A life in art: drawing and painting from life & inner need

To create is only to reveal what essentially is. It is the vivid recollection of the as-yet-unknown in the known. ~ Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala

Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things. ~ Georgia O'Keefe, The Poetry of Things

Unlike Georgia O'Keefe, my own still life drawings are filled with detail. Life is in the details. Details can be infinitely small, often go unnoticed and are over-looked, which is something I care about in relation to objects and to people.

My current series of nature drawings were created with the hard line of pencils, pastels and occasionally with watercolors (when I'm around water). I often choose subjects so filled with minute detail that they become a thing of abstraction. Details are confusing, which is my intention. I appreciate and value the ambiguity, metaphor and poetry that accompanies abstraction. My large paintings are also abstract, but without a lot of detail which acts as a sort of counter balance to the hyper realism of my nature drawings.

Elimination and editing is key, as it is in life. By releasing detail from my paintings I can focus on the essentials which are often spiritual and symbolic. There are hard choices to be made and discipline to be followed (not a popular concept I realize) in the building of a structure and a firm foundation for a life in art.

The drawings in this post and on my art website capture my wild surroundings in the Southern California inland desert valleys, but so too does "My My My Precious Love" pictured at the top, but in a different way. I am at a time and a place in my life (my mid forties) where abstraction calls to me louder than anything else.

The artist must be blind to the distinction between 'recognized' or 'unrecognized' conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his particular age. He must watch only the trend of the inner need and harken to it's words alone.

Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, published 1911.

P.S. Select drawings are now available for purchase on my website on a private page. To view these drawings please email me for the password.

The creative brain: where does inspiration come from?

Once artists are free to admit that they are crazily passionate about some thing outside of art, that still nourishes their art, you'd be surprised what you hear. I've learned that one artist gets most of her ideas not in the studio but in her garden, another was replenished with ideas by taking the same walk through town every day, another responds to stoop sales and street finds, another was into obscure horror movies, another horse-racing, another visited candy stores and bakeries, and so on. Also, while normal people may have to travel the world to get inspired, it doesn't take a lot to get a creative brain going. This passionate thing, therefore, is usually quite specific, controlled by a careful protocol, often quite secret, hidden, in the manner of Kepler's statement, "I live in a secret frenzy" - possibly the best two-word description ever of the creative brain at work (J.W. Connor, Kepler's Witch, 2004, p. 329), under the surface of an otherwise nondescript life.

This thing, in my view, is a reflection in conscious life and in art of the jumble of images in Andreasen's associative cortex that precedes a eureka moment: it sets the stage, creates a predisposition, for the eureka moment.

Essay by Robert Mahoney, "Eureka: The Creative Brain" from Accelerating on the Curves The Artist's Roadmap to Success by Katharine T. Carter & Associates.

For me, the thing that set off and inspired my Journey into Intimacy series was my desire to find a container, a tabula rasa, a safe place to let out my emotions. It was emotional pain that drove me insistently and unrepentantly to start this series. I literally RAN to find all my painting and drawing materials so that I could start creating BIG. This new series had a lot of emotion to express and capture and it felt BIG. So I grabbed a bolt of silk, attached it to the wall, set out all my acrylics, brushes, pastels and charcoal and began. That was in October of 2009 and I haven't stopped since.

Although the pain that initiated this series has gone away I find myself questioning what thing apart from my art itself, deeply and unconsciously informs my current paintings (still from the Journey into Intimacy series) now painted on canvas since 2012.

The first painting I'd like to explore is "Beginning to see the light" (see above). My emotions around this painting were intense. My best friend, a revolutionary, writer and fighter for the under-dog was visiting me at the time and she was working non-stop, hell-bent on saving the world and especially the United States. I was reading a book she loaned me by Chris Hedges called "Death of the Liberal Class", we visited Mexico (Tijuana), took walks in nature around my property and visited the vineyards nearby where my friend was appalled by the fakery and plastic-ness of the women she encountered. All the tensions and oppositions between the natural beauty of inland Southern California and the horrific damage wrought upon the women here who are madly creating a plastic persona to 'keep up with the Joneses' exploded into this, my first painting on a black gessoed background and before I knew it I'd painted my vision of this horrible beauty; a vision both intoxicating-ly magical and horrifying-ly frightening. The painting felt channeled; it appeared so suddenly and so brilliantly, capturing a split second fluttering in time where amidst the ruin of a culture I felt...something good. So that's why I paint and continue to paint and draw every day.

On the Art of Life and Vice Versa

Inspiration via Michael Kimmelman's book The Accidental Masterpiece On the Art of Life and Vice Versa~ Eva Hesse (sculptor) said:

All my stakes are in my work. I have given up in all else. Like my whole reality is there - I am all there." It was and she was. That was Hesse's declaration of ardor and commitment, for which she was willing to bet the house. Sol LeWitt had encouraged that attitude in one of the great freewheeling examples of an inspirational letter from one artist to another. "Learn to say 'Fuck You' to the world once in a while, " LeWitt told Hesse. "You have every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, gasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, rumbling, rambling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose-sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding grinding grinding away at yourself, Stop it and just DO.

Salti & Soft Risk-Taking Along the Divine Feminine Highway

Not all of us choose to express our emotions on paper or on 2D surfaces, but I do although I'm not a schmoozer, or someone that can dress up my gifts and talents in frilly words and gushing diatribes. I tend to be overly literal and yet metaphorical and I like a bit of mystery and ambiguity too.

But, what I do care about is creating space for you, my dear blog reader to discover your own passions, gifts, talents and dreams. My job is not only to be a Creative Soul Guide, but to be a friend as we travel this Divine Feminine highway together.

Pictured above is a recent painting which I created under the influence of an almost Full Moon in Libra

"Libra seeks serenity, peace and harmony. She has a gift for relationships of all types. She sits in perfect balance seeing beauty all around her. She is the peaceful mediator seeking justice for all."

This week I'm inspired by Salti (my Creative Soul Card aka 'lefty drawing' of the week) to challenge myself EVERY DAY to be stronger, take risks AND find balance, plus hold myself accountable by blogging about it.

ps. can you tell that the painting to the left was done entirely with my left hand and the one above with my right?

Journey into Intimacy: Celebrating 1 Year of Process Painting

It's the one year anniversary of my Process Painting experiment - yahoooo! One year ago today I began a series of paintings to save my life...no joke! Getting started, I literally ran full tilt in search of painting supplies so that I could begin that instant. I HAD TO PAINT. There was no choice. It was either paint or explode and so I chose to express my inner passions through the medium of acrylic painting. This time I wasn't painting small, but instead put my whole body into lifting, painting, making marks and covering paper, then silk, and then masonite sheets that were 4 foot by 4 foot (48" x 48") .

I obviously had a lot to say but words just weren't cutting it. As an artist I had to get it all out there through color and movement expressed in big, broad, splashy, sensual strokes, gouges and scratches painted to loud music: Celtic, Industrial, Acoustic, African, French...a mix, depending on my mood.

As the months went by I continued to paint, explore and express my feelings through art and writing that accompanied the paintings. That combination was new for me; one fed off the other. I combined the two in part because I wanted my blog readers to see what I was going through as I painted.

My friend Ian asked me if these paintings came from a metaphysical, meditative place within my soul and I had to answer 'no,

this series is pure emotion.

For those of you wondering what in the heck Process Painting is, I'll explain. Process Painting is painting without concern for anything but the process itself. This allows one to really focus on being present and in the moment without concern for where the painting will go afterward or if it will ever be sold. It's not easy for many of us to let go of control over outcome, so it felt risky and strange at first, but I grew to love it and crave it as time went on.

What I learned

By experimenting with Process Painting I gave  myself permission to express my emotions out loud and in paint and how to be fully present.

I granted myself time, space and freedom for emotional outbursts and for believing in myself. I spent time just being and I spent time writing, painting, pondering, dancing and absorbing music. I could feel myself coming alive in every pore and I expressed that being-ness, that alive-ness through my creations; my paintings, my photographs of the paintings and my writing that accompanied each painting and finally through my blog posts which brought it all together.

Process Painting has put me back in touch with my emotions; joy and faith and strength and yes, pain.

I painted as if nothing else mattered but this being-ness, this process of painting. It was a reminder of what's really important for my spirit and my soul.

Painting abstractly encouraged me to translate my feelings very directly onto the canvas without worrying about depicting anything recognizable.

As for the future, I'm going to continue what I started one year ago today because frankly,

I am in love with process painting.

I created two slides shows (see below) documenting all the paintings I created between October 30th, 2009 and October 30th, 2010. You can check out the accompanying blog posts at Creative Soul Blog or read my original Art Mystic blog that was eventually abandoned half way through the year so that I could focus on my Creative Soul Blog instead (all posts are now on my Creative Soul Blog).

Let's not forget that this is also a 1 year BLOG PARTY so I encourage you to leave your comments below expressing how this post has inspired your creative soul. I plan to pick one lucky winner at the upcoming Full Moon in Taurus on Nov. 15th, 2010 and gift them with a card or two from this collection.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathycrabbe/sets/72157625176624687/show/