Collaborative Art

Remember when I shared the Letters From Rapunzel page from the collaborative book my sister, Ruth, and her friend, Jill, are making? Here's how that page got transformed into the next collage, based on Shakespeare's play, The Comedy of Errors. I especially loved how Jill twisted the post office box numbers "5667" around, making them part of "errors" on the page. (For example, the 5 becomes 5aktz, a misspelling of the five acts of the play.)




The artist, Jill Smith, says this:

"I probably should make up some exciting way the numbers you gave me immediately made me think of this play, but that would be...shall we say...an error. This time I picked the theme and figured out how to make the numbers work (more or less.) I picked Comedy of Errors primarily because we went to see it together and I enjoyed it. .....I like the idea of confusing or playful themes and added some "famous twins" images. ...The broken pieces of paper on the page represent the broken lines that start the tale and the gold chain...represents everything coming together... I used various image transfers and color laminates to connect with the concept of illusion or appearance vs. reality.... The seven sticker is supposed to be a question mark and the other numbers relate to other errors or misunderstandings on the page....

Here's her statement in its entirety, but you'll have to click on it to enlarge it enough to read it.

Artist of the Week: Ruth Lewis

My sister, Ruth Lewis, surprised me last week with this amazing image:

It's from a collaborative art project she's creating with a friend. Each page of the book they pass back and forth is a collage of images, created in response to a book or story that the artist chooses. One rule (maybe the only rule?) is that the receiving artist must use one item from the previous page in her creation. This is what my sister wrote to her fellow artist upon finishing her piece of art:

"I was waiting for the right item around which to build a page about my sister's book, and you gave it to me when you passed the Ace of Hearts. One of my favorite parts of "Letters from Rapunzel" is the theme introduced when Cadence finds a note written by her father: "You must be willing to have your heart broken in order to live."

"The Ruby Apple" tale ends happily ever after when a daughter saves her father's heart—not by protecting it, but by planting it in the Royal Orchard. In "The True Story of Rapunzel", a farmer boy offers to plant one of his apples so that it will sprout a tree tall enough for the in-towered princess to pick fruit.

Finally, her father urges Cadence "Promise me you'll always listen to your own heart." Wise advice."

I can't tell you how much I love this. Be sure to click on the image, so you can see all the details. Ruth made those authentic-looking fortune cookie sayings, so she could put words from my book on them. There's writing on the bridge, too: armed with only poetry and tears. (If you've read LFR, you'll know where those words come from.) And the broken-open heart at the bottom: I keep seeing it as one of my red pencils, split in two, a reminder of how writing and art---and the response to them---breaks open everyone who's willing to live.

Thank you, Ruth.

Artist of the Week: Jacquelynn Buck

Artists need images of their finished works in order to promote them, and they often need at least one decent picture of themselves, to put with a bio or on a website. But most artists (and writers) I know would sooner drink paint than go to GlamourShots.

That's why I think Jacquelynn Buck has a huge career ahead of her. She's the photographer who took my picture, there to the right. She also took this black and white one at my website, and this one for my book jacket. Sorry for all the linkage to me, me, me, because I don't really want to talk about that. I want to tell you that the afternoon she came to my house was pure play. It helped that she was my friend, of course, but it was more than that. She thinks like an artist; she is an artist. We laughed as she worked, and I felt comfortable revealing who I was, which is no easy feat. And so, to those of you who think I'm "genic" as Robin put it, not so. I have many, many pictures of me that I hate. (Ninth grade yearbook photo being prime among them.) The reason the pictures turned out well is because of Jackie.

So, it's no wonder that other artists have hired her to do their visuals too. Here's the "Artists and Musicians" section of her website. There's a sculptor at work, a painter, a guitar player, a duo of singers, and a flutist. (I also love her creative portraits in "Outside the Box." And look at these wedding photos!)

And now I see that she has done coffee table books documenting several artists' work, and that she does all the scheduling for a community art space called Art in Motion, with the coolest sounding workshops. (Painting Poetry, anyone?) And that's not all. She sent me an email saying that she and painter Mike Elsass are opening a gallery in Dayton, Ohio, with the plan for it to "adjoin a very trendy restaurant in the downtown district and maybe really start the arts district here."

Jackie, I had so much fun getting my picture taken by you that day. You told me while you worked that you wanted to explore what you could do with your new digital camera. Girl, you've taken it way, way outside the frame.

"It is in the empty spaces between the dots that the illusion of character arises"

Learning how to draw changed my life.

I'm not saying that I became a great artist. And I'm not saying that after reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and signing up for "Drawing I" with David Barnes at the Newport Art Museum, that I had any true intention of changing anything. The entry from my journal that day says this:

November 21, 00
I'm curious to see if drawing brings me ideas and characters, if drawing will prompt me to write. Or gives me new insights into actual stories, not just the general theory of writing. I would think the emphasis on seeing in drawing would serve me well as a writer, help me with detail, as well as proportion and relationships. And the idea that we often do not see because we label and generalize is very applicable to writing–that’s how bad poetry is written, clichés, stale characters. If nothing else, I think drawing could be a great method of turning off my left brain before each writing session, of relaxing, of being receptive.

Then came this:

February 2, 01
Drawing class was rewarding yesterday. We worked some more on proportion and perspective and I think I finally have gotten the idea of it. My last drawing of the day turned out pretty well. I've been working only in charcoal, but today I brought drawing paper so I can move off of newsprint and use a pencil also. I also bought a drawing board to secure my paper. I peeked at my drawings from yesterday and they give me great joy. I'm so pleased with them, as raw as they are, because they seem so alive.

This:

March 13, 01
“A painting–like writing–is a problem with too many solutions and not nearly enough rules.” W. J. Innis

“Readers naturally try to connect the dots you’ve drawn; it is in the empty spaces between the dots that the illusion of character arises. Those voids between points are taken to be the mysteries, the vagaries, the tinctured nuances that lie at the heart of human personality” M.T. Anderson

This:

May 02, 01
After drawing class. Feel like I’ve been beat with a stick. Struggled so hard and I'm so far behind. I keep hoping for that magic moment when it will all click and I’ll be great, but it isn’t going to happen. I’ll never be fabulous, never even scratch the surface. I hate being unable to do something I love. It’s like I have a brain disorder, and what my eye and brain see, my hands won’t draw.

Except sometimes, they do. Sometimes, I lose track of time and I'm just drawing. But how to get there? Practice, practice, practice–I know the answer. Practice, so that when the fear comes, I'll recognize its ugly face and the feel of its hands on my neck. I know you Fear, I'll say. I know you can’t kill me, and I know I can’t get rid of you either. I can only walk on despite you. I don’t even think it helps to spit in your eye, to challenge your hold. I must embrace you, Fear, know you intimately–all your tricks.

This:

May 30, 01
The only thing I have to do is convince myself it's worth holding on, and that it doesn’t matter how stupid I look. I'm willing to look stupid in order to learn how to draw, to learn how to write a novel. Was this all it took? A willingness to be humiliated? No, but that’s a big chunk of it. What will I do one day in class if I never break through? It hasn’t happened yet. I always manage to relax, to see, to make something happen.

Because it isn’t about me, and my skill. It’s about being open to the world, to its beauty, which is always there, no matter if I'm personally blind or not. Some days, I see a small portion of it, other days, the light is dim; on rare days, it's brightly, brilliantly lit, but it's always there. To serve.

And finally this:

July 18, 01
Now I look back at my drawings, flipping through the pages, surprised each time by the intensity of the faces, how much I remember of their making. How many times I re-drew that man’s hand. What a delightful shade of green he wore. How I captured his white hair just right. My drawings aren’t just drawings. If they were, they would be judged awkward, adolescent, thin. They are, instead, a record of their making. A record of battles engaged, skirmishes won, whole armies of selves lost.

See–I'll be able to say to my grandchildren–see–this is who I was and how I lived. They might say, “Grandma. It’s just yellowed newsprint and look–you made the nose all wrong.” But maybe not. Maybe they will take out a pencil and lie beside me and draw, and I'll know they know how to live.

How I saw the world before:





And after:





Drawing Power: Everyone needs it.

Painter Lucian Freud (How Can One Live?)

If you've never seen it, go gaze at this gorgeous painting by Lucian Freud.

Or look at this mottled face. How beautiful to see skin as it really is, and not a sanitized CoverGirl tone. Why do we insist upon improving upon nature’s work? Why do we deem the non-uniform ugly? What’s wrong with a face that is green and blue and black? Red, orange, yellow? What’s wrong with veins and bumps and wrinkles, when they are drawn so exquisitely?

When I first saw these paintings in the pages of a heavy, unadorned art book, it was as if Lucian Freud had spoken a pressing truth, one that I'd never dared tell, and when he did, the relief was so intense, I wanted to cry.

I especially liked the portraits he did of models’ faces on a simple pillow or bed. There is a sense of fascination, as if you were looking at a newborn child or a lover asleep. Only he looks at everyone that way. Many of his full-size paintings, which I can't link to here, are so brutally observant that they are painful.

I wonder how he treats his models, the people in his life that he paints. Is he kind to them, or as bruisingly loving as his portrayals? Does he have to shield himself from their beauty in real life so he isn’t overwhelmed? How does he maintain his true sight? How can one live, seeing this intensely?

Tomorrow, I'll post a poem I wrote in response to Lucian Freud's paintings. Until then, look at them, read this, and tell me if he is blessed or cursed.

Artist of the Week: Claudia Tennyson

I love art that makes you look at ordinary things in extraordinary ways.

I stumbled across a fascinating "repair" project when I was exploring the Japanese idea of wabi.   The original link is no longer valid, but I found a good write up of it here. 

The artist, Claudia Tennyson, states that she was "partly inspired by the Japanese tradition of repairing cracked ceramic vessels with gold filigree. The craftsperson makes the cracks visible instead of hiding them, and the mending process increases rather than depreciates the value of the vessel."

Could there be a more perfect metaphor for writing? We are gilding the cracks. Not covering them up, not even truly fixing them, because, often, that's beyond our power. But we can say: Look. Look right here.

How do you see Claudia's art? Is she crazy to repair things this way? What are the cracks you want to call attention to with your art?

*For a different take on wabi (or wabi-sabi, as it's more completely called) see this funny piece from Utne Reader. As they say, "are you wabi-sabi, or just wabi-SLOBBY?"