Art Spirit

a drawing a day : June 30,2009 #334 --- a bird resting on a thorn

a drawing a day : June 29,2009 #333 --- ideas

ideas ...

a week later

This time last week I was driving home from an airport run. Playing Janelle Monae 's Sincerely Jane over and over again --- just because its  so cool. I know that is very high school  but who doesn't do that ?

Last Sunday is miles and I mean-- miles--- away. So  here is this Sunday that marks the ending of the work that I have been immersed in  and the continuing of following this path , this pattern of what does it mean to lead ---really lead an artistic  creative life. Art making never really stops. We never really  stop because one thing leads into the next  and into the next --- and then there you are making something --- all alone,  but surrounded. Surrounded by tradition, by meaning, by context, by media, surround also by love .

What we do is not a mark of ourselves in the world so much as it is a way to allow others to understand themselves  through our experience. We as artists open ourselves  not  for the accolade of opening but  hopefully through the generosity of spirit we open, we become a conduit to something else. This kind of opening is done with faith, with trust in oneself ... and at times with a tremendous amount of insecurity, with tentativeness that comes with not knowing. However once we are comfortable with the unknown there is an explorer that takes over and bushwhacks and leads. This discovery is not just for the self. In fact left only for the self it is incomplete. Thomas Merton speaks about the boomerang of knowledge of the artist to the viewer and then back and then again to the viewer --- this cycles does not stop and is the completion; the continuation  of the creative process. So here we are a week later different, and the same . Secure now in the insecurity and the discovery and the exploration in a new and then old way.

a drawing a day : June 28,2009 #332 --- a figure reaching

a figure extending their hand --as if to gently say --- ' come on ...'

new work ---- birds

bird with thorns

bird in thorns

birds flying

bird with tree

bird with leaves

new work ---- set #3 figures

#198 January 27, 2009

#190 January 19,2009

#183 January 12, 2009

#180  January 9, 2009

#191  January 20, 2009

#179 January 8, 2009

new work ---- set #1 figures

#177 January 6,2009

#278 April 19, 2009

#176 January 5, 2009

#238 April 25, 2009

#173 January 2, 2009

#196  January 25, 2009

a drawing a day : June 27,2009 #331 --- a moth-like bug

A bug. I liked the image on its side.

pedicure perspective

Ah... the cringe moment when I reread this  post  will be short--- because really to admit to gaining perspective on the work that I am making by going and getting a pedicure seems downright counter intuitive !   But, that's what I just did and I feel much more on track  after reading who looks better in the same designer dress and other gossip while sitting in that 'massage chair ' getting my toes overhauled. I came to the conclusion that these next two sets of this series are not about  the hook--- the how cool can you make this thing look and "you are kidding me ... its wood burning !? " Kind of thinking and kind of direction.

These next two sets are about honest, authentic mark making , presence in heart and  in spirit.  The simplicity in the  making. The pieces are about staying still as much as they are about movement. So an afternoon of  working outside , getting rained on, drinking my cold coffee  while working at my folding table  with my wood burner  and then my soldering iron and the my wood burner--- feeling closer to a retired hobbyist in their garage  than an artist ---and then  leaving the house to get away from really what is the beauty of this work. It is quiet and in its quietness it is yelling loudly to the heart and to the spirit to the quiet openness of the interior. I am now ready to begin again.

notes on daily talk

Let me see if I can put words to this before I start to work today. What I want to talk about is how important dailiness is --- or rather has become for me. A daily practice that is  about renewal and renewing of oneself  and therefore placing a renewal of spirit out into the world, for the world.  And in this daily practice there is a mystery, an openness that is gradual, that is about being.

Walking around the park the other day I listened in to conversations as I passed by--- like flipping slowly through talk radio --- I heard that one person's story at that one moment in time --- I am not a tremendously careful eavesdropper --- what I do listen for is the feeling of the conversation and the snippet of the story of other people. I suppose you could call it a hobby of sorts that  was passed down from generations of melancholy Irish Catholics  searching  in other peoples lives for their stories--- nevertheless it is a genetic skill I come by honestly.  As I pass by on my laps I listen for and then think about until the next 'channel ' of people --- what  they were feeling  as they talked.

Talking is what most of us do everyday. In this talking we are telling, reviewing , and renewing our story to be heard and listened to and mostly felt by others. This is how it has felt to  go through these drawings that I have made almost each day. Some worthy of repeating , of saying again  and  again that is  ... in sometimes a louder or sometimes a softer review and then becoming renewed. Being told again, being felt again.