Surviving on Hope

Title: Edge of Light, older painting chosen here for its title.

For several days now, the news and images coming out of Japan have been devastating and heartbreaking. I would like to dedicate my blog post to the people of Japan, and to all peoples all over the world, as they struggle to recover their home, family and community. I recently read a review of a book written by David Brooks titled THE SOCIAL ANIMAL: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement. In essence, it is a book about the human need for connection, friendship, and love. We yearn for "community"; we have the urge too "merge". What drives us, ultimately, is the need to be understood by others. I think this is especially true for artists. Though we work by ourselves in our studios, we still need 'community' and for others to understand what we are trying to communicate with our art works.

Novie Trump, ceramic artist, is participating in THE NEST PROJECT: WHAT DOES HOME MEAN TO YOU? at the Torpedo Factory in Virginia. NEST is a juried exhibition which examines the nest as a symbol for home and refuge, both literally and conceptually. Besides the juried exhibition there are installations, and a community built nest. You can find out much more information about The Nest Project and the Torpedo Factory here. Novie's website is found here.

Sharon Beals is a photographer who has a new book (above) coming out soon titled NESTS: Fifty Nests and the Birds that built them. The book is available for pre-order at Amazon.com and here is her wonderful website with more images and more information. The next two images are from her book.

Entering it
you enter yourself,
the world connects
and closes like a ring.
-- Octavio Paz, poet

Sharing the signs
of early spring,
singing the songs
of the artists' works
and poets' words here.
Soar with inner wings.
-- Neva Gagliano, artist and poet, blog here.

Bird eggs are a beautiful metaphor for the cycle of life, renewal and hope. Mary Ann Burk, a ceramic artist and potter, makes eggs that look like they came out of the earth. She places her eggs on driftwood and branches or ceramic pedestals. Her work is at the Barnswallow gallery and you can find her wonderful blog here. Her art pieces are above and the 2 images below.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait.. the faith and the hope and the love and all the waiting... the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing.
--- t.s. eliot

Lesley Bricknell is a fine arts textile artist and photographer. Lesley is attracted to fragile and transient surfaces that she intentionally ages, stains, and spoils. She loves worn or discarded garments, with histories which she "reclaims". She looks for the purity in the impermanence and fragility of objects and life. She has her beautiful images at her website here and at her blog here. The next 3 images belong to Lesley.

"...When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing..."
-- J. L. Stanley

Outside the sun shines
birds sing
and I am not having to make
snap decisions about what
to stuff into a suitcase
or how I might get
6 cats (and the rest) to safety.
-- India Flint, textile artist, blog here.

Those of us who are safe and warm, we are the fortunate ones.

Signs of Renewal

CYCLE OF LIFE, 2011, acrylic and collage

It is that time of year when I start thinking about spring. It is still cold outside, and we can still end up with a few more snow storms before spring arrives. But there are signs of spring, like green buds on bare branches and small fern fronds peeking up from the ground. And the birds, with their nest building built into their DNA, is another sign of spring. And after the winter months, we look for signs of hope and renewal.

This nest is in my Zen House (greenhouse), in a glass box along with round beach stones and driftwood. "My aim is to create an emotional sense of space and place, where time ravages, wind blows, seas swell, places are found, days dwindle, moments are present, then past." -- Sam Lock

I have this nest on my front porch-- I often find it disturbed by creatures like squirrels and birds who seem to help themselves to the twigs and straw and odds and ends to make new nests.

Chris Giffin is a terrific artist who collects and assembles recycled and found objects into beautiful assemblages. You can find her work at these two gallery websites here and here.

Novie Trump: "Eggs have been a symbol of rebirth and renewal for thousands of years....
In this work a nest of weathered bones cradles a single luminous egg, a symbol of hope and possibility amidst death and destruction." You can find more of her beautiful works at her website here.

Lelarnie O'Sullivan is from New South Wales, Australia. You can find out more about this artist and her work at the Visual Arts Network here.

WHEN A TREE DREAMS
it is of eggs--
robin's, dove's --
the gentle cradling,
the perfect fit
of bluestem straw,
alder, sprig, mud,
down, hair, in its wind--
strong cup of sky--
reaching branches.
-- excerpt, D. J. Gaskin, poet
You can find his website here

Susan Seubert, fine art photographer. Find more of her beautiful photography at her website here and her work at this gallery in Portland, OR here.

Take refuge in rivers, in oceans,
in whales, in elephants, in manatees,
in birds, in words, in images, in
dreams, in dance, in song, in
silence. Take refuge in the bird
path. -- ashes and snow. org

Year of the Rabbit

This is the year of the rabbit. I love rabbits. I don't know why, really. Perhaps it is because they are so quiet and gentle. Above are 2 handmade scrolls.

I have stone and metal rabbits throughout my home.

I have stone and metal rabbits in my Zen gardens.

This is the Chinese Year - of - the - Rabbit horoscope. If you were born in 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987 you would be a 'rabbit'. When Buddha lay dying, he summoned the animals to bid them farewell. The cow was the first to hasten to the scene but the rat, riding on the cow's back, jumped off and arrived first. Thus the rat became the first animal in the Asian zodiac, a cycle of twelve years that assigns a different animal to each year. A person is thought to take on characteristics of the animal representing the year in which she or he was born. Since nature is the source of all art and design in Japan, you can find animals depicted in many of their art forms.

Wood carving.
Those that are born in the year of the rabbit are considered articulate, talented and ambitious. They are often lucky.

Macau postage stamp 1999

Netsuke are miniature sculptures invented in 17th century Japan. They were first used as 'toggles' to help close bags that Japanese men wore to carry around their belongings.
Eventually, netsuke became a highly honored art form.

A ceramic cup

Rabbit's frozen pose--
breaking loose he springs away,
melting through the fence.

You can find more of Kris Hargis' drawings at this gallery in Portland, OR here.

Geoffrey Gorman creates his animal sculptures from all sorts of materials.
Find more of his wonderful sculptures at his website here.

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way." --- Winnie the Pooh

A New Day

This is a collage I made last year. I titled it NEW DAY.

I have been working on a new series and struggling a bit. I work in my studio during the day and often end the day frustrated and even feeling lost. The next day, in the early morning, I lie in bed thinking about the new day and what promise or hope I have for the new day in my studio.
Every morning is like a haiku filled with new artists' impressions. I get up and get ready to tackle another day in my studio.

Jo-Ann Van Reeuwyk is a fiber artist. Her work is about vessel making and containment. She explores relationships, embodiment and containment which are important aspects of the personal. You can find much more of her wonderful fiber creations here.

The following is a poem by David Whyte titled What to Remember When Waking. It is about what an artist (or poet in his case) thinks about when first awakening in the morning.

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

Carole Kunstadt is a collage artist who combines objects like stones, shells and twigs with hand made papers. Layers of memory and a sense of intimacy pervade her work. You can find more of her wonderful work at her website here.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

A detail from the above piece

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Tracy Spadafora is an encaustic artist who investigates the connection between our man-made and natural environments, illustrating the endurance of nature. These two are her works on paper and you can find more of her wonderful work at her website here.

Now look through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white pages on the writing desk?
---David Whyte

When I saw this collage by artist Leslie Avon Miller (you can find her wonderful blog here), I thought of early dawn when the sky is still dark but hints of color - orange, red, or yellow begin to burst through at the edge of the darkness - hinting at the new day.. a new day in the studio.

awakening light
promises of a new day
streaks across the sky
---Russ Baleson

Histories Past and Present

A scroll is a roll of parchment or paper which has been written, drawn or painted upon for the purpose of transmitting information or using as a decoration. Scrolls were the first form of record keeping. They were also used in recording history and literature before the bound book.

Come said the muse,
Sing me a song no poet has yet chanted;
Sing me the universal. Walt Whitman

Photo by Werner Bischof, from JAPAN photography by Werner Bischof 1951-52.

Without memories, there is nothing to account for our lives. With memories, we develop a language, drawing from universal concepts.

"Leaning against the wall were rows of ancient, tattered Chinese screens. I peeked between torn corners to see layers of paper, some yellowed with age but covered with exquisite calligraphy. A new body of work had begun." Roberta Marks, A Place Between

I found the above image at Seth Apter's tumblr page which you can find here. It is titled Four Play. He has beautiful images there as well as at his wonderful blog, which you can find here.

I draw these letters
as the day draws its images
and blows over them
and does not return. -- Octavio Paz

Four ancient scrolls from China.

A detail of the seals and chops used in the above scrolls.

A scroll made of bamboo
Man is but a part of the fabric of life -- dependent on the whole fabric for his very existence.
--- Gary Snyder

The above is titled LETTER FROM THE OLD WORLD by Lissa Hunter. Her book is LISSA HUNTER: Histories Real and Imagined. She also has a wonderful website which you can find here.

"Any process , whether it is washing dishes or making art, is begun to fulfill a function, is formed by appropriate techniques and materials, and if affected by cultural and historical influences." --Lissa Hunter