Category Archives: Community

Art Every Day Month – Day 14

Today’s effort was a random (and ineffective) experiment with watercolor (I so don’t know how to work with watercolor paint). I didn’t have time to really get into something and wasn’t coming up with ideas. This is the kind of creation that may someday be reincarnated into another work, like this one, which also started as random swipes of paint and sat for a couple of years until I saw something in it. Today’s work is the kind of art that my friend Gerry looks askance at (a five year old could do this, there’s no real skill or technique involved, and I don’t necessarily disagree with him). This effort fits with Illustration Friday’s topic Pretend. Pretend this painting is about something. Consider it a kind of Rorschach test; what do you see in it? I saw sunlight on the water of a lake.

sunlight on water - art every day month 08 - day 14

“Pretend” / 11×15″ watercolor paper with watercolor

Art Every Day Month – Day 11

This wasn’t the best day for creativity. I spent the morning at the doctor’s office waiting (much too long) to get a TB skin test. Bean and I will start a parent-participation preschool class next week, and because I’ll be in contact with other kids, they need to know I won’t visit a plague upon them. The rest of the morning and much of the afternoon were spent with my friend and her little girl, and I cooked as well. So my inspiration today was what Bean was wearing — teal pants with little pears and hearts and cherries on them. I’m not particularly happy with the result, but the effort and process have equal value.

pears - art every day month 08 - day 11

No Inspiration

I’m spinning my wheels today regarding what to create for AEDM. Every idea I have I feel is too complex for the time I have today, I feel stale and uninspired, and I feel unskilled to bring forth some of the ideas. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I have very little free time today.

Art Every Day Month – Day 7

I traced my hand. I tried not to over-think what to do with it. I wanted contrast and boldness. The result brought to mind a mandala.

Representing the universe itself, a mandala is both the microcosm and the macrocosm, and we are all part of its intricate design. The mandala is more than an image seen with our eyes; it is an actual moment in time. It can be can be used as a vehicle to explore art, science, religion and life itself. The mandala contains an encyclopedia of the finite and a road map to infinity.

Carl Jung said that a mandala symbolizes “a safe refuge of inner reconciliation and wholeness.” It is “a synthesis of distinctive elements in a unified scheme representing the basic nature of existence.” Jung used the mandala for his own personal growth and wrote about his experiences.

It is said by Tibetan Buddhists that a mandala consists of five “excellencies”: The teacher • The message • The audience • The site • The time

An audience or “viewer” is necessary to create a mandala. Where there is no you, there is no mandala. (from: You Are the Eyes of the World, by Longchenpa, translated by Lipman and Peterson).

—The Mandala Project

I have a world in my hand. So do you.

<mandala - art every day month 08 - day 7

“World In Hand” / 7×10″ sketch paper with ink and marker

After Eight Years

For the first time in eight years, I feel hopeful about the future of our country. I am thrilled with the historic presidential election results.

In his famous Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln urged every American to take on “the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far nobly advanced.” That work remained unfinished, though, for a century and a half. For despite decades of civil rights legislation, judicial interventions and social activism — despite Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King’s I-have-a-dream crusade and the 1964 Civil Rights Act — the Civil War could never truly be said to be over until America’s white majority actually elected an African-American as president.

That is what happened Tuesday night, and that is why we wake up to a different country. Yes, the struggle for equality is never done. But we can start afresh now from a whole new baseline. Let every child and every citizen and every new immigrant know that from this day forward: Everything really is possible in America.

–Thomas Friedman, Finishing Our Work

It’s not looking so good for Prop 8 and Prop 4 here in California, though.

Art Every Day Month – Day 2

My effort today is less art and more craft. (Not that knitting isn’t art, but a simple dishcloth is pushing the concept; now a lace shawl or something akin — that is art.) However, this is what I created today. Recently Husband purchased a knife sharpening kit and sharpened all our very dull blades. This has made cooking much easier and more fun; however, we learned the hard way that we cannot wash the knives with my hand-knitted dishcloths. One of them was shred to bits, and so this one replaces it.

art every day month 08 - day 2 - pink dishcloth

I spent a lovely afternoon visiting with a relative — a second cousin on my father’s side of the family. She was a fascinating person to talk to and before I realized it, I’d been there nearly four hours. I learned a couple years ago that I had relatives in the Bay Area, but without a premise for contact I didn’t pursue it, and I was busy, so the time wasn’t right. My parents recent visit catalyzed the connection.

Bean had a rough day today. I felt her gums, and she has an upper left molar coming through, plus the rest of her gums are very puffy. She has new words, though: all done, bird, cracker, excuse me (coo-mee), gate mouse (mess), pear. She mimicks what she hears really well.