Tuesday is the day I regularly post. So today, here I am.

I showed up. And I have nothing to say. What I do have is work to do. Work that I am eager to connect to, & move forward on.  And I do have a blog-bone I'm chewing on... a thought bubble, brain static, but not a real word in sight.

Digestion: I will digest all the varied components that ping pong inside my head as I work and live. Then be back with a post.

Sometimes the only way to move through an art moment, which could mean hours, days, or more, is in action. At other times; contemplation.

I am thinking & working with idioms and what they look like, mean & suggest.  There's deep metaphor on many levels. Are Idioms the paradigm of what we do to each other?

id·i·om

   [id-ee-uhm]  

noun

1.

an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket  or hang one's head,  or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the table round  for the round table,  and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics.

2.

a language, dialect, or style of speaking peculiar to a people.

3.

a construction or expression of one language whose parts correspond to elements in another language but whose total structure or meaning is not matched in the same way in the second language.

4.

the peculiar character or genius of a language.

5.

a distinct style or character, in music, art, etc.: the idiom of Bach.

Toronto is grey. Small sharp sleet is falling from the sky after yesterday's mop wet rain.
I have now used up all the vegetables (see salad above) & will venture forth to shop a little later.
This was a week of a few reckonings. The business end. The frightening, gobsmacking, overwhelming business end, the tedium side, the tortured limit, the squeamish factor, the bitter edge...(that otto do it) of the Art Business.  I have received my directions.

What an artist must do (otherwise known as what an artist must spend, after acceptance & paid booth rental) to be in wonderful juried Toronto Art Project: must get/organize/apply-for/fax-in/email-request/apply-online-for:
Electricity for booth,
Lighting for booth,
Insurance; stuff & personal liability,
Debit/credit card machine, along with obligatory HST number (though I am a registered business)
Internet connection for booth (scratch that - extortionist fees)
Truck to move in & out,
Helpers (Santa, you there?)

kachingkaching.
However. I am grateful. I am healthy. I am strong. I am mindful of my good fortune. I can do this.

I asked a friend the other day, out of the blue, if there was a moment in his life of life-altering decision making, a swirling epiphany on which he experienced change, & how so?
He thought for a while (Dvorsky your damn questions!) and answered something that I had so truly not foreseen, because it was such a brilliant answer that today I still chew on it, mulling it over & examining his wisdom. The point of the exercise to be clear was not what transpired to have you make a life-course decision but, what was the change or decision that came about?

He answered: " I took responsibility for my life."

I was amazed. What had I expected? Probably something more like, to read science magazines, to spend more time with my kids, to eat less sugar, to practice a musical instrument. Not this profound answer full of optimism & insight. Quasi mantra-esque, it evoked something in me, a whole head-spinning category of being in the world.

I make decisions to eat raw vegetables, to pull out my yoga matt, to meditate, to invite a friend over, to go for a jog, to buy ‘green’; those are all taking responsibility too of course. But in a much broader sense, this talks of something entirely different. Who do I want to be in the world?

Responsible.

Experimentation was a dirty word when I was taking my undergrad degree in Fine Arts. Exploration, experimentation implied fooling around, not knowing where you were going, being directionless, not having anything to say, being weak & rudderless. So ready or not many of us committed to a way; painting, printmaking, illustrative work, abstract work, video work, whatever.

What called our names was to be in art school. And of course people naturally fell into, went towards a style & a medium with which to  tell their story. What was never considered in any class I took was the concept of ‘play & learn’.  Art was/is a serious business & one had to get on with it, declaring that voice, a concept, & deeper than that a raison d’etre. Anything less than declaring that found voice & you were considered to be in the wrong field.

Play & learn sounds like a concept Fisher Price came up with for the toddler set. I am glad to have very slowly turned to my inner toddler once again in the past few weeks. Years past graduation, years into my real world & self.

We have turned everything into work & judge ourselves and those around us on good work habits. We work out in the gym. We work at perfecting downward dog. We work at improving our self-discipline in food choices, exercise habits & money matters. We work on ourselves relentlessly.

In Thi Chi, my instructor urged us to ‘play Thi Chi’.

The past few weeks have not been artistically satisfying. I have been experimenting with a variety of approaches to painting & graphite on paper, with the purposeful intent of making some smaller works (there’s that word again) & producing more back to back pieces, as opposed to hanging around in front of a full body canvas for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks or more.  My ultimate comfort zone is size,  being energetically engaged by standing & moving, (maybe because I can hide there). So engaging in producing more small works is a huge challenge for me as a transition into the unknown, at least not recently known .

But out of that play, experimentation & exploration, allowing myself to go there, something has transpired. which I could not have foreseen. Therein lies the happy event, the mystery of where we might land if we give ourselves a chance to play & learn.
I copied styles other than my own, chuckled at the results & tossed them aside. I have done battle with several paper sizes in an attempt to find a landing spot for a series, & through that process I have come up with a whole new project. One that I know I cannot devote a lot of time to right now, because of my upcoming involvement in The Toronto Artist Project, March 1-4.  One which will come into play later & I know, find breath & light.

I do not reject the premise of work. On the contrary when I’m fully involved in my work, I can barely see the bigger picture of life. But I embrace aimlessness as method too. Not knowing exactly where one will end up, the giving up of control, doesn’t go against good daily habits. It feeds them though there is a rickety ladder missing several rungs to climb along the way.

Now I have that stupid jingle in my head; Play Laugh, Learn.

Am I the animal(s) or the zoo keeper? A bit of both undoubtedly. unruly-me. Or is this tiger we speak of free to wander, to slink, to kill or be killed, to sleep deeply in the shade swatting flies whilst cubs suckle at her teats, with one ear & eye alert to danger?

I’m taking a class. It is to do with discipline. It is called The Path of The Tiger: Discipline in Your Writing. The discipline of showing up & being there for yourself, to do the work, to make things happen. Ostensibly it is about writing. But I know there are no untouched parts of life when one engages with spirituality, creativity; making & doing. And looking at procrastination in it’s many coloured paint blobs.

 I look forward to the journey. The timing is right, the instructor, I learned last night at the first of 4 intense classes, is completely right. The process is right. I am open, aware & ready for just this class. It is good to have new paths, outside connections, a differing perspective to bring to a body of work.

I meant to blog about sky and I will, but had to mention the newness of this course because I have a pre-sense of it’s implications in my life as a sometimes zoo-living tiger, who strives to be free on a plain. Note to self: read about the Buddhist (I believe?)origins of ‘path of the tiger’.

I thought about how to paint ‘sky’ this week. In a new way, non-traditional, non-representational, but still connected to sky. I didn’t want to get tight and anal about sky & grey-bottomed clouds, or thick white ones you can take a bite out of.

Standing in my studio I closed my eyes & decided the best thing to do was feel sky. See in my head all the skies I have known and gazed into.
-clean Mediterranean Skies, full of bright southern light.
-north African skies, mysterious light grey tones
-Ontario skies over my uncle’s plant farm, shunting clouds over rolling hills, full of childhood hope & glory
-watery loose Laurentian clouds against lavender sky, reflected into the lakes & crusty snow of Quebec
And then there was that massive BIG sky I reached out to as to a life preserver in a suburb, during my children’s early years. Living there was wrong for me. My eyes would raise from the perfection of their young faces, and gaze out above the rooves of that cultural desert knowing that one day I would cast off, fly straight up & out.

Eventually in slow motion, opportunity & the undertow of flat-field wind rising, I lost my footing, grew wings, & now am other.
I am born in the year of the horse, perhaps I should be wary of the tiger. But no!
I say bring on the tiger.

It is -15c & something considerably lower with windchill. I turned on my heating this morning & over night the duvet was good.
I am grateful for both those simple in Canadian terms, things.

2012 is here.
That number had me reflect on how long I’ve been here on the planet. Long.
I’m quite chomping at the bit to get on with a new body of work, on paper for this winter. Referencing the abstract paintings of the past few years, but inward towards smaller gesture, more measured action. And oddly the readable figure beyond text & marks may make an appearance.

I am newly excited about the cinema and movies(!), having seen & heard of a few which catch my fancy for future viewing. I saw Wim Wender’s ‘Pina’, about German choreographer Pina Bausch & came away excited & charged. Though I pondered & was troubled at the traditional romantic male-female pairings/gender roles which seem to be what this film shows of her dance, or is it  Wim Wender’s choice for the film, her most noted works?
As a much learned new friend said briefly in an email;  “in the movie, it seemed she mostly choreographed duets that were sort of romantic/seductive. Very little of her wry sense of humour, the radical use of language, etc. ... I think she completely deconstructed the romantic (in) Cafe Mueller.”

I would have loved the wry humour & radical use of language! But still, as a pretty much Pina newbie, I was swept away by the camera work, even the 3D-ness of it, which is astonishing as 3D generally means to me, a technology in process, and a story-line that needs the attention of special effects. 3D-Pina was utterly different from that.
As far as I’m concerned we need more stage work turned into film. It’s a powerful tool to extend & serve acts of dance among others. Of course give me good seats to live dance any day!

Superb choreography, the interesting provocative sets(dirt, water, a cafe scene full of chairs & tables), strong individualistic dancers, the costume colours which I turned a painter’s eye to (took issue as a feminist with the long ball gowns she saddled her female dancers with, but believe those to be part of her critique? To be much researched.

I love dance for so many reasons; the combination of the inherently visual, the power of music & theater along with the strength, grace & action of the human body; costumes, sets, locus, story, married to artistic choice/ideas/politics & the emotional presence of excellent dancers...

I came away well-fed. Turned on & ready to confront my own art output. That strikes me as a great way to start a new year, even if they usually start in September... let’s call this Part B.

I repotted a gift plant today too & intend for it to live on, despite my less than green thumb.

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