Can you find...?
2 hearts
a nest
an oak leaf
4 blue flowers
a bird
2 pairs of earrings
a measuring tape
3 spirals
a paint brush
a teapot
a cork
2 white pearls
When I was in college working on my final show, I stayed in my campus art studio so late one night that the early morning janitorial crew came through. I was humored to learn that they never entered my studio space because, as the crew chief said, "We can't tell what's important and what's not."
That's okay.
Sometimes I don't know what is important either,
until it shows itself to me.
"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
~ Albert Einstein
It is in the midst of materials and art books in my studio that I find ideas that might pair themselves together simply because my eyes drifted from one object to another in sequence. My brain then allows them to mingle in a quiet space together, drawing unusual conclusions and connections. There is an energy that comes at times as I drift from one collection of materials to another in my work space, that is the steam to drive my next creative effort. Until recently I viewed the many partially completed pieces, the remnants of failed experiments and the small collections of strange objects around my studio like the debris after a flood; useless, unimportant. But I am drawing connections now between them. The tiny stacks of pebbles, the repetition of book stacks, the repeated lines in one of Jonah's drawings on my table, all dance together in my mind and begin to influence a new painting. The trimmings of scrapbook paper beneath a bowl of stones asks me to borrow color from one to lend to the other.
Failed attempts are learning moments.
Incomplete projects are gestating solutions.
They are not debris. They are relics.
It's not a mess.
It's not chaos.
It's a seedbed,
a cosmos,
a beginning.
