28/03/24: Wow, I just came across several Post drafts I wrote last July…and never published. It’s been a year since I made any art, and I’m now making an effort to care about that, and to care about this website (that I can’t seem to quit). I just changed the Footer date to 2024 – 10 years since I created it. This blog post holds true, so I haven’t edited it from last summer:
23/07/23 I’ve been clearing out the room where I work on art, an extension of decluttering that began in March after a death in the family and the closing out of personal details of someone…simply gone. Combined with our post-Covid malaise, current climate disasters, homelessness, war….
Well, what better a way to process the days than to spend some of their hours making art. My own work has been on a lull, but recently I find myself slogging through ideas again and here I am writing a blog post. Huh? My cleaning also took over the dashboard of this old website and after refreshing my slight knowledge of procedure, I started updating photos, removing my writing pages, and changing the front cover. I somehow don’t want to throw in the towel on this one.
Rereading my last few posts (one every 2 years?) I find my intention is still the same. I still paint faces, still use mixed media on gessoed paper, sometimes adding collaged pieces, usually having text or letters, always filled with scratches, scribbles, smudges and more. This working style feels like method as metaphor, the inside chatter released somewhat obsessively and ending up as a solid presence. To keep the head noise at bay, I like to get lost in the details.
I’ve taken my writing pages off this site – my Summer Science series continues, slowly, but I want to rethink my presentation of this collection of poems and portraits in today’s atmosphere. I’ll talk about that in the next post. Next post? For some reason this space, and the one on Instagram – at once deserted and yet full of public noise – feels like a cubicle in which to sneakily shuffle ideas. Ha. I found a few partially finished paintings to pick up and feel the tools again.
These starts have morphed a few times, as I get used to working again and seek a new level of expression. As I wrote in my About statement, time is an imperfect psychology…spun by memory and memorabilia…and I can bring forth whatever presence I want to. As an artist.
Very good to read this today. I particularly like this line you write: “To keep the head noise at bay, I like to get lost in the details.” And: “method as metaphor”. I like the occasional-ness of this series. The world needs fewer foyers…more cubicles.
Ah, Mike, so great to connect again, even in this little comment box. It’s funny how focused and small this blog space can feel…in the big open-space office of the internet, ha. My settings now have AI assist options. “Flee the village!”
So wind to see your art again, Dawn!!♥️
Hi Janet! I’m slowly getting back into art and Instagram – I’ll see you and your beautiful art there soon. My little work of yours greets me from my bookshelf every morning, I love it.
I can smell the scent of sharpened pencil shavings and ginger tea, see cut paper bits everywhere. I hear the sound of sand paper scrapping gessoed paper, and once in a while a giggle as well as the odd cussing come from the studio at the end of the hall. Get at it Beauty, let’s see what emerges from all that fertilizer.
Ha, ha, thank you Malcolm. The seeds are planted xo
Thank you for catching us up on your life, Dawn! I’m so happy to see your work again. You’ve always been an “artist” in my eyes. Wish you the best in 2024.
Thank you so much Jenn! And, hello again. I hope you are well too. I’m surrounded by wonderful birds out here on the west coast, and I always think of you. Cheers to our new 3/4 year – Spring always feels like New Year to me…not that Saskatchewan and Vancouver Island feel spring at the same time.