The Homage of Irreverence

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my SoulCollage® card  for Kurt Schwitters (above)

 the original Kurt Schwitters collage (below)

I need to ice my foot, which turned out to be broken as well as badly sprained.  My physical therapist tells me that all will ultimately be well.  I try not to be impatient and repeatedly fail.  Yet despite being slowed down against my will, much has happened during these weeks of incapacitation. 

I immersed in SoulCollage® Facilitator Training in early June at a beautiful retreat center in the countryside outside of Philadelphia. Our Trainer, Kat Kirby, is an art therapist in San Diego, http://www.2katstudios.com.  It is ironic that all the years I lived in San Diego we didn't know each other.  Only when she flew across the country to train our group of eight, did we meet.  SoulCollage®, developed by Seena Frost, taps into the power of intuition, imagination, and the depths reached nonverbally with visual images.  No art experience is necessary - all that's needed is scissors, glue, receptivity and trusting the process.  Not to mention that it's fun! http://www.soulcollage.com.  I am excited about offering SoulCollage® workshops in my studio starting in the Fall.

Since the Facilitator Training I have been on a roll with making cards for my personal SoulCollage® deck. Each person's deck is  a unique reflection of their personality, story, and soul. This Kurt Schwitters card was made after three of us made a pilgrimage to the Princeton Museum to see his retrospective before it closed, http://www.princetonartmuseum.org/events/schwitters.  We postponed it to the last minute  because of my foot.  It was more walking than I had done since the break, but I acted like my mom, who went on an Elder Hostel to see the High Sierra Mountains for her 85th birthday.  Bedridden afterwards from the exertion, she said "it was worth it."  Some things are worth it.  To see so much of Kurt Schwitters work close up was a rare privilege.  Seeing work on-line, with the best of monitors and the highest resolution cannot capture the subtle textures and the sense of presence and connection with a master, when you are within touching distance, inhaling the essence... The Kurt Schwitters card is part of my SoulCollage® Community Suit:  my posse of allies, my support system, and my sources of inspiration.  

There are many relatives, friends, and mentors who I know I will gradually make Community Suit cards for.  Who knew a Kurt Schwitters card would happen first?  The cards seem to have a life of their own, and emerge as they need to.

I can't believe I collaged his collage.  Ultimate chutzpah.  And my ultimate homage. 

Like A Concert Tour, but with Sketchbooks!

"It's like a concert tour, but with sketchbooks." What a great motto! I couldn't resist signing up again. Just pick a theme from their list of forty provocative prompts, pay for the blank sketchbook, they mail it to you, you fill it up however you want, and mail it back by January 31, 2012.  That's the drill. Then the hundreds of barcoded sketchbooks tour the country, as well as Vancouver, and Toronto.  Every time someone looks at your sketchbook you get an email. After the tour they live permanently in the Brooklyn Art Library. If you pay an extra $ 20 they do a great job of digitizing all your pages, which then become part of their Sketchbook Project searchable virtual archive.

Last year it was exciting to feel part of a community of thousands of people from around the country and around the world who were participating. This year it has become a tradition of sorts.  I chose "Writing on the wall" as my theme, or maybe it chose me. I have no idea how I will approach it, or what will evolve.  Fortunately there is plenty of time to see what the writing on the wall will reveal...

Join the fun! http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject

Laundry Lessons

After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.  I have always loved this title of Jack Kornfeld's book. As I elevate my swollen, bruised, and badly sprained ankle I have plenty of time to reflect on it.  There is no choice but a slower paced re-entry from our Jewish Mindfulness Retreat in red rock country, New Mexico.

Twelve souls led by Rabbi Yael Levy wove deep bonds through shared silence, meditation, prayer, song, and hiking together through an elemental and awe inspiring landscape.  Simply getting there was a commitment.  Being unplugged from all electronics for five full days stilled the chatter and was a wonderful relief.  The trails were challenging, especially for someone like me, more accustomed to sea-level beach walking than high altitude wilderness hiking.  Mindfulness was very specific and practical in terms of noticing where to place each foot or decide which rocks to step on to get across a stream.  We  practiced both offering and receiving help over the rough spots in silence.

The morning after returning home, I unpacked directly into a laundry basket.  As I carried the overflowing basket down our narrow and steep basement stairs I slipped, missed the last step, and twisted my right ankle.  I sat on the floor in a heap with all the spilled laundry, crying in pain and crying at how quickly it seemed the benefits of the retreat and mindfulness about each step had dissipated.  After a while the irony and humor hit me, and then gratitude it hadn't been worse and hadn't happened on the retreat.


Scooping up the laundry, I hobbled over to the wash machine.  My denim shirt was especially caked with red mud.  I had been using it to lay down on while watching sunlight through tree branches, movement of clouds, and changes in qualities of light - a world that suddenly seemed very far away.  I rinsed the mud off in the laundry tub before putting it in the machine, watching a swirl of red - the tangible remnant of the retreat - disappear down the drain.  


Laundry is now intertwined with mindfulness for me at a muscle-memory level.  My ankle is forcing me to slow down and simply notice.  I'm watching the  alarming misshapenness slowly subside.  Observing the colors of the bruise change from purples to reds and yellows and browns is not as much fun as observing the color changes of dawn and dusk of the New Mexico sky.  But it is what is, now.  I am observing the miracle of healing. 


I just ordered After the Ecstasy, the Laundry:  How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path.  It's time to read it.

Secrets of Creative Aging

In my latest video, Helen Redman, a pioneer of Feminist Art, speaks about her mixed-media Turtle Diary series.  This work is both whimsical and profound, and has much to convey about aging and creativity, creative aging, and the synergy of a loving marriage. Redman has painted self-portraits at every stage of her life.  Only as an elder did she start to create double portraits of herself and her husband Kenny Weissberg - as turtles! 

As Redman has written,“Turtle medicine includes a connection with the center, navigation skills, self-reliance, tenacity, patience, the ability to respect the boundaries of self and others, and develop new ideas. Originally created with humorous intent, I unknowingly chose an ancient symbol of nurturance, mother energy, determination and longevity.” 

It was a privilege to film and interview Helen and Kenny, and to share their wisdom in this video.

Cranes of Hope

This antique stereopticon image of a mother and her children in the doorway of their Middle-Eastern home is a grounding anchor amidst the surrounding fiery swirl.  Their faces are individual, personal, unique.  The water jug is a reminder of the simple and ordinary everyday tasks of life.  

This piece holds the tension between the metal barrier and the freely flying cranes, while we exchange gazes with this particular mother and her children. 

Released into the Wild: Sketchbooks on Tour!

Unbelieveably, the Sketchbook Project folks at the Brooklyn Art Library have cataloged just under 10,000 sketchbooks, including mine,  and are ready to take them on tour around the country.  They are now "released into the wild", as they say, but organized, digitized, and bar-coded. I will be getting an email every time someone looks at it in person or on-line.  This will be a kick!  If you browse at http://arthousecoop.com/submissions  you can get a sense of the range and variety of the participating artists from all over the world.  

"Visitor Discretion is Advised"

Combining SEX with "Visitor Discretion is Advised" usually gets people's attention. I'm glad I saw this provocative show at Haverford College's Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery today. You can see more about these audacious artists at http://news.haverford.edu/blogs/sexdrive.

I was especially glad that there was a powerful 4 x 6 foot piece by David Wojnarowicz, in light of his recent censorship by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. As the curator of SEX DRIVE, Stuart Horodner, notes "its inclusion aligns the exhibition with the many arts professionals, institutions, and funding agencies who issued swift and strong responses denouncing the Smithsonian's troubling curatorial decision."  He is being both professional and polite to call their decision merely 'troubling.'

Here's their blurb:
Sex Drive presents contemporary artworks that address sexuality across a panoply of forms. Using photography, drawing, painting, video, sculpture, and installation, 22 artists bring their own pleasures and political dispositions to bear on identity and gender, romance and lust, religious and legal strictures, and private and public scandals. Sex Drive asks us to consider the conventions that govern sexuality, as well as its unruly power.

Stuart Horodner, artistic director of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, developed the exhibition in conjunction with the Haverford College humanities seminar, “Sex, State, and Society in the Early Modern World,” which offers an historical perspective for understanding why sex and sexuality remain such volatile issues in contemporary politics around the globe.