Studio Space - finally!

Let it snow! Time stops. Everything is quiet. The usual activities are cancelled. I can retreat into my new studio and hunker down.

I just hung up my Alaskan mukluks on the studio wall. Dating from my old Vista Volunteer days in an Eskimo village, they are forty plus years old. With caribou skin legs and seal skin soles, the trim at the top is plain denim - the everyday work boots that the village people themselves wore - not the fancy designs made for tourists. The message to myself: get to work!

O.K., I admit I'm ready for less snow and warmer weather, but I'll retreat to my studio regardless of the weather!

The Practice of Practice

"Technique itself springs from play, because we can acquire technique only by the practice of practice, by persistently experimenting and playing with our tools and testing their limits and resistances. Creative work is play; it is free speculation using the materials of one's chosen form." (from Free Play, by Stephen Nachmanovitch)

It is both exciting and scary to be exploring and expanding my tools and materials as an artist. If I can keep discovering anew the mindset that Nachmanovitch is pointing to, then it's all good. Easier said than done. The "practice of practice" helps.

The carefree playfulness of the girl in in the center of my mixed-media monoprint "If the Shoe Fits" is heightened by her context. May I learn from my own image!

Nachmanovitch Nuggets

I first read Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, by Stephen Nachmanovitch, in 1991. It is an amazing treat to be re-reading it now, with new eyes. Here are some of my favorite nuggets:

"Creativity becomes everything we do and perceive."

"If life is full of joy, joy feeds the creative process. If life is full of grief, grief feeds the creative process."

"...there is no ultimate breakthrough; what we find in the development of a creative life is an open-ended series of provisional breakthroughs. In this journey there is no endpoint, because it is the journey into the soul."

If the Shoe Fits... Take the Leap

It has to be postmarked by January 15th to meet The Sketchbook Project 2011 Tour deadline. Mine will be finished in time, including the on-line profile. I am one of 28834 artists from 94 countries who are participating... very humbling and exciting at the same time. Everyone picked a theme. Mine is "If You Lived Here". The title is If the Shoe Fits... Take the Leap.

Along with an assemblage using an antique wooden bird cage I got in a thrift shop, this sketchbook is the first work done in the new studio. I'll post it as soon as I scan it.

Starting February 2011 the sketchbooks will be exhibited at galleries and museums across the country. Digitized versions will be on the Brooklyn Art Library website, http://www.arthousecoop.com/library.

Road Trip

Cell phone angles from the passenger seat: Fall leaves, hills, rain, sun, sky: I couldn't stop clicking. Every moment was different, even when the roadscape seemed similar. The space was contained, but the possibilites were endless.

I am fascinated with the shapes outlined by the car interior - something so familiar to all of us. As I was clicking, I thought of having photos to inspire a Road Trip series of watercolors. This will be a fun concept to play with. Meanwhile, the video version is fun too.

Old Dream Gets a New Life

My art studio is almost ready! My contractor said today, "People are glad to see us and then glad to see us go." I know what he means. I have been obsessed with transforming this double garage space. Fortunately it already had heat, electricity, windows with wonderful light, and its own outside entrance door. It is connected to the house - good in cold weather - but when I close the door to the rest of the house, I will be at work in another world. It will be a relief when the dust, the mess, and the array of workmen's tools are gone.

Then I will move in my tools. I have been itching to spend more time with watercolors, which would be new for me, as well as returning to my mixed media materials of recycled junk, found objects, weird scraps of paper and memorabilia. I need to get back to my visual journal. I will have a separate table dedicated to it, so I can leave the materials out and work on it ongoingly, amidst other projects.

Unpacking my boxes of art supplies will be a joy, finding old friends and new possibilities. I am ready to be surprised. There will be shelves for my art books. A place for music. Curtains on the windows that will allow maximum light yet still provide privacy.

I knew this was the right house for us, as soon as I saw this space and instantly saw a future studio in my mind's eye.

I have been waiting for this moment since I was ten years old.

Sculpture Comes Alive!

The sculpture comes alive, seen from so many angles, through sunlight and shadow, behind branches and looming beyond the next curve on the trail. One becomes aware of the sculptural qualities of the trees, and of the natural earth qualities of art made from stone, metal, and wood. They breathe together into a whole. It is art's natural habitat, completely integrated with nature.

www.groundsforsculpture.org, is a 35-acre park near Princeton, New Jersey, celebrating its tenth anniversary as a public non-profit. It was fun making this video of our visit. I know we'll be back when the Fall leaves are at their peak, and when the fragrance of wisteria infuses the air in the Spring. If the roads are cleared, maybe we'll even venture out to see sculpture in the snow..