It rained here last Saturday night and Sunday morning, oh glorious moisture! Here in the Southwest, we're on high alert for the wildfire season after a dry winter and an early warm spring. Still, the lilacs are in bloom, the bulbs have popped up, and everything is looking pretty green at the moment.
Some days I wish everything would just stop and let me catch up. Sound familiar? Alas, the world goes on swirling and bustling, as it does. In April my annual artists' retreat in Taos helped alter my perspective a tiny bit. I spent the week there working with clay and paper collage. I didn't even take a sewing machine or any fabric!
Why? I have been feeling a little burned out on sewing lately and wanted media that would engage me in a different, low-stakes way. I spent hours wedging and prepping the clay and then worked hand building forms that felt interesting: a mug, altars, a bowl, a box, and tiles. I used my hand-carved stamps to see if they would make an impression on the clay. I carved the leather-hard clay with some of the tools I brought.
It felt like rest.
I may not even fire any of these pieces: the process - not the product - was the point.
For collages I created backgrounds on old road atlas pages with acrylic paint* and my stamps, then used odd bits of paper - scraps from a yearbook, the label from a spool of thread, a needle package, a museum guide, rice paper, off-cuts of an experiment with Evolon, ephemera I'd been saving for "a special art occasion". This was it!
*I was using Golden’s Open Acrylic that contains a retarder to slow the drying down, which worked perfectly in the dry Taos air.
I hope to hang on to some of the feeling of resting-while-making, the "chop wood, carry water" calm that comes from doing rote work. What can you do to capture some of that energy? Can you stop, just for a minute or two, and look around? Maybe find a little beauty?
I'll wait right here for you.
