Day 26

Day 25

Hideaway with several hundred people.

Day 24

Day 23

Day 22

Day 21

Day 20

The last couple of days I've been feeling a bit slumpy about my art making, questioning why I am doing it in the first place.  Sometimes, I seem to lose perspective on where I am going with my work and what I am doing it for. It's days like these I need to remember my own previous rants on creativity, that it is something innate within us all and should not become yet another proponent for guilt and self doubt. I have to go to work this morning and have not completed a new drawing for the day but will have one later this afternoon. Today is a day just like any other day, yet completely new and different. I wonder what will happen.

As the day went on, I was able to feel excited about doing some drawings tonight. I couldn't quite scan these because the paper is too big for my scanner, so Iphone pics will have to do for now. I think what I'm struggling with lately is this desire to simply make art. It's when I start to over-think and plan and control my work, it looses all the air. When I'm just letting it happen (which I'm afraid sounds careless) but seems to more readily open this flood gate to the point where I'm racing to continue, to really just play with images and colors, and explore what is going on there, where there are no words or logic. I think when I start to control the work, it can trigger in me a confined feeling of conformity, which I have always battled with and tried to run away from. I need to learn how not to run away completely, to leave some chaos, but to add touches of order in small doses. I do need to play with the chaos a bit more I think though.

Day 19

The point isn't to figure out what it means but to watch where it's pointing.

Day 18!

"We could be there, feeling off guard, not knowing what to do, just hanging out there with the raw and tender energy of the moment. This is the place where we begin to learn the meaning behind the concepts and words."

- Pema Chodron

Day 17

Day 16

Day 15

"You need not leave your room. remain sitting at your table and listen. you need not even listen, simply wait. don't even wait; just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. the world will offer itself to you freely, to be unmasked. it has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

- Franz Kafka

Day 14!

I've had fun the last few days just playing around with mark making. I really haven't had an agenda, just kind of letting the pen/pencil do the work. I have been looking at loosening up and really observing the power and subtlety of lines. 

I've also been painting and trying to look at my paintings in a new way, not as something I'm trying to conquer or accomplish but simply as a playful exercise, like drawing. I'm really starting to breathe life into them and go into them. I had a dream recently where I suddenly realized I was dreaming. I knew I had to act immediately before I went back into the dream, that of dreaming which feels like and becomes reality in a sense. I knew this was not reality but whatever I wanted it to be, freedom! I decided I needed to do something that I could otherwise never do. I could do anything! I was in my bedroom but there was a huge tv on top of the dresser. I decided to jump inside it. Once I got through, my view opened up to a huge expanse of space on the beach and then in the ocean where a huge whale was swimming around. At this point, I guess I began to go back into the dream. I noticed I was halfway in the tv and halfway out and their were shards of glass all around. I was basically stuck and had lost control. But I bring this whole experience up because I feel like I'm starting to hit on this with my painting. I'm not there yet and I still keep getting stuck but there is this point when I'm swimming out in the ocean with the whale and my critical mind has been washed away. I see that I can have some say in my reality and the way I look at life. These paintings are reflections of my experience and I just need to jump through the tv with confidence.

Day 13

Day 12

I found doing this drawing to be really meditative.  I sat and did a few quick drawings of these blobs that always start to become people. I'm starting to see the drawings in a sculptural form and look forward to working with clay a little this week. 

"Art is a continuous activity with no separation between past and present."

- Henry Moore

Day 11

These drawings were inspired by a photograph of the artist, Paula Modersohn-Becker, a german expressionist painter. I actually just discovered her work in a book yesterday and was really drawn to it. She was starting to transcend into emotional, expressive work, inspired by Gauguin, Cezanne, and others. She was working at the time of the founding of Die Brucke, when other artists, like Nolde and Rohlfs were also getting their start. She apparently avoided the bright colors often used during this period but carried the tradition of more free-formed painting, even being influenced by Egyptian mummy portraits, which I totally relate too. Unfortunately, this woman died very young, right after her child was born at 30. It would be amazing to see more of her work if her life hadn't been cut so short. I decided to do these rough little drawings in honor of her passion and exploration of expressionism. I plan to do a painting as well.

Day 10

Day 9

After midnight but who's counting?  I had fun drawing tonight. I stopped worrying about creating a great image and just played around, drew with my left hand and just felt more freedom and obviously lost track of time.