Negative space? It really felt like i just outlined the shape leaving the inner shape blank but anyway.....
Another. I just discovered that Bad Faery has a big draw photo pool on Flickr. This is a group pool where big draw people can post their drawings and then you can see everyone's drawings all at once. I only discovered the pool by accident last night. You have to be invited to join??? Only some big draw folks are there. Go to Bad Faery's blog, click on one of her drawings and you will get to her Flickr site. Click on big draw group pool and you will see all the group drawings.
Meanwhile, after what felt like weeks of stagnation, I am putting together three collages on foam core as Blue Sky Dreaming sometimes does. These are just tentative layouts. My "theme" is: what is the purpose of my life. Who am I?
During my stagnation time, I kept questioning what I am doing at this point in my life. It seems so useless and fripperary. What is the point? Just to amuse myself? It all feels rather bluck.
Then I decided to bind a few books for Christmas presents. Then I decided to stretch and gesso some canvases. And from there, as they have to dry, I decided to cut up some foam core and try using it as I never really have used foam core as a base. So there you go. Everything cycles around and around and around......... The grey stuff is from a hornets nest fragment I found on the ground the other day.
Do you ever get lost in wondering why you are doing whatever you are doing?? Does it matter why? Which part of creativity matters. The doing? The response by the world to the doing?
21 comments:
Oh yeah, Suki, all the time, but it always comes down to this for me: I believe that we are all doing the perfect thing at the perfect time and that even though we don't know all the answers to all the questions, everything
is as it should be :-). Even feeling bluck is blessed :-).
Interesting how you approached the negative space drawing. When drawing negative space I always set up a complex still life with several items. Negative space drawings help us to see the edges and areas surrounding the objects.
I always like the "doing". Now that I have a blog and many people see what I "do"... I'm enjoying the response.
hmmm I agree with Chewy. I like the satisfaction when done that I DID THAT. Challanging the brain to keep going. You have a purpose. your taking care of your Mom and so doing that you are keeping your brain occupied an stimulated. and you have something to share with your friends, family and bloggger friends. So keep it up you inspire me thats for sure.
oh yeah oh yeah...snap, feel the same about everything right now...left the teaching world behind 6 weeks ago only to find that i have to possibly re-enter it again from january...wo what the hell was that 'i am ready to retire' all about? anyway, moan moan...i like the negative space stuff a lot...wish i could come over and spend a week learning from you, i know it would be great!!!! and no, not all blogs get a 'genius' reading rating...so there! keep on collaging, they are magnificent. hugs and lotsa warm fuzzies for you today.
Suki, Love your ponderings and I want to react clearly to them but I need to go off to the DMV to have an eye test, picture taken and whatever else they need....I think money a fee! ha Will write later..enjoy the foam core!
Join the club...what is life all about anyway?
I think mine did take off at 65. Because I did sit down and ask myself that very question.
It was then I got "serious?" lol about art work...and decided to devote more time to ME and less to my WORK (the work that earns my living)in days per week devoted to each...and grandkids helped too, giving me a place to devote my love, and little people to create for, as they are so non-judgemental and accepting and appreciative...Patty Deigh has a wonderful post on her blog (Yesterday) about being a fairie or angel to someone (especially to kids) that makes life worthwhile.
And my work does give me structure and meaning as a helper to others.
There is no retirement on my horizon that I can see...less so since the financial crisis in our world hit...
So as long as my mind and body stay able I am destined (?) to be a guide, helper, counselor, to others; a warm lap to grandkids as long as they fit; ;-) and a lover of life and art.
You have been one of my inspirers too, Suki. So be aware of the meaning in life your art has to others. And your questions do make one think!
Annie, I like that. Even feeling blucked is blessed.
Chewy, that's why I put a ? mark around my negative space comment. I wasn't sure if this was what was meant. Thanks for you comment. Blogging is a great way to get instant response to things.
Thanks Cris. I think it is in part, and this is pushing the blame for my feelings on someone else, but Mom's lethargy and depression is catching sometimes. And i feel myself yielding to just wanting to lie around and read (this is what she does during her waking hours) or watching movies and letting time roll past me like a snowball.
Thanks a lot Soulbrush. Do you feel disappointed at having to return to teaching when you though something new would be on the horizon? It would be great fun if we cuold get together and improvise and paint. Maybe someday. Be well, Suki
Oh gosh Mary Ann. I hope the DMV goes well. I had to do that a few months ago, and for the first time I had to read the letters with glasses. At first I htough I wasnt going to be able to do it. I'm not sure if it was the angle to which i had to bend at the same time as pushing the light button and moving my glasses up on my nose (they are bifocals) or what. I think I read both lines looking thru the distant lense of the bifocals. Thank goodness I passed as there is no public transport up here in the wilderness.
Lynn thank you. YOur life seems so full to me with work, art and grandchildren and that sense of contributing to the world, esp with work and grandkids must be strong for you even with the wonderful artworks you make and then send to friends. The thinks you make have so much meaning to them for the special people you make them for. Indeed you feel to me, very "together" as they used to say. I do not have grandchildren nor do I earn any money and I am ashamed at times of the way I have set up my life. I think I owuld have more self worth if I had created a career for myself instead of drifting along from one low skilled job to another, not making any solid commitment even though i have a darned Master's Degree. And if i had made a few decisions earlier in life about what I hoped to have in place by the time i was my age. I do not feel what I am doing now is challenging me intellectually enough though it is emotionally challenging to take care of and live with my Mom. I am glad you said you took yourself in hand so to speak at 65. OK. I have two more years, using that gauge, to come up with something or other. I definitely know I want to live in a more populated area but other than that....blank.
Dear Readers, as I read through the comments I've made I see so many typo's that I am appalled. Do forgive me.
DEar Suki, love your post!!!
The way you paint the negative space is great, I like the otherwayround perspective this gives us, as if someone had just taken the objects away and there is still the imprint of them in our eye:)
An oh Suki, you know, I ask myself the same question, why do I do what I do, creating mountains of things, paintings etc, accumulate them, but then, I guess we have to do it anyway, so why think about it. Only people want to see your art, Suki, I think the process is the most important thing, creating, doing, but I'm sure people in your area would love to see your colourful and soulful art, read the musings which go with them, rent a townhall, get together with other artists, exhibit your paintings in the barn, (well next summer) or also people in banks or shops or at the dentist perhaps would love to see your art exhibited there...
sorry I'm talking too much but I can already see it in my mind!!!
love
Andrea
Suki, I like the negative spaces you have done with these simple figures. Sometimes when we can focus on looking at the opposite of what we normally focus on, we can see so much more. Sometimes, we do not :)
I adore your collages. The colors you have tossed down in the first one are quite appealing to me - and yellows do not usually do not. Look at the power you have here.
I am sure we have all been lost in that wondering of what we are doing and why. I know it has come up in my life from time to time. It seems to me it comes up so much more, though, when I have to focus outside of myself for longer periods of time. Mmmm, I wonder why that might be? I like being depended upon, but I know my needs for introspection are great. When I get enough of that time, I do not go as often to this subject.
I think taking the time to ponder these things does matter as it gives us some time to reflect and in reflection we can then move forward.
You ask what part of creativity matters. Well, I think all parts of it matters, but the process is what I love the most. That doesn't mean I don't like the response. I would keep doing it without the response, but when people comment on something I have done I get more time to reflect on what came out of me...and often it also strokes my ego which I have to admit makes me feel good. :) It also helps keep my finger on the pulse of how others see the works I have created which I like.
Thank you so much, Suki, for giving me so much to think about here. This is so interesting. I am eager to see what other people have written.
And you know what? I don't think anyone cares about your typos...we just want to pick your brain. :)
Here is a HUG for you today!
Love the charcoal drawing of the negative spaces. Lovely soft, dense charcoal as well as thought provoking.
Oh YES! I have the same feelings most of the time, except when I play tennis, I guess that is the only time I can silence my head and the endless stream of thoughts, painting makes me quiet but it doesn´t stop the thought-carrousel completely.
I think people like to do things that matter, to make a difference. Sometimes I have this feeling, but most of the time not. I just wonder what on earth I'm doing......
Sometimes when I make someone happy I feel I am a drop in the ocean of life, it must matter without drops, no ocean........
OMG you gave me something to ponder again!
Andrea thanks so much for your comment. Those are great ideas for getting my art out there in the world. I'll think about it this winter. There are places where one can exhibit I know.
Kim thank you so much for your thoughtful comments on my quandaries. You know for me I think it was that for two weeks or so I wasnt doing anything creative, sort of paralyzed in the new and clean space, and that gave me more time to think. But as Andrea said why think about it. I know i can over think just about anything. On the other hand I too need time to ponder, one of my favorite words, :) even if I come up with no concrete conclusions.
It is true that ego plays a part here, and a sense of competence, which i seem to feel I have little sense of.
thank you Kim for your reflections.
Thanks Willow. Charcoal does have a nice soft line.
Marianne, thanks for your thoughts. I had to chuckle a bit at what you said about playing tennis. How wonderful that tennis does that for you, takes you right out of your head and into your body. Yoga sometimes does that but i can do relaxing poses for my body and my brain is still chattering on. Be well, Suki
All questions I have asked frequently. Not always with the same answers or reasons!
But a certain reflectivity is a necessary part of the creative process, I think.
Ultimately, we must believe in what we are doing.
(word verification is fable. How cool!)
first, i love the negative space drawings. i teach using negative space all the time. if you do things like chairs or things with handles and ins and outs it gets really fun and interesting!
as for the stagnation and wondering and general malaise....i think all artists, writers, creative people have this. probably other people, too, but i tend to hang around people like myself ;-) i think it is the questioning and the feelings of what's the use that move us on...or push us into despair. a wise friend once told me that when she got really depressed and discouraged she would just get up and start to move, start to do something, even if it was sweep the floor....and that once in motion she stayed in motion. and look at all you did today! seems like that worked for you, too!
Sometimes it feels like I'm swimming through life. Just swimming and swimming, passing things floating on the surface, but still moving on, if you can grasp my meaning. I keep going through phases; job phases, art phases, people phases, music phases, etc. I feel like I keep changing, but yet staying the same, so yes, I do know what you mean. Drifting, I guess is a better description.
Suki, I LOVE the negative space drawings. I often wonder about my life in a similar way. In fact, I am recovering from a long period of obsessively dwelling on such questions. It feels so good when I am granted a respite from that sort of mental activity...whether through sudden joy in doing something or just because a shift in consciousness creates a gap.
Suki, I met the clerk from "hell" at the DMV. I returned twice and only once with an appointment. I passed the eye test...barely.
It matters to me so much that I continue to create art and until I literally cannot then, then I'll pack up the studio. The "doing" is what matters to me, I'm expressing myself, my spiritual life, my interests, my studies and explorations.
Response is important also, it supports, encourages, creates dialogue and sales! I too get into a funk but it passes...this is what I do...I create art.
Your negative drawings are great!
thanks more idle thoughts. I think what you say about the answers being different at different times is true. I guess that is why one contemplates the questions. The answers vary. Good thought.
mary, I guess I chose pretty simple objects to draw. Chicken. I think what your friend said about moving around, even to clean house of something, is what I tend to do some of the time. I had been cleaning mom's shelves for example. But other times I crawl inward and just read and escape. I think perhaps this is just a fallow time which is needed to rest before the next active time. Thanks.
So interesting Katie Jane. Changing but staying the same. That is exactly how I feel about myself. I see so many changes and cycles as you describe. But then, it also feels as if I am the same person I was in college perhaps. OR maybe even before. Curious.
Kelly thanks re: drawings. I am hoping you have a good respite from thinking thinking. It is true if I focus on the present moment I dont have all those doubts and quiestions but I am not totally enlightened. Only occasionally enlightened. That gap is a great space to be in. May you be well and happy in your new apartment.
Mary ann, well sorry about the DMV guy but at least it is over for a few years. I can hear your enthusiasm for your work in what you say, a great energy there. And sense of purpose. That is wonderful. And contagious. So thanks. And thanks re: the drawings. Be well, Suki
hmmm... such thought-provoking questions...
yed i have asked myself such questions... formerly the response was more important for me... but now just the process of creation is what matters... it helps me to release... to get free and this is the best thing in the world... we cannot go on with much burden on our shoulder/heart/mind...
love
human being, I often think this way. That the craft/art work is a release, a healthy way to express the emotions burbling inside. That goes for poetry and other writing too.Thanks for your thoughts.
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