Opening a Studio

I recently googled the history of Open Studios and discovered that the open studios, called salons, were started by a certain Madame De Scudéry in Paris. It was a place where intellectuals, writers and artists gathered for discussions.

More recent open studios, the article said, focus on the creative act of making and sharing. And while that definition applies to studios where people are making art in a common space, I like it: a place that focuses on making and sharing.

And that's exactly what I'm going to do April 12 and 13th, when along with 23 other artists, I'm going to be part of an open studio tour sponsored by our local Davis, CA gallery, the Artery.

I'm taking on the challenge because for a long time, I've really wanted to share my artwork in an intimate space; it's intimate work and the more impersonal walls of a gallery don't always do it justice. It looks good in a gallery, but in the home, it looks great.

When one of my friends pitched the idea to me, I bit.

I also decided to extend the open studio into my blog and for the next several posts, I'll introduce you to some of the work I'll be sharing in April.

The piece above is part of a series I worked on over the last summer. It's called Mending Wall, after a poem by Robert Frost.

Before I built a wall I'd ask

What I was walling in or out

And to whom I was like to give offense

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.

In the series, I explore how I put up walls with people, when I take them down and under what conditions. Walls are needed in life; the trick is to figure out what to do when.

The process of putting the text and image together was not unlike building a wall. I used watercolor paintings of jade plants, which I had cut into squarish "stones" and blocks of text from some papers I'd found at my father's: 50 year old documents from his career as an English professor.

Lest I sound like I'm still in an English lit. class, I have to tell you that when I made the collage, none of this was conscious. I was spurred on by sensation and under the spell of memory.

Pocket Change Unfolds

Several days ago, I found a rather large white box in the mail. It was bulging at the seams and when I opened it, out poured a tantalizing array of envelopes covered with stamps from far away lands. Artist Trading Cards for the 6 Degrees of Creativity Pocket Change swap!

I invited my sister Amelia over to help with the swap; why not spread the fun? An amazing afternoon unfolded as we carefully unpacked the cards and laid them out on the tables, marveling as each envelope revealed new treasure.

Oh my gosh, how we were going to choose which cards went where? Amelia took on wrapping the cards; that meant I was going to do the selection. I decided "intuitive" was the way to go. Once I stopped worrying (and honestly there wasn't much of that), the cards seemed to sort themselves.

During the time that the cards were laid out, there was an air of expectation and exuberance in the studio, but most of all,  all of the love and caring that had gone into this awesome effort.

There was no way I could have anticipated the sheer creative goodness shining forth. Thank you so much to Beth Rommel for gathering  envelopes from every corner of the world and creating parcels for Gretchen and I to sort and swap. (The three of us each sorted about 50 packages!) Thank you also to Gretchen Miller without whom, 6 Degrees of Creativity  and Pocket Change would not exist. And thank you especially to every artist and agent of change who participated--I look forward to hearing your stories.

In Praise of Mother Love

In the course of bringing art therapy to different children in our hospital, I've had the occasion to also work with mothers. This isn't unusual, I often try to involve as many people as I can in a project. When you've got a family making art together, you have a family making change together.

But lately, it's moms whom I've found the most inspiring. We live in this world, which as I far as I can tell from reading the papers, seems to see people as disposable, their jobs lost to mergers, overseas labor and general sail trimming.

What I love about my job is that I get to see this notion turned on its head. We're a former county hospital and we take whoever comes to us--our patient population is a cloth of many economic stripes.

I've been working with one mother who has a number of children at home and a newborn in the hospital. He's been there several months and since he was born with a number of physical anomalies, he requires 'round the clock care. She's been with him the whole time and fortunately has excellent family support at home.

Initially, I proposed creating picture books for her children at home, so that they could listen to a story that their mom wrote for them and feel her love as they listened.

It hasn't worked out that way. Instead, each time I enter, the mom is standing by the crib being with her baby, adjusting a tube if needed, but really, just getting to know this little soul and loving him.

Art books weren't going to happen. What to do?

Conversations with strangers don't come easily for me, and without art materials as a medium, I initially felt lost. I decided that instead of book making, our art would be the making of conversation and of companionship.

So I've come by each day to visit, learning to be more comfortable with when we're not making anything.  I ask a few questions, watch her face light up when we hit upon something that touches her, but mostly, I've just learned about devotion.

I see fatigue on her face, and I'm guessing, she might get more than a little hungry sometimes, but her steady presence strikes me as one of the most powerful examples of love that I've ever seen.

This Valentine's Day, I recognize all kinds of love, but in particular, I want to celebrate the love of mothers for their children;  the strongest bond of all.

The Power of Inventory

This past week I've been looking for the origins of my own artwork so I can create a database, in other words, I'm doing an inventory.

The word "inventory" is close to invention, don't you think? One dictionary says that it comes "from the Latin inventus, pp. of invenire "to find" (see invention)."  I've tried to do this "finding" in the past and always abandoned the effort, overwhelmed by what feels like the task of herding cats.

I tried to keep an open mind though, even as I asked myself  "when did I create this picture? And what was I thinking about anyway?" I must have wondered about all this in less than a whisper,  because my husband abruptly asked, "why are you doing this?"

Good question--one that deserves an answer.

As each year collects itself like a growing season, bringing in a harvest, artwork accumulates. The more it piles up, the less I remember about its origins. So, I realized, in an odd way, I was rewriting my own history as an artist.

It was a surprising thought, one that buoyed me up and reminded me of something else my husband had said earlier: "You're sewing yourself into the universe everyday. Otherwise you won't feel a part of it and you'll be out of it, ill at ease and maybe even dis-eased."

A wise person, my husband. I thought he'd nailed it.

Since then, what began as something of a forced march has turned into a wonderful wild scavenger hunt--one requiring the detective skills of a Sherlock Holmes as clues pop up in the oddest places; a misplaced file, photographs hidden in plain sight on i-photo or a picture hanging in the corner of our meti-dia-beading (short for meditation, dining and beading) room.

It may take me another two months to complete this, but at the end, I imagine that I'll have a good list of "what is found"--from Medieval Latin inventorium--and the pictures to prove it.

Mending Walls and Making Change

At some point in their studies, art therapy students discover the "media continuum." On this continuum, media are placed along along an invisible line moving from point A to point B line according their degree of safety and control.

A lead pencil at one end of the continuum offers a feeling of familiarity and control--and on the the opposite end spectrum, oil paint offers an unwieldy challenge. If you don't watch out, you might find your client who has difficulty with impulse control spraying the paint all over your office walls.

The key is to match the both the media and the intervention to the needs of the client. To non-art therapists, this might sound theoretical and over cautious.

It's not. In my very first art therapy bereavement group many years ago,  an angry adolescent punched a hole in the wall of the hospital in which I was working; his reaction to my misdiagnosis of media and intervention. I hadn't read the signals and had asked the group to attempt something that put this young man face to face with his grief far too early in his grieving process.

If I hadn't been convinced about the medium continuum before, if my teachers' stories seemed only to be tall tales, I became  a convert and I've employed it ever since.

I use the same principle in my own art. When I'm feeling stretched thin, I stick with materials over which I have more control. When I'm feeling expansive, my work and my materials grow too.

Right now, I'm in the process of sanding the panel edges of my "Mending Wall" series. I love this series, but I don't like finish work. It feels like all the fun and discovery is over and I'm doing the visual equivalent of balancing a checkbook.

Recently, I decided to intersperse the task of sanding with our 6 Degrees of Creativity "Pocket Change" project. My deal for myself is: finish one sanded panel--make one artist trading card.

I've arranged the artist trading cards, in various stages of completion, at a discreet distance from where I sand. I can see them while I work, their bright colors shining, offering the possibility of almost instant gratification.

I'm beginning to love sanding. By creating a new rhythm: hard medium/easy medium/hard medium, I'm finding patience and sanding is leading to new ideas for my next series. I love the smooth, variegated surface of the wood.

Meanwhile, artist trading cards gather at the end of the table, ready to be mailed off for Beth Rommel, collector and distributor for our Pocket Change project.  Gretchen Miller, Beth and I have concocted this project to focus on the power of creating change through making something small (in the form of artist trading cards) and through engaging in simple acts of creative kindness.

You get the picture--help yourself, help others--it's not too late to join us! The deadline is tomorrow,  Tuesday, January 15. For more information on the exchange, click here.

I also invite to share stories about your own media continuum experiences--whether you called it that--or maybe just "those darn pastels!"