life on the island by karin sanborn

I am hard at work on acquiring the next rejection letter for my files. I pursue things which add value to my development. I decided to retry for a competition I've been rejected from for years. One more time won't hurt. There is a lot to be gained from being a printed publication that reaches all of New England. Nothing happens without showing up each day to try. I am spending my valuable time AND money to keep trying. Every effort adds breath into this new life. One day I will defy gravity. Mark these words.

The work I chose to submit seemed trivial, just an exercise with no purpose. I ripped long strips of rice paper. I made marks with my left hand; dragging sticks and Hockamock swamp reed ends dipped in ink all over the paper. I threw the ink too. That always feels great. Recently someone said it all looked like dirty paper towels which was not exactly a compliment. So what. I loved making it and it is mine. I took it to the photographer's studio and stood it on its head because I had no idea how to present any of it. I stopped caring and just made it playtime. No one was going to die if this creation wasn't going to be the next Mona Lisa. I am not going to say rejection and disappointment doesn't exist because of this new attitude. It is just that that sort of thinking only tears down the fragility of this invisible thing I love and I won't do it. I just whisper it's ok, you are good enough for me. We all grew up in the same galaxy where you are either an outsider or 'in the club' with the popular kids. I can be a queen on the island of misfits and can also be proud of it. Come all ye spotted pachyderms and jelly-stained faces. We belong. We will built a boat and save ourselves.

The saying that art holds a mirror up to life is about looking from the outside in, not from inside the eye, looking out which is lizard brain activity. Most of us stumble in the dark, blind, and accompanied only by our reptilian cave reactions which often lead us repeatedly to the same pointless circles. But fumbling without light is good work. Time, money, and energy flushed down life's drain and wiped up with dirty paper towels are all important steps in living and learning until something starts to shine light back.  If you can see as a mirror does, excellent job on your part. Please go into teaching, the world needs you.

In Language Is A Virus, Laurie Anderson sings 'Paradise is exactly where you are right now, only much, much better'. I think she was suggesting to stay put and just look at everything another way.

rising and falling

spirited away

cradling

out there

Clay Bits and Digital Pieces by Andrea Zimon

Eine Kleine Nacthmusik
'Lainey'

When I made pottery as a child in school, I cannot remember why I didn't pursue it further. Maybe because it wasn't practical for me at the time. It was messy, it needed time, and  it required a kiln. These elements were not within the boundaries of my childhood. 

Two years ago, I took a pottery workshop and enjoyed it but the same reasons applied as above.

Here yet again, I am in a ceramics class except now things are different. I can make messes in my house because I have my own art space.  I can take my pieces home to work on them when I want so I have the time. And since I am in a class I have access to a kiln. 

So why the picture of the horse? Simply because the blog picture leads the article and I wanted something with a punch of color other than my grey pinch pots. Lainey stood nicely enough in the paddock for me take her picture.  I then started to digitally alter her.  She normally doesn't have geranium on her side. 

When the World Seems Crazy Make Baskets by Sarah Feragen

 Hello All,

I've had a very full summer. A couple of trips with family followed by celebrations , special events, and parties. This hiatus from my work has created a new perspective. I took down my wall of plant work from DW. Field. It was time to shake the etch- o- sketch and start fresh. Sometimes our own work can become oppressive if we think we have to continue in a certain way.

I started to veiw these simple crocheted baskets as color expressions.Then I pulled out my stash of old fabrics and began to match combinations that felt lighter and brighter. I added embellishments ( as it struck my fancy) to further enhance a feeling of delight. I sense this is developing towards a dioramma type expression but I'm not sure how that is going to work. The form, the meeting of sculpture and painting seems inenvitable, I just don't want to push the process. It turns out better when it flows through  the doing.

                                                             
 I'm searching for that feeling of discovery,
like the image was there                                                                   all along.

I keep eyeing my husband's Hawaiian Shirts because I love the colors but he won't give them up no matter how many holes there are and how far into fall we are. Do you think he'll miss just one?

Love,
Sarah

one love by karin sanborn

Research is a fascinating undertaking. I never expected an academic pursuit to have the  impact of a physical event, but it has. Something part of me is changing shape, growing, getting more elastic. For the last 9 months one name from the annals of recent contemporary art history refused to leave me alone. Peers & teachers alike continually made suggestions to dig deeper into this one artist. Her name was Ana Mendieta.

In the beginning, I had preconceived notions about the artist along with a sense of complete alienation when looking at the work. With a ready surplus of elaborate justifications a mental barricade went up against the need to look further into this legacy. What a joke. Studying teaches me one thing if nothing else; learning is no fun without an open mind. Ana Mendieta's shadow has been holding a silent vigil on the exterior of my locked house, waiting for the occupant to exit. Just today I decided to go outside and  make peace with this stalker.

One doesn't have to personally admire or be like someone else to share in a common root. To court the earth in a direct relationship to the body as a sculptural medium is both awesome and humbling. Behold the macro and the micro together here.There is empowerment in an unspoken feminine commonality where the two components meet. With that understood, the imagination is free to roam the universe unimpeded by polar judgments. This takes me to the same place where the Hubble spacecraft is out exploring unknown images that may one day provide more inside into what our existence is all about. Until then, it is a spectacular ride. Thank you Ana Mendieta for hanging around so I could hear this thought of my own reflected back through your eyes.

Mendieta stated:
My art is grounded in the belief of one universal energy that runs through everything: from insect to man, from man to spectre, from spectre to plant, from plant to galaxy.
My works are irrigation veins of this universal fluid. Through them ascend the ancestral sap, the original beliefs, the primordial accumulations, the unconscious thoughts that animate the world. [1]

The timing of this post coincides with an outdoor activity facilitated by me during the MMAS 2016 Arts & Music Festival. Click on the mud tree for this earth art event information.

[1] Mendieta, Ana. ‘A Selection of Statements and Notes’, Sulfur, vol. 22, 1988, 70

Ghost by Andrea Zimon

One day I looked over my shoulder and I saw a ghost. 

Sort of.

Where I create my art there are a lot of glass surfaces.  It is also a large room.  My

sculpture is located at one end of the room and I was sitting at the other end which is when I snapped this picture.

When I spotted this, I was intrigued with image and how it got there. 

And I was amused that it became a ghostly ARTifact.

Of Decay by Andrea Zimon

I have been writing intensely for the past couple of weeks.  The subject I am working on is uninspiring but I must do it none-the-less. As a result, I have writer's block.

Sometimes drawing helps me to hear more clearly what my brain wants to say. 

I don't necessarily want to go my studio. Then the 'help' becomes procrastination. 

So I draw usually on the back of an envelope. 

Occasionally 'art stuff' will end up on the office desk, 

like these remnant sequins from another project.

I decided to make a temporary collage with the sequins and the drawing. 

'Of Decay' are the only full words on the paper together hence the title which is the best I can do under the circumstances. 

Craft Paint by Andrea Zimon

I think I really re-found my artistic joie de vivre as a result of an emotional response.

My grandmother had passed and I was allowed to take from her house whatever was important to me. Among many things I took was a collection of craft paint.

Prior to my grandmother’s passing, I was not using craft paint or much else as I had been stagnating artistically. But in going through my grandmother’s art supplies I realized she had been stuck, too – fearful of not making something beautiful or correct. She had bought a bunch of things in preparation to create that perfect piece of art which sadly didn’t happen.

I realized that to best honor her and myself was to start creating and stop worrying about the final product. In doing so, I was also able to process her loss. 

The craft paint stumped me at first as with what to do with it as a paper artist. At that time I probably would have been inept with finger paint, too. Then upon advice given to me by a book by L.K. Ludwig, I started painting with it using a credit card to spread it on a paper surface.

Using a so-so watercolor as a base and I started dragging the color around with the card. Most of the craft paint on this work was not applied using a paint brush.  At the time, I still didn’t like it even with the craft paint but now I find the piece interesting. It serves a reminder to just to produce and follows the theme of Karin’s recent post.

My grandmother’s passing was sad but it had a silver lining because it made me realize that I needed to create art and to not be stuck to in my own rigid rules and play

 or per Sol Lewitt :

“Do!”