Author: Karen

Time to De-Clutter

Karen


Feng Shui :: The Chinese art of positioning objects in buildings and other places based on the belief in positive and negative effects of the patterns of yin and yang and the flow of chi, the vital force or energy inherent in all things.

It is hot, hot, hot!! In my attempt to keep cool in my non-air conditioned house, I’ve taken to wearing a cold, wet hand towel around my shoulders. Kind a damp shawl, if you will. Exhausted from the heat yesterday, I lay down on the carpet next to the big fan and fell asleep. It reminded me of when I was little, and, if it was really hot, I’d sleep on the cool linoleum tiled floor in my bedroom. In the early morning hours I’d start to feel cold, but being half-asleep, instead of climbing into bed and pulling up the covers, I reach over and grab the throw rug and pull it on top of me. In the morning I’d wake up with dust bunnies and cookie crumbs from under the rug stuck to my skin and hair. Not a pretty picture. The amazing thing is, that my body didn’t even mind sleeping on a solid, hard floor. If I tried that now, I probably wouldn’t be able to walk the next day!

So what do I decide to do on the hottest day of the summer so far?? Clean out my studio/office, of course. My husband has been bugging me to rip out the disgusting, once beige, now gray carpet. It took me a long time to work up the courage to go through this process. I have to move everything out. What a job. So I decided if I was going to to do that, I would do a little (major) decluttering along the way. Because frankly, I just have too much crap. But my problem is, especially when it comes to sorting out my books and magazines, it takes me twice as long to do anything because I have to flip through every book/magazine/notebook that I encounter along the way.

What’s this? A journal from 1980 – 82?? Wow, what a trip. Yes, I’ll just have to read a few pages, and a few more, and two hours later I can put it in the grocery bag marked “save.” Actually, I think I should put it in a locked box labeled “Destroy after Karen’s Death,” because I do not want any of my relations looking through that thing!

I bought a book a few years ago called De-cluttering the Feng Shui Way, or something like that. It was very interesting. I didn’t buy all of the philosophy (especially when they started talking about uncluttering your body and the importance of daily, free-flowing bowel movements), but one thing really got me. The book said that all the junk we accumulate is because we live in fear. We fear that if we throw something out, we’re going to need it the next day. BINGO! That’s me to a T. But hey, this happened to me just the other day. I tried to de-clutter that narrow space between the refrigerator and the wall and put all the old accumulated brown paper bags in the recycling bin. Three days later, I needed them to help me de-clutter my office. Isn’t that always the way? I wonder what Feng Shui afficinados would have to say about good old Murphy’s Law?

I’m going to Home Depot to look for some cheap, stick-on vinyl tile for the floor. Now if I could just bring myself to unhook the computer . . .

Nine Inch Nails vs Mark Knopfler

Karen


Found Object Sculpture
Found Object Sculpture -Vision of Light

Want to feel young again? Go to a rock concert!

I had the good fortune to be able to go to two concerts in just over two weeks this month. The first one I went to was at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley where my husband and I saw the amazing Mark Knopfler with Emmylou Harris. Michael and I are Dire Straits fans from way back. And one of my favorite albums of all time was an album of Harris’s — I’ve forgotten the name, but I can picture the cover. (I just tried to find the title on iTunes, but it wasnt’ there!) I played that record till I wore the grooves right through. And when I accidentally left it in my car and it melted, I bought another one — the only time in my life I’ve ever done that.

Now I’m not a big (or little) fan of country music, but when I heard “This is Us” from Knopfler and Harris’s new CD All the Road Running, I knew I had to have it. And when I found out they were coming to town, I knew we had to go. So the tickets were my Father’s Day present to Michael, and his Mother’s Day present to me.

The music was awesome. The sound was clear as crystal and the harmonies made me feel like I was in a church of music. The only downside was the seating. The people who built the Greek Theatre really took those Greek ideas literally. Unless you can afford to buy the primo seats down front, you end up sitting in a concrete amphitheater. Luckily, I had experience there and brought some seat cushions to sit on. We were packed in shoulder to shoulder and toe to butt. Bleacher style seating really does a number on my back these days. I was really feeling my age. Funny, but I don’t remember my back bothering me during the Eurhythmics concert at the same venue twenty years ago. Still, the music, the guitar, the back-up musicians were all so talented. It was a wonderful night.

Now imagine me going to see Nine Inch Nails at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. I’m a new fan of NIN and don’t know a lot of their older songs. I know some die-hard fans think their latest CD is the weakest, but I absolutely love it. I’m sure if I play “The Hand That Feeds” or “All the Love in the World” one more time, Michael will divorce me. So I just close the door . . . and crank it up. When I heard they would be playing here, I hemmed and hawed over the ticket price, and then gave in and bought four tickets. I thought my sons would jump at the chance to go see them, but I had to practically drag my youngest son and my nephew to go, and my oldest son, the one with the mohawk/piercings/leather/tatoos bailed on me the night of the concert.

Well, I had the best time I’ve had in a long time. The Knopfler/Harris concert was great, but the NIN concert got me out of my seat and shaking my 49 year old bootie more than I have since before I got married! Everyone was rocking out in their little seat space. Not only was the music great, but so was the people-watching. Whereas the Knopfler/Harris audience was made up mostly of people around my own age wearing jeans and suede jackets and fashionable shoes and glasses so we could see, the Nine Inch Nails concert was full of young and old punkers wearing black leather, black fishnet (on top and bottom), black corsets, pink hair, piercings, black eyeliner, and enough tatoos to cover a quilt thrown over the stage. It was fantastic! I may have been one of the oldest people there, but I felt as though I was in my twenties again. If you haven’t been in a while, I highly recommend going to a good rock show for its theraputic value!

Back to My Altered Books

Karen

Back to My Altered Books

The Art of Happiness :: Page 25

In the two months since my previous entry, I lost my wonderful mother, Sandie, to complications from Alzheimer’s, and my sweet little dog Angel, to blood clots in the lungs. Until just about two weeks ago, when we scattered my mom’s ashes, I had been walking around in a haze, unable to even think about making art. Slowly, I’ve begun to peel back the sadness and have restarted my artful journey.

I want to thank everyone from my Yahoo! Group who emailed me their kind words of support and empathy, as well as those of you who, through this blog, offered encouragement to me during my mother’s illness. You have no idea how helpful it has been over these last few months, to read your touching, heartfelt comments. Thank you so much.

I decided to do a few more pages in The Art of Happiness. Let me tell you a little bit about how I did page 25, which is pictured above.

As per usual, I first prepared the pages by painting on a thin layer of fluid matte medium to protect the text. After I had decided on the found poetry, I used my Masquepen to cover the words. I then drew and painted the orb on the left side using white acrylic paing. Next I covered the entire two pages with Lumiere acrylic paint in Sunset Gold, painting around the white circle.. After the paint was dry, I used the Masquepen again to draw lines over the orb and across the page. I knew that I was going to do a watery color wash over the pages, and I wanted to create the impression of golden threads.

When the Masquepen had dried, I wrapped the book with waxed paper and fastened it up with a rubber band so that only the two pages I was working on were exposed. I knew what I wanted to do would be wet and messy and that I needed to protect the rest of the book. I painted the pages using in turquoise and magenta. I placed several paper towels on my work space, ready to catch the drippings. Then I used the ink droppers and dropped turquoise and magenta FW acrylic inks onto the page. I used a small water spritzer and sprayed into the pools of ink; then, I lifted the book up and tilted it in different directions so the inks would run together and spread across the page. As the ink puddled-up at the bottom of the page, I blotted it with a paper towel. I used a toothbrush to splatter Pearlescent Acrylic ink in Magenta onto the pages, and also used my Pearlescent purple to drop some colors here and there. I sprayed each drop of ink with water and tilted the book. I also used a little red cocktail straw to blow the ink around the page.

I did have a problem with the ink pooling in the gutter of the book. I was worried that it would seep into the other pages, so I used my paper towels and dabbed up as much extra liquid as I could before it could sink in.

When the ink had dried, I peeled away the Masquepen to reveal the poem which says:
sew a thousand golden threads
over her dusty world

I’m happy with the way these pages turned out, even though it isn’t exactly what I expected. I was really hoping for more blueish gray to come through, similar to the color on the white circle and my color square. But I love the way the darker colors got trapped along the edges of the Masquepen. Maybe I’ll try this technique on a larger canvas or on water color paper. It sure was a lot of fun.

P.S. A quick tip — Once you have the Masquepen on the page, don’t close your book! The Masquepen will stick together and pull itself off. Don’t ask me how I know 😉

Benicia Open Studios

Karen

Today was the second and final day of Open Studios in Benicia. The weather was great, so I hopped on my scooter and rode down to the Benicia Art Gallery. On the way there, I stopped in my first studio. The artist’s name was Joe Martino, and he had created a series of 100 sketches with a Sharpie on used coffee cups that he had unpeeled and opened up. Every morning, after his ritual coffee, he went somewhere and sketched a scene. He drew a companion sketch on the disk from the coffee cup bottom, too, and then mounted the coffee cup pieces on an assortment of board and other background materials that he had found lying around his studio. What a great guy to talk to. He was so enthusiastic about his work, which I found fresh and spontaneous and joyful.

On to the gallery . . . After looking around a bit, I grabbed a map, and then I went upstairs to see Ann Baldwin, one of my favorite artists. She is such a great lady. Everytime I see her and we get a chance to talk, I always learn something.

She had lots of different styles of work on display this year. On one wall, she had an exhibit of smallish abstract photographs that she had taken, printed on paper, and mounted on a lightweight board . They were so intriguing. She said that someone who had come in earlier had assumed they were aerial photographs. They do have the quality of looking down at something and not being sure of what you’re seeing. She had captured beautiful patterns, textures, and colors from nature- a path carved by rivulets of water, the damp mossy roots of a tree, circles of dampness left by the bottoms of soda cans on concrete- simple, yet mezmerizing. They looked georgraphical and anatomical at the same time.

Over the past couple of years, Ann has worked on developing her skills as a photographer and is taking pictures to use in her collage art. In my mind, it has transformed her work into something more modern than previous collages, which were infused with memory and nostalgia. Though there’s still some of that present, I think her new work feels more contemporary and immediate, and theres’ much more imagery from nature and architecture, which I love.

We talked about copyright issues for collage artists and she told me this was one of the things that lead her to use more of her own photography in her art work. She told me that she recently discovered that in order to photograph (for showing and selling) a more modern building, you have to get permission. It’s even illegal to photograph raptors such as hawks and eagles without the permission of some raptor association. How can a bird be copyright protected?!

One of the things I really like about Ann is that she always asks me about my own artwork and how I’m doing with my altered books. I swear I could talk to her for hours, but I don’t want to monopolize her time when there are other people coming in and out who want to speak with her as well. So I reluctantly said good-bye and headed on my way.

After I left Ann’s exhibit, I went to see an old student of mine who makes jewelry. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

Finding a Space for Art

Karen

In response to my post What Inspires Me, Heather wrote this:

. . . how do you just get started. I don’t mean the mechanics, I mean how do you just do it?

My husband and I bought a home three years ago and I have done very little creatively since then b/c I don’t have the space. I know that may sound like a huge copout, and I suppose it is…but nevertheless it stops me in my tracks.

Where do you “do” your work?

Heather– I wouldn’t consider your space limitations a cop-out. They appear to be very real for you. I am very fortunate in that I have a spare bedroom in my house and that’s where I work.

One side of the room has my computer, phone, printer, and school related things along the wall on a big table that my husband built for me. It goes on top of two short file cabinets where I keep all my family related paperwork.

The other side of the room and most of the closet and walls have my art related things. I have two smallish tables against the wall and several stacks of de-wheeled Iris carts with lots of junk inside. I also have two shelves above the work tables that are stacked with paints and clear shoebox-style plastic containers that have labels like “nature bits,” “stamps,” “junk jewelry,” and lots of other ephemera that I collect.

Behind my door, I have a shoe organizer that’s stuffed with ribbon, lace, and yarn. I also have a book shelf with pizza boxes full of paper scraps organized by color and a file drawer with magazine clippings and collage sheets.

Now, as I describe this I know it sounds pretty organized, and on a good day, I am able to put everything in its proper place. But ask my husband– it never stays there for long. I couldn’t keep this room neat and tidy if my life depended on it. As soon as I start a project, out comes everything. Oh, I promise myself that after I’m doing using the gold paint from the gold and silver paint box that I’ll put it back on the shelf– but there it stays– on my work table piling up along with everything else I’m using until I’m working in a space about the size of a book. (At least the space isn’t the size of a postage stamp, although if I was altering a postage stamp, that’s probably all the space I’d have.)

So I really feel for your situation, I don’t know what art you like to do. I think some art is “smaller” that other art. Maybe, if you’d like to start altering a book, you could do one like my Altered Book Journal and just focus on using watercolor crayons inside. Then you just need the crayons, the book, a water dish, a paintbrush, some Masquepen, a pencil and notepad, some fluid matte medium, and a brush for that. It sounds like a lot, but you could probably fit all of it in one plastic shoebox thingy or a cardboard box that you stash in the corner of the closet when you’re not working. You could pull it out onto the kitchen table when you have a few quiet moments, work for a while, and then easily pack it up again (after letting the paint dry!)

I know I’m not much help. Maybe someone else can come to your rescue and give you some good advice. I think the hardest part is not always creating the space, it’s creating the routine. It’s giving yourself permission to not do anything else but art for just a little bit of time each day. I think once we get out of the routine, it’s sometimes hard to get back into it– almost like exercising. I remember when I used to run when I was younger. If I skipped a day, I felt very out of sorts, almost desperate to get back to it. That’s how I feel about doing my art now. If I can’t get to it, after a while I get very cranky.

Have you every heard of micro-movements? Sark talks about them in her books about living a creative life. The idea is to take tiny steps toward your goal. You can even download a copy of her process here Micromovement Sheet . Whenever I have a project that I’m avoiding doing, I try her technique. And sometimes, it works.