ArtiphyTheHeart

The Seer...

... For Crowabout #58, Creative Catalyst #85, Created By Hand, and Theme Thursday

The Carnival...

We all know that there's a first time for everything, and often its the singular impact of those "first times" that set the stage for the "rest of the times" in our lives.  My first onset of bravery and outspokenness, together with the way it was handled by my parents, set the stage for a lifetime of not being afraid to speak my mind, but also taught me to think before speaking.  

The theme for this week's creative catalyst is "the scariest or most daring thing you've ever done".  Before I begin to tell you about my scary and daring moment, it's necessary to consider that bravery is a relative concept.  An act of bravery is dependent on many variables and factors.  It's relative to fear, time, place and perception.  So when I tell you about my experience, please keep in mind that I was five years old, attending my first fall carnival.  It was outdoors, Halloween night, pitch dark, and occurred at a time in history when parents weren't as afraid for their children as they need to be now.  For some reason, I found myself not quite lost, but temporarily separated from my parents, and holding a big bunch of tickets in my hand.  So I walked into the bright lights of the midway all by myself.

The Scary Thing...

In the midst of all the open games, there was a closed, draped, tent which was beyond my power to resist.  I had to know what was inside, so I parted the curtains and went in.  It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, not only because it was much more dimly lit than the midway, but because the scene was in complete contrast to the noisy booths outside.  The walls and ceilings were lined and draped with multicolored silks, and glittering specks of light moved about the room.  Finally my eyes settled on the turbaned figure in front of me, eyes deeply shadowed, face lit from below the chin by the light of a glowing crystal ball.  At first I was too enchanted to be afraid, but then she grabbed my hand, at the same time taking about half of the tickets I was holding while she forced me into the seat at the table in front of her.  Then she proceeded to read my five year old palm.  I have no idea what she said to me.  All I heard was the deeply mysterious sound of her voice while I tried to look away from her shining face, but my eyes remained fixed.  Somehow I knew that this was exactly where I should not be, and as soon as she finished talking and let go of my hand, I tore out of the entrance and found my parents.  We stayed at the carnival another hour or so.  

The Brave Thing...  

Before I continue, there's something else you need to know about me at that time.  I was an only child, a bit shy, and I really spent my days just going with the flow.  I got along with everyone, and didn't push issues, throw tantrums or rebel against anything.   I didn't tell my parents about the fortune teller until just before we left, but they knew something had spooked me, and were waiting to give me the opportunity to say what it was before they asked questions.  As I told them the story, my feelings about it began to change significantly.  What had been my fear, converted into a sense of righteous obligation, and as we walked by the tent on our way out of the carnival, I dropped my father's hand and ran back inside.  The "gypsy" was bent backwards toward the exit, boxing up the decorations and entrapments, and I guess I startled her because she had a look of mixed surprise and anger on her face when she turned to look at me, but that didn't deter me.  I told her off.  Inside my brain, I was seeing the faces of kids I knew who were younger than I, and I told her she had no business scaring the beejeebes out of children and taking their tickets to buy things for herself.  She stood up and began a sentence: "You little...", but my dad had walked into the tent so she stopped.  He stared at her with stone, cold eyes while he took my hand silently and steered me back outside.  I thought he would be angry with me for running back in there like that and for talking to a grown-up that way.  But the only mention he made of it at all was once, in the middle of the ride home, he said, "Sad, how easily some people will abandon their freedom for the hope that someone will determine their future."  I don't think we ever spoke of it again.

The Seer...

As I was cutting up this week's collage sheet for the Crowabout group, the only thing on my mind was color.  I had painted the background a few weeks ago and it was perfect for the colors in the images.  It was while I was arranging the pieces that memories of the carnival and the fortune teller came back to me.  And I still think it's funny that I don't remember a word she said.  In fact, I remember distinctly that I wasn't hearing her the entire time she was speaking as she read my palm.  But I remember my father's words, verbatim.

Now I'm ready to

Brew another cup of tea

Finish filing collage images

Get back to work on a series of papers I'm designing

And try to stay awake (it was a night of interrupted sleep), and

Put some music on!

Have a great day, Everyone!

I Want To Ride My Bicycle, I Want To Ride My Bike...

...I Want To Ride My Bicycle, I Want to Ride It Where I Like!

When I look back on the things I did as a kid, two things stand out:  Painting, and riding my bike.  Not a day went by without art and a bike ride. 

A Day In the Life...

Painting was the catch-all term for everything artistic.  I could be lying on the floor of my room glueing and drawing, blending chalks and pastels, or constructing a shadow box, and if anyone asked where Barbara was, my mom would tell them, "She's painting".  Probably because most of what I did ended up with at least a little bit of paint on it somewhere.  I've always mixed my media.

In between times, there were dozens of other things I did, usually with friends, and unless it was happening at my house, I ended up riding my bike to it and back from it.  I wasn't really conscious of it at the time, but all those short, solitary bike rides to and from friends' houses and meeting places add up to a lot of collective time spent in thought.  Or maybe out of thought would be more accurate, because really, I didn't spend that time so much thinking, as noticing.  I looked at things.  Everything.  Relevant or irrelevant, it didn't matter.  It was all important.  It was all there to be seen, heard, compared and contrasted, and I did this like breathing--without thought.  The entire world was my source of information.

Patterns...

Not to say I never thought.  I spent plenty of my other time thinking about the things I'd notice on bike rides, and everything else, too.  For instance, have you ever noticed how related themes and patterns seem so often to occur simultaneously?  When I was growing up I'd notice that in a given evening, the themes on TV shows would often follow the same basic thread.  For instance, if the first sitcom I watched that evening dealt with a hit and run accident, the next one might have a patient in the hospital who had been hit by a car, and a third might revolve around a teenage son learning to drive and in the course of it, almost hitting someone in a crosswalk. Entirely coincidence that all of them aired on the same night;  None of the studios cooperating with the others or planning a blitz .  

And while some of the more obvious patterns do occur by choice, often seasonally such as harvest themes in autumn, the patterns I've always been keen to notice are much more obscure. The more hidden patterns in life just seem to leap out at me and say, "Here I am"!  I couldn't always connect the dots, but I knew that somehow, on some level, connections existed and could be found.   

I didn't know it at the time, but pattern recognition is one of the great gifts of artistic participation.  Because I created pattern, I recognized pattern.  I could see it on the outside because it was what presented itself onto paper from inside myself.  

They're Everywhere...

It was always fine until I mentioned this to friends, who'd roll their eyes and say, "So what?"  But I found identifying patterns interesting enough to not let any of that bother me.  Besides, I couldn't not notice what was so apparent to me, even if I tried.  So I just kept painting and riding my bike.

In high school and college, this pattern recognition made learning languages, math, biology and chemistry much easier.  Later, out of school and in the world, I noticed that in practice, medicine, psychology and forensics are all about identifying patterns, as are marketing, behavior research, and everything Wall Street.    A government service job I applied for required an I-Q type test for placement.  I wasn't told my score, but I was called in for interviews based on my knack for--you guessed it--identifying patterns and relationships.  What they suggested to me was so far off from the job for which I'd applied that I scrapped the idea entirely and went to work somewhere else.   Still painting, and for exercise and pleasure, riding my bike.

Connecting the Artistic Dots... 

Back to my childhood, on Saturday mornings I'd ride my bike to the art museum for classes.  I started there when I was four, and continued into my teens.  The museum was my safest haven.  It was a huge, echoing monument in stone to everything important.  Even at 4, I knew that my artistic pleasures were also my most serious work.  In the basement of the museum, I created with others side by side, most often silent to the ear, but loudly communicating our connectedness as we expressed our respective individualities in quiet.  

Aside from the benefits of the classes themselves, which thankfully were nothing like some of the structured agendas presented in the school art programs, the building itself contained all things extant and all possibilities under its one, huge roof.  Each work of art held it's own collection of infinite stories.  More than the history of a period and a study of technique, each piece held and holds the biography of the artist as well as the biography of the beholder.  The sum of these two contains the entire history of the universe.  

But even more than history, art is communication, and each work of art is a conversation.  On the way home from the museum, riding my bike, everything I noticed on the way over had been transformed through my experience with art.  The ride home took the same streets and passed the same buildings, but it was new terrain.  Without realizing it, I had discovered a great truth:  Everything is new when you emerge from the deep sea inside yourself, the place where you dive to retrieve the pearls of art.

Connecting Challenges...

I still paint daily, although I spend more time now driving a car than riding a bike.  I've spent the past week immersed in acrylics, creating various textured backgrounds to use in collage, and been having more fun than you can imagine making collage with the Crowabout group.  With only a couple of exceptions, most of the images used in Bicycle Ride came from our Saturday morning collage sheet.  When I began cutting and moving the pieces around, all the memories of bike rides past and a lot of the circumstances surrounding them came back like a flood.  The next time I opened my in-box to check my mail, Creative Catalyst #80 was there.   It said, "Tell us about something you cherished as a child. It can be a toy, or anything else".  Nothing to think about here. Bike rides and art.  In addition, Illustration Friday's theme is "pattern", and Created By Hand wants to see texture this week.  Click to enlarge and the texture jumps out.

Today...

If I could get everyone where they needed to go strapped onto the back of my bicycle, I'd do it.  But reality dictates that my kids need to be transported in a car, with air conditioning and seat belts.  We're still experiencing 105 degree days, and when all is said and done, we travel about 60 miles each day on average, getting to and from the various places we need to go.

Along with other things, so far today I have been:

Wonderfully surprised by a phone call from the South Carolina wing of our An Affair With Art group

Thrilled by a package from another member containing more fabulous packages within

Catching up on email 

Sipping tea, and

Preparing myself for the blast of heat when it comes time to open the door and go out into the hot afternoon

Have a great day, Everyone!

Summer...

...And How "Heat" Is Merely An Anagram For "Hate"...

Heat...

Yesterday was Thursday, but who knew!  Surely no one here.  It's too hot to think.  If we weren't experiencing this cool spell, I wouldn't have been able to figure it out even today.  But now that it's merely a balmy 109 degrees, I can think again, and I realize that it's Friday.  Probably too late to play with the OPH group and their "summertime" theme, but I'm going to go for it anyway.  And I hope that dyslexia counts, because I answered Creative Catalyst #69 backwards.  They want to know the favorite thing about where you live; I've given them my least favorite.  Oh well.  Blame it on the heat!

Ink...

My ode to summer in the journal page above is probably 50% wabi-sabi, meaning, the ink may not dry permanently on the acrylic paint.  It has been my experience that when writing on acrylic, Sakura glaze and Souffle pens work perfectly, as well as the gelly roll whites.  But the gelly roll metallics, as smooth as silk and joyful to write with as they are, sometimes, not always, tend to smear on an acrylic base.  Why only sometimes?  I have no idea.  But because they glide so beautifully smoothly and look so fabulous, I write with them anyway, let them sit overnight, and sometimes even two days.  Some of the time they dry, other times they don't.  Regardless of weather.  So I usually don't use them on top of acrylic, but it's hard not to because they write so luxuriously smoooooothly!  When I just can't resist, I take the chance, and also take the photograph.  That way, if I have to wipe clean and do over, I'll have the original digitally immortalized.  There's always a toothy ground that I could apply to take the ink, but in this case, I wanted to retain the glazed layers and not matt-up the depth of surface (that unfortunately this photo doesn't show because I'm presently Photoshop-deprived).

More Heat, Possibly...

Which brings me to a real bone of contention:  Adobe!  I still have yet to receive my X-plat upgrade to Photoshop CS4.  Adobe requires that the PC copy of CS3 and all it's components be removed and the software destroyed, and an Adobe document must be signed, received and "authenticated" before the upgrade for Macintosh is "approved".  The sticking point?  I've been without Photoshop for a month and a half.  After losing two affidavits two separate times, Adobe finally acknowledged receiving my document.  I began this process in May, and I am still waiting for the "authenticating" department to OK the upgrade.  In the meantime, as you recall, I was required to destroy software that I had paid for--software that I own!  Are there damages?  We'll see what the AG's office has to say, since Adobe has stopped answering my inquiries as to an ETA which I have been asking via posts to their support portal over the last few weeks.   To be continued....

On A Positive Note...

I've decided to close with a list of things that make me happy, so here goes:

The software update for Safari, the world's best browser!

IPhones, even though I don't own one

My hot pink Razer mouse

Sweet tea mixed with ice water over lots of ice in a frosty glass

The new video by director Anton Hecht which is on my Facebook now

And my NetChix pals, who keep me going even when I'm not painting and *gluening*!

Have a great day, Everyone!

  

"That Fourth Of July...

...When I Was Learning Chinese..."

I think you'll probably be able to read this page if you click it to enlarge.  The point of all this is that it took place over a period of time that included my 7th Fourth Of July.  And while the model in the photo does not look a bit like my mother, the scenario fits.  There is no question whatsoever that my mother could have given a fish a drink from a faucet while flying a plane on a mission in white kid gloves!  She was equal parts deadly-serious and fun-loving, which makes this piece a perfect fit for this week's One Powerful Hour challenge.

My parents were unique, having already lived their lives and careers before I was three years old and retiring--well, only "kind of" retiring--but that's another story.  

Roll the Credits...

Credits to Kohler for the ad, Tim Holtz and Ranger Industries for the stamps, Staz-On (Tsukineko) for the ink, and Sakura and Pitt (Faber-Castel) for the pens, Basic Grey for the paper, and K & Co. for the fish.  An extra BIG thank you to Sakura of America, who will be suppling me with a set of metallic pens as an RAK from the Creative Catalyst team.  

And a Note To My Facebook Friends, and Others Who Are Reading This In Syndicated Formats...

You can always read my notes in their original format, and view all archived posts and artwork, by clicking the link on my profile page to visit my typepad blog.  Questions?  Email me!

Right now I'm

Arranging a portfolio

Hoping to spend more time in paint and glue before the day is done

Feeling guilty for indulging my fast-food cravings...

..."Only one?, right!"...and no, I didn't eat both of them!

...And now that it has "cooled-down" to a mere 104 degrees at 8PM in Phoenix, we're on our way to watch the fireworks display from our back yard patio

Have a happy and safe 4th Of July, Everyone!

I Have My Weaknesses...

...But For This Page, I Concentrated On My Strengths...

It's good to be back and take some time to reflect. This week's Creative Therapy calls for creating art around some unfinished business in your life, and I was seriously in need of digging deep and extracting some of my more positive attributes.

There really isn't much to say about this page, except that I really wanted to free-hand cut out a paper doll, and when I was finished, the cut was clean enough to use the waste as a stencil.  So I did.  

...Cutting With Scissors

Freehand cuts are something that I've found I have a talent for.  I don't have to think much about them.  I just have a shape in mind and begin cutting quickly, but slowly enough to make decisions along the way.  My cuts usually come out clean because I don't hesitate, and therefore don't have to go back over the same spot twice.  

Sometimes if I'm stuck on drawing a shape with a pencil, I'll put the pencil down and grab the scissors.  Once cut, I can easily repeat the shape with the pencil.  You'd think it would be the other way around--pencil first, then scissors.  I'm aware of how the brain integrates small-motor information, and cross-training in cutting with scissors and drawing is valuable since practice in either area boosts performance in both.  But don't most people draw first what they plan to cut out?  

My thought about why it may work better for me when dealing with contours is that for people who draw quite a bit, with pencil in hand, the brain pulls in more information than necessary to draw just an outline.  The brain may be processing the possibility of fill-in, as well.  A subconscious process of weeding-out information may take place, causing hesitation due to the flood of minute decisions involved in the background, whereas with scissors in hand, the brain isn't processing the fill-in, just the outline.   I have no idea whether I'm right about this, but it is the kind of thing my geeky brain likes to ponder.

...On Brushes

Here's a tip you might find useful:  There is a school supply store here called The Learning Store.  It's a chain, but just how wide-spread it is, I have no idea.  This is where I buy packages of the inexpensive bristle brushes I use for acrylics and for gluing.  I think I get about 24 for $8.  The brand is Lakeshore, and the quality is good enough to take the beating of a third-grade class throughout a school year.  The brushes have tight ferrules and don't shed many hairs, and they have nice, short, elementary school sized handles which make them better for table use than the long handled brushes designed for working at an easel.  

I also buy bags of short, stubby brushes at about $6 for 24.  These have shorter, fatter, blue and red plastic handles with an extended plastic ring just beneath the brush area so that when you set them down, the brushes are slightly elevated from the table.  They were designed with less mess in mind, but for me, their short, thick and stubby bristles are perfect for stippling.  They work well as is, but sometimes I cut them down even further.  I think that one package of each of these should last the average artist a lifetime.  I'll let you know if and when I out-live mine.  

...About Photos

I really admire people who can shoot great pics that need no post-camera adjustments.  I am not among them.  When it comes to photographing artwork, my objective is always to make the piece look as close to the real deal as possible.  As far as I'm concerned, the fancy tweaks and enhancements have their place when the photo itself is art, but when photographing a piece of completed artwork, I want to see it as it is in person.  With my limited set of skills, I can't shoot the real deal very accurately, but fortunately, I do pretty well (getting better every day) in Photoshop.  So when it comes to pics of my work, I tweak to bring them back to reality, not to distort or enhance them.  

The page above was shot but not photoshopped.  The wizards at Adobe are in the process of validating my letter of software destruction before processing my request for a X-plat upgrade from CS3 to CS4.  Of course, before sending off the blood-soaked LOD which attests to the destruction of existing software, one must first have actually destroyed the software, which I did on May 24.  Do the math.  I've been without my already paid for Photoshop for how many days now?  So what you see above is not actually what you get.  For some reason, my camera reads whites too hot.  The background color is accurate, but in reality the doll is beige.  There is also lots of sparkle and the reds are a bit blacker in reality.  It's not really this flat-looking, either.  There is shadow and shine in the original, but any edits done in IPhoto affect the entire piece, so I can't selectively edit the pixels to give you (and me) reality.  Oh well.  I'll just have to wait for my upgrade, and keep waiting, and waiting......

Right now I am

Going to make a tuna lettuce wrap and

Get more work done

Browse a bookstore with my daughter and her friend

Spend some time outside enjoying what promises to be the last of days under 100 degree temperatures until November

Read more software manuals (which has been my only way of "practicing" photoshop since the requisite destruction of software)

Wondering if I am the only idiot good citizen alive who actually complies with these rules

Have a great day, Everyone!

  

Catalyst #26

What We Did Last Night...

Last night we went to hear Steven sing and play acoustic guitar at the Village Coffee Roastery.  Sadly, I have no video to share with you right now, just this photo from a past performance. 

There's quite a substantial youth art scene in Phoenix. Through the Arizona School for the Arts, Ballet Arizona, The Arizona Opera, various theater companies and dance troupes and The Phoenix Symphony, kids get professional level training along with their academic studies.  My kids are part of this talented group, which is a quiet force in an otherwise tourist and sports mecca. So when their friends perform, other friends, parents, siblings and the general public spend leisurely hours with good coffee, conversation, and great music. 

Passing The Time...

There's always a pair of scissors in the coin section of my wallet, a tin of colored pencils, pens, and a moleskin in my purse, wherever I go.  Last night I grabbed the biggest magazine from my to-be-cut-for-collage stash, and clipped, tossed, kept, and arranged various images at the table while we listened, sipped, and talked.  I found John and Yoko, the museum-like brick wall and stone floor, the quirky portrait of the queen, the bucket, the Steiff Karl Lagerfeld bear, along with the "bear market" sign.  I cut them all out carefully, and spent the time arranging them randomly, not really thinking about anything other than the conversation and the music.  When it was time to leave, I tucked them back into the magazine, and left them for morning.

And How It Relates With Today's Challenge...

This week's Creative Therapy catalyst was in my in-box first thing this morning, with the theme: "What's one talent/ability you wish you had?"   I thought about Steven, and I wish I could sing.  Really, I do my part for the world by keeping my mouth shut.  It's no joke, I truly can't sing, at all!   What a great release of creative tension it must be to just belt out a tune!  But that's not all. 

I grabbed the magazine and removed my cut-outs, and my mind ran something like this:  John sang, Yoko's an artist, Karl Lagerfeld is a fashion designer and a businessman, the funky portrait of the queen belongs on that museum-esque wall with John and Yoko in the bucket...which once held paint...and the chandelier belongs there too, so it's more of a funky, artsy, antique store--it's called Bear Market--and Karl Lagerfeld Bear owns, operates and designs it, just for fun.  He knew the Queen needed the extra flowers and flourishes, and they were also needed to balance the weight and color of the chandelier....and if I could have any talent/ability I could wish for, it would be to combine all these things and make them ME.  I would sing, paint, curate my own museum/antique market, dress in impeccable fashions designed by me, businesswoman par-excellence, sophisticated, but also as cute and relaxed as a bear in sunglasses!  And I'd turn my life into a collage where bare brick walls and stone floors hold gilt-edged frames of royal portraits, buckets of singers and artists, along with a spray of beautiful flowers, flourishes and a chandelier...and then I'd hang the sign.  Surreal, but grounded:  A mix of talent and artful contrast (but I'd take a pass on the belt buckle--no initials for me, please).

Have a great day, Everyone!

Black Is Back/Fear. . .

Challenges:

All my life I've tried to listen to the beat of my own, special drummer, which I absolutely expect no one, except me, to hear or to follow.  And there in the midst of the feast of artistic web challenges that the internet beckons us to partake in, I challenge myself with little goals that I would never, ever, impose upon anyone else.  One of my little rules for myself is that I never seek to combine challenges, and only post artwork with multiple submissions if, and only if, the piece itself naturally--not by contrivance--fits more than one theme.  It's my own challenge within challenges; a game I play myself that I expect no one else to play with me.  But once again, this week it has happened that I have a piece that so perfectly fits two challenges, I can't NOT post it to both of them.

This Thursday It's All About:

First, there is the Black Is Back challenge for "This Thursday It's All About. . ."  I found this wonderful image of the lady, all in black, and knew immediately that she'd be part of a two-page journal spread.  The typewriter is a Bartholomew's Ink stamp called "for ransom notes" from StampFrancisco.  I knew it belonged in the picture, so I stamped it on top of some reference text and thought about what might connect these two images.  I decided that the lady looked like a "Jane" to me, and there had to be a reason she was sitting, staring at the typewriter, purse in hand, with such an uncertain look on her face, when it further occurred to me that she was waiting for her publisher to show up, and she was definitely not ready for the visit.  It took only the black circled tissue paper and my pseudo-font-with-serif handwriting to complete the picture, and here you have it.  To read the text clearly, click on the picture to enlarge it.

Creative Catalyst #25:

Just this week I discovered another web challenge--not new, but new to me, called Creative Therapy.  The 25th catalyst for creativity which is presented this week is, "What's something you fear?"   Creative block is not something I suffer from.  If I suffer at all, it's usually due to a surfeit of ideas swimming in my head, waiting for paint and paper, scissors and glue.  But I do fear that someday the well might run dry, and this is what happened to Jane today, so it fits.   

Just one more thing before I end: 

Sherry is having a month-long blog party.  I'm a tad bit late, but yesterday she posted some questions for all her party guests (You can be one too!  If you want to play along, click HERE) to answer on our blogs so we could get to know each other a little better.  Here are my answers:

What type of job do you have?  SAHM and freelance artist
Where do you live?   Phoenix, Arizona
Where do you do your crafts/art work?  In studio space in my home
What is your favorite daytime beverage?  Tea and water
What is your favorite dessert?  Floating Islands
Do you watch soap opera's and if you do what's your favorite?  No daytime TV, ever!
What's the last movie you saw in a movie theater? Get Smart (kids' choice)

Have a wonderful day, Everyone!