A Day Apart

Yesterday I spent 7 hours in a collage class led by Sylvia at The Art Box in Claremont. The icing on the cake was being there with my darling daughter #3. I finished this piece (boy, I have a black and red thing lately don't I?) and have two more  that are off to a good start but not quite ready for prime time. One of them is simple and needs no more that some cutting and glueing.

The other is a wonderful lesson in expectations. I know that planning is such an important factor for success in many endeavors, but I have never been very good at it and usually get all tangled up when I attempt to "make a plan and follow it." My art attempts are no exception. The lesson is also about investment. Things don't seem to work out as easily for me if I allow myself to be too heavily invested in the outcome, in life as well as in art. And lastly, there is deliberatenessness (hey, it's MY word). If I forget that there is always magic afoot and keep brushing off the stardust that I think is messing up my project I struggle to a disappointing end. When I think of all the art I have done in the past several years, the pieces I like best, the pieces I enjoyed making most, are the ones that seemed to make themselves while I was in some sort of delicious trance.

And this piece, which is now a disappointing mess, pretty much covers all three of those lessons. I ignored my instincts, followed the rules instead and lost my mojo. The subject is near and dear to my heart and I  planned it to be a gift. I have some doable ideas on getting it back on it's proverbial feet, then I'm going to get into one of those trances and let it finish itself. Yes I am. Hopefully you will see it here in the next few weeks. (That doesn't sound like a plan, investment or deliberatenessness does it?)

I have also been in a writing mood. Here is what I was thinking just the other day. Seems to belong in this post.

Falling in Love

I am finally falling in love with my own spirit,

slowly losing the ability to judge 

myself or others, falling in love 

with all things eccentric, eclectic, 

odd, beautiful, foreign and mysterious.

Discernment and propriety 

are silently slipping away.

Daily life is becoming perfect serialized fiction

in which to lose myself in the beautiful, 

the hideous, horror, knowledge, 

humor, intrigue, lust!

When I'm through I close the book and place it 

in the glass-doored case of my collections

where I can appreciate its exquisite bindings.

lm/2011

Be well my tender friends and remember, it's all GOOD!