn rocks!):

Here, a stalk of Oregon Grape and Sword Fern, side by side (no staging on my part, I promise! These two were just standing, just like this):

On weasels and calling

2008-07-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

There's a short story by Annie Dillard. It's called "Living Like Weasels" and in classic Dillard style she weaves a deep and dark truth from her tale. Something profoundly terrible and beautiful. Like the best tales, it starts off as a story. She is simply out taking a walk. Not in some idyllic back country wild land but in a little pocket of wetland, stuck between housing developments in the middle of some generic American suburbia. It could be any neighborhood. It could be your own, and certainly ones I've known.

She decides to take a walk through this scrabbly wetland. But even here Life is thriving. She observes it. The water crickets darting and skimming, the reeds rustling from the movement of fish, even the surreal and mundane vision of cows standing in the shallow waters. She sits down on a log to take in the world around her and hearing a noise behind she turns to look "and the next instant, inexplicably, I was looking down at a weasel, who was looking up at me".

She goes on to describe in terrific detail, both physical and psychological, the brief second or two when her eyes were locked with the weasel's. With this fierce little creature who lives in the wild. A creature who's will, it is said, might be the fiercest of all in the animal world. To emphasize this she opens the story with a tale she heard once, about a man who shot an eagle out of the sky. When he examined the bird he found "the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws" to the bird's throat. Apparently, the weasel had attacked (no doubt in self-defense) and though he had lost the fight his supreme will and absolute instinct remained even after his death, manifested in that skull.

She ends the story with ruminations about the lives of weasels. About how a weasel might live it's life, "without bias or motive... in necessity... open to time and death... noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will".

And then, she pulls it all together. Or pulls out that one thread that suddenly clicks everything into a deeper view. And just like the story of the weasel skull on the throat of the eagle, her words grab me by the throat and won't let go. "The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting... I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you".

So here I am, daring to "blog" my life and thoughts in such a public and vulnerable place. This will be about my journey as an artist, because it has most definitely been a journey up to this point and I can assume nothing more or less of it from here on out. Up to this point I've dabbled in numerous things, always knowing I was meant to take this pathway but never brave or confident enough to go 'all the way'. But that's changing now. "All the way". And this is why Dillard's weasel story affects me like it does. "The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse".

So here I am.