the light, Monotype of the Day #391

Day 26 of Year 2

I wanted to work more on last night experiments, but again my ink had other plans. I've noticed over the past month that the images coming through are much more peaceful. I feel them slowly changing me as a river erodes a rock, carving out a space for this new energy to enter my life.

A Celtic Blessing of Light
By Anonymous
May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within.

May the blessed sunlight shine upon you and warm your heart till it glows,
Like a great peat fire, so that the stranger may come
and warm himself at it, as well as the friend.

And may the light shine out of the eyes of you,
like a candle set in the windows of a house,
Bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you - the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up,
And shed their sweetness on the air.

And may the blessing of the great rains be on you,
that they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool, and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of the earth be on you - the great round earth;
May you ever have a kindly greeting for people you pass
as you are going along the roads.

And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly.” https://allpoetry.com/A-Celtic-Blessing-of-Light

the experiment, Monotype of the Day #390

Day 25 of Year 2

Today I had another really lovely studio visit. It's always such a pleasure to have people over and get to know them better. During the visit we looked through some monotypes from a particularly difficult time with my health. It was wonderful to see how far I've come and I'm grateful I have moved past that time. But seeing those images again felt like a weight. It's not good to carry that energy around, so I decided to let loose in the studio and play to dispel it. I started experimenting with overlaying images last night and pushed it a little farther tonight. There is a certain excitement that comes when you have absolutely no idea how something will come out and no expectation of creating a "finished" piece. It's strange that something so benign can feel so risky, but it does. Really all of life can be found in the studio, love, grief, joy, pain, adventure, risk, courage, it's all there for the taking.

Hawks
By Lynn Ungar

Surely, you too have longed for this --
to pour yourself out
on the rising circles of the air
to ride, unthinking,
on the flesh of emptiness.

Can you claim, in your civilized life,
that you have never leaned toward
the headlong dive, the snap of bones,
the chance to be so terrible,
so free from evil, beyond choice?

The air that they are riding
is the same breath as your own.
How could you not remember?
That same swift stillness binds
your cells in balance, rushes
through the pulsing circles of your blood.

Each breath proclaims it --
the flash of feathers, the chance to rest
on such a muscled quietness,
to be in that fierce presence,
wholly wind, wholly wild.

the arrival, Monotype of the Day #389

Day 24 of Year 2

I really love working from the ink left over from the previous night's plate. When I changed inks in May, the ink was too stiff and wouldn't give up a ghost print (a second, but lighter print from a monotype plate). But I've finally gotten the consistency worked out and it's such a joy to have this way of working back. You learn many lessons while making art, not the least of which are never give up and patience. If something isn't working, I set it aside and practice patience. In art as in life, you can't force things to turn out the way you want, but this doesn't mean you have to give up. You can hold your intention and wait for the proper time remembering everything cycles. Have faith.

Seek patience*
By Maya Angelou

Seek patience
and passion
in equal amounts.

Patience alone
will not build the temple.

Passion alone
will destroy its walls. *This poem/quote is all over the internet. I didn't get it from a book and I can't find any source for when/where it was said. However, I also don't find anyone disputing Maya Angelou said or wrote it. Anyway, I love the sentiment none the less and I'm ordering a book of her collected poetry to explore her work more. xo

the artist is at peace, Monotype of the Day #388

Day 23 of Year 2

So today I had someone advise me to stop writing posts with my images. They had never looked at my work, they just thought writing about art is boring. I was irritated, I won't lie. ☺️ You have to develop a strong backbone to be an artist in the world. So many opinions, most from a place of trying to help, but some that try to pull you down and control. I planned to make a piece titled "the artist stands up for themself", but as you can see the ink and the Artist (with a capital A) had other plans. The artist (with a small a), that's me, had no choice but to follow along. Some images are instructions to the artist. This one is demonstrating a place of peace and emptiness that comes from detachment. Art is a calling and I do what I must. Once a finished piece leaves my hands though, my job is done. The world is encouraged to have it's opinions, but an artist must hold the space for more work to flow through and not get distracted by the judgments of others. xoxo

hanging round, Monotype of the Day #387

Day 22 of Year 2

The hanging person is back. The meaning of this symbol is not clear to me yet. I only know it needed to be made again to stop it kicking around my head demanding attention. Images are like that, they are not passive. Some float through without much ado while others pester you, throw tantrums, and generally make trouble until their message is heard. I hear by making.

The Law that Marries All Things
By Wendell Berry

1.
The cloud is free only
to go with the wind.

The rain is free
only in falling.

The water is free only
in its gathering together,

in its downward courses,
in its rising into the air.

2.
In law is rest
if you love the law,
if you enter, singing, into it
as water in its descent.

3.
Or song is truest law,
and you must enter singing;
it has no other entrance.

It is the great chorus
of parts. The only outlawry
is in division.

4.
Whatever is singing
is found, awaiting the return
of whatever is lost.

5.
Meet us in the air
over the water,
sing the swallows.

Meet me, meet me,
the redbird sings,
here here here here.

the spotlight, Monotype of the Day #386

Day 21 of Year 2

I had to pry my eyes open to make this one. Busy week and I am sleepy! There was blue ink left on the plate from last night. I couldn't bring myself to remove it, so I included it instead. Normally that would be called a ghost print, but I added black ink in on top so I'll just call it a partial ghost- making it up as I go along. ☺️ Flexibility is key to my process. Traditional printmaking can sometimes be a little rigid. There are rules and ways of doing things that allow for the creation of beautiful prints. But, to be blunt, I suck at following rules. I purposefully make sure my plates aren't squared off and that images make their way off the edges. It's so easy to allow your mind to create boundaries on what you can or cannot do. Mental boundaries are the hardest to fight because we often don't know they are there. One good tip off is when work gets repetitive. Symbols will always repeat in different contexts and with depth of meaning but when the context becomes fixed, then you have problems. I find tackling big problems or reaching for big goals will break mental boxes. Artists need to dream big, it keeps you awake and alive. I'm still having trouble keeping my eyes open so hopefully this is coherent! ☺️ . xo

The Flute
By Kabir, Trans. Robert Bly

Friend, wake up! Why do you go on sleeping?
The night is over— do you want to lose the day
the same way?
Other women who managed to get up early have already found an elephant or a jewel...
so much was lost already while you slept...
and that was so unnecessary!

The one who loves you understood, but you did not.
You forgot to make a place in your bed next to you.
Instead you spent your life playing.
In your twenties you did not grow
because you did not know who your Lord was.
Wake up! Wake up! There's no one in your bed—
He left you during the long night.

Kabir says: The only woman awake is the woman
who has heard the flute!

the search, Monotype of the Day #385

Day 20 of Year 2

If you keep seeking the jewel of understanding
by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir, trans. Vraje Abramian

If you keep seeking the jewel of understanding,
then you are a mine of understanding in the making.
If you live to reach the Essence one day,
then your life itself is an expression of the Essence.
Know that in the final analysis you are that
which you search for.

the hands, Monotype of the Day #384

Day 19 of Year 2

I've been posting a lot of Dorothy Walters poems lately. Her work moves my greatly. It is proof that art, whether it be painting, poetry, dance or etc., matters. Her work has changed me as has the work of so many other creators. I am grateful and I hear the clock ticking. Dive deeply into your work, you too can change the world.

Travel in my Palm
by Dorothy Walters

all the soothsayers
and astrologers
say I have travel
in my palm.

Yet I never
go anywhere
but here.

But this is where
it all takes place,
this going back and forth
between the realms.
Is this what they mean?

the artist holds space, Monotype of the Day #383

Day 18 of Year 2

I have a lot to deal with, everybody does. Sometimes though, the amount of time I use each day to manage my illness feels overwhelming. This forces me to make conscious and wise choices about how to spend the rest of my time. I am grateful to be reminded not to squander time but to live. It's tricky though because when your body isn't cooperating, your mind can begin to box you in too. You can easily create more limits than your physical state requires. To hold that space open, to have fear but act anyway, is a muscle that must be worked everyday. So much of life is about the space and freedom we allow ourselves in our own minds. I know I have physical limitations and an illness, but I have never thought of myself as a sick person.

cycle, Monotype of the Day #382

Day 17 of Year 2

Searching for the calm in the whirlwind of life. In all the ups and downs there is a silent calm center that calls to us. This is the place I find in my studio. Today's poem is about the beautiful messiness that surrounds the quietness.

Pray
By Pádraig Ó Tuama

So let us pick up the stones
over which we stumble, friends,
and build altars.

Let us listen to the sound of breath in our bodies.
Let us listen to the sounds of our own voices,
of our own names, of our own fears.

Let’s claw ourselves out from the graves we’ve dug.
Let’s lick the earth from our fingers.
Let us look up and out and around.

The world is big and wide and wild
and wonderful and wicked,
and our lives are murky, magnificent,
malleable, and full of meaning.

Oremus.
Let us pray.

From https://onbeing.org/programs/padraig-o-tuama-and-marilyn-nelson-a-new-imagination-of-prayer/

at sea, Monotype of the Day #381

Experimenting with printing on multiple plates at one time. It’s a lot of fun and it’s stretching my brain in a new way which is excellent. We are here to grow. Embracing change as it naturally unfolds in our lives and, for the artist in their artwork, helps us grow. There are moments of vertigo as an artist jumps into the unknown. However, artists who have faith in the process of working know that any discomfort is temporary, the Artist (with a capital A, universal source of all creativity) will embrace us and provide. Just show up and keep on working, all will be well. Tonight’s poem expresses it perfectly...

The Avowal
By Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
free fall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

beginning to see the Light, Monotype of the Day #380

Today I will. . .
By Stacy Stall Wills

today i will give my desire for
permanence the day off
and sit in a chapel
made of twigs and spit
today i will give my desire for
certainty the day off
and dwell in the place
of not-knowing
today i will give my desire for
security the day off,
open the windows and
let in the breath of fresh air.

Find more of Wills poem at http://www.amagicmomandhermandalas.blogspot.com/

internal sunrise, Monotype of the Day #379

Day 14 of Year 2

It is comforting to remember there is a rhythm to the world that beats on whether I am there to hear it or not. The sun rises and sets without needing me at all. It takes so much pressure away to know the world doesn't revolve around Sybil ☺️, sometimes that's easy to forget! I can continue to do my best to be loving and kind in the world, but if I fall down and fail to meet my own standards, it's ok. Life goes on. The sun rises again and tomorrow I get another shot. As the alchemists taught, as above, so below. The internal rhythm echoes the external, energy/vision/will/satisfaction, you name it, rises and falls. In those falling times, I only have to look out and remember that just as the sun rises each day, my inner life will cycle back. Every ebb leads back to a flow. So I take heart and always wait for my internal sunrise.

Morning Poem
by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches --
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead --
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging -- there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted -- each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

the delivery, Monotype of the Day #378

Day 13 of Year 2

I'm feeling really grateful tonight for all the support I've received throughout the entire monotype a day project. I've been amazed this last month or so because I've sold 10 monotypes so far. 🤸‍♀️🎉 An artist has to find inner validation for their work, but I won't lie, it feels fantastic to know so many people value my art! I am so grateful and I will remember everyone's generous comments, purchases and good wishes over the last year+ next time I hit an ebb in the studio. I am mining the same vein that I have been at since I was a young child. Faith in working has always keep me strong. Tonight's poem expresses what I feel about this perfectly. (PS. I've fallen in love with a new poet!)

The Way It Is
by William Stafford

There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.

down below, Monotype of the Day #377

Day 12 of Year 2

I ran out of cream paper and am forced to temporarily work with this greyish tan, which I love for black and white but which doesn't give full credit to color. I've really been very busy lately and although I've pulled back, the effects are still being felt- lack of inventory upkeep and I also took a 4 hour nap today.😀 I wonder about busyness. It's more a state of mind than it is a long list of todos. If your mind is calm and clear a long list of todos doesn't get you buzzing and stressing. Part of making art is the practice of sitting through discomfort and a buzzing mind to get to the stillness where creativity lives. I see how I create busyness to escape that place even as my life is built around finding it.

The Runaway
By Dorothy Walters

The Place you are right now
God circled on a map for you. - Hafiz

The poet tells you
god has put a circle around you on a map
to locate you in sacred space.
Then why do you keep tunneling
underground,
carving labyrinths for your escape?