Post Sale

Today was the Artist's Valentine sale, and my sister-in-law made a poignant comment about "so much wasted beauty." It touched her that artists put so much love and detail into these cards and she was sad that much of it was wasted, in her view. We haven't had as many people attend the sale as there once were, and our numbers show this. We could use some help with publicity. But still, none of it is wasted, of that I am sure. Artist's Valentine is a fundraiser, it is true, for a grant for artists, but it is also an important community builder for artists who often work on their own and don't get to mingle with others who share their odd compulsions.

But this entry is more by way of review for a blog I started a year ago. My original goal was to make one valentine a week, which turned out to be rather ambitious but I did average one valentine a month, and made several I truly loved, some of which sold today. So what now, I wonder. As an artist on hiatus, I have poured most of my artistic energy into yoga and raising a family, but there are seismic rumblings beneath and a strong yearning to get back to the studio.

I have long wanted to draw daily as part of my artistic practice. The artist Carole Rabe mentioned a book called "The Power of Limits" in her gallery talk at the Groton Public Library on Saturday, and spoke of the powerful use of limits in her work, limited palette, limited subject matter. And the paintings are divine. I also recall Jeanne Williamson's project of weekly and monthly paintings, working with a specific size for a set period of time. What limits shall I set for myself this year? I have such limited time for art and that probably won't change much until my youngest enters kindergarden. How to make the best use of the small amounts of time that I have? How to keep the embers glowing, so that they are ready when the fire needs to be re-lit?

No Valentine today, and in fact my valentines are curiously un-valentinish. But I figure that artsy people like to give people they care about cool cards, even if they don't all have hearts on them. This is from a walk in the woods with my dog yesterday, with a slight nod to Andy Goldsworthy.

These valentines were completed over the Summer. Islamic tile patterns, yoga poses, and the Sanskrit symbol for Om or Aum, the universal divine sound if you buy into that sort of thing. Which I do. I'll have to change this from a weekly blog to an intermittent blog I fear. Sanskrit is so beautiful, even if you goof it up, print the stencil backwards, then reverse it. A lot of these papers are from gelatin printing and paper marbling with shaving cream. I'm itching to try more paper marbling, but it's a big set up and clean up with little kids around. Maybe I'll ask for some supplies for Christmas. I dream of going for my MFA, of having a studio in a building with other artists that's not half filled with engineering books, audio supplies, and the other equipment that comes with an audiophilic mechanical engineer who is a lovely man and partner. But cluttered.

In a way they are all small acts of devotion. Imperfect, incomplete, but the best I could do for now. Children grow.

These valentines were made using a combination of papers from a gelatin printing workshop with Linda Branch Dunn, and some marbled paper from a marbling with shaving cream workshop (idea from Carol Hough) I did at home with the kids. I keep using the om or "aum" symbol, an ancient Sanskrit symbol signifying the universal divine, but on the darker valentine (printed with large bubble wrap no less), I accidentally inverted the symbol, but I still like it inverted and upside down. It's intriguing to me that it's no longer a particular symbol with a specific meaning, more an abstract shape with reference to ancient script.

My oldest (7) wanted to do a summer art camp this Summer, but instead I'm doing my own summer art camp at home with my children and my niece. So far we've done the paper marbling, a 3 part still life project with ink, watercolor and pastel, we've bought journals to decorate and fill and an indigo dying kit I can't wait to break into. There are more projects than time I'm afraid but we're all having fun and learning some art along the way. I'd like to expose them to more artists too, but I might have gone overboard with the Edouard Vuillard book. Any and all ideas are welcome!

The papers here are from a gelatin printing workshop with Linda Branch Dunn at the Groton Public Library. The fern thing may be cliche, but I love it anyway. The aum paper was printed with large bubble bubble wrap. Anna and I had a blast.

Temenos Trip

These are from a weekend in Shutesbury, MA at a beautiful, very high spiritual place called Temenos. These drawings are directly drawn from a carving in the rock done by a woman named Ellen Sidor. I love this image of the Jizo Bodhisattva for its simple, elegant lines and a potent inner grace. Imagine the colors of grey rock woven through with the varying greenish grays of lichen and moss. The images on the left are cards and the images on the right are larger drawings. The upper right drawing was done first, and even though the proportions are off substantially, in many ways it's one of the stronger drawings. As so often happens as soon as you bring out the nice materials like the 100% cotton Fabrian paper on the lower right, the drawing becomes stiffer. I may add color to the card on the upper left, but I'm not sure yet.

First, imagine this quite a bit greener, but that's beside the point. Handwritten lyrics inside from Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah:

Your faith was strong

but you needed proof

you saw her bathing on the roof

her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you

she tied you to a kitchen chair

she broke your throne and she cut your hair

and from your lips she drew a hallelujah

I'd work on it more, but I'm already 2 days past my internal Monday deadline of posting it, and it's time to start a new one. It's kind of a shitty little valentine, but then that is the point, to make one per week, good or bad. Of course, I imagine they'll improve, I haven't hit my stride yet. I took my oldest daughter into Harvard Square on saturday, her birthday and the first day of spring. She wanted to buy some grown up art supplies, so we went to Utrecht and I bought myself a cutting mat. Psyched! I wish I had brought a camera, she was luminous dancing to every street busker who played or sang a song, dancing with wild abandon and making me see a piece of myself I'd forgotten.