Collage Therapy

Its been an exhausting, draining, demoralizing election season.

I have friends and family who made excellent arguments

for both (all) sides of the equation.  It was brutal.

While I am always optimistic, just processing the

last several months has taken so much energy.

And with depleted reserves I wasn't sure what I could concentrate on in the studio.  Voila!  I picked up an old favorite, Steal Like an Artist Journal,  and opened it up to this page:

So I had a plan to keep my hands busy while my mind wandered wherever it wanted to go.  I dug around and put the trash out on my table:

Then I got busy ripping, cutting and gluing....all therapeutic activities while waiting for the creativity muse to come by.

I turned this around by 90 degrees several times but clearly, it was too soon to get any real direction.

I kept pasting, sometimes aware of great frustration and other times mindlessly tacking things on.  I felt protective of the bee but realized that sort of defeated my original, freewheeling intention.

partial detail

I kept plodding along and then a word came to me - bam- just like that!  The word was "obfuscation."  Bingo.

Thats how I had felt all these months - obfuscated - and that was the confusing feeling I was getting right this minute from my unplanned collage.  The art was unclear, the paths were misleading and everything was made complex and disjointed.  Suddenly I had a bit of clarity.  I added my last piece, swept the remaining goodies back into the trash and stood up feeling much, much better.  This was no work of art but the block got moved, the feeling verbalized (or art-itized) and I am now ready to move forward.

Obfuscation

trash collage, 7.75" x 7.75"

Whether the election went your way or not, I hope you agree with me that we should all be motivated to do what we can to improve the quality of life for each other and to continue to work on those issues we deem important.  Here's to no more obfuscation!

Thank you Austin Kleon,

Cindy

p.s.  Click on his name for an interesting TED talk by him.

Umbria

In Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon reminds us

that the world is full of ideas just waiting to be

remade (stolen) in another form.  

My summer play dates have given me permission to

do just that.

Remember when I wrote about the marvelous clay technique of Patti Conner-Greene and her dreamscapes?  Click here for a reminder.  Abandoning her pottery wheel briefly, she started playing with layers of design and texture, building a scene without regard to a realistic perspective.  They are beautiful pieces of art.  So, I have become a thief...herewith my confession:

My visits to Italy always result in a ton of photos featuring the beautiful patchworked countryside of olive trees, vineyards and other produce.  The rolling hills, the colors from striped plantings, the mountainous background....such classic views of Italy.  (sigh) Painting that perspective however continued to throw me a curve ball.  One day I decided to just enjoy the effort and paint as if I were in Patti's sandbox rolling out clay and stamping it with crazy texture.

Umbria, detail

I laid down texture, I played with color, I mixed up patterns and I threw caution to the wind where realistic perspective was concerned.  I wanted to capture that feeling I always had gotten of seeing the countryside as a beautiful, freeform quilt of flowing pattern.

detail 2

Of course it had to have the classic Italian cypress in the foreground.  And a low hanging sky.

Umbria, oil, 36 x 24, framed

available, Crossnore Gallery of Fine Art

Done!  Thank you Austin Kleon for permission to be a klepto and to Patti Conner-Greene, of Linville River Pottery for the inspiration.  Oh, and grazie to artist Kelly Medford whom I was traveling with when we stopped to paint at Arte Umbria for an entire week! Much inspiration came from all these folks....my gratitude is endless.

Shameless,

Cindy

Learning to Steal...(like an artist)

This is how I have been starting my mornings lately.  Not always with cheese toast but with coffee and this work book, pen in hand.  I've long been a fan of Austin Kleon's books and blogs and he just came out with his newest creation:

Yes!  He has taken all his succinct advice in Steal Like An Artist and produced a journal.  I call it a workbook because each page has prompts on it which get the brain cells buzzing around priming the pump for finding ideas during the day from which to morph, build, stretch and otherwise create.

I have fallen off so many "journal" wagons you'd think I'd never climb on another but hope springs eternal and I made a commitment to myself to go the distance with this one.  Maybe I just love the sound "creative kleptomaniac?"  I also know that no page is the same (I purposely don't look ahead) and most don't take very long to do.

This was fun and easy: "Shop for a new pen.  Use this page to test several."  Easy peasy...and I came home with, not one...but 3 new pens.

This is one of the few that requires a daily effort consistently - and you can't see what I choose to do daily.  BUT even if it is to drink one glass of water daily you can complete the challenge and get the (not so) subtle lesson of the effort involved in developing habit.

Not everything gets completed during breakfast...some you think about during the day and complete later on.  Still...not so hard, huh?

Kleon likes simplicity...easy "How To" instructions printed on the back cover...

And finally, a "swipe file" in the back.  A great place to tuck articles, headlines, business cards and those receipts you make notes on.  Very clever, I think.

Please understand that as an artist himself, (Kleon started black out poetry from NY Times articles and has recently developed that into a 3D cut out poetry), the author does not endorse nor suggest anything close to plagiarism.  But building on the adage that there is really nothing new under the sun, his philosophy is that we can all train ourselves to be better observers of the world around us.  And therein lies the basis of our inspiration.  And if we get in the habit of grabbing these observations while they are fresh and crisp, we can return to them to doodle and elaborate.  Voila!  Genius.

Gotta run, I still have to complete today's "habit" and get on to the business of stealing the seeds for my next great project.

Color Fully Stealing,
Cindy

Steal Like An Artist

10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

I can't remember many books I have recommended via this blog but I have been sitting on this one a while and can't wait any longer!  If you have even the tiniest creative bone in your body (or wish you did) this little treasure should be in your library:  Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.

Even before you open it the book will charm you: it has a nice feel, a different size, large type and an easy flow format.  Great to read straight through and easy to pick up for a 10 minute refresher.  But what else?

So many "self help/creative" books are a version of positive thinking.  And while Kleon is positive he is also proactive.  "Steal" is an action verb and it just so appealed to the goody-two-shoes side of me.  Even Picasso is quoted as saying "Art is theft."  HOW to steal is the key.  After explaining how to steal the author goes on with 9 other meaty pieces of insight all designed to unlock your creativity.  Each is creatively (of course) laid out and illustrated (being a visual person I can "see" the advice while I read it which helps my memory).  And, as he confesses early on, these are very autobiographical tidbits brought to life by real experiences and real failures. 

Here's a 'fer instance': #4- Use Your Hands.  We are all fabulous in our heads and most of us are quite free with criticism flowing from our mouth; what are my hands doing?  While the computer has opened up great new sources of ideas, all by itself it really is not making a darn thing.  Use Your Hands.  When my hands are engaged my mind goes into a totally different mode and works on incredible things I am not even conscious of.  I often knit (and I mean "knit" as that is the only stitch I know) just to work out a problem in my head.  And when painting my hands are the most important tool.  What are your hands doing?  Simple, huh?  Are they writing (or thinking about the book you want to write), are they creating in the kitchen (or watching the cooking channel); use your hands, they are the God-given tools of your trade.  (My summation does not scratch the surface, in about as many words as I have used, Kleon goes miles further!)

The 'mother' in me is also partial to the #9- Be Boring chapter; but I will leave that one for you to discover. 

I got my copy from www.Amazon.com for $10.95 and it was the best $11 I have spent this summer...fits in my purse and I can get re inspired when ever I have to kill time waiting on an appointment I am inevitably too early for.

Finally, if you don't believe me, just check out his website by clicking on the book photo above and meander through this guy's head for a bit.  You'll either take notes (and lose them ) or you'll invest the bucks.  Have fun and let me know what you think.  Meanwhile I am off for a long walk in the woods because #5- Side Projects and Hobbies Are Important.