Doors, not the band

I love our Summer bubble! 5.5 miles to a Summer
restaurant job. 4.5 miles to the local organic foods
store. 4.25 miles to the beach. 0 miles to make art
or garden. I broke out of the bubble last week, and it
was worth it. My husband, a 4th grader teacher, often
says that both learning and growth always involve
some level of discomfort. The discomfort, of course,
is temporary.

Minneapolis is one of my favorite cities, so being
there is pretty comfortable. Sleeping on a dorm bed,
on the other hand, was not. The greatest challenge
last week lead to what may be one of my greatest
breakthroughs to complete a cohesive body of work
for Reassurances: Incantation Bowls Reimagined
--Doors. Enter the disclaimer that I am not a big
Doors, the band, fan. My doors are somewhat surreal
though, like the lyrics of the band.

Doors are a natural progression for this body of work.
The ancient incantation bowls were buried under the
threshold of front doors of family homes. Taking photos
of doors and really thinking about the experience of
walking through them was key. So, I walked around
Minneapolis College of Art and Design last week and
took photos of opening doors. Open doors and the
space around them, instead of my first drawings of
cold closed door fronts, lead to the door break-
through. Yes, the metaphors abound. By the way, I
just decided Opening Doors would be my band name,
if I had a band.

In-progress, experimenting with
displaying curved out from the wall

Possibly finished, temporarily entitled Door #1
gouache, charcoal, coffee staining, carbon transfer

Breakthroughs

Just got back from a workshop for art educators at the
Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Dawn calls it Art
Camp for Big Kids! See her blog post.

That is me working on a collaborative drawing at MCAD,
Experimental Drawing with Val Jenkins
Photo Credit: Dawn Rossbach

Still in the decompression stage, but I do know there
were breakthroughs, and the beginning of a new series of
paintings/drawings of doors that will most likely be included
in the Reassurances exhibit I will send out to Pennsylvania
at the end of August. Another thing I know is that break-
throughs do not happen without a little or a lot of struggle
and frustration. Not sure why I need to constantly relearn
that! I will post images of my doors soon.

My (imagined) conversation with Eva Zeisel

"All negative attitudes inhibit the process of creation; they
stop the joy of aesthetic play... Only the positive attitude
of generosity, a friendly dialogue with our work from the
beginning to the end of its development, will produce
pleasant variety." Eva Zeisel, from Eva Zeisel: On Design.

The design of Eva Zeisel has always made me smile and
relax, but today the words of Eva are inspiring as I am
working on the incantation bowl project. All of these parts
need to somehow fit together into a cohesive collection,
ready to show in September. Need to maximize my time
before September--tell me what to do Eva.

Eva Zeisel's Town & Country "Schmoo" Shakers
Red Wing Pottery, 1947-1956

Eva said, "I have rarely designed objects that were meant to
stand alone. My designs have family relationships. They are
either mother and child, siblings, or cousins. They might not
have identical lines, but there is always a family relationship."
Got it, a cohesive body of work is a happy family reunion.
Note: Need to weed out the reunion crashers or the ones
who really do not want to be there.

"We should not be embarrassed by beauty. In fact, beauty,
harmony, loveliness, elegance, and usefulness...should be
what we designers strive for today in the twenty-first
century." In a 2008 TED Talk, Zeisel said, "We are actually
concerned with the playful search for beauty." You tell 'em
Eva!

The playful search of beauty is a great way to make art--
and live. Eva died December, 2011 at the age of 105.
Thank you Eva for teaching us to be bold, graceful, and
subtle all at once. According to Lance Esplund, she was
"never frail", and "strong yet delicate." Her works are
"hybrids of plant, animal, and human forms. They relate
to one another like members of a family."

Crox. We are all hybrids.

What do you get when you mix a crow and a fox?
A crox? A tail-heavy bird? A winged vulpes? Earlier,
I was thinking I had to choose between the fox and
the crow, but recently I more fully realize that the
best stories are about life's juxtapositions, contra-
dictions, and even hybridizations.

In-progess Large Litany Bowl

During the last two weeks of the school year, I have
spent a lot of time dreaming about gardening, especially
flower gardening. The scavenger in me is gathering
perennials that other people are thinning out, using
recycled culvert ends as planters. The teacher in me is
not having it with all the daydreaming and insists that all
the classroom checklists be done before my hands dive
deep into pulling out my inner gardener or the neglected
artist.

The waitress in me is breaking out again after quite a
long hiatus, and anxious to pay off a few bills and talk
to adults. The mom and wife in me knows how few
Summers there will be with our kids at home, desperately
wanting to go to the beach while desperately avoiding
chores. And the artist in me knows this all ties together
somehow.

The artist most easily hybridizes all of this and knows
that we are all hybrids--of our families, of our roles, of
our dreams.

"Creativity takes courage." H. Matisse

Have been reading some of the writing of Brene' Brown
lately. We all need reminders like hers, daily. Brown
hits home with her writing about courage and vulner-
ability--to be vulnerable takes courage, and avoiding
vulnerability is the most disengaged and unfulfilling way
to live. This is why I post my art here, and continue to
put it out there.

Hearing You Not Being Heard

I'll never forget the day that I sent my work out
to an artist cooperative in NYC to be viewed as they
considered me for membership. Besides the fear of
a fragile sculpture getting smashed somewhere along
the way, the vulnerability and fear of my own ego
getting smashed was excruciating. So why do it?
Why put myself through that? The only person who
could truly understand that day was my graphic
designer sister-in-law. I remember tearing up as I told
her, "No one will ever know, if I don't get my work out
there." The more I think about it now, that was the
beginning of the realization that I need to make art to be
me and to connect to the world and others. I was feeling
fragile, but it was exhilarating when the gallery got back
to me. Yes, the sculpture made it there okay. Yes, they
wanted me to be a member of the gallery!

The more I put off this need to make art, the more sick I
feel about facing each day. Being authentic and having
the courage to be vulnerable is the most hopeful way to
live. Yes, there are rejections along the way and many
people who just don't get it, but allowing the fear to win is
a way of rejecting yourself. Thanks Brene' for leading me
to what I hope to be a new breakthrough in my art,
parenting, and teaching!


“What’s the most significant barrier to creativity and innovation? 
Kevin thought about it for a minute and said, “I don’t know if it 
has a name, but honestly, it’s the fear of introducing an idea and 
being ridiculed, laughed at, and belittled.” "
― Brené Brown

“Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability 
determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our 
purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being 
vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.” 
― Brené Brown

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how 
the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have 
done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in 
the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who 
strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, 
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who 
does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, 
the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at 
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and 
who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.…” 
― Theodore Roosevelt

"Connection: Connection is the energy that is created between 
people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give 
and receive without judgment." 
― Brené Brown

I am the Mom?!

About 7 years ago, I was awoken on a Saturday morning
to the kitchen sounds of clanging and digging in forbidden
places, kids enjoying the freedom of sleeping parents.
The sounds brought back memories of my three younger
brothers--all fathers now. I fell back into the slumber
thinking, 'Mom will take care of it.' And then I shot up to
sitting in bed with the realization, I AM THE MOM!

Are you the crow or the fox?

Am I the crow or the fox? Depends on the day,

I guess. These characters are taking over the illustrations

for this body of work, and taking on a life of their own.

Just finishing up the small bowl series, Not Seeing Us.

See Them Not Seeing Us

DEADLINE: Opening Sept. 12th in Allentown, PA

The contract is signed and we have our first Reassurances, 
Incantation Bowls Reimagined exhibit scheduled! It will
be up September 12th through October 17th, 2014 at the
Lachaise Gallery of Cedar Crest College in Allentown,
Pennsylvania. It is a great space with a lot of possibilities
and natural light, and I look forward to meeting the
students and staff of Cedar Crest College next Fall.

For a few years, I have had time to experiment, read,
write, and play, but deadlines are a great thing. Thirty
unfinished projects are awaiting completion. Lately, I've
been repeatedly saying, "It is a start, but it isn't Art yet."
The beauty of deadlines is that they force me to make
those final leaps, risks, and connections.

Below are some sketches that will soon be illustrations in
in the centers of small bowls for the Against Want bowl
series based on the incantation poem This is a talisman
against want by LouAnn Muhm.

"abacus clack, not enough, not enough, not enough"

"constant weighing, what is held against what is needed"

Scavengers

My recent bowl illustration has two crow forms
tessellated like twins, surrounded by a ribcage or shell
form and LouAnn's haunting and visceral words, "Always 
into the glare... banished from this place...through 
that bony canal... sob air into new lungs."

I have developed a fondness for crows. I meet them daily
on the winter drive to work. Their solid, shimmering, dark
bodies contrast the snowy roadsides. Scavengers, willing
to put themselves on the edge to survive--sometimes
haunting eyeless shadows in the periphery, other times,
graceful blue-black dancers. But scavengers, always
scavengers, and I am often amazed at how they not only
survive, but thrive into such large birds.

Scavenger was my nickname when I was a counselor
and the arts and crafts coordinator at a YMCA Summer
camp in college. I dug in the dumpsters for cardboard,
searched for rocks and sticks in the woods--whatever I
could find to make art with campers on a small budget.
The camp director gave me that nickname, but what he
didn't know is that I really didn't mind. Scavenging
energized me. I was not only surviving, but thriving and
learning how to make something out of next to nothing.

Avoiding Perfectionists and 4 Other Serenity Moves

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the
enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped 
and insane your whole life...  Perfectionism is a 
mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are 
the artist’s true friend. What people somehow 
(inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when 
we were children was that we need to make 
messes in order to find out who we are and why 
we are here...”  Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird.

Serenity Moves for Spring

1. Keep remembering that perfectionism is the oppressor. As a recovering perfectionist, I avoid perfectionists who are in denial, or at least do my best to not allow that insanity to reinfect me. 
2. Embrace temporary messes as necessary to progress. And of course, insist other people clean up their own messes and don't be a perfectionist freak about how they do it. As an Art teacher and a mother, this one has taken me quite a few years to embrace.
3. Keep the focus on people, not things. One of the best moments with my 9-year-old daughter last Fall was right after she broke one of my favorite (and most expensive) coffee mugs. She looked at me in a panic, terrified. I walked over and didn't even look at the mug, just focused on her. I gave her a hug and said, "You are way more important than a coffee mug." (If only I could always keep my cool like that.)
4. Mud is a necessary part of Spring. Embrace it. We live in a new home with a moat of mud all around. Mud means that Summer is coming. Mess = Progress.
5. The surest path to serenity is gratitude. 

Serenity Deer is looking out for us. My oil pastel demo to students this week.

Against Want

 

It's really happening!

I can not explain the progress of our collaborative 
project any better. So, below is LouAnn's recent blog 
post. I have said it many times before; Spring is a 
great time for creative energies. The time when those 
hibernated ideas climb out and insist upon being 
heard. The time when I get this Spring urgency for 
action, passed down from generations of farmers... 
Time to embrace new growth.

Litany Bowl Series, Shaggy Tinder

It is really happening!
by LouAnn Muhm, louannmuhm.com
March 22, 2014

After two years, and much planning, dreaming, and work,
Reassurances: Incantation Bowls, Reimagined is getting
ready for its debut.  We are pretty sure (contracts in the
works) that the collection will be exhibited in Pennsylvania
in October of this year. It is truly amazing to think back to
the inception of this crazy idea (read more here and here)
and to realize that Tiffany Besonen and I have actually
made it happen, with the help of the Minnesota State Arts
Board, Region 2 Arts Council, and a number of individuals,
most notably Jennifer Heath, who was there when we had
the idea, helped us talk it out, and has supported it all along.
Jill Odegaard is doing the same now, helping us finalize all
the moving parts, and helping us imagine new moving parts.

The bowls pictured are smaller, more fragile ones, each
with one line of a poem called “Litany”–a list of my
wishes, for myself and for the world. The small bowls are
as beautiful as the big ones, and their fragility echoes the
fragility of my hopes. Both require careful handling.

I am continually amazed at the way Tiffany’s visual
images enhance and expand my understanding and
appreciation of my own words.  Writing poetry is such a
mystical process, and writing these incantations has been
even more so. Listening to Tiffany’s process of thinking,
and seeing how her imagery has evolved–now crow and
fox are emerging as themes, with all their mythical,
metaphorical and symbolic richness–has made my own
process deeper and more meaningful.  This is the beauty
of collaboration. The work of the collaborators intertwines
and informs itself and becomes something wholly different
than the component parts alone.

Stay tuned for more definite news, and thanks for being
interested.

LouAnn Muhm is the recipient of an Artist Initiative 
Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This 
activity is funded, in part, by the Minnesota State 
Legislature from the State’s arts and cultural heritage 
 fund with money from the vote of the people of 
Minnesota on Nov. 4, 2008.

Litany Bowls Series

Currently, I'm making more progress on Reassurances:
Incantation Bowls Reimagined, an art and poetry
collaboration with poet LouAnn Muhm. LouAnn wrote
the poetry. I am creating the illustrated and inscribed
bowls. Exhibition possibilities are becoming more of a
reality, really moving this project forward.

Now I am working on adding LouAnn's words from her
incantation poems onto the surface of more bowls. Uniting
the words and illustrations onto the sewing pattern paper
surfaces proves to be a powerful and long-anticipated
process--a coming together of three art forms to create
one. Ideas are brewing about how they will be displayed
and how they will interact with the viewers.

Below is the series of smaller bowls, each containing a
line to Litany, an incantation poem by LouAnn Muhm.

As far as we know, the ancient incantation bowls were
only really viewed by the maker(s) and the family before
they were buried under the threshold (and sometimes
windows) outside of the family home. 

About ancient incantation bowls:
In 2010, I was educated about the large numbers of ancient 
Babylonian incantation bowls, 6^th-8^th Century CE, that have 

been unearthed in Iraq since the 1990s. Although there are some 

variations, most ancient incantation bowls are shallow bisqueware 

forms with a simplified character painted in the center and an 

incantation against a particular fear inscribed starting along the rim 

and spiraling toward the illustration. Each bowl and its incantation 

was created for a specific family’s plea for assurances against fears 

and was buried upside down, under the threshold of the family’s 

home.

Relief & Reunion, 6 years later

Yesterday was in the 40s! Yesterday was in the 40s! After
70 days below zero here in Northern Minnesota since
December 1st, this is news and such a relief. Living in the
coldest place in the contiguous United States, I often think
about the Canadians North of us. Why aren't they whinier?
Impressive.

People are buzzing around, and breathing out a collective
sigh. Our dog, Wimpy, is diving head first into snow banks
and coming up with a mouthful of snow and a doggy grin.

LouAnn, art collaborator and dear friend, and I went skiing
in the woods yesterday. I've been wanting to get out to the
curved fallen-pine site deep in our woods for some time
now. Six years ago I placed these AMBIOTIC sculptures in
our woods and began documenting the change over a couple
years. Other projects took precedence, yet I've been
wondering. The anticipation to reach the site was building
yesterday, and then they appeared. It was an overdue
reunion. The first thing out of my mouth, "They are so
dark." Over time, they have darkened, shifted, shriveled,
become more ash-like, and recently lichen-coated.  

"Brittle expectancies", from one of LouAnn's recent
incantation poems, seems fitting here. (Click on images
to enlarge and see better detail.)

6 years, 2008-2014. Sewing pattern paper, wax, wire, gel medium.

2014. The words and graphic markings of the sewing paper still there.

2014. They may look like ice, but there are still some beeswax edges.

2014.   Taking on hive form & texture, with some added lichen-coating.

Maybe this was an exercise in patience, or aging, or letting
go. Five years ago in the post Can you be still?, I wrote,
"A year in the woods. Today, February 1, 2009, deer tracks
lead the way back to this place. Once again, the resiliency is
encouraging me to be in winter, be still, and watch. Like water,
I tend to flow in many directions, but not today."

A special thank you to Mr. Besonen for grooming the ski
trails and making my art time possible.

View from under the installation in 2008

Detail in 2008

Brittle Expectancies

Fragments of bowl illustrations

Working on more illustrations that will become the centers
of small incantation bowls. The fox are playing within the
textures of Muhm's incantation poem Litany.

From Our Husks

Wound to Wound

The first painting I loved

 "It's incredible how much you can learn about a painting by
spending a lot of time with a reproduction." Donna Tartt's
character explaining the first painting she loved, The Goldfinch.

At age 9, I studied the cards from the art auction board game
Masterpiece, highlighting the permanent collection of the Art
Institute of Chicago. I memorized the artists, the titles, but not
the dates. (Hmm, typical, always avoiding numbers.) I owned
those card-sized paintings, held the museum in my hands. At
age 24, I finally visited the Chicago Institute of Arts and saw
the works in person. Renoir's rosy-cheeked sisters. Seurat's
obsessive dots. Caillebotte's wet Paris street. Cassatt's soft
mother and child. Wood's serious Iowans. It was moving
to finally see these in person, but it was the reproductions that
first etched the work in my memory and gently scratched my
psyche.

My favorite card from that childhood game, Nighthawks by
Edward Hopper, 1942. (I had to look up the date.) What
about this captured my 9-year-old attention and imagination?

Edward Hopper, Nighhawks, 1942
Oil on Canvas, 33"x60"
Art Institute of Chicago

Later in The Goldfinch, "a really great painting is fluid
enough to work its way into the mind and heart through all
kinds of different angles, in ways that are unique and very
particular. Yours, yours. I was painted for you." 

I suppose growing up in rural Minnesota, landscape paintings
and traditional portraits seemed quite common place. But
standing on a New York street corner and peering in on total
strangers may have seemed exotic or mysterious. Not as jolly
as Seurat or innocent as Renoir. This amount of dramatic color
and value contrast is something I still find moving in paintings.
Before seeing this, my 9-year-old self didn't know that art
could be this moody or narrative. I know now that Hopper's
critics thought his work was about isolation and depression,
but for me the richness of color and how each viewer creates a
slightly different story about these four characters is probably
what drew me in all those years ago.

For me, the most powerful art brings up more questions than
answers. As artists, we know we don't have all the answers,
but we generously share the mysteries. The wonder. I never
yearn to be 9-years-old again while viewing art I love--already
there!

Progress & Idea of scale

Progress on making more small bowls.

An idea of scale compared to a medium apple.

Small Bowls, 10" x 10" x 5"h
Larger Bowls, 19" x 19" x 7"h

Sewing pattern paper, resin,
wire, gel medium, tempera,
paint pen.

Weightless Polar Vortex, Exile for Artists

So, the new semester has started at school. New classes,
much like the craziness of the beginning of the school
year--without as much sunlight or time to prepare. BUT,
I do feel the difference with recent sunlight increases and
have started to set up a new studio nest in the lofted space
of our house. (Our new house, also known as as the polar
vortex exile. If we leave, we will most likely die... in
Northern Minnesota in January during a polar vortex, this
isn't an exaggeration.) Feels great to have some of the
weight of teaching a new semester lifted, and time to think
about something else--my own art, perhaps?

Time and Space, artists are always begging for more
time and space. Now that I have both for a few days,
a weightless sensation has taken over and these seemingly
weightless small bowls are forming. Working smaller than
usual, adds to this weightlessness.

Just one layer so far, more will be added to strengthen,
illustrations for the centers need to be added, and then
each small bowl will be inscribed with a line from Litany, 
an incantation poem by LouAnn Shepard Muhm for our
Reassurances: Incantation Bowls Reimagined project.
Details of a small bowl in progress:

O Crow, O Fox

O Body incantation bowl, with added crow in center of cancer cell/cage

Somehow the crow and the fox have become a part
of this incantation bowl narrative. The playful, witty, yet
vulnerable aspects of these animals lend well to these
incantations against fears. Also, the folklore and other
symbolic associations with these animals add to the
dialogue.

New bowl in-progress, Against Want

Lack that devours
(sewing pattern paper, tempera paint)

Sketchy & loose, growing visual metaphor

How do you transform word to visual metaphor?
There is always the risk of being too literal, too
medical illustration-like. Yet, I have to start
somewhere and my sketchy lines are beginning
to sow the seeds.

Sketchy and loose, here is a start to what will
be the illustrated centers of many bowls based on  
Litany, another of LouAnn Muhm's textural
incantation poems loaded with metaphor.
I shared these sketches with my students
recently, since they are working on illustrating
metaphors from song lyrics.

from our husks

 

reveal what is fulcrum

Smudgy Orbs Across the Room

A lot of new adjustments lately. 

First, the glasses. I now know I have been in denial for
20 years about needing glasses for distance. It turns out
that trees are not just quivering green globs, and my family
members' faces aren't smudgy talking orbs across the room!
What else have I missed? The intensity of color and texture
at every turn is amazing, and a little dizzying as I adjust.

In my defense, my close-up vision is excellent and I don't
miss much detail of anything close (my daughters' sweet
faces before we hug, my husband's recent stint with beard-
edness), but it turns out that even an arms-length is getting
harder to see. According to Twyla Tharp, everyone has a
focal length, "All of us find comfort in seeing the world either
from a great distance, at arm's length, or in close-up." Of
course, focal length is metaphoric to Tharp, but this has me
wondering if this may mark a shift in my own art work.

Other dizzying shifts. A month ago, we moved into our new
house a day before I moved into my new Art classroom.
Spaces have shifted, systems disrupted. What? When did I
become so inflexible? From age 17 to 27, I was nomadic--
many jobs at a time, moving often. I used to be better at
change--resilient. But also, I was perpetually unsettled.

All of this moving has created more space for art making.
This is great news for making sculpture, which takes up so
much room and can not be rolled out of the way or pushed
flat against a wall. So, it is finally time to get back to making
the bowls!

The first of many reimagined incantation bowls, O Body, O Incarnation,
inscribed with an incantation against cancer written by LouAnn Shepard Muhm.

In 2010, I was educated about the large numbers of ancient 

Babylonian incantation bowls, 6^th-8^th Century CE, that have 

been unearthed in Iraq since the 1990s. Although there are some 

variations, most ancient incantation bowls are shallow bisqueware 

forms with a simplified character painted in the center and an 

incantation against a particular fear inscribed starting along the rim 

and spiraling toward the illustration. Each bowl and its incantation 

was created for a specific family’s plea for assurances against fears 

and was buried upside down, under the threshold of the family’s 

home to ward off the fears.

The Naming

My current project is a collaboration with poet LouAnn
Shepard Muhm. Last week, we agreed on a name for this
project, Reassurances: Incantation Bowls Reimagined.
Below is the first 'prototype' bowl.

Detail of O Body, O Incarnation Bowl
(reassurance against cancer)
sewing pattern paper, epoxy resin, wire, paint pen

Why is it that once named a project seems more official?
More possible? Yet, the naming can not happen too soon
in the process. For me, that can be too limiting, too soon.

Maybe this is one reason why it freaks me out a little when
pregnant mothers name their unborn babies so soon and talk
to and about them with that name. I will look around and
wonder, "Who is this Henry she keeps talking about? He
sounds important. Oh right, the unborn baby." Too limiting,
too soon? Don't you want to see the child first? Of course,
the process of knowing and then naming happens through
more than just seeing. People tell me there are other senses
beyond seeing. Being visual, I can't really hear them...

So, back to the name, Reassurances: Incantation Bowls
Reimagined. We were ready to give this baby a name,
and we have some bowls and poems to show for it.
Here is what the title means to me, so far.

• Resassurances: comfort, removal of some doubt or fear
• Incantations: a rhythmic and thought-provoking poem
• Bowls: a concave vessel form, more difficult to create than you may think
• Reimagined: reinterpretation of an ancient art form, to form a new conception

Sneak peak at a bowl in-progress

Sewing pattern paper, epoxy-resin, paint pen, wire

Second Winds

Have been working toward many second winds
lately, especially since it has finally been over
40 degrees and I have started to run again. Is
there any better feeling than a second wind when
running? Well, besides eating the second bowl
of icecream after running. Who would have thought
that Jack Sparrow (you know, the pirate) would
be a good running companion? When I don't feel
like running, or doing housework, or grading
student work lately, I think about this:
"The problem is not the problem. The
problem is your attitude about the problem."
Captain Jack Sparrow

Getting a second wind is exhilarating, but not
always predictable. Teaching, parenting, and
building a house require second, third, and fourth
winds. They will come, usually not as soon I
want, but isn't that what makes them so
exhilarating?

Feeling a bit of a second wind with my art lately
too. The work More or Less, below, was sent
off today to be in the permanent collection of
Finlandia University Art Gallery in Hancock,
Michigan. It will be in a group exhibit this June
during FinnFest USA 2013.

Asking for Help. Step 3: know who to ask

A month ago I had a few posts about
asking for help, soon after the revelation
that I am asking-for-help-impaired.

Step 1: admit it, everyone needs help
Step 2: realize that asking is connecting
Step 3: practice asking for both small & big things
(Expect and respect that some people will decline,
nothing personal. Also, remember how you like
to help others. Most people don't mind and often
are honored.)

Improving involves both learning to ask
many people for the small things, because
you just never know, and knowing who to
ask for the big, important things. Still
working on asking many people and not
worrying so much about bothering them.
But not just anyone can assist me on a big
project like my current one, and I found
her! Meet Trish.

Trish is helping me create a few bowl
forms out of sewing pattern paper, mod
podge, gel medium, etc. When done I will
inscribe the poems of LouAnn Shepard
Muhm on the inside of them. Read more
about our incantation bowl collaboration
here and on LouAnn's site here.

Trish jumped right in and is keeping me
company too, since my tolerance for
repetition is incredibly low.

That feeling of Asymmetry

It has been two months since the surgery that
removed half of my thyroid and a tumor. I am
feeling grateful... and asymmetrical. Not sure
how to explain this asymmetrical feeling, but
it must be a sense of knowing something that
was once there is now gone. I know, I know.
I am still healing, be patient.


Asymmetry (2013), 9"x12" on paper
NYC subway, Scissors, thyroid region drawing,
My running path near home in green
(Made during a Commit2Create online class
with Kari Maxwell, karimaxwell.blogspot.com)

Normally, I am grateful for more daylight and have
a hard time tolerating the complaints about weather
from other Minnesotans this time of year; it is their
attitudes that make this time of year more unbearable.
But these historic low temperatures and snowfalls are
creating another sense of asymmetry. There are
supposed to be glimpses of Spring by now. I know it
should be there, and expect mud when I step down.
Where are the budding leaves and light-weight
jackets? When the green grass attempts to grow
lately, another 3" of snow will cover and suffocate it.
I know, I know. Patience, young Skywalker, patience.
 

Reaching (2013), 9x7"
felt, embroidery thread, acrylic paint
(Made during a Commit2Create online class
with Kari Maxwell, karimaxwell.blogspot.com)

When I explain asymmetrical balance to my
students, I say, "To achieve it you can not depend
on a symmetrical, predictable system. It is hard to
define when an asymmetrical work is done, except
that it feels balanced and complete...You aren't
done yet. Persist, but try to enjoy the process
without forcing it."

Like most of life, this feeling of asymmetry
requires tolerance of uncertainty. Healing and the
weather are unpredictable, asymmetrical. While
doctors have statistics and weathermen have fore-
casts, artists and teachers know better. We have
the present, and will be slogging through the mud
and wishing for Summer soon enough.

After 5 years, "i am water" is home

After its five year tour through 14 states, I unpacked 

my 2-panel, painted collage i am water last night. Is 

it possible to be envious of a well-traveled artwork? 

I did accompany this work to New York during my

2007 solo exhibit at the SOHO20 Gallery in

Chelsea, but since then it has been touring with the

group exhibit The Veil:Visible & Invisible

Spaces to college campuses all over the United

States.

In 2010, I got to view the veil exhibit when it was

at California State Dominguez Hills near L.A.,

just before it was taken down. During that 2010

trip, I repaired the fragile sewing pattern paper

edges of the work, so it could endure three more

years of travel. It held up well since then, much to

my relief and that of the curator, Jennifer Heath.

Unrolling the 2-panel painted collage last night, above.
It is still in great condition, despite being mainly
made of sewing pattern paper.

Me and the poet, LouAnn Shepard Muhm
Just after this 2007 exhibit at Finlandia University
in Hancock, Michigan, i am water
began its five year journey.

i am water has the words of my poet

friend, LouAnn Shepard Muhm, block

printed upon it. The two panels read

like this:

i am smoke                   when i can be

more often i am water 

in the shape of               my container

The Veil: Visible and Invisible Spaces press release:
The Veil: Visible and Invisible Spaces is an exhibition,
curated by Jennifer Heath, of thirty-six works of art,
each of which considers The Veil, its many manifestations
and interpretations and puts veils and veiling into context.

Visible and Invisible Spaces intends to engage received
wisdom about the veil - particularly current clichés and
stereotypes about Islamic practices - and to reflect on
the great ubiquity, importance and profundity of the
veil throughout human history and imagination. Visible
and Invisible Spaces asks artists to investigate the veil in
its broadest contexts. The exhibition will be divided into
three categories to be interpreted widely: The Sacred
Veil, The Sensuous Veil , and The Sociopolitical Veil.
Visible and Invisible Spaces, however, is not a
documentary exhibition.