at long last

Art. Of a kind. Some of you may recall that I'm participating in a sketchbook exchange -- two actually. The first was so much fun, most of us have re-upped for another round despite not been completely done with round one. So this is a page from another of the Round 1 books. (I'm only months behind getting this done and out of the house -- head's up, Katie Jane)

watercolor paper, pastel, mulberry paper,
advert postcard, advert magazine page, gel medium

Now I can start on my book for Round 2 and on my page in the so-lovely-it's scary book that arrived yesterday.

Excelsior.

provocation

There's been a death in my extended surrogate family and I've also been down for a while with that nasty virus that's been making the rounds and so have been preoccupied and not doing much other than brooding.

Coincidentally, and for the first time (I know, I know), I recently have seen the film Rocky. I've been avoiding it for decades because I cannot -- can NOT -- begin to imagine the attraction of watching two men brutalize each other for money, or even to pretend to do so. But it was on one of the cable stations that shows films without commercials and since it was free I thought I'd see what all the fuss is about. And now I am haunted by Burgess Meredith as the trainer Mickey saying: "It's not a living -- it's a waste of a life." Not haunted so much by the words as by the spontaneous fury with which he delivered them.

Death and loss makes you think about life. I have nothing either profound or platitudinous to say about it, just that I've been preoccupied and therefore absent.

good questions

So.
March came in like a lion bearing gifts of freelance work and a virus. The kind of virus that provokes fever and interferes with both day jobs and freelance work, however short the deadline. So, I've been preoccupied -- when awake, that is, which has been rare. But I think I've turned the corner toward robustiousness [< btw: that's not a real word].

Also.
Recently a friend has been meditating on the condition of longing. Today the mail brought the spring catalog for Omega in Rhinebeck NY. And the book fell open to a weekend workshop in August called: Something to Live For, Repacking Your Bags for the Second Half of Life. The course description includes these questions:

-How do we find renewed meaning and how does this express itself in our life's work?

-How do we discover new maps, provisions, and travel partners?

-What is calling us and how do we discern our calling?

This sounds like a tall order for a weekend workshop -- even given (as we are in the catalog) that Forbes magazine rated the workshop leader as "one of the top five coaches in the nation." But these are good questions at any time and it seems that, maybe, there's something in the air other than mischievous microbes.

close enough

I know it's still February, but this is fun and too easy to let slip by. I heard about it first, I think, on 66 square feet, then on more idle thoughts, who both got it (I surmise) from m. heart, and it goes like this:

To create your own band name and album cover, follow these easy instructions from m. heart:

1. Click wikipedia. The first random article you get is the name of your band.

2. Click quotations. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Click flicker. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. (I cheated and kept clicking until I had a third picture that satisfied my notion of something that went with the name of the album.)

4. Use Photoshop (or similar) to put it all together.

The only thing I ever wanted to be was singer. Now I have my own band! named for a town in Nigeria! However imaginary. . . the band, not the town.

hiatus

The world is much with me at present, so I think I will declare the rest of February as an official hiatus. I do have a good idea and clear sketch for the February moon panel, and a pile of sketches for Moby at any time. I'm looking forward to getting those underway, but probably will do them in a rush at the end of this very short month.

In the meantime, I hope that some inward time here in late winter will be restorative and fruitful.

soon,
M

January Moby

For Chapter 133: The Chase – First Day
“There she blows!—there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!”

12 inches x 12 inches
(33 cm x 33 cm)

commercial printed cotton, watercolor and acrylic paint,
metallic and cotton threads, polyester batting

I haven't been keeping the first 132 panels from you for my own selfish reasons. Since I promised myself to make one panel a month for the foreseeable future, and since I realized I was running out of January, I picked up the book again over the long weekend and started reading near the end.

This one is more literal/figurative than the other panels, but I offer as pardon the fact that the book also mixes styles and careens wildly between the abstract and concrete. I'll see how it fits as the series grows. This is the ninth panel in order of creation, 133rd in order of ambition. (One for each chapter, and there are 136 chapters. I won't lack for something to do for quite a long time.)

(note: the brownish bits in the top corners are not the panel but a cardboard under it and my crazy camera 'skills')

January: full moon in Cancer

This is an in-progress shot. The bright red lines are basting, but suggestive of a quilting pattern that I wouldn't have thought of without it. :-)

Dark blue batik with a light blue batik inset. Metallic thread, spiral stitching for the "hollow" moon. There will be beading of some kind. I looked at white and silver bugle beads, but that was before I stitched the moon, so I'll have to look again and see what might do. I think I have -- somewhere -- some clear iridescent square sequins that might serve. It will finish at 9 by 22 inches [22.5 x 56 cm]. I usually like a binding, but maybe not for this one -- or for the series. And, I think, a decorative hanger of some kind rather than a sleeve. Maybe a stout twig and some satiny upholsterer's rope.

According to some general moon lore, the full moon in January is called the wolf moon, the cold moon, the winter moon, and the snow moon, among other evocative things. We did have snow here -- not the 7 to 8 inches threatened by the forecasters, but enough to more than glaze the ground, and certainly enough to demand some shoveling.

Full moon in Cancer -- this was a more poignant beginning than I expected when I decided on this series. The full moon was yesterday, the 10th, which was also my father's birthday. He died of pancreatic cancer in June 2007. Yesterday was hard for my Mom. Her grief seems to expand with time rather than abate. I honestly can't imagine what she feels -- they were married for almost 59 years -- but my heart aches for her.