This time the gray bubbles had a word and it was like this:

"Man, what’s going on here?"

" A lot it seems."

"True. I wonder how it will turn out."

"  Yeah. Doesn’t matter anyway cause we will still be here."

"Yup, that’s true."

" You know what? Maybe the painting it is not about the others but us."

"Whooooaa. That would be cool."

" I know. Wouldn’t that be cool? All the people thinking: ‘Look, there are some yellow bubbles and some blue and pink ones… I wonder what it means’….And in the end it’s about us."

"Ha, ha , ha yeaaaah. Camouflage. We are just "the exception" in the painting when it really is about us"

" Well, it wasn’t about us all the time. Remember? We got painted last."

" Naturally. Sometimes you need the structure first to have a vision."

" Makes sense. A hint so to speak."

" What does it tell us?"

" It tells us to complete things if you look for integration."

" I hear you on that."

Found: Time Capsule of the 40ies

I love these 14 Rare Color Photos From the FSA-OW by Russell Lee and Jack Delano and others from that time. It seems there is no veil between you and the people 70 years back. A time Capsule. Men, women and children are working, fixing, baking and living along. The other end of the world is overshadowed by war and the comparison makes them unique in their peacefulness and innocence. A glimpse of how the 40ies could have been. J.u.s.t. B.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l.

Found: Decadence

I find myself going back again and again to the paintings of Terry Rodgers. The size ( they are huge!), the theme ( an utter reflection of the complexity and ambiguity of life ) and the style ( modern times in retro-composition ).

I would love to see them in reality or own one ( mental note to myself:…need to play the lottery again… )

In his own words:

"In my work, I attempt to reflect my sense of the times we are living in, and both how richly interesting they are and how difficult it is for most of us to navigate their uncharted waters. There is a great push and pull, the lure and the repulsion, the fiction and the real, the known and the unknown. And we live in this swirl of delicate gestures, driving desires, fantasy, economic complexity and interdependence, hierarchical separations, isolation and hope. I am trying to render some notion of this rich fabric. "

I am a total groupie have the H.i.g.h.e.s.t.  R.e.s.p.e.c.t. for his work.

Found: Star Wars in Ice

Andreas Brick, a German sound artist, did some Silent Listening and recorded the music of ice.

"The most striking thing about these recordings is the synthetic-sounding descending tones caused by the phenomenon of the dispersion of sound waves. The high frequencies of the popping and cracking noises are transmitted faster by the ice than the deeper frequencies, which reach the listener with a time lag as glissandi sinking to almost bottomless depths."

An absolutely unique sound experience. I am  fascinated. A. L.o.t.

Found: ATTN

A web page dedicated to the wrong, the inappropriate and the borderline ….and the unbelievable funny. See for yourself.

"Land-shark"

…be prepared, a total timesucker.

Found: Epiphanies in a bundle

Cath Duncan and Michele Woodward called this a podcast about goal setting but I got the feeling it was rather about finding out more about yourself.

Though, I had some comforting thought keys coming to me in a yoga session the Sunday after.

"..ensure that the goals you set are what *you* really want. So many people skip this step and take themselves down the agonizing route of funneling themselves into working hard and trying to make stuff happen when they don’t really even want that stuff…"

"…A thought key is a word or short phrase that reminds you of what’s most important to you right then, rather than trying to focus on all the details of what you want to achieve…"

And when I looked into the True Values pdf, Michele recommended at one point in the interview, I had epiphanies falling on my head like snow flakes on a lake.

This has been more of a visual flotsam this month. I think that’s it so far. Have a great weekend!

I am all about action. I like to work and do and produce because it aligns my mind and body. When I produce I live, when I use my hands to create, when I can effect change, I am the happiest. It works so well that even when there is something really bad going on, I don’t have any control over, it takes me out of the moment and I don’t care as much about it as I did before.

There are a lot of things, I don’t have control over which came in pursuit of my dreams. In a way, my dreams contained me and I am less free than before, but I still have the freedom of expression though the choice of action and non-action in other parts and I am good at it. A suitable painting analogy: I am sure I spend as much if not more time pondering about my work in progress than actually working on it. And I figured that rush, usually just complicates things. I learned this first in work life when I would spend the same amount of time fixing my errors, as I spend creating them in a rush.

But what about a dream that is out of your reach. You can’t touch it, you can’t move it, and you can’t have an effect on it. There are these things, I took a chance on and it feels like sitting on a roulette table, not literally, I don’t like gambling. Anyway, even if it is not gambling in reality, it feels like it because of the prospect of loss.
Loss.Click.

Something funny crossed my way a few days ago when I was reading the movie review of “the last unicorn” because I was looking for waves that where painted in an old-fashion Chinese way and I remembered a scene from that movie.
The reviewer talked about “…learning to value regret and love that exists only within death, …” and another one mentioned in this context love, regret and loss as well. And I remember thinking: Hey, nobody ever told me that was part of life!
When I was whining about all the hardship going on while in a conversation with my Dad lately, he said: "Well, that’s life, isn’t it?"

I think, I always thought the purpose of life was to work myself out of the hardship of it. I expected it to become easier not harder in time. Truth is, things are way harder than 10 years ago. Love, regret and loss – I have had a lot of it and the stakes are still rising.
That’s life, my life but it doesn’t change me as a person. I mean, if I win it all or lose it all it doesn’t really change me. It might change my surroundings, my feelings, my finances, my home, the people in my life but I will be still the same. I won’t lose or win my memories, my experiences, my desires and dreams.

Maybe I didn’t play hard when I was younger because I couldn’t and maybe I will play harder in the future because I can. The strength comes not from what I can lose but from what I won’t. I am not my life. There are a million things I don’t have an influence on, things I don’t own and might lose or regret or love. If it is all taken from me, my life, there is still me and I’d go for a walk in the wheat field, lie down watch the wind moving the ears and start dreaming again just to fill up my life with love and hardship again because this is how things are.
 

 I was taught, if I can’t find the right words it wouldn’t stand in the world. This comes from a place where there is already no room and still – it exists without my help. A beautiful contradiction. 

If I had the words I would use them. The fact that I don’t have words for what moves me makes me choosing a medium that is not bound to words. If I could explain what I was doing, I would be a writer.

When I did presentations in the past I was always taught to explain them. As if the pure act of coming up with explanations would help people to grasp. This resulted in me collecting lukewarm explanation before or after and then doing what I wanted anyway. So why would I even spend time designing these little detours or maybe more important – is it useful for the people with questions in the first place?

If people argue with "right" answers, are there also "right" questions?

If someone would ask me, why is the sky not red, I wouldn’t answer because it is a natural given that skies are blue and there is no point of discussing something that is given and unchangeable. A question like:" Why did you make this line blue in the shape of a penguin?" invokes the same response in me.

Paintings have a language of their own. Attainable in time through observation. I would rob people the joy of exploration if I was able to explain it with words. The moment people ask about the penguin ( not that I ever painted a penguin but you know what I mean…), I was tempted to give solutions and answers where no general answers exist as there is not one language in the world.  I can understand the urge to own what one might not understand immediately to have it in your orbit so to speak, but receiving an explanation will not leave one resolved and understood until the handed tool is not used as well.

So I free myself from the this particular habit of mine to explain the unexplainable, *dammit

…maybe next time I write something about the beauty of contradiction and opposite truths because I spot them everywhere in here but I think I can settle on the complexity of nature for the time being…next time someone asks I’ll say: I do complex art. lol.

*in the spirit of Havi who was able to put it this approach in a more cohesive way on paper..

Found: The Right People Thing

I can read it again and again and still think its stunning and makes me slowly nod my head.

"Because life is not high school. There aren’t any cool kids….There are just people. Who have their own groups of right people.
And you get to belong anywhere where you feel safe and supported.
And you get to choose who gets to belong with you, and help them feel safe and supported….No, seriously. Life is not high school… Business is not high school. Nothing that happens is high school.

Except, of course, for high school."

…and here is Havi’s ship.

Found: Simplicity of life – birth, school, work, death

This is just blatant funny and I am impatiently waiting for his new posts.

“Kid, get used to it. You’re five and a half. The days of fun and leisure are over……its all downhill from here.”

…here is Troyen’s raft.

Found: Context shapes perspective and chops trees

About how it is to live near trees that are offensive and obsessing about choosing the right tool…for trees and in work life. Funny! Nerdy! Fascinating!

"Take a moment and step inside the mind of the brother-in-law. I’ve got several trees I want to get rid of… and what do I have in the garage? Two hammers, a paint can full of nails, some leftover wood and… a saw. Perfect. A saw."

…he rants in repose here.

Found: Where “Willpower” is not a concept that has any place

Eileen wants to walk her path in a mindful way and I like to follow her.

"Learning (painfully, experientialy) that change can only come after acceptance of what is. That observation without judgment is the first step toward creating lasting, positive change. (This stands in direct contrast to my past tendency to try to white-knuckle things into existence.)"

…read her journey from the beginning.

Found: When old recipes are not the same anymore.

It just makes totally sense when Michele Woodward explains it.

"You know I have the idea that we each have 100 units of energy to spend each day. Yesterday’s are gone, and tomorrow’s belong to tomorrow. All you’ve got is 100 to use today. And if you have created day-after-day which calls for 120, you’ve got a problem."

…so I read it all here.

I think that’s it so far. For this past month. Have a great weekend!

091227 Negotiation 18″x36″ acrylic and gold leaf on canvas

Its different, I know but its fun. There is something about waves around stones or music or wave patterns in general that allures me lately.

The color selection was bugging me for a few months now. Whenever I was building a painting together in my mind it repeatedly went something like this:

The Green " Hey! what about yellow and green stripes in the background?"

The Yellow:"Or bubbles?"

The Green:"Or a gradient maybe?!!!"

The Yellow:" I knoooow! Stripes with gradient!"

The Green:" Riiiight!!! AND the stripes have different thicknesses! *clap hands* "

The Yellow:" Fantastic! *jump up and down* "

As you can see, quite annoying and and since it seemed the colors were already having a good time together  I finally gave them a microphone and put them out there. Surprisingly the Pink and Cyan (especially the Pink clung her hands around wouldn’t let go of the mic – the Cyan just went along with it and didn’t care much) were quite happy about this and I cannot see a way to pull them of the stage anytime soon.

Happy New Year to you!!!

You can see a little preview of it on the easel ; )

It took more than a month of pre-preparation to come back from my vacation in the Schoening Castle and it is different. Bright Colors, playful… it’s fun.

Contemplating over this work in progress is like watching clouds and making up shapes and forms. It stimulates my imagination to a hilarious silly degree I wonder what you will find in it. It is almost done, so in a few days you can go on a little imaginary trip of your own.

Oh, and btw …Merry Christmas to you!!!

I am taking a break from painting right now and it is an experience of a special kind. Since March I spend a lot of my free time with my art or educating myself about the rules of the online world and this break felt weird first but turned out to be necessary and a good decision.

The time to reflect, allows other things, new and  long buried ones, to emerge and brings playfulness back into my life that I enjoy so much. I think a lot about the experiences I had with every painting and surprisingly had to find out that there were some I “cramped” while painting them.  At the same time there where others I approached in a very playful way and these where the ones that gave me the most joy.

I remember an artist, I had a conversation with, about how I sometimes wish I could paint highly figurative paintings which I truly value, for one reason of many – because of the skills in handling the medium they require. And I said, the truth is, every time I start these kind of paintings I get bored very quickly and don’t get beyond the sketches. She laughed and said: ” I know. You may not always like first, what you ‘need’ to paint”.

The picture is from yesterdays sunset in Playa del Rey the color palette is unbelievable!

090725 Ripples Blue 24″x48″ acrylic and gold leaf on canvas

After I finished Ripples Red I felt like painting another, bigger one. In the beginning I imagined it red as well but during the week it turned into a deep ocean like manganese blue. Like a wide deep blue sea inside.

Do you remember this movie “The Sea Inside” ( “Mar Adento” or “Das Meer in mir” I like the German title because it implies “within” instead of “inside”) by this oh so well-gifted Spanish director which name I always forget although I have seen all his movies ( maybe not all but a lot ) Alejandro Amenábar? It is about dying with dignity. I remember beautiful but empty, abandoned landscapes -  a cold Atlantic beach shore and a person with an unmovable body chained to a bed but free in spirit and another person that was free to go where she wanted but seemed chained in her heart. Galizier Ramón Sampedro is disabled since his accident 27 years ago but leaves in his mind to visit his beloved sea.

This painting is as true to me as the red one – I could do the magic twice. After I finished it, I felt dissolved and ready to embrace a little break from painting. Over the past weeks I spend much time setting up the new web page ( so you can actually buy my art work directly from me – here and now – and I ship it around the globe   ) and was simultaneously engrossed in painting – the little down time comes as a gift. Sometimes inspiration comes in waves and it just rolls over me – I accepted it.

090720 Ripples Red 36″x24″ acrylic and gold leaf on canvas

I love this painting. After I hung it at the wall I was astonished about its beauty and thought – where did that happen to come from *turning my head to the left and right*?

I worked focused over the past days and it just spilled out of me. It welled up in my vision by the end of the week and I seldom created a piece with such great acceptance as I did with this one. I didn’t question, I didn’t expect, I didn’t lead – I let it be what it wanted to be in every moment – a big surrender to the flow. I also seldom enjoyed painting a piece as I enjoyed painting this one – Pure bliss.