Working With Hope, Fear And Blocks

Field Notes 16"x16"

Life is full of painting right now. My work table is covered in open tubes of paint, bits of oily rag, and multiple canvases and panels. I am doing an online course called "The Sacred Arts" with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, though nothing about my workspace looks sacred. The focus of the course  is creativity and part of that is working with what blocks us.

It is a given that true art, whatever it's form, comes from somewhere other than the head. Does it come from somewhere deep inside us or are we tapping into something outside of us, or maybe a combination of both? A lot of artists will tell you," I didn't feel like I painted that or wrote that, I felt like something came through me."

In the west we put a lot of value on our thinking minds.  The old "I think, therefore I am" permeates us at such a deep level we hardly notice it.  We believe in the power of our minds and in part we are right.  What we believe strongly influences what we do.  And yet it is not the whole picture.  My old Zen teacher used to say, "the mind is a good servant, but not a very good master.  This sounds a little medieval but there is truth in it. Sometimes the thinking mind is not enough.  Sometimes the thinking mind is the obstacle.

How To Get There 16"x 16"

In this course we have been exploring what blocks us in expressing our authentic creative selves.  We've been exploring fear and hope as blockages to our work.  Pema Chodron says the human condition consists of bouncing back and forth between hope and fear.  To allow our creative voices to speak we need to move beyond these conditions. Working from a place of stillness and spaciousness allows us to be open to what wants to be expressed through us. And yet we can't brush aside or ignore those hopes and fears.  What are your fears about your creative self and work? Do you fear you are a talentless lout? Do you hope it will be easy? Those thoughts flying below your radar might be standing between you and your best work.

On Mountain Time 12"x 16"

The course is a reorientation for me. I have big tendency to work from my head, to muck, to get frustrated, to believe I can't yet hope I will. (I think that last bit should be added to the definition of insanity!) And in the end it is about the having habits that support us and spending time working.  Ultimately our work will teach us everything we need to know if we pay attention. And the process is transferable to the ultimate art, the most precious canvas of our own lives.  Whatever we learn from our art practice seeps out into our life and the other way around. It is a rich, interconnected tapestry that we have the good fortune to be weaving. May your needle be sharp and your glasses never far away.

The Dharma of Art or Two Days In Jeane's Studio

 painting by Jeane Myers

It's amazing how things fit together if you let them. I recently spent a weekend on retreat with Rick Hanson and then slipped below the 49th parallel to spend some time in the studio of Jeane Myers from Art It.  The retreat and the studio time melted deliciously into a unified whole, where painting and dharma practice had the sweet, tantalizing flavour of a favoured treat. The days in Jeane's light filled studio were punctuated with conversations that plunged immediately into the deep end of the pool. "It's not really about the individual piece, it's more about the process and how it connects to the rest of the way we live our life." I'm paraphrasing Jeane here. Yes, yes, I have seen how painting is the condensed milk version of what I spill out in the world.

She asked questions that I stumbled and sputtered over, like "why do you paint?"  This is not casual, filling the space question.  Jeane, a former theatre director is gathering; gathering information so she might help you find that button you dropped on the sidewalk and have been searching for, forever.

Jeane Myers Studio

If you stop by here once in a while you have heard me whine about frustration with my process, how I feel I don't know what I'm doing and that I am never happy with what I paint. (that's the Coles notes on my whinging as the Brits call it).  And there are great similarities in the way I go about my life, hoping for the quick, tidy fix and on to the next thing.  "Distress tolerance" Hanson calls it and it's a muscle I'm working on.

Another studio view

I have followed Jeane's blog for some time now and I LOVE her work. On many occasions I have been stopped in my gumboots as she obliterates a painting that I would have called a keeper.  This fearlessness and dedication to growth and process hooked me.  I see in her a person that is willing to stand on the edge, who rejects security in favour of growth.  In a way, the how she does it, is almost more important than what she does, for me.  But it's what she does that stops the eye and makes it settle down for a closer look.

We are such interesting creatures, us humans. What I told Jeane I was on the hunt for was "form" in my work.  I felt that abstract composition was a big hairy mystery to me, well actually I left out the hairy part.   By hour 2 of our time together a little light started flashing on the internal dashboard.  I didn't really come to learn about form and composition.  I came to learn how to have a conversation with my painting. And isn't that life?  Often what we think we need is not really it.  We just need a wise guide to push aside the tangled branches and show us where the trail really is.

small work I did in Jeane's studio

I needed to be able to learn from my work.  And doesn't that translate into every place in life? If someone can give us the tools, we can fish forever, instead of constantly coming back like a little bird, hoping someone will feed us.  Jeane displayed a razor sharp knack of cutting through the tangle and getting to  the real issue.  And while I had read about this "conversing with your work" I just never really got it.  I had puzzled over John Daidoo Loori's descriptions of standing in front of his work and waiting for something to shift. For me shift never happened, maybe without the f, but that's another story.

Somehow by the end of the first day, somewhere inside me I understood what "having a conversation" meant. By having me constantly turn my work around, it somehow released my busybody, thinking mind. That simple process freed a deeper, inner eye.  Suddenly I felt more comfortable, more connected to the work.  My goodness that canvas and I were chattering away at each other. I teased that I was channeling Jeane.  But in truth there is something communicated energetically by someone who knows what they are doing and has trust and confidence in the process.

Jeane's work waiting to go to the Simon Mace Gallery

In one of her posts Jeane talked about finding the "arbitrary" parts of a painting, the parts that don't work, the parts that detract and weaken the real meat (tofu for you vegetarians) of the piece.  When she wrote about this in her blog, it seemed like she was speaking in tongues.  What?  Arbitrary?  I couldn't imagine identifying the arbitrary.  And yet as we worked and looked and talked, slowly I could see it.  I am still on training wheels with this one, but I have some sense of "the arbitrary".  Before it truly sounded like a foreign language.

It was 2 days packed with so much learning, more than I could ever imagine.  Sometimes it felt like things were being communicated by osmosis.  As a teacher, Jeane displayed a complete lack of ego and  generosity of spirit.  "Here, what do you think is arbitrary in my painting?  How would you do it if it was in your style?"  She was so interested in figuring out the puzzle of what I needed.  My hunt was her challenge.  You can travel a long way to find a Dharma teacher with that same curiosity and attention to the task.

More of Jeane's painted goodness

One of the things that impressed me the most about Jeane was her understanding of how to learn from her process and the actual piece in front of her.  I loved drinking in her positive attitude (no that would be guzzling). At one point she said something like, "you have your pros and your cons. What is really interesting and where all the excitement is, is in the "cons".  That's where the work and growth is."  As someone who has spent a lot of time feeling frustrated by the challenge this was like being teleported to another planet.  Sometimes we have to look through someone else's eyes to be able to really see.

So we never took out a colour wheel or talked much about paints or galleries.  We jumped right off the deep end, me with my water wings and Jeane swimming out in front, calling out that the water was fine and that you could learn a lot from just putting one arm in front of the other.

And while my retreat with Rick Hanson was great, I can't even begin to communicate what 2 days in Jeane's studio were like.  I wish for you all, whatever your art, a mentor, an art spirit that is just the right fit for you, to encourage you and to fish out of you all that is good and amazing. It's in there.  Some people excel at helping you dip into the pond of what's hiding in your heart. If they're like Jeane they actually thrive on the challenge.

Creative Encounters

The word encounter makes me think of extraterrestrials or those infamous groups of the soul baring sort from the '60's.  But I had an encounter the other evening that didn't involve aliens or confessions. It was a simple event at my own kitchen table where I hung out with some paper and a few drawing tools.  In the final chapter of "No More Second Hand Art", Peter London offers up 12 creative encounters and I chose one called "Going To The Infinite Well".  You peruse your home for an object that speaks to you, look at it until you feel acquainted with it and then draw it from memory in 60 seconds.  That's not too interesting is it, really?  But the interesting part is what happens next. You assemble another 59 sheets of paper, a timer and every 60 seconds you draw another picture, but always based on the previous drawing, not on your ideas about the object. It's a bit like riffing off the chords of the previous image.

It's a long, slightly tiring exercise (and London has a few more steps he does after this but I omitted them, partly because it was late by the time I'd finished this). During the drawing process London invites us to look at our reactions, both body and mind.  Did we run out of ideas, get stuck, feel frustrated, get a second wind, get fresh inspirations? When we examine our 60 drawings and look back at the process he asks: "did you uncover some very old ways of working? new ways of working? How did you handle fatigue? Did you make time into an enemy an ally, or an opportunity?" He invites us to look at the evolution of our work, did it get more or less detailed, more abstract?  What was our mood and attitude like?  So much richness to consider.  And as always how we work in our art-life is a lot like how we operate in our everyday life of the family and greater world.

This is an exercise to help us unearth some things we may not know about how we work and what we are drawn to to in terms of image and material.  We can make unexpected discoveries about our art and ourselves in a process that zips along quickly with its aims to disengage or tire the thinking mind.  And the thinking mind gets in the way of what we know somewhere deep inside, in some authentic way.  The thinking mind likes to play it safe and clever.  In art we aim for the eternal, that which comes from deep inside us and speaks to that same place in others. This is what makes great art great.

Now it's confession time.  In the instructions he asks the reader to assemble 100 sheets of paper.  So um, for the person who doesn't always read the, umm, instructions carefully, well they might have made 100 drawings.  So this imaginary person was pretty tired by the end of the not-so- imaginary 100 minutes.  But it was an insightful experience.  I found there were materials I preferred. The black conte crayon was the filthy hands down favourite.  And I found I liked the irregular marks made by using my non dominant hand. My body decided I should change hands when my left, dominant hand got sore.  I also resorted to larger sweeping movements when my back and arm felt fatigued.  So it was interesting to see how the body entered into the equation with its own suggestions which actually resulted in some of my favorite marks.

It also reinforced my feeling that both in paint and mark I don't like the predictable rounded or squared marks that I often choose with my head.  I like something that looks a bit freer, more haphazard than my tidy mind would often produce. The mind occasionally gave up, but mostly it was busy checking the timer, watching to see if anything interesting showed up on the page, always thinking that it didn't know what it was doing.  It's a tough customer that doesn't like to take a vacation on short notice. It seemed like midway some of the marks were more interesting, like a little crescendo, after the initial predictable marks and before tiredness set in.

So if you are curious, all it costs is 60 sheets of paper and an hour of your time.  You might discover some things you already knew about yourself or some that might surprise you.

Painting Into The Unknown

I am book obsessed lately, not with all books, but with one in particular.  "No More Secondhand Art" is becoming a dear friend to me lately.  Perhaps more than a friend...  It comes to bed with me most nights, follows me around the house, keeping me company if I sit down for a little rest during the day, languishing lazily with me in front of the fire in the evening.  I like to think we are enjoying each other's company.  My pen wanders hungrily through it's pages, picking it's paper brains.  I have abandoned all prissy concern for bookishness and leave the tender little volume haphazardly propped open like a small tent.  It is constantly whispering the contents of my mind into my ear.  How does it do this?  It speaks so deeply to how I regard art; every adjective, every verb showing how the bodies of art and spiritual practice fit so beautifully together.

The mind I have come to inhabit in this life time is quick.  I say that not in a pride-full way but as an observation.  It is simply a characteristic of my mind.  And it has been my observation that this quickness does not always serve me well.  This quickness is jumpy and often darts several steps ahead to conclusions that are far from accurate.  This quickness skims speedily along the surface, often missing the depth of perception that slower, more measured minds wind themselves around quite naturally.  With this quickness, comes the quickness to judge.  And of course, measuring and assessing of things in this life has it's place, but judgment has this dirty little connotation, don't you think?  It wanders recklessly through my life leaving it's shrapnel deeply embedded.

In creating art, I have come to learn that judgment engenders a lot of frustration and paralysis. It's like a pesky virus that once it has infected the mind,  is difficult to kick out.   "No More Secondhand Art" has several virus busters for us judgmental types (which includes most of us humans to one degree or another).  The section I am really rolling around on my palette right now (cheap pun intended) is one on approaching the unknown.  It reminds me a little of how the Buddhist teacher Dzigar Kongrtrul works.  He talks about working past all points of like and dislike, until the mind lets go of all that.

Here' how London talks about beginning an artistic encounter (the blank page/canvas) : "Our usual response to any real sense of not knowing is to shrink back from the encounter"  Don't we do this in so many ways in our life, all the time?? He goes on to say, "As a consequence we are likely to fall back upon tried ways and disengage with the actual circumstances we find ourselves in, and rerun past scenarios."  I'm thinking here of the depth of habit, the strong pull of those neural pathways.  And London goes on to tell us what street corner this dumps us out on, all confused and grumpy: "The failure to make contact with the reality we are in causes us in turn to feel out of our element and disempowered. In this dispirited state we certainly do not feel in the mood for creative play or adventures of the imagination."  Man he has nailed this one for me!

I think I have been wandering around in this dispirited place for a long time without clearly knowing how to get out, or not having the patience to explore the corridors that lead out.  London has given me permission to wander around and know that it's okay.  I can just wander around, paint brush in hand exploring the delicate crevices of my own judgment until finally judgment gets tired and bored and the space of "not knowing" quietly sneaks in.  I am seeing that it takes a long bit of time of just mucking about to leave the halls of judgment and just be there with my experience of paint and canvas.  And that's okay.  It may take you minutes to get there, it takes me a long time.  London points out that one experience is no better than the other (thanks Peter, I'm so used to judging my judgmental nature as bad (sheesh that's twisted)).

London goes on to talk about how to "use" the facility of "not knowing" wisely.  "Instead of allowing not knowing to paralyze forward progress, we can see not knowing as a frame of mind that occurs at the boundary line between all that is known and all that is yet to be known... This is the fruitful departing edge for all that leads to discovery."  I love how he can encourage me to come willingly to the edge of what usually provokes fear.  This is the place "where newness enters" he reminds us.

He makes a number of  comments that have been helpful for me in actually looking forward to plunging into the deep pool of the unknown.  Here's a few:

"when all is empty, all is ready"

"trust, not assurance glides us past what we know"

"fear is the symptom that great things are being confronted, the boundaries we take to be safe, good and real."

"it's the pregnant silence around which the world turns"

"it's the zero point from which new things spring"

So are you ready to join me in the place of "not knowing" or do you already slip into this place with ease?

"The Eye As The Lens Of The Heart"

Last week as I nursed a fat ankle caused by some Samurai gardening,  I pulled out my copy of  "The Zen of Seeing" by Frederick Franck.  It doesn't get any better in my mind than when art and Dharma get mixed together, or should I say merged, because Franck joins the two in such a seamless way that you'd wonder why we ever thought they were two separate things.

His work always makes me think if you weren't inclined to draw but loved the Dharma, Franck could convince you that you must get your pencil out.  And if you love drawing, it is not much of a stretch to nod in agreement as  Franck turns it all into a spiritual experience.

I particularly like how he views Zen (or you can extrapolate his point of view to any spiritual practice, I think).  Listen to him: " This eye is the lens of the heart open to the world, My hand follows its seeing..... There is no split between a man's being, his art and what one might call his "religion" unless there is a split in the man"

And because he calls his book "The Zen of Seeing" Franck feels the need to clarify this thing he calls "Zen".  He starts by offering us a quote from, Dogen, the 13th century Sage who is regarded as the father of Soto Zen: "Whosoever speaks of Zen as if it were a Buddhist sect or school of thought is a devil."  hmmm..

Franck goes on to ask, "What is Zen?"

Here's his answer.
Zen is: being in touch with the inner workings of life.
Zen is: life that knows it is living.
Zen is: this moment speaking as time and as eternity
Zen is seeing into the nature of things, inside and outside of myself.
Zen is: when all living things of the Earth open their eyes wide and look me in the eye....

He goes on to talk about how this experiential approach to reality has been repressed, especially in the west, but that mystics and artists have always been in touch with it.

Oh, and by the way if the advertising world has convinced you in any way that Zen is a kind of soap, a perfume, a pair of jeans, an energy drink, or a style of baby furniture made by Fisher Price, you might want to reconsider that.

Go Forth and be SLOW

I have just completed a teleconference class that centred on "Seeking Authentic Voice" with a group of artists, all with deep spiritual underpinnings and an interest in exploring what is "authentic voice" and how do I get in touch with it. How do I grow and nurture this way of seeing and expressing that can only be born into this world through the being that lives in this skin? It has been a wonderful rich and engaging 6 weeks that has opened my mind and heart in many ways. It has tied in very nicely with a new sitting practice I have recently undertaken. It is a sign of Spring and new beginnings for me.

Both the meditation and the authentic voice exploration reminded me of how important it is to have a wise guide, how important it is to have companions on the path. In the case of meditation, after sitting for several years on my own, I am reminded how inspiring it is to hear a Dharma talk each week, to hear the stories and commentary of someone who has been sitting for many years and whose natural inclination is one of joy and delight, how much this invigorates and brings new life to my whole practice. In the artist's group our coach was a gentle guide who helped identify the wisdom and richness of each participant. In both cases I am reminded of how humans flourish with gentle, warm direction, like any living things provided with a nourishing environment, light and sustenance.

In both cases I have learned how important and helpful it is to reframe things in a positive way. I think this aspect can easily overlooked in meditation circles. This is not to negate that sometimes we have difficult emotions or experience difficult circumstances and that difficulties can stimulate growth and discovery. We are not buying a caselot of rose coloured glasses. But I am learning how helpful it is for me to reframe things in a way that supports my energy. I have recognized how easy it is for me to slip into frustration and impatience when things don't go according to my wishes (in the studio and out). By building positive energy I have seen how I can become (as Joko Beck likes to call it) "a bigger container", one that can hold all experience, the positive and the inevitable difficulties. It is all part of the process.

But by taking time to observe this process and see how to work with frustration and impatience before they overwhelm me I find they are indeed workable. It is skillful means to stop and breathe, to take a break, to work on another piece. It is important to remind myself to have faith and confidence in my inner voice, to listen when it whispers to use a Motherwell splat of paint, here or a dark line there, to follow the inner voice, instead of logic which says no, you might ruin that, no that will look silly or out of place. I still find myself putting paint on and taking it off, but without the frustration, without the judgement that I have made a mistake. It is just part of the exploration, the seeking of the mark that resonates.

Our Dharma teacher uses the nemonic of SLOW for how we might incline ourselves in our meditation and I think it applies equally to our art making.

S reminds us of steadiness. We encourage our mind to stay. Just as we want to focus our attention and stay with our breath, with our body, in the present. This is also immensely helpful in an activity, learning to be present with whatever we are working on. Then we can truly hear the whispers of the work, of the materials of our authentic voice.

L for lovingkindness or unconditional friendliness. In any endeavor it is important to be kind to ourselves, to encourage ourselves rather than find fault with what we are doing. Fault finding (as in I'm never going to get this, or whatever negative self talk is our habit) is a discouraging energy sucker. Never underestimate the power of a kind word.

O- Openness to what we experience, just a general attitude and disposition toward life and our work, be it art or mindfulness or both. Being open leads us to discoveries, to find the unexpected, the surprising, the unusual. This is what makes life rich and exciting, this is where we will discover our uniqueness. When we're open we never know what we'll find. When we're closed we are confined by the limitations of what our mind can conceive. And every one of us has experienced the power of intuition at some time or other in our lives. This openness allows us to tap into something much greater than our little selves.

W for wonder or curiosity, what better attitude to have toward all aspects of our life, the sense of wonder that small children often bring to a situation, of sheer astonishment and delight (as in I'm the first person to have seen inside this peanut!)

So go forth and be SLOW! Listen for the quiet building of your authentic voice in all that you do. Have faith and confidence in what may start as a delicate whisper. Mine is often barely audible, and I am a bit like a deaf person, it sometimes needs to repeat itself over and over. But like any good gardener, I plan to nourish it and watch for new shoots. What better thing to do as we head into Spring and the season of cultivation?

There Are Always Openings To Be Near My Own Discomfort & Desire

As part of a workshop I am doing I am spending a lot of time exploring the artistic process. I have become increasingly aware of the struggle involved in the process and my inability to manage it in some way that feels skillful or graceful.

I have also been hearing the call to work in other ways as well as "buddha images". There has been some inner nudging to work in more abstract form and so this is part of my exploration these days. Going off in new directions can be difficult ground to cover, like going off to kindergarten for the first time. Where do I hang my coat and who will play with me at recess?

One thing that has followed me around the studio, in a harassing kind of way is my judgmental mind (excuse me officer, I'd like to file an harassment complaint against my mind).

As part of my exploration I am learning to be more patient and kind as I work. I am building new mind habits, slogging my way out of the old neural cow paths. There are so many elements of this process that are like any aspect of working with the mind, doing good solid mind training.

First I have to wake up to the process and see clearly when I am heading down the well worn trail of self judgment and frustration. Once I wake up and see this, instead of just rushing headlong down that tangled path, and getting scratched and torn in the brambles, I can stop. If I don't stop, what I have learned is that a paint brush and frustration = a mucky, contorted mess. Pretty simple equation.

I have decided that my painting, my canvas is like a living being and deserves the same kind of consideration I might offer to other living beings. I need to ask it what it needs and then I need to wait until it answers. Then I proceed as best I can with kindness and care as I attempt to deliver what it needs (I'm like the milkman, excuse me painting was that chocolate milk? one quart or two?) Sometimes I get the order wrong but I don't have to get (all pissy about it, as my daughter would say). If I am careful I can go whoops, I just gave you a litre of sour milk and some cottage cheese, let me take that back, it's not lookin so good on you)

And so the process continues. I have been following my heart in choosing materials. I love little bits of words from magazines and books, vintage sewing patterns and flat, matte paint. Gesso and conte crayons are calling to me, as are lots of texture and bits of old fabric. I just explore putting them all together. And I am enjoying working in simple neutrals as I explore form. It seems if I put colour on hold I can focus better on form.

I am having this delicious time mixing licorice blacks and smokey greys and whip cream whites. I have been using text as form but also discovered I can apply words so they retain some of their quirky entertaining meaning which is a joy to me.

I don't think you can see the words on this canvas so here's a little sample of how I have been entertaining the canvas with words. Under the circle it reads "Later, I ran into reality and invited him to dinner. There are always openings to be near my own discomfort and desire, no matter where."

In the upper left framing a square the text reads: "Brace yourself, this is where you get to see we all have grace sometimes." To the side of this the text reads: "Everyone has amazing talent which is just covered up while eating ice cream. Regardless of the journey every movement has depth and wings"

And if you start in the upper left of the circle you can follow the story around: "what can you imagine on a park bench by a river. Every word has a world behind it. I catch a glimpse of make believe. Eyes are tricky. It was like seeing the hand which would hold the secret unable to be kept anymore. Walls painted with dreams and intention , life without coincidence had never seemed important to me until that moment."

So that's the bedtime story, kids, stream of consciousness painting. I'm calling it "Every picture tells a story." I'm just learning how to listen

Fallen Giants And Heading Off Into The Wilderness

This giant fir tree decided to give up standing a couple of Friday's ago. A massive, ancient beast, it had been listing for a long time, speaking of its future collapse. With all the rain, several snow falls and the help of a little wind it made it's final descent and is now lying 3/4 of the way across the pond. A neighbour who heard the big bang (of the tree variety) has kindly offered to help when things dry up a little. This is life in the country. Trees grow, trees die. People get out their heavy equipment and chain saws. The ebb & flow of life. Doing the next thing that needs to be done. And when you stand next to a giant like this you get a sense of your place in the universe.

Besides stalking fallen giants (no slaying involved), I've been thinking about art, making art again and wrestling with that process. Why do I wrestle? How can I stop wrestling? These are questions that I'm chewing on. Over at Art It I found a Robert Motherwell quote that rings true for me: "I begin a painting with a series of mistakes." I get that. I paint that. Sometimes the mistakes evolve into keepers and sometimes they get another coat of gesso.

I am chasing down (read obsessed by) the idea of "authentic voice" and to this end I am reading "Creative Authenticity 16 Principles to Clarify and Deepen Your Artistic Vision" by Ian Roberts. There is a lot of great material in this tiny volume. Here is quote by Ken Wilber that Roberts finds holds true in his studio:" Following our path is in effect a kind of going off the path, through open country. There is a certain early stage when we are left to camp out in the wilderness, alone, with few supporting voices. " (That's me out in the wilderness with my friend the fallen tree, well maybe not the wilderness, strictly speaking.)

A little further along Roberts says: "so much of what we do while we paint is a reflection of our character and shows us, for better or worse, and if we choose to see, our true nature. Not taking time to lay in a strong and meaningful foundation may be something that manifests in other areas. Art can be a remarkable feedback mechanism for our life." So with awareness, our art is our mirror reflecting back what we "do", our habitual ways of approaching life. So not only do we develop our art form by spending time working in the studio but we have the opportunity to become acquainted with our true nature. Pretty good package deal wouldn't you say?

Art Appetizers By Frederick Franck

I have been inspired by my friend merci 33 over at her blog to squint and peer forward into the dark corners of my studio. She has invited willing artists to envision where they might want to go with their work. It made me realize I needed to throw things into the art/life blender and whiz them up a bit, to stir.things up at a deeper level and to increase some technical skills. You've heard about the first class, the one I took with Mr. Collage, Nick Bantock.

The second class was with the gentle and talented, island painter, Stefanie Denz. She had such a gentle way of coaxing the best out of each of us in the class, of recognizing our style and playing to that. And she spoke in the wonderful language of someone who lives and breathes art. An eraser became a tool of wisdom. And she waxed eloquently about not talking down to our viewers by showing them everything. "We are painting for the people who want to look, who want to see. We want to make it interesting and exciting for them." We were immersed in her quiet world of enormous art books and a vocabulary of colour, shape and space.

If we'd had cigarettes and absinthe we might have imagined we were part of some heady turn of the century Paris art salon. But this being Salt Spring I munched on salad with hemp seeds and smoked tofu and sipped herbal tea which I was in danger of dipping my paint brush into. The hours skitted by like a single breath and the brush of an eye lash.

In the end there was a single thread that tied both workshops together. It was about "awareness". For the slightly brooding Bantock we were connecting with something deeply intuitive and we needed to focus on that inner sense. In class #2 I realized how subtle and unflinching our attention must be to be true to any subject we want to draw or paint, how what our mind imagines we see, is often very different from what we find when we look at an object and truly see it. Stefanie offered some wonderful reminders about our art, that apply to life: "Viewers will believe anything if it is done with intention and awareness."

The tentative line, the fuzzy edges, the absently created background; all the places where we are unsure of, that wetry to skim over and hope will be okay, the viewer sees them all. Perhaps he/she doesn't know why, but work that contains places where we express our unsureness or laziness contribute to an unsatisfying viewing experience. EEk. There we are, artists, standing without our clothes. Some are more astute at reading the terrain of our naked selves and others just get the feeling that perhaps one of our hips are higher than the other or our mind is on the fight we had with our kids this morning. Our attention is requested every moment, over and over, if we are going to create art that speaks of who we really are and touches the heart strings of another quivering being.

So I was inspired to drag out my Frederick Franck books, for he manages to layer the language of art and the dharma into a delicious and nourishing sandwich. Let me end with a little appetizer whipped up by Franck: "Looking & seeing both start with sense perception, but there the similarity ends. When I "look at the world and label its phenomena, I make immediate choices, instant appraisals, I like or I dislike, I accept or reject what I look at, according to its usefulness to the "Me". This me that I imagine myself to be, and that I try to impose on others. The purpose of "looking" is to survive, to cope...... When on the other hand, I see, suddenly I am all eyes, I forget this "Me", am liberated from it and dive into the reality of what confronts me, become part of it, participate in it. I no longer label, no longer choose. (choosing is the sickness of the mind, says a sixth-century Chinese sage.)." from "The Zen of Seeing"

Art As Spiritual Experience

I have spent the last two days at an art/collage workshop with Nick Bantock, a lovely, sensitive soul who plumbs the depth of his experience in an effort to offer serious practice and direction to artists. He has spent years developing his process, pacing his studio, conducting dialogues with himself and approaching his personal truth with pastel, paint and bits of paper. It would appear that it has been a richly textured journey and he has emerged as a wise and generous guide who shares his gifts with compassion and a twinkle in his eye.

Bantock spent the weekend encouraging us to go deeper, sounding a lot like a Zen monk at many of the twists and turns along the way, playing "Born to Be Wild" and The Clash to try and stupify our inner control freaks and coax out our Johnny Rotten. He reminded us that art doesn't come from the head, it comes from somewhere deep inside. It's about a gut feeling. Our authentic, intuitive self will lead the way, if we let it. It's the old "the mind makes a good servant but not a very good master" idea. Ultimately we are not in control. Sound like the Dharma? You bet.

And he reminded us that the art that truly engages and hooks the viewer speaks from a deep inner core that is at once personal and universal. If we can be deeply authentic in our creations it will speak to others. Look at the art you love, the art that speaks across the chasms of time and culture, what is the binding thread? Someone has reached deep into their gut and scooped out a little bit of their insides for us? How could we not be touched by such offerings?

Bantock skillfully led us through a progression of exercises that showed us how to disengage the mind. Create your own country. What's the population, the weather, the landscape? When we went round the circle we could see how we were skimming the surface; boring, nice,predictable, yawn. He suggested we go for detail, quirky ones. He suggested perhaps we needed some shadows to flesh out the landscape, a trickster or two. He showed us what we were up to, surfing the flat, slick, surface of our little kingdoms. We were awakening to the invitation to go deeper, to find the poignant, touching places in our countries, the ones that speak to the vulnerabilities and joys of being human.

He pulled the final trick from his shock of grey hair when he cunningly cut us loose to create our own works from scratch. I got caught on the "making pretty art" hook. Too much conscious design going on here, too polite, Bantock observed. It doesn't reflect the person I see in front of me. I got it. I understood it in my head. My poor little ego was writhing and smarting but that was fine. I didn't come here for the good housekeeping seal of approval. If I wanted an easy-bake oven I would have ordered one on ebay. Bantock moved in with his scalpel and chalk dust. It was just what the surgeon ordered. If he told me my work was lovely and fine, would I be motivated to stretch? I would go home and keep on doing what I'm doing.

So I have a delicious invitation with my name on it, that I will open tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that. It is an invitation to go deeper; an invitation to open the cage that holds the golden bird of a deeper, more authentic self. Sit a while, have a cup of tea. Breath deeply from the hara. Have patience and faith. Oh, and don't forget the paint and the brush, and perhaps a few bits of paper.

What's Your Story?

"What's your story?" the emergency room doctor asked me. "Everyone has a story," I replied. He nodded and chuckled. My story consisted of a tale of being rear-ended and having some sore parts. (Isn't there a Rudyard Kipling story where a leopard says his spots ache? That was me on Sunday. Having freckles, I have the spots to ache.)

So there you are one moment driving along home with your weekend booty of grocery and art supplies and the woman behind you bends down to scratch her knee and boom, you get a whack on the back of the head. Dharma lesson on changeability. We never know what will happen or when.

I had a whiplash injury many years ago so the first thought was, (after what just happened?) I hope I don't have whiplash. And I could see the propensity to go with this oh, no, fear based dark little drama. And I'll admit to dipping my finger into this dark, enticing little sauce for a taste.

But I remembered something the Dalai Lama said in a piece I read recently. He commented that westerners get so elated when outer experiences are going well and so depressed when things are going badly. And as I looked at what had just happened I decided to try a little experiment. I resolved to navigate this without throwing myself into the deep end of the gloomy swimming hole. How about a little even keel? I asked myself. How about just doing the next thing that needs to be done? No story about how this might turn out and oh no, not my poor body again. How about ditching those habitual gloomy thoughts that stick to me like little prickly burrs in the grass. A little asking for help, a little prayer and an inclination to think everything might just be okay.

So we placed the accident report, found that the local hospital functions as the walk-in clinic and took care of business. I reminded myself not to succumb to my deep seated fear and dislike of hospitals. That's a big one for me. There is a physical and mental positioning that one creates based on fear, expectations and past behaviour. I did not put on that tight fitting black cloak for my walk through the hospital door. I am just doing what needs to be done, I reminded myself. No big deal.

And so here I am a couple of days later, feeling better and on the mend. We got to see the local hospital, meet a local doc and see that it is possible to navigate the unpleasant without adding on a whole lot of extra stuff. So there it is life unfolding and the Dharma showing the way.

Paint A Starry Night Again

Does this look familiar? No it's not another slothful, shameless repost of recycled art. It actually is half of a new painting. It's a custom piece for someone who liked the colours and sentiments of the first, similar, but smaller work. This one is done on a 9"x12" cradled panel with more texture than the first work. I'll have to post the right hand side of the Buddha next time! I find myself drawn to work on board these days because I like how it can hold rough texturing of products like sludge and spackle and other mediums.

I feel a metaphor lurking in the sludgey shadows here. Somehow I am finding it is the roughness,craggy lines and bits of pattern that lend a texture to my work, a texture that adds character and richness, something extra to play with. Perhaps life's textured and rough spots do that too on a grander scale. (Forget the botox, kids, those lines add character!)

We often imagine how we'd like things to turn out, just to our liking; every day sunny, everyone agrees with us, we accomplish each challenge we face with ease. But life often has different plans and sometimes that's where we really develop vision and grow. We can become more compassionate, kinder humans sometimes, after we hit a few rough spots in the road. I heard an executive say one time that he never hires any upper management people that haven't had some sort of rough spot or failure in their life.

When I sit down with the empty board I never really know how a painting will work out, how one colour might show through another, how a rubbed off bit will add some interesting shading, how unexpected outcomes can improve the work (or how sometimes I have to wipe off and repeat and repeat, until things seem done). Life is like that too, good at showing us that ultimately we are not in control, that much is left to serendipity, karma and a bigger picture than our little self can imagine. It's process centred as opposed to results oriented. And sometimes it all takes practice, over and over and over.

So in the same flowing creek of thought that says, you can't stand in the same stream twice, so you can't paint the same painting twice. Working on a piece like this reminds me that we can't go backward, that the flow of life is always onward, and I get nervous when someone requests a specific piece. I have concerns about their expectations. And of course my little self worries that they won't like it. But there it is, practice in a nutshell. Just paint. It always makes me think of the Joni Mitchell quip when people are shouting out song requests to her on the live album "Miles of Aisles", "you know no one ever asked Van Gogh to paint "A Starry Night" again. I'm not so sure of that given the nature of our human tendency to go with the familiar, the known! And of course it is a compliment.

So that's what this little painting reminded me of as I worked away at it. It reminded me that it's all good, that I'm not in control and that I just need to do what needs to be done.

Opening Presents & A Dart To The Heart

This little painting is a work in progress, as we all are. And like us, it feels like it is vulnerable and standing on the edge. Like us, it can go in a variety of directions. The moment always holds both danger and possibility. As my Zen teacher says, "we have more options than we think.

But I will pull back from the brink of the metaphorical. This mixed media piece is a continued exploration of a matte textured background in shades of grey combined with a shiny, drippy enso. This enso has a hint of ultramarine blue with some chartreuse and black. The line drawing of the Buddha still needs work, some refining (as do I, which is part of what always makes us a work in progress!). As I say this I am conscious of that Zen idea of holding 2 seemingly contradictory possibilities in our minds at once. We are fine just the way we are AND we can do better. Is that confusing? Only if we want to carve the world into opposites.

There is so much at play in creating a painting that parallels our everyday life. We are always exploring the background, don't you think? Feeling and creating and responding to the texture of life around us, to what life brings to us, to what we encounter. We move from dark to light and back again (like the little yin/yang amoebas). And like this line drawing of the Buddha we are continually inventing ourselves, drawing some aspects of our character with deeper and more definite lines, erasing and lightening the traces of what doesn't work for us, if we are attentive and skillful enough.

And the recycled pattern pieces in this work open a conversation as we might expect words to do. The dart to the heart... I liked that idea for a variety of reasons I don't need to explain, the piercing of the heart, that tender, vulnerable part of us. But the idea of the "dart" is used in Buddhist thought. The first dart is regarded as the event or instance of suffering. The second dart is the mental anguish we create or "add on" to what happens to us. The idea here being that pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. The other pattern pieces that found their way into this work are the little cutting line scissors that the Buddha holds and the words "back facing" which can speak to us in different ways.

So while life and art talk back and forth to each other, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting, I never start a piece with an intention to "say" something. I become aware of some hinted at meaning as if I was an independent observer. Life imitates art. Who said that? And there is the natural synchronicity of things if we are willing to just look. It is happening all around us, all the time, the conversation between what goes on in our lives and the small things that pop up; our thoughts, our dreams, how the colour of our shoes matches the scarf of someone that we are drawn to, how a line in a poem that we read in the morning, somehow fits perfectly with something that happens to us later in the day.... It is about being open and aware and receptive to life with a capital L. It is after all the season of presents (presence). And as with all presents, they require opening.

What the Buddha Sewed

Here's a new bit of art (16x16" mixed media). It builds on the "Blue Enso Buddha" I did a while back. I've been working with texture, something I've always loved but never seemed to be able to execute to my satisfaction. Ah the distance between expectations and results! Often a very long car trip between the two. But the first step is to wake up at the wheel and realize we're stuck somewhere on that dark little stretch of road . Mostly we start honking & complaining or put our foot wildly to the floor and hope by some miracle we end up where we want to go. Or maybe our style is to put the car up for sale and say we're never going to get there anyway, what's the use?

But in reality it's not about the expectations or the results. We can waste a lot of time and energy getting hung up at those little detours. It's really about the process, the open road, (please no tickets for an over metaphor violation!)

It's about keeping our eyes on the here and now. By simply doing our work, focusing on the task, whatever it is, we not only enjoy the journey but we build patience and perseverance. These are the gifts of any continued work. And in time we'll get where we're supposed to be going. It might be a destination we never imagined. The principle of the spiritual life at work here is: ultimately we're not in control. We do our part and the rest takes care of itself. It takes most of us humans a life time or three to get this.

In addition to my work with texture, old sewing pattern pieces have been calling to me lately. I bought a few, ages ago, at Ruby Dog's in Vancouver, because I loved their transparency and the words and symbols on them. I knew they'd find their place someday. Recently they have surfaced on the top of the flotsam & jetsam pile and I am delighting in them. In fact I think I might have to get me down to a local thrift store and snag a few more!

The other element of this painting is the enso (Japanese for circle) which symbolizes enlightenment, strength and emptiness. Creating an enso is a whole meditative practice, a serious calligraphic art but my relationship to them is simply personal. I have no training in the traditional aspects of how to execute them. I have been mixing my "enso" paint with a gooey substance called tar gel and love the shiny, viscous quality that materializes. I like the juxtaposition of the shiny raised enso against the matte textured background. It's a strange pleasing tension, a slightly surprising combo, not intentional in any way but the result of messing about with materials. It is a following of an intuitive sense, I suppose. So much of what we do, we don't really understand.

So that's been the studio fun lately, following this thread of texture and pattern bits and tar gel. It feels personal and authentic which Leslie Avon Miller talks about on her blog when describing her "mark making" process. It's as if after some time, things start to come out of you, that are you. They are not repetitions of things you have seen or art work you admire, but your own unique voice. It takes time to get there. Lots of just mucking about, lots of false starts, frustration and exploration and garbage cans full of stuff. And we can't make it happen, force our will on it. It's like anything we do in life really, perhaps all of life, for that matter. It takes time for things to brew and steep, to percolate and mature, like any good life sustaining drink worth it's sipping power.

It's also about developing an inner confidence. Not in a prideful way, but in a way that we come to believe in ourselves, in a way that we trust and have faith in what is happening inside and around us. Our friend, the Tibetan teacher, talks about this inner confidence in relationship to our attitude toward life; how we need this to develop our practice. We become the little zen "engine that could". It is not enough to get caught up in the suffering. We need to apply this antidote of inner confidence. And the close room-mate of this inner confidence is faith, I think; faith in the fact that life is not out to get us and that life unfolds as it should, bringing us what we need.

How is your unfolding process going? Things coming out crumpled? Still tumbling around in the dryer? Or perhaps you're holding up something lovely that you never imagined you owned and are as surprised as if you were looking at the laundry of a complete stranger?

Karen Meets Ted - Not Just Another Story

Here's a new little 8"x10" done on a wooden cradled panel. It has a textured background created with something I bought in Toronto a few years back called sludge or something equally appetizing. It's interesting as it's made from waste products that come from production of other paints & mediums (yum!) I liked the idea that we're using this stuff instead of dumping it into the water system or a landfill. To create the enso I tried a little experiment with some tar gel mixed with ultramarine blue acrylic to give it a resin like look. Hope this doesn't sound more like a toxic waste site than a painting!

I had some pieces of old sewing patterns kicking around the studio that I have been itching to use, and well, this seemed to be the time and place for them. Here's the part where zen meets canvas, or board as the case may be... It's about letting go of thinking and being drawn to what feels right for the piece ... walking the critic to the door ... letting go of questions like what would be good here? Just trusting and following.

The piece called out for the line drawing of the Buddha (I have no idea why, like so many other things in life.) And the bits of text... something I love but am not always brave enough to add. The text often gets left behind in some second guessing or when doubt rears it's familiar two headed little self. I seem to be in an exploring mood these days with one painting not looking at all like the last. Ah, the schizophrenia of creation. Is that Sybils signature on the back?

On the Dharma front it seems to be cloudy with a hint of compassion, maybe a 60% chance of compassion today. Perhaps it's the season for compassion, days are getting shorter, all things Christmassy are making their appearance? First there were the monks who worked so tirelessly on the mandala of compassion at the Art Gallery here in Victoria.

Earlier in the week continuing on this theme, I heard about Karen Armstrong's "Charter of Compassion". Then later in the week a friend emailed me a link to the site. If you don't know Karen Armstrong I highly recommend her book "The Spiral Staircase" which chronicles her journey from young Catholic nun to a secular life. Recently she was given a TED award and with it, the recipient gets a wish. Armstrong wished for help in creating a charter of compassion for the world. She sums compassion up as the "golden rule", do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's about taking ourselves from the centre of the universe and putting others there. She talks about how the spiritual life is really about "what you do everyday". If our practice isn't translated into how we treat the clerk at the dry cleaner's or how we behave when someone runs over our toe with their grocery cart then what is the value of our practice? And of course we don't always get it right, but it's about working on it.

Recently there was a good reminder about working with compassion in Tricycle's Daily Dharma. It talked about treating our enemies in the same way we might treat those dear to us. And to me that's a really important nitty-gritty reminder about compassion. As a concept compassion is nice to think about. We can read, we can sit, we feel inspired by the idea of compassion, We feel all warm and cozy but then bingo, someone rear-ends us in traffic.

It's easy to be nice to someone when someone is nice to you or when the day is going our way. The real test of practice is when strangers or people you're not so fond of behave badly. Someone insults us or criticizes us. What do we do then? Are we like the rat in the experiment? Do we bite? Can we count to 10 and let it go? Can we say something firmly but with kindness? There's the cutting edge of practice.

I feel encouraged by people like Karen Armstrong to work on building the compassion muscle, to get out there and lift a slightly heavier bar bell of compassion than I might normally choose. I am encouraged that the charter is out there to remind all of us about compassion. I am reminded of the Dalai Lama whose people have suffered so many losses. He says so simply and directly, "my religion is kindness."

Refining Our Lives

I have reinvented "Bubblegum Buddha". In her first incarnation she had no face or detailing. She was simply an ethereal emanation of a Buddha. I liked her then and I like her now. She has been a resident in my studio for a while and lately I have been reinventing, retouching, adding to some older paintings.

Isn't this a lot like what we do to ourselves? Isn't that the refining our practice, taking the base metal of ourselves and turning it to something precious that shines? As time goes on things call out for attention and/or change and we attend to them as seems appropriate. Not that we are always wiser, but if we pay attention and do the best we can, that's all life really asks for I think. The older faceless Buddha seemed clumsier, this one more delicate and detailed.

So it feels like some stage of life, some point on the path where I am pausing to look back and adjust the work I had previously done. I feel a little more skillful in adding the detail to my paintings. And this seems to be the result that "confidence comes with doing, with practice." The more I paint, the clearer it becomes what needs some tweeking in previous work. So in life. Perhaps the eye becomes clearer, the hand more skillful?

I think I can carry over this lesson into other parts of my life. It reminds me that in Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book, "Outliers" he talks about the 10,000 hour rule. Basically that's how long it takes to develop competency at any craft or activity.

The Dharma lesson that has been arriving at my doorstep recently has to do with my relation to others, mainly friends and neighbours. I have noticed myself becoming irritated in several instances lately and wondering "why can't I be more understanding, more compassionate". As we get ready to put our house on the market I feel irritated at the new tenant next door who has filled the front yard with large plastic toys and hangs towels and mats up and down the stair railing close to our windows. A friend tells me a story that's troubling her over and over again, in great detail. In my mind I know it is my self centred view that makes me feel irritated in these situations. I am thinking about me and mine. I am not thinking about them. I see myself as the centre of the universe and it causes me to suffer.

I am clear that it is not helpful for me or my friend to hear the same story of her problem over and over. I recognize her agitated telling of her story as a fine example of what our minds do. I listen and empathize for a bit and offer the suggestions that most of where we go is speculation and not so helpful. We move on to other subjects. I also realize that I need to hold the neighbours in some space in my heart other than "annoyance" and so I work with this. Only then will I be open to a possible solution to the problem.

So while these things may seem small and petty they are the heart of the Dharma practice for me. ....Working with what comes to you. Working with these small things I chip away at my habitual tendencies and work to free myself from another layer of greed, hate and delusion. The following quote by Chogyam Trungpa seems particularly apt for me this week: "Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy."

nger regard people as a drain on your energy.”

Creator & Critic Find Their Seats

Tatami Dream

Mixed media on matte board

8" x 8"  matte, image size 3.75" x 4.5"

$25 includes shipping in North America

This little abstract piece is done in neutral, serene shades I don't often work in.  I love the feel of these subdued colours of nature but find myself most often working in vibrant colours for reasons I don't really understand.  Art is like that.  A lot of the time you are doing things that are really beyond your understanding, working from somewhere deeper and more ethereal and intuitive.  The really difficult thing  is to not stand in judgement of what you have done.  I find my mind so often wants to rush to "I like, I don't like" and as we all know,  judgement it is not a very helpful companion.  In fact it's downright paralyzing and counter productive.  And yet it is such an habitual response, done in the blink of an eye, without a breath or a conscious thought.  It is not malicious, simply reflexive and lacking in wisdom. 

 The funny thing is you'd think I'd learn because some of the things I've wanted to fling out the window at some point, later become the things I like the best.  These are pieces that I often regard as beyond recovery at some point and yet when I keep on working they are transformed.  I push past the chaos and the ennui and come out the other end.  It is such good practice but always feels so hard at the time.  There I am with my little time manager hat on, wondering if I've wasted hours, wanting the problem resolved.  The sense of discomfort at walking into the unknown is palpable.  And there is no guarantee that it will always work out just because I persevere.  There is no formula, no equation that goes (many hours + perseverance + agitation = success). (This is as close as I get to math.)

What I do know about writing and art making is that there is a creative, intuitive aspect that needs to just be let loose, given free reign.  Sometimes it takes a long time for the creative furnace to warm up and sometimes you produce a lot of smoke and a little fizzle.  But you have to have faith and work without question.  Sometimes that furnace heats up and a spark ignites from somewhere beyond.  And that is when you truly connect with some special energy.  It's where all really great art comes from, the place where the spark catches and flames transmute the ordinary into something flaming and miraculous.  Sometimes (and you've heard artists say this) it hardly seems to have anything to do with them.  You can look at what you've created and be as surprised as a stranger and wonder "where did that come from?'

And there is a second part of the process, the evaluative part, where you do stand back and consider and edit the work.  "No it needs something else, no it looks a bit flat or yes it's good, just the way it is."  It might be the honesty to see that the first 5 (or 50)  pages of writing need to be chucked.   So the evaluator self has value and a place in creation but it seems that it's not good to get it mixed up with the creator, who just needs to move and flow and muck about.  This creator is interrupted by the evaluator, editor self.  They are two different parts of the process.  And I find sometimes there needs to be a good deal of space between the two.  There needs to be some distance before you change hats from creator to editor, otherwise the hats get tangled and you start to feel like the two headed monster from Sesame Street.  It's kind of like when your eyes need to adjust after being in the bright light.  If your inner eye is still in creator mode, the focus of the editor's eye is a bit blurry and unreliable.

Art is such good practice in many ways, so much of what operates as the truth in other parts of our life is there is small bite sized pieces waiting for us as we step through the studio door or sit down at the computer.  It is training in its own way, just waiting patiently for us to wake up.  As my Zen teacher always says, "the eternal can wait forever, how long can we wait?"