Tag: creative process

little jewels

by susanbradfordart, posted in Creative Process, Learning, Mandala Art, Visual Art

Each of these small wooden circles measures only one and a half inches in diameter.  Yet in each one, there is a lot going on.  Some definitely are more simple than others.  They just came together with ease, and felt finished.  Others are more worked, and that is because they didn’t flow as well initially.  A color may have been wrong.  Or my hand slipped as I applied the enamel paint, so that a cover up became essential.  Some of those become my favorites because they have more history.  Enamel paint is fun to work with because it dries very quickly and is opaque, making layering possible.

Each one has a magnet attached to the back, so they are useful items to have.

 

 

I love making them for several reasons.  It is fun to work with a water-based paint instead of oil.  It is really fun and challenging to work that small.  It takes concentration to do them.  I need to keep breathing as I work or something inevitably goes wrong.  I get a lot of information from doing so many of them at once.  It is liberating to think of them as functional.  Getting an energetic brushstroke with a tiny little brush is not easy for me.  And doing them gives me a lot of information for doing my other paintings.  Frees the hand, informs the eye, engages the brain.

 

Spring Mandala (Tolerance)

by susanbradfordart, posted in Creative Process, Healing, Mandala Art, Visual Art

In January, I came up with the idea of doing a new mandala for each season of the year. I finished the one for Winter on the day before the Spring Equinox. This one is ready well in advance of summer.  Good for me!

The sub-theme for Spring is Tolerance.  And here is why.  Do all the flowers get stressed when they start coming up at the same time in Spring?  Do they fight with each other for space, or crowd each other out, or deny each other light and water?  No, they somehow make it work.   And even when the weeds start to take over, they all still tolerate each other.  They all know what to do.  My personal lesson in all this is to be more tolerant of those who don’t act with kindness, or who don’t care about the good of the planet, or don’t have a particularly humanitarian philosophy.  I recognize that we are still all connected whether I want to admit it or not.

But perhaps my greatest challenge in the Tolerance department is for those nearest and dearest to me.   It is so easy to get annoyed or to need and demand perfection from them.  I want to feel like the two ribbons of blue in the mandala, entwined yet flowing in different ways and in a different rhythm.  I want to be working toward the sun and putting more and more consciousness into the tangle of green.  Coming through in the orange and pink flowers.  It’s all growing in its own way and in its own time.  And oh my, I want to be more tolerant of myself as well.  That dark spot almost in the center of the mandala.  The remnant of darkness from the Winter months.  The remainder of mistrust and doubt in my soul.

Taking a Holiday

by susanbradfordart, posted in Creative Process, Learning

I had a great holiday weekend! I didn’t go anywhere at all.  Friends came over on Monday, so I cleaned a little and cooked a little and we all had fun.  Just stayed home and wandered from the garden to my studio to my computer to the kitchen.   Despite the lack of activity in my life, the feeling that it was a holiday was somehow still in the air, and I gave myself a vacation from stress, from haste, and from the need to cross things off my constantly growing list of things to do.

On Sunday, it was especially beautiful out, and I found myself picking up my camera and just walking around the house, down to the studio and back, and all around the house, down to the meadow, and back around again.  I took a lot of pictures on that sunny day.  For some reason, I wanted to fix that moment in time .  It felt important to document the house where I live and the flowers that I nurture.

It was part of my holiday, like going away to an exotic place, and taking a million pictures to capture all those memories and visual treasures.  But I didn’t even have to get in my car to have the holiday experience.  I just stayed home and started looking at things with a fresh eye.  Discovering the brilliance of the azaleas as if I had never seen them before.  Watching the bees swarm around the chive blossoms, I felt like I was on a wildlife expedition.

It was too much fun!  I picked out a few of my favorites to put here.  Normally, I play around with photos trying to make them better, adjusting the light and the color to get what I want (or think I want).  But this time, I just left them the way they were.  No cropping or changing them in any way.  Snapshots.  Postcards.  From my holiday at home.

I think that I’ll come back to this place again.

 

The Experiment

by susanbradfordart, posted in Basketry, Creative Process, Learning, Teaching, Visual Art

Several months ago I moved some of my basket-making material down to my studio.   It was kind of an experiment to see if I would work more on the baskets in the privacy and quiet of the room that had been just for painting.  For a while, it all just sat there in a kind of disorganized heap, and it looked like the experiment was going to be a failure.

Then not too long ago, I started looking over what I had brought down.  I took some time to sort through the material, and then I started playing with it.  And I have to say that it is feeling really good to be working on baskets right there in my studio.   Different somehow than working in the house where I am always distracted with this and that, or sitting down to weave while I watch a movie or talk with friends.  Different even than gathering with our basket group once a month.  Very different than taking a class.

Because in the studio, I am both the student and the teacher.  I think about everything that I’m doing and allow myself the time to do it right.  I am not thinking about finishing the basket anymore than I am thinking about finishing a painting.  It is all about the process, and so much less about the product.  Although ultimately, with both painting and basket making, a product would be nice at some point along the way.

So now in addition to the six unfinished paintings on paper that are tacked on the wall, there are six unfinished baskets.  It all makes me happy in ways that I can’t quite explain.  Holding the baskets, molding their shapes, and working with them so closely.  They become such a part of me.  Then turning to paint, holding the brush, feeling connected to the surface it touches.  Listening to what they are all trying to teach me.

Right at Home

by susanbradfordart, posted in Creative Process, Learning, Visual Art

Last weekend I took yet another workshop and learned yet another new thing that I am excited about making.  This time, I went off to San Juan Island and spent a beautiful day outdoors making concrete leaves.  It is a really fun process and wonderfully tactile, even though rubber gloves are essential.  It starts with making a mound of sand, then laying the leaf on top of that.  The really fun part is mixing the concrete and then laying it on the leaf.  It is earthy and sensual to feel the cool, mushy concrete as it gets molded onto the leaf, moving it and shaping it to the desired thickness with the right contour.

There is a lot of potential for these leaves.  They are fun to make and fun to paint.  And I could see getting really wild with colors and shapes that have nothing to do with the natural world.  A purple leaf with yellow dots for instance.  We’ll see.

I keep learning new things that I want to do, and then feeling panic when I don’t have enough time to do them.  Or to do them justice.  Or to do them at all.  Somewhere along the line, it has to stop.  Yes?

For now, this leaf looks right at home in my garden.  At home in my garden, outside my house where my cats and lover live, near my studio where I want to be.  When I’m not off taking more workshops, that is.  Oh you mean like the wonderful mini wire basket that I’m going to learn this weekend?

But after this, I swear I’m staying home!