What I'm Not Reading

This is the book I started not to read after I heard the excellent Canada Reads program on the CBC.  I also heard subsequent interviews with Joseph Boyden and then my dad lent me his copy of the book. After reading a bit I returned the hard copy and bought a version for my Kindle which I read a little of and then stopped. That is why I am referring to it as the book I am not reading. I intend to pick it back up of course. My dad felt it was a bit brutal. It is. I like how the story is told through various voices. The writing itself is spare but descriptive. The part I have read, was violent but also magical and very real feeling. Since my trip to Smithers last year I have been thinking a lot more about the issues the First Nations face. The main one of those being how they are seen in today's and future societies. This generation needs stories like this to connect them to the history of Canada. And because I have not finished this book, that is all I can say.

Second Honeymoon

Celebrating 10 years of love, sovereignty and togetherness! Photo taken by a kind stranger south of Yachats, Oregon. A good trip that keeps getting better.

Sticks and Stones

How do you fill your days?
You may well ask.
What are your long term goals?
To become a better artist.

 Stick Pile #1

For the last 3 or so years I have been trying to reconcile my identity as a graphic designer with my identity as an artist. The process has been interesting and the outcome, a complete surprise.

  Stick Pile #3

This journey began with my first life drawing class in over 20 years in 2013. Drawing and painting got me back into thinking about art making. I read somewhere that you should never think about the why of art making when you are making it. They are two different activities and should not get mixed up together. That used to catch-me-up and stop me dead.

 Looking south on the east perimeter. Piles are 20ft apart.

Now I see things in simpler terms. After 20yrs, my time on this property is likely limited and so I want to  immerse myself in it while I can. It made sense that my statement would involve this place.

 The first 3 piles run south from the north east corner of my property.

People are starved for nature. It's being destroyed but it's everywhere too. Growing up between the cracks in sidewalks, sprouting in gutters. Art is there too, waiting to be called upon.

I caught a snippit of a headline that an eco conscious art curator I know commented on, and it made me re-visit the stick piles I began making when I first moved here.  And there it was, an idea I had had long ago resurfacing and the right moment. I have been waiting and watching, biding my time.

 Forest selfie with cedar debris.

My plan for the next 2 years, (I picked 2 because that marks a major milestone in my life as a parent) is to create a series of these stick piles around the perimeter of my 5 acre property. I am not going to think about why. I am going to pile things up and see where it goes.

Stay tuned.

Floating

 

I begin this in my living room on Saturday morning listening to a groovy collection of John Zorn music. New to me and highly compatible with my current state of mind. There are tulips blooming everywhere, the leaves are emerging and the mountainside is changing shape and color with every moment. The garden is coming together here and at the Urban Farm. The Japanese maple outside the bedroom window that reminds me where I am in time is greeting me with delicate chartreuse leaves extended on flaming red branches. On the nights when the moon was full and the night was clear the tree was black and white as if covered in snow. Waking and seeing it at first, I could not believe my eyes. It took a moment for my brain to understand that it was moonlight and not snow after all. I heard some good poems read and I saw a few concerts and reconnected with the dreaminess of listening to art performed. By chance we got a hand-me-down piano, something I have wanted for a long time but was not sure I could afford. My neck is healing. It has taken awhile and it is still not quite 100%. I am feeling reclusive, selective about who I see and what I take on beyond what I am working on. I think it is a healing response and at the same time I think it is a transition period for me.  Taxes—the most recent obstacle to my creative pursuits— are done. And today I am washing my office floor—preparing the space for work. Space to work gets lost in the chaos of life; hidden under paper, place mats and unopened bills. The truth is the cleaning is all part of the practice and that is why when the thought came to me to wash the floor, I said yes. This is an important part of my daily practice, saying yes to doing things, whatever they are. I stop myself all the time and consequently things have backed up on me, I take too long to do things. I am too sporadic. So the idea of the practice is to add consistency to the behavior I am working on developing. Why is it so challenging to give myself an hour a day where I take time to move my creative—non-work—work along? This is the hurdle, making time and doing it. Taking the time and sinking-in to do the deep work, without losing touch with everyday life, that is what I wrestle with. It feels like losing control but I know the only way to explore creatively is to let go, really push off from the dock and float alone into the darkness of the catacombs where it all originates from.

Stop gap

I am not dead. I am not ill. I am reflecting. Nothing new there but maybe there is a new depth to the reflection. At any rate, many things feel a bit trite at the moment like quippy little blog posts like this one. As you were.

Summation

This is what I am trying to achieve. The sensation of lying on my back staring up at endless openness while standing upright in the modern world. The sensation of sun on my face when skies are gray and complicated. The sensation of boundless joy while performing the mundane tasks of simply being alive. So far so good.

Manifesta

 

Drying plastic sheets for Nuno-Felting.

I'm super off track with the blogging. I am in deep self-care mode at the moment. I suspect I will live to procrastinate many more things, the painting, the writing, the endless crafty endeavors. Work is the answer. More work, more making, more sketching, more seeing, more doing, less thinking, less talking, less weighing, more breathing. I got invited to join a group of artists meeting to discuss art and the process of making art and the reality of being an artist. Initially I felt that it was what I wanted. I even thought the invitation had come to me in a sort of divine way. I went to one Salon style gathering and there were many very interesting people there but I felt ill at ease. I feel suspicious at the very idea of the thing. Is this normal? Is it just me? It takes a lot for me to get out into a group of people and I generally reserve the energy it takes to do this for clients and family gatherings but off I went. I even shared my work, I read a piece from this blog as an experiment. People were supportive but I felt hollow afterwards as I tend to. I am suspicious of this need to seek attention for things I have made. I connect it to bowel movements from childhood. My mother would applaud my stinky efforts. It mattered and it felt good to me and to her, both our jobs done. I don't want to talk about making art much in the same way I don't want to talk about my sex life or my bowel movements in public. Yes, I have sex and I really enjoy it, I spend quite a bit of time thinking about sex, I dream about it, I miss traffic signals thinking about it. I don't want to talk about it though. It's private. People do not want to listen to me talking about my sex life. I think making art is the same thing. I want to do it, not talk about doing it with people who have their own methods and manias, fetishes even, sexual and artistic. I enjoy the intimacy of art making and I believe the creative process is a solitary one and I am okay with that. I am superstitious. Whatever creative gift I have been given (as I write this I am stunned that I even thought that, a gift from who/where) I need to protect and explore for myself alone. I can't speak about something that has no form, wrong words could dissolve the gossamer waves of whatever it is that might ooze out of me given half a chance. So I will continue to plan and make and if you run into me, let's not discuss art or sex or shit or blood. All those things are implied. Let's agree to discuss the discussable, the dog, the swans returning from Russia, the new buds swelling in the unusually warm weather and how grateful we all are to still be at this beautiful party.

Returning

I am back to walking despite the bitter cold. The question of purpose comes up not just for me but for others in my milieu. The young are confused and misinterpret their daily acts as trite and unimportant. I often think if only X would happen then I could do Y, Z. Well here's a news flash. X is happening! I picked up trash today on my way home. I picked up a big plastic cup, a plastic sheath from one of the salmon reparation saplings that flew off in the wind, and an empty bottle of vodka before I found a discarded grocery bag to put it all in. I filled it up pretty quickly. I have been meaning to do this for a long time but haven't. The trash annoys me. Beer cans, coffee cups, fast food bags that like magnets pull the dog off course. So today I did it. It felt good, and it gave me a totally different perspective on my walk. I may never write a great novel and there may be no purpose to any of it but I will be able to walk down my road without hating humanity and that's something.

P.S. Someone on my road drinks a ton of 100 Proof Vodka in plastic mickey bottles. I hope it isn't a kid.