the nature of things

I find myself at 51 in an deep editing versus gathering mode of life. I find joy in giving things away and limiting objects entering my life. I have no drive to produce art as product. I am no longer interested in the effort of showing my work in a formal setting; no longer interested in the framing, the hanging, the opening, the storing of pieces of unsold art. But this summer I find myself missing the process of making images. So I have decided to make work simply in a notebook. Small studies using man-made and natural rulers to investigate the nature of the repeated mark or line. Inspired by the restraint of Agnes Martin, I search for a more obvious yet subtle approach to studying natural form. Many of these were made by tracing Maple and Fir branches, large honeysuckle vines and beach stones. The marks although attempting an order of spacing are casual, even rough. Imperfections are accepted, but not pursued. Somehow through this repeated tracing of the small, larger landscapes come to fore. This fascinates me. I am not attempting to draw "something", I am just setting up rules and following them. The image is purely accidental. Therefore these are more of a residue from meditating on the nature of things than an attempt of replication.

soul-crafting: part 1

For the summer of 2016, I am blessed with (as of late) a very rare luxury. This luxury can only occur when my merchant sailor husband's time off ship corresponds perfectly with my slow time for design projects. Needless to say, that is the rare luxury; this extended time off together. These are the moments when we can retreat from urbanity and attend our personal little work camp in the woods. My husband chose this home of outhouses and solar panels, simplicity and restraint, but I married into it. For the first decade, I used this place as an artist retreat. I created the work for several art shows in the second floor of an unfinished plywood house which came with the property. We lovingly refer to it as "the bunker". But for now, I have lost interest in producing art. I have thrown all my creative juice into my architecture. Which is why over that last two years we have been tethered to the city and why island time has been slim. But not this year. This year we have time for this place. And as I am more interested in making places than things, I find myself engaging in the physical labor which country property requires. I have done several rounds of design drawings for "the bunker", but that was not a physical act. I want to physically make it better; scything paths through rambunctious grasses and weeds, mowing our huge lumpy, thistle/ fire-weed/ blackberry vine-covered field of a yard with a solar-powered electric lawn mower. Knowing I would not have art projects to accomplish, I brought up a teetering stack of books on simplicity, minimalism, buddhism, compassion, but find myself practicing my soul-craft far more successfully mowing a lawn, pruning a tree, or clearing a path.