not another 12 years

i’m a risk taker. i can handle volatility. i can survive the worst-case scenario. i was laid off five weeks ago. thank God. i am finally creating, experimenting, and saying yes to new ideas. and my little back yard garden is about to birth 16 zucchini, 32 cucumbers, and 68 radishes, thank you very much.

i’m also listening to the book the start up of you on my long rides to stockbridge, ma this summer…oh, did i not mention? one of my personal cheerleaders, dyan, offered me a summer gig a couple days a week watching over the most gorgeous view in the berkshires! anyway, the book…this chapter on risk really validated what i already know about myself as a risk taker. this is not the time for me to play things safe - this is the opportunity i've been waiting for.

meanwhile, the dots in this drawing…hole punched from tracing paper i covered with large swatches and swirlies of washable paint while teaching a preschool art class long ago. inspiration just waiting around 12 years for me to have time to follow through - sinful. so one more time...thank god, with an extra amen and halleluyah! as risky as it may be, i get to be an artist again.

Spiral with Green, ink pen, paint, glue, 11" x 11" © 2014

it's been a year but i've stayed on task. see last post. now i have a studio with a couch in it instead of a living room with a drawing table in it. next up: draw and figure out how to print drawings. so y'all can start buyin' some lovely artwork. here's the first official pics of my dog in my studio.

mAx in sTuDiO, 2014

my mind is not on much except figuring out what to do next. i've read that when a person makes the effort to set up a dedicated space to make art - a.k.a set up a studio - then they are ready to take themselves seriously as an artist. that's really the move i have to make. find a dedicated space in my teeny tiny house? where no one will dump their socks, spill coffee, or walk on my drawings? well, someone will probably always walk on my drawings but i know its what i have to do.

Flame, ink, pen, watercolor, 2012

 Flora II, ink, pen, watercolor, 2012

i never really learned how to work with brushes the same way i learned how to draw. controlling a pen has always been easy. controlling a brush makes me feel like i can't breath. but i'm determined to start adding color to my drawings and, in the name of challenging myself to grow as an artist, watercolor is my first choice. before i start dipping my fingers directly into the paint (and i know i will try that at some point) i'm giving the brush a try.

Flora (1), Fauna (2), and Fairy (3), ink, pen, watercolor, paint, 2012

         

 

 

barbara

this is not my drawing. it belongs to barbara hirshfield who died in september. i stop at a lot of estate sales and there are often old art supplies and some artwork. but barbara's house had many piles of sketches, chipped paintings leaning against walls, and this one...i found with a few others in a mostly unused pad of paper that i ended up buying for a few cents.

 

barbara did not seem to be a great artist but she sketched and painted and was proud enough to frame her own work. i left the large portraits and the tiny paintings of cape cod. but this one - which reminded me of a drawing i did as a child (i promise to post it later) - got me thinking. i googled barbara hoping she might have been an art teacher or a senior center painting instructor at least. i found her obituary and there was not one mention of her as an artist. "she was an extremely family oriented person" it said, and a "long-time member of the local country club". i pause at this point of the story every time and my heart breaks. so i post this picture to let you all know about barbara because i don't want to think about what happened to all that artwork after the estate sale, those hours of enjoyment and effort, the sketching and experimenting, the tools and materials. i wonder if she feared wasting paper the same as i do.

and by the way, i stole this cat photo out of one of her frames. it's a gorgeous snapshot and i couldn't stand the idea of it forever disappearing. bad enough to lose the artwork...i'd hate to lose the inspiration.

looking back through some of the work i've done in recent years. never fails to tell me a story and inform my next steps. since i'm spending my time right now working through ideas for the next phase of my work, looking back never fails to remind me of some interesting ideas that need to be revisited. here's some pages from a sketchbook project i participated in last year: "& In One Another".

Sketchbook, pen, marker, ink, waterolor, silver paint, collage, 2010

i'm now refering to this little sketchbook as my dictionary - a collection of visual language - as i suppose all sketchbooks truly are. feeling more productive than i have time for, which is both the rose and the thorn in my life right now. hoping to make some leaps, though, in the coming months. more to come.

Sketch, pen, 2011

Sketch, pen, 2011