Drawing into the Night

Like last summer around this time, I've found myself drawing again. I think it's partly because with all of the festivities, there doesn't seem to be much time for painting. Interesting that when life gets to that place where one event rolls into another event and then another, that's when I need quiet, thinking, working time the very most. Drawing gives me that, quiet thinking, working, time. It feels unstressed and satisfying. I can draw anywhere but I think I like drawing on the patio the most right now. Today littlest kitten read to me while I sketched. It was heaven.

Thanks to everybody who hacked through the crowds, jungles of sticky cotton candy and pop-its to come to our show on this very festive holiday weekend. I wish I had pictures of everybody. We got to see so many friends and that was the best. It's cool to see all of the people who support local venues. Thanks again to Mode for the excuse to spend time drawing and collaborating with Dan.

It was Only a Dream

Bullish

Twins

I begin to feel an enormous need to become savage and to create a new world. Paul Gauguin

I really like working in graphite because I can easily alter images. Usually after a drawing has been sitting in front of me for a couple of days, I know what I want to change. I think this drawing is about finished. I'm not sure about titles. That seems like a whole other project.

I've been thinking that drawing is a lot like dreaming. I talked about my mindswim in my first youtube video as that place where the mind is free to roam without restrictions. I find myself in that same sort of state when I'm lost in drawing.

I do feel a bit strange about putting these drawing up for display and scrutiny. They feel very much more intimate than paintings. Like dreams, the imagery is not easily defined. Maybe I should look up the symbolism of kangaroo headed women and women with marsupial bodies in a book about dreams?!

Drawing is intimate and reveals exactly where we are, and in a culture that isn't comfortable with that, it frightens many. You just cannot cheat when you draw. -Sandy Davison

I can't think of a better way to unravel a tangled day than to work into the night, listening to Elvis Costello and drawing. I let my heart sit in a warm bath of emotion. I am present in those feelings, some happy and some sad, some rewarding and some disappointing. I own both of those things, my heart and my drawings. They are places where honesty and directness are evident. I'm glad there are those places.

In six months I'm going to have lots of free time to pursue creative projects. I'm not the only one who thinks that right? It's an mirage that is floating out in front of me always. It's that six months into the future delusion that gets me into trouble as far as over scheduling. But like I read in Zen Shorts, "maybe..." because the outcome from being pushed is different than coasting along at a steady pace. When pushed emotionally or physically or spiritually or anything, sometimes great things happens. Sometimes we are liberated from invisible annoyances and silly hang-ups.
So here I am starting a project after much waffling. About six months ago I went into a store called Mode in Provo to see an art installation made by Jason Metcalf. The store owner, Ryan Neely asked if I was interested in having a show in that space, dangling the you can do whatever you want carrot in front of me. I said, " sure, in six months I'll have free time to pursue creative projects."
I do want to to support this exact sort of thing, my community, stores owned by local people who seem really nice and creative project opportunities, different from what I do for galleries.

But...instead of taking it on by myself, I asked Zack Taylor if he wanted to collaborate with me after I saw his Mormon Ex-Cons project. Then really I knew that it would all be spectacular if Dan Barney were participating and then of course I was excited to see what Zack's artist wife, Brenda would come up with so...after much discussion, we have begun our project. I think the title at this point is called, Night Music. I'm doing mostly drawings which I love. Dan Barney made three Tyvek dresses that I get to draw on as well.

Musings on Art

To me it is just beyond reach. It cannot be defined and it can't be kept. When you've known it even just a little, it's something that is longed for the rest of your life. It's a connection that hums deep and low and harmonizes with the spirit. I want to paint it, I want to make that kind of art.
Art is a word much like love. Love is used on so many levels, I can love crackerjacks and I can love, well...a lot deeper as well. Art is like that too. It is a word used in so many ways for too many things. The art that I'm talking about is sacred and mysterious, not diluted or caffeine free.
The other day, one of my girlfriends called me after returning from seeing one of my very favorite bands, the Stars. She said it was so beautiful, one of the most transcendental moments of her life and she just stood there and cried. I've felt like that before in regard to certain artworks. One of those experiences, in a New Jersey museum at night, in front of some paintings. I've cried in the Met before, and I know I'm not the only one. Art is powerful. It's a power that pulls on the soul. It can tap into what can't be named, the sublime. (Not he who can't be named, i.e. Voldmort.) Art is a tool.
Shouldn't there be another name for it? I don't think that all people who paint are artists. I sometimes have a hard time saying I'm an artist sometimes because I don't think I'm worthy. I call myself a painter more easily. I can only talk about paintings because that is what I know. I don't think all paintings are art. A lot of what I see is just decoration and is decoration art? My Dan Barney would probably theorize about visual culture and a way of living, but I want art to be that special, unique something to grasp and live and work for, for the rest of my life. I know someone who makes art that merges concepts of family and history and craft, but she won't call it art. I think it is. I understand that it would be dangerous to put perimeters and rules on it, so many have tried before.
If artwork is created with sincerity I think I trust it. I wish everybody who makes things would be responsible for that which they are creating. Not all of us have the same capacity/knowledge base, sure, but if images are used, doesn't the creator have an obligation to try to have ownership of what she/he puts out there? Shouldn't she/he make it her/his own as well?
The drawing above illustrates how I often feel when painting and talking about my sincere feelings. I think in order to even have a chance at creating paintings that can be what I have described above, I have to thrust my vulnerable exposed self forward. My ambitions are beyond decoration, I want to make art and that's almost always just beyond reach.

Sweet

I did it. I took the charcoal to the linen. I almost didn't dare. I almost wanted to keep it in the studio, just to look at a while longer, unsoiled...perfect. I didn't want to mess up a pure and lovely thing. The thing is, if I didn't take the risk, the risk of ruining it, then I'd never get to see if it had the potential to turn into something beautiful. Even if I do ruin it, the process feels good.

More...

No better love than love with no object,

no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.

Rumi

Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again. Willa Cather

It is interesting to me how my memory seems to be too full, like a box packed full and tight, so deep that it’s hard to get to stuff so I only use what’s closest to the top.
This weekend I joined Dan on a trip, to spend some time in his work world. I assumed I’d have some quiet time in a hotel room where I could think and draw and read. Instead I got the chance to reconnect with friends and acquaintances, pulling memories up from deep in the box. I dug into that box and remembered my teaching years and teachers I worked and played with. I remembered that some of the most beautiful people in the world are art teachers. I remembered being little Cassie and how it felt to be engaged in art projects in school. I remembered the smell of paste glue and poster paint. I remembered being Mrs. Barney in my noisy, happy classroom. Those are good memories. Art teachers are special and lucky because they share what they love and make school a better place.
I met a young artist this weekend named Jason Metcalf. An artwork he did delighted and influenced me preceding my paper flowers making episode. His enthusiasm for art and life match mine and he understands completely what I wanted to learn and do with project mummy. Dan, Jason and I talked all the way home from St. George about art and theory and what we want to do with it.
I came around to a question that often bothers me, “am I giving enough?” Some days when I’m sitting in my studio all warm and happy and full, I remember that there are others when are cold and sad and empty and I want to share and give. I want to fix and I want to heal. I also feel like my pretty little paintings are insignificant compared to the contributions of others, but again I came to an idea. I remembered that right now, this is what I have to give. There are large things I can’t do, but there are little things that I can. There are things that I can’t have, but there are things that I do have. When my heart starts to droop I’m lucky to have a sweet partner who gently props it back up with kind words. Among other things, Dan said that my paintings are like poems. I loved to hear that because I love poetry. Jason told me about something he heard on NPR’s This I Believe. I can't stop the war in Iraq, I can't reverse global warming, I can't solve the problems of my community or the world, but I can mend things at hand. I can darn a pair of socks.

I got something better than quiet time this weekend, I got to remember.

Preserved

Thistle, a re-post with poem

T h i s t l e

Hard work, love that endures hardship, defiance, protection

I never saw my mama’s feet sleeping.

Mornings they trod a triangular path:

garden, fire, table.

Mid-day she walked in circles sewing,

mending our dresses as we read our lessons.

As the sun set she strode through the fields,

barefoot among the thistles to bring the cows in.

When the stars made pinpricks

in the black ocean above, her heels creaked

a half-moon of floorboards around our big bed.

I dreamt every night of fragrant weeds and grasses,

knew that when I woke

the footsteps below would always be hers.

by Kate Horowitz

Moulton Passion

Lily of the Valley- Fortune in love; poisonous yet with healing powers; a symbol of the Virgin Mary; making the right choice.


I got back to painting today. I always return to painting. I need it like a shunt to drain the moulton passion out of my head and out of my heart. I did love the flower binge, the fun of making stuff, but all of that churning and burning starts to get to be too much inside of me eventually and I always go back to painting. Drawing is close to painting but not the same somehow. Maybe one of these days coming up, I'll give drawings away to the first one to comment on this blog. The drawings usually end up in a portfolio up the the shelf and rarely are seen again.

Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. James Joyce

Happy Days

Getting lost in drawing is a luxury I rarely allow myself. I've spent the last two days in the studio...just drawing. It feels like I've been to a spa or something.

What do drawings mean to me? I really don't know. The activity absorbs me. I forget everything else in a way that I don't think happens with any other activity. John Berger

I did the weirdest thing today...very wierd. I was at the dollar store, picking up some supplies to make valentines...fun! On the way to check-out I passed some cheap fake flowers...yes, I did just say fake flowers. I put some in my cart. I bought them?! Now what do I do with them?

Tonight my kittens made food and credit cards out of paper and opened up a store in the studio.I was their only customer so didn't get any work done but it was nice to be there with them. I love my studio. It's warm and it has all of my favorite books and stuff all around me. It's the nicest part of winter, that I have a place I want to be. My sister Em pointed out that it is a space that has thinking room. Thinking room is good but I remember feeling the same way in my downstairs bedroom and in my 5' X 7' studio in Vancouver. It's just good to have a space that is mine, no matter where it is.

...to be titled by Kate
Thistle- a symbol of hard work