MIA

I kind of went missing in action for a little while, a combination of entertaining visitors from the U.S. followed after their departure by a nasty knee injury. Things have been happening on the art/writing/de-cluttering front, but I’ll spare you the documenting and move right along….

Some more pages from my art journal. I wasn’t expecting the bleed through from the following page, but live and learn. I’ll live with it.

I adore red hair. Sometimes I’m a born again redhead, though I’m lazy about keeping up with dyeing the roots.

A collage of headings culled from newspapers and magazine, with no rhyme or reason other than they appealed to me as I wielded the scissors. There’s something very soothing about cut and paste, and the words have an odd kind of random poetry.

Recent drawing

I am enamoured with my metallic pens at the moment, though I am trying to exercise self restraint and not use them for everything. But I want to…

I am also in a winged phase.

Some days I’m tempted to say “the hell with restraint” and throw everything at the page in one huge, random, glorious rampage. Just as well these drawings are small.

Week 13 and 14 goals, and month three targets

One blog post:

Check. Four posts over the two weeks.

- 400 words of writing

Check. I lost count again, but somewhere over 800 words over the two weeks.

- Finish one UFO

Check. Two things resurrected from the mending pile.

- Chuck/recycle/rehome two things

Check. More magazines clipped/recycled, a stash of newspapers recycled (unread!), I cleared a shelf in the bathroom and discarded old cosmetics and similar stuff, plus put an oil burner I’ll never use again (fragrance sensitivity) into the freecycle/donate box.

Spend half an hour working in the garden

One hour and twenty minutes spent in the garden over the fortnight, weeding and pruning. The backyard is looking much neater.

Monthly:

- Complete one piece of art

Check. I finished a book sculpture I started, hmm, late last year, so perhaps this counts as a finished UFO, too. Picture below:

This book was discarded by the library where I work. The paper was brittle and uncooperative, but I was determined to finish it and finally wrestled it into a sort of submission. The folds are not as crisp as I’d like, but the shape is good.

- Complete one piece of writing

I  wrote a grant application, a new process for me and rather intimidating. Now I have to wait patiently for the decision. Fingers crossed! I also completed first drafts of two poems.

UFO no more

The mixed media piece I finished way back in January languished on my desk, taunting me. I wasn’t entirely sure why I wasn’t satisifed with it – hey, a Finished Object should make me happy – but I suspected it was the yellow of the points. Here it is below, as it was in January.

I overpainted the cool yellow points with a warm ochre yellow, and I like it better. This was an experiment with a black background; I have another canvas the same size basecoated in black but I’ve yet to decide which image to go with.  Warm ochre version below.

What do you think? Is it better or worse for the tinkering? I think I can at least leave it alone for now and call it finished. I used found paper, marker, sharpies, gold pen, acrylic, and buttons from my embarrassingly large button box (I say box, singular, but it’s really one large hatbox plus two tins. If there’s ever a button shortage and your shirt’s gaping, you know who to ask). The canvas is 30cm x 30cm (12in x 12in).

In a sort of runic rhyme

“Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells – ”

from The Bells, by Edgar Allen Poe

I am having one of my semi-regular fits of GET-THINGS-DONE-ness. They come on when I feel I’m going nowhere, when I’m pressed for time and not able to do all the things I want to do. When I’m failing to progress with my writing or artmaking. At the moment, I am both time poor and experiencing an extended bout of fatigue. Not fall-over-and-can’t-move fatigue, but the kind that grinds you down with constant tiredness, dulls the brain and turns the body to lead. Eleven hours every week day away from home, commuting and working, is a major factor in my weariness, but not the only one. It’s a combination of various things. Perversely, the bone-tiredness brings with it a crazed urge to do everything, all at once, as if I’m a fuse on a bomb and the countdown has reached single digits. The temptation to run about like a wet hen, achieving bugger-all, is almost overwhelming. Get-Things-Done syndrome finds me giving myself imperatives:

• Get more sleep!
• Eat better!
• Be more productive!
• Watch less television!
• Don’t waste time!
• Clean the bloody house!
• De-clutter!
• Finish stuff!

Etcetera and etcetera. The problem with imperatives is that while they all sound like simple and good ideas, achieving them is more problematic. Simple is not synonymous with easy. And, naturally, everybody has a grand idea of how I should go about remedying my current flurry of rudderless floundering, but what works for others may or may not work for me (nor may I like someone else’s solution, regardless of its effectiveness).*

Aside – this reminds me of one of my favourite sayings: “Opinions are like arseholes, just about everybody has one.”

As an example, imperative number one – get more sleep (or, if you prefer, GET. MORE. SLEEP!) – should be easily achievable. Just go to bed earlier, right? Hmmm, not so much. Not only am I childlike in my resistance to going to bed despite my eyes hanging out of my head (and an opposing and possibly greater reluctance to get up in the mornings), I have a limited window in which to do a number of essential but mundane things between getting home from work and turning in for the night. Plus I need (yes, NEED) to fit some creativity into the day, or I go mad. No, that’s not an exaggeration. So I try to somehow stretch those few hours, to cram in as much as possible, and – theories of time and Dr Who’s “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey” cant aside – I have yet to achieve the impossible and actually shoehorn in more activity than there are available minutes (although, slow learner that I am, I keep trying. There’s a little core of me that’s a Tardis wannabe). And because I’m feeling pressured, when I do force myself to retire my churning brain refuses to turn off and composing myself for slumber is equivalent to climbing Everest in my pyjamas (not that I wear pyjamas). My thoughts careen about my skull like scattered shot and refuse to shut the hell up.

Each of those items on the Imperative Menu comes with an added side of similar complications.

Experience has taught me that this running-on-the-spot feeling will pass. Eventually. In the meantime, I am doing my best to turn down the imperatives (why don’t those little – but loud – voices come with a volume switch? Too simple? And why is their out-of-the-box volume always turned to 11?), breathe slowly and deeply, and keep creating stuff. I don’t want to switch those commands off completely, because they are not (entirely) wrong, but I need a quiet brain to break them down into chunks I can actually chew. Instead of, you know, chunks that would choke a horse…

*I’m not asking for help, merely venting. Please do not offer me solutions, however well meant, in the comments. It makes me cranky, and I’ll likely delete them. Cos, you know, I can

Art journalling

Here are a few pages from my first (and, so far, only – but I have further plans) art journal, still in progress. I used a secondhand book, carving a shallow inset into the cover and turning it upside down so I’m working from the back pages to the front. I usually turn found paper of any sort upside down to work on it.

There is no theme to the journal, I’m just following multiple whims. Whatever I feel like on the day, or a technique I want to explore, or just for the joy of doing it.

Deep thoughts about time recur. Usually of the “not enough” or “how can I create more” type. This page is done in sharpie, Indian ink pen, and I used a stencil for the ticktock and numbers.

Sharpie and Indian ink pens. Click on the image to embiggen if you’d like to read the writing (if you can!).

Indian ink pens and coloured pencils. Inspired by latent images of  the Pushmepullyou from Dr. Doolittle, perhaps. Or perhaps I am being pulled in two different directions? More like a dozen…

Fun with books

I often use books as raw material for art. The pages make great backgrounds for drawing, or for collage. I’ve used them as papier mache, and in the following photos to make folded sculptures.

These were for a group exhibition in 2010, and I’ve made a few more since. They look more complicated than they really are; you need to be patient and remember which way you’re folding. Getting into a rhythm helps. I find it oddly soothing, the repetitive task lets my mind float off to a meditative state.

Some books lend themselves to this work better than others. The book needs to be thick but not too much so; too thick and it gets unwieldy as the folded pages expand the spine, too thin and the resulting object doesn’t have enough body. The quality of the paper is important, too. Some paper is lovely to fold, crisp, and holds a fold well. Some is crackly and fragile and doesn’t fold readily, or cracks along a fold.

They look really time consuming, but this is deceptive. I don’t usually tackle them in one go – that’s asking for wrist and neck problems – but most don’t take more than an hour or two in total.

Potential shapes abound. I have several more folding ideas I want to try, plus sculpting them with a scalpel and removing parts. There are a multitude of ideas on the web, each sparking an “oooh” in my head and more ideas of things to try out.

Secondhand books are cheap material to work with. The St Vincent de Paul op shop is my favourite source for books, both to make art from and just to read. They often have books marked at two for $1. I let the op shop ladies think I’m going to read all the books I buy, after horrifying one by telling what I was really going to do. What they don’t know won’t hurt them

Books are such lovely things, quite apart from the words they contain. I love the way they look, the feel of the paper, the smell (the breakdown of lignin, apparently, creates that divine aroma), the crackle of the pages turning.

Week 11 and 12 goals

One blog post:

Week 11 – Fail

Week 12 – Check.

- 400 words of writing

Weeks 11 and 12 – Check. I wrote something over 2,000 words over the two weeks, working on a grant proposal.

- Finish one UFO

Week 11 – Fail

Week 12 – Check. Mended the leg of the Bloke’s trousers where the seam had come undone for about, hmmm, 8 inches. He was still wearing them despite the flapping about the ankle.

- Chuck/recycle/rehome two things

Week 11 – Half a check. Clipped and recycled magazines.

Week 12 – Check. Clipped and recycled magazines, and chucked another cache of newspapers (unsorted, I’m getting better at letting go!).

Spend half an hour working in the garden

Week 11 – 50 minutes weeding and pruning. The garden fought back: weeding the bromeliads I ended up looking like I’d had a fight with a tiger. The leaves are so sharp I don’t feel them cutting me (I had gloves on, so the cuts were above gauntlet height on my arms) plus they exude some substance I’m allergic to so the cuts turned into weals. I’d forgotten those lovely qualities, but I still like the plants. Long sleeves, next time.

Week 12 – Fail. Complete lack of motivation.

Watercolour pencils

I love watercolour pencils. I love most coloured pencils, but using watercolour pencils is like those magic colouring books from childhood, where you use a brush and plain water to bring out the hues. Colouring in is a favourite activity of mine. Sometimes I think I draw just so I can colour in. The outside lines in this drawing are done with an Indian ink pen in grey, and there are touches of gold pen, too.

This lady looks sulky and anxious, both at the same time. I’m not quite sure why. Gold highlights here, also.

And Ms Purple Hair. Or perhaps Tentacle Hair. She looks like she might like to eat you for dinner on the slightest provocation.

Lucky numbers

The medical technician taking my blood was not impressed with my phone number, which has four fours in it.

“No Chinese person would accept that number. Very unlucky. Four means death in Chinese. Deeeaaaathhhh.”

So much for bedside manner.