through the studio door

painted pages & devilish joy...

 
There is this suspect & guilty feeling in the studio which floats in when all is exciting, moving & raw…..I revel in it…
 
Every new & good thing is liable to seem eccentric, really irrelevant to life. And therefore we must always listen to the voice of eccentricity, within ourselves & in the world. The alien, the dangerous, like the negligible near thing, may seem irrelevant to purpose & yet be the call to our oun fruitful development. We must expect to live the orderly ways we have invented continually conscious of the imminence of change…….
Brewster Ghiselin….The Creative Process
 
Keep it real, unpolished, working, moveable, fledgling, deep in transition….
 
In making art, some artists have learned how to work on the things that really matter to them. It means following your heart. Having a working mastery of the creative process is truly essential to virtually all artmaking. This means creating a life in which working on your art becomes a natural part of your everyday life. Art is not made by a special breed of people, but by ordinary people who dedicate their lives to their own special work. If you are productive, your creativity will take care of itself……..
Ted Orland….The View from the Studio Door
 

a fairy-tale life…

the glow of a fairy-tale nook....

There is nothing quite like the land of make-believe….

nothing else can make the day a little more magical…all things winged…

maybe a little dream time in a beauteous garden…

I could believe in a dream like this…..a fairy tale house? oh yes…

DailyGood: Man Builds Fairy Tale Home for $4700, by Heidi Stevenson.

winged fairies remind me to open to possibility, to stay fresh…

wandering & wondering…..

if you believe, the fairies will swoop in…

…….I don’t want to live a small life…….

I don’t want to live a small life. Open your eyes,

open your hands. I have just come

from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way

(open your hands) & the wind-winged clouds

following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes

only to you. Look how many how small

but so sweet & maybe the last gift

I will ever bring to anyone in this

world of hope & risk, so do.

Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.

Mary Oliver

Christmas Morning

humble angel gifts...

The sweet breath of morning brings a sigh, a release into gentleness….

This wonderful little story is my idea of the beauty of truth in Christmas

And this, I believe, is the source of our Christmas ‘stuff’…

Going beyond fear begins when we examine our fear: our anxiety, nervousness, concerns, busyness & restlessness. If we look into our fear, if we look beneath the veneer, the first thing we find is sadness, beneath the nervousness. Nervousness is cranking up, vibrating all the time. When we slow down, when we relax with our fear, we find sadness, which is calm & gentle. Sadness hits you in your heart, & your body produces a tear. Before you cry, there is a feeling in your chest & then, after that, you produce tears in your eyes. You are about to produce rain or a waterfall in your eyes & you feel sad & lonely & perhaps romantic at the same time. That is the first tip of fearlessness, & the first sign of real warriorship. You might think that, when you experience fearlessness, you will hear the opening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony or see a great explosion in the sky, but it doesn’t happen that way. Discovering fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart……Chogyam Trungpa

Soft & tender hearts make their subtle & surprising appearances at Christmas….this experience of the sad & tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness…..allow its sweet glimpse to surprise you…..

like Christmas magic…..

golden dreams & a tranquil mind

gold echo

3 types of perception within which we see the patterns of our life……

sense of experience, sense of emptiness, sense of luminosity………not to be ‘explained’ but ‘known’ personally….

According to Trungpa Rinpoche, the philosophy behind this is essentially meaningless. He says perception is purely experiential (sounds like Nietzsche!). It doesn’t have to be confirmed. A sharp precision arises through the sitting practice of meditation…..’removing the clouds, rather than recreating the sun’.

This connects to his beautiful idea of ‘magic.’ Spark, or magic lies in individuality, not to be confused with ego. We don’t usually trust ourselves, but when you ‘click in’ you are able to experience a sense of reality not dependent on reinforcement. It is unconditional. The phenomenal world is our own world. This magic is our power. Iconography as our journey.

How beautiful is this? I say yes! A cosmology of breathing this life….

This, to me, is the ‘hero’s journey’ Joseph Campbell described…..the journey we take from innocence to wisdom, from stagnation to new life.

a vital everyday necessity

This may be where art & life connect….perception as Hirsch confronts the ego’s battles in ‘the demon & the angel’ (one of my favorite books….ever)….

A highly formal & traditional work deepens immeasurably when one feels the primal murkiness threatening to swell up underneath the geometric clarity, the verbal concision, & the ironic wit. The ancient demons are never far from shore. They dwell within the deeps. They move in the ghostly mists. A highly rational art is especially haunting when one feels the struggle in the thought, or even underneath the thought; when one senses something dark welling up from below, from the primordial mud; when one recognizes the powerful internal pressure of a mind defending itself against itself.

‘Primal murkiness’ as the ‘hero’s journey?’ ahhh…….

to be seen….the edge of awkward

saturation

This transcendental quality of art can be the potentiality of magic. Beauty shared, an aesthetic intelligence noticed, is what draws us into our own receptivity.

Everything is gestation & then bringing forth. To let each impression &  each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, & await with deep humility & patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist’s life…understanding as in creating…………Rilke

We hardly notice……but the heart knows….as a central core….a vital cause of transparency….

Beware….we may discover red or crimson or magenta for the first time.

No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination….Edward Hopper

Beware…..we may stumble to this edge too often….complacency never returning….never hidden by fog again….

Remember to Make-Believe…

A gentle nudge to laugh, lose control, curl up, get out of your routine, nap, tell a dumb joke, hug someone unexpectedly, look for the moon, read about the circus, take photos in your yard, listen, ignore your to-do list for one day, eat something equal parts yummy and healthy…followed by chocolate, argue about how important magic is, read a really good poem (I can help with that…more on that later), sit…really……just sit, sleep in and then go to brunch, go to the movies with a frazzled friend, hang out with your family, lie down with your legs up the wall…..just try it, say no to some things on your really full schedule, try to leisurely  Christmas shop, leave notes for special people, check out kindness tricks, get a massage, clean out your winter sweaters….then buy a really cozy new one, do something different during your lunch break, shop at a vintage store, pretend you are a life coach for a day, and listen to a little music like you’ve just found someone important…

A little magic…

unexpected light...

Gezzelig

I love concept words. Anything that unearths the surface of things. Anything that questions our everyday assumptions. Anything that celebrates unique perspective and deeper intent. Anything that surprises and delights.

I had a recent fascination with the word ubuntu…..but I’m gonna tease a bit and save that for another day. Funny though how ubuntu and gezzelig intercept…

a friend along the way...

Today’s captivating word is gezzelig. Impossible to define, this Dutch word, adverb, verb and ‘idea,’ reveals itself in moments. Snapshots. It is also a quest. A quest to find this feeling. You want gezzelig in your life.

You know you’re having a gezzelig moment when you forget about yourself, the moment, your crazy mental chatter, and your worries. You know it when you breathe easy. You know it when you’re laughing. You know it when you’re not rushing to the next thing, event, problem or goal.

This is not a trite concept. A way of life. Not just a simple picnic. A ‘wondermous’ picnic. Not a joy ride. An adventure. It’s about anything you ‘know’ to be gezzelig. Some of your best moments were probably heightened by gezzelig.

We will all have our own gezzelig, but it’s also about community connection. Another paradox. Slippery.

Anyone want to share a gezzelig moment?