~As ever, stay hungry and curious.
Closing the day out slowly tonight by listening to 80's music on the radio. Finishing out my list for the week three days early was a welcome surprise, but my eyes are exhausted. No doubt I will recoup over the weekend. Meanwhile, I have writing and research to make the deadline I chose for myself. Making the decision to take my art and writing seriously has produced a rigorous schedule. As for the business of art as opposed to bliss in the studio, taking a step back from the fever happens tonight thanks to careful planning. Sorry, I forgot to tell. After seeing the quilted alphabet, Dad gave me suggestions on new research to approach the alphabet as an esoteric matter. My mind could not but rise in a heat after his encouragements. As far as the phone call, I am on board. The careful notation comes in building concrete progress and an exhibition out of the conversation. For now my fascination sits much like I did in Kent State University's archives on a weekday afternoon pencil, scraps of paper, and antique tome in hand. Bottom line? For now I am unprepared and obligated in other directions, but I want it. I want it bad. Dad gave me some author, genre, and title leads. I offered up my own to his own interests. I had to try to make it a fair trade. The obvious point from our talk is that the research will help me build more on my visual vocabulary. There is an itch in the back of my head for Mircea Eliade, dreams, visions, and sound interpretation. Funny, if I remember correctly St. Paul called for an interpreter to be present if indeed someone in the congregation was speaking in tongues. From that I gather that those who see and speak are not mandated to be able to interpret themselves. I cannot let that one rest. Some schools that practice dream work teach otherwise. Funny thought... I am an American English speaker and writer for over 40 years and I still do not know my own language or voice. Another call to personal arms it seems. The winter schedule of chores and plans is quickly filling up.
~As ever, stay hungry and curious. The first Saturday in October is not about to sneak up on me. October, for me, is like a mini advent countdown. To be sure there is something to do everyday to prepare. As for now, I am securing the shop stock and moving on to details for a sound display. If you could not tell, I am psyched, hopeful, and scared at the same time. For those of you who are interested in the slideshow items from the past three posts, drop me a line at email [email protected] or text me at 214-250-4656 with your request. As of now I do not have a shop set up online, so conducting business is best held through PayPal invoice, check. or money order.
Have a great close to September and I hope to see you in October at the First United Methodist Church in The Colony for the Harvest Craft Bazaar 2017 ( http://fumctc.org/bazaar/). ~As ever, stay hungry and curious. Here is more for your eyes to feast on: Quilted Alphabet 2017.
Loaded with antique buttons and lace, they are a steal priced at $25 a piece. If the thought strikes you, know that I had it as well. I am available for a commission on an alphabet set as well as a group of counting number from 0-9 using second hand or new fabrics. Contact me at [email protected]. Use all caps in red on the subject line. ~As ever, stay hungry and curious. Busy and buzzing through a cold. Besides writing I am staging and finishing for the October show. As I finish packaging items I will photograph and post. There are discounts on all older items ranging from 50% - 75% off. Today has been a long day and I am about to keel over. FYI: The alphabet is completed. Each letter will be packaged separately at a sale price of $25 each. (I will be photographing the complete series and posting in the coming days) Writing the pattern is in the works and may be available come October. Otherwise it will be available in the coming year.
~As ever, stay hungry and curious. Monday, September 11, 2017
3:04 p.m. smallCon and other Sundries August was a long haul of a schedule, but this past week was even harder. The frustration culminated in last Friday as tense, but come midnight, everything was in order to show come Saturday. I did not know what to expect from the conference. In the least, I hoped for a vendor room packed with people who were ready to spend money. Going to Comic-con in Dallas decades ago, I was imprinted with basic expectations for events like this. To my chagrin, before the end of the day, I was disappointed as well as other vendors. What made a difference in my mind was something seemingly inconsequential. This was smallCon’s first year. Upon the coordinator’s last syllable, my shoulders relaxed and my heart beat slowed. Anger never rose in my words because I understood. Good things came of my experience even if the nature of blessings did not amount to high sales. With further negotiations I may have two confirmed commissions, I have a contact for other shows in the metroplex, and lastly, I will hopefully start an internship before the year is out. Without participating this weekend, none of these opportunities would have materialized. With that said, I give great thanks to all the staff, panelists, vendors, and the City of Addison for making all of those connections and more possible. At the end of the day I packed up my booth and walked into a panel discussion on Women in the Creative Arts. I took notes, some of which are difficult to read two days out from the initial scribble. I did not write down names, but on the panel was a vendor, the head writer for Grey’s Anatomy, a performance artist, and a stage lighting designer. The questions are posted, then they are followed by some of the panelist’s responses. What does a typical day involve? There is no typical day. I always have a wide range of things to do. Making daily efforts to commit to connectivity with the communities I serve. Sourcing ideas to build a script. Paperwork. A lot of work that can only be done alone. What should a woman know before going into business for herself? Know the business of art. Know accounting. Try breaking into the field through apprenticeships. Know how to read a contract. If necessary, get help in reading contracts. Learn the difference between working in large and small communities. If you are a creative, find out what is lacking in your knowledge base and solve the gaping hole of ignorance in your life plan as an artist. What are some challenges that you face? Ego – yours and others. Fear. Do not become a cynic as an artist. Learning to be female is hard and especially in predominantly male arenas. What is some advice to give to the young about creativity? Getting past your first creative block is a land mark in learning yourself and the way you work. Do not be afraid to be terrible the first time when you are approaching art. Give yourself permission to fail. Remember that “creativity is problem solving”. Everyone is creative. Not everyone becomes a creative professional. Try the forbidden. Remember to eat blue food (Do not give up the whimsy you had in childhood. Preserve your childhood fascinations, senses of risk, and unrestricted wonder.) How do you get your point across in a finite amount of time? Consider your audience and who is represented. Keep positive and aware: commit to local events and learn to express your voice. Become and master scheduler to budget your time wisely. Do your job and be professional. Recognize the interrelatedness of humanity. Be conscious of your impression on the young. Give yourself permission to fail if only to try again. While fighting for your inner creative security, know what are the pros and cons of the concept that “Art comes after a job”. Learn to nurture your creativity to maintain energy levels. Be conscious of the younger generation. Words to apply: evolution and serendipity. FYI: The smallCon sessions were recorded and will be posted on youtube.com. I want to review the one I participated in, as well as the last session of the day which was on building your own career. I could use some insight on that as well. As far as the rest of the month, I am not completely ducking out of blogging. As for work, I not only have the business end to do for the Harvest Craft Bazaar, but I have work that needs to be finished as well. Even after that is planned out, I am still busy. Popping in and out of the net scene will be the agenda through the second week in October. On a lighter note: I harvested marigold seeds on Sunday. I hope to sit a draw them this week. Autumn is here and I am starting to collect more little things to draw from found objects to thread on the floor in the studio. At least that is where my muse sits. As ever, stay hungry and curious.
Cost. Location. Festivity. All in tact. If you can make it, I'd love to see you.
smallCon 2017@ Addison Conference Center Addison, Texas ~As ever, stay hungry and curious. Just stop. For this sequence of sentences, just stop. Breathe in and exhale. It’ll be alright because I say it will. The sun will rise just the same if I plug in the sewing machine and work the night away. My fingers will puncture and bleed on polyester, just the same as if I was facing the air conditioner after two o’clock in the afternoon. The point is I need not push. Earlier this week I was raging into deadlines and shows as if the world clocked out twenty minutes ago. That was my ride home, in the pinching rain. I just need to stop. I need not to convince, I need to resolve myself into this list of objects and tasks to complete in thirty six days. I needed someone else to know that something broke, namely me. I need not destroy the human machine. Actually, I am desperate to assume a state of repair. My wrist, my elbows, and shoulder alike are in enough pain to take a row of days aside and watch them melt away with dalliances in books and quick sweet cooking alike. Unfortunately someone saw into my work as me the lazy oaf trying to get out of studio duties. I was firm with friend in a way that made him shut up and almost walk away. I worked my way out of deep sickness; the mark being Monday. I took the time to pick up everything I put down for two weeks. Overworking the point I woke Tuesday with arms that wanted to leave me and a throat that was not there. Some frog took over without remorse or care for me. I nailed friend on the fact I have framing, budgeting, watering, cleaning, and designing to do. There are other tasks besides studio labors that require attention, namely feeding and cleaning. I do not have the money to fork out to another party to do all the things I need to sustain my life. I have no ability to turn tail, lock the studio door behind me, and relish in rendering vision for fortnights on end. The real world calls, friend. I do not give a damn who you talked to. I ain’t rich, friend. Some things I have to do for myself. I am sick….and tired, friend. I am old and not as resilient as I used to be. I’ll tell you this friend. The quilt may not finish in time. Still, there is the show and next year’s bazaar. But that was not it. “I am checking on the alphabet. Will it still be done in time for the bazaar,” he asked. I folded beneath blankets and groaned quietly. Deadlines and hopefulness are not just the domains of commissions and guild shows. There are others in the world, just as anxious about my work who may not know me or my occasions. I think those are the people who find my work vital and necessary to a part of themselves. Callings and obligations are two words crowding in both ears. I never want to disappoint. I started working in batches late this afternoon. I cannot assume I will finish, but I will try. Planning tools made the whole issue a no brainer. Barring Harvey’s cousin coming through the Metroplex, the alphabet will be finished. ~As ever, stay hungry and curious. Hubris #7: The edge.2
Saturday, August 26, 2017 9:26 p.m. Clarification is perched at the bottom of my bed. He is working into the white wicker as if there is revenge to be had on the weaver. As a result, the baskets are beginning to cave in from the constant motion of flapping wings and gouging claws. No sound amounts for the commotion. It is all a matter of visual interpretation. The bird points to the fact that something is coming loose in my foundations. I must get up and excavate the damage before one of my worlds comes undone. I feel the question of authenticity must be answered of my work ushered in by my grandfather’s perceived notions of time and sleep. I sense I am being accused of cultural appropriation and an abuse of traditional dream interpretation in the way of a bastardization of use. I am not throwing down the gauntlet. On the contrary, in the shallows of my throat I recognize my abilities to construct temples of sound and light out of a few scraps collected over forty years. My process and explanation may not have the insistence of gale force winds, nor, for some, does it have the logic of ancestral heritage, but it does make for a colorful tale to muse the eyes and sooth the soul’s journey. Tonight I remember my first thirty years being a meld of cross cultural research melded with grief, desperation, and magic. Combinations like that tend to create Hydrogen bombs of the imagination. Of gran’dad’s dreaming are made the little explosions that jar deep personal memory. Each piece I chose in the Onion Roots exhibition is a cue to bigger concepts buried in legend, folktale, and fairytale. A journey that typically takes years to conceive is shortened by coveted and manipulated selections of nature. These pieces look as if they could only have emerged from a dream space: bees wax polished roots, preserved high chroma brights on rusted metal caps, and hand cleaned bleached bones are items I frequently bide by when taking up the helm of my impressions of family passed. While awake, stalking the dream landscape for these precious nothings came after realizing that dream landscapes were stalking me. After gran’dad died, grieving worked its way through my heart over decades. Because of the elongation of time and forgetfulness, for me, he never really passed. He is always in the other room waiting for me to turn off the television and go to sleep. As for my mother, the night he died he gave her a sign that he did pass over into deaths arms. My tendency to bide with the dead comes from another sign from beyond. When I finally settle into a place to call home, I see gran’dad’s house, inside and out, superimposed over the walls, windows, and floors. Maybe it is a sign that this may be my final ancestral home as a result of his approval. The sign always comes when I am walking, floating in air, between awake and sleep. In other words, gran’dad registers consciously in a state of dreams. For now, I am going to forego retelling the years of night and day dreaming the property both inside and outside of the house. Know this though, with every remembrance the distance between worlds closes. At this point, October, with its traditions bringing us closer to the dead, is likely to be a noisy month for me. Taking notes will be the aftermath into November. I feel this high mark of the solar year to be oddly auspicious. Clarity, attentiveness, and memory may be the only things I need that full moon. I am quietly hoping to find a lead back into the work that was generated from the dreams and books. Dream seasons strike for me come spring and autumn. I expect no change, well, except for a need to put everything to ink and page. Quilting is where I sit right now, but I am still drawn into this constantly churning milieu of reasons to commit to mixed media work featured with encaustic passages. I have not lost the drive. On the contrary it jars my shoulders every few week. Two years ago I pleaded in prayer for the mental rest from unsolved studio solutions because of the series. Come this past June was a year’s dedication to quilting. Meanwhile, I gathered new materials and borrowed a table. I have done a series of sketches, but I lack the drive. Writing has also begun to take more time. I just started The Artist’s Way again and I am learning about blocks and self sabotage. There is a voice that resounds in my face every time I begin to write or quilt. It speaks a hateful intent in that voice that always seems to defeat every motivation I have to get up and work. When I make it past that voice there is another that launches a complaint that I have so much to set up. “Why don’t you go out,” it whines. After rest and the end of my dedicated year of quilting, I am pledging to get past both barriers. How I could have picked up such verbal and emotional abuse I do not know. After working through Cameron’s books there is sure to be a difference in my artistic and personal life. Now I know that death is a motivator and inspiration for my work. Encaustic pieces codified my emotional process by revisiting my gran’dad death. This technique my supplement my method of grieving for my grandmother as well as the gouache and ink work pursued in the Hubris series. I am positive that I can expect this to be the norm when other close relatives die. Right now I am tempted to plumb emotional and visual depths and compare them with those I barely realized as a child. Thinking back now, it is funny how I rejected autobiographical work during graduate school. The results I saw where beautiful, but at the time the process was nothing that interested me. Now I am starting to create as a response to time. Musing in concepts or generating a psychological diarrhea of images that does not develop consciousness or influence community stagnates. It wastes my time to pursue flash-in-the-pan achievements. I do not want my work to be known as a joke and myself as well. As for the encaustics being autobiographical, there is no memento that hooks the viewer into a daydream of Middle America or a realism that drives the visual point. (I would like to think my life has not been a cliché, but I will keep that quiet.) Still, in the reconciliation to autobiography, my quality of work goes beyond images being sound, archival, and easy. I cannot even feign to sketch a Hallmark type product. Even if I integrated script, as a point of conveying narrative and the illusion of history, at this point, the effect would be futile and a contrivance. Ah! I must have hit a mark of abstract expressionism. Yet I have another piece of the world to look up and re-familiarize myself with before the year is out. Before scoping the internet, maybe I will find an entry in the five volume set Dad bought me. The last volume explores Modernism. The copyright must be in the 1950s. No doubt, the entry will be terribly biased by class and race. This should be a grand read indeed. ~As ever, stay hungry and curious. I am in a verbal headlock right now. I am not in trouble, but I owe everyone an apology. I have been writing secretly. Several people are mad. I apologize again. Now you know where my other posts have gone from this website and blog. Feel free to scope at http://shamanblueblog.wordpress.com.
I still reserve my fears and doubts. Yes, yes I hear you.. Then why in the hell would you blog about it??!!! I am making an attempt at a new adventure that combines research, literary, autobiographical, and creative all in one. Understanding is not completely it as much as it is writing. I found a vein and I am pursuing it. As for posting, I am writing to post once a week. As I work in Arcane it will be once a month. The thought I worked out with friends' insistence is if I write more than three times a week, shoot for a post 500 words or less. Posting once a week, I aim for 500-1000 words. Posting once a month, I am to pursue a labor of 3000-5000 words. In the larger scheme, I am writing/editing something five days a week. Lastly, blessing abound in cleaning. I found the original pages to a manuscript I set aside three years ago. The pages have been missing over seven years. Cheers! ~As ever, stay hungry and curious |
N.A. JonesPicking up where I left off. Archives
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