Embracing Ambiguity

"I wanted the perfect ending.  Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity." ~ Gilda Radner 

When I started on this painting it was about not knowing...the naive girl in a handstand, moving forward without seeing anything else...the lioness (courage) laying asleep, not seeing the innocent about to trip into her...the iconic piano, falling from the sky amidst a background of storm and peace.  It wasn't until I added the two snails, carrying the weight of the past on their backs, that I thoroughly understood the meaning of the painting. 

For a long while I pondered how this piece related to relationships.  But in the end it is not relationship with another but oneself that the snails are observing. They are surprisingly symbolic of the yin and yang of us. They anchor what makes life full of anticipation, adventurous, rewarding, potentially awful, but full nonetheless...the electricity, the need to trust, to awaken courage. and take action.  There is an adventure that is taking shape... that risks the falling piano, weathers the storms, and assumes there is gold at the end of the rainbow.  What are the chances that the girl will fall off the cliff, the lioness will bite her, a piano might crush them both, or the golden rewards will not be found?  All these and more are possibilities which makes for the ambiguous nature of life.  But as noted above, it is delicious when we embrace it for all its worth.

Enjoy the day,
every day!
Pic;)

Cultivating Creative Awareness

Not long ago I spoke with Tara Robinson,on the WAIF radio program Waves of the New Age.  We talked about creative energy and various ways to reclaim its applications when opportunities for conscious use come into play.  Of course we can consciously apply our creative energy whenever we choose, however sometimes conditions are such that what appears in our lives couldn't be farther from what we would like.  That's because some of our attempts to create are to "try not to" do or experience something.  This approach to creative practice inadvertently maintains the polar opposite of what we desire in order to identify our choice as what we are trying to avoid.

We dream our lives and while we can have some pretty cool dreams without even trying, when we set our sites on being lucid in our dream of life, we can appreciate the entirety of our adventures.  To that end, I recently wrote an article on reclaiming your creative power for the Whole Living Journal (Nov/Dec issue online soon) and I am creating some unique classes for "drawing" and "painting" which are about so much more than how to pick up a pencil or brush.

Together we will explore basic drawing and painting skills and explore Surrealism and Expressionism as well as representational art.  We will practice being lucid to the application of our creative energy in an environment where it is safe to practice the same skills that apply to creating our everyday lives.  We will look at how we see and how to see in a way that is truth rather than fear driven.  It's the difference between art that isn't good enough and a masterpiece of life!

If you think you're not creative, doubt that you can draw or paint, and even if you can, these classes will be a fun way to change up and charge up your imagination to better accomplish all your creative practices.  

Here are 2 links to posts I've made at LucidChange.com: learn about the Unconditional Happiness that artists know and everyone can experience no matter where we are in our creative process, and why Doing Nothing is a good thing.  Both include practices for walking through life and seeing new possibilities.

Register for new classes Here!

No Running Leap, But I Do Have Shoes!

Last week I had an interesting discussion with a young lawyer in the mixed-use building where I am currently in the process of revamping my studio.  We were talking about art and the economy, the cuts to state, federal, and personal budgets for the arts and he said, "Well, maybe artists should lower the prices of their work, that's the way things are these days." 

Believe it or not, I smiled at him and asked if he was willing to pay back a percentage of the income he made 5 years ago, then reminded him that gas prices, food (not to mention his ego) are at all time highs.

The value of a piece of art is mostly found in the things you can't see in it, the rough sketches, experiments, countless paintings that came before, and unfinished works, as well as the color, brushes, studio, canvas, stretchers and frames, and in my case wire, sand, paper and paste, spent throughout the hours no, the lifetime it took to bring that work into the physical world.

Last month I blogged about a piece I hoped to finish that did not make it in the show in Columbus. Instead I finished a set of shoes I had dreamed of creating in Warhol style, each having six surfaces over which six colors were rotated.

The artist reception is this weekend, always a little awkward moving from studio isolation to gallery party, but I'm feeling a little celebratory after taking 18 months of work up there in a rent-a-van. They say the stock market is a speculative investment.  I think being an artist beats most investments, it pays in diverse ways, the best of which is creative fulfillment.  Unable to get to Columbus?  Some of the work, and more show dates are online here.  Hope you're well!

 

An early shot of the  "Fashoenistas" in progress (from upper left) Hot Heels, Melting, Dipping In, Hammer, Kick-off, and Summertime. Copyright C. Pic Michel 2012, all rights reserved

Now Working: Running Leap

Right now I feel a little bit like this sculpture. While he's far from finished I think he will be in my August exhibit in Columbus, at Galleria Evangelia August 18-September 15, artist reception August 25.

The show is titled Not as Seen on Television which points to the sculptural and/or kinetic nature of the work all of which is made of wire and paper.

I love the 3-D aspect of art. Even when working the 2-D canvas surface, there is something in the stepping up to and moving away from the canvas that lets the artist and patron embody the work. This 3-D work has been like drawing in mid-air, snagging the moment, the headlines, bringing up memories.  Sometimes I varnish  the wire with paper, other times I just let the wire ramble on.  The bas relief sculptures start out as paper cast over sand and sometimes get wire added.  The juxtaposition of heavy paper and light wire brings a lot of texture to the collection of work in the show.

Four weeks to go and I'm still starting pieces even as I finish others. There is little more inspiring than the last days before sharing a year's worth of work, except maybe seeing others share in it which has been my pleasure while I have made pieces titled Hoodie, Somalia, Gardenia, Music Man and The Fool, and more. Tsunami, which started this collection at 84"x36"'x10" will also be there.

Some of these can be seen in my online gallery.  I know you can't see the sculpture on the flat screen the way you can in person, that's why I'm looking forward to August.  Help me let others know about the show by using the social media links. Thanks, you're fabulous!


photo: Running Leap approx. 24"x20"x6" irregular.  Galvanized wire (so far) copyright C. Pic Michel

Working Overtime

 

Well, Mother Nature didn't give it much of a rest last winter and the rest of us have also been working like crazy.  A couple years ago a visiting Mayan Elder explained that time seems to be going so much faster, even though the days are still 24 hours long, because the whole solar system is presently zipping around the galactic center at a faster pace.  I asked how long this would go on.  He estimated a couple thousand years. I guess I'll just have to trust that.

10 classes/week for the past 4 months has kept me zipping right along making masks and completing an abstract art exhibit with teenage girls in residential treatment, now showing in University Heights.  I'm currently completing a mural with teens in the Upper School at The Children's Home of Cincinnati while starting a fresh stream of surrealist drawings of what goes on inside the minds of teenage boys in residential recovery after a winter of working in watercolors.  Shifting gears to get with 8-10 year-olds, this week we explored the positive consequences of sharing by borrowing from primary colors to create secondary colors in watercolor.  In addition to adult classes and a wire sculpture commission of a couple dancing (to be given as a wedding gift from his mom); I've also (somehow) been working on Not As Seen On TV for a show in Columbus that will feature solely 3-D wire and paper sculptures.  So, (big breath) I just wanted to take a moment to catch up a little and send out Happy Spring wishes that all is well in your world and hope you're finding ways to challenge yourself creatively.  If I can help, let me know!  Summer is on the way and I look forward to exploring new/unusual creative endeavors.

The Conversation of Art

  When I'm teaching I often ask students to "listen" to their paintings.  That may seem a little difficult with visual art, but not when I distinguish between "hearing" and "listening".  One is done with the mind.  The other is done with the heart.  When we listen to our work, we are in a conversation and can respond which is the formula for bringing art into expression.  When we only practice the visual equivalent of "hearing" we tend to react as if we just heard a sudden or loud sound and we try to "fix" appearances rather than maintain an open dialog with our work.
  About six weeks ago I started a new painting.  I call it a painting, but it involves creating the "canvas" by casting paper over a sculpted form (which takes a long time) before I ever start using paint. While I was casting this piece, somewhere along the top right side, I listened to the word Tsunami rise up inside me.  That became the working title of the piece and for many sessions I enjoyed a long conversation with this form, where to add wire and build upon it, how and what colors would capture and convey the spirit and the energy of this powerful, explosive force.

(click on the image to enlarge it)

  When I began the groundwork for this piece I had no idea where it would go, I most enjoy the chaos of creation as the work fluxes and flows from start to finish.  Conversation is the one thing which in times of chaos whether they be creative or crisis, help us stay grounded to bring the work to the best possible outcome.
  Listening and responding is the difference that makes for fuller, richer even inspirational experience even through the most difficult circumstances in art and in life.  Tsunami is almost finished.  I am not represented by any galleries right now.  I'm working on making Tsunami available through a site where part of the proceeds will benefit people through micro-loans or disaster relief.  So share a link to this page or my website with anyone who has space that's big enough to hold this artwork either in their heart, home, or office. I'd really like this painting to make a difference.  I will update where to see the finished piece again when Tsunami is complete.  In the meantime, enjoy the conversation of art. Peacefully, Pic;)