Defining Shibui

Shibui 1, collage by Donna Watson

Shibui (or Shibusa) is an enriched, subdued appearance or experience with economy of form, line and effort, producing a timeless tranquility.  Shibui objects appear to be simple overall but they include subtle details, such as textures, that balance simplicity with complexity.

The aspects of things that are most important

for us are hidden because of their 

simplicity and familiarity.

--- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Shibui 2, collage by Donna Watson

This balance of simplicity and complexity ensures that one does not tire of a shibui object but constantly finds new meanings and enriched beauty that cause its aesthetic value to grow over the years.  Shibui should not be confused with wabi sabi.  Shibui objects are not necessarily imperfect or 

asymmetrical, though they can include those qualities.

If one's life is simple, contentment has to come.  Simplicity is 

extremely important for happiness.

--- The Dalai Lama

Shibui 3, collage by Donna Watson

The colors of shibui are 'muddy' colors.  For example, in painting, gray is added to primary colors to 

create a silvery effect that ties the different colors together into a coordinated scheme.  Depending on how much gray is added, shibui colors range from pastels to dark.  Occasionally, a patch of brighter

color is added as a highlight.

Shibui 4, collage by Donna Watson

The seven elements of shibui are simplicity, implicity, modesty, silence, naturalness, everydayness and imperfection.  The simplicity is the expression of the essence of the elements.  Implicity allows depth of feeling to be visible through a spare surface.  The person of modesty exalts excellence by taking time to learn, watch, understand that merges into silence.  Naturalness conveys spontaneity in growth, unforced.  Everydayness raises ordinary things to a place of honor. Imperfection suggests

imagination at work, instead of a finished picture that provides all the answers.

small collage by Donna Watson, with various objects, image taken by Donna Watson

 Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the LIGHT gets in.

--- Leonard Cohen, RIP, 2016

Storytelling with Collage

Enso, collage by Donna Watson, hand painted Japanese washi papers

NOTE:  UPCOMING WORKSHOPS:  

    

     July 9-10:  2 Day workshop:  Wabi Sabi and the Spirit of Collage in Mendocino CA at the Mendocino Art Center.  For more information go to:

www.mendocinoartcenter.org/Summer16/Watson.html 

     July 25-27:  3 Day workshop:  Personal Expression:  A Design Approach to Mixed Media at the Peninsula School of Art in Fish Creek, Wisconsin.  For more information go to:
www.peninsulaschoolofart.org/adult-workshops.html 

     August 8-9:  2 day workshop:  Wabi Sabi and the Spirit of Collage in Phoenix Arizona at the Art Unraveled venue.  For more information go to:  www.artunraveled.com 

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT:  I have had the honor of an invitation to be included in the book:  (The collage above ENSO is the collage included in the book.)

STORYTELLING WITH COLLAGE 

by Roxanne Evans Stout

Techniques for Layering COLOR & TEXTURE

Every collage has a story to tell.  Tell your story in paper, fabric, and ephemera collected from your world.  This book written by Roxanne will demonstrate and inspire all of us to capture our thoughts, memories and daydreams.  She showcases tools and supplies needed to express your memories.

The book is filled with collage challenges and suggestions.  It is also filled with a number of other collage artists, their thoughts and collages, as well as Roxanne's own work.  In other words there are lots of images to look at and get inspired.  For more information about Roxanne and her book go to her blog here.  

These are some of my collage papers and inspirations for my collages.  Old Japanese books.... old letters from the Kyoto flea markets.

Create beauty.

Value Imperfection.

Live deeply.

Wabi Sabi Hare

Collage by Donna Watson

Wabi Sabi is the Japanese aesthetic of finding beauty in imperfection,  incompleteness and impermanence.  It is a beauty of things modest and humble.  It is a beauty of things rustic, simple, organic, worn, weathered... things affected by the passage of time.  It is also about the cycle of life and our connection to nature.  It is an appreciation of nature and all life.  This is how I view the rabbit.  A quiet, still, silent, gentle, harmless (unless you have a vegetable garden) creature.

THE HARE WITH THE AMBER EYES is written by Edmund De Waal, a world famous ceramist working in Porcelain.  He inherited a collection of 264 tiny netsuke.  He wanted to know and understand who had collected them and how they had survived World War II.  The book is a moving 

memoir and detective story as he discovers the history of the netsuke and his family over 5 generations.  The writing is artful, detailed, exquisite... beautifully written memoir... and deeply moving.  He writes not just about the netsuke, but about the art and culture in each generation.

Here is the famous netsuke, THE HARE WITH THE AMBER EYES

Netsuke are miniature sculptures first created in 17th century Japan to serve a practical purpose.

Robes, like kimono, had no pockets.  Men who wore them needed a place to store their belongings like money, medicine, or pipes.  They used a container (sagemono) hung by cords from the robe's sashes (obi).  This box (inro) was held shut by ojime, small carved objects or animals.  The fastener that secured the chord at the top of the sash was a carved, button like toggle called netsuke.

Over time, Netsuke evolved from being utilitarian into objects of great artistic merit and superb craftmanship, highly respected and collected.

It is the quieter side of life that inspires me, with the feelings that come with my connection to the natural world.  My love of rabbits is part of my connection to nature.

This is a rabbit temple in the heart of Kyoto.  I was very happy to find it.

Artist Unknown

Artist W. Tucker,  RABBIT GIRL,  website:  www.wtucker-art.com

As you see above, artists today depict rabbits and hares in many mediums and forms.  

photo image by Donna Watson

The above image includes one of my ceramic rabbits, and 2 mail art envelopes I created.

photo image by Donna Watson

photo image by Donna Watson

Mono no aware refers to a feeling of life's fragility, and relates to seeing beauty in this fragile, impermanent nature, and even grasping that without permanence, genuine beauty can not exist.

Creativity and Fear

Cold wax and oil paints with collage bundle, 2016, Donna Watson

NOTE:  2 Day Workshop - Boro/Wabi sabi:  The Japanese Spirit of Collage.  May 28-29, 2016 in Minneapolis, MN.  For more information on the workshop, supply list, venue and how to register go to www.artandsoulretreat.com  

Sometimes I have a hard time "beginning"... starting something new.   The books on creativity basically say... just get started..  do "it".  If you can release yourself from the anxiety that might be associated with the word creativity, you'll see, in fact, that you are an enormously creative person.

That sounds like great advice but how do you do it?  

collage, 2016, by Donna Watson

What's your personal definition of creativity?

"Starting with nothing and ending up with something.  Interpreting something you saw or experienced and processing it so it comes out different than how it went in."  punk rocker

Henry Rollins

Fear and creativity go hand and hand on the same road trip.  Work hard and stay focused and do not allow fear to have a vote or to drive.

BIG MAGIC by Elizabeth Gilbert ( author of Pray, Eat, Love)

I have been reading BIG MAGIC...  basically it is about getting started... just begin... leave fear in the dust.  It is easy to read, and easy to say... but hard once I get in to the studio.  

"Its all just an instinct and an experiment and a mystery, so begin....  Begin anywhere.  Preferably right now.  And if greatness should ever by accident stumble upon you, let it catch you hard at work."

Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic.

Collage, 2016, by Donna Watson

Always this energy smoulders inside

When it remains unlit

The body fills with dense smoke.----  David Whyte

So, what is your definition of creativity?

The Color of Distance and Memory

TIDE, by Donna Watson, cold wax and oil painting with collage

Blue has always been used a a symbol of distance... especially for artists.  No matter how much we try to reach that 'blue' distance, we can never reach it... as we will always see the distant objects showing up as blue.  The blue we see is not in the place those miles away at the horizon, but in distance between you and the mountains, you and the sky, you and the endless distance.

Rebecca Solnit, A FIELD GUIDE TO GETTING LOST

Rebecca Solnit, the author, examines the color blue and its relationships to distance, desire and memory in A FIELD GUIDE TO GETTING LOST.  

"The world is blue at its edges and in its depths.  This blue is the light that got lost.  Light at the blue end of the spectrum does not travel the whole distance from the sun to us.  It disperses among the molecules of the air, it scatters in the water.  Water is colorless, shallow water appears to be the color of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper blue.  The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of the land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places we see for miles, the blue of distance."  Rebecca Solnit,  A FIELD GUIDE TO GETTING LOST

TIDE, by Donna Watson,  cold wax and oil painting with collage

"This light that does not touch us, does not travel the whole distance, the light that gets lost, gives us the beauty of the world, so much of which is in the color blue."  Rebecca Solnit

SUNLIT PATH, by Donna Watson, cold wax and oil with collage

"Blue is the color of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world."  RS

ECHOES 3, by Donna Watson, collage

Memory can be just as elusive as distance.  Sometimes gaining and losing are connected like memories.  Remember that some light does not make it all the way through the atmosphere, but scatters.

MEMOIR, by Donna Watson, cold wax and oil painting with collage

"The blue of distance comes with time, with the discovery of melancholy, of loss, the texture of longing, the complexity of the terrain we traverse, then perhaps maturity brings with it not...

abstraction, but an aesthetic sense that partially redeems the losses time brings, and finds beauty in the faraway."  Rebecca Solnit

EMERGENCE by Donna Watson, cold wax and oil painting with collage

It was November - the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines.  --- L.M. Montgomery

Some of the  above excerpts came from BRAINPICKINGS by Maria Popova, at 

www.brainpickings.org 

Wabi Sabi and Another Workshop

 STILLNESS, 10"x10" collage by Donna Watson

A NEW WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT:   BORO/WABI SABI:  The Japanese Spirit of Collage.

A 2 day course March 2-3 2015.  At the Sheraton Airport Hotel in Portland OR.   For more information about the workshop, supply list and how to register go to Art and Soul Retreat

www.artandsoulretreat.com  

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic... an appreciation of the beauty of things imperfect, incomplete and impermanent - rustic, earthy, simple, subdued, textured and organic.  It shows how the passage of time affects everything.  Boro embodies the Japanese aesthetic of wabi sabi - tattered rags used to describe patched clothing.  Instead of fabric we will learn how to hand paint Japanese washi papers.  On the second day, artists will learn simple compositions and design elements and principles based on the Zen tenets of balance and harmony.  Artists will recreate this "boro" effect by placing their own hand painted papers quilt like onto their own supports (paper, board, canvas) to create their own collages.

TO BREATHE,  8"x8" collage by Donna Watson

"I had a discussion with a great master in Japan, and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said,  "That is a waste of time.  If you really understand Zen, you can use any book.  You could use the Bible.  You could use Alice in Wonderland.  You could use the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation."

--- Alan Watts, Whiskey River

TO WHISPER,  8"x8" collage by Donna Watson

"Wabi Sabi is a broken earthenware cup in contrast to a Ming vase, a branch of autumn leaves in contrast to a dozen roses, a lined and bent old woman in contrast to a model, a mature love as opposed to an infatuation, a bare wall in contrast to a wall hung with beautiful paintings.

As Leonard Koren says:  the closer things get to non-existence, the more exquisite and evocative they become.

--- Crispin Sartwell,  Six Names of Beauty

A New Year and a Workshop

Collage by Donna Watson

UP COMING WORKSHOP:  Wabi Sabi and the Spirit of Collage

Location:  Matzke Fine Art Gallery and Sculpture Park, Camano Island WA

When:  February 7-8, 2015,  9-4pm

Cost:  $290 for the 2 days, includes lunch

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic.  This Japanese aesthetic is a beauty of things imperfect, incomplete and impermanent... rustic, earthy, simple, textured, and organic.  We will use hand painted washi or Japanese papers to create wabi sabi collages.  On the first day I will demonstrate how to hand paint these papers and everyone will create their papers.  On the second day, artists will then learn simple compositions and design elements based on Zen tenets like balance and harmony.  Everyone will then use their own hand painted papers to create whatever type of collages they want.  Matzke Fine Art Gallery is a spacious open space surrounded by a beautiful sculpture park.  Camano Island has beautiful beaches to explore.

For more information on how to register, location, lodging, etc.  contact Karla Matzke:  at 360-387-2759 or email her at:  matzke@camano.net.  Also, check out her website:  www.matzkefineart.com 

"may my mind come alive today

to the invisible geography

that invites me to new frontiers, 

to break the dead shell of yesterdays,

to risk being disturbed and changed."

John O-Donohue, from 'a morning offering'

hand painted papers by Donna Watson

So a new year is here.  What is it about the concept of a "new year"?  Some of us set new goals, some of us set the same goals we had a year ago, some of us look back at the year that has passed and rejoice in the accomplishments, the new friends, the new learnings, the goals met.  Some of us look back and think "Where did the year go?"  How fast did it pass?  What did I really accomplish?  What will I do now?  What makes Dec. 31st different from Jan. 1st?

"Our purpose in life isn't to arrive at a destination where we find inspiration, just as the purpose of dancing isn't to end up at a particular spot on the floor.  The purpose of dancing -- and of life --

is to enjoy every moment and every step, regardless of where we are when the music ends."

-- Wayne Dyer

hand painted papers by Donna Watson

"Don't think about what can happen in a month.  Don't think about what can happen in a year.  Just focus on the 24 hours in front of you and do what you can to get closer to where you want to be."

--- Eric Thomas

hand painted papers by Donna Watson

"It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert and alive."

-- Dani Shapiro

hand painted papers by Donna Watson

"The timelessness in you is aware of life's timelessness and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream."

-- Kahlil Gibran

"When you put your hand in the flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come."

-- Leonardo da Vinci

And here is my favorite Quote that I think I use every January of my new year:

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing your world.  You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself.  Make New Mistakes.  Make mistakes nobody's ever made before.  Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect,  whatever it is:  art, life, or love, or work or family life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, DO IT.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever."

--- Neil Gaimen

The Unveiling... And the winner is...

History by Donna Watson,  oil and cold wax, collage and Japanese string

Every seed grows in darkness and silence.

Story by Donna Watson, oil and cold wax, collage and scroll

For the first 6 months of 2013, I faced a serious creative block in my studio.  I wanted some sort of change, but did not know why or what.  I did not know how to move forward, nor what to experiment with or what to try that would result in some sort of change that I would like.

Mapping by Donna Watson, oil and cold wax, collage bundle

I finally decided to try a new medium.  For the past 6 monte or so, I have been experimenting with cold wax and oil paints.  It took me awhile to get used to the slower drying time.  With a lot of experimenting and layering... I ended up with many layers which I scratched, rubbed, pressed, brayered... and I have finally ended with some new finished pieces.

Old Scroll by Donna Watson, oil and cold wax, old collage papers and old scroll

I also decided to change and add to my collage.  Everyone has a story to tell.  Stories become our compass by which we navigate through our memories and discover our core being.  We use stories to build our sanctuaries.  These stories (memories) become our history.

Riverbed by Donna Watson, oil and cold wax, paper bundle, rock, string

Because our memories are intertwined with language, I like to explore the importance of words, phrases, sentences... snatches of memory lingering in and out of consciousness.  My collage became

layers of old letters, book pages, and old maps wrapped into bundles.  Scrolls, which can hide stories and histories, have also been included.  These remains of the past represent our memories in the present.

Every human life has its seeds, whether building a sand castle, cooking, painting a canvas, walking through the woods.

And now, for the drawing for my book:  THE BEAUTY OF NOTHINGNESS.  Thank you to all those who left comments at my blog and those who sent email comments.  There were 65 names.

I wrote down all the names, cut them into pieces that were folded and put into a bowl... and the one name I drew out is.....  Barry!

Thank you again, and if any of you are still interested in my book you can go to Blurb.com

here and take a look at the whole book. 

Zen Paths

Zen   collage, 8"x8",  by Donna Watson

Note:  I will be teaching two 2-day workshops in Portland Oregon for Art and Soul.  The first workshop on April 8-9 is Journal to Book:  A Zen Approach.  The second workshop on April 10-11 is

Boro/Wabi Sabi:  The Spirit of Collage.  For more information and to register for one or both go to

the Art and Soul website here.   

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work

and when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey."

--- Wendell Berry

Zen Nature 2, 8"x8" collage by Donna Watson

I have been lost for awhile.  I forgot that "art is a journey into the most unknown thing of all -

oneself" (Louis Kahan).  It took me awhile to figure out I was lost.  I thought I had just wandered off of the 'path' and I would easily get back on the right path.  I finally realized that I had fallen so far off of the path that I had to begin a new journey.  I found that reading books on Zen helped me begin to find my way again.

 Zen 4, 8"x8" collage by Donna Watson

As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears. -- Rumi

Zen 3, 8"x8" collage by Donna Watson

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

-- Wendell Berry

Zen 2,  12"x12" collage by Donna Watson

"The path isn't a straight line; it's a spiral.  You continually come back to things you 

thought you understood and see deeper truths."  

---- Unknown

Zen 1, 12"x12" collage by Donna Watson

Your pilgrimage brings you to and from your homes,

here and there, and always inside you ---

will you re-walk that path with the stone lanterns

over and over again in dreams?

and wake to walk

the path you've created in your own temple.

--- Nancy Neva Gagliano

Zen Nature 3,  6"x6" collage by Donna Watson

Note:  Most of these collage are available for purchase at my Etsy account here.