A Path

Donna Watson, acrylic collage painting, Imprint

"When you're lost in the woods, it sometimes takes you awhile to realize that you are lost.  For

the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trail head any moment now.  Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it's difficult to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don't even know from which direction the sun rises anymore."  Elizabeth Gilbert

   image by Donna Watson, Osaka Japan

"It may be that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey.  The mind that is not baffled is not employed.  The impeded stream is the one that sings."

Wendell Berry

   image by Donna Watson, Kyoto Japan

"This is your road.  Only you will take it.  And there's no turning back."

Olav H. Hauge

image by Donna Watson, Kyoto Japan

"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

image by Donna Watson, Kyoto Japan

"You see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything:

the darkness that comes with every infinite fall

and the shivering blaze of every step up."

Rilke

 image by Donna Watson, Nara Japan

"Will you rewalk 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

           image by Donna Watson, Kyoto Japan

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

T. S. Eliot

  

"Every moment in your life is a turning and everyone a choosing.  Somewhere you made a choice.  All followed to this."  -- Cormac McCarthy

My Confession

Donna Watson, collage, 6"x6"

I have a confession to make.  I am a procrastinator.  I procrastinate on starting new projects.  Heck, I  procrastinate starting old projects.  I even procrastinate my blog posts.  I do not have a problem working in my studio on my paintings and collages.  I have a problem trying to start projects that are art related, at the computer for example.  I have never given much thought as to WHY I put off starting new projects until I read an interview with Susannah Conway.  She has written a new book titled THIS I KNOW.  You can find out more about Susannah at her blog here.          

image by Donna Watson

Anyway, back to the interview.  She was asked if perfectionism was an issue for her.  She answered "yes" and that her procrastination was closely related to her perfectionism.  And I thought, omg, I am a perfectionist too.  I set high standards for myself.  I realized I may be putting off new projects because I fear it won't be good enough.

  image by Donna Watson

As someone who loves the concept of wabi sabi... mainly that there is beauty in imperfection... I still have this perfectionist streak in me.  

  image by Donna Watson

I have recently started... and finished... several projects that I have been putting off for months now.

None of these projects had a deadline which is why I could keep putting them off.  I seem to really need a deadline.  What helped me get started was to make a list of my goals and priorities.  I looked at it every day.  And I began to slowly check off some of my projects.  One of my projects was to make my first hand made book.  Check! (more about my book in my next blog post).  Another project was to get my small collages set up at Etsy.com/shop/donnawatsonart.  Please check out my new shop at Etsy.com (see sidebar).  

  image by Donna Watson

Now I wonder how many other artists are perfectionists and procrastinators.  Where do you fit?

  image by Donna Watson

There is a website called Smith's Magazine's Six Word Memoirs which you can find here.  

image by Donna Watson

I tried to come up with my six word memoir.  Breath in, out, in the moment.  Kick in butt, get to work.  Then I realized these are really more like actions and not really like a memoir.  So here is the one I settled on:  She has faults, but good intentions.

  image by Donna Watson

One life.  Six words.  What's yours?

NYC Art Scene

Donna Watson,  Connections 3,  acrylic/collage

I had a wonderful trip to NYC to see my son, Matt's graduation from Columbia University with his MFA.  We ate in fabulous restaurants and bakeries, went shopping in Soho, and went to several books stores where I looked at many art books (and came home with a few).   My son now has a website which you can find here and below is one of his paintings.

Matthew C. Watson, oil on copper, 9"x11"

I did see some very interesting exhibits at some of the NYC museums.  One of the artists I discovered at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is Taryn Simon.  She is considered an art documentary/photographer and the name of her exhibit is A Living Man Declared Dead and other Chapters I-XVIII.  She spent 4 years and traveled to 25 countries researching and recording bloodlines and their related stories.

In India, Taryn Simon located living people officially declared dead, a predicament involving corrupt

bureaucrats scheming to take their properties.  In Bosnia, she followed the bloodline of Muslims killed by Bosnian serbs.  

In each scenario, she would photograph any family member who would pose for her.   

Another artist, Cindy Sherman (b. 1954),  has a huge retrospective at MoMA.  She is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art.  Sherman has spent many years creating her unique form of art... dressing herself up in costumes and make up and then photographing herself in different poses and backgrounds.  

Drawing from an unlimited supply of images from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet and art history, she has worked as her own model.  She is her own photographer, model, make up artist,
hairdresser, stylist, and wardrobe mistress.

With an arsenal of wigs, costumes, makeup, prosthetic, and props she alters her physique and surroundings to the point of being unrecognizable as Cindy Sherman, the artist.  She explores issues of identity, representation, and feminism.

Tacita Dean (Great Britain) has an exhibit at the New Museum in Soho titled Five Americans.  Using mostly videos, she captures portraits of 5 important American artists and thinkers:  Merce Cunningham, Leo Steinberg, Julie Mehretu, Claes Oldenburg and Cy Twombly.  These 5 large almost black pieces (with faint, light writing) captured my attention when you first enter her floor of videos.

Her installation provides insight (the still moments of these artists conveyed in videos) into the way that film making intersects with painting, sculptures, writing and dance.

Klara Liden (Germany) also has an exhibit at the New Museum.   Liden scavengers the streets of cities all around the world for discarded materials, which she uses to build sculptural hideaways, scaled to her own body.  Her exhibit is titled Bodies of Society.  And yes, it did look like she had taken trash cans right off of the streets of NYC and placed them in the museum room.  She radically alters the space of the museum in order to expose it to the material and political realities of the world outside.

She engages with the folds and fabrics of cities she passes through, adapting public space to her own needs in the creation of a more intimate environment.

"They [critics] don't grasp that art tells you things that you don't know you need to know until you know them, that there's no way to know beforehand what might strike you, and that art isn't about understanding, it's about experience."  --  Jerry Saltz, Frieze Magazine, "Writing Wrongs"

Hodge Podge and Thank You

Donna Watson, Acrylic and collage

I am leaving for NYC very soon... my son is graduating from Columbia University with his Masters of Fine Art degree.   He has been living in NYC for several years and is in the Davidson Contemporary Gallery in Manhattan.  You can go to the gallery link here to see more of his work.

Matthew Watson, oil on copper, 6"x6"

I have been very fortunate lately to receive a number of wonderful gifts in the mail... and in person... from artists I have met in person or through my blog.  I want to share some of the creative artistic gifts here.  I have met some very generous friends and I want to thank them for their support and generosity.

  First up is Elizabeth Bunsen.  She is into circles and dots like I am and she sent me the most fabulous packet in the mail.. filled with all sorts of fabric and papers stamped with circles and dots.

Elizabeth also included some of her wonderful rocks... she knows I love rocks and collect them.

Her warm colorful dot and circle filled blog can be found here. 

Lynne Perrella sent me the most creative envelope above...  a large envelope inside a plastic sleeve with the stamps placed outside in the most amazing way.   I had a lot of fun opening up such a wonderful envelope.  Her website can be found here. 

Leslie Avon Miller is a good friend of mine.  She recently gifted me with one of her beautiful hand made tags...  and a clay Asian coin made by a friend of hers ... which she knew I coveted.   You can find more of Leslie's tags and collages and art work at her blog here. 

Cathy Hegman sent me a bird's nest some time ago.  Thank you Cathy for such a wonderful gift.

Her blog can be found here.    Mary Ann Burke lives on the east coast.  We met online through my blog and when she came to Seattle for a ceramic/clay event she came to visit me.  She gifted me with these large clay 'eggs' because she knew how much I admired them.  

Seth Apter came to the Seattle area (Bellevue WA) for one of his wonderful book signings for his book THE PULSE OF MIXED MEDIA.  He gave me one of his wonderful art works above.  

  

Seth also gave a short demo of one of his collage works.  You can find out more about his book, his book tour and travels and his art at his blog here.  

What we make, why it is made, how we draw a dog, who it is we are drawn to, why we cannot forget.

Everything is collage, even genetics.

There is hidden pleasure of others in us, even those we have known briefly.

We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border we cross.

--- Michael Ondaatje

Essence and a Book Signing

self portrait by Donna Watson, collage

(this is not my self portrait in the book)

BOOK SIGNING!!

The Pulse of Mixed Media:

Secrets and Passions of 100 Artists Revealed 

by Seth Apter

local artists Leslie Avon Miller and myself

will also be there doing demos

Bellevue Art and Frame, Bellevue WA

May 5th, 12-2

20% off of all books purchased during signing and DOOR PRIZES

 Seth Apter invited 31 artists to create self -portraits for his book.  Below are 5 artists who submitted their self-portraits.   "We are not free when we are doing just what we like.  We are only free when we are doing what the deepest self likes.  And there is getting down to the deepest self!  It takes some diving."  D.H. Lawrence

Alicia Caudel lives in the Pacific NW.  She says her inspiration for her self-portrait is simply all that she treasures.  "I am a quirky girl with many loves and adoration, and as such I wished to represent as many of these affinities as possible."  website here and blog here

Your handwriting.  The way you walk.  Which china pattern you choose.  It's all giving you away.  Everything you do is a self-portrait.  Everything is a diary.  --Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

Jen Crossley lives in Australia.  "Reflections" shows the many layers of mica over the image which represents the many layers of Jen's life as a mother, wife, best friend and artist.  blog here.  

Art is not making a beautiful surface, or drawing a realistic apple.  Art is getting to an essence, reaching the senses.  -- Shoichi Ida

Robyn Gordon lives in South Africa.  Her wood carving has become a form of meditation.  "I decided to portray one of the most important facets of my life, and that is the serenity that I feel while creating art."  her blog ArtPropelled here  

What we make, why it is made,  how we draw a dog, who it is we are drawn to, why we cannot forget.  Everything is a collage,  even genetics.  There is the hidden presence of others in us,  even those we have known briefly.  We contain them for the rest of our lives,  at every border we cross.

Michael Ondaatje

  

Bridgette Guerzon Mills is a mixed media artist who currently has two young children.  Her self portrait is a female figure who conveys motherhood and fertility but also a gatherer, and nurturer.
website here  and blog here

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find ways in which you yourself have altered.   --- Nelson Mandela

Don Madden works with clay.  He was not an artist all his life.. coming from the corporate world so he is now busy working with new techniques and creating unique wonderful pieces.  He also has a very funny sense of humor which you will find at his blog here.  

A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem,

or as bad or good, 

as vulnerable or as strong, 

as sweet or as feisty;

we are thickly layered, 

page upon page, 

behind simple covers.

-- Deb Caletti

CREATING FROM MINDFULNESS

Donna Watson mixed media painting/collage SHIMMER

More than 40% of the actions we perform each day are the product of habit.   The habits most of us perform each morning may run counter to the conditions brain scientists tell us would promote open minded creative thought.  If your typical routine is to jump out of bed, dive into the shower and rush around in order to get into the studio then stop and think about this.  What if you set your alarm a few minutes earlier, lie in bed, think about your day, stretch and take deep breaths.

Stand in the warm shower a few minutes longer, think deeper thoughts about what you want to do.

Sit at your desk or work table, have a cup of tea or coffee, write down some of your thoughts.  Scientists have found that our morning routines can foster more creative energy and thought.  I asked a few artists below to send me their morning image and words to start their day.  Their blogs are wonderfully poetic and thought provoking and creative.  My morning image is first.

  Tea:  Sweet Grace Vanilla Rooibos.  Breakfast bread:  Chocolate Babka.  Location:  my library desk with my fossils and collections.  Book:  THE ZEN OF CREATIVITY: Cultivating Your Artistic Life by John Daido Loori. Journal writing notes.

Quiet morning, sun shining in 

my favorite things surrounding me

breathe in, breathe out

some thoughts written down 

to get me going for the day-- donna watson

Anca Gray lives in Chicago, Illinois.  She creates art pieces out of discarded vintage books and found objects.  She is interested in everything poetic, emotional, and capturing moments in time and space.  She has a tumblr site, an etsy shop and all can be found at her blog TO LIVE POETRY here.  

 Image by Anca Gray

You must open up to the day with abandon.

drown your expectations, your fearful plans,

slowly, mercilessly, in a pot of black tea.

draw close to the stones

and listen

as the day recklessly blooms with possibility --  Anca Gray

Nancy Neva Gagliano is a poet and visual artist.  As a photographer, she experiments with photographic processes both outside and inside the darkroom.  She is also know for her wrapped (rapt) rocks and for her poetry.  Her blog and her poetic words and images can be found here. 

Image by Nancy Neva Gagliano

What comes to open space is as real as 

what leaves the open spirit.

No intention.

light, shadow, line, sound.

shared natures sensing boundless energy.

When the mind rests, 'work' begins. -- Nancy Neva Gagliano

 

Elizabeth Bunsen lives in the northeastern part of the U.S.  Her artwork and images always seem to have this warm, wonderful glow.  Her interests include wabi sabi, long walks and gathering found treasures.  Her 'glowing' blog is called be...dream...play....  and can be found here.  

 image by Elizabeth Bunsen

morning coffee, 

dreams launching ideas

like red hot husks

the early light

pregnant with quiet....  Elizabeth Bunsen

Fiona Dempster lives in Australia.  She is a calligrapher and book artist.  Her art works explore themes about peace and meditation, about reflection and introspection and about journey and place.  You can find her tumblr and website from her blog PAPER PONDERINGS here.  

 

image by Fiona Dempster

Every morning

Freshly squeezed orange juice,

Choose a word to ponder and guide,

Gaze across the ever changing valley,

Be thankful.  -- Fiona Dempster

Carol Leslie lives in Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada.  Her blog posts and her art (paintings, prints) have to do with Buddha teachings, meditation, and her love for peace, beauty and harmony.  She also has an etsy shop and you can find her blog  ZEN DOT STUDIO here.  

  image by Carole Leslie

draw a breath

draw a line

the slender wedge of this moment 

is always waiting for us

just below the furious scratching

of the mind.  --  Carole Leslie

Leslie Avon Miller lives in the Pacific NW area of the U.S.  Her art works include mixed media collage, paintings, artist hand made books, envelopes and tags.  Her creating process clears space and light for 'experiencing the moments'.  Her blog TEXTURES SHAPES COLOR can be found here.

  image by Leslie Avon Miller

"I wake up greedy; greedy for the day, the light, the time to be and see.  I want to see the birds, the deer,  the leaves unfurling at the end of winter.  I want to note the falling snow flakes, the winds in the tree branches, and the warmth of the fire.  And I want to see images of art.  I want to read a poem, or a thoughtful blog post written by a person in my circle.  I wake up greedy and I eat a nourishing breakfast of images, nature and quiet.  This is oxygen.  And I always put on my own oxygen mask first."  by Leslie Avon Miller.