Thursday, March 20, 2003

Highlights of my week: twice-weekly Robert Genn email letters I've mentioned that Wet Canvas is my favorite art message board. There's another mainstay in my art-nurturing environment. This is the painter Robert Genn's twice-weekly letter. When I see this in my email Inbox, I'm always pleased. I know I'll be stimulated and encouraged. Shortly after subscribing, I bought his book, A Painter's Keys. Even though I'm a sculptor, rather than a painter, I learned a lot from this book. Genn teaches much about living and working as an artist. He posted the first chapter on his site. Each email letter has a link to a web page of correspondence responding to the previous letter (and sometimes to previous responses.) Artists all over the world post here. It's quite a community. You may well want to subscribe. 11:03:21 PM    comment []

Practiced drawing the other bowl (If I count this, then time on actual bowls today totals 2 1/4 hours.) When I went back down to the studio this afternoon, it was clear what to do next on each bowl in progress. I wasn't absolutely sure about drawing the second bowl before working on the iron part of it, but after today's experience it seemed like a good idea. So I did. I'm using my new Durer grid to do these practice drawings. Yesterday I experimented a little by doing one drawing (sketch really) using the grid, and some more freehand. I could see how much more accurately I drew using the grid. Also I saw the bowl differently, saw it more. Question: count this drawing time as "real work time, really working on this bowl?" For now, I'll do it since the previous drawing practice on the other bowl helped so much. Over time I'll be able to tell better whether drawing a bowl is an essential part of my new process, or just a nice extra. 7:24:29 PM    comment []

Peter Elbow on writer's block Lots of ideas here are applicable to visual art problems as well. http://www.tc.cc.va.us/writcent/handouts/writing/writblock.htm 2:59:54 PM    comment []

Making a new creative process (time actually making bowls so far today, still the same 1.5 hours) As if that weren't enough, I'm now thinking that yesterday's drawing practice - of this same bowl in progress - may have prepared for today's breakthrough. I'm really working out a new creative process in order to make these mixed media bowls. I had a process that worked for me, to make the spontaneous iron bowls. So I often feel discouraged now when I grope around, seem to waste time, need one technical experiment or tool or color study after another - and just don't know how to make these bowls. I remind myself that it took months - at least - to develop the process for the iron bowls. And the paper and iron bowls are a lot more challenging, both in technical process and design. My standards went up too - both for finish durability, and for my own health and safety. Most of all - I kept pushing to go deeper, go deeper - not realizing I was pushing myself off the edge of safety. So I want to be patient with myself, compassionate - and at the same time, keep moving to make a new process that works. It looks as if drawing practice, especially drawing bowls in progress, may be an important part of this process. Life is so exciting. 2:21:36 PM    comment []

Mad with excitement.... (time actually making bowls so far today: 1.5 hours) What a morning! I'd almost forgotten what it's like to feel almost mad with excitement. I'd dragged and pushed myself down to the studio with the intention of working in the blacksmithing forge. I went into the Nest clean studio to get a lid for my coffee. (Floor dust, coal dust, and steel flakes are unappetizing.) "How do these bowls want to be made?" It occurred to me to take another look at the empathic responses I'd done for one bowl. Somehow looking at these notes gave me the idea that possibly, just possibly, this bowl would look good on a lighted base. I found my box of lighted base supplies, got out the bowl in progress, and tried it on a lighted base. No good. Maybe later for another bowl. But in trying the lighted base, I'd also tried a quartz crystal sphere in the center of the bowl. Still not it. (I'd tried this weeks ago.) But while I had the box of quartz spheres open, why not take a long shot and try an amethyst sphere? As soon as I placed the amethyst sphere in the center and stepped back to look, I felt a jolt of excitement in my solar plexus. The bowl now had heightened energy, radiance, presence. Wow! To check the light base I'd also used the bent iron base I'd tried with this bowl weeks ago and rejected as not quite right. With the amethyst sphere in the bowl center, and with the bowl positioned just right, this base now looked perfect. Suddenly this bowl is practially done! I had some joyful moments trying different colors of cord and wire to loop around the edges of the bowl. I found a great color I never would have expected to use with this. Now it's right because of the amethyst sphere. As I was replacing the boxes of colored cords, it hit me that I never would have had these cords, in this full range of colors, had I not gotten so involved makeing paper medicine bags back in 1987. That's how I started my bead collection too - to use with the medicine bags. I usually think of that year as a lost year, because I made production items instead of bowls. So it was wonderful to realize that this "wasted year" is now proving indispensable for the bowls I'm making now. What a blessing it is, when life seems to come together like this. Everything seems luminous, sacred, ecstatic. By writing this now, perhaps I can encourage myself at one of the darker times when I believe I've wasted time, even years. It was Rick Berman back in 1988 who told me, "No time is wasted." How hard it is sometimes, to believe this. How easy it is at other times, to know absolutely that it's true. 2:14:27 PM    comment []