A series about resilience

I am showing up again, doing the real work for myself. Everything I do is the real work of course but sometimes it is in the way some work comes about that feels better and more concentrated than others. I am in that place again, feeling more focused and working exactly the way I need to.

I have firmed up my work schedule. I am also remembering and making myself be okay with how I lay the foundation for pieces in a series. See, I know that I have to show up every day or at least a string of days in consecutive order to make the best work. I also know that I have to work on several canvases at once and work the paintings at the start a bit like an assembly line. I also know in my heart I don't like that word or action, it makes it seem rote or mechanical so I resist it. I know that I need to put down a lot of garbage to tease out the good stuff but who enjoys painting like garbage? Not I. However, if I don't allow myself this assembly line garbage process or if I don't have enough paint or canvases to work in this manner then I will never get to the weeding and true gardening part of the painting process that I love.

At first, it is simply showing up and putting in the time. If I don't show up, how is my best art going to find its way to me? It won't and then I will be disappointed and then I will show up even less and it's a vicious circle. The next step is the ability to make marks and paint without censorship and judgment, laying it all out there, experimenting and manifesting the pure energy required to transfer something of myself out into the world through the brush and onto the canvas. Then comes the looking, editing or loosening what is too tight. My paintings have been too tight off and on for years. You might not think this, but I know. If you talk to any massage therapist that has ever worked on me, you would also know I hold myself tightly. I have been protecting myself from this world for decades. So my goal as I get older is to trust myself and the world and fall into it all and take you with me in my work. Things are getting looser, especially in this series.

Of course, I didn't mention my palette. Color has always been extremely important to me. Even though the bulk of this series seems to be covered over with a neutral grey, there are ochres, greens, blues, pinks, Payne's grey and charcoals dancing or wrestling together. The colors are flickering, sputtering, jumping, and clawing their way up out of the grey. There is a faded beauty, something beneath the surface dripping and aching yet energetic, always making its way through the grey. Sometimes the grey is well known and comforting in its nothingness. This is a series about resilience.

In other news, I am honored to have my painting, A Change in the Frequency, featured on the cover of the brilliant Interim, Poetry & Poetics Journal. From their website, "Interim was founded by poet Wilber Stevens in 1944. In his tenure as editor, he published such luminaries as William Carlos Williams, Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner." Please visit the journal here and be sure to give their Facebook page a like as well.

Besides reading my news here, be sure to tune in every Tuesday for my weekly video studio visit. I publish them on my facebook art page but you don't have to be on Facebook to enjoy them. Just click here.

That's all I have for you this week, I hope you are well and happy. Thank you for being here. Please keep fighting, the world needs you and your art!