Desert Soul

So much to do, sometimes a list can be overwhelming!

Art-making quiets and focuses the mind onto the present until all else drifts away - kinda like meditation, a simplification, like water for a parched desert soul.

I stare at my canvas, this time it's made of tempered masonite. I've primed it three times with house primer on the smooth side and once on the rough side, to prevent warping.

It is a large square 48" x 48" and it's presence is firm and solid compared to the wispy, delicate yet surprisingly strong surface of silk that I've been painting on for the last three months. My husband bought one large sheet of masonite 8' long and cut it in two for me.

The day is grey, the rain is coming and my feet are cold - there is something wrong with the heater.

I've been reading Artillery Magazine - the Sex Issue and in particular one article, "Art With Benefits" by Josh Herman and am thinking about this quote from Jilda "To me, art must evoke something within us - be it joy, sadness, reverence or lust. An object which fails to do that is merely pretty." And although my work is abstract I feel it is also emotionally charged and sexually symbolic. I'm not painting sex per se, nothing so literal. But instead passion, emotion - intimate emotion.

This is a journey into my own expression of intimacy - a poetically abstract journey, minus the depiction of flesh - save that for the pornographers.

This masonite surface is so slick, hard, shiny, like new ice - not sure how to navigate this world yet.

The following day: Suddenly I feel happy.

I think I like this masonite surface.

"It's a long, long, lonely ride to find the perfect lover for your lover."

From the song "The Taxi Ride" by Jane Siberry

Musical Ambiance: The Speckless Sky ~ Jane Siberry

Wall of Sound

I'm painting on the last of the silk bolts as we speak. The bolts are left over from my silk painting days when I painted kimonos, wall hangings, scarves, ties and artwork using silk dyes and gutta on silk.

It's so dark outside today with the rain, it feels sooo un-Californian. Plus it's cold in here and gloomy. We are spoiled by the hot, dry sun and although I'm a native Southern Ontario girl at heart I do believe this Cali place has me hooked.

I sink into a wall of digital, electronic sound... Boards of Canada (but they aren't Canadian!).

This painting is perfectly balanced, and I don't wanting to disturb it's perfect presence, to unbalance the contours, the forms, the lack of focus.

Ahhhh...the freedom of abstract painting, I can feel it in my bones. I'm seeing a link between my left hand drawing, becoming a psychic, learning to trust my intuition, desire for music without words and abstract painting. There is a deepening of everything.

Everything is perfectly level, all planes are even. Why should I disrupt this space? What's missing? THE FEMALE FORM, emotion, pathos, misery, blood and guts and beauty in the wreckage, the lone female voice crying out. For that I need Tori (Amos)

"And I wondered when will I learn guess I was in Deeper than I thought I was if I have enough love for the both of us "just stay". From "Strange" by Tori Amos

I am fighting to say alive emotionally.

Musical Ambiance: Boards of Canada ~ "The Campfire Headphase", Air, Milosh, Tori Amos ~ "Scarlet's Walk"

Taxi Ride

I am in love with silence and feel blessed beyond measure to live surrounded by the sounds of nature: the dove, multiple bird sounds; chirp, cheep, aw aw, hoohoooohoo, week week and long drawn out warbles.

I sit and stare at my silk canvas trusting in the process. The idea is to paint this series (Journey Into Intimacy) over one year's time and just let the process carry me where it will. My only expectation is that I'll have a body of work with some strong pieces at the end of the year.

I paint nearly every day and I write as well. The writing spurs the painting and the music I choose provides extra juice. I never know what the painting will be, I just wait for the emotion to take over and I follow where it leads.

Why is it that some people cannot acknowledge other's talents? Is it a fear of denigrating their own talent? It's as if some people feel as though they only have a limited supply of love to give out and that they must hold on to it tightly to prop themselves up, leaving very little room for anyone else. Thoughts, anyone?

It's easier to paint by charging forward, not quite sure if I like the painting or not! Sometimes, fuck it...I just want to leave it be, accept that it's perfect as it is although I know it's not over yet! (oww! paper cut!)

"We've all been pushed too far I guess on days like this" - from the song "Taxi Ride" by Tori Amos.

Musical Ambience: Tori Amos ~ Scarlet's Walk

Into the Fire

Going beyond the figure, beyond realism, beyond...into emotion, expression, feeling, no boundaries, although the canvas does capture but a small square of time. The brushstrokes raw, evident, fighting.

This painting heaves and thrusts...I close my hands, my eyes, overwhelmed, yet waiting...is it done yet?

I paint with my glass off, my vision most likely strange to those of you used to crystal clarity. I prefer this world of soft edges, undulating, mysterious, the details not so important.

I have built a small fire to keep me warm, through paint.

I can go no further.

Beneath the Beneath

The silence is an invitation to think.

What are you really saying? Forcing the answer, making it fit within real-time practicalities lessens the meaning which can only be expressed wordlessly, through touch and sight.

The "little voice" in my head is quiet as I paint - putting brush to canvas - the colors and forms speak for me. No need for explanation. Isn't the process enough? But of course not! So I write an invitation to join me at play so you too can join the dance, the journey within. So you too can feel transformed through stream of consciousness being-ness, relaxing your tight hold on reality as you slip into something more comfortable...more perilous?

Can 'ArtSpeak' explain it? Can you? Can I?

I can give you the moment before creation, captured in words, but then wordless-ness takes over, and the moment just is...as words leave me, and colour, line, form, expression, movement, take over.

The softness almost unbearable. A need for sharp, dark, angst - to plunge into the depths beneath the beneath, where breathing no longer exists.

Musical Ambience: Sade ~ "Best of Sade", Rose Chronicles ~ "Dead and Gone to Heaven", Tori Amos ~ "Scarlet's Walk".