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Language beyond language

Visit from the Turquoise Lady

I’ve been asked recently how I title paintings. This is an art itself! For me it’s a way of connecting the finished work with language to hint at something more, adding depth and dimension to the visual work. It could reference how the painting landed to me when I stopped working on it, like a first hit of the completed piece. Or a revelation of what I meant, what I was thinking about as a way of connecting the dots to themes or inspiration.

I was reading poetry perhaps and was struck by the poet’s use of place names or a tender approach to the changing season. Or I was researching the latest on super massive black holes or Greek mythology or any mythology because that language is robust with symbolism, stories and language that tends to lift us out of the mundane and into the land of the muses. That liminal space, I think of as approaching from the side. It’s creative, unconquerable space but is also warm and inviting when you’re not forcing or rushing.

Titles can grow to have their own meaning well beyond what you intended which is a cool thing to experience as an artist – a collector may have their own response to a piece that makes more sense to them. I once titled a piece “Silk Road” as I had been researching the historical Silk Road in Asia and the painting spoke to me of dry sandy roads, dusty treasures moving from place to place and the stories they keep. The buyer however was planning to hang it in Mexico and saw it more connected to Yucatán jungles and Mayan ruins.

Spring in the Garden of Delight

Next time you look at art titles, consider what the artist wants you to know. Is it self-secret? Does it make sense to you? Does it expand your understanding of what the art is about? Does it raise more questions or answer them?

Painting as Focal Point

As humans, it’s hard to live on this earth and not have objects that carry meaning. We have wedding rings, homes, special furniture, mementos and gifts from dear friends and departed relatives. Some are more obviously meaningful than others.

As you take stock of your life, what objects do you have that are imbued with special meaning? A gift that came at just the right time? A card in a shop that you loved and decided to frame. A photo you took of light in the leaves on a special trip. Your first kitchen spoon. The perfect piece of furniture that came at just the right time for that weird corner in your house. A pen that was given to you on graduation. A pair of shiny just-so shoes that you saved up for and symbolized having “made it ” at a certain time in your career.

I ask because how we interact with the world is important. It’s how we make meaning, engage with and appreciate the context in which we live. My set of special items includes: a wooden spoon from my mom from her kitchen to my first away-from-home-and-living-by-myself-kitchen. A pair of tall leather boots that I really wanted to wear to an event some years ago and saved up for months to get. A gold necklace with a lotus on it that symbolized a leap into the unknown of my career that I wore during the 8 months it took me to land a particular job. The gold is wearing off now and silver showing through (I couldn’t afford solid gold!), but I run across it sometimes and remember me-then working so hard to affect change that me-now appreciates.

Objects can be marvelous focal points: they can remind us of our goals, of our tribe, of our aspirations, of our deepest desires. They can point to things we don’t even realize about ourselves yet. We can use an object as a focal point to initiate change.

For me, the practice of painting is this and more. I sometimes paint with a certain longing in mind. Or a transition I’m trying to affect. Or for other people who are interested in engaging around something as well. Color can provide this leaping off point: red for stability and sensuality, green for healing, orange for creativity, yellow for POWER and cheer and sunshine, blues for communication or connection to higher states of consciousness.

Try it! What’s on your mind?

Connect with your theme, need, deepest desire! (I want more color, dance, mystery, beach, a partner, a new job, etc in my life)
What would symbolize that for you? An object (like the lotus I mentioned which grows out of mud and muck) or a color (I want to bring in more creativity and ORANGE invokes this), a gift from an old friend or a photo of where you want to go (figuratively or literally) could all work
Bring it to life on paper, canvas, wood – a place to refer back to. None of these efforts have to be perfect (is anything?). This is about what will serve to remind you of what you want to invoke, remember, work toward.
Place somewhere prominent in your viewing space so that it starts to permeat your subconcious mind – eye level or desk level in a room where you spend a lot of time (beside your desk, your stove, your bathroom mirror, at the top of the stairs, at an entry way, etc.!).
Consciously interact with your piece when you gaze on it. Remember what you were thinking when you created this. What you want to draw moer into your life – more creativity, more space, more ease, more possibility.

**Talk to me about commissions too. I have a limited number of spots this fall for commissioned work which is another way to start invoking new directions!

Mindfulness and painting: getting started

Ah, mindfulness. A word that means a number of things in different contexts, so buzzy in western cultures these days. For me, I am using mindfulness in a pretty traditional Buddhist way. It means paying attention. It is a type of meditation that has many layers of depth, meaning, and activity and ultimately it invokes a state of being in which a person is simply and fully available to the moment. So, when I speak about mindfulness here, I mean this: mindfulness is the activity of full wakefulness. Being fully present in the moment without judgement or discursive thinking.

When painters translate “mindfulness” into the practice of painting, we might describe this as “wonder” or “delight” or “marvel” or “wakeful curiosity.” These describe something of the feeling of being on the knife edge of right now, doing what we love when we push paint around surfaces, making discoveries, continually noting and dropping our expectations and getting lost (or found) in that process.

I think this could be said of any style of painting but for me, wonder and playful wakefulness are immediately accessible in abstract painting. There is less technique available than in say, a plein air outdoor painting of the mountains or in working on a still life of a bowl of apples. In abstract art, technique, composition, and color theory are all at play, though they are engaged with intuitively, and usually indirectly.

This wide-openness of abstract painting – you can do anything, any size, with any media for any reason – can be overwhelming, especially when you first start. Even if you are a trained watercolorist or a professional plein air painter you may still ask: whe

re do I start? WIth what paints, surface, colors, etc? Sometimes the first steps are terrifying. Sometimes they feel liberating. Sometimes they feel like coming home (relaxed, like you’re remembering a feeling or a smell or a sound from long ago). Would you believe that even after quite a few years of doing this, it often feels the same way to start a new project or the next painting?

Ultimately it starts with a mark, a “dot in space,” as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche would speak of the practice of art or “Dharma Art” which has influenced many of us over the years. A mark is a gesture, a question or an answer, an articulation of being present. It could be a square of fabric or a bright red slash across a page. It could be a shadowy drawing that

you will paint over or words that are inspiring your work today. And then… another mark! In reference to the first, or in answer/question to it. Then a dialogue begins between you and the work and you start to discover what wants to be communicated.

I’m not sure I know what Dharma Art is, but I can feel a good painting when it arrives. That is the authenticity grounding the work of fellow artists, whether in movement, images, spoken or written words. You feel it, you know that authenticity because it responds to something inside you like a call or a bell or stillness.

Will you take a leap? And start a new fresh creative endeavor? It is waiting for you.

Art in Professional Spaces

I woke up this morning thinking about what it is that moves us when art is encountered in unexpected places. When you walk into a sculpture garden or into a museum, you have certain expectations about encountering art. You’re actively participating in the process of absorbing art. You’re planning to find art — perhaps something that inspires you or perhaps that challenges you.

But when you walk into your mortgage broker’s office to find a large, abstract painting in the lobby? Or in your dentist’s office exam room? Or a mural recently painting on the side of a building?

Do you pause and absorb the color for a moment? Do you notice the shape of animals or the way the artist painted the edges of a painting so the design wraps around the whole canvas?

I once had an art teacher who preferred to have his paintings hang in restaurants, cafes and other public environments. He liked them to be taken in that way by viewers in a more casual way, to be absorbed over the span of a meal or a stroll through the library.

I come from a tradition of creating art that is particularly interested in the on-the-spot activity of spontaneously creating . There may be an end in mind, roughly out there at some point. But this particular style of abstract painting engaged in a pre-thought way, with creativity right there in the room, available but not on demand. A little like encountering a wild animal that is interested but won’t be called just because you wish it to arrive.

That creative spark – or je ne sais quoi aspect of an art piece – continues to communicate itself throughout the life of a painting regardless of its environment and can be particularly potent when encountered in art in public environments: a pop of color, the way a line wraps around a building mural, the way morning light catches in a the stone edge of a sculpture.

When I’m looking for an office for the first time, or connecting with a potential business partner and run into art that stops my mind, I think this must be the purpose of art in professional spaces on a deeper level than branding or communicating something about a business: to wake us up in the flow of a day, to remember something about being human, that can often get lost in the constant movement forward that we encounter in the professional world.

Fresh Start

I just hung my first art show in 8 years! Here’s the artist statement which feels more raw than what I used to write…

In each moment is an opportunity
to make a fresh start.

-Pema Chodron

What a relief that we have the opportunity to start fresh: in the morning, the afternoon, the evening; in the new year, the new job, relationship, the new season or even in this moment. Right now. Exhale.

I’ve been exploring this notion of starting fresh in my work and how that translates to day to day life. Facing the blank canvas, the rising sun or the next day, fresh. Feeling deeply for inspiration, for roots into meaning, purpose and resilience. Looking into vulnerability, frustration, the brittleness of being stretched in too many directions, too little time. It often feels like the state of our world is this chaos of too much or too little. Slowing down – is there really time for that? How does my work reflect this? Is there enough substance to folding in painting sessions into the flow of a day or a week or a month with children and pets, errands, work, dinner? How do we lead an artistic practice in the modern world with depth and grace?

Exhale. We do it imperfectly. We do it messily. We do it, though and find a fresh start. And perhaps, as painting is folded in at the kitchen table, in scribbled notes and sketch books, in early morning light, it becomes more threaded into the fabric of daily life.

Our artistic process has room for us to address the brilliance and madness of the world, the tension between responsibility and letting go, between artistic delight and to-do lists, between minimalism and movement. I’m finding that the basis of my work is a deep and abiding sense of joy and optimism that reflects in the color and fullness of these paintings.

Here’s to a bright and outrageous new year, maintaining a sense of humor and a fresh start each day!

Some Days

Some days are better for remembering that not all days go as planned. Some days, the best you can do is pick up the pieces and sit there. Or move on. Or hold still. Or try to get one more bit of something semi-nutritious into your child. Or one more minute of quiet for nap-time. Or one more sip of water. One more errand out of the way. One more thing, one more try, one more effort, one more, one more, one more.

Glue something down. Ready when it’s time to work on a piece again.

Injecting Space

It may be because I’m the mom of two children 7 and 4, but I have a lot less time for introspection and reflection than I have at other times in my life. The height of my reflective time was probably in college, where responsibilities had largely to do with reading, studying and attending classes. So much learning and growing happened in between, along the edges, on the weekends and even on walks to and from classes.

In any case, time to think, space to breathe, or even to space-out is harder to come by these days. It is also an intrinsic part of painting. So in that respect, incorporating painting in a day is like incorporating space itself; that time to breathe, to relax into something that it so of itself, on its own time and in its own way. It is outside of time and refreshing even if not strictly “productive” where a painting resolves itself or I move forward through a difficult place.

Touching in to that space can itself be enough.