kimizone.com

As we headed off in the trailer and all the bins were piling up inside, i debated about the bin of art supplies i had carefully packed. We were being overwhelmed with “stuff”, and there i was adding fluff to it.

Thankfully deb encouraged me to keep it, so in it went.

Now that we are getting settled, a hankering to create is coming over me again. So I’ve pulled out my beading box as a start.  The last few evenings i’ve done a couple of things to add to the collection. Lately i’m addicted to leather and metals, and a fairly monochromatic scheme. I updated my kimizone site to include a gallery of it. (not that there’s a tonne of it, but ya know!).

(note in the one below, i didn’t make the ring at the end, it was a ring i bought in San Francisco that i loved, but somehow never wore as a ring)

Sound, Creative identity, oriented to self-expression

This is the chakra located in the throat and is thus related to communication and creativity. Here we experience the world symbolically through vibration, such as the vibration of sound representing language.

Somehow since spring, i’ve left behind painting. Initially it was that there was so much going on with peter, time and energy wise, that it just didn’t fit into the days. Then once i was back and caught up with life, i fell in love… and well that takes time and energy!

A month or so ago, i was really feeling the pull to paint again, missed it so. I cleaned up a space in my work room and tried to continue with a piece i’d been working on when i stopped. It just wasn’t there. Not sure why, the desire is… just the ability to translate the desire to express on canvas to actually it spilling out on that canvas isn’t.

I know it’ll come back, or something in it’s place. I do hope it does. As we prep the house for sale, we are staging rooms, and that’s making me take a closer look at the work that is hanging. It’s leaving me longing to be able to spill again! 

I have been beading and writing, so creative expression still a part of the day to day. But the painting (or stained glass work, which came before) is a bigger way of expression, and one i’ve always needed.

I’ve been thinking of what i will do when we take off in the airstream art wise. As canvas/paints and all that come with the mixed media stuff i’m doing now are way too much to bring. One of the forms of art i love is assemblage. Small peices, filled with this and that one collects along the way sound right, no?

Few great sites i’ve found while perusing the assemblage idea:

• Karen’s Whimsy
• The Assemblage Studio

i am aligned with my highest truth. And communicate this with love and honour. My words echo softly within the Universe. 

my buddie jannie wrote an artist statement for me, think it’s pretty good!

Artist’s Statement 

To create, to express myself uniquely, to speak, but not necessarily with words…these are powerful desires that have resided in me for as long as I can remember. What emerged from that longing was stained glass work, jewelry, poetry, creative writing and even a lush garden. Not surprisingly, I became a graphic artist by trade and have enjoyed my work for over 25 years. What I still craved however, was a creative outlet that was more expressive and less structured.

Approximately six years ago, I ventured into mixed media and have never looked back. Finally I had discovered the freedom to express thought, emotion and events in a way that I had not yet found in other art forms. Using rich acrylics and raw Belgian linen as my base, I incorporate objects, metal, and words to create works that are textured and raw.

Formal studies have included training and workshops in Ottawa and Montreal, as well as through the Women’s Studio Workshop in New York.

So, very exciting news, i’m going to be a part of a group show, my first. It’s called Feathers of Hope and it’s at a small gallery outside of Ottawa. The woman came over here yesterday and took 5 pieces to put in this show.

You basically become a member of this gallery, then you are able to be in 5 member show’s per year. The artists are chosen, so that’s making me feel pretty good right about now. There is at some point the ability to have a solo show.

I’ve never really wanted to show my work, somehow this year i  got the yen, was an item on my vision board actually.

I’ve typically just done the work for me, which has always made me feel that i’m then allowed the freedom to just paint, rather than paint with a motive (like selling, showing etc). Also, doing creative stuff all day for others, has driven me to find something that is solely my own expression.

When i sat down and thought about what my goals would be for the year, i somehow came to an i’m ready place in terms of the artwork. Feeling that my process and motivation is solid, so feeling like it won’t influence what i do.

At this point just feeling like it will stretch me a bit, and motivate me to paint more often, and move forward with the exploration of art as a medium to explore me…. how’s that for an artists statement?

That’s the one part i’m struggling with, the “artists statement”. How does one put into words what the creative process, drive and desire is all about? 

I finally had the chance to sit down and open up a steamer trunk that i had kept from Peter’s stuff we brought to montreal. When he, jen and i had opened it at his place, it seemed there was just a lot of work remnants. Papers, recipts etc.

Our assignment for this week’s art class was to create a portriat of someone using collage. I had initially wanted to do one of my father, but it got too overwhelming to figure out what to do. So i had a brainstorm to sift through the stuff in the trunk to see if there was anything i could come up with that would be reflective of Uncle Peter.

Well imagine my suprise to find a treasure trove of things in the trunk.

Pictures, work correspondances, and even a couple of piles of love letters. Peter has always been a very private man, only coming out to a select few later in his life, so i I feel blessed to not only have been one of the chosen few, but not to be the guardian of this treasure.

 The piece starts with a base of typewritten work correspondances, on thin onion skin paper. There’s a western union telegram from nanny, his press pass, and some photo’s. (if you click on it you will see a bigger version).

It’s not something i knew about peter, but there was a suprising number of religious items, rosaries, bibles etc. Peter was a very proper man, but one of the photo’s i found was him on the beach, with that come hither look, as well as an image of a man also with an unmistakable look to the camera. So i wound the rosary through the images ending at him, burried under a few items.

I’ve always felt sad that peter didn’t feel he could be out to his family. But know all too well what a struggle it is to be one’s self in the face of this person, my mother/his sister. As she has a tendancy (worse as she gets older) to distorts and abuse the words you do give her… so i know all to well the reaction, which is to withold precious things from her.

Sitting at supper, showing her a select few items from the chest, including a letter from her to him, she wonders yet again about the women who he let slip out of his hands…. oh my

Finished a new piece today, still mulling if it’s done. It’s called on being stuck. Somehow represents how i’ve been feeling of late. I had a good week/weekend, so feeling less there still, tried to express it in the work, in hopes of letting it go. Only time will tell. (click on image to see larger version).

I ended up really liking how it turned out, but had a few ideas that just didn’t seem to go where i wanted them to go.

I had this idea of crocheting wire, and as i crocheted i would add bits of things into the mix. It didn’t really work, quelle suprise, so i ended up weaving it. I also had an idea of doing a monoprint with my nether regions. Well turns out they aren’t as obvious as, lets say a hand print!

So, the evolution of canvas to finished product. I never go into it knowing what i want. (as per usual, the picture doesn’t capture the piece… layers of gold, bronze, silver, some black, some purple.. all with a base of turquoise that comes through in a very sublte way)

Had a notion about a saying i wanted to incorporate into a piece “With every choice you make, you paint a portrait of yourself”. It spoke volumes to me, as at 50, i look back on my life and see all the decisions I’ve made… some good, some bad, and how they’ve shaped what i want the rest of my life to look like.

 Then somehow, it turned. Having such a struggle with my mother and her decisions. Lately those decisions are so self involved, and so short sighted…. so not what my dad invisioned for her or her children. Somehow the piece was more a reflection of that part of my thought process then the self one.

I was torn, didn’t want a rageful piece as part of what i have around me, yet somehow wanted to allow that to evolve in my work… so just went with it. A huge statement as to her. The crow represents her: greed, scavenger, thief. The C of choice is actually an old family jewel… gold and pearls… the crow ready to take.

Then i talked to my friend Kim today, and also figured that it could still be a positive piece. The crow in native culture is revered. He’s smart. This piece now is a bit of both. It reminds me of the past bad decisions in my life, how in the present i want to take those and make better ones, make a difference… and also a reminder of one who doesn’t, and what portriat she is painting of herself.

such is art

This summer was marked by a disasterous flood in the basement. Which required us (i use the royal us here, as i basically holed up in my office and worked, while the fabulous boys and friends worked), to spend months fixing the mess.

As a result, my artroom was out of commission for the duration. There was so much going on, and so much to do i hardly noticed it until my neice sara came to visit, and one of the items on her wish list was to paint with auntie kimi. We managed to pull a few things out, and get one project done, which gave me the buzz to get moving again on that creative side.

There was some art stuff lost in the flood (this pic is of my work room slash studio) so managed to fanagle few new frames as part of the insurance settlement. This combined with getting my room back, makes me very happy. There’s nothing like a few prepped frames to get the artistic juices flowing.

My sister lia and I were speaking yesterday, and apart from noting the glaring lack of reference to what i spend 90% of my day doing (work!), she said she’d like to read about my artistic process. So I thought I’d try to follow a painting along from start to finish.

Step one is to cough up the funds to purchase proper stretcher bars (otherwise known as the frame), and fabulous belgian linnen canvas material. Though my art is only for me, and i’m really just dabbling, my friend megan (a real artist), showed me how to do things properly, and at that moment i decided that even if it meant painting less volume of work, i prefered to paint on something that felt more professional and serious. I feel my work has changed a lot since that moment, which makes me happy too!

So step one in the process, is to build the frame, and then stretch the canvas on it. You then cover the entire thing with several coats of hide glue (we won’t go there!), and then gesso.

The image to the right is two lovely stretched canvases waiting for some paint. I haven’t gesso’d the larger one, as i’m not sure yet where i’m going with it. I’ve done one or two pieces that show/use the belgian linen as part of the piece, so will wait to see what inspires me.

There’s one more in the artroom started, so these two sit outside my office door, so i can run my hand lovingly across them every time i walk by! Even the look of them inspires me to imagine what i want to do with them.

Well she’s done my goddess, my first sculpture. Not sure where she came from, she just seemed to rise out of the clay on her own.

I did have some initial notions, a picture by an Italian artist of a fairly primitive head, also inspired by one of my favorite artists, Bernard Galliant. A french artist who lived on a boat in grenada for years with his artist wife, and created the most lovely masks from bits and pieces collected on the beach…. but mostly she emerged herself.

I loved the whole experience of creating her, as the process was so new, each step was a surprise. The part i enjoyed the most was working with the clay, as it was very much like working on a computer. You could shape things, reshape, go back, undo, so it all felt like a lovely evolution to a final result. Which when you think about it, would be a fabulous way to be able to go through life.

Edit… undo… redo…

Being back with the boys makes me so happy. It’s hard to imagine that it’s actually happened, spent so long trying to figure out how it could be done. There are moments in the day that i feel like it’s some kind of dream. Makes me scared at times that it might suddenly just disappear.

Last night was a great evening. Damien was here hanging out, and decided he wanted to make lasagne. He actually asked me for help, as he’d not made it before. He sent dylan out to get the groceries, and he and i then walked through it. Dyal had a bunch of friends over to play Risk.

A loud and raucous bunch sitting at the dining room table playing, damien and i watching hockey on the small tv in the living room… somehow choosing this to the big screen tv in dylan’s room, choosing to be on the periphery of the action.

Just a simple evening at home, but a true gem of one. I am getting beyond beating myself up about the decision to move to Ottawa, can see it as part of a process that i can somehow see needed to happen… or that’s the current justification.

There are moments of huge regret still scattered into the mix, but those moments are much less often, and less dark. I know that regret will stay with me forever, but am hoping that it will turn into something positive… like a catylist in making better decisions in the future… or one could only hope that to be the case.

I realize every day that even as i careen towards 50, i still have lots to learn. When does the wise part come i wonder? Something to look forward to.