In August I saw this piece at the Arkansas Arts Center in an exhibit of their permanent collection.  Afterward, I couldn't stop thinging about it. First, it's Iggy Pop, who I love and adore and try to channel when need be. Then there's the Staple Singers, which have been in steady rotation on my life's soundtrack for many years now. Moving to the bottom of the piece, there's Iowa City, a place my husband spent many formative years.  And finally, December 18 is his birthday!  I wanted to look at it again but couldn't remember the title or artist.  I contacted the museum and they gave me the information and even sent me the catalog for the show it was originally in called "Stitches".  They are nice folks over there in Little Rock. The artist is Jenny Hart. 

yard sale stripes and agnes martin

When I saw a hanger full of very fancy ties lying on the couch after one of James' Saturday yard sale outings I thought, what is about the stripe that I'm so atrracted to? I think about stripes a lot and draw them over and over.  I could easily slip into to painting only stripes for the rest of my days. 

My friend, who is not an artist but indeed loves art, saw a link to this Agnes Martin video  and sent it my way. She said she thought of me because of   "1. abstraction, 2. stripes, 3. how she talks about art".  It felt good to have someone not familiar with Agnes Martin see her work and say 'i see you in here somewhere'. 

I've watched this many times over the years and every time I take away a new gem. For example, this  'vacant mind' idea she speaks of is a place I spend a lot of time trying to get to. Thinking is important in the studio, but not thinking is equally as important.

Agnes Martin Interview (20:00 version, 1997) from Chuck Smith on Vimeo.

To see

is to forget

the name

of

the thing

one sees.

Paul Valery

the light house

This is a visual record of a home I spent a lot of time in.  Recently, I had the opportunity to walk through before it was sold to take pictures of the details that are important to me.  This is memory.  

Every afternoon as the sun sets light pours in.  People who had spent years in the house would comment on the magnificence of this light, as though each time was the first time. Beyond the architecture and the light, there was something transcendent about the space.   Whenever I walked onto the porch it was like going through a worm hole into another dimension, a place just beyond this reality. There was a vibe to it, a peacefulness, that was so resonant you could almost hear it.  Granted, my friend who lived here was the type of person who welcomed everyone with open arms and brought out your best self. But there was more to it than just her kind nature.  Even she acknowledged the house held an inexplicable spell.  

I miss my friend every day.  I’ll miss this house.  I’m sharing these deeply personal photos in honor of her memory and the future artwork they'll inspire.  

where i'm at

August was a simple quiet month of a routine in the studio.  I 'shut the doors of my house' as Stanley Kunitz calls it, working on eight canvases,  smaller, more intimate pieces, chipping away at them little by little each day.   From February until June I drew a lot, sketched, looked, took pictures, watched movies, read, looked more.  A lot of the ground work was laid in those months of sorting.  Once I started painting  they happened like the natural next step they were intended to be. Now that I know where this work is headed, I’m tending to their nuances, fine tuning and tweaking.  This stage sometimes feels like polishing silver.  It’s repetitive and meditative. 

Today I turn forty-five!  It’s a solid sturdy number and it feels really good.  As artists we’re expected to explain the purpose and intent of what we do at every turn.  I actually enjoy figuring all that out intellectually – I like knowing why I do what I do at this particular moment in time.   The reader and explorer in me relishes that part of the work.  But truth be told, on a purely gut level, I make art because it reminds me that  I am alive and breathing, a conscious creature with a limited amount of time.  I feel like I’m actually just now starting to get a handle on art making. I don't think we ever really figure anything out, but I am hearing what I want to say with the work and trusting what I hear.  Hopefully, I’ll have a few more decades to keep making art, because not only do I like the idea of being an old lady, I have a lot of stuff I want to make.   As my friend wisely said to me recently, “work your ass off in the studio because that is going to tell you who you are.”   

complimentary colors broken down a bit 

and a little painting on paper with bright bright colors 

 .

 

The two things I appreciate most about my studio are the bookshelves and the mascot.

Here's a new drawing.

a new space to think about new things

 

Before I hung this new push pin friendly area in my studio, all the random imagery I regularly look at was either on crammed here and there or in a stack. Now that there is space to spread it all out, I can see more clearly what's actually on my mind.

Thinking about:

storage containers 

.

Joyce Carol Oates (her face, her bookshelf, her husband)

.

thin vertical lines
.

neutrals with intense color (ongoing fascination)
.

a big hunk of black with bright colors below it
. 

day glo
.

thin horizontal lines
.

perspective (in conjunction with the storage containers)
.

red and off-white tightly woven together

.