Making Art: The Creative Process

Flooded

Brie Dodson, On Sabbatical — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:23:30 +0000

Well, it's only fair that a sabbatical predicated on an aqueous motif should start with bailing water. Here's where I've been: Swabbing the decks!

My sabbatical began with the reclaiming of a much-loved, calmative former studio space. I've missed it a lot, and I'm glad to be back. Early on, I even posted a sign outside the door: "The Refuge."

The Refuge promptly flooded - again and again and again. I moved in an easel with rubber feet, gave thanks that much of the rest was already on wheels, and continued onward. Tonight I am, in fact, tapping these computer keys in The Refuge, at a spacious, comfortable desk that my husband used throughout his childhood and a bit beyond. Now the drawers are filled with porcelain palettes, printmaking tools, tubes of watercolor paint. The legs of the desk are up on little glides. Good thing, as a bit of water continues to accumulate.

Because I can imagine my husband using this desk as a brilliant, intent young man, it gives me a warm feeling to sit here; but my feet are damp with water that seeped up through the floor tiles, and then through the soles of my normally cozy houseshoes and thick cotton socks.

In the wake of the first flood - a clue that things might not go as planned - came a tsunami of other demands: health problems for a loved one who is reliant on our care; new and urgent needs from others; unwelcome stresses that descended unannounced; many strains and fault lines that had lain buried in the sand before. A painful time.

Well, I'm still here. Now, I hope I'm finally getting down to the business of life: calm, creation, and listening. Those are the things I need.

Lately, I've acquired an insistence on working from life. That's apt, as I have been fairly well desperate to recapture my own life. Most painters, me included, will tell you that working from the life is always preferable anyway; everything you need is right there in front of your eyes, and you have only to see it. That is not the case with working from reference photos, which may seem to capture so much and yet reveal so little. I still prize my trove of photographs, but perhaps for different reasons. More and more I tend to look through a sheaf of visual reference, then put it away and paint what I want to see.

It has become satisfying to work from a single motif, reworked and refined from memory and imagination, over and over; as Degas did in his last works, while his sight steadily diminished. I have waded into painting what is in my mind. The challenge is rigorous, but comforting. And, I have taken a perverse (and characteristic) turn toward obstinacy. I can't seem to paint anything casually any more.

My, that sounds dour. I'm sure the phase will pass.

I'll post images when they are ready. However, the yeast in them is still bubbling away. The heat of the oven raises the yeast's creation to its greatest heights, and then kills it. You can see why I'm in no hurry to go there.

Sea Change

Brie Dodson, On Sabbatical — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:22:25 +0000

It's been a long time since I've posted here. So many things got in the way. Now I'm trying to put life to rights. I've let the waters slip over me, and I'm waiting for a sea change. Here's what Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest to coin that term:

"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."

More recently, we take a sea-change to mean a mystical and profound transformation. Well, this past spring I faced "full fathom five," and a sea-change has been calling to me.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a walk all alone on the beach in early morning. Just me and the sea-birds, a mug of hot coffee, and a warm, smooth rock for a seat in the brightening sun. Best coffee I'd ever tasted. I never wanted to leave. The shoreline, the horizon, the birds gathering unperturbed all around me; that was all I thought about. The only human sounds were my own slow, quiet steps on the wet sand. Nobody hurrying me. I knew it was time to surrender.

So, with the warm support of my dear friends at ECVA, I've embarked on a sabbatical. It's a voyage to a place unknown. I won't come back the same as before; facing down "full fathom five" has called for many changes in my life. I need a permanent slower pace. More quiet. Less stress. More of the right kind of listening - the unhurried kind, with no expectations, only receptivity. More of that "human touch" Bruce Springsteen wrote about.

A good friend of mine, a brilliant light in my soul, laid down one of his last drum tracks on "Human Touch." His hands on the drum set make the song both spooky and compelling. My friend has gone his full fathom five.

One thing I need to do on my sabbatical is understand how dear ones - like my friend, and others - can be here and then not here. But for the grace of God, I would not be here myself. My oldest son, Joren, saved my life. So I need to understand how it can be that I was on the border of here and gone, and then came back. And, how it can be that I gave life to someone who, many years later, literally gave life to me. It's hard to make sense of all that.

Isn't it strange how water seems so important to both healing and change? When John the Baptist immersed Jesus in the River Jordan, Jesus emerged forever changed in the eyes of the world. We are conceived, and grow, in fluid; at birth, we emerge from it - never again the same. Now I've had an extraordinary experience: I've slipped back into the water. I can't help but think of an old Talking Heads song that I always loved:

"Take me to the river, drop me in the water
Push me in the river, dip me in the water
Washing me down, washing me ..."

I need to be in the water, and I need to be healed - and then I need to emerge. And I will be forever different afterward. Water is the sign of change. A sea-change - something rich and strange. I know it is time to let the waves wash over me.

I am grateful to be able to share these thoughts, and these experiences, here at the Sketchbook. I don't know what will come of them. My hope is that they will be of some use to someone. I look forward to posting here as time progresses, and to hearing from those of you for which any of this strikes a chord.

May God bless you all, and give you gratitude for the miracle of life - so easily lost.

Sacred Space: A Studio Visit

Brie Dodson, On Sabbatical — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:17:00 +0000

Welcome to guest writer Gay Pogue!

Gay and I have been trading thoughts about studio space, and she's agreed to share some of her own musings on the subject. And because an artist's words are always much enriched by visuals, here's a piece from her "Seven Sins" series. (To see more of this series, visit Gay's web site, then click on "Gallery Portal" and then "Seven Sins.")

Gay says this about her "Seven Sins" series: "The primitive iconic style of these images invites observers to enter the painting and examine their own souls. These snakes hail from the Garden of Eden -- cheerfully tempting us, without forcing the issue."

And now, on to our studio visit.

Sacred Space
by Gay Pogue

Right now my studio is in a corner of the back guest bedroom. In the past it has been an unused dining room, a sleeping porch, even a closet. When I travel, it is a box full of books and supplies for drawing and painting that I can haul into the motel room if there is time to work.

Is it really necessary to have a studio? Yes. When I did not take even so much as a corner of my apartment and designate it “my studio,” I did not create anything, and I suffered.

Numerous articles and books tout the benefits of a home altar or sacred space. Recently I realized that my studio fulfills that function, operating like something between a chapel and workshop. The right music and a little incense enhance the meditative feeling of the place. The computer is banned from the premises.

Being in that sacred space signals that it is time to engage in the creative visual work that God has assigned me. No matter what I may need to give up, I will never again be without a studio of some sort.

Would you like to share some thoughts and images about your own studio, for possible publication in this space? If so, please e-mail them to me, Brie Dodson.

Art and the Great Flood

Brie Dodson, On Sabbatical — Tue, 22 May 2007 01:33:29 +0000

For many years I spent a lot of time in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, on land with river frontage on a flood plain. Major floods supposedly came once every forty years or so. In practice, that meant twice a year, in a bad year. One learned to listen for the sound of rising water. It tore at everything in its path, rushing past with a roar: a frightening, wild sound that would not allow sleep. One waited anxiously: how high up the hill would the waters rise? Surely the house would always be safe. Wouldn't it? One year, the flood came almost all the way up the hill we counted on for safety. We knew others whose homes were damaged severely.

The next morning, if there had been sleep at all, one woke dreading the first look outside. Still, one had to look. It was almost a moral obligation to confront that which one did not want to know. (A lot like painting.) The result was always devastation. (Not at all like painting.) It took time to learn the full extent of the destruction. Inevitably, the riverfront was reshaped, often drastically. Doesn't that happen to our lives, too, sometimes? In the worst floods, land simply vanished, carved away by the torrent. Other times, the aftermath of destruction laid open new vistas, suddenly bare of trees. The reshaped views looked strange at first. Sometimes it seemed that there was something not entirely bad about the spareness. Still, one never quite got used to it.

I miss the way the riverfront used to be. Way back when, before the floods, I took pictures - never dreaming they'd become precious. No matter how many more years pass, I will never again gaze up-river along the seventh bend of the Shenandoah and see it look the way it used to. Painting it is the only way I know to bring it back.

One tree, old and grand, survived a particularly bad flood only by a knob of painfully exposed roots. The next flood tore the tree away entirely.

One of the worst floods came on my father's birthday. The aftermath looked like a war zone - trees broken like match-sticks, debris strewn everywhere. A few days before, the terrain had been beautiful, idyllic - like parkland, or a nature reserve - shaped and preserved by his constant care. Now it was gone, all of it. My father and I made our way through the detritus, one step at a time, in silence.

Life is like the floods, it seems to me. Life may seem destroyed; then afterward, one slowly perceives new vistas. Sometimes, the new terrain reveals only great loss. What is gone will never return. Other times the views are cleaner, simpler than before, and ultimately one finds a certain relief. Perhaps that relief represents only the cessation of pain. But sometimes, maybe, it is more - the promise of new life. We all hope that, don't we?

And sometimes one is just left picking one's way through the destruction.

Do you paint about the floods in your own life? Me, I avoid it - I fight it as hard as I can, but eventually it comes out, regardless. Can't stop it. How about you?

The Empty Sketchbook

Brie Dodson, On Sabbatical — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:23:28 +0000

I have several beautiful sketchbooks, which I admire so much that my day-bag is rarely without one. My current favorite has a slubbed linen cover in a muted shade of cerulean. Ceruleans are the blues that attract me most of all, and this is the loveliest sketchbook I've yet found. Like most of the others, it is empty.

The sketchbook is an artist's creative wellspring; so why do I sit and stare at the pretty closed cover, instead of busily scribbling visual ideas inside?

Why indeed?

Well, the sketch might not be perfect, and someone might see ...

The sketchbook only has twenty pages, and it's watercolor paper, and I don't want to waste any ...

Gadzooks! I'm in a public place. What if somebody sees me drawing?!

Reminds me of when I practiced piano after class every day in an elementary school's music room. One of the teachers routinely snuck up behind me and yelled, "Don't make a mistake!"

Do you have empty sketchbooks? Do you, too, sit, incapable of action, once the time and the sketchbook - or canvas - are finally both at hand? Is Miss P----- watching eagle-eyed, ready to yell from behind you?

Those are reasons, but I think that more serious factors are often the real issue. Here's a thought trap I often fall into:

1) Time not spent making art is worthless.

2) Thus, if I am not using my time to make art, I am worthless as an artist.

3) Therefore, any art I might make is also worthless, so I might as well not make any.

That line of thought can damage an artist's morale, spirit, and ability to create. It is guaranteed to leave me staring at the beautiful blank page.

Wrong premises lead to wrong conclusions. I am trying to learn that time spent away from art is important, even restorative. Time spent doing nothing - just sitting quietly, gazing and listening. Time spent soaking up sensory delights: a delicious meal; a vibrant farm market; the sun on one's face; the warmth of good company. God spent the evenings in Paradise simply walking in His garden.

Oddly enough, I have one sketchbook that does get used. It's not so pretty that I fall into thinking it's for show. Instead, it's unobtrusive. I always have it with me, and I never leave it around where anyone can look inside. It's private and it's mine. I paste things in it - clippings, images. I write in it - ideas for paintings, random thoughts, and possible titles (recently I gleaned a list of nearly two dozen from the Song of Solomon). And sometimes I sketch in it. Most of the sketches aren't terribly presentable. But I do go back to them, over and over, as the raw material for paintings. Even the most rudimentary sketch or written note brings back the visual memory, the day and the moment. This sketchbook is deliberately un-organized, and that makes it all the more useful to me. In fact, I have three decades' worth of these private sketchbooks. Funny how easy it is to open one of them and go right to something remembered from years ago.

Do you suppose God has a sketchbook? I rather doubt it, myself. But I can imagine Him looking over my shoulder, saying "Hmmm," at mine.

The Art Process

Jan Neal, ECVA Program Director — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:52:13 +0000

Check back for conversation concerning the process of creating art, the insights, lessons learned, and more.