Morning Muse

Morning Meditation

 

 

Something odd and wonderful has been happening. Several mornings ago, somewhere between dream and reality, I heard a distinctive voice say;

Grief!

Can't wait.

Not here.

Must go.

Waking up to a haiku is pretty special, even though the message did leave me with a sense of loss. 

 

Then today, at the wee hour of 3 am, I woke to this poem;

I am a paradox.

I am a conundrum.

I am not unusual,

           but I am unique.

I am a human,

 being.

I got up, made coffee, grabbed my journal and started to write. 

 

With so much time on my hands, I  finished reading The Mixed Media Artist by Seth Apter. Among the pages I saw some of my favorite artists; Geoffrey Gorman, Jeane Myers, Crystal Neubauer and Laura Lein-Svencner.

In the section, Beyond the Surface, Seth asked the artists in-depth questions regarding their inspirations and philosophies. I found that part most interesting. Of course the book is full of wonderful art, great tips and techniques. Each artist has a two page spread, with the artist in their studio and a featured work of art. They  also share their most inspiring art quote, 4 things in their studio and 3 things that inspire them (only 3!).

So I asked myself, what inspires me and I couldn't just think of 3, so I made 10 categories, with 3 inspirations per category. That was a lot of fun, and I could have gone beyond 10, but I stopped and took that creativity into my studio where I was able to get a couple of hours in before heading out to yoga.

Here are a few of my categories:

Category #1

* My eyes, they allow me to see the beauty around me.

* My feet, they carry me near and far.

* My spirit, which leads me to that mysterious place where creation and creativity reside.

Category # 3

* Love

* Touch

* Kindness

Category #6

* Baking bread

* Cooking

* Eating

I believe in engaging all my senses. They were given to us to explore, love and learn from.

Namaste.

An Authentic Artist

Louise Nevelson

If there have been complications

in my life,

the work was not

the complication;

the complication was

the world and its blindness

As artists, if we could always live and create with that phrase rumbling about in our minds, we would stop judging our efforts and begin to allow the flow of creativity to course through our bodies and express itself onto the surface of our choosing.

I recently bought three books which I hope will help me mature my creative vision:

 Nevelson, The way I think is collage;  

The Art of Collage, Contemporary Collage in Modern Art

Robert Motherwell, Early Collages

So far, I have only been through Nevelson's book which includes more than 30 years of her collages and incredibly fluid sculptures.  The book is scattered with her thoughts, this one particularly resonated with me:

You don't necessarily have to take a pencil or a pen or something and draw. There are many ways. Let's say collage. By using it meant that it already gives me my drawing. Because the nails and the holes in the nails, and all the different things. What would you say when a car goes over a piece of wood and it comes out with all sorts of things, dents and things in it? Well those are drawings. It is much more direct, doing it the way I do it, it's immediate, it's true and it's there.

Nevelson was born in Russia in 1899 and passed in 1988 in New York. She left a legacy for us to learn from.

It's Time to Stop Giving Time

Alchemy

Oil & Cold Wax with Collage

11 x 14 inches

Blame it on Netflix. We got hooked on, Orange Is The New Black, a new series about a young woman's year in prison. After we watched the last episode of the first season, I couldn't wait for season two, so I bought the book, which is a memoir written by Piper Kerman about her 13 months spent in Danbury minimum security prison.

 

I just finished her memoir this week and what impressed me, along with her story, was the appalling state of our penal system. It's a complete failure. It's an embarrassment. It's a travesty against human rights. Imagine, in 1980, 500,000 people where in prison. Twenty eight years later, 2008, there were 2.3 million people in prison , 7 million on parole, or probation or locked up.(2008 U.S. Bureau of Justice) Many of them for non-violent crimes. 

Today, we jail a higher percentage of our citizens than any other country, including China and Iran. And the price tag, about $80 billion a year.

How did this happen? Mandatory sentencing.  It began 40 years ago, in New York, because of a rapidly growing heroin problem. Republican Gov. Nelson Rockfeller created mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years to life for anyone caught with just 4 ounces of narcotics. Quickly other states followed suit, all wanting to appear tough on drugs. 

The war against drugs. Here's the problem, it's not working. The casualty count is enormous. Families torn apart, children left motherless, fatherless, disappearing into the void of child welfare, foster homes, group homes, ready to repeat the journey of their parents. The people in jail are mostly the users and the system isn't set up to rehabilitate, it's set up to de-humanize and punish. Over crowded, under educated, malnourished. That's our penal system.

Kerman has taken her experience and along with writing an interesting memoir, has chosen this journey as an educational platform to teach us what is really going on behind those bars and how hard it is for the majority of inmates to have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and return to the outside ready to be embraced by society and make a meaningful contribution. No wonder the rate of recidivism is so high.

 

The ghost in our home

Erika, 17

I was born in post-war Germany in 1951. We immigrated to the States when I was nine with my post-air force step father. My mother and her brothers and sisters grew up in Hitler's Germany. She never mentioned the war. 

 

If I asked she would say, "Evelyn, I do not want to talk about it!" 

 

At the age of 11, I became very curious about the war and began reading books on the subject. That's when I learned about Hitler's grand plan to make the Aryan race the superior, one and only race on the earth and his diabolic program to exterminate all other races, especially the Jewish people. 

 

I was stunned, horrified and stricken. Even though I was not born during that time, I felt the shame of being a German. How could a people do that to other people?

 

I believe we all carry darkness inside us. If we choose to nurture that darkness, it becomes a monster that rules and we become less than animals. Hitler nurtured his demons and surrounded himself with other monsters, and so the nightmare of the Holocaust was born, fed and committed. 

 

What my mother witnessed, I do not know. I do know it was impossible to live in Germany during that time and not know something evil was happening. But as a child and a teenager, what could you do? And as you grow older and your understanding matures, how do you carry that burden with you?  

 

My mother got pregnant in 1950. She was not married. I thank her daily for not aborting me. Today, being a single mother is an acceptable choice. In 1951, it was not. So much easier for her to eliminate the life inside her, than to bring that life to the light.

 

It took courage to give birth to me. Maybe it was because of what she had lived through, the waste, the sorrow, the deaths, that made her decide to choose life.

 Me, 4

Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows. Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

 

The Pianist

Lisa Jura & Michael Golabek

Something extraordinary took place last night. Fred and I went to the Royal George Theater in Chicago and became part of a community of listeners to a riveting and musical account of the early life of Lisa Jura, renowned concert pianist.

The Pianist of Willedsden Lane is told, through stories and classical piano music, by Mona Golabek, daughter of Lisa Jura and Michael Golabek.

 We were transported for 90 minutes as Mona, taking on the mantle of her mother and the rich characters that surrounded her during the war,told the story of her mother's flight to London and subsequent years in a youth hostel. 

Lisa Jura was one of 10,000 children brought to London right before World War ll as part of Kindertransport, a mission to rescue children throughout Europe, threatened by the Nazi's.

Mona weaves her spell on the audience, with candor, humor, humility and music. The tapestry she creates through the stories and the music is a gift, an unexpected gift we were fortunate to receive last night. We were swept up in the music and I can still feel it in my body, singing it's way into my bones. 

The show ends it's Chicago run on September 2. It's based on a book co-authored by Mona.

As I was sitting comfortably in my second row seat, I couldn't help but wonder, with what is happening in Syria right now, could we, along with our allies, offer safe haven for the  children in Syria with our own version of a Kindertransport?

The quilt of insomnia

Uncovered #6

What a night! Fell asleep at 10, woke at 12:47 am. The night before, went to bed at 10, tossed and turned  until 1:47 am. I have a small digital clock on my bed stand and I torture myself on these sleepless nights by checking it from time to time to mentally record the forever lost minutes of sleep. And even though I seem to forget many ordinary things, this record stays seared at least until the next morning. 

 I finally got up and took 1/2 an Ambien, something I rarely do, but I knew I wouldn't be able to operate on a  such a small cubicle of sleep.

When insomnia wakes me, it's as if I am slowly rising from unconsciousness to consciousness and somewhere between that gauzy line, I realize, "I'm awake" next thought, "What time is it?", and I hit the light of my tiny digital recorder. 

If I'm lucky and I've managed to get 5-6 hours of sleep, I'll get up, but that's not insomnia, that's a decent night's rest. When it's full blown insomnia, my mind is a constant chatter. I'm either singing a song (thankfully silently in head), or having mundane conversations up there. Sometimes they are so meaningless, they actually put me back to sleep. 

The bed is uncomfortable, the sheets are hot, my pillow is hot, I toss, I turn, I spin, I curse, I get up and pee. Then back to the mattress, position myself comfortably,  breathe deeply, meditate (try to), tell myself, optimistically, "even if I'm not asleep, I'm resting". 

At some point I doze off. I know this because minutes late, like cracking the sugar layer on creme brulee, I'm breaking the surface and frustratingly realize I was on the brink of deep sleep and just before I completely let go and submerged, my mind, like an evil wizard, woke me up.

This rhythm, this broken cadence, this patch work quilt of sleep sometimes goes on for hours until I admit defeat and get up. Anywhere from 3 am - 4 am is the acceptable point of surrender. 

I've tried chamomile tea, dark cherry juice, wine. None of it works. I've come to accept this monthly sequence. It usually lasts no more than three nights, so on the bright side, 27 days each month, I sleep like a baby.

If anyone reading this post has suggestions, I welcome them. On that note, Good morning!

The Adventures of a Wall Easel

I woke up one morning deciding I desperately needed a "boundary free" easel. After seeing an ad in The Artists Magazine, the idea of freeing up studio space and painting on the wall was deliciously enticing. So, like a lioness hunting for her next meal, I scoured the internet for the best wall easel I could afford. After searching several art store sites, I found  the BEST Wall Mount Easel at Cheap Joe's, and I pounced on it.

 Two boxes arrived via UPS. Box one, 42 pounds, box two,16 pounds. Oh my, the boxes were large, especially the 42 pounder. Major assembly required.

Like participants in a treasure hunt, my husband and I searched and searched the boxes for comprehensive installation instructions. Obviously the company assumed we installed these easels all the time, as the instructions were more a haiku than a sonnet. 

Fred, a wizard with a pencil, plum line and level, helped me get this behemoth on the wall. Step one, unpacking the boxes and carrying the individual pieces down to my studio. Then with alien-like vision, we kept looking at the meager instructions, as if some secret coding would unlock the page if only we stared at it long enough. 

Finally, like most savvy consumers, we went on the internet, searching for either a blog or a how-to-YouTube video to install this monster. Nothing, nada, zip. So we were on our own.

Fred did 99% of the work, while I handed him drill, wrench, pencil and a little muscle. Never leaving his side as he sweat, swore and toiled to mount my new prize.

  

During this process, I experienced fear in the form of a stomach ache. I feared this wouldn't be the right easel, that I had made a HUGE mistake, spent too much on the wrong thing. As you can see, it works and I love it!

Success!

I'm  curious what other artist's studio space looks like, how they organize their materials and work area. So as I was snapping my new easel, I took some pictures of my  creative space.

 Doorway to my heaven

Taking care of each other, part 2

Bacon? Are you serious!

I began vegetarian path this past New Year’s Eve day. My husband and I decided to have lunch at Munch, a vegan-vegetarian restaurant in Oak Park, IL. A friend of mine mentioned the owner featured local artists in her restaurant. She suggested I contact her about exhibiting. So I wanted to check out the space before making the call.

Lunch was delicious and the gallery space, though small, was nice. As we were leaving, I happened to see a bundle of small pamphlets; Why Vegan? Help Stop Animal Cruelty! I almost walked by, but on impulse I reached out and took one. On the drive home, I began to read. Through a stream of tears I learned the brutal truth of industrialized animal farming.

In my twenties, I made the decision to stop eating beef and pork. Not for ethical reasons, but cosmetic ones. I needed to lose 20 post baby pounds. Giving up pork was no hardship because I was never a fan, but I did love a good juicy rare hamburger. After reaching my goal, I tried to eat beef, but it tasted like iron, so I never went back. I did eat chicken and fish so I guess you could call me a semitarian.

Then in my fifties I suddenly had an incredible urge for a steak. Uh oh, a mid-life meat crisis? No, it was something more sinister. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had surgery, chemo-therapy and radiation. And to all those fellow Sexy Cancer Chicks, bald is beautiful!

I still vividly remember that fateful June day, after my second dose of chemo, looking at my husband as the sun streamed warmly through our kitchen windows and saying, “I think I want a steak.” After the shock wore off, he broke out in a huge smile and literally ran to Whole Foods to buy the best New York strip he wallet could afford.

He grilled it perfectly rare and I LOVED every bite. At that moment I became a committed omnivore. Steak, chicken, fish, BACON, they all saw their way to my plate, until that New Year’s Eve day, when some energy (maybe a newly born piglet) made me step back and grab that life altering pamphlet. Who knew a 15 page booklet could be so powerful.

That night, I sat down with my husband and shared, why, ethically, I could not and will not eat animals. I didn’t and don’t expect him or anyone I know to change their dietary choices. This is a very personal decision. And I’ve come to the conclusion, even if the animals are humanely treated, allowed to graze in open fields and thrive, at some point we still have to kill them to make them food. And I just can’t go there, anymore.

I do eat fish, so I guess I’m not really a vegetarian, but a pescetarian. And I buy wild, organic fish. I’m still on the path of discovery, so that may change, too.

Taking care of each other

work in progress

Until we find each other, we are alone. - Adrienne Rich, Hunger

Ecoli, Cyclospora, Salmonella. These are becoming common terms in our everyday conversation.

 Why? Perhaps, as the origin of our food becomes more industrialized and less  farm stand to our hands, the level of accountability diminishes. Those working in the food factories have no vision of that food ending up on our kitchen table. To them, it’s just another commodity being shipped and sold.

 They don’t see us. They don’t know us. We are just part of a chain,  therefore, they feel no responsibility to rinse the greens properly, inspect the meat carefully, treat the food with honor.

Food, a product we must have to survive, has gone from simple pick and eat to a monolithic monster of processing. Removing all the nutrition, then supplementing what was taken out with chemicals we can’t even pronounce, let alone recognize. And the worst part, it’s making us sick and fat.

Fast food, bad food. We can’t get away from eating and drinking, and the few who are making mega billions on keeping us addicted to this pabulum should be ashamed. But money becomes their cloak of justification. It may not be criminal but it is definitely unethical.

Thanks to authors like Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, and T. Colin Campbell, The China Study, we are waking up and creating a demand for simple, clean food and the market is responding. 

Grocery stores carrying organic vegetables and meat from animals that have been humanely raised, allowed to graze and eat the way nature intended. 

Not spending their entire lives in a hell constructed by big farma,  where they never see the light of day and are mutilated and force fed foods and antibiotics and hormones so they can grow faster and fatter to accommodate our voracious appetite for meat. 

Another bright movement is the resurgence of farmer’s markets where we can meet the people who are working so hard to feed us nourishing fruits and vegetables grown without harmful pesticides, raising their chickens, pigs and cows with love and pride. Looking us in the eye when they hand us our bag of food, saying hello and wishing us well.

And us, thanking them for growing  this beautiful, clean food that will nourish, sustain and enrich us with health. 

So there is hope. We are finding each other in our quest to act like the human spirits we were born to be. Let’s hope it’s catching.

The unfinished painting above is  titled; Until We Find Each Other, We Are Alone,which  is written into the canvas. 

Philanthropic art

Un Ballo in Maschera

(A Masked Ball)

The above piece will be auctioned off  at a benefit for the DuPage Children's Museum in April of this year.  A good friend and amazing artist, Laura Lein-Svencner, got me involved in this project. 

The DuPage Children's Museum created this venue, with the goal to raise money and awareness of the importance of engaging young minds in all aspects of education . They put a call out to artists to donate our time and talent for The  M.A.S.K. Project (Math, Art, Science for Kids).

Fifty masks were signed by celebrities including Barack Obama, Halle Berry and Tom Hanks. These masks were given to artists to transform. Part of the fun and challenge is to keep the celebrity signature visible while integrating it creatively into the overall design.

I was fortunate enough to receive a mask signed by world famous, Italian conductor, Ricarrdo Muti, music director and conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Which led me down the creative path of Giuseppe Verdi's three act opera, Un Ballo in Maschera. Playing opera in my studio I was inspired to give my mask a masquerade feeling. Using a combination of rich colors, sheet music, glazes and lace I pay tribute to the talent of conductor Muti and the genius of Verdi. 

 To learn more about the M.A.S.K project:

http://www.aforceforearlylearning.org

I Love You

So, where do I go from here?

mixed media

12x12"

I have been doing a lot of writing, in my head. Composing wonderful internal conversations, that stagnate in my brain. Today I decided to give the conversation a page to rest upon.

Eternity is in love with the creations of time. William Blake

That uber intelligence that is all , loves us  because we have the ability to make their genius real. It's a sublime, symbiotic relationship. They are the muse, we are the vessel and together we create wonderful works of art, music, literature, architecture, gardens, delicious dishes, sublime wines, all the "things" that make our life in this dimension, wonderful and amazing. Without us, Eternity's genius would be swirling around the Universe,without form, just an idea, just a thought.

So this morning, my muse whispered me awake with the words, "I love you". Those three little words take up such a small space on the page, but oh my lord, they take up a universe of feeling. The expansiveness of the phrase, I love you. Can you feel it? How it makes you larger than your mere human frame and embraces you in a womb of wonder.

To answer Blake, I would say;

The creations of time are in love with Eternity. 

Since we  have a beginning and an end, Eternity allows us to live on, either through our works or through those we give birth to. So it's important to show up. To open up and only then, can Eternity  flow through us and make our genius real.

Uncovered

Uncovered #3
16" x 20"
Oil & Cold Wax

I wanted to crawl back into the womb.

My doctor asked me to sit and said, "The biopsy came back positive. I'm so sorry."

Tears, unwillingly, fell and licked my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away. And in a daze my husband and I began a new chapter in our relationship.

Through everything, what still chokes me up is remembering losing my hair. Once it started to go, I decided to have it shaved. As I sat on the outside deck of my friends home, surrounded by my husband, my mother and my friends, she took the electric clippers and began to shear. Spontaneously I began to cry, quietly. My mother said, "Oh Evelyn, don't cry."

"I can't help it." I whispered.

It took me a couple of weeks to really look at myself in the mirror. I gave myself passing glances and ignored what was looking back, but then I finally really looked and came to a place of acceptance. Which moved into a position of accepting with spirit. Instead of hiding my head under a cap or scarf I decided to go natural. I let the sun bronze me up and I wore my badge of survival with elegant honor. Strangers came up to me to tell me how beautiful I looked and wished me well. Many women said, "I wish I had the courage to just cut it all off."

I went through several emotional stages. One of the most difficult was coming to terms that my body was attacking me, and I felt a sense of betrayal. Silently this abnormal sleeper cell laid in wait, slowly gathering more like itself, to itself until it was finally large enough to be caught under the microscope of a mammogram.

Thank you, Lord of the Mammogram machine. How many times was I tempted to NOT get a mammogram that year. So there must have been a part of my body that was communicating with me, because I did get a mammogram in 2006 and today I am well into my 5th anniversary, as a survivor.

Art of 9; One, Group Show at McCord Gallery

Postcard designed by Michael Klaus Schmidt, promoting our first group show. Other award-wining artists in our group show are; Dianne Martia, Dennis Salaty, Vianne Korhorn, Tony Armendariz, Jerri Reimann, Cheryl Ann Spran, and Frank Tumino.

What makes this show interesting and unique is our way of communicating through diverse mediums, including pastel, oil, acrylic, watercolor, and pencil. What you'll see is 2D and 3D art work ranging from realism to assemblage, to the fine art of collage.

The exhibit is running through April 22 and we're hosting a free Artists' Reception March 23 from 6:30-8:30 pm.

Coming Home #5
Mixed Media

This is one of the seven pieces I'm exhibiting at the show. Hope to see you at the reception.

Addison Show

Uncovered 2; what is hidden is revealed
(16x20)
oil & cold wax

Just dropped off my piece for the Addison Show; "The Art of Collage: Celebrating the Masters". One hundred years ago, Picasso glued a piece of chair caning onto a canvas and the fine art of collage was born. In celebration of collage as a fine art media, our group, The Midwest Collage Society, decided to pick noted artists who wove collage into their creative repertoire. I chose Man Ray, http://www.manraytrust.com/, an American born artist who was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealistic movements.

"I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination
or dreams or from unconscious drive.
I photograph the things I do not wish
to paint, the things which already
have an existence." Man Ray

The piece above is the second in a new series. The inspiration coming from post chemo-radiation therapy, when my husband and I decided to take a series of photographs celebrating my body and my spirit's ability to survive. Like an infant coming from the womb, I felt newly alive. This series will embody that spirit.

So far I have (6) 16x20 panels, 2 are finished, the other 4 in various stages of completion. I also finished a 4x6 study and have prepped (4) 8x10 panels. The 16 x 20 panels are oil and cold wax, the smaller panels are in acrylic.

Happiness is

the love of my life

When I first laid eyes on him 26 years ago, I felt as if my heart had suddenly decided to sing.

And miracles of miracles, the symphony is still playing.

What is missing in this picture (because I cropped them out) are the lines of red and white wine classes sitting in front of us. We were celebrating the beginning of 2012 and Fred's daughter snapped this at about 12:05 am, January 1. I think she captured the spirit, fun and hope for a new year.