I made this for work this morning, as an example for students, hoping to engage them with the experience of assembling a cohesive image from random household objects. Another teacher (thank you Puilan) initially put out the challenge of kitchen art and I will admit that I started this process more out of obligation (to that challenge and to building online content for my students) than for pure joy. I was surprised how quickly it shifted me into the flow state, placing items next to each other, gazing, rearranging, hunting in my cupboards which were suddenly transformed to an artist’s treasure trove of odd and beautiful shapes and colors. I really do recommend spending half an hour making your own assembled image. If you do, please share a photo. I’d love to see what you create.
Gazing through a window watching rain and sunshine, I notice...
How each rain drop, traveling downward at a speed to rapid for my eye to track, reflects the improbable sunlight streaming earthward at a speed to great for my mind to fathom.
How the wet rhododendron leaves glimmer and curl like little patent leather shoes.
How the infinite droplets gather on and release from the bright leaves, individuals collecting and collaborating to make shimmering robust bulbs of water that leap and jiggle from leaf to dark wet soil below. Two rhythms in a visual symphony; sky-to-leaf a seemingly unsynchronized, relentless patter, leaf-to-ground a steady liquid drip.
How two chickadees and a junco shelter in the woven branches, under the leaf roof, flitting, preening, wiggling their tail feathers, occasionally wrestling with a twig, for joy? for nest materials? in frustration? I wish I could inquire but I don’t know a word of chickadee.
A Place to Sit…
An unexpected joyous outcome of Social Distancing is the bounty of time I suddenly have at home, some of which I am getting to spend in my studio. This place has missed me and I have missed it. I love the light through the windows and skylight. I love the smell of the slightly talkative wooden floors. I love the table full of materials, waiting where I left them, and I love the chair I sit in at my sewing machine. It is a banged up old wooden chair with no nails or screws, all pegs and glue. It is small, curvy and upright with a nice butt shape to the seat. The chair is beautiful, practical, and patient. It has aged well. The chair possesses many qualities I admire and aspire to.
A list
7 things I did for myself today:
1. I looked at the bent coat hanger and the half empty bottle of draino we’ve been administering to our shower drain all weekend and I called a plumber. He was talkative and tattooed and oh so much better at unclogging our pipe!
2. I played the piano.
3. I put on earrings.
4. I laughed with my coworkers.
5. I listened while my daughters talked about the paths of their day.
6. I performed a brave and wonderful food experiment that is baking in my oven right now. (Thank you to all the hippie veggie food explorers who have gone before me. Thank you Yumm sauce!)
7. I am sipping a small glass of whiskey with an ice cube in it, and writing this list. I am grateful.
notebook…
Art and Eggs
I have a show up in Morning Glory Cafe this month. Treat yourself to breakfast and have a look see!
My inner girl scout
Something in this collection of little stitched leaf shapes has me recalling my polyester green Girl Scouts of America sash, with it’s crooked rows of bright embroidered badges. I loved the sash and it’s accompanying book of badges. I loved the system of selecting, earning, receiving, and Yes! stitching on each badge. I would run my hands across the tight thread surface of my fire safety badge or my cooking skills badge and know it represented my expanding knowledge and worldliness. I would lay the sash across my bed and revel in the pretty colors and bright details.
I learned some weird things in Girl Scouts (like how to drain a soda can while its still inside the machine or how to make a serious weapon out of an oreo cookie), but I also learned about the rewards inherent in completing a task and I definitely grew my appreciation for stitching small bright bits of fabric into place.
Everyday everywhere
It is important to know that you don’t have to be painting the frescoes on a cathedral ceiling or sculpting massive public installations to recognize yourself as an artist. Art can and does happen everywhere and everyday in countless small ways.
These past few months of school and grant work have swallowed most of my personal creative time. I usually get two long days a week of stitching, piecing, drawing, and making, but as I look back across the recent months, I only worked in the studio for little 2-3 hour chunks. I was not operating in a creative vacuum. I was making plenty of music, podcasts, and artwork with my students, but that work is not my own.
With school out and the aftershocks receding, I am feeling that familiar gathering of energy. Like rising water, an expanding balloon, a ringing in my ears, I feel it and ‘wonder of wonders’ I have time to respond.
I started small yesterday, by painting a blue wall in my bathroom, then framing and rehanging old work. The taproot of my creative self is about making something I want to look at. There is great calming, healing medicine in aesthetically beautiful spaces. After painting and hanging I sat on the edge of my bathtub and drank in the vivid color and curious forms of this old work in a new light. My effort was no magnum opus, but it was aimed at beauty. I felt the same bath-like flood of brain juice I get after hours of studio work. I am still peeking into my bathroom as I pass down the hall, getting a rush of satisfaction at the new beautiful space I created. We can be artists everday and everywhere!
