
A bench at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

A bench at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

This is about painting bad work.
As painters, we know it is disheartening to paint, day after day, trying to get our actions to meet our goals. What we see in our minds is fluid, a wise professor once told me, and cannot be translated into an image on the two or three dimensional surface. Ever. But it does not stop us from trying.
We are constantly surprised by what comes about, sometimes good, sometimes not.
When we paint tirelessly everyday, we keep going. It is so hard to spend, as David Lynch would say, most of the time looking at the work and very little time altering what we have done. It is hard enough just using that part of our mind which is non verbal. It puts us in a different world.
When we see that we have produced bad work, we are inclined to give up.
I learned through experience, that it is in those very bad paintings, the truth: That, we have reached a higher level. And we need this challenge to break through. When we do, we create something better. Better than all the work we have done before.
I see it this way: We practice (a plateau where nothing changes and we are satisfied with our work), we rest (giving ideas time to develop), and we learn. It is in the learning that we create bad work. And that is a very good sign.

Refrigerator Art.
There is really nothing creative about people tacking things up on their refrigerators. It’s so common, it’s boring.
But I wanted to share some tiny little drawings I unearthed while cleaning our space out. (Still have not found a home for those Martha Stewarts I have collected since the first issue. Prison years included.)
These drawings are done by my family. some by my daughter when she was very little, some by me and one very odd and indescribable animal head drawn by my husband. I put them on the refrigerator in a little grouping, not really knowing where else to put them: They are so small.
A person could look at them as similar to those words that were popular years back. Those words you could string together and make a poem.
Maybe my collection of tiny drawings is like that.

I have photographed this site before and have posted it on Facebook. But I love it so much, I wanted to put it here on my blog. The moving vehicle passing by gives you an idea of the scale.

“The Sketchbook Project Is A Traveling Library Of Artists’ books Created By Thousands Of People from Across The Globe.”
The company is based in Brooklyn, NY.
I decided my latest work, would be to do a sketchbook. The theme: “Capes, Masks and Tights”, focusing as you can see on “Tights.”
I have not even begun, but already the images of the lower half of figures in tights has woven its way into my thoughts.
Anyone can do a sketchbook, have it digitized and then let it travel around the country as part of a library. The idea for this was formed by some folks from Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta.
I find these origins appropriate for me, since I live in Atlanta, did postgraduate work at Atlanta College of Art (now Savannah College of Art and Design), grew up, in part, in the New York area. And exhibit my artwork in New York and Atlanta now.
The sketchbook is a great way for artists to get “unstuck.” To keep doing work. Get ideas flowing, and to enjoy the finished product.