A New Year, A Clean Studio

Forgotten Cardinal, 8 x 10", watercolor

It happened quite by mistake....the cleaning of the studio at the new year....I was deeply obsessed with painting little feathers in watercolor, and had been for several months, when I looked up from my painting table at the wreck of a studio that surrounded me.  I had a slight panic as I remembered a friend was coming over around the first of the year to shoot a photo of me 'in situ' for her upcoming show of photographs of artists and our muses.  My 'in situ' was a dump!  

So I took a break from doing what I loved and started doing what had needed to be done for a long while.  After several days of purging, donating, recycling, moving and insulating, I can say that for the first time since I've been both an artist AND a mother, and that's been 21 years now, I have organized my studio, at least partially, in a way that makes sense.  Book making tools and adhesives on 1 shelf, watercolors and brushes on 1 - okay, 2 shelves, etc.  

I do a fair amount of teaching of watercolors and different techniques, so it's hard to part with things I think have potential (not quite as bad as Howard Finster...), but I think I'm on a good trajectory for continued progress.  For instance, I teach in programs for at-risk youth and I teach classes for adults that might just be 1-time classes.  I don't want purchasing art supplies to be a barrier, so I have amassed utility knives and needle-nosed pliers, to name a few.  I helped a friend's son clean out her studio when she passed, and redistributed 12 SUV loads of art supplies.  As I was cleaning (I kid you not) 200 paint brushes of years of acrylic and oil paint, I thought, 'yes, the high school can use these, but those kids are not going to clean these properly to get years of use out of them' and kept 20-30 decent brushes to use with my students.  Most students don't get to use good quality brushes when they are starting out and I'm telling you, good tools make a difference with the student's experience.  

So the supplies are a bit more organized, the place is a little cleaner and the year is off to a productive start.  Here are a few of the little watercolors I made at the end of 2016 and so far this year.  The cardinal skeleton was found by a friend and it had been sitting in the studio for about a year and a half, so painting that was the carrot at the end of the stick for cleaning the studio.  

The watercolors have been a big healing /mind clearing exercise after August 2016's 'The Gun Show', but I will get back to working on that project again soon, because......

Fallen Cardinal, watercolor, 6 x 8"

3 Wild Feathers, watercolor on Yupo, 6 x 9"

Two Tiny Turkeys, watercolor on paper, 6 x 10"

Ispiration in Other Art Forms

I check out books at the library like my friend buys wine.  If it's highlighted on the shelf and the label is creative and cool, I give it a try.  That's how I came to borrow "In Fact The Best of Creative Nonfiction".  I renewed the term of borrowing I loved it so much!  This is a book that starts with an introduction by Annie Dillard that is, basically, advice for young writers.  (It reminds me of a book I've read a few times and recommend to young artists called: Letters to a Young Artist, by Anna Deavere Smith.) 

The essays are full of delicious descriptions for a visual artist like myself.  I've read and re-read Diane Ackerman's Language at Play piece.  It is so visual!  She describes the act of making/creating so accurately it almost hurts.  As is to be expected, she puts words on a process that so many of us visual artists tend to struggle with. 

It would be easy, lazy, even, to say, "Well, she's a poet, a writer - that's easy for her.  I'm a (insert visual artist label) - I work with color, shape, form, etc."  But I expect it is  more like when someone looks at a fit woman and says, "Well, she's lucky"...or, "She's skinny".....which totally discounts the fact that she gets her ass out of bed every morning before 6a.m. and walks, runs, bikes, swims and (mostly) eats healthy.....you get the picture.

Building a Better Bird

Knowing full well that I can't outdo Mother Nature, I'm still weaving a bird shape, inspired by the lockers and drawers full of these little jewels of nature at the U of M Ruthven Museum of Natural History.  The U of M museum hosts 2/3 of the world's species of birds in its ornithology collection.  I am always in awe when the head ornithologist, Janet Hinshaw, and grad student Sara Cole open a locker and pull out a drawer.  The colors! The sizes!  The adaptations!   

With that in mind, check out the photo of the Frigate Bird below my wire bird.  I took the snapshot at Dry Tortugas National Park in March 2012.  This beauty just soared on the thermals all day long above the pre-Civil War era fort on the Island - Fort Jefferson.  With a 7-foot wingspan, imagine how much wire that would take to make!

detail, wire woven bird

Frigate Bird, Dry Tortugas, 2012