Some kind of unknown future retains it’s luster for me.

I cannot imagine knowing where I’m going artistically, but often would love to have a firm grip on where I’m going verbally - would love to have a finely tuned knowledgable & articulate brain machine!

Not knowing, or should I say, ‘IS’ not knowing, the source of much art making? The underlying quest. Not what to say, but how to say it. Which is it, score first, libretto next... or vice versa.
I’m into a new series  of paintings & can only catch a glimmer of what they are about. This alternately feels like standing on the edge of a loose-rocked cliff, or being poised to jump into a backyard pool off the low board.

I’ve never been a sketcher and aways felt rebellious in my early drawing classes commanding sketching & sketch books. Purposeful drawing fulfills something else entirely. In writing classes I have, & wrongly I’m sure, somewhat rejected the notion of outlines.  I guess many fiction writers change what they had outlined as they go forward. How glorious to know where you are going, to be definite about what you want to say! Though I have in the past, been so caught up in what I wanted to say that I ended up losing the how. Other times the two jive, linked cars pulling into the station together.

I watch & worry over the new paintings. And yes, this time, ask what they are about.

I watched a lovely documentary over a week ago, about the original horse whisperer; Buck Brannaman. He consulted to Robert Redford on the movie of that title, but he is the real deal & a deeply special man. I’m paraphrasing; ‘It’s not about learning to be a better cowboy. It’s about life, living life in a certain way & (huge) dedication. Chase what you should be chasing.’ I cried when I heard that.

Wayne White said in an interview on CBC radio about 3 weeks ago, ‘Never discount anything you do in the studio - Be ready to be a soldier. If you’re an artist - go down fighting.

What is being an artist? If the art works do not sell, does making it have value? Often, but certainly not always, concurrent to not selling, is not being seen. I make a distinction here between showing, & being seen.

My work has been in 3 shows, since November 2011. The first was solo, from which I sold 2 pieces, then eventually 2 more. The other two were group events, one expensive to participate in, and most likely I’ll never have the money to do so again (sold the car to pull off March’s event, among other reasons to sell the car!), sold nada. And this past weekend, showed, on special past the dead-line invite to submit to the jury, 6 pieces at The Art Gallery of Hamilton Spring Sale. I made them no funds. I made me no funds.

This is discouraging. Really disappointing. And made my internal self-negating blinds come down for 2 days so far, and we shall see. I’d love to quite frankly get rid of the pieces, move on from them. And hey making a living is good too.

Somehow in my self-questioning & most likely self-indulgent down, a story came back to me, from 1974. Perhaps partially inspired from reading Calvin Tomkins’ excellent book on Robert Rauschenberg.


As I’ve mentioned here before, I went to OCA for a year. I was 19. In first year it was mandatory to take a class called: Analogue & Notation.
I did not know what the fuck this meant...   all year.
The professor quite liked me nonetheless, I did show up etc. But he couldn't get through to my bird brain. Or maybe he liked me because when he took a bunch of students to his cottage for an over-nighter, I was the first of several people to throw myself into the creek in the middle of the night. Stoned &/or drunk and naked and young.
I might mention it was early spring.

At the end of the year the assignment was to present 'ourselves', a self-portrait, using what we had learned. I was up at my uncle's farm for the weekend, though I lived in TO.

An idea came to me. I mixed something cement like, can't remember what now, and made a soggy until it dried, approximately 1' wide by 6" deep, free-form raggedy base. Into that base, I embedded strands of thick hay from a local field & made a straw house, with roof etc. all very rough, but clear.
On Monday I brought it in to him. I believe his name was Jim.

It was a My Fair Lady moment... 'By george, I think she's got it!'
He was thrilled.

Life altering & I didn't even know it then.

I danced in my sometime kitchen this week - it may be missing a bit of counter in a kitchen island kind of way - but it makes for a decent dance floor. My swan dive into happiness.

I hurt my foot this winter, just woke up with not to be ignored pain in the arch one morning. Now months later, because I was busy painting & planning to come to Ojai & being excellent at denying, I have been dealing with it. At first I thought this would be a week’s break or so...

Recently diagnosed, months (ugh) later, as an over-use ‘athletic’ injury. Yes, I confess I was full of fitness beans at the time, feeling Strong! Good! Fit!
So post podiatrist-assessment here in Cali where it clearly wasn’t over, merely letting myself go, like a lawn going to seed, the words were:
Rest it. Every evening; Ice it. Take Ibuprofen. Elastic wrap it. Put it up.  All of which is slowly working.

After about 8 or so days of tending to this foot I was in my Ojai studio space - music coming from the kitchen area and I walked in probably to make tea (apparently my art making is fueled by tea) & Bob Dylan of all people to dance to, called me up - the foot was getting better. I was celebrating a glimpse at recovery & my imminent release from foot binding. I swirled & bent & turned to ‘Blood on The Tracks’, the whole album & I was giddy with delight to be reconnecting with my self, my physical self which affects all of my self and my art production.

One of the most powerful films I’ve ever seen; difficult, & so beautifully and sensitively rendered is Julian Schnabel’s  ‘Le Scaphandre et Le Papillion’. It sits with me for its' pure artistry and for the telling of a phenomenal story of one man’s paralysis.

We are of mind & body.

Chuck Close paints on, even after his 1988 spinal artery collapse. But in an admittedly quick internet search, I cannot find much on his actual transition phase, except, & this most likely is the important part, in hospital care, a studio was set up for him to paint in. A life-line was thrown & caught.

I am somewhat, & hopefully temporarily, physically held back. This affects ALL of me & what I do & how I feel.  I want to jog in the mountains, and even downward dog has been discouraged for now. I’m wearing socks and sandals!! Albeit a hardy pair of sandals, with a decent arched foot and steady sole, socks acting as buffer to friction, chill & the stretch of leather. I am thankful to be here in Ojai, land of greying hair, instead of Montréal mon amour, the land of my street-smart self.

And then, two nights ago, still nursing the foot injury, (am fat and dumpy now too) and my laptop computer slid ever so slowly, but unstoppingly, from my 2 sissy hands... where? onto my fucking foot!!!

Ice ice baby. AND back to the studio with you too!

http://vimeo.com/38224424
sigh. and move on. Love these 3 artists & what they have to say, Kai Chan who I have the most physical familiarity with. Heather Goodchild and Lyn Carter is um, perfect? LOVE her work. Work-envy is me.

****

Collisions on the information highway
Not a completely thought out blog. More like an, I’m painting my kitchen back-splash now, blog...

I have been wrestling with an idea that came to me just a few short weeks ago: We are in the midst of an art, artistic, artist (visual) revolution.

Monumental change.

I defy anyone to predict beyond the next few years, what it all means, or what happens next. We are early 20c dwellers looking up in complete awe & wonderment that someone is flying above. Only we do not have any awe & wonderment. Let’s face it when so much of everything is declared; ‘Awesome!’ so much of everything is not (awesome).

We are if nothing else, immune to change, not individually. Individually we may protest a new version of ‘windows’, or a new cell phone or the much bigger events of flagging health, or  having to change living locations to leave war behind, or cultural prejudice, or to find a job, etc. But collectively, in the collective unconscious, change is not only inevitable, but upon us at such an alarming rate that change IS us. It is not longer the next thing we get on with/go to. It is a state of being, a flurry of flux, a rampant viral onset of permutation.
We cannot really see it happening as we spin ever on.


There are more ‘artists’, an almost cloyingly vague term, ‘visual’ which I will stick with as my meaning for ‘art’ in this blog, everywhere than ever before. There are more creative makers, inventors, doers in ALL media, than ever before. Web art, video art, clay art, fibre art, painting, drawing, etching?, printing? gicleeing, assemblage, installation of some or all of the above ETCETRA.

If this is not a mixture of fabulous & terrifying, & does not strike a kind of gobsmacking fear & joy into our art-driven hearts, I don’t know what does.

But here’s the thing! We are an incredibly visually educated population, in many, I know not all, parts of the world. Accountants, GPs, corporate business shakers... a whole group of book-bound, science oriented, etc, people, who barely lift their heads in recognition, are becoming visually educated. Yes, in a different way than seeker-artists but nonetheless, (if not them their offspring), through traditional avenues; magazines, store fronts, adverts, zeigeist, but mostly technology; google, digital cameras, websites, you-tube, vimeo, It is ubiquitous. Apples hanging over the fence for the taking & seeing whether hungry or not.

I am further inspired in my thinking by the use of the expression ‘digital tsunami’, used in Christina Zuck’s article ‘Picture This’ in the latest issue of Frieze magazine. It arrived in my mailbox as I grappled with these thoughts. This is a huge topic, artists are everywhere. Everyone is an artist. I look forward to its’ development. Cannot see it. And I will be dead when it pulls into it’s nameless unknown speed-travel station with the correct definition for this particular art era.


Blogging is the new collage & installation. It is about language & the dynamics of language, and interpretation of course as well. Possibly just when it means more, it begins to mean potentially less.
Art permeates our lives.

1st:
get thee to The Bohemia, my Ojai cafe spot.
macchiato. doble. rich tasting, perfect amount of milky froth so as not to overtake the inner workings of mouth & grey cells. Blurry-me, I pull up to the counter for the fix.
stir the foam gently in. sip. O sweet salvation. here I am again.

2nd:
In 1973 I was accepted with much enthusiasm and a long multi-professored interview process to OCA (now OCAD in Toronto). My multiple stuff laid out before them live with some photos of sculptural pieces. They did not pronounce on the spot but I received my glowing acceptance(any acceptance would have been) in Montreal by mail, shortly thereafter.

Ontario College of Art, I made a T-shirt & wore it while parading between studios through its' artsy-corridors, pushing the ‘f’ over, it read Ontario College O Fart. Unfortunately I was most likely the only one passing gas... I left 2 weeks before finishing first year to plant trees & save the planet in BC.
Hard to call it mistake #1, there were so many.

In any case, I went to Toronto & OCA, found a job as a part-time cashier. Found an apartment to share with another female student, a dive above Honest Ed’s neon flashing light. We inherited the alley cat with the place & undoubtedly it’s flea family. I picked up a dog (today we’d say ‘rescue’, yeah actually I needed this head-strong matted toad eating terrier to rescue me) and I waited for the salami.

My brother, the genius, poor bugger (apologies said with great affection to same), all hopeful eggs were poured into the basket of him, as a young ‘genius’ male. Six years my senior & gone off to the US for university and post grad schooling & to get away... Our mother sent chocolate cake & salami. I was there, part of the adoring circle of mother & ‘little’ sister, prepping packages of love & family, off to his new life. Sustenance.

From Toronto, approximately 6 years later, I recalled the sending of salami to my Montreal based career-driven mother. I mentioned it to her, I cajoled her. Finally I begged for the frikkin’ salami. Of course my ‘want’ had nothing to do with Hungarian mystery meat. Less than a week before it’s unannounced arrival, I declared myself vegetarian. The thing arrived in the mail. My Ukrainian-Canadian flat-mate recognized a good thing & put off her venture into meatless-ness for a few more days. My mother sighed in utter exasperation on the other end of the phone line...

3rd
fast-forward, spring-ish 2012
Still swirling in my I-must-produce-phase, I arrive in Ojai & start to supply the new working space. Paints, brushes, paper, canvas. I order freshly stretched canvas to my size specs, finding the commercial kind too slick & plasticky. Spending more money than I have. I pick them up with mixed feelings. I begin to gesso, how many layers to not reproduce what I so wish to avoid... Done I begin to paint, learning Acrylic, the language of. My world, the one I have known in oil for so long, rapidly sinks through the floor, into the ground.  I paint & do not recognize the work.

Who did these? Is it the artist speaking or the medium?? I beg myself. I torture myself... and somehow I make it back into the studio of non-recognition. I begin to work on other ideas & another non-painting artistic endeavor.  Depressed about the 3 half paintings that surround me & the 3 remaining empty canvasses across the wall, I declare my painting career, such as it was, over. dead. & gone.
These are salami! I am a vegetarian! (tho’ actually no after 9 years I came back for the slaughter) Painting is dead to me. I shall do other things.

and then. and then. I am back. Slowly over a period of dreadful inner days. I apply the damned acrylic onto the paintings, begin to see a theme, a place, a departure & a possible arrival.
I paint therefore I am.

Please Note: California doesn't allow pictures to represent anything remotely negative.  Therefore, pictures automatically edit themselves to remove these aspects.  This beauty belies a ferocious (ch)ill wind.

at one point it seemed as though we were driving into the velvety yellow thighs of a voluptuous woman. Both mustard covered sides of the rolling hills met before us, just before a turn, just before we could see the continuation of road... we both let out a breath. It came upon us in such a visually stunning manner, I couldn’t loosen my eyes to dig for the camera The world did this & we were there.

the planet was a woman today
we drove aimlessly
road trip for a day
there nowhere & back
southern california
the woman rolls over
slowly grasps near-day
under bed covers still
then sticks out a massive thigh
or fleshy arm
a mountain breast
twists her great camouflage duvet
rearranges her limbs
la madre tierra
transmitting life force
underlying sorrows
restless sleep
the shore winds in perpetual chaotic
dance & motion

we step from the vehicle
for more squinty-eyed gawking
arms akimbo
pressed into the relentless presence of howl
sad & celebratory
Damn nature!
harsh & testing, even here
and great breadths of carpet succulents
spotted in fruity gelato dots
crawling rapaciously
over the lumps of land mass
a survival net
clinging & cradling the
otherwise free-flying dirt
of upper-beach
and I
standing there hunched into my shell
searching for a parental hand at the busy mall
cautiously joyous at all
the possibilities
before my curved inwards jog
back to the rental car
feet awkwardly digging into sand
with the dope of wind fatigue
upon me

we could have slept a thousand hours
to compensate for all that was felt
in five minutes
on that unruly shore

In a small southern California town, at the perfect intersection between late afternoon & early evening, when the day has only one direction to move in; a man & his 3 year old daughter stand before a gas pump. Both are side lit by the curtsying sun, laying it’s evening light down Main St, wind-whipped hair twisted & stuck to their faces.  They glow the special lobster blush of surrendering to too much sun on a spring day. The daughter, held up, body erect, by one of the father’s arms, while both soft hands engage with the pushing of buttons, gently directed by her father, ‘Ok, now push this’.

                                                               * * *

My mother used to quote her mother as saying, ‘when you have many children, your love does not divide, it multiplies.’

I’m not entirely certain my mother felt this had been her truth. She was the fourth born daughter in a middle European Jewish family. Three much celebrated boys followed her arrival.


I look at my life and try to think in terms of multiplying, because one can become so divided. Art, family, mind, love, body,(not necessarily in that order & always changing order) as chapter headings, & then a busy network of subheadings & compartments. A juggling act when each breaks down into it’s parts tearing one away from one’s life. If that’s not dividing I don’t know what is.

I feel like the more I live, the more I need to make art, much art in different ways & mediums. At times I glow with the singularity of this thought.

and:
I need my adored offspring, their issues, their moment in time.  And my friends; one on one, sometimes many on many. I need green vegetables &  satisfying chunks of cheese on chewy bread. Espresso in the morning, good strong walks uphill with the magic of biology to lay my eyes on, the smell of earth in the pre-dawn air,  the bending-holding-breathing of real yoga, the caw of Ojai crows & the lick of sublime gelato.

Whats’ good about making a list, is to see all that falls away, the lost tailings & dropped numbers of un-mathematical division.

I did not need a training bra
my breasts came in
fast & free
of their own volition
Besides
my mother,
possibly hoping they
would go away
a sort of false start,
did not provide one

I chose not to look down
much
by-passing the entire middle region
down to my thin ankles
still in ankle socks
My breasts, I’m reminded now
as I strive to save
the gift of a flowering Orchid,
seemed to need not much
encouragement of any kind
No particular thumb colour
accompanied their burlesque arrival
from childish funny girl
though not ha ha funny,
swept up in needs and wants

unseen &
unrecognized
No - here, try a paint brush
or,
write a story

art bloomed too like a pair of titties
reckless and unsure

I was invisible but for them
bound & ever so slightly determined,
a too young child-woman
fatherless
learned who she was
in the eyes of men,
among the elevator wolves
a barbie stuck
between
the legs
My blue eyes had fallen out
now I only had
a blooming chest
I
smiled sweetly
a good girl
did as I was told
until a while after the breasts showed up

then rebellion found me
embraced me, deflowered my
politeness,
my catatonic benign-ness.
Only I truly had no cause
what? my non-twiggy-ness?
my lack of paint brush
or an original thought
or an idea of my own

I only knew that I had to bust out
Like the breasts
had done

what is more important? input or output.

The journey has lead me to discover 2 new poets, one Canadian male poet, Bruce Taylor, through Michael Lista’s article in The National Post, one American female poet; Sharon Olds, through a friend.  I want to read more of their work, study the cadence & choices they make now that I’ve taken in a little, I want a lot.

Recent documentaries have lead me to discover more Andy Goldsworthy, land-nature-installation artist, and fall in a kind of rapture of his work & approach, & the wonderful doc about him, that in its’ first few minutes moved slowly, church-like & almost had me leave my pew & then in an instant ensnared me in marvel.

And then a documentary about Jenny Holzer whose work I admire & am influenced by. She’s a true ‘techno-textist’! 
More of the more I wish to know.

So as I absorb this newer knowledge, this more, and am so satisfied chewing on it all, the words, the visuals, the thinking & ideas, while continuing to paint, I struggle with the new. Turning my mind to so much input is deeply gratifying & necessary but easy to slip into as opposed to output. Output strengthens the bonds of active presence & replication (as a noun, replying to) & being alive.

This becomes to me a discussion about valuing myself & how I will live in the world. Perhaps the dichotomy is not between input & output but in my desire to instantly be in command of new information...  I’m a loosely made sponge. Lots of water gets in, much water runs through.  New input can be like a slippery bar of soap. But I have noticed this, while those around discuss the GOP candidates or the NDP candidates or the situation in Russia & I admit I can let this information fly like a flock of scattering ducks, above my head only collecting occasional droppings, the sticky things I am deeply interested in often take on the expert V-formation of Canadian Geese and pull in at a run, into the deep recesses of my mind to be looked at later.

And in not-about-art news, but could be & may be...
I wanted to blog about sexism today. This week I had smoke coming out of my ears over a Victoria’s Secret catalogue, misogynistic porn at my door, in my mail box. The models, all white woman, but for one Asian, tall & curvy like her sisters, all with jutting out bottoms, heaving cleavage, curving their backs suggestively, sharp pointy hip bones protruding, all long-wavy hair perpetuating self loathing & over-sexualization = the creepy unsexy, & mindlessness everywhere they go.

And then I wanted to talk about (more fire & brimstone) Toddlers & Tiaras, and  French Senator, Chantelle Joanno, who wants to pass ‘anti-tiara’ legislation, (the TV shows have had versions in France for years) including the inability to sell the wee ‘sexy’ clothing that goes with. She rightly said in a CBC interview this week that the ages between 2 and 10 should be about LEARNING. These are profoundly disturbing and harmful child(girl)-hating events, I believe these parents should be criminally charged...

Then we have approval in Canadian Parliament to do what Harper said he would not do, re-open the question of ‘choice, by letting a man, Tory MP Stephen Woodworth, have his say. Why? Why does he get a pulpit on my tax dollar!!?
Yo! Harper: My Body. My Womb. My Choice.
deja vu all over again

I have learned in the way we do without necessarily setting out to, that being away & change, all have the potential to lend perspective & add fuel to the heart, the mind, the imagination. And being away in the right place is the best away.

Here I sit in my other home, a place I came across about 5 years ago and felt an instant draw towards. Like the chemistry of person to person attraction I felt I had to have more of this place in my life. And I determined to make that happen. And I was privileged to be able to make it happen.

In the mysterious way that things have of aligning, a new friend at the time moved here and we lost touch for about a year, and in my inquiring about her through mutual friends I was gobsmacked to learn that she had ended up here, in Ojai, California.  I am I must admit somewhat reluctant to give the actual place name away. But then realize that at this point with a fairly low but growing blog following, the numbers barely represent a digits-worth on a single hand. And we are each drawn to various away-places for a multitude of reasons. And mine & yours are different.

In any case after making contact, I immediately imposed my 2 sons & one wife of, along with myself on her & hers for a visit, as we had a family wedding to attend near-by, over 2 years ago now. She proved to be the hostess-with-the-mostess and welcomed us like offspring back to the nest. We drove away reluctantly a couple of short days later with our jaws slung low in shocked admiration of her huge hospitality.

And she is as passionate about Ojai as I am! Thus began the more serious seeking out of a return here, at first staying with her a few times.
Until this fall when I found a place of my own to live & work from.
I had been thinking about, in a very loose way, fantasizing mostly, about another place to be, hopefully to eclipse some of the Canadian winter, but not uniquely with that in mind. A place to develop a relationship with, to return to, to work in, gain perspective on my art work & life in general, Toronto at this time where I make art & live.
A place to run away to? that too.

So here I am finally(!) after spending winter in Toronto, ready for first some healing, some revisiting of good habits, yoga, meditation, walking uphill into the glory of layer upon layer of mountains & endless views, after being eaten up in the maelstrom of a grey but admittedly mild winter, prepping for Toronto Artists' Project and other art submissions.
And I am in deep gratitude!!! I do get all Zen-ny out here.

I am interested in what a new space to work in reveals art-wise. I know only that the output will be different. So being here is like a mystery novel. Who am I here? What drew me here? The unknown, the sense of possibility & I love the big bright Cali-sky.

I’m broke and optimistic.
This past weekend was my first step into The Toronto Artists Project where I had a booth. I’ve never participated in this kind of show before. Any group show I have been in was curated, based on a submission. TAP also operates by jury selection. The downside of which is there is ‘stuff’ for all tastes. The upside of which is, there is ‘stuff’ for all tastes.

I will say outright, right now that some people were accepted into this show, who should not have been. They need more time to mature, whatever their age, as artists. Their presence brings down the caliber of the show. They are not good prestige-wise for the show. There. To be clear, this is not in any way to elevate myself. Whether or not I had been a participant, I would have believed this.
It becomes about space filling & money-making for Merchandise Mart, who run the show. Ultimately this lack of a more refined & judicious selection is a potential negative for all participants.

Enough about that. I enjoyed connecting to my fella(ow) booth mates, the close range ones & the ones I met over lunch or while taking a break to walk the halls & stop for a chat in other booths. I embarked on a learning curve with them, about them, through them! Dare I say, a couple of those may even turn into long-term friendships.

I reserve my warmest accolades for the visiting public. Though I’m sure most did not pay me or my booth the time of day. Those who did, uplifted me, either by their questions about technique or motivation; all good, all helping me articulate my practice, express the warmth I was feeling back at them. Talking to people on docent lead tours was challenging in the best of ways & fabulous. These people, in tours or not, came out, paid an entrance fee to come into the show, and some talked to me and looked at my work.  You know who you are, I cannot thank you all enough. Some were deeply interested, many took my card. The future holds the truth. Suffice it to say in the present, I am pleased.

Visual art in this society is a hugely hierarchical structure. Most people probably don’t think of it this way. But to the cognoscenti, rest assured, it is deeply so. So the conundrum is this, without a gallery’s support, how does your work get seen, potentially bought? Sure  being with ‘my’ gallery at the Toronto International Art Fair is where I’d love to be or Miami(!) or... Berlin.

And I wonder if presence at an event such as this past one, can turn into a kind of albeit gentle, trap? Or is it a door to possibility? None of these questions can take my current pleasure away. But now I get to think about them in a different context.

The most basic & important thing is: I love this work. Art work is my passion. All else pales in comparison (ok, there’s the bottom layer which comes from the love of offspring & their partners, & the love of my partner) That love is the scaffolding. But a rickety thing it would be without art. It is who & what I am. I am wholly committed to working, making and thinking in the art-way.

February 28 means 1 day until install of TAP show booth.

What is at stake here? CBC radio news, Anna Maria Tremonti, just asked that in another context but that really is my question now too.

Re art making, I am process driven. I love the physical work & the idea work, the conceptualizing and the blessed free-fall of painting, as everything changes before my eyes. It can be like unwrapping a gift of possibility. I am attached to bumping into a problem and trying to solve it. And then becoming deeply involved and discovering something new. A new direction, a new artistic event happening on the canvas, or in whatever way, gets laid out by my hand & then I get to uncover the why of it, the explanation.

No doubt confronting my anxiety re showing brings up a host of issues. My own perfectionism. How I wish to present my self through the work. How impossible it seems to me to really ‘see’ my own pieces.  How everything is ongoing & this is just a moment in time, wherein I’m reluctant to stop the train & get out. I’d rather, in some ways, just keep doing.

And yet, what is important & wonderful is finally doing the showing, meeting the people, who may or may not like & buy, or offer kind words, &/or remain silent. I welcome it all. Art styles & personal opinions are just that. And finally my whole being, my world, is not deeply rocked or undone by the variety inherent in that concept.

When this is behind me:
I’m looking forward to discovering new lines & have a plan to do some drawings. Lower my eyelids on a poem or a view and draw it blind...

We shall see.

This past Monday, a February holiday in Ontario, was sunny & the outdoors inviting. My BF & I went down to the water front off of Lakeshore. I’ve written about going there before. But trust me in winter, one is less inclined to venture forth. Usually an ugly cold dismal & grey wind-whipping  awaits. I go to clear my mind, hoping some of the flotsam & jetsam, art insecurity & philosophical questioning will get swept away along with tumultuous mess of fine curly hair, otherwise known as the nest on my head... Yes! It was warm enough to be hatless for a minute or two, until toque time.

And the walking & the glorious clear sky & real sun were like manna from u-no-where & then afterwards sitting in large wicker chairs no less, in a not too delicious but absolutely perfect cafe, with the truly hot sun now pouring into the front window on the north side of gritty Queen, was like some kind of healing ceremony, a mystical walk alone into the woods for gentle self reflection & strengthening... An OM moment. Freedom from the stresses of art production, I put my head back like a happy seal basking in the glory of a full'o'fish belly on hot sand.

Some of us undoubtedly wander into the woods of an art career with more sense of self & marketing ability than others, let’s say. I even know some, or one. Not this cookie. I am prone to crumbling, setting out for healthy ingredients & giving into white sugar & all-purpose but no-good-purpose flour. I am a kitchen sink cookie, everything but the bath water. A disabled by panic clunker of a cookie. Will they rise?  a what did I forget(?) kind of cookie & will they be edible(?), or do you suppose, maybe taste good... Successful cookies?

I, apparently, am a worrying home-made cookie, with some kind of alcohol soaked fruit bits, which may or may not be a good addition.

So a walk in the sun, listening to clucking CDN geese, re-visiting lapping lake water, sun-glassed, toqued head to the big sky. Therein lies promise & cleansing.

Adjective: much/məCH/
A large amount: "I did not get much sleep"; "he does not eat much".
Adverb: To a great extent; a great deal: "did it hurt much?".
Synonyms: adjective.  many - considerable adverb. very - greatly - many - highly - a lot of - plenty - far

Noun: lug·gage/ˈləgij/
Suitcases or other bags in which to pack personal belongings for traveling.
Synonyms: baggage - impedimenta

Yummy word impedimenta.

In my youth I owned a well constructed backpack, which I purchased before my obligatory rite of passage trip to Europe, first by plane, then by thumb, with great naiveté.

I have never owned anything that could be referred to as luggage, never mind good luggage. Though I have in my possession 2 suitcases that you can tilt onto wheels, unmatched, in 2 colours, in 2 sizes; small & smaller.

Art valuing is not about size. And yet, size does creep in to evaluating.
What is intrinsic to the artist, the matière, the statement, the method is ‘much’. Just as ‘much’ can be invested in a small piece as a big piece.
What does ‘much’ refer to?
How ‘much chocolate ice cream would you like?  see?

MUCH is about history, learning, experience, thought, ideas, instinct, even intelligence & talent, all these things that an individual artist brings to art making.

Total Side Note: Online Dating: ‘Men/Women with ‘baggage’ need not apply’.
Hell, without baggage I may as well be dead. I embrace my baggage.
So when I decide to make a small work, it is never as small as all that.

Working big is a room with a view.

Say for instance you were stuck in a basement and there was one slit you could see light coming from - your eye would be glued there, or on the shaft of light. You would be compelled to look out of that small window, whatever the view. If that window lead to the outside, the whole world would be there. see?

I have been interested in what film making could be for a while and wanting to try my hand at filming. Where would my eye stray? Would the expression be an artistic event or a documentary endeavor? What do I have to say? How would I edit such a filmic happening. What can’t I say with paint, charcoal, clay, a space changing installation...

To that end I made a small first attempt with a look at myself in the studio using a Blackberry pad to film, (where awkwardly there is no way to actually completely see where one is precisely focussed, beyond a general direction & learned habit). So I let the learning curve begin. Earlier this week I, with one hand surgically-gloved, paint brush in hand, spontaneously grabbed the ‘film pad’ with the other hand, turned it on and began to talk to an unspecified audience, one interested in the art process, mine in particular. The gall.

I described what I was doing with a smaller work in progress. I then showed other works in the series lining the studio floor. I had no idea what I was going to say, had not really thought out in advance what I was aiming for, & in addition had not quite described to myself, what was going on in the pieces. What I had actually achieved with the series was just allowing myself to make them, to follow the pull of desire in that uncensored direction. Sometimes allowing a thing to happen is the biggest challenge as an artist, especially as one facing an artistic deadline. There’s an inner voice that says, get on with it! Produce work for the booth, the gallery, the deadline. A holymoly bad way to go! At least for my creative working spirit.

Then I perched on my stool & watched the film, all 3:37 minutes worth.The epiphany (an overused word if ever there was one)...the AHA moment of the experience revealed more than I could have possibly predicted. In fact I had predicted nothing beyond trying an idea out. 

Instead what I saw was an articulate woman, explaining what these works were about, what may have lead to them, what I was interested in by making them. Someone grounded, knowledgable, quite sure of a direction. Pensive and in control, able to explain in a concise manner what was aimed for. This is an astounding & at this point profound way of ‘seeing’ one’s self and 'hearing' one’s thoughts.
Oh that’s who I am...

It brought me back to myself, provided cognitive content on some of the work oriented towards my booth at The Toronto Artist Project. Not the work I was riffing on for the film to be precise. Other small works that I had hatched as a preemie idea, which ultimately need more gestational time. And I finally admitted to myself, was not what I should be doing. I was blocked and ignoring that block, unhappily disengaged & pushing forward towards a deadline.

Watching myself, listening & hearing my own words brought me back like a kite gently to the grass, the solid ground, the path. I scrapped a whole body of work which needs more time to develop, laid it to rest for now. Turned around & there I stood.

A studio may be just one room but you can get lost there. And apparently found.

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