Ellsworth Kelly

"Making art has first of all to do with honesty. My first lesson was to see objectively, to erase all ‘meaning’ of the thing seen. Then only, could the real meaning of it be understood and felt."

--Ellsworth Kelly

we create who we are

Nicole Krauss: We create who we are from Louisiana Channel on Vimeo.

Celia Edefalk

Celia Edefalk

Sunday Tune

Saturday Poem

Winter Wrath

My anger is such that the very ice-fields would melt,
if I had the power.
If I had the power.

—Joyce Carol Oates.

(Gif found here)

Word!

Alma Thomas

"I have always enjoyed the progressive creativeness of the artist as he releases himself from the past.  He gives new, exciting expressions through experiences from this rapidly changing world of science, economics, religion, society, and new materials…through my impressions of nature and the space program I hoped to impart beauty, joy, love and peace."

--Alma Thomas

“No matter where I go, I’m still holding up a mirror.”

—Gustaw Herling

Ettore Spalletti

Yes, the colour, as it shifts, occupies the space and we enter. The frame that delimited the space is no longer there. Taking it away, the colour takes on the space and invades the space. And when this happens, it’s miraculous. 

--Ettore Spalletti, 2006

(Image found here)

Libra: This week does not have to be such a big week; this week does not have to bear all the weight of the past and the future, and it does not have to bear the weight of all of your secret dreams. This week, try to give yourself a moment to rest. Take a bath, take a day off, take a minute to watch the sky. You’ve survived so many things already, and all you have to do this week is be very good to other people. All you have to do this week is be kind.

-- Madame Clairevoyant

Sunday Tune

Saturday Poem

give your daughters difficult names. 
give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. 
my name makes you want to tell me the truth. 
my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.

― Warsan Shire

'the task in hand'

"She felt panic. She had with some pain cleared this small space and time to think in and now thought seemed impossible. She remembered from what now seemed the astonishing free and spacious days of her education the phenomenon of the first day's work on a task. One had to peel one's mind from its run of preoccupations: coffee to buy, am I in love, the yellow dress needs cleaning, Tim is unhappy, what is wrong with Marcus, how shall I live my life? It took time before the task in hand seemed possible, and more still before it became imperative and obsessive. There had to be a time before thought, a woolgathering time when nothing happened, a time of yawning, of wandering eyes and feet, of reluctance to do what would finally become delightful and energetic."

A.S. Byatt, Still Life.

Imperfect Detachment by James Balmforth

Kintsugi

Kintsukuroi.
(n.) (v.phr.) "to repair with gold"

I like Kintsugi's simple lesson, that it's possible to start over.

"Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body."

--Wangechi Mutu

Alison Saar

It made me very happy when I first came across the work of Alison Saar! Her work juggles themes of personal and cultural identity often in the form of the female body, which she presents in various sizes, as imperfect but beautiful, buyont with story and solid in stance. 
I have an art crush!

Here is a little more about her background...

"The work of Alison Saar addresses humanity in the broadest sense. Through the use of archetypal images, Saar reaches out to audiences from backgrounds as culturally and ethnically diverse as her own. Her mother, well-known artist Betye Saar, has European, Native American, and African American ancestors; her father, Richard Saar, painter turned conservator, is of German and Scottish origin. Fragments of lore, myth and legend as well as the practices of the everyday, rooted in these cultural backgrounds, are woven into Saar's powerful images, where contemporary expression enshrines centuries of man's spiritual evolution." 

(Text from phylliskindgallery.com. Photos from lalouver.com. View her work here.)

The Disintegration Loops

"The Disintegration Loops is a series of four albums by American avant-garde composer William Basinski released in 2002 and 2003. All albums are recorded in the same form of a tape loop which slowly deteriorates as it passes by the tape head, creating all the more noises and cracks in the music as the theme progresses. The recording coincided with the 9/11 attacks and the album covers and accompanying videos feature a still skyline of New York City with smoke and dust rising from the World Trade Center site."

(Text from Wiki)

Native Lines

Hand woven wall tapestries from nativelines.com The designs are informed by Native American traditional Navajo tapestries depicting the natural world.

Spirit Lines

(Words by Nicole Varvitsiotes Photograph by Craig Johnson for Kinfolk Magazine)

Drawing from Navajo legend, the native weavers of Spider Rock have been incorporating purposeful imperfections into their designs for years. Intended as a way to keep their minds unattached and open to progress, this humble practice can teach us a lot about our own creative processes. 

High above the sun-punished floor of Canyon de Chelly in a sandstone spire known as Spider Rock, Spider Woman once wove on a loom that Spider Man made for her out of sunshine, lightning and rain. While the details of this Navajo folklore have become elusive with time, native weaver Emily Malone—whose family has created distinct Spider Rock designs for generations—explains how her people learned to weave:

“It’s only in winter that we tell the story about twin boys who made a journey to their father, the sun,” Emily says. “On the way they met Spider Woman, and she invited them into her house. It was a small home, and the boys asked her how they could fit in. Suddenly, a big opening appeared for them to go through, and inside were all different kinds of weavings. She told them to let their mother come and she would teach her how to weave.”

Through studying Spider Woman’s craft, the Navajo people learned to make blankets that brought warmth during harsh winters and offered new opportunities for trade. As a tribute to her, many weavers deliberately left a hole in the center of their blankets—one that mirrored the hole in the center of a spider web, and possibly the hole through which the twins entered Spider Woman’s home.

But over time, buyers started to see these holes as design flaws: imperfections on products that were otherwise perfect. Closing them would have meant opening the weavers up to potentially adverse spiritual consequences, so as a compromise, some weavers began to include what are now called “spirit lines” into their work instead. A non-structural variation of imperfection, spirit lines are created by using a contrasting thread in the same color as the background to add intentional breaks in a weaving’s geometric borders. Where they’re placed, their length and how many rows they claim are all matters of the weaver’s personal taste; the only common thread is the significance drawn from their intent.

While spirit lines may still be perceived as purposeful mistakes to some, Emily describes them as beautiful. In her culture, they’re referred to as shih nih bi-teen, which translates to “my mind’s road.” Her family believes that spirit lines are intentionally placed pathways meant to release their minds from their handiwork, preventing their creativity from being trapped in the weaving forever. “Spirit lines are important to us,” she says. “They keep your mind open for your next project. Without them, you enclose your designs in one rug and won’t be able to think of the next one.”

Spirit lines are a means of releasing energy, a doorway to the future, a pathway that connects a weaver’s first rug to her last using creative momentum to propel her designs forward. Without that contrasting line, the weaver’s design may appear aesthetically perfect, but reaching perfection has its consequences: If it’s attained, there’s nowhere left to go, no work left to be done.

If a spirit line is a visual reminder to push creative boundaries, then it’s a symbol that can extend beyond the Navajo nation. It can live in paintings or pastries, songs or sculptures. How it takes shape is at the will of the artist, but to those who make art or food or photographs, incorporating tangible evidence of a beautifully imperfect journey offers the mind a road to betterment.

(Second image of a 1940's weaving from navajorug.com)

I Am Imperfect

“Wholehearted living is about engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.’ It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”

― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

Sunday Tune

Saturday Poem

The Peace of Wild Things


When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


— Wendell Berry

“Suddenly I came out of my thoughts to notice everything around me again-the catkins on the willows, the lapping of the water, the leafy patterns of the shadows across the path. And then myself, walking with the alignment that only comes after miles, the loose diagonal rhythm of arms swinging in synchronization with legs in a body that felt long and stretched out, almost as sinuous as a snake…when you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities. Exploring the world is one the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains.”

― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Lourdes Cabrera

Work by Lourdes Carbrera via artbookstore

Hello Again

 Goodness gracious me, I've been gone a long time, my holiday was bliss; time stood still, I made pots, spent time alone, got the wrong train back from the coast, visited inspiring places, went swimming everyday, forgot my passport in a hotel room, bought some fake gemstones from a dude who's sole job seemed to be to get tourists high (fun times) and now I'm heading back to London where I'll be getting back to Yoga teaching, taking part in a feminist art fair (details to follow...) and moving into a new shared art studio. I can't wait to begin!