Day of Art Inspiration

Am relieved to finish working on Show Me How book so now, can focus on art. Today, drove to Palo Alto to see Mary Daniel Hobson's show before it closed. Unfortunately, Modern Book had already taken it down but I leafed through a box of prints and saw a slide show of her images. I especially resonate with her "Mapping the Body" series. Then drove to Stanford to see Charles Hobson's artist books on display at the Cantor Museum and Green Library. I hadn't expected the museum to be closed, but it is on Tuesdays. Fortunately the show will be up for awhile. I saw several of his books at the Green Library which are also described on his site. Plus, found other interesting things at the library like a reconstruction of a magnetic clock from the 1600's, maps and a huge globe. Finished the day with viewing powerpoint presentations about artists by classmates.

Chalk Art in Berkeley

Chocolate and Chalk Art Festival I happened to come across this today. Met Aaron of chalk4peaee.org and enjoyed chatting with a few more people about their drawings.

Catching up

(Montgomery St)

Will catch up. In the healing area, I went to a talk several weeks ago with Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen at CIIS called  "Mystery and Medicine, the Soul Infused Encounter with Illness and Health." She gave a beautiful heartwarming talk with stories and suggested I look at this site, started by a colleague of hers Artheals.org. I was already aware of it, but did a search on its founder, Marion Weber and found this interesting dialog between Marion and Rachel about sandtrays.

A few points from Rachel Remen's talk:

"A good story is like a compass. A story is like an invitation to a person's soul. Illness is a spiritual path. Medicine is a spiritual path. Reclaim wonder and awe. Be willing to wonder and think outside the box. Be not be afraid in befriending the unknown. The questions we carry with us may enrich our live more than the answers. And thank people for how they have enriched your life."

This morning San Francisco Center for the Book sent a newsletter about a summer bookmaking intensive for teachers. Great ideas.

I did a search for a phone number for Research Magazine to speak with a former art director I'd worked with and here it is again, public interest in neuroscience.

Also found Weldon Owen, the book packaging company I'm currently freelancing for is owned by a "family owned Swedish media group" which has 175 companies across 20 countries! I'm not working today because I was told,  the "big wigs" are in town from Sweden and only staff is in the office. Kind of amazing really, how do these humongous companies operate? (I looked up the word humongous)

Art by Instinct

Video Transfer - ATA Gallery - dinner

Fun and stimulating evening. Dropped off an 8 mm reel at Video Transfer to digitize the first of my grandfather's films. This one, according to a note my grandfather had slipped into the film can, dates back to 1937 and contains images of a few relatives I've never seen. I may incorporate this into my class project. Then I joined the rest of my Intermedia class and a few BFA students for Craig Baldwin's presentation at his ATA Gallery. He gave us a tour and we watched a few very creative films, expanding my sense of what a film can be. This was followed by dinner at a restaurant nearby. 

She's back!

Boy, am I confused with Blogger. Unable to get into this blog, I created another! I admit I hadn't posted to this one in awhile and I had forgotten my exact gmail address and password. I have too many possible passwords out there -  passwords for this, passwords for that. Of course, the answer is to simplify! But I bet I'm not the only one with passwords gone missing like socks in a wash or misplaced keys. (passwords are modern day keys.) But this evening, I succeeded in getting into my gmail account and found a message from The Blogger Team with info I needed. I still couldn't access this blog or even see it listed when I signed onto Blogger, but in the midst of writing an email to the Blogger Help Group, I tried again and voila! Exploring Art and Healing came up! Glad to have her back. 

inspired!

A note to all my fellow intermedia artists  who showed work last night, I was impressed and inspired with your ideas and wonderful variety of work! The idea of working in 3D and 4D is new to me and I appreciated seeing what you created. Now, my turn!

Light picture

One thing I love is the way light dances around this house in the mornings. And sometimes I don't "see" things until after I've photographed them, like the subtle green from the reflected vase.

just a few pics

I thought I'd post a couple pictures this morning to keep this blog creatively active. 

I had fun photographing graffiti on a Bancroft Ave sidewalk. I think there was a student election and this was "advertising" for a nominee.

I also checked out the SF Ballet mini job. Turned out to be telemarketing. Not for me, now, but it was interesting to learn more about the Ballet and the methods - scripts, persistence and detailed tracking of an art marketing company.

Crepes, Lizards, Authors and Re-Minders

Crepes for breakfast with lemon, butter and honey, a Sunday morning family tradition. Then upstairs to my father's den to view the anole lizards he is pet sitting for my aunt. Like chameleons, they can change color and blend with the sticks and leaves in the glass aquarium. They also eat enormous crickets, or enormous for their diminutive size. (These two lizards are small.) The crickets came from the East Bay Vivarium and are a sprightly crew, hip-hopping around and occasionally "jumping ship" or jumping off their egg-carton refuge to explore the house, blithely chirping as they go (much to my step-mother's chagrin).

Feeling the need for creative inspiration after tedious tax preparation, I drove to Book Passage for this line-up of authors:

• Vivienne Flesher with Alfred's Nose. I also spoke with illustrator Ward Schumaker nearby about the state of illustration today. Nice to hear he's busy.

• Andrew Pek and Jeannine McGlade with Stimulated! Habits to Spark the Creative Genius Inside had some good ideas. One woman in the audience, struggling with how to sequence chapters in a memoir she is writing, was advised to write chapter notes on brightly colored post-its and arrange them on a wall to perhaps see a solution.

• Jean Shinoda Bolen with Urgent Message from Mother, discussed how we have just 20 more years to save the earth, "to make a difference." Discussion or how morphic fields work, the tipping point, the 100th monkey, gatherthewomen.org.  "What do you know in your bones about your journey," she asked. "Ask is there an assignment for me?" "What do you have a passion for and why?"

After the talks, drove to Phillip Moffit's sangha (meditation and dharma talk). The theme this evening: mindfulness. He also spoke about right effort, how making the effort itself is worth it, even if you're not "getting anywhere" (not sure I'm explaining this most accurately, but I also bought his new book this evening: Dancing with Life)

Driving home, I thought about how I struggle with getting down to work on my "house project" and it occurred to me "it's about showing up for the effort. This takes me out of the ego identification with what it is, and it's a process. I'm committed to the process, as an experiment." See if that helps! . . . Mindfulness and art-making, what is this like, really?

Enough words! I carried a drawing pad, pens and watercolors around with me all day, but I did not draw! Tomorrow I must start!

less Art but lotsa links

I've been more focused on looking for a job than on art in the last few days. But life, or what I notice, still feeds my art or healing.

I heard about a part-time short-term job with the  San Francisco Ballet. It could be kinda fun to be back in the dance world again!

Wed night, I went to Web 1: Layout and Design at Berkeley Community College. I hadn't been in weeks but felt welcomed back by the teacher, Jan Dove, who will help me catch up or at least partway. I am grateful! It also occurred to me, I can probably choose the same artist to profile for assignments in both my Intermedia class at JFK and the web site class at BCC. 

On Thursday morning (April 10), this post arrived from Daily Good  "You Gotta Have Art." It began with a quote from Rachel Naomi Remen "At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity." The article continued: "As health-care costs skyrocket, a down-to-earth approach to healing is emerging, complementing high-tech medicine with high-touch arts..." Good stuff.

Although tempted, I did not go to a guided imagery and expressive arts group that meets every Thursday at the Institute of Health and Healing in San Francisco. I stayed home to "work" but will check it out another time.

In the afternoon, I visited the new East Asian Library at UC Berkeley. I met a photographer who was photographing the pretty building for a campus newsletter and we spoke about cameras and working at UC. She was toting a NikonD200 but likes her D80 for its size and weight. That could be a good choice for me.

From speaking with her and the newsletter editor, I learned how one can join the California Alumni Assn without being an alumni(!) - although I did go to UCSC for 2 years - and gain library privileges and many benefits. On the CAA site, I found this fellow (gecko) in an article about Madagascar Also, a photo of those so strange baobab trees. These reminded me of my zoologist grandfather's photos and notes about Madagascar in 1936. I wonder if the researchers would be interested in any historical data.

This evening, I chose not to post a picture I took of a reflection of a print hanging at Starbucks because the print was someone else's work - appropriation? I researched copyright issues regarding the web. I feel uncomfortable with the common attitude, I think, if it's on the web, it's up for grabs! So how do you protect your work? One answer. 

direction

Still feeling a bit confused as to what I want to do with this blog. Robbyn wrote "to chronicle personal musings and experiences as an artist through text/or image."

This can be anything. I can document what catches my eye on a walk up the hill like this morning, or share other "discoveries" throughout the day. 

Or this blog could focus on progress with a project about the history of my house and what is "home?" Originally imagined in final form as an artist book,  I am now intrigued with exploring how film, sound or projection could tell tell a story or evoke a feeling of place and time.

But I think I need to see what I have to work with, to determine direction.

Creative license

Writing in the living room. Tinges of sadness about leaving here? I notice the glass ball held with the claws of the piano stool. Reminds me of the photo I took a couple days ago of roots that looked like feet. Roots, as a subject. Roots, like this house.

What's on my agenda today? Peace. It helped to speak with Amelia yesterday. First asking about the exact location of the Lung 1 point she had shown us earlier. Holding one's body, crossing one's arms, holding points for grief or sadness. When I told her my story, she crossed her hands over her heart, another gesture, another point. "You're letting go of family," said she. Yes, indeed, she saw or heard it in a flash. (emotional accupressure book)

Find that inner well, that inner space of calmness, of well-being.

Let the generations nourish me. For a moment, I feel/see the waves of people - my grandparents, my mother, uncle. I still haven't seen all of the pictures, remnants of their 'presence.' Upstairs, hundreds of negatives and prints rest, filed in narrow heavy cardboard boxes. How can  I give myself the permission to work on this? Just DO it. I have to, I'm running out of time!

After yoga, radiant poppies caught my eye on my way to Peet's. There, sipping a hibiscus cooler, I read Trust the Process with its introduction "License to Create." McNiff writes about how setting up a workspace is vital for the creative process. Environment has an impact. Yes! Improve mine.

a peaceful day

Notes from Entering the Now - Monastic Daylong with Ajahn Amaro and Amelia Barili at Spiritrock. 

How do you access the mind through the body, or the body through the mind?  

Mind is not a structure but a process. We can re-invent ourselves even at the physical level.

Learned yogic and Tao breathing practices, acupressure points and Qigong.  Meditated and walked outside with "mindfulness in every step."

Instructions before a walking meditation:

"Feel the aliveness in the palms of your hands and soles of your feet. And as you step, ask permission as if you are kissing the earth, receiving energy from the earth. Your energy meets the earth. 

Bring attention to the silence between the sounds.

Look at the spaces between the trees, instead of looking at the trunks and branches." (similar to drawing exercise)