My family is now all settled in for the week on the coast of Maine. Every year we rent the same cottage. Every year I wonder which of my growing boys will not be able to make it next year and thus will relish every minute I have with them. This year even the eldest son, who happens to live and work in this area, took the week off from work.
Yesterday, I worked right up to the last possible moment and threw together a few things when the kids were practically already in the car.
I actually take very little these days - a few clothes, a camera for family snapshots, the book I am in the progcess of reading and a needlepoint kit. Some people thing it strange that I would work on a kit. But the goal here is to rest my brain as well as my body. So I don't sketch, draw out plans for the next big project or even take artful photographs. When I was little my Dad used to say that I had an idea a minute. A slight exageration but not really too far from the truth. My brain always seems to be in over drive. So this is almost a form of meditation really.
When we arrived and as soon as I got out of the car, I saw an interesting flowering plant. The leaves were so much tinier then the flowers. It was an interesting design concept. So I started an immediate and almost uncontrollable train of thoughts that I would come back later to draw it. When I remembered that I did not bring any drawing tools with me, so I thought I would come back with my camera. But I am not going to do that either. This is supposed to be a time to visually live in the present. To simply experience what I see.
I believe strongly that as a visual artist there comes a time when I need to replenish my internal, visual bank. I can' t really do that well if I am always interpreting and reinterpreting what I see, the moment after I have seen it. I also see this as a time of mental and verbal reflection.
Working on a needlepoint kit keeps my hands doing what they need to do, but my brain is not trying to figure out if what they are making has value or if it has a design flaw. It occurs to me that perhaps if my style of creating art was to completely design something before making it, I might not need this time. But my method of creating is fluid and has a tendency to evolve as a work.
Plus I happen to really enjoy needlepoint and love the end results! Something about the texture and simmetry of the stitches appeals to me. This kit is a take off on a Gustov Klimt painting. Here's photo. I'll get closer later after I have more finished.
This is the view from the couch in the living room of the cottage we rent.
Oh, and the book I am reading is The Sparrow by Mary Dorian Russell. It has an interesting story line, hitting on many interesting ethical questions, Although it doesn't really address any of them and there isn't much to say about the actual writing - how the words are put together. It I isn't lyrical. But I am totally drawn to the characters.
More later...
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