In The Garden

I love pulling weeds just as it's starting to rain.  The brisk breeze and refreshing drizzle is invigorating.  There isn't often time to get much done before it hits hard, but I try.  This week, the dying basil had to come out.  I have no idea what was ailing the plants because I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing out there.  Posting photos of the few miracles that occur in my garden might lead someone to think I have a lovely garden.  This, for example, is one of the blooms on the chive plant that I believe would survive a nuclear bomb (thus I will be planting more).

But then there's the truth of the matter.  It's a good thing that my herb garden is in the back yard where there are fewer witnesses.  This is what the raised bed garden that I had built last year looks like today.  That's one huge Italian flat leaf parsley plant, just beyond the spot where I pulled out the basil.  Just beyond that are a couple of newer herbs - tarragon and rosemary - and the anemic pepper plants barely visible at the far end.  I laugh every time I go outside and look at them.  In any event, I enjoy digging in the dirt and making believe that I can garden.  The other herb garden has a crazy mass of oregano and thyme.  For the garden challenged, plant those if you want to feel successful outdoors.

On the art front, I've been messing around and re-working one of my figurative pieces.  I can't say it looks much better, but I'm trying to just play, see what happens, and enjoy the solitude in the studio.  My creative juices are a bit muddled and syrupy instead of free-flowing.  I'll go poke some dirt for a while, then head to the studio and goof off.  Maybe I never finish this one and just experiment with wires, fibers and whatever else I can lay my hands on.  We'll see what comes of the effort today.

Rough Seas

What a day.  I made what probably wasn't the best decision today, to skip working out (again) in lieu of studio time.  I'll cut back on the chardonnay tonight to make up for it!  :-)

I'm trying to address that artistic atrophy, blank brain thing I've had going on.  As I fussed about to my FB friends, I have been frustrated with the fact that my most recent piece of reminiscent of Muammar Gaddafi in an ugly and depressing wedding dress.  Convinced it was just wrong, wrong, wrong, I removed the fabric and started messing with wire salvaged from the ongoing garage renovation.  After some cursing, bleeding and rummaging through every tool in my bucket to wrestle wire out of it's rubbery coffin, I started to play.  The problem is that it still looks wrong.

I went back to my favourite spot for words of encouragement, our little roundtable, to re-read and really take in words of wisdom from my best cyber-buddies - let it go.  Just play without worrying, let it happen naturally, see what happens next and listen to the piece.  Boy, that's hard to do when I don't practice often enough!  Today, I'm doing my best.  The piece still looks a bit like Gaddafi, but I can play with that later.  Time to relax and see what happens.

Working Without a Plan

I picked up the figurative piece that I started a couple of months ago and just put down because I didn't know what to do next.  Unfortunately, I've been tweaking at it today with "Say Yes to the Dress" playing in the background (it's that, or I have lengthy talks with the cats so I don't feel the solitude) and the stitching I've been doing looks like unfortunate "pick ups" that are popular on wedding dresses.  Yikes!  It's one of the projects that I just pick at, poke at and mess with, all without a plan.  I fear it's looking like there was no plan.  The exercise is, however, therapeutic.

This week I had the greatest fortune to find two former teachers from my first year living in the Philippines when I was ten years old.  One of the two taught art, the only art class I've ever taken.  I found her web site and blog and spent a lot of time reading it this morning, marveling in her beautiful work and creative spirit.  She made a comment that really smacked me upside the head, today in particular.  My friend Debbie has made the point as well, and I'm really trying to model the notion today.  Forgive my clumsy paraphrasing!  When we copy and copy, our own creative skills atrophy.  That word - atrophy - was what made me stop in my tracks.  As I've blabbered about before, I find myself spending much more time looking for ideas and prompts in books, magazines and film than I do making art.  The one thing that I do that is 100% mine is the figurative work that I started making about fifteen years ago.  So this morning, after reading Ms. Carrasco's words and re-reading Debbie's, I marched into the studio and got to work.  Ok, first I hemmed a pair of new jeans (two sizes smaller - whoohoo!!!), but then I shoved everything aside and picked up the piece that'd been resting all this time.  It's still a bit of a hot mess, but I've really enjoyed the time surrounded by my hot mess, needles and thread.

Thank you Debbie.  Thank you Ms. Carrasco.  Thank you Ms. Braden for telling me that you are still in touch with Ms. Carrasco so that I could find her web site.  Thank you for encouraging me without even knowing that you have done so.

Debris as Inspiration

It's funny what inspires me to get back to making art.  I've spent the last week freaked out about keeping the house tidy.  It's dumb, but I've had a constant parade of electricians and contractors from our garage renovation tromping through the house (the access to our attic is via a drop-down ladder in the hallway) and I just can't stand the notion of anyone seeing it messy.  Back pain or not, I'm determined to keep the place decent and focused more on folding laundry and vacuuming (sorry, doctor, it had to be done) than smooshing clay or sewing. 

At the end of each of their work day here, I head out to the garage to check on the renovation progress.  The first day, I noticed the end cuts of the lumber used to frame the roof and immediately thought of using them as bases for my figurative work or for slicing to make wood ATC's or carve for stamping/printing.  The next day I was throwing out the trash and appreciating that the crew clean up after themselves every day, but I spotted all the copper wire they threw out and did my own version of dumpster diving.  Who knows what I'll find this afternoon?!?  I can find inspiration in a hardware store :-)  Finding ways to include odds and ends into an art piece is almost more fun than the clay work or painting.

The sketch book is back out and I'm drafting ideas for the next piece.  For additional fun, I've decided to paint a toddler-sized rocking chair for the next benefit auction.  I like having two projects going so I can switch between the two when one is giving me a hard time or I hit a creative block on the other.  Oh, happy day.

Play time

I couldn't resist a second post.  Having to stay home and forced to have time to play, I goofed off quite a bit with the Bamboo tablet thingy and Photoshop Elements.  It's amazing how much a simple line drawing can be tweaked with the tap of a finger!  I did a quick wiggly image just to play with, trying to figure out code like, "Dodge" and "linear burn."  Confident I would flunk a test on the topic, I still had a blast playing.  This is fun stuff!

Room with a View

This week I've tried to get some time in the studio while I deal with home issues, but it's been a challenge.  The biggest and most time consuming project we have ongoing is the renovation of our raggedy old garage.  Our house was built in 1955, so the bazillion-ton nasty garage door is years past its prime.  We decided to replace the garage door and get an opener other than the 2x4 piece of lumber we've been using to prop it open.  It's a miracle that no one has been killed!

To install a garage door, we have to actually have a ceiling, not just the flimsy criss-cross of junk wood to which the former homeowner precariously attached a non-functioning garage door opener.  The boys of the house have been talking about remodeling the garage and putting in a train table for years.  The time has come.

Right now, everything we had in the garage is on the deck.  Worse, the place best suited to protect all of the precious holiday decorations and my power tools is the portion of the deck that is the first thing a visitor sees when they walk in my house.  We look like we're waiting for the film crew for the tv show "Hoarders" to arrive.  I have to explain to everyone coming in that we do not save everything we've ever received.  It just looks like it.  This will be my living room view for the next four to five weeks, all the more reason to hide out in the studio as frequently as possible.

Today I have to sit in the living room with my laptop, playing with my Bamboo graphics tablet with my back to this mess and available for the electrician when he has questions.  I can live with a little chaos.

Studio Laughs

After a bit of a stretch without being creative, I decided that today was the day to get back in here and get something done.  I was actually inspired by a page in the Pottery Barn catalog that had a lot of artwork on a single wall in a living room, a look I like more than just that one painting floating on each wall around the house.

So I thought it would be fun to really play with the Bamboo graphics tablet that my son gave me for my birthday.  The first go with the tutorial was constantly interrupted, so I really needed to just play with it and figure out how the beast works.  The laughs I got this afternoon were priceless.  I mentioned previously the notion of getting even with my son when he's a beast by posting photos of him that he might not appreciate.  This is the best one of all!  Look what I can do!!!

Bahahahaha!  I'm going to take it down after 48 hours, but I couldn't resist sharing with the few friends I have that visit my blog.  If you can't really see it, the "skirt" is a mass of butterfly stamps (he has always been "startled" by butterflies) and the heart reads, "Mom."  He heard me laughing and interrupted his studies to see what was so funny and even he laughed.  He muttered, "Not nice," then turned his face away and tried to hide that he was cracking up.   I'm glad he has a sense of humour.

Just playing in here today has reawakened the "I need to make art!" in me.  It's been hibernating.  At some point I have to cook dinner (ugh), but will put it off and play in here for as long as I can get away with it.