It’s a delicate balance, this work thing.  On the one hand, over-scheduling myself can put me in the position of not having enough time and energy to make quality work (while still keeping up with life itself.)  On the other hand, too little work to do makes for artistic stagnancy and that can quickly spiral into dangerous psychological territory.  Ideally, if I can pluck away at some larger ideas while staying loose with smaller daily things I can stay balanced enough to do my best work as artist, mama, wife and friend.

Recently I signed up to be a part of The Sketchbook Project out of Brooklyn, New York.  This is a really great project that I consider to be something of a community art project.  None of the artists donating sketchbooks to this project are getting paid, in fact we paid to do this.  But here is how I look at it.  It’s exercise.  People spend billions of dollars each year on exercise for their bodies, why not pay a small fee and a bit of time each day to exercise your inner artist?  The first step in all this for me is to gesso all the pages in the book which is a moleskin brand blank book.

Generally I don’t use the moleskin books because of the paper.  Great for writing or even just pencil or pen drawing, but it doesn’t take watercolor very well.  With the gesso on the pages, they become more like blank slates that I plan to do collage work and maybe some paintings as semi daily exercises outside of my own sketchbook work (which try as I might not to, I still can take too seriously).  The book is due back to Brooklyn by January 2011 and will have a life of it’s own once out of my hands.  It’s good for me to do this sort of thing and let it go.

My theme for the Sketchbook Project is “I am a Scavenger”.  This is pretty much true, from nature bits to quotes to my own ideas, I am constantly scavenging around for new and potentially usable stuff…

Meanwhile, I have been working on an embroidery for a quilt I am making for a special show in the fall.  Here is the beginning…. just blocking in colors and getting the generic form of a howling wolf into place.  Already I love her and she seems to have some wonderful personality.  I will post more on this project as it comes nearer to fruition.  If any of you blog readers are crocheters or thrift store shoppers, I am looking for crocheted doilies (approx.3″-8″ diameter) to be a part of this piece as well.  Please contact me if you’d like to contribute!

But for now, I am back into the studio to draw my new favorite thing I read about in a book last night…. cave pearls!!!  (I think cave formations will translate nicely into wax this fall!)

Yesterday I downloaded my friend Kim Taylor’s latest EP, The Greatest Story.  It’s 5 songs are soulful and playful and tearful and wonderful.  Seems like the perfect music for this amazing season.  Check out her website and get yourself a copy of her work.  I think you’ll love it.

Meanwhile my own work is plugging right along.  I have been teaching my Keeping a Journal Sketchbook class at the Art Academy in recent weeks and it is going extremely well.  This being the second time I have presented this particular class, I am more relaxed and more creative in my approach to teaching.  I think this may be rubbing off on to the students.  They are so enthusiastic that a few of them want to keep the class going another couple of sessions.  So the folks at the Art Academy have been gracious enough to let us officially extend the class for those who are able to keep meeting.

As I present this class to more and more students, it’s becoming clear to me that there is more to the process of keeping an artful  life-chronicle than first meets the eye.  We do more in this class than simply open our books to write, draw and glue stuff down.  As happened in my spring class, friendships are being forged.  Students are opening up to sides of their own creativity they never knew existed.  They are commiting, or re-commiting, to making an artful way of life a priority.  Surrounded by their enthusiasm and joyful art-making, my own making has received a shot in the arm.  Work begets work.  I know this, but it still amazes me when I see it and feel the phenomenon in action.

One of my former students, and now friend, introduced me to the work and writing of Jennifer Louden, the Comfort Queen.  Her blog is delightful.  Reading it I get the sense that I have sat down with a fellow artist to tackle the Fear-of-The-Unknown in our art process.  I get the sense that she feels the same fear in her work everyday and simply does what we all must do; show up, feel the fear, and do it anyway.  I encourage anyone needing an art nudge to check out her website.

One of the often discussed themes in my class at the Art Academy, as well as among my fellow artists and myself, is that of how to get started. The ol’ zero to 60 phenomenon.  Most of us have other jobs (many cases multiple!), families who rely on us, households to run, lives to lead.  Rare is the artist who wakes up and makes art, day in and day out without fail.  Frankly, I don’t know anyone like that.  How does one find the time, energy and inspiration to work on art at the end of a jam packed day or week?  How do we get the art motor running anyway?  I have my own answers to these questions and am always interested in hearing how other creatives get out of their own way.

Along with my ever present sketchbook and the act of walking my dogs, I have recently been writing letters and post cards to people I know will love to receive them.  I get out the collagey materials and glue weird images to envelopes.  I make little sketches and add them into letters.  Sometimes I use a typewriter…. yep, a real old fashioned one that hiccups its way around the words giving the whole thing a whisical quality that I love. I slip in a little glitter now and then.  None of this takes a terribly long time and the benefits are far reaching.  The art supplies are coaxed out of stagnancy and ideas begin flowing.  It’s a snowball sort of effect and I am rolling with it right now.  This simple act of doing something remotely artful is the back door to the more “serious” work that may or may not be around the corner. The other day I had a fire going in the studio fire place, the wax table was on and I was mixing new colors, sticky things were drying on postcards and in my sketchbook.  It all felt a bit like a complicated dance but there I was, just dancing.

Today my creativity finds itself mostly out in the kitchen where I am busy readying Chez Bogard for the annual Riley School of Irish Music Halloween Party.  Chili, cider, mad amounts of chocolate chip cookies are in the works.  I still need to get my new vampire teeth fitted.  I shall be a Vampire, to suck the very marrow out of life…. mwa ha ha.  But I digress….

Have a safe, happy, fun, CREATIVE Halloween.

Here’s the latest waxy work…

Things have been rather busy around here, but Saturday was spent in a collage workshop with Randel Plowman from whom I learned a few collage and transfer techniques. More importantly for me it was simply 7 hours of uninterrupted making. Here are the results…

I spotted the above quote at this site and it immediately resonated with me. Slowly but surely I am settling back into my comfort zone here in the studio. This morning I woke up, grabbed a cup of coffee and started drawing dogs. I feel desperately out of practice. But here is what I came up with…

One of the constant themes/ struggles in my work world is how to balance the things that make a living with the things that feed my artist soul. I am enjoying the chance to get back into the studio to work but am very aware that the work I do in the studio, as well as on my blog aren’t what keep me afloat financially. I have my ever patient and supportive spouse along with a multitude of part time jobs for that. How do I reconcile this? I am not certain. I just know that drawing is a centering process for me and is a good activity all around, like any exercise. I also know that I can’t afford to think too much about things or I wind up stuck in the muck of my own spinning wheels.

So I am drawing and spending time outside and with my family. Last night I visited the spot where I left the hawk in my woods. Ok, it might sound gross to some people, but I was interested to see how broken down the carcass might be and if any woodland creature had maybe carried it off. I was surprised to see that it was indeed still where I laid it and it has decayed quite a bit. In its own stark way, it is really beautiful and I took some photos. Perhaps this is the sort of abstract thing I should be trying to convey in wax. The shapes are vaguely familiar, but without knowing what you are looking at, it might be difficult to tell what it is (ribcage).

This is the stuff floating around in my head and on my sketchbook pages. I’m going back outside… then maybe to a movie. I hear Indiana Jones is back in theaters!

With the encaustic “cakes” all set to go from my efforts this past weekend, I was ready to hit the studio today and try adding some pigment to the wax/resin concoction and see what I could come up with. For lack of a better, more professional artist sort of word, it was just plain FUN! I know already that I need to get away from the palette that I have started with; it still looks fairly out-of-the-box. But I am trying not to be too hard on myself. I made a little painting which measures about 5″ square (sort of). I put a hiding fish in it. I just played.

So here is my first go. I took a few photos with different lighting. Here are two. I am not sure which does the little painting more justice…

It’s back to the proverbial grind after the Thanksgiving holiday, which for us at least, was restful and peaceful and full of gratitude. It is raining, raining, raining so I have started a fire here in the studio fireplace to try and ward off the damp chill. I am fighting a cold and feeling a bit on the whiny side.

Even so, I am sipping on hot tea and waiting for the visit of a dear friend in from out of town. We have been too long apart. The landscape outside, so much a part of my view from inside, has a lovely purpley gray to it, along with more browns than I can count. These are new colors, arriving with the colder temperatures and falling leaves, and exciting in their own quiet way.

I pinned this list up above my work desk for the potential (inevitable?) “dry spell” since ideas seem to be flowing at this time…

It is a crisp, cool, October day here in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is not a special day, really. Not a new year, or even a new month or week. Just a normal work day. A Thursday. A perfect day to dip my rather wary toes into the pool of bloggers I have come to enjoy and respect in recent years. Often I read something on one of these posts that changes my perspective a little; that causes me to pause and reconsider something I may not have thought about before. I am better for it.

I know many people whom I admire who have made the decision to create change in their lives. Some have stopped smoking, or decided to lose weight or begin an exercise program. The ones who have found success in their endeavors are those who went about it without much pomp or circumstance. They just got started, one normal day. Simple as that. Then, step by step and over time, goals were accomplished, then new ones created. And lives were lived well.

I have come to realize the precious quality of each individual’s voice in this world. More recently and miraculously, my own included. And so, with this blog, I am putting my voice out there with the others. It will more than likely be largely ignored by anyone outside my network of family and friends. But in this blogging framework I have an official-feeling place to ponder new art ideas and collect the data the world throws to me. I have a place to structure my thinking; a place to take those baby steps that will lead to the larger work. I am proud to place myself in this blogging arena with all the other interesting voices out there and I look forward to what magic may come back around my way by taking this one… tiny… step…