Sand, Sun, Sea
Things have gotten so quiet and simple. Canvas dipped in the Gulf and laid out on the sand to work.
Work, read, film, walk.
Boat ride to the mainland. Boat ride back.
An outdoor shower, dogs, sunset.
Sand, Sun, Sea.
All of a piece, no separation.
The Intimacy of the Present Moment, and Painting
Meditation is at the very core of my work. I don't use mantras or much breath work or lotus positions, but rather sit comfortably and quietly, resting in the rich experience of what is happening at that very moment. It's truly resting; there is nothing to do, to work on, to adjust, except noticing and being totally and completely present and aware. Thoughts don't stop, but they are noticed as thoughts and the attention remains on the razor's edge of the moment. In a sense, Jane disappears, the experience of the world comes to the forefront. While it may sound detached, it's a very intimate experience.
Years ago I created a conceptual video to describe the process, here's the short version, and while all is pretty quiet, the music reflects the drama of one's thoughts:
My view is, most of humanity has evolved increasingly towards using our thoughts to interpret the world, which is quite useful at times but has robbed us of our actual, lived experience. Mostly we experience the world by how we think about it. For the kind of painting I do, engaging in a fixed mental state is not conducive to the flow of creativity. Surely thinking and analysis is useful along the way, but not useful as the energy that springs into motion and begins creativity. I'm interested in reflecting that felt sense of the world, and to do so, all of me must be connected to everything around and inside of me.
Photo credit, Julie Denesha
So I sit, sometimes before beginning to work, more usually in the midst of a painting flurry, when thoughts take over, to stop and settle and reconnect with what is being experienced. Tuning in to what is felt, heard, being fully aware, using this beautiful instrument of the human body to open up to the surrounding environment, and to the universe.
To me, this is not woo-woo, it's "not out there" in any way, it's what is real. It's extremely intimate. Therefore while the paintings become public, they come from my deepest experiences, appearing on canvas in the most honest way I can muster. They are a window into this being's experience of the world.
The Island, and the Natural State
I’m living and working on an island off the gulf coast of Florida, unconnected to land by even a bridge..
We come here in January when it can be stormy and cold, very raw, and hardly anyone else is here.
There’s electricity and water on this laid back beach house with few amenities, and minimal cell coverage. There’s nothing for sale on the island, not even a cup of coffee.
It takes a lot to get settled into this small home on stilts, bringing by boat 3 dogs and enough groceries and batteries and jackets and books and painting supplies to last a few weeks.
Our beloved goddaughter is always our only visitor, and stays for a week. We celebrate our twin birthdays, fish, read tarot cards, explore matters of the heart, and all things creative.
When she leaves, I get very quiet. It's an island retreat.
I’ve set up a studio in the sand under this house-on-stilts, a table made from stray wood planks, a water hose and a clothesline set up to hang wet canvases.
I’m rereading Anne Morrow Lindberg’s book “A Gift from the Sea”, published in 1955, written when she lived alone on a very primitive island off the Florida coast for two weeks, leaving her husband and five children at home. She writes: “How wonderful are islands!.... an island from the world and the world’s life….The past and the future are cut off; only the present remains. Existence in the present gives island living an extreme vividness and purity. One lives like a child or a saint in the immediacy of here and now. Every day, every act, is an island, washed by time and space, and has an island’s completion.”
Photo credit: EJ Rost
I'm keenly interested right now in what I'd call the natural state, sometimes called a state of grace, which is nurtured by being on this island. I'm giving my all to peel away the layers that allow this to be seen, felt, lived. Not some ethereal idea of grace, but actually moving through one’s world with ease, something from deep inside. I realized early on that it’s vital for my work as a painter, but what's experienced from living in this state goes far beyond that. This is a decades long focus, but recently I've been laser focused on it. It feels urgent.
This idea of a state of grace showed up in Lindberg’s book last night, as she writes of her wish to fulfill her obligations: “But I want first of all—in fact, as an end to these other desires—to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact—to borrow from the language of the saints—to live “in grace” as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from the Phaedrus when he said, “May the outward and inward man be at one.” I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.”.
There's nothing new in her words, many have written about this, but right now I feel this deeply. Isn't this what we all long for?
For me, it takes a long time on this island to settle into what Lindberg is describing. I tend to work very hard through the year, obsessively, both mentally and physically. I can run myself to complete exhaustion, with nothing left to offer. This happened in 2018, and by the end of the year, my well was dry. When I got here this year, the marionette strings that animate me through the year, are still pulling arms legs and mind. It’s stunning to see how contracted and incessant my inner world shows itself to be, and what a stark contrast to living on this quiet island that has little else on it but sea, sand and birds.
But now, and at last, the surf is taking me, through sound and osmosis. It's allowing me to join a different pace, tune in to the wind, the pelicans, the never-ending crashing of waves, the sand that settles into everything, the brilliant evening sky that glows for an entire hour after sunset. From this calm and conscious place in one's being, is the very richest place to create, to work, coming from pure source.
From this place, expression simply happens, as Lindberg describes "....and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.”. The hand picks up a pencil, or a camera, or a bunch of lumber from a dumpster, to assemble, draw, photograph, write. It's so interesting to work from this balanced place, there’s no concern or idea of error. What is beautiful remains, what is awkward is simply smoothed into another shape, or obscured by a wash, easy as a river flows, with no burden of right or wrong.
I've slowed this movie down to see the sea's movement.
Certainly all of us know what it's like to solve creative problems from this open, expansive state of grace. Not just those of us involved with the arts, but most everyone who is putting together a project, developing plans or solving problems with a customer, a child, a loved one, have experienced this ease of creative movement when in a state of grace.
This long time spent here allows the well to fill up, entirely, and nourishes my work/me through the year. At last, my mind and body settle, not moving from one activity to the next, not anxiously needing to paint, to express, not trying to be productive, but to live and breathe and if it's offered, to paint.
Immersion - Working Into the Night
I'm working on large scale narratives, and immersed in the studio, always alone, keeping focused. Language is uttered in color and mark. The large scale work is exciting, being much larger than I am, and the physicality of harmonizing the painting by moving from one end to the other makes it feel like we are one.
Often I'll shoot videos to watch the progress, slowing them down to see if I am leaving a better painting under the one that it becomes. Strangely, being shot as time lapse, it feels impersonal, and I'm comfortable posting the process.
This one tracks the sun lowering in the sky and eventually darkening into night. If I have enough snacks and water, there is no sense of early or late; as long as the energy is flowing, the work does too.
Connection, On and Off Court
Working extra large the last warm days in November, relishing the vast elbow room of the open air on the basketball court -
In part because I kept forgetting to bring the scissors, it grew wider, then wider.
I don't quite want to dip- or triptych it yet. It's called Connection and is 68"x204"(17').
The details...
Big Sky, a Basketball Court and Yellow
Large scale paintings begin on a concrete slab that was formerly a basketball court.
It's windy on this high ridge, so rocks hold the canvas in place. A garden hose is used to size the canvas.
The space - big sky, a slab of concrete, 30 yard rolls of canvases - naturally calls for paintings to scale. When they're brought inside, it's surprising how large they are.
Yellow borders the court.
Indulgence
Following a season of exhibitions, the dominant response in the studio is indulgence. Intense, garish colors are sought in all things - dreams, clothes, brilliantly hued foods on a plate - as well as on new canvases. As if to get something out of my system, I gave a week over to undisciplined unwieldy creative energy, abandoning any notion of a finished product or a successful painting. Slices of canvases follow.
I secretly love to pour color and tip canvases, lifting 90 degrees the other way, rivulets forming grids. The many-squared patterns satisfy something in my brain that wants to feel order, especially within randomness, ever since getting scrambled from a head injury several years ago.
The studio floor is the ongoing most beautiful, ever-changing chaos of all.
Magenta can be a reach for depth, showing up often as drama, and I’ve been trying to avoid it, so of course it showed up too, and not subtly.
Red washed over a completely dry gray blue made this hash of eggplant with silvery shadows.
In this attitude, there were no failures this week. The primaries were wheeled out as well as their brashly conjoined color wheel opposites, and laid one over the other to make welcome dark hot tones interspersed with nondescript muddy colors. They were painted for the sheer joy of watching.