Winter Solstice Thoughts

 

I think I've posted this before but it seems especially meaningful this year. I did it in 1988, still aching from my mother's death three years before. The image was created by photocopying a yew branch and then recopying it until the grays turned into black or white. It was offset printed in green.

Lullabies

It's Mother's day and I feel like we all need some mothering right about now. I am sharing this series I did in 1989 when my first child was four and my second was two years away. I was in the midst of my engagement with the photocopier as an art tool. The images are collaged with natural materials that I copied and recopied until the grays of the image broke down into being either black or white.  

 

 These are featured in my calligraphy memoir,  Calligraphy: How I Fell In, Out, and In Love Again.

It is now available in the bookstore on my website. $25. shipping included.

Download a pdf of the lullabies here.

Advent Calendar of Cards Day 12 (1994)

Photocopied grape vines with the word "solstice" written on each card with gold marker. Inside: May the light of the season burn bright for you.

Advent Calendar of Cards Day 11 (1990)

Deep in my photocopier phase, I leased one and then purchased it at the end of the term. I used it until parts were no longer available. By that time I was using the computer but photoshop can not match the magical unpredictability of repeated photocopying. This card used a photocopied pizzelle cookie and some pieces of textured paper.

Advent Calendar of Cards Day 9 (1988)

I went through a period when I did a lot of work with the photocopier, combining calligraphy and imagery created from photocopied objects, many gathered from nature. This one was made from grape vines and mistletoe. 

There are 8 pages of images of photocopier work in my book. I never really found a way to show much of the work so I am happy to be able to share it there. Information here.

Advent Calendar Day 8 (1987)

Two Christmases and almost three years after the unexpected death of my mother and the birth of my first child, I was still struggling to understand. I made this card which was offset printed on a white linen card stock. The front had only the word “greetings.” The card opened to show this double page spread with imagery created by photocopying a branch of yew.

Studio Sunday-Journey

As I got ready or the Open Studio, I went through boxes and drawers and unearthed a lot of old work although not as much as one might expect from 38 years. Over the years I got rid of a lot. Because I never sold much, there was often an accumulation. I found it discouraging. And so I would sort. If I didn't find feel that a piece had anything left to teach me, I would discard it. It did keep me moving forward. I never felt any obligation to the old work and so I was always free to explore new ideas.

Now, however, I wish I hadn't been quite so decisive. I would like to be able to look back at my years of work and see in greater detail how I developed as an artist. If I could give that old self some advice, I would say don't be so hasty. Draw back from whatever emotions are attached to the work—feelings of discouragement that no one wanted it, feelings of dissatisfaction with the work itself. Even though it seems hard to believe now, you may wish someday that there was an archive of your work.

This is a book I found in a drawer. It brings up another thing I would tell my old self: Date your work. This was done when I was doing a lot of experimenting with the photocopier which would make it late '80s/early '90s. The imagery is from grape vines placed on the copier. The text is mine.

JOURNEY
The word stays with me. 
I find myself naming the events of my life journeys & I see that my life itself is a journey.
In Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon talked about his father, 
and his belief that any traveler who misses the journey misses about all he is going to get. 
I have to keep reminding myself, it's the journey, the living, that's important, not the destination.
I should live the making of this work, and enjoy the journey. 
Mostly I do. 
But I worry about what comes next, where does this lead, what direction is my work taking. 
DESTINATION.
I have to keep reminding myself.
JOURNEY

And my take on the journey at 62 from Art Lessons: Reflections From An Artist's Life:

Here’s a frequent metaphor: life is a road, a journey, a path. I’ve used it often and taken comfort in the idea that the journey is more important than the destination. Now I want a new word, a new metaphor, or better yet, no metaphor at all. Journey implies destination and I see now there is no destination, no place to get to, in the artist’s life. Saying or doing anything that implies that there is only gets in the way. We need to stop seeking the “there.” We need to live and work in the “here,” to be present and alive in every moment, and to allow ourselves to “Take joy!”

Havel and Hope

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Vaclav Havel—writer, dissident, President of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. He was a leader of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In the NY Times obituary, the Czech expatriate novelist Milan Kundera is quoted: "Vaclav Havel's most important work is his own life."

I have a tiny thread of connection to Vaclav Havel. In 1991, I made a book using a quote from Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala about hope. I was so moved by Havel's story, his compassion, his ideas, and his humanity.

Here's how I described the book in written material to accompany Bookworks, an exhibit at Rivier College:

Here is the quotation:

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it has a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to do good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from "elsewhere." It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless as ours do, here and now.

I sometimes look back at things I have done with amazement. I have always been a combination of insecure thoughts about my work and occasional bold moves. I put into the bold move category sending the book to Vaclav Havel via his US publisher Alfred A. Knopf. I received this letter in return:

Vaclav Havel's website with many links to his writing and speeches

NY Times obituary

PRI's The World interview with his translator Paul Wilson

Madeleine Albright taking about Havel on the PBS News Hour

JUDY WOODRUFF: What was he like? I mean, he clearly was not the typical -- anything but the typical politician.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: He was the most amazing man in terms of being the combination of somebody with massive moral authority, great courage for having espoused the concepts of democracy, freedom throughout a very difficult communist period, a very modest man, and somebody with a fabulous sense of humor and the idea of being able to see the absurd in situations.

So, he was a combination of many different aspects and tremendously interesting to be with.

...

JUDY WOODRUFF: You were saying that he signed all his letters with a little heart?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: He still does.

He signed it with a red pen for the heart and a green pen for his signature. And he had this great sense of humor. And you kind of felt that he was making a little bit fun of everything at the same time.

Tenth Day of Christmas: Mumming

This piece, combining lettering and imagery created on the photocopier with rugosa rose flowers and leaves, was published in The Artful Letter: The Calligrapher's Engagement Calendar for 1991. The quote is from All Silver and No Brass: An Irish Christmas Mumming by Henry Glassie. Mr. Glassie is a folklorist who spent time in Ballymenone in Northern Ireland researching the tradition and practice of the mummer's play at Christmas. Here's how he introduces it in the preface:

Winter nights in Ireland are black and long. A sharp wet wind often rises through them. Midwinter is a time to sit by the fire, safe in the family's circle, waiting for the days to lengthen and warm. It is no time for venturing out into the cold darkness. The ground is hard, the winds bitter. But for two and a half centuries, and possibly for many years beyond them, young men braved the chilly lanes, rambling as mummers from house to house, brightening the country kitchens at Christmas with a comical drama. Their play, compact, poetical, and musical, introduced an antic crew and carried one character through death and resurrection.

When I received notice that my piece would be included in the calendar, I was very pleased, but if my work had been accepted at an earlier time, I would have been beside myself with joy. By 1991 calligraphy was a lesser part of my creative life. I was spending much more time making books, and the books I was making had become wordless and meditative.

I find that that's often the way things go. When an honor or an acceptance would have been just about the greatest thing that ever happened to me, it didn't come. When it was no longer as important to me, it would happen. It makes me think of the words from Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki about encouragement.

Of course some encouragement is necessary, but that encouragement is just encouragement. It is not the true purpose of practice. It is just medicine. When we become discouraged we want some medicine. When we are in good spirits we do not need any medicine. You should not mistake medicine for food. Sometimes medicine is necessary, but it should not become our food.

I have learned to live, not necessarily without any encouragement, but without the level of encouragement that I would have preferred. My motivation for making has always been, and had to be, to a certain degree from within. As the years have passed, I have come to appreciate the importance of that inner drive in my growth as an artist.

November first

Here is a piece from Seasonal Celebrations which I began in 1988 when I was experimenting with calligraphy and photocopier manipulations.

St. Brendan's Day

May 16 is St. Brendan's Day. St. Brendan is known as the Navigator or the Voyager. The Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (the Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot) was written in the Middle Ages and presumed to be legend. In the 1970s Tim Severin recreated Brendan's voyage in a leather curragh and reached Newfoundland; he wrote about in The Brendan Voyage.

May we take inspiration from Saint Brendan as we navigate our way through this world.

About Saint Brendan

An English translation of the Navigatio sancti Brendani Abbatis

Golden Slumbers from Notan Press

Golden Slumbers is a series of four prints of lullabies I created in 1988. At the time, I was still doing calligraphy and working a lot with the photocopier. The images were created from photocopied natural materials. Here is what I wrote in the introduction:

As I remember being a child and experience being a parent, I often feel how difficult the relationship can be. As a parent, I am trying to meet both his needs and my own and guide him into the world. As a child he is, and I was, eager to experience the world his own terms and in his own way. There is often conflict. But there are moments, times of absolute peace and union, when the sharing of that time is the only thing in the world. Everything makes sense; everything is bathed in a golden glow. These lullabies are a celebration of those times. I have used traditional lullabies as a way of connecting with other parents across time and space. I have drawn on my feelings as both a parent and a child in creating this work.

Golden Slumbers pdf

The work from Notan Press is offered for free under the Creative Commons license.

If you spend time with the work, please consider a contribution to support the sharing.

Childbirth Journey from Notan Press

Childbirth Journey, created in 1985, represents a turning point in my work. After eight years of serious work with calligraphy, I was struggling to make the transition from interpretive work to something that was completely my own. I turned to my own experiences and began the series to come to terms with my first pregnancy, the death of my mother, the disappointment of a Cesarean, and the wonder of new life. There were fifteen pastel gesture drawings with an accompanying text drawn from my journal in calligraphy.

I exhibited the series when my son was almost a year old and had mixed feelings about whether it belonged on the wall. In the context of an exhibit within a finite time period and in a specific space, it worked. You entered the gallery to see Childbirth Journey (although those who wandered in off the street of our coastal city expecting to see seascapes were surprised). After the exhibit, I couldn’t picture them hanging on the wall of my or anyone else’s home. The content was too specific and personal to be viewed on a daily basis.

I translated the pastel drawings into a portfolio of 8.5 x 11 black and white offset prints. The text was again in calligraphy and the images created with charcoal drawings and manipulated photocopies of natural materials.

Childbirth Journey

The work from Notan Press is offered for free under the Creative Commons license.

If you spend time with the work, please consider a contribution to support the sharing.

On the Road in Lowell

Yesterday I spent the day in Lowell, Massachusetts starting with a visit to the exhibit of the On The Road scroll at the Boott Mills. The scroll itself is a wondrous object and the exhibit accompanying it about Kerouac and Lowell is excellent. I particularly liked being able to sit with headphones and listen to Kerouac reading and speaking. I read and loved On the Road in my early twenties but did not delve deeply into Kerouac's work and the story and legend of his life until I lived in the
Lowell area from 1977 to 1985. At the time I was doing calligraphy and I found the rhythm and power of his language a constant inspiration and source of material for interpretation.

In 1988 I was invited to be part of an exhibition of Lowell artists at the Rencontre International Jack Kerouac in Quebec City. I created four new pieces for the exhibit: two calligraphic works, a sculpture of found wood with artifacts that showed hints of the Spirit Books to come, and my first artists' book, Contradictions: Jack Kerouac, Lowell, the River. Here is the work and the descriptive texts I wrote to accompany them.

A Calligraphic Tribute
A name is a powerful thing. This is a tribute in letterform to Kerouac using his full baptismal name. When I chose the color of the ink and paper, I was thinking of these lines from Dr. Sax– "that daguerreotype is gray all over, but my mother's robe sends auras of warm brown (the brown of my family)"



Wild Form
When I first read this excerpt from a letter to John Clellon Holmes from Jack Kerouac in Joy Walsh's book of essays on Kerouac, Statement in Brown, I knew I wanted to do it calligraphically. The black shapes were made by squirting sumi ink from the bottle onto a sheet of Japanese paper. I started by writing wild form and then added gestures. The original lines spread into shapes as the ink was absorbed into the porous paper. I used part of the sheet for the final piece. I often work in this way, starting with spontaneous gestures using a variety of tools and then adding words. The text is: Wild form, man, wild form. Wild form's the only form for me, my mind exploding with every image and every memory. I'm making myself sick to find the wild form that can grow with my wild heart because now I know my heart does grow.



Prayer for Jack
In Japan, on the anniversary of a parent's or grandparent's death, or in memory of ancestors, prayers are written on thin slips of wood and placed at the entrance to the temple. This piece is inspired by that custom and offered in the same spirit. The materials and meanings are described in the small scroll. The text on the slip of paper is Jack Kerouac/equally empty/equally to be loved/equally a coming buddha



Contradictions
As I read various biographies and articles about Kerouac, I found that I disagreed with their portrayal of Lowell. In this book I have tried to convey the power and mystery I feel in Lowell and its connection with Jack Kerouac's life and writing.


Contradictions was later made into an edition book and now has a virtual life as a powerpoint slide show

On the Road in Lowell is on view daily from 10-5 through October 14. There are related events throughout the run of the exhibition. After that, it moves to the New York Public Library where there will be an exhibit created from the library's Kerouac collection.

Contradictions: Jack Kerouac, Lowell, the River

Contradictions: Jack Kerouac, Lowell, the River is in its third incarnation (first was a unique artists book, second was an edition book) as a powerpoint slide show.