working models

Oh, the waves of mental processing. At one moment, I am awash with ideas and the taste of potential-- an hour later, my mind is a peaceful, but blank place. A different sort of potential, maybe-- a space to start letting other sources mix and mingle. I'm always fascinated by those blue-moon moments when the imagination is like an overgrown garden-- one thought or idea growing wildly over another--and I get to ride on the wave of new images (hopefully tracking them along the way... no guarantee that they'll be able to be recalled). Other times are like this morning: fertile, but trimmed back. A few ideas that seem fun to manipulate and mold. And then there are the dry starts-- the "just start working" discipline-- that often leads into an active imaginative space... but not always. Sometimes it's just shuffling leaden feet that remain heavy as I plod through worn ideas and pet tricks. Those are almost the worst. But the very worst is just not doing anything at all. That REALLY gets me down. Inertia is against me then, and psychological challenges are greater there than in the midst of a project that might not be working. It is as Maria Montessori suggested: "Never give more to the mind than you give to the hand." (that's paraphrased from memory). Having been a Montessori preschooler, I'm finding her marks as I study her methods on behalf of my own kids, and this one is a gem. It helps me understand a little more of the need I have for tactile, experiential work that goes beyond the verbal or abstract.

P.S. The image is a detail from a newer work on the wall of the SPAC space. Before I get it up on my website proper, more shots can be seen on flickr.

*

showing sooner than later

Coming up this Saturday (November 15th) at the Helm in Tacoma is an Asthmatic Kitty Unusual Animals event, for which Zack and I and two other artists, Nicholas Nyland and Ellen Ito, will be the visual art component. The show opens at 4pm, and then it becomes a sort of traveling affair with a music show at another location. Grampall Jookabox will be there, along with Allan Boothe and Alexander and the Optimistics. So. There you have it.

more of both.

I'm fascinated by the overarching response to my third pregnancy as inviting something unthinkably difficult into my life. I know the norm has shifted in our generation, but how many of you came from families of three or more kids? I experienced another version of this with my second pregnancy because my first two were spaced so closely (17 months). An almost derisive, "How could you let this happen?" warning about how I was going to have my hands full would often be strangers' response to my swelling belly. Well, I do. Have my hands full. And I don't regret it one bit. As one friend who has four kids said, "more chaos, more joy."

outer reaches

My boys have stopped being interested in playgrounds. Other kids swing and slide and climb their little hearts out, understandably: the whole set-up is designed for extended play. But my two bruisers go down maybe one slide, take a few swings, climb a ladder, and then they're off. Their prime source of entertainment from then on is perusing the very outer borders of whatever play area we're in. Jetting down paths through woods if they can, climbing over fences and up hills of wood-chips, picking up bits of trash, pulling leaves off of trees. This is a source of frustration and fascination for me. In other settings it takes this form: a common thoughtful Seattle thing is to have, in a coffee shop, for instance, an area for kids to play. The same pattern holds there. If the play area is not gated closed, my boys dabble lightly and take off... behind the counter, under tables, over chairs, to the windows and doors. They talk to everyone that will get eye contact and to some who are trying to avoid it. And I am the scooping and herding mama, trying in vain to direct their attention back to the humble cache of toys and books, until I give up and leave. Whenever my husband sees this pattern in action, he sighs, "They're going to live on the other side of the world from us." And I sigh back, with a mixture of appreciation and resignation for these consummate explorers.

the test of time

I've been peeking at Allison Sommers' work for a while on flickr, and thought I'd post one of her wonderfully grotesquely sublime pieces. It seems a good match for me this morning; I've been up since 4:30 with a weirdo almost-two-year-old. I know some people get up at that time regularly, but they go to bed before midnight, usually, too. It's so hard for me to shift my mind and be okay with being up in the wee hours. I'm a wussy sleep lover. And even though my household is far from normal when it comes to night-time (every night we do some sort of musical beds), this cutting short of a night of sleep feels like a personal insult. Luckily, the warmth of affection flashes in at intervals... watching little legs pad around in the dark, feeling little hands on my face (until they experiment with a little slap), hearing a little voice play and sing and ask questions in pure curiosity and excitement.

special announcement

I heard the heartbeat yesterday, so now it feels official enough to be completely public. Child #3 is scheduled to make his/her appearance in the family Mid-May! We're rejoicing, with far less trepidation than the last go-round. That time, we found out we were having a baby the week after Z told UW he'd be coming for their MFA program... putting the due date two months into his first year. Yikes! And we survived that one, so bring it on! Bring on the little hands and face, the suckling, the yellow poo.

silent flaming arcs of hope

The subject line is from a beautiful collaborative song between my brother and his wife, called "Jacaranda," which is also the title track to his new CD... It's been stuck in my head for a few days. The coming election both entirely engages me and exhausts me (and I'm not even campaigning!). My nerves, especially regarding some of the big ethical-voting fights among family and friends, are frayed. So this simple little phrase, a description of fireflies in the song itself, is a welcome spot of quiet. Away from the clamor of fightin' words, and speaking to the hope that is, according to Emily Dickinson, the "thing with feathers...

That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all..."

robleto et al

Dario Robleto: At War With The Entropy Of Nature/Ghosts Don't Always Want To Come Back, 2002.

Cassette: carved bone & bone dust from every bone in the body, trinitite (glass produced during the first atomic test explosion at Trinity test site circa 1945, when heat from blast melted surrounding sand), metal screws, rust, letraset; audio tape: an original composition of military drum marches, weapon fire, and soldiers' voices from battlefields of various wars made from Electronic Voice Phenomena recordings (voices and sounds of the dead or past, detected through magnetic audio tape).

I was just reintroduced to the work of Dario Robleto, and he has recaptured my imagination. His alchemical use of materials (he considers himself to be a sculptural sampler-- like a tactile DJ) is really beautiful, lending even his lists of materials a magical poetry. I love the sacramental respect for the history of objects-- such a deeply human drive, and one that gets a bit blurry in our age of thing-overflow. Here's an interview with him and his gallery page at ACME Los Angeles.

...and...

The post I had a few days ago included a graphic that must've been blocked, so the whole punchline was gone. On the same post, I had a link to Zack's feature on Archinect. Since I deleted the other post, I thought I'd re-post Zack's article... Here.

diem chau

I was just reminded of the delicate work of Diem Chau, and thought I would pass on the link.

...and it's official.

I am honored and excited to be included in the ranks of the approaching Northwest Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum.

(the image above is "Alamo Pinata" by Jack Daws, another artist in the biennial)

Puryear for reference

When I want to think elemental and elegant, with a poetic sensitivity, I often think of Martin Puryear. I somehow forget to include him on lists of influences, but he's such a standard reference for me. What an extraordinary sense of form he has. A small selection of his work above. Enjoy! In looking for Puryear images, I also ran across this great slide show at the New York Times of the show "Second Lives."

ruby mag

The new issue of rubymag is up, and I'm humbled to be one of the featured artists. I appreciate the format-- entirely visual. Even though I have a verbal streak, I sometimes hate artist's statements. I'm not supposed to say that as an art teacher, but I do think that the languages of image and text sometimes harmonize and other times jar one another. There's a reason, often, that a visual artist hasn't chosen the path of a writer... because they're clearly more fluent in visual rather than verbal language. So it's nice to just get a shot of pure image. Plus, I almost always respond to the majority of work rubymag posts. It's evocative, international and diverse. So. Check it if you want a shot in the eye. (The image above is by Irana Douer, the Argentina-based editor)

Also, I failed to post this prior to the opening, but a suite of my work is hanging with Allegoric friends in Chicago at Architrouve for the rest of the month. If you're in the neighborhood...

the shape of a day

With a recently minted graduate degree and several exhibitions and publications on the rise and a half-time teaching position and an every-now-and-then job with a record label and two high-energy little boys and the various short-term jobs that cross this family's doorstep, we've entered a new phase of life. It's not entirely unlike the past two years' juggling of school and adjunct teaching, but it's a little stranger. Something like a cross between being on an interminable vacation and being busier than we've ever been. It has to do with time flexibility-- a blessing and a curse. It's entirely up to us to make the shape of our days... to finish what's in front of us and hunt down more opportunities as artists in order to survive as a family in an expensive city. Because our lives don't take the shape of a typical clock-in job, I think both of us sometimes feel incredibly lazy and useless, even as we chase our boys in circles and feed them and take them for walks while the other person corresponds or frames or works on drawings or researches boy scouts. By reading journals of other people involved in disciplines like ours-- writers, musicians, other visual artists, etc-- I know this feeling is common. There's so much in-between time when you're not cranking out work, but you have things brewing and steeping and waiting to be formed. What's goofy is that even forming this humble blog entry helps me put a form to the formless, and gives me some sort of relief. I start to understand why someone like Gerhard Richter has a set schedule every weekday (this quote taken from a Michael Kimmelman NYT article):

"He sticks to a strict routine, waking at 6:15 every morning. He makes breakfast for his family, takes Ella to school at 7:20 and is in the studio by 8. At 1 o'clock, he crosses the garden from the studio back to the house. The grass in the garden is uncut. Richter proudly points this out, to show that even it is a matter of his choosing, not by chance. At 1 o'clock, he eats lunch in the dining room, alone. A housekeeper lays out the same meal for him each day: yogurt, tomatoes, bread, olive oil and chamomile tea.

After lunch, Richter returns to his studio to work into the evening. ''I have always been structured,'' he explains. ''What has changed is the proportions. Now it is eight hours of paperwork and one of painting.'' He claims to waste time -- on the house, the garden -- although this is hard to believe. ''I go to the studio every day, but I don't paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love making plans. I could spend my life arranging things. Weeks go by, and I don't paint until finally I can't stand it any longer. I get fed up. I almost don't want to talk about it, because I don't want to become self-conscious about it, but perhaps I create these little crises as a kind of a secret strategy to push myself. It is a danger to wait around for an idea to occur to you. You have to find the idea.'' As he talks, I notice a single drop of paint on the floor beneath one of his abstract pictures, the only thing out of place in the studio."

When I first read this in graduate school, it made me feel claustrophobic. Now it is utterly relatable. Though my personality would never allow this much structure, the appeal is palpable. But even Richter feels that he "wastes time"!

indiana-animalia

We pulled up in the evening, and opened our car door to a rousing chorus of cicadas and crickets. A small toad hopped across the rocky driveway. Zack caught it and showed it to the boys; it hopped wildly around the car a bit before we could catch it and let it go back out. The next morning, we drank coffee in the backyard, where countless bees and flies buzzed around our legs and flowers, along with flitting moths and birds. The impersonators are the hummingbirds, who make sonorous bug-like dives behind your head. Sammy, the family golden retriever, is a kid favorite, of course, and becomes a pillow or a running partner on command. The stray cat is a favorite, too, though not of the grandparents, who are trying to avoid taking in these sorts. And then there's the lithe little lizard with a slinky blue tail that runs round the deck and front porch, the catfish that Zack caught and let go on a night-time fishing trip, the five-inch long praying mantis in the backyard tent, and the fat cicada crawling up a brick wall with dirt still crusted on its back after being born out of the earth (when it falls back into the plants, we find it again by watching where the leaves are twitching the most urgently). I tell you, we spend our time in the city visiting aquariums and zoos to get close to animals, and Puget Sound's shore is an ecology that is more new to me, but being back in the country in the midwest reminds me how much wildlife is present in the day-to-day here. Of course, we've had our raccoons and squirrels quite close to home, as you know if you've read this blog for a while, but it is a very different experience to have to stop your car in order to move a turtle out of the road. When you get out of the car, the air is thick with the smell of cows in a muddy little valley, and you swat a mosquito that lands on your neck.

forever ago

We're on an extended visit to Southern Indiana family... where there's only dial up internet(s) and the room with the computer is a baby's sleep room, so I'm out of touch--somewhat mercifully--but it explains some of the hiatus from this spot. Happy end-of-summer-beginning-of-fall to you all (isn't that what September marks with certainty?). I'd hardly know its passing here, though, where the air is 90 degrees and swarms with bugs (so many more than in Seattle!). I'm enjoying the *real* heat and the reunions. And... I'm out.

psst

Some newish work posted at the oldish website...

what faith is, when lying as still as possible

I was trying to get my oldest child to sleep (why do PBS kids shows consistently address monsters as a topic, when the coverage ironically plants a fear that might not have existed?), and gazed out into the night sky to see a plane's blinking lights cruising across the border of the window. I found myself thinking of the people who were definitely inside that aircraft--one at least, the pilot-- and it seemed so so bizarre to believe that a flesh-and-blood person was the one determining the movement of this little blip of light that I could track with my humble retina. I know this is another one of those stoner-ish epiphanies (no, if you're wondering), but bear with me. I believe many things along these same premises... based on previous experience and what I deem to be trustworthy hearsay. And, rather than being discouraged, I was buoyed up in the realization that some things that might seem far-fetched in the light of psychological distance (that anyone, God or man, could hear your thoughts, for example) are quite easily possible. Things that seem, at moments, to be inconceivable, are as common as the regular woman flying the plane, who, after steering that very inhuman-feeling light, will later brush her teeth and spit minty saliva down the drain and fall asleep thinking about her tax return. I told God in college that I would believe in him if he showed me a ghost (weird, true), and shortly thereafter, at a Halloween party (of all days!) I saw a flash of light throw CDs off of a speaker and turn off a stereo. Many other things threw me over to the theist perspective, but that was one of the kickers. About as lame as a blinking plane light, but timed perfectly, as if someone knew me in all my foolishness and still had the tenderness to play my game.

yes!

A few posts back, I was racking my brains for a word. The word is, weirdly enough, matrix. I think I had a block against it, because of the film, the long leather jackets, the dead serious comic-book delivery. Don't get me wrong-- I enjoyed watching the sequence, but I had to dodge my own cringes (picture my cringes as bullets that move in slow mo through gelly water, while I do a back bend and my black leather jacket makes a graceful arc around me). I think mnemonic is actually a better word for the concept I was fishing for... thank you Shannon and Lee!

where earth meets sky

{Image from Walker Art Center, Minneapolis: "Whitney Garner, our Teen Programs Intern, permanently solidified her devotion to Kiki Smith’s Born."}

I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that I've done almost all of my artwork during my boys' naps for the last three years or so. Literally, between that and some evenings, most of my drawing and painting has been in short bursts, under the pressure of limited time. So these last few weeks have been an amazing transition; Zack has graduated with his MFA and we're between school years, cobbling together a living from freelance, shows and odd jobs. Which means that Zack stays with the boys often and I get to go to school for chunks of hours and work. This is an incredible luxury after the juggling method, but it also presents old familiar challenges. When you HAVE time, it's easier to dawdle, doodle and dabble. Some of this is totally necessary. You can't work at full speed all the time, and the contemplative side of the practice has been lacking in my life. But I'm surprised at how the quantity hasn't changed drastically, as now I allow for time to stand back from the pieces and mull them over rather than shuffling them back into a drawer at the sound of a cry. It'll be interesting to see if the work blossoms or suffers under the new arrangement. For my psyche, though, it's AWESOME.

One thought I'm having as I contemplate the current location and direction of the paintings is that there's an element of earthiness-- soiliness-- that I haven't been employing the way I have for more of my life's work. The stuff I'm doing now is very watery and airy. It has a light touch and a practiced hand, and more control. When I see things like those made by Anselm Kiefer, Antoni Tapies, Kiki Smith, Jannis Kounellis, etc. there's something in the work of these artists that I respond to year after year in a really strong way. I'm not ready to start collaging again, or smearing, but it's an interesting branch of engaging tactility and missing preciosity that I think I'll walk down again before too long.

rooting around

Help!

There's a word on the tip of my tongue and I can't find it. It's something like paradigm or diagram-- and it means, vaguely, a mental model to help you think of something (ironic, isn't it?). Other wrong words that are coming into my mind instead are parallax and proxy, which makes me think it might have a p and an x? Man. I had this same thing happen the other day... I was picturing an art historical drawing (that I still can't find) of two men bowing painfully low, and couldn't think of the word sycophant, and then it appeared days later as a title of a friend's painting. I do really like all these words that are hyperlinked; they all have a picture-of-a-picture elegance and complexity, but I'll be indebted to you if you can help me find the one that eludes me.

Signed,

Your word nerd

P.S. If anyone can think of the drawing that I thought was called "The Sycophants" that'd be awesome too. My poor shrunken brain.

when it crosses over

E coming from a nap: "The giraffe in my room got green, and there was a pink cloud!"
us: "Oh, that was a dream, Ezra..."
E: "No, it was real! Look outside with me-- there's a pink cloud!"
E shows us and explains that the leaves in the window made the giraffe look green, and then there was a pink cloud, but now it's gone.

beverage schedule

{this should be a twitter post, but I'm not on that network}

There's a point every day that I stop craving coffee and start craving a glass of wine. I'm not so bad with moderation on both fronts, but I clearly associate beverages with the ascent and descent of each day.

just like the one-winged dove sings a song sounds like she's singing

What do you want to talk about? Stevie Nicks, riding the bus or dreams?

*Stevie Nicks: how can someone that sings about lace and doves, black widows, dragons and, you know... crystal visions, pull it off so that I can take it? And love it? I think it's her commitment to a certain flavor of victorian hippie witchiness, her gung-ho scarf-draped microphone stand, her petticoats and leather gloves. Oh-- and her freaking awesome voice. Brother to Stevie, in my book, is Prince. Just as many cliche poetic devices and over-dramatic performances, and I'll eat that with a spoon as well, please.

*Riding the bus: Is there a better place for a mother of toddlers to sit by herself with no obligation to any other task? Even going for a walk or a sit-by-the-water contains a decision about how long you allow yourself to be away. (We're in a high-demand period with our youngest boy, and I'm feeling like a parenting weakling... in case you'd like to know.) A busride has a beginning and an end; no assertive driving needed, and plenty of casual people watching at hand. And where else do you get to meditate on phenomena like Stevie Nicks?

*Dreams: When the dream well is dry, I forget about the pulsing vibrant world beneath the surface. But, Lord Almighty, how I love when they come back and storm my world. Better than any film, because they're so much more immersive. I wonder how many of my painting ideas are connected in some way to a dream I've been given. Lots.

'nother little art bite

Jean-Michel Othoniel
I love the energy of his work, and seeing glass used so masculinely (for lack of a better word, off the top of my head).

sneak peek

It's not a super-sneak-peak, since it's up on Asthmatic Kitty too, but this is part of a painting for an album cover for Castanets-- release date set for October. There was also a little follow-up to our gallery camp out on the label site. I'm very honored when we get to work with them...

{Crab Nebula as seen by the Hubble telescope: Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll}

A break from social figuring-- which is important at our scale, but can be eclipsing of bigger (and smaller) pictures...

I was listening to the radio last night on a quick trip to the video store and the subject was The Big Bang. I love when something like that shakes and flips your whole mind into wonder at the crazy world that we nonchalantly live inside. A very centrally agreed-upon concept, cosmologically, is that the universe that we know started from a single dense dense dense (I'm so scientific) point. Instantaneously, at one moment, there was an enormous explosion. You all know this, but just think of it! Look around at the wild diversity of objects and materials and communication and and and (ad infinitum) imagine that it all advanced from a SINGLE moment-- all energy contained within that one blast, and now we see energy transferred in endless ways, making and breaking and being remade to become the planet and solar system and galaxy and universe that we call "home." That we can call anything by any name is ridiculously miraculous.

and so it goes

I'm the first to say that I love living in Seattle. It's so full of go-getters who are doing interesting things on every front, and I totally love living in a place with so much geographic drama. But since returning from Mexico, where the warmth and eye-contact between people is so much more vibrant against Seattle's practiced reserve (read: social distance), I've been inwardly seething at some of the gross interactions I've had with people here. Seattle is as famous for a certain brand of passive/aggressive smugness as it is for espresso, but I've been happy to discover many, many exceptions to this rule. This week, though, maybe (again), as a comparison to tropical dwellers, it's been more apparent than ever. I won't go into detail. But just picture trying to smile genuinely at people you pass and having person after person either frown back or give a weird, tight-lipped "what're you so perky about?" feigned grin. Add to that some instructive self-righteousness. Yuck!

So anyway, today I was at a playground with my boys and there was an older kid who was dominating a little water/sand contraption and who was getting annoyed at my toddlers' tries at helping. This was frustrating, especially since he was using our buckets and the toy was made for smaller kids (Can you see where this is going? Can you already sense my ridiculousness?) I finally got exasperated, and, with no decorum, lifted my boys and the buckets from the scene. "I'm taking this bucket." No niceties, no communication with a kid that was maybe eight. Hear my confession, brothers and sisters. I was embarrassed at myself for my own version of weird passive/aggressive behavior, remembering that SO often the things that are the most vexing to me are traits that I myself carry. I internally admitted and asked forgiveness for my complicity, and on the way home, we ended up running into a woman who lives down the street, whose entire family has repeatedly defied all the stereotypes aforementioned. And she was, as always, friendly and genuine. In a nutshell, I'm humbled.

morning discovery

hmmm.... nice. Jen Tong.