Work In Progress Right Here and Now

Many changes for me within the past two years.

I seriously doubt anyone would've guessed I'd move to Albuquerque in June after visiting in May. I certainly didn't see that one coming.

As for my two most significant life changes since 2016, viz. returning to core identities as artist and Jew, those were probably predictable. By psychotherapists over the years. But maybe also by you? After all, I did write about the mosaic thing and got three posts about "Politics, Identity, and Activism" up here in May 2017.

Since then, crickets and that, too, is about to change.

Refocusing and redesigning this blog is on my list of things to do before we get too much further into 5779 and 2019 C.E. begins--in three weeks!

Meanwhile, if you have the time and inclination, here's a lengthy conversation (read: soliloquy) I had with artist and teacher, Sadelle Wiltshire for her series about Creativity and Faith:

To see what I'm up to with mixed media mosaics, visit: http://www.meditativemosaics.com

To see artwork in progress plus pictures of cats and food, follow me on Instagram.

More will be revealed here but it's already pushing midnight (Mountain Time) and I've promised myself to get to sleep by 1:30am instead of 3:00am.

What Now? Mixed Media Mosaics!

When and for how long I studied art and created artwork is another story for another time.* Let the record show that this, the summer of 2017, is when I came under the thrall of mixed media mosaics. 

Working with tiles, glass, beads, and assorted goodies I've collected over the years, I'm focused on creating (small) labyrinths and hamsas. Why those images? That, too, is another story for another time but these foci should come as no news to anyone who has followed me on Pinterest for years. Or visited my website. Or noticed my Facebook profile headers, at least ones posted before last November's election.

So this is what's happening now. Here are some substandard images that look better on Instagram. The mosaics will look a lot better when I reshoot them with a good camera.

5"x 5" Square

6" Circle

4.5"x 6"

* Short answer: From age seven through age 23. 

The Art Department: Still Art

Who signs up a child for painting classes that involve capturing elaborate, formal still life compositions with oil paints? Please keep in mind that I am not talking about the 17th century, but mid-1950s. So, who would do such a thing? My mother. I was eight or nine; she was already a decade into working out her stuff through me.

Good thing I turned out to be artistically talented and already a compulsively neat child, because it could have been messy from the get-go. My art-related psycho mess would emerge years later, but back then everything was tidy inside and out, or appeared that way. My art smock rarely needed washing. I diligently cleaned my brushes and palette at the end of every class, a diligence that I now suspect probably had something to do with huffing turpentine.

Three oil paintings from that time were framed and hung in the family dining room. I hardly noticed them and rarely stopped to look at them. Whenever I did, I was stunned by how competent and adult they seemed. I could not imagine ever having painted them and knew I would never paint anything like them again; never did, although the discipline of starting with still life would endure.

My relationship with art started changing after I left home for Rochester Institute of Technology, where I started as an art major and dropped out as a mess. There's more to this story, when is there not? Stay tuned.

With the glorious clarity of hindsight, I'm seeing how my current wrestling with the angel of identity from the Art Department started long before my recent revelation at Holy Cross Monastery. Fast forward to last night when I finally pick up my new sketchbook, pens, and Inktense pencils.

It's 10:30 PM and I've finished reading Ann Patchett's book, Truth & Beauty. I absolutely know that drawing is the next right thing to do, because it's the next right place for me to go. I don't want to pile my words on top of the words I've just read, not yet anyway. Where to begin?

It has been years since I've sketched anything. For a change, I'm not being my usual hyperbolic self. Years of no drawing. Yet, I quickly discover that I do indeed know where to begin. Not with with oil paints, but with still life. Still art and life still and after all many many years, it's a start.

"Must start again somewhere and beginning with basics -- 
still life is life still after all these many many years."

One 2014 Resolution I Hope to Keep: Return to Iconography

Created c. 1996

For one thing, I don't generally get too twitched about making New Year's resolutions on or around January 31. By the time January rolls around, I've already observed the beginning of two new years: 1) Rosh Hashonah; and 2) first Sunday of Advent.

Typically, my new year's observations include deep cleaning; plowing through tolerations; taking stock of what I've done and failed to do during the previous year; repentance/teshuvah/making amends in some form; and contemplating what might be next. By the time January rolls around, I'm ready for yet another do-over.

At this point (i.e., 1:30 PM on January 31, 2013) I can't remember what I resolved to do for 5774 or how I planned to embrace this new liturgical year. And, my so-called retreat at the monastery completely threw me off track. Actually, that last bit of whinging isn't completely true because when I finally gave up on my mortal flesh keeping silence and started talking with people, I ended up talking about art.

When one woman let me play with her Inktense pencils, I felt a painfully deep and tightly coiled inner something start to release, both physically and emotionally. I spent less than two minutes futzing with these pencils and saw icons emerge in my mind's eye, something that hasn't happened for years.

Inktense pencils morph into either vibrant or subtle watercolors when whatever is drawn with them is brushed with, uh, water. The intensity of the color seems to depend on the amount of water (duh?) and the size and use of the brush. All this is to be discovered because I immediately went online to order my very own set, which arrived on Saturday.

So, on my To Do list for this afternoon or tonight while binge-watching crap on Netflix: sorting through and ditching art supplies I know I won't be using. Acrylic paints top the list.

Never liked that medium, although it was certainly easier than egg tempera to use and clean up. Of all the icons I've painted over the years, I have either tossed or given away ones I've done with acrylic.

(I have, of course, kept and treasure the Christ the Teacher icon I received from iconographer Peter Pearson as partial payment for line editing I did on A Brush With God and Another Brush With God. These are wonderful workbooks for beginning and advanced iconographers.)

What I loved about egg tempera was the rich dimensionality that became possible, especially as layers were added using the "Byzantine float" method. Decades later, I can still hear iconographer Vladislav Andrejev, with whom I also studied, saying in his deep Russian accent, "puddle and push; puddle and push."

Neither puddling nor pushing possible with acrylic, so I stopped painting icons. In all fairness, I stopped for a lot of other reasons as well, but my frustration with acrylic medium was a key factor -- and a great excuse.

Now? No more excuses.

Got my new pencils, will clean out my acrylic paints as a symbolic and real way to move forward, and then...move forward. Returning to iconography is one New Year's resolution I hope to keep.  You're invited to hold me accountable!     

This Weekend's Mini-Staycation: Fun With PicCollage and Instagram

Wish I could say this weekend's mini-staycation was due to taking counsel from loved ones, but that wouldn't be entirely true. The greater truth is that whinging online + a dramatic shift in temperature to blessedly cool + mental and physical exhaustion + wanting to play with creativity (vs. productivity) apps on my new tablet = this weekend's mini-staycation.

So, what did I do? 

Napped. Binge-watched "Weeds." Repotted plants. Cooked. Talked on the phone with Ruth. Reorganized app icons on my tablet. Took pictures and played with Instagram. Read a novel. Played with PicCollage. 

Playing with PicCollage is very entertaining in a terrific time-suck kind of way. For me, playing with it also feels like a form of coming home to a dormant part of self.  

My mother signed me up for art lessons when I was eight years old -- oil painting, believe it or not. I was so heavily tracked into being an artist while growing up (chronologically) that I didn't even bother applying to a liberal arts school for my first attempt at college. I'm planning to write more about my years an artist,* but in this post I want to go on about collage!

Collage tends to get relegated to the domain of arts-n-crafts therapy. During the late 1980s and well into the 1990s, collage creation was a popular component of personal growth workshops. I have no idea whether it's still SOP (standard operating procedure) to give workshop attendees a pile of magazines, scissors, and glue sticks to create collages of their "inner truth," "deepest longing," or "vision of Self."  I know this because of my extensive Personal Growth Industry experience during closing decades of the 20th century -- consumer and provider.

All snarkasm aside, I've always loved collage and view it (as well as decoupage) as a technique that ought not be relegated to the much-maligned category of "crafts." I especially love mixed-media collage because of the opportunities it provides for texture and depth. 

This being the case, I wouldn't have anticipated my utter delight with PicCollage which is unavoidably two dimensional and has certain limitations (e.g., trimming images to create visual flow) because of the technology. Wrong again! Utter delight.

I've already created six collages with PicCollage. My first was an homage to our kitty Mozart that I posted to Facebook. I got more inventive as I became more comfy with the app. I'll share these collages over time. For now, I'll embed, "My Desk Rocks" into this post. 

I took the calendar image with my phone, manipulated it with Instagram and posted to Facebook a few weeks ago. For this collage, I imported that Instagram image and added stickers provided by PicCollage. I used their "text" function to add the title and my signature. Not a huge selection of fonts, but a well-chosen ones.

I know this collage looks like something a tween would slap together. Either a tween or an adult with an endless capacity for self-amusement. Let's just say I was having a personal growth workshop moment, except I wasn't sobbing.

* Headline: Observation by the psychoanalyst I worked with three times a week for two years during graduate school, "The artwork kept you alive."