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.
My Beloved Mentor
Along the way, I was lucky to find an extraordinary painting mentor, Philomene Bennett. She encouraged me to do what felt most authentic, allowing me to push past my own confines and delve into what felt most true and aligned.
Early on when attending her studio class, I was working on a large painting that was getting worse and worse the more I worked on it. Something welled up in me and I slightly mixed magenta and pyrrole red oils, stuck a big brush in it and drug it across the middle of the buttery wet canvas in a sort of thrilling rebuttal.
Philomene said JANE, that magenta LINE! Do you see that line??? It is extraordinary, can you SEE what just happened?
I said What what? You mean I can do THAT (that intuitive movement that wasn't analytical, that was so juicy and real and impassioned)??
Right then, somehow, she had knocked a hole in the dam of restraint that was keeping me from developing a more truthful and intuitive way of working. With that line, with that comment and discovery, my work began to become an extension of me, flowing from and beyond me, through a larger dimension. That one day changed my life, entirely. I began to paint with fervor; painting became akin to air and food and love.
Many years later, our teacher/student relationship has become a treasured friendship. Recently I dragged an old, shot-full-of-holes Oliver combine into the field by the studio to create a painted sculpture, and invited Philomene to come over and work on it with me. I had a bag full of spray paint and Philomene brought a bag full of Burger King breakfast biscuits, and she sat on the golf cart sipping coffee, offering thoughts and pointers. As she would speak, I could feel what she was going to say, sort of like lifelong canoeing partners who knew how each others paddles were going to strike the water and which way they were steering the canoe. In perfect unison, with me running the spray paint and her long jeweled finger pointing this way and that, occasionally an uh huh or OH, we worked on the combine nearly wordlessly, some kind of energetic communication flowing between us. It was a heavenly experience.
Recently, I kidnapped Philomene and brought her to the studio to share some wine and look at art. When she looks at art, she settles in quietly, taking some time to really wholly look, reading it carefully from side to side, up and down until she really sees it. From this place, speaking philosophically, musing about distances and pull and feeling and place and memory and what's in front and what's the atmosphere, and from her few studied comments, her words acting like the strike of a match to a fuse, allow me to hear deeply and translate for my own, and with a few washes and marks, the paintings came into wholeness. I captured some of it on a time lapse camera:
Of all the teachers in all of the world, I happened to run into Philomene. I am deeply, profoundly grateful.
Getting a Few Things Off My Chest
I've been rattled by events of the world, and wasn't able to let the angst go in order to work in the studio, so I invited the misery in and pinned up a canvas to get a few things off my chest. It was very helpful, and while I softened some of the initial output with more marks and washes, the cacophony of words and imagery were pleasing. In this video, the painting is nearly complete.
Painting Process - Autumn
It's autumn, and the colors of the woods and prairie are coming into the studio. The doors and windows are open, the air is sunny and fresh.Paintings begin on the ground, where thinned acrylic paint is pushed into the canvas, using gloved hands, brushes, gravity and sometimes brooms. This forms the atmosphere in which the painting lives. Then the canvas is pinned to the wall, where more opaque mark making is laid down. Sometimes it goes from floor to wall and back again, numerous times until it is completely resolved.
Time to Play
I work incessantly, partly because of an obsession with visual beauty, but also because the act of creation for me is a way of feeling the most alive.
It's hard for me to remember that an important part of the process of creating art is taking IN the world, not just the output. In fact dedication to observing and fully living in the world, for an artist, may be one of the most important and honest things we can do. Experiences then can course fully through one's system and show up when creating.
We are staying on the Florida Gulf coast in a cabin on the beach, taking it all in, taking in the beautiful rhythmic surf that narrates the natural world of sky, water, sand. Harmony begins to take over. Playfulness blooms.
Here's how the days go by on the gulf coast:
Coming Up for Air (Really, this time)
Coming up for air after an intensive time in the studio.
Scissors and gloves with E.J. Rost.
Getting Out of the Way
When I'm getting ready to paint, usually there is a quieting period, taking the edge of high excited energy down to a harness-able wattage. Sometimes I'll take a few photographs, mill around looking at the work that's in process on the walls, smooth out some canvases, or often sit quietly for a very long time, listening to the wind or the stillness, so that the focus shifts to the senses and out of my busy and more linear mind. I think of this process as getting out of the way, so that the distance between ideas, what is seen, what is felt, and what goes down on canvas, is very small. I was curious to see if I could capture this process of "getting out of the way" on video. This take was 23 minutes long, but compressed into one minute.
The Impact of the New Studio - A Photojournalist's View
Kansas City's esteemed photojournalist Julie Denesha was interested in the impact of the new studio on my work. It was an honor to be interviewed and photographed by her while working. The resulting product is here, click the "Listen" button below photos for the interview:
Photo Essay - Paint, Rust and Open Air
I am enchanted with painting the combine. The scale! There is nothing to prepare in order to paint; it lies in wait. Last night I dreamed about it and woke up with new ideas, barely waiting for the dew to dry to paint some more. The beautiful thirsty rust is already gorgeous in the patterns that have been created over the years. Keeping a delicate touch on what is painted and what is left natural, is the dance. The purples against rust makes me swoon. My work on canvas is benefiting from these new eyes.
Yard Art
This old Oliver combine was beautiful as it stood, but was hidden in a patch of fast growing trees on the north end of the property. With a 4020 tractor and a lot of enthusiasm, we pulled it out into the light and placed it near the studio. The lichen covered rust is a beautiful neutral background for some color.
Everything is a Universe (the beginnings of inspiration)
I'm on the Florida gulf coast in large part to work; it always having been such a fertile place for painting, but it hasn't been happening. Having come off of an extremely intensified time in the studio in December, perhaps it's creative fatigue, and surely in part physical fatigue, given that my methods for painting and scale call for considerable energy and strength.
A fresh 30 yard roll of canvas is propped up against the kitchen wall, breathing it's coppery breath down my neck as I go by. Paint bottles mixed, brushes, pencils, paper, boards set up outside to work on, not a single inclination or movement towards them is detected. I walk the beach, walk and walk and walk, no urge to consider shape, line, color. I feel guilty.
This past year, intensely focused OUT - studio building, negotiations, concrete pads, vistas, horizons, mass bird migrations, space, canvases large enough to depict space, series multiplying and expanding to 12 paintings deep, every foot of wall space having something pinned to it. But January has been an inward turn.
On the shore, Instead of as usual watching the vast body of water, the birds in flight, the horizon line, I keep finding myself kneeling, pulling in closer and closer to the intimate, camera held as close as it will focus, to see the tiny jewels of the sea, the bubbles from retreating waves, bird tracks, the tiny shadows of bird tracks. Seeing that each is a universe. Everything is a universe!
(The cosmic so readily available by the sea.)
With 3" square pieces of paper, a few pencils, some watercolor - the beginnings of inspiration.
Ground and Space
I worked all of November in the dazzling, illuminated tall space of the new studio, painting with some tired colors and a rusty process that was no longer alive. It was painful and unchanging, with dark days of autumn reflecting the mood.
At last, I gave up completely the idea of painting and began to simply live in the studio, day after day, bringing nourishment for body and soul: art related books and magazines, Japanese tea, piano concertos, breakfast lunch and dinner. Lovely but grim at first.
Gradually, in all that quiet space and time, a tree or spine form and the space around it, began to form in my mind's eye.
Canvases very wet, grays, blacks, dark greens over weird yellow under paintings, slamming paint filled brushes along edges for the joy and freedom of the process, rather than for the result, discovering new cause/affects. Discovery is so vital to keeping one's art alive, thrilling!
When completing this 12' piece, I realized the series would be called "Ground and Space". I'd been wallowing in space, and lacking ground! The studio enveloped me; I enveloped the studio. It has been a warm embrace.
Pattern and Light
Inside, outside, negative, positive, gravel and fur, rolls and rhyme, scarf and steps.