Drawing Five:
Notes -
well
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
i made some more pictures, and i am not too impressed with them. maybe i like this one ok...
the picture came to me days ago, and was astonishingly hard to draw and even harder to finish... partly because i flat out did not know how to draw what it was i was seeing in my mind, and partly because once drawn and colored it didn't look right and i had a very hard time figuring out just what was needed for it to feel satisfyingly complete
but...
i guess i thought they would blow me away, or that i would be impressed with them, or that i would be in awe - like i was with drawing #2 - or something.... but... i feel a sort of let down, deflatedness
anyway but i went ahead with them anyway, even when i saw that they were not taking shape in a way that really made me feel good about the words "artist" and "shirley" in the same sentence together. in fact, i began to feel somewhat demented as i was drawing them. demented and, yes, brave...
brave because i went ahead and finished them anyway, brave because i claim them anyway, brave because i did not try to fancy them up, or fix them up, or jack with the integrity of the idea in an attempt to make myself like them
one problem has become my dirth of colors. i need more colors. definitely need a larger variety. one strikingly absent color is gray... miss that gray... silver too... miss that one ...
and so another way i know i am brave is that i claimed them, named them, signed them, scanned them, and am now going to attach them to this email and i am going to send them. i wonder what you will see in them....
About this blog
Several years ago I did a series of 99 drawings that I called Middle of the Night Art. That series, and the dialoge between my sister and myself brought me to a place where I finally began to really understand my art, my spirituality, and a sense of who I am in the world. I'm sharing the art and that dialogue here.
My sister's responses, as well as my own, are posted as comments. And I'd love to hear what anyone else has to say.
My sister's responses, as well as my own, are posted as comments. And I'd love to hear what anyone else has to say.
Check This Out!
Categories
- About Us (1)
- apple (1)
- Blue Plate Special (1)
- brick wall (2)
- broken open (2)
- car (1)
- coming out (2)
- Do we really have to come out (1)
- driving (1)
- Driving My Car Off The Road Into Nowhere (1)
- eating (2)
- fence (1)
- fish (3)
- food (2)
- gate (1)
- Gateway (1)
- growing (1)
- Inside My Heart (1)
- Leap and a Net Will Appear (1)
- net (1)
- night (1)
- Ooohh Nooo (1)
- plate (1)
- stake (2)
- swallowed (1)
- The Art Itself (2)
- Title Page (1)
- tree (2)
- Whoa Nelly That might hurt (1)
- worms (1)
Posts
4 comments
Comment by Shirley Twofeathers on September 10, 2010 at 7:04 PM
Having trouble making the comments show up!!
Comment by Shirley Twofeathers on September 10, 2010 at 7:11 PM
Grace said:
Jesus God woman. You are crazy if you don't see what I see. These are some powerful images. That shit you are hearing in your head is very dangerous - stop looking with your eyes and quit listening to what your head tells you. The real you is getting some air time and your intellect is a tyrranical jealous brat who is whining that these pictures do not measure up to ME. Of course the mind would reject them - they are way, way too real for your mental programming to handle. Safer to be a wannabe. Brave indeed to believe what is true and push through. There is a scary amount of power in your pictures, and I guess if I were cornered into labeling them, I would have to say there is a truth in them, the truth of something enormous. I can't quite comment on them yet - they need to sink in. When I see Siba next, she will be anxious to see them. Her comments will be enlightening I am sure.
So you do one picture and it satisfies you and you think - hey this is easy. The hook in your fish picture - what a great metaphor. And then, you have to sit down and do the next picture. I guess this is when you land on a plank and the fisherman takes a boning knife to you.
And here is the work - the work of plowing through all this not-quite-IT-ness. Artistic people cannot DO this work - they can sit and imagine art and they can sometimes appreciate art and they can yak endlessly and with highly erudite opinions about art, and artistic people pine away for what might have been if only this or if only that. Usually involving if only I had the time, the space, the right materials, the money, the resources, the... blah blah. As Siba said to me once when I was telling her I was stalled out searching for the right kind of colored pencils - well if Jesus wants you to draw, you need to use what you've got even if that means you put a crayon to construction paper. Well slap me in the face...
Now, when I get restless and I start looking around for something to use - like a certain particular book or photo - if I can't instantly find it, I know that God wants me to just dive in alone without a crutch using a crayon or a #2 pencil from Peter Piper Pizza. He wants me to draw a donkey that looks like a mutated deer. Well okay. Fine.
As compared to artistic people, Artists sit in this dismal place and hack away - hack, hack, hack. That is how I see myself now, at long-long last, with a machete and a great big determined frown that is making indelible lines on my forehead. It is miserable and it is discouraging - it is uncomfortable and sweaty - mostly messy - and the rewards are not immediately understood - there is no clear destination toward where we are hacking and when we finally surrender to the fact there is ABSOLUTELY no end to this means, we come right down to the act of hacking through this horrid underbrush ANYWAY and THAT is the source of all alchemy.
This is the gift God has given you and me and it is not wrapped in silver paper - it is hard, sometimes impossibly discouraging hard work we have been given to do, and we are being told in no uncertain or ambiguous terms, HERE bear this fruit or curl up and die as mere artistic persons.
Comment by Shirley Twofeathers on September 10, 2010 at 7:19 PM
OK
you win
your passion overcomes my discouragement
well and i think if you flip the order of the pictures around they tell a kind of a story....
but then maybe that puts too much pressure on me to "orchestrate" a continuity...
so while i may toy with the order of the pictures
i will keep them stored in the order in which they appeared
one day
if this becomes a book
or a something else
then i may put them into an order
and recognize the story line
besides i am not quitting nor am i going to listen to my eternal critic
i am not even going to think of being done with these little pictures until i have at least 100 of them completed even if the next 94 are totally stupid
i will keep drawing them
even if i am embarassed and ashamed and totally hate them
i will keep drawing them
this is what i say to my self now to keep myself going
and so its ok
and i am glad to have someone who can see what you see in them
because it encourages me
and yes i know that you see/feel/hear/whatever god sitting next to you when you do your art
i do not have that sense at all
at least not yet
and it really doesnt matter if i can know it or not
it is enough for me that you know it for me
well, i am going to eat some food, play with my sims recolor project for a while, pack a lunch, maybe i will remember to brush my teeth and comb my hair, stop by and say hello to the kids and see if i got any mail, and then head off to my night job which now consists of helping people say mostly stupid and lots of times mean shit to each other and drawing pictures for God, what a strange life i am living right now
Comment by Grace on September 10, 2010 at 7:20 PM
Do I really have to come out of here? Again that bigness - this subject is huge. The stick was very reminiscent of a big hypodermic needle to me - and I got this strange feeling that what I was witnessing looked kind of bad but it was really good it was happening. Half freedom for the little imprisoned little golums, half being rid of these parasitic persons. You are very sympathetic to them and so we feel this. And the net again and you wonder if the person has been caught or if the net is for the little golums - the hand again - very strong higher presence - inevitable, unwavering - this will happen. The body very broken, cracked and damaged, and the impression is that the stick alone did not do all that damage - and yet on the inside of this broken person is deep magenta and it radiates light where the stick touches it. The little guy coming out with his hand out is very soul-less, dead, just purely needy. So the minute you look at him, really look at him, you switch over to the side of this violence is all for the good. Yup - there is a sense that it is about time something like this happens...