Creativity

Creativity comes so naturally to small children. I watch how willing the grand girls are to experiment and explore and try something new. It is built in. At some point adults become afraid of this exploration. Are they afraid of failure? Are they afraid of the unknown or breaking rules? Joel today told a student who was struggling with the figure to “make an ugly drawing”. She ended up making a great drawing. The drawing was not accurate but it was “art” and captured the model’s pose.

The past week I have had to be creative with cooking because of Baby Nikko’s allergic colitis which means she and her mom can not eat wheat, rice, eggs, nuts, corn, soy, peanuts, beef, chicken and more…

Quinoa, which is not a grain and is high in protein is one of the staples of their diet. Our son had cooked up a lot of quinoa and it needed to be used as they were leaving early today to go spend time with his wife’s family. I decided to experiment. The quinoa would likely go off before my husband and I could eat it all. I was trying to make quinoa patties but I ended up not pan-frying them and instead made these little meatballs that I cooked in the oven. They were delicious. A new invention. An invention that would even be Kosher For Passover for those who follow the rules during that week. Here is the recipe:

1/2 cup cooked Quinoa

1/4 cup of sunflower seed flour

1/4 cup of Flax seed meal

2-3 TBS of potato flour

1 tsp of Baking Powder

Chopped Greens (I used spinach and basil)

Water to make it all hold together. If you added water and it isn’t coming together then add more potato flour.

Salt to taste

Spices (I used the mediterranean Ras-El Hanout from Shuk in Brooklyn) to taste….I just shook the container over the top of the mixture and mixed it in and tasted it )

Smoked Paprika

roll into small balls and place on an oiled tray

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes

One of those creative grands in front of my drawings at the Marblehead Arts Association.

A drawing by Roen: A Bridge, Water and Sand

A messy charcoal kind of day

I used an entire stick of charcoal on this drawing. You can see the beginning and where it went. I am still not sure if it is done but I sprayed it with workable fixative. Plenty of erasing and redrawing and erasing. Now that I look at it I see “eyes”…need to fix that.

I feel like I have been in a battle with this piece of paper for weeks. So to finally feel as though I have landed someplace interesting is exciting. And now I can’t wait to do a second piece. What I really want is to have this piece of paper in combination with a figure and I am thinking of a self portrait with it. I also want to incorporate the dolls. So many ideas. Meanwhile I have to spend today going to FedEx to ship the RA piece to Surrey so my friend can deliver it to the RA.

On a separate note I did not get the Alaska Residency. My husband and I sometimes joke when things do not work out that “it all worked out for the best”. This summer might not be the best year to fly cross-country because an idiotic Florida Federal Judge removed the mask mandate on domestic flights. Having Covid in a remote location would totally suck. Or maybe I don’t want to be so close to Russia right now. Plus our son needs our help as they move into their new house. I should be proud that I was in the final 10 applications for four spots and my application was competitive and up there for consideration by the judges. The person in charge also told me that one of the spots went to a previous applicant.

I am getting better at handling rejection. I am not sure why but I have had a lot of trouble with it in the past. I think one reason I am better with it these days is I have not only gained a confidence in my work, I see my work as being my unique voice and I am motivated to keep creating and creating is what makes me happy regardless of what others think.

Artist Statements

A pet peeve of mine is artist statements. So much importance given to them when one is writing applications for residencies and grants. There is pressure on artists to make their work sound profound and current and trendy and as a result many end up writing a lot of nonsense But is it really necessary with visual work to have these “high minded concepts” or can we just make work that is a response to our world and what we see and allow the viewer the space to come up with their own interpretation and emotions about the work? Some who have read my artist statement on this web page have wondered about it’s origins and so I wanted to explain that it emerged as my personal rebellion to the expected artist statement where the artist claims to be addressing these grand concepts. I wanted to create a statement that really captured what is going through my mind as I create.

On that note the struggle is real. Images of bombed destroyed buildings in Ukraine has me returning to crumbled tangled paper. I have this crumbled sheet of paper that was packing material and I have been struggling to capture it. I have done tight pencil drawings that somehow did not satisfy and fast ink drawings and wet washy watercolors and none of them have quite captured what I want. Today I feel like I finally made progress. The composition is not idea. But I definitely feel like I am on my way toward capturing the crumbled paper.

Shortlisted!!

It’s been a busy art week. I learned I was in the second round of Jurying for an artist residency that is a dream of mine.

And then I learned I was Shortlisted for the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in London. Every year since the RA did online submissions I have submitted work. The first year I was shortlisted and my piece “Midwives and Lady Macbeth”, made it all the way to the end but did not end up being hung. At the time we were making regular summer trips to London to cycle the Prudential Ride London Century and getting our fill of Shakespeare and theater. We went to the RA summer exhibition that summer and it made perfect sense why my piece did not end up on the wall. Walking around the exhibition it was easy to tell what room and wall my piece was going to be on. In terms of color and style it would have fit in perfectly. But I framed the piece with a large 2” matte and the room was hung salon style. My piece and the way it was framed would have broken up the rhythm of the room. Every year since I have submitted work and every year I have been rejected despite submitting work I feel confident about. Every year I tell myself that plenty of famous artists have been rejected by the RA. But it always stings just a tiny bit. Last year I was super frustrated because they asked for pieces that captured this unique moment in history. I felt I had two perfect pieces that captured the moment. The works I submitted addressed the mis-steps we made with covid and the losses that occurred. But I had mis-read the room. People did not want dark pictures that reminded them of the excess deaths and loss. They wanted joyful pieces that captured the feeling of “Hot-Vax” summer 2021 and celebrating things re-opening. I knew this was the case as soon as I saw an instagram post by an artist whose woodblock picture of a happy dog was shortlisted. This year the theme was climate. I submitted one very dark charcoal drawing of a forest made up of scissors and the ground littered with figures and animals and detritus. It’s title is Alignment problem referring to the challenge we are having aligning our actions with solutions that will actually address the climate problem. It was rejected.

The other piece is titled “Tempest”. It is a swirling tornado of my dolls. I created it this past fall after tornados ripped through several midwest communities flattening them. Tempest also contains references to Bernini’s angels as I had drawn the angel with frisket before painting the dolls which is what gives it that snow like effect. I am also excited that our friends we made in London during those cycling ride-london years are going to handle delivering the work for me. One of those friends will be here next week with her ten year old daughter . Her and her brother spent part of their childhood in the US and her brother and his family live in Rhode Island. I am excited to see them as the mom has this amazing wonderful joyful energy. But also she is a lawyer and can help me figure out the stupid VAT form as the RA needs me to get a VAT number by mid May. Last time I totally messed up which ended up with mess of confusion with the HMRC.

Alignment Problem

Tempest

An old post that was never posted -Election Day- and a humorous distraction

Despite having a background in computer science and being an early adapter of technology I sometimes struggle with software’s UI. Blog posts on the Square Space Platform are not automatically published and I know that is a good thing, but alas sometimes I end up saving them as drafts and never publishing them. I was looking through my unpublished drafts the other day and this one stood out because lately Roen is really into playing “Baby Caretaker” with this horribly ugly doll her parents were given as a gift around Thanksgiving time. They have named this doll “Turkey Mctuck Face”. Roen will put the doll in the high chair and tell me the doll needs some puffs. Of course Roen will have to eat some of the puffs as well. She also uses the baby as a reason to get me to read board books to her. I know that this is a good thing as it is important for reading readiness but I confess to getting painfully bored. Yesterday as I was leaving Roen asked her mom if she would nurse the doll after she was done nursing her sister.

It is also interesting to look back on this and see how much Roen’s drawing has progressed and is becoming more figurative. She now draws rainbows and circles and squares regularly. Well enjoy this post from Election day 2020:

Yesterday Roen was drawing with her paint markers. I was trying not to hover as she is developing her own inner voice and when left alone will talk to herself. She was drawing and as she did this drawing she said, “A baby in Mommy’s Tummy and a baby in Daddy’s Tummy” (Of course…why should baby’s only be in mommy’s tummy). Then “waaaaaah wwwaaaaah aaaah” (because she knows babies cry) and then without missing a beat, “I want to draw on the table, Look I drew a bear on the table!” Thank Goodness for washable paint markers.

Here is the picture of Mommy and Daddy with babies in their tummies.

It takes a village

I needed to pick up the two pieces that were hanging at the gallery Alchemy and Art in Amesbury and deliver one of them to the Marblehead Art Association along with two other pieces. I hate driving but figured Amesbury and Marblehead are both on the Northshore and I can drive to Amesbury and then to Marblehead in a morning. Imagine my shock when I realized that entire trip would involve over 3 hours of driving. Despite being a Massachusetts native I am completely clueless when it comes to driving or getting anywhere by car. It doesn’t help that I have a mortal fear of driving on highways. Just this past Monday morning as I was driving to my daughters to watch the girls, a torrential rain caused me to get off the highway and take a longer route. I am grateful for my Uncle and my Husband for assisting with art delivery. I made my Uncle and his wife a present today. It’s small but it was fun to just paint flowers. We all need to paint flowers now and then.

Artists and War

I think many artists are moved to create art in response to war. Some of my favorite artists are artists who used the pain and suffering of war as their muse: Schiele, Grosz, Goya and Manet. As an artist I am drawn toward all the images from Ukraine showing destruction. Perhaps it is because the bombed structures look like my failed origami shapes. I marvel at how easily a building or life can unfold. I still remember this amazing article I read in Gastromica (a wonderful journal about art and food out UC Berkley). This article by a young mother in Yugoslavia vividly described how quickly a normal peaceful middle class life unraveled due to war and I remember feeling chills because I realized that it is not like you have weeks or months to decide if you will leave your home. Everything unravels rather quickly when it unravels. Just weeks ago in Ukraine parents were taking their children to school, mother’s were nursing babies, grandparents were helping out, young people were attending college and working. All that seemed solid is now crumbled.

Creating and Love

My son and his family were here this weekend and just left today. They have had a challenging few months and they desperately needed a break. They needed a break from cooking allergen free foods for mom and baby. Grandparent time so they could have some time as a couple. And just a change of scenery. Unfortunately the weather was chilly.

When it comes to cooking allergy free foods for baby N in March, I definitely need to use all my culinary experience and get creative. A favorite dish I make for them is sweet potato mushroom tacos and that is always a hit. But this time I was desperate to make something different and so I took these wonderful carrots from Winter Moon Farm (my favorite farm for winter carrots) purchased from Codman Farm in Lincoln and cooked them in the instant pot with fresh thyme. I then used that to make egg-free, wheat-free, dairy-free Carrot Gnocchi. We had the gnocchi with a pureed Spinach Sorrel Sauce. I was very proud to serve them a restaurant quality meal as one thing they are missing right now is the ability to dine out due to Nikko’s extensive food allergies.

The following night I made a ginger-curry mushroom spinach soup which was good as it is sooooo chilly out.

I tried to do some drawing and I sketched mom and baby nursing. But 13 month old nurslings are not known for staying in the same position very long. I love the bit where I drew her standing after nursing and looking out the window.

The unexpected

I have been drawing that darn folded sheet of paper and trying so hard to get my drawing to work. After a failed painting and a failed drawing which ended up partly covered in ink, I spent some time today looking at Rembrandt’s drawings and the Drawings of his Pupils. I treated myself to a new book from the Harvard Art Museum gift shop. I saw it when we were there with my daughter and family and wanted it but decided to go home and see if I could find it on Abe’s books or Amazon for less. It was not any cheaper online so yesterday I decided to go to the museum and buy it. When I got there it was nowhere to be found and I was heartbroken. But I asked and they had one copy left and better yet it was 50% off.

After staring at Rembrandt’s drawings and even making a small copy of one of them I decided to take the ink and just make a quick loose drawing of the paper and dolls.

This afternoon in the Peer Critique Group my fellow artists pointed out that it looks like a ship capsizing. And it does. I am not disappointed. A fun little bonus at the end of a very frustrating art day.

Sharing Art

We went with our daughter and family to the Harvard Art Museum today. What joy to share art with Roen who has not been in the Harvard Art Museum since the pandemic began in 2020. I used to take her there all the time when I babysat her. Her favorite thing was how the elevator made her feel and looking down on the atrium from the 3rd floor. But she also loved all the art and colors. She is very much an artist herself and is passionate about colors and mixing colors and painting. When I walked in with her I took her right to the Kehindre Whiley Painting which caused her to go “WOW”. She liked that there were two sisters in it and all the pretty yellow flowers. She also enjoyed many of the sculptures especially the ones of animals. But she is three and before long she was hungry and thirsty. Thankfully the cafe is open again and she was able to get a Nutella-Strawberry Muffin which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Response to Success

I was happy to learn that not only were three of my drawings accepted into the Marblehead Art’s Variations show, but that my drawing of knitting (whose title keeps changing…but is currently “The Mess We Are In” won first place.

Success for artists does not always result in better work being made in the future. Some artists have success with an image or a painting and then lock into that style or subject as “their thing” and fail to grow and progress. I don’t want that to happen to me, although it seems unlikely as I am too restless. As I return again and again to things like tangles, and folds and origami and the dolls I like to think that my work is always evolving and that each new piece is addressing something new and bringing a new energy or idea or emotion to it depending on what is going on in my head.

But showing up in the studio doesn’t mean something happens. Sometimes it is work. Hard work. And what get’s made really isn’t any good or maybe it is just part of the journey to something. Right now I feel a bit lost. I am drawing a crumbled piece of brown packing paper with rocks and the dolls. I am thinking about bombed apartment buildings and families huddled underground.

Our Fossil Addiction

I was listening to a podcast called “Talking Politics” yesterday while trying to make art. Helen Thompson has written a book called “Disorder, Hard Times in the 21rst Century”. I have not finished listening to it but it was interesting to hear somebody spell out all the events that have occurred since I was still a child that have led to this moment. The dangers of an economy based on fossil fuels has been known since the 70s. The geopolitical dangers of depending on Russia for these fuels has been a concern since the 70s. President Carter tried to convince everyone to use less energy and that didn’t go so well. And we have known since Putin came to power that he could and would use our addiction to Russian Oil and Gas against us at some point. In the first part of this podcast Helen Thompson makes our years of failure to address a known problem very clear.

And yet here we are with our climate facing a tipping point that will forever change our planet and with millions of lives at stake as a result. Our addiction to a fossil fuel consumer economy has contributed to the West’s inaction with covid and with Russia. Nobody wants to disrupt their shopping, their travel, their entertainment, their “normal” to address the problem. We turn a blind eye to the problems caused by our addiction. Every now and then a politician speaks up about the importance of change. People will write and post about the dangers of fast-fashion. We talk about bikes and transportation alternatives. Some of us stop eating meat and buy meat substitutes wrapped in plastic. But at the end of the day most in the west do not want things to change as drastically as they need to. And covid and our reaction to what we needed to do and still need to do in order to stop it is the perfect example.

We see horrors in Ukraine. We change our Avatars and buy blue and yellow paper and make signs to pretend we care about Ukrainian suffering. But I suspect if we were told millions of children could be saved from death and suffering, if we just went 6 months with a very restricted carbon budget there would be tantrums galore among the people. Even when our health is threatened by a virus we struggle to STOP so we can protect ourselves and others. We are addicted to a “Normal”, a term that is being used a lot by those who believe we are post-covid. Our calling it “Normal” implies there is no alternative or better path. And worse this “Normal” fails to address the suffering our addiction is causing because we are just doing what is “Normal”. And how if it is “Normal” can we be doing anything wrong.

The image I made is of me looking and not looking at the citizens of Ukraine as they leave their homes.

Ukraine, Climate, Covid

It is hard to wrap one’s mind around all that is happening in the world and I think the challenge for anyone who is paying attention is to try to sort out where to look and what to pay attention to. The pandemic is certainly not over so even though it might feel that way with many dropping indoor mask mandates and indoor dining filling up and the overall number of infections of covid going down. We still do not know where biology is going to take us with this and what will happen next winter.

Then there is the IPCC report. Nothing in it is new but the report is LITERALLY SCREAMING FOR US TO DO SOMETHING!!!! Not next year or in the future but RIGHT NOW.

And there is an evil genius on the war path making chaos and murdering countless innocent people so he can ….well I don’t know what he wants or why he is doing what he is doing but it is clear he gets great pleasure from exerting his power.

I did this drawing because I was thinking about “What should we (who do not have power or money or influence) be looking at?” When I showed it to my peers many did not feel this idea was coming across. It might be because I have not painted the pink stripe on the used covid tests I have been collecting and they read as cooking utensils. Anyways I like the drawing. I was using ink so I did not tighten up as one thing that has shut me down the past week or two is the fear of the blank page. When that happens I have learned that the best thing to do is take a blank page and just make marks and observe and not focus on a final image but experiment and see where my mark making takes me. I also included another drawing I did this week with ink.

Being Three is Hard

Today I was babysitting. My daughter and her family are finally recovering and getting back into old routines after their covid quarantine nightmare. I gather that there have been a few times in the past two months where Roen is allowed to watch TV while the baby is being put down for her afternoon nap. Today when I came down after putting baby Maeve to sleep Roen became upset because she wanted to watch TV while I was putting her sister down for her nap. I let her cry. She went under the table. I made her a fort in the playroom. She sat under it sobbing and every few minutes I would hear how she wanted to watch TV. I was reading my book in an armchair. Finally I knew just the right remedy. I didn’t say anything to her but I went and got my sketchbook and bag of pens and sat by the door and started to draw the trees in the backyard. I kept my focus on making my own art. Before I knew it she was there by my side telling me how she wanted to draw. I told her to get her own paper at her art desk, and she did. After asking if she could use one of my pens, and my giving her one, she told me how she was going to draw a house and her inside watching TV. I don’t know if she managed to do that as shortly after mom came down and told me she was done with work for the day so I left. Plus she is only starting to draw figurative drawings and most of her drawings are still scribbles. But I left pleased Roen was embracing drawing what she wished for but could not have. And I left her three pens and a brush from my bag of drawing implements.

This Thursday Roen came to our house. I had taken a bunch of books out of the library including a book about Henri Matisse. I read it to Roen and immediately afterwards she went to her painting area at our table and decided she was going to color areas of paper. After trying to cut it out she asked me if I would cut some shapes out for her. She still can not do more than edge cuts with the scissors so I obliged and cut a bird. Then she colored some more paper and I cut a wolf. And this repeated until we had a fish and a whale. She then wanted to glue them on a colored sheet of paper. And with my help she did. But then she wanted me to cut out a JellyFish. After my first attempt, “That’s not a Jellyfish it’s a mushroom.” I tried again. “That’s not a Jellyfish it’s a hammer.” Then tears and “I am feeling very angry”. I told her she could use the shapes as coral. “Noooooo…it needs legs” So I cut a somewhat abstract shape with tentacles. She looked at it and said, “It looks more like an elephant” But she decided to use it anyways and then agreed to glue the other shapes on as coral.

The lasting effects of the pandemic

There is exhaustion, frustration and depression among many I speak to. It is the lasting effects of this endless pandemic and the frustration with the world and our leaders. Cars and plastic are everywhere. Putin continues to play his games and world leaders continue to care more about their image and the world stage than doing what is needed. It is emotionally draining. Omicron seems to have burnt itself out but what new virus is going to emerge?

I miss travel. I miss going to the airport or the train station, sleeping in hotel beds, eating hotel breakfasts, walking new streets, attending theater, people watching and seeing new art. I am tried of our dining room table, my food, walking the crappy Cambridge Sidewalks, the salt, winter and my expanding waistline. Oh what I would do to spend 5 pounds (probably more now thanks to Brexit) to get a warm Dosa from Borough Market and eat it along the river on our way to see a show at the Globe.

I want my kids to have fun experiences like that. I definitely worry about their future and the future for our granddaughters.

On the positive side I have taught myself to mend and darn. I am having fun patching holes in sweaters and socks and making them look pretty at the same time. I had to paint them of course.

What next?

One of the hardest things for me is when I feel like I have beaten an idea to death or when I go to draw and I am no longer feeling inspired by what is in front of me. I tend to cycle back, revisiting subjects I have drawn in the past like origami, scissors, dolls and even the covid tests which I have been painting this month. But for now I feel I want something new and fresh. I am feeling antsy. Maybe it is the warm weather we are having today. I think I am also feeling a bit flat emotionally. The pandemic continues. But humans continue to pretend it is in our past. Nobody has done anything about CLIMATE. It really is ridiculous. And I cringe thinking about the future. Well if I learned anything during the pandemic it is about the value of just making work, drawing and being in the studio-space mindset.

Framing and Hanging

Two works were accepted for a show at a gallery in Amesbury MA. I am excited because it is rare that a show’s title fits perfectly with art that I have created. But this show’s title did which is why, despite not knowing the gallery I submitted my pieces. The two pieces accepted are pieces I want to show the world so it is nice they will be hung. The gallery is also an art store and I have no idea what sort of traffic it gets as I have never been to Amesbury. But I looked at their previous shows and liked their curation.

Framing is so expensive. I had hoped to do it myself but the place that has the do-it-yourself framing is in a town that does not have a mask mandate and it seemed a bit too risky to spend hours indoors in a place where anyone could walk in without a mask and with Omicron circulating. So I will go to a local frame shop that framed the pieces hanging right now in our group show. Meanwhile I will get my self portrait framed for my parents. After seeing “A Year of Interiors” and Holly and Bonny’s self portrait they asked me why I did not have a self portrait in the show. When my mom asked me this I suddenly felt like I was in elementary school and my mother was wondering why my work was not featured or I was not the lead in some play. It is funny how even when parents are elderly and we are adults they can say something and transport us into children again.

My parents own one of the best paintings I have ever created. It is a self portrait of myself. I was 40ish at the time. We were struggling with our middle son. I felt like my father in particular was not being helpful and he had gotten extremely angry with my son during a dinner for something our son did. I was angry. And so the painting is red and orange and intense. I was full of emotion and tears as I painted it. And that year for my father’s birthday I gave him the painting. It was my passive aggressive way of confronting them. My parent’s did not see the anger or frustration in the painting. They just saw “me” and they both loved the painting and framed it. For years it was in their living room in Lexington and got many compliments from visitors. I would sometimes be sitting in their living room and look over at the painting and be amazed I had created it. Now it is in their apartment at their independent living senior community. In response to my mother’ s inquiry about whether I had done self portraits, I showed them all the self portraits I had done since the pandemic. Many are not exactly flattering and my mother did not like those. Especially the one’s where I emphasized my jowls or looked angry and frustrated. Although she did like the one I did the morning after the 2020 election…which is funny because I was bundled up as it was quite cold and the mirror was tipped at an angle so I look a bit pudgy in it. Well here is a selection of the self portraits. Try to guess which one my parents asked me to frame for them.

And more tests as covid found it's way into our bubble

We are healthy. We are testing testing testing. Covid is in our bubble. My bouquet of BINAX now tests is growing. My granddaughter calls getting a covid tests “Nose Tickles.” Children adapt so easily. I have launched our peer critique group. So far it seems to be going well. Showed the work of Peter Doig at the start of group this week just to inspire everyone. Oh how I admire his work. I brought out a very large pad of paper this week. The sort of pad I save for a figure drawing session. But I used it to draw the tests and a branch of dried Rosehips.

Covid, Climate and Art

I made a decision to give up using any plastic paints (ie: Acrylics). One reason was I wanted to keep our apartment relatively kid-friendly for our granddaughters. But other big motivator behind my giving up all acrylic mediums was my concern for the oceans and the impact plastics are having on our environment. For the past three years I was mostly focused on drawing until I caught the watercolor bug from my peers in Joel’s zoom class. The problem with watercolor is that it is hard to work large. And there is a part of me that craves a wall with a big piece of paper on it and big brushes and buckets of paint.

Our failure to deal with the pandemic on an individual or institutional level does not give me hope for our ability to handle the climate crises. I saved our discarded antigen tests from New Years. Now I have been drawing them with the dolls. It definitely captures how I feel these days. I only wish I could make this particular drawing 5 feet tall!!!