Art Blog: Square One

Have you ever experienced a moment in your life when you wanted to either slap or shake yourself silly? I have. In fact, I feel like that right now. I want to grab myself and scream "SNAP OUT OF IT!!!!!" I mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry, I am going through a passage. I am truly hoping this is the dark before the dawn. Right now, I am not comfortable in my own skin.
I have been trying to figure out what is going on. I don’t feel grounded. I feel like I am moving a thousand directions, yet going nowhere fast. I had a thought yesterday as I sat out on the patio. I realized this is the first time in 24 years I am truly free at least to make the decision to do whatever I want. This is why I was entertaining the idea of moving yesterday. FREE AGAIN!!! I have always treasured my freedom and independence. That is why I have been single most of my life. I didn’t have my daughter until I was thirty years old. That put a little kibosh on my free spirit nature. I thought I was freewheeling, but she slowed me down a bit. In many ways, I am thankful for that. Having her made me responsible and bit more serious. I am so glad she has been a part of my life.
She left a few years ago. I was never one of these “empty nester” mothers. In fact, I helped her pack just so she could leave faster. LOL LOL To be honest the first two years after her departure, I still wasn’t alone. She lived elsewhere, but had a foot in my door for a while. Despite my disapproval, I still was holding some financial strings like the last threads of the umbilical cord. Now, she is firmly planted in another city and is a true adult. No strings attached anymore. I thought about this yesterday. Then I realized her graduation to adulthood plays a role in what is going on with me right now. I am back to “square one”. My mind flashed to 1982 before I became pregnant.



Back then, I was making my art, being an artist, and just being Sheree. I did what I want, when I wanted. I just realized I am back there. I am all alone again. It just feels so weird.
I went out into my studio and looked around. Holy macaroni!! What a mess!! This state of chaos is common this time of year. When I am finishing up work projects, I let things pile up. Just looking at the resulting mess, makes me tired. So the first thing on the agenda in the next few weeks is to get busy cleaning, organizing, and overhauling my studio. I have to do something to get out of this blue funk!! SLAP SLAP SLAP!! Get it together Sheree or I will shake you silly!!







If cleanliness is next to Godliness,
I better do something fast
before I go to HELL.
LOL

ADDENDUM:
Gnarls Barkley (my favorite) says it best:
"Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably"

Art Blog: The WALL

I have been talking so much about being free. No attachments! Free as a bird! Happy-go-lucky! Kicking my heels up and experiencing the world! NOT! During this time of reflection, I have contemplated chucking it all. I have been poor before. I have lived like a bohemian. However, even though I mentioned being back to square one yesterday, I really can’t go back. I have STUFF now. I have no diamonds or pearls. Even my house is a tiny bungalow. I am not talking millions here. In fact, the things I prize are worthless to many. However, they mean the world to me.
I have been thinking about moving(?) You know the part about “shaking myself silly”. Well, I thought maybe I should sell my house and move somewhere, anywhere, do something different, anything!!!! However, every time I think that thought, the first thing that pops into my mind is my WALL. This is the first house I have even owned. I had always been a renter. I bought this house in 2001. For about a year and a half, all I did was work and change this place to be my artistic house. I had stored up visions for decades. I need to have all those pictures in my head come to fruition. So I worked, painted, tore down, put up, and created my own creative nest.
One thing that took me nearly a year to complete was my kitchen wall. I made tiles and intentionally cracked them. I hoarded baubles and beads. I collected dishes and smashed them to smithereens. I glued and grouted and polished until it was done. I FINALLY had my mosaic kitchen wall. I guess it took more out of me than I thought. OR, maybe I put more into it than I ever imagined.







I don’t want to leave this silly kitchen or my stupid wall. The figurative and literal connotations of this dilemma are funny and sad all at the same time. I mean, think about it. A wall keeps you out or it keeps you in. It creates a barrier. It keeps the boogie man out. It keeps you safe. Right now, I have hit the WALL, so to speak. I have made a little mosaic wall that I wanted for so long and don’t want to give it up. Yes, I could make another one, but that makes me exhausted just thinking about it. Also, it would never be the same. I don’t recall ever being this needy. I have never been so attached and possessive of anything until now. I have a specific (neurotic) feeling of CLING to this kitchen wall. Is it time to move on? The thought makes me nauseous. Yes, I have it bad!!! Maybe moving isn’t the answer. Back to the drawing board.

Art Blog: Creative Process

Obviously, I love creating. That is my job. However, I also love the creative process. I find creativity such a fascinating thing. How our thoughts are generated and how ideas evolve seems miraculous to me. It is like an extended game of connect the dots.
When an artist creates, the entire process does not always take place in the studio. For me, I might get an idea and let it bounce around my head for weeks or months. It is as if I have a little incubator inside my head. I see something and it becomes a seed. Then, I hear something and in goes that sound. The feel or taste of my world creates the water and soil for the idea to grow. One thought leads to another and little by little those thought seeds take root. During the gestation, events play a role in the feeding and nurturing of a new creative baby.
For example, I am currently collecting concepts for new art work. Here is how one of my new ideas is evolving:

Seed #1: An autistic student gave me one of his drawings. It was a huge, poster board marker drawing. He said it was called the “Treasure Map”. I really looked at it. I was so taken by the creative purity this drawing contained. The artist had no hesitation. His marks flow and images dance. Also, the idea of “Treasure Maps” stuck in my head. I brought the work to my studio and kept looking at it.
Seed #2: That same day, a colleague gave me a huge, box of printed maps. I figured I would use them for collage or teaching resources. At the time, I didn’t see any connection between these maps and the Treasure Map drawing.
Seed #3: As mentioned in my “Catalogs” blog post, I was reminded of and acknowledged I miss my “Detroit River” piece which is a collage drawing incorporating a map.
Seed #4: I was speaking to a friend about how I never travel. Except to drive to work and the grocery store, I am nearly agoraphobic.
Seed #5: I am going through a passage in my life right now. I am SEARCHING for an elusive something. Lately, every day is spent trying to find myself and my future. I don’t know where I am going (physically, emotionally, or artistically) right now. I am in search of direction!

I have taken these five events, stirred them up, shaken them until I see a fizz, and POOF!!! I have a new art direction. One new series will be my own TREASURE MAPS.


A gift
The Treasure Map
By “A.M.”, an autistic boy


Oh, and before he gave this drawing to me, he gave himself a grade: A+!
No problem with self esteem there!! Tee hee hee

Art Blog: Dumbing Down

I thought it was me. I really did. I had heard stories about becoming opinionated and cranky as you age. I guess I was starting to buy into that myth. In the past few years, I have noticed more and more how stilted and one-sided our news coverage appears to be. Now, I know we (AMERICA) have always had an ethnocentric view of the world. It just seems to me to be getting so, so obvious and “in your face” lately. Also, our news is getting more and more DUMB and less and less relevant to important issues in our lives.
All this crap about Britney, Lindsay, Whocaresy???? When Anna Nicole died, my daughter was working for CNN. She wrote me an email and expressed exhaustion. She said the news bureau had gone berzerk trying to cover this celebrity death. Just the idea and imagined visual makes me sick. Are we really this shallow? Are we?
Meanwhile, there is a whole world out there. In this technological age, it is shocking and sad to realize we are told and know very little about our world. We really don’t.
To me, this is very, very scary.


TED video
”We know less about our world”

Art Blog: Catalogs and Coincidence

I got such a great surprise in yesterday’s mail. I received a catalog of a show I was in at Kulturhaus Pusdorf in Bremen, Germany. I didn’t even know they were making a catalog. This kind of stuff tickles me. Even though I have been in a lot of exhibitions with catalogs, there is just something exciting about looking through the pages and find something you created. Just looking at your name in print is kind of heady. LOL LOL
The show was called “Am Fluss / By the River”. Obviously, the theme was “rivers”. I just had to do a piece about my Detroit River. I swam in that river as a child. I rode many boats on that river. I looked down on that river as I crossed the Ambassador Bridge. Later in life while doing “beer runs” to Windsor, Ontario, I drove through the river via the underground tunnel! LOL
My Detroit River has many fond memories. So I did a fold out, mixed media collage with text. I sent it over to Bremen, Germany never to see it again. It will be a part of the Kulturehaus Pusdorf collection. I miss that collage. I loved it so. However, I am so glad others got to see it and it will be enjoyed in the future too.
The weirdest part of all this is I have been collecting ideas and stuff for my new art in the past few weeks. This past Friday, a guy I worked with came to me and gave me a huge box of old maps. He said “I thought you might be able to use these.” I looked at the maps and immediately remembered my “Detroit River” collage. I thought of doing some art this summer using maps. Then this catalog came in the mail. Bizarre little coincidence!!
Here is the cover of the catalog and “my” page:




Click to see a large image of this piece on my Mail Art webpage. Scroll down. It’s there.

Art Blog: Louise Bourgeois

I gotta start counting my blessings and thinking of the good parts of my life. I just have to because I am on the downward side of an emotional rollercoaster and it is having an effect on my art life. So I got out a pencil and began to think. Ironically, I mentioned this in an email to my friend this morning. We were tossing around ideas about our lives and art. We are nearly the same age and have a lot of the same stuff swirling around our minds.
Come on Sheree, think. The very first thing that popped into my mind was how lucky I am to be a female artist because I have many very wonderful role models. Historically speaking, quite a few of the female artists who live long lives tend to be just the kind of person I want to be. One of my primary artist mentors is Louise Bourgeois. She is just too cool. She is little and feisty like me. Maybe that is why I have always been drawn to her. I have a video I watch all the time that shows her in her studio working. She is so crusty and funny. She has this “I don’t give a shit about anything (except me and my art)!” kind of attitude. I love that about her. She has such a brusque, yet entertaining sense of humor. I love that about her too. Then there is her art. Her entire lifetime has been spent making absolute treasures.
I have heard about her “show and tells” that take place in her studio on weekends. I only wish I could be a fly on the wall of one of her Sunday salons.
I am not one to bow to celebrity, but it would be so dreamlike to be in the same room with such a force. I would love to have a moment to simply breathe the same air.
Ok…..That was #1. GOOD thing…Now back to my list. Keep writing, Sheree LOL



#1 I have been lucky to know I have a life purpose.
Women like Louise Bourgeois have inspired me to keep making art until the end.
Watch this little video I found.
Breathtaking!

Click here to see another exquisite video at Artivi about her current Paris retrospective.

Art Blog: I DARE You!

Today I read a post about “Emerging Artists” on a blog. The debate was about what IS an emerging artist. Of course, I have my opinions. After all, if you haven’t “made it” (whatever that means), you are still emerging, right?
One of the commenters took umbrage at another comment about those describing artists who are not emerging as those artists who can create freely, sans day job. The commenter went off. She said a bunch of stuff which included the word (her word) rubbish! I liked her passion!
I have been working very hard the past few weeks to finish things, tie up loose ends, and polish off the work of my day job before I am allowed a two month break. After reading the post about emerging artists, I thought “SHIT!! I am still “emerging” even after all these years!” However, I realized I have spent a lot of time and energy spreading my talents around to include a vast realm of tasks that may or may not have pushed me up or down as I have tried to EMERGE.
For example, I teach. I teach students who have all kinds of weirdnesses. It is very interesting, albeit exhausting work. Luckily it is a creative job, I am working as an artist, and I get to see the concrete product of this vein of spent energy. Look below to see a few art works by my students.
Yeah, I am still emerging after all these years. Shoot! I might be emerging until I am 90 years old! LOL LOL. I have no regrets though. I am an artist juggler. I dare you to try to do what I do every day.
I DARE YOU! :-)

My kid's art.
All I can say is BRAVO!!