When WILL I find time?

The "When I Find Time" of my blog title is so spot on these days.  After the PC was assulated by a wicked, wicked trojan that has kept me working on restoring it's life for DAYS, I've had little time to think about art.  Except for yesterday evening.

Long-time friends know that I come from one heck of a wonky family.  My parents were bonkers, and my relationship with my sisters was challenging because of that wonkiness.  In the past year, I've had the absolute joy and pleasure to get to know my older sister in a way that is completely new and foreign to me.  As she said when we talked yesterday (for more than two hours!), we are now friends.  For some people, I'm sure that this is a bizarre notion, NOT feeling friendly or close with siblings.  But we had a very challenging upbringing, a good sized age gap, and she was gone and on her own on the opposite coast by the time I was 13 years old.  That's a big bridge to gap.  We grew up with nothing in common but the same parents and siblings.  Quite literally.

How things have changed.

Lisa is a terrific person, happy and cheerful, positive and knows how to roll with the punches.  She's also a terrific artist.  She calls with ideas about things we can both do, with me in California and her in Minnesota, bridging the gap with the phone and computer.  I'm determined to find more of that artistic time so that we can share in creating together.  I've gotten great advice my my cyber-buddy Debbie to help steer the course and expect to make good on that adventure.

Life is good.

Collage Lab

While I went to the fabric store to pick up some buttons, I decided to check out the overpriced craft books.  Haven't I sworn off the books?  Oops.

I found the book Collage Lab by Bee Shay.  I've always enjoyed looking at good collage work, but have never attempted it myself and find it intimidating.  It's easy to just glue junk to a surface, but hard to make it look thoughtfully composed.  In the introduction, the author notes that she found herself fighting her long-time original skill sets in a struggle to learn new ways to express her artistic self.  Heck, I'd take just having a good long-time skill set!  The book is filled with labs that can be done in any order and encourages exploring and experimenting with materials and techniques and "is about getting your hands moving and getting your head out of the way."  Just what I need!  As I've expressed many times before, I find it frustrating to sit in a studio surrounded by so many art-making materials with a blank brain and an empty hand.  I needed a teeny, tiny nudge that meant getting my hands dirty and just playing with a single baby step to get me moving ahead and try to develop a new set of skills without an end project in mind.

The first step involved creating a basic  gesso surface on watercolor paper, tinting the gesso just a bit with a pale acrylic so I could see what I was doing.  I didn't create any masterpiece, but that was the fun in this play day.  No pressure!  I did appreciate having prompts to follow and asking myself the questions about what worked, what didn't work, what happens when multiple layers of gesso are applied, what tools/items can be used to manipulate the surface...it was very relaxing. 

This is what I ended up with.  I used a rubber stamp in the yellow one, the end of the paintbrush handle in the pink one, and a shim that had been nicked on the edges for texture.  I was inspired enough to just goof off with the extra piece of watercolor paper I had left and play with watercolor pencils and liquid acrylics.  


While I have a few errands to run tomorrow, I should be able to find the time for another one of the gesso labs.

No Art? What Am I Thinking?!?

My husband was in China for over a week, so I had the perfect opportunity to work in the studio without pressure.  Not that he adds pressure, but I pressure myself to spend time doing things like mopping up coffee spills from the kitchen floor or grocery shopping before I make art which never seems to happen these days.  I was so worried and so stressed for so much of the time that I just froze.  No more!  I'm going to get on the ball and, to quote Lisa Vollrath, just make something!  It may not be a big or major something, but I need to get into the practice of making art every day.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying my husband's tales of his big adventure.   As an Air Force brat, I have traveled a lot, including a three year tour of duty in the Philippines.  This trip to China was his first to Asia.  He brought me a most magnificent black pearl and diamond pendant along with a couple of gorgeous fans, newspapers (my funny reqeust) and the mandatory refrigerator magnets (a regular addition to our collection for any trip we make, whether as a family or solo).   

I'm glad I was able to help him prepare for the trip, including making sure he got the appropriate injections and medications (the "just in case" kind).  He had a magnificent trip.  We were up until 2:30 a.m. with him sharing photos and stories.  I can't wait until he retires and we can make these trips together.  He's a terrific and really funny travel buddy.  We ARE the Simpsons!

Tomorrow the focus returns to art.  I've goofed around and allowed myself to be distracted, but I'm going to get back to business.  I'll have to post whatever I do.  There's some pressure!  :-)

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.