Monday, July 28, 2003

Patterns and juggling Two or three weeks ago, I worked out the basic pattern involved in making the paper and iron bowl sculptures. Forming the paper and iron, and integrating other materials, is the first step. This may or may not involve a separate design process with photographs, sketches, and full scale drawings. Right now the pieces I'm working on are made more spontaneously. It's the "finishing process" that spans the most time. There are weeks of daily work interspersed with weeks of drying time. The drying time just takes space - "protected drying space" that's dry enough, the right temperature range, and relatively dust free. My new dehumidifier, combined with air conditioning in the summer and a heater in the winter, takes care of the drying climate. I worked out the weeks required: a week or more to apply the base coats of Direct to Metal (DTM) paint on the iron (red primer, 1 or 2 coats of gray primer, then two or three coats of white or black. Thanks to the dehumidifier, I can do the top of the pieces in the morning, then the bottom of the same pieces later the same day. a week to let the DTM paint cure to full hardness a week to apply color with artist acrylics - usually Golden fluid acrylics a week to let the acrylics dry fully. (Can sometimes photograph the piece at this point, before varnishing.) a week to apply the clear acrylic varnish to the iron - two or three coats six weeks to let the varnish cure to full hardness before waxing it. (If the piece hasn't already been photographed, it can be photographed sometime during this period or at the very end.) Of course things go wrong. I may paint the iron with artist acrylics, then hate the results so I repaint. Something in the rest of my life may interfere with daily applications of paint. Etc. But this is the basic pattern: 11 weeks of finishing, after the paper and iron are formed. Forming them could conceivably take just a week or two, for a total time span of about 3 months. For these first pieces, it has taken me much longer. At various points I've done technical experiments, found or made new tools to solve problems, set up new spaces, etc. Or I've just needed time to look. The advantage of this long finishing timespan is that there are clear weeks of drying or curing, during which I can start new sculptures or do something else like paintings, collages, or cartoons. Clearly for me the sculpture process takes priority, while giving me "weeks off" if I want them. Last week was one of these "weeks off" while the DTM paint cured. I used it to make eight small paintings on canvas. At the end of each painting session, I treated myself to an even smaller spontaneous painting in a watercolor journal. I thought of these journal paintings as mandalas, although they're done very loosely indeed. Mostly I'm happy that I stayed with it till I finished the paintings. They're not signed and varnished, but the actual painting is done. Many thoughts of doubt and discouraement popped up during the week. I did my best to just let them flow through without disuading me from continuing to paint. Now I'm excited about the next steps: scanning them in to the computer, seeing what I want to do with the paintings and sections of the paintings - for reproductions, notecards, and pieces for collage. So right now I'm finding a way to juggle two balls at a time: the bowl sculptures, and paintings/collages. The cartoon ball is still not in the air. It will be. 10:15:40 AM    comment []

Thinking about thinking In recent years I've been exploring different approaches to thinking and feeling. One basic approach is usually called "cognitive therapy." The idea is that thoughts create feelings. To change feelings, change habits of thought - the "grooves in the brain" that create moods, feelings, sense of well-being or not. This is a popular approach, with well documented success, so there are many books on it. Some of the books I use include The Now Habit, Depression is a Choice, Happiness is a Choice. Currently I'm using a book I've mentioned here recently, Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting. Right now I'm reading Loving What Is. Another basic approach emphasizes feeling feelings fully, letting them flow through you. Gendlin's method, Focusing, describes this. One of my favorite books on relationships, The Ten Second Miracle, claims that if you allow yourself to feel any emotion full strength for ten seconds (about three deep breaths), it will pass - evolve onto a new feeling. And my favorite book on natural vision improvement claims that allowing feelings to flow through you freely, is the key to clear eyesight. A third approach involves not thinking at all - or at least, using thoughts as a tool when needed, rather than identifying with the mind. Eckhart Tolle's books and audio workshops are wonderful sources on this. My partner loves Kabbat Zinn's books and meditation tapes. The book on meditation, We're All Doing Time, is also wonderful. When I began writing this, I saw the three approaches as working on different levels. "Not thinking" is the most fundamental level. If you can do that, everything else is "solved." I see the second level as awareness of thoughts, and consciously choosing which thoughts to entertain. And the third level is simply allowing any feeling to flow freely. You can work at any level quite effectively. Now, having written this far, I see more unity among the approaches. They all involve heightened awareness. They all have to do with a conscious choice of how you use attention. (I used to say, "Your greatest power lies with your attention.") And they all involve a sense of flow, movement, aliveness - allowing thoughts and feelings to flow through without attaching to them. That ugly sense of digging oneself in deeper with obsessive negative thoughts, or sinking into more and more negative feelings, is liberated into a sense of movement and change. So what does this have to do with art? It has to do with keeping the artist alive and kicking - able to function creatively. Eckhart Tolle says that all real creativity comes from the space beyond thinking. It worked for Mozart. 9:47:46 AM    comment []