Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Paint like a millionaire.... I like this. Just read it on my favorite art message board, Wet Canvas. It's a positive statement of my favorite artists' quote: "Art can't be made by a poormouth." (David Smith) It's true that many of my artmaking (or artcensoring) fears have to do with wasting materials, wasting money, and ruining things. I grew up in a very careful, thrifty home. This was good for survival. Now that I've survived into adulthood, and want to make art full out, I need to be willing to believe that there's plenty of iron, plenty of paper, plenty of paint. In other words - stop poormouthing and make like a millionaire. 9:30:07 PM    comment []

Posting my actual bowlmaking hours Just had a wonderful, terrible idea. Can I count on the idea that no one is actually reading this journal? Why not post my daily hours here? And not just on my own computer? What if I say I intend to work on actual bowls 3 to 5 hours a day, but I post 0 hours, or 1/2 hour, or post 0 for days on end? Aargh. How embarassing. Not embarassing enough to keep me on focus, necessarily - but maybe enough to nudge me a little. Anyway, here's my intention: to start every morning in the hot studio (that is, the blacksmithing forge) and work there on actual bowls - right now, the two that I've started - for 3 to 5 hours a day. Only after that, will I do color studies or drawing practice, computer work, etc. I'll post my daily hours on actual bowlmaking here. Probably no one actually reads this journal, but I'll never know for sure. 4:30:19 PM    comment []

Drawing Today I'd intended to get more intimate with one of the bowls I'm making, by drawing it realistically. In other words, this wouldn't be a slow contour drawing or a quick gesture drawing, but a "regular" drawing. It would be a way to practice drawing and gain intimacy with the bowl at the same time. As I set up to do this, I became aware of the great "drag" on my energy. Maybe this was a mistake? Finally I remembered about trusting my hands. OK, I'd ask my hands. My hands said yes, draw. (I used a special technique to ask and get the answer, which I'll describe another time.) OK, my hands said draw. I'd draw. Finally I started. Almost immediately, I sank into the trance of art. I had been anxious, tense shouldered, tight. Once I began drawing, I became calm, relaxed, open. All that tension and delay, and it was so easy! 4:24:52 PM    comment []

"You're only a girl...." - two dreams about what's holding me back: Two dreams last night seem to be showing me what's holding me back from full immersion in my work. In the first dream, I found myself buying something expensive that I would never buy for myself, to please a rich friend's child. Right after that, I was in the passenger seat of a car; then a woman sat on my lap. Dreaming of being in the passenger seat is usually a sign of taking a victim position. Here, I became a human cushion! In the second dream, an older man was patronizing me. He didn't ask me about my work or life, just kept bringing up famous women. "How about Eleanor Roosevelt? Do you admire her?" It's as if he had found only a very few women worthy of notice in his long life. Then, just as I was about to ask for another cup of tea, he asked me to dust the room before the rest of the guests came. Later, when they did come, I saw that they were outside in the sun, sliding down a watery slope into a beautiful lake to swim. (That's the "full immersion.") I decided to swim "later, maybe." In contemplating this dream, I wondered who this man represented. What popped up is that he's my Inner Patriarch, the part of me who tells me "you're only a girl. You won't be able to do anything great anyway, so why not clean? Organize? Do the things girls are good at?" That made the earlier dream fall into place. In that dream, I was buying for a child what I wouldn't buy for myself - and after I'd decided not to. So I think these two dreams are showing me parts of myself that are holding me back from full immersion in my work. There's the part of me that automatically sacrifices to please a child, (perhaps especially a boy)even after I've decided not to. And there's the part of me that says "You're only a girl...so clean, organize, be helpful." It seems as if both work on an almost unconscious level - so automatically, so "under the surface" that I believe they're my real urges. For example, my two recent posts have been on the theme of "organizing." And recently I thought I just had to spend time cleaning up instead of making art. And last night I was considering not going to a party, in order to accomodate a granddaughter. The trouble is, there's nothing at all wrong with these impulses on the surface. Order and cleanliness are good. Making children happy is good. It's the "you're only a girl so these are the things you do" that's the problem. And it's the forgetting that I'm invited to a party - a swimming party - that's the problem. Rather than focus on the problem, on what's been holding me back, I think I'll focus on the beautiful lake - and that I'm invited - it's up to me to swim or not swim. 10:27:19 AM    comment []