adventure Friday

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” --Mark Jenkins

Pear

"Subtle astral colors... are hidden in everything around you. Could you but see, you would be amazed at their beauty." --Paramahansa Yogananda

dark matter

"Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain." --Carl Jung

blues + greens

When you say "I feel Blue" they know what you mean.
How about when you say "I feel Green."?

"I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling." --Frida Kahlo

"D" is for Day Out in Denver

I haven't had an artist date with myself for a while - been finishing two pieces here in the studio and sort of stuck on another which is not moving forward right now.
Time to get out and find some inspiration.
I still need to check out the Denver Botanic Gardens, even in this fallow time, before the snow hits Sunday.
Or maybe a journal date, in a cafe, with journal and markers and some good coffee; because The Muse just might show up if I make a date with her . . . .

"You can't make either life or art, you have to work in the hole in between, which is undefined. That's what makes the adventure of painting." --Robert Rauschenberg

greenness.

Gorgeous day out.
Gotta go on a walk.

"I am inspired by experiences in nature that I term sensuous: the feeling of sheltering trees overhead, the translucence of leaves with sunlight coming through them, the awe of rock formations above and around me." --Dona LeCrone Walston

just enjoying the process . . . .

"Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire. A mystic sits inside the burning. There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch. But it's a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight. Stay here at the flame's core." --Rumi

art = expression + vision

Two walls I photographed in NYC:

"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman." --Oscar Wilde

just let loose.

"There is something else to be said about this immediate, spontaneous way of working, and that is this: in such moments, one is playing at the game of creation." --Henry Miller

in the flow . . . .

Yesterday I suddenly found myself with a totally empty calender, no errands needing doing, and no one needing a ride anywhere until 7 at night.
ahhhhh, BLISS.
I plunged into the "Journals Gone Wild" journal, and somehow awesome things just flowed all day.
Here are two pages from the day, and then I am going to show you what happens when a scanner and a computer loaded with photoshop are lurking dangerously close by in the studio:


So what I do next, is to scan these pages, and I examine them for interesting bits, maybe a part that has wonderful colors or shapes that attract me. I cut out that part and play with it in photoshop - running it through a filter or two, or upping the saturation and contrast. Then I copy it and flip it around making four squares of the same piece, thus making patterns out of the page. Then I use the quick mask tool to merge two such pages together, making a more interesting set of patterns. These new collages then can be used again in the journal as background pages, or as part of new collages.
Photoshop is so awesome . . .
Here are two of the results - bet you can tell which pages they came from:


"Tools and techniques ought to be an extension of consciousness, but they can just as easily be a protection from consciousness. Then the tools become defence mechanisms... against the unconscious." --Rollo May

where does it come from?

See how mail art creeps into my journal?
It really is a great way to collaborate.
I was asked where I got my images for my collages from - the answer would read like a wiki page: postcards, mail art, magazines, ephemera, papers I collage, my own paintings and doodles, photographs I take, on and on and on.
Last week I wandered into a local coffee roaster and I LOVED their little catalog, yup, it ended up sewn into my latest crazy journal as a signature, and I am using it to write dreams into, a sort of journal within a journal.
When I need inspiration, I just grab some papers and play.
Or open up photoshop to my collage papers file, and choose a few and mess around. Something usually happens, and if not, I put on some music and dance a bit. . . . wait for the magic.
Like any practice, the more you create, the more you snap into the creating groove when you sit down to work.
It's really just finding the discipline to just do it every day.
Like Nike brilliantly says:
Just
Do
It.

"I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired..." --Richard Wagner

Mail Art Monday

Today I hit the mail art jackpot, with envelopes filled with goodies from South Korea, South Africa, the US, and Greece.
Lots of these bits and pieces will get collaged into my journal, I love mail art - collaboration with four corners of the globe, it brings a richness and a texture I would never get on my own - thanks world!

"I've done some collaborations which have ended up like Chinese whispers, but the most successful was with Tilda Swinton... Together we transcended our previous work and made something better together than we could have done apart." --Cornelia Parker

not for the museum or even the wall.

"Begin at the beginning," the king said "and go on until you come to the end. Then Stop." --Lewis Caroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

new banner - maybe.

"Experimentation is the key to "lively up" the art." --Bob Marley