True North

Apropos

Snow Bird

This has been my go-to outfit recently for those in-between casual/nice events (dinner at the in-laws', a baby shower, an afternoon birthday party) where some people will be in dresses and some in jeans, and I want to feel chic, comfortable and WARM.

Pants: H&M, green tank: Banana Republic, blue cardigan: Gap, patterned cardigan: from Paracelso in NYC, wedge booties: Blowfish, gloves: Kohl's, earrings: gifted

I think of this flowy cardigan/jacket as my "peacock sweater," and tend to wear it with jewel-toned blues and greens, and sometimes even feather earrings... It's one of my most loved pieces, both for how great it feels to wear and for the story behind it. Last year for Mother's Day, my mom and I spent a day together hopping around Soho, lunching and shopping, and we wandered into Luxor Tavella's shop on West Broadway, Paracelso. I can't remotely do justice to describing Luxor, she is amazingly original and spellbinding, and has dressed and influenced generations of artists and models in the city. (She's hard to find info on, but there's a post about her here on Style Bubble with good pictures, and a Style Like U video of her describing her life here. You'll see what I mean about original!) I give my mom all the credit for that find, as I would have walked right by Paracelso, and even after we went in it took me a while to figure out what was going on. It is nothing like a regular boutique, that's for sure. We spent a long time talking to Luxor and trying on pieces she picked out for us, plucking them off the walls or out from under piles of cloth. The whole experience felt outside of normal time. Later, we walked across to Anthropologie, usually one of my favorite stores, but after Paracelso it seemed soulless and kind of... obvious. I love wearing this cardigan and remembering being with my fabulous mom in the city on that perfect, sunlit, unexpected day.

Auction Basket

School auction time is here again. Got an email yesterday about donating a creative good or service to the annual gala-auction-event at our old nursery school. I'll have to come up with something good this year. Last year I donated a custom mural in someone's home, and the year before it was the tattoo-inspired painted denim jackets (see those here. And peek into the process of making them here and here). Hmmm....

At the girls' current school, auctioning happens along simpler lines, with a silent auction to which each class in the school donates a themed basket--a movie-night basket, a wine-lovers basket, a scrapbooking basket, you get the idea. As head class parent in Stella's class, I was responsible for putting together our class' donation back in December, and I loved what I came up with: an art basket.

The idea was that you could bid on this for an artistic child who's ready to move beyond their Crayola watercolor set and crappy paper, or for an adult who needs a little encouragement to get creative. Either way, the materials would be easy and fun to use, but enough of a challenge to keep you interested. Kids need decent art materials too!

So into a basket full of feathers (just for fun), I put: a set of acrylic paints in basic colors, a set of ten paintbrushes in different sizes, two canvases, a palette, a color wheel, and a little note from me. I had originally wanted to include a mini how-to book on the basics of working with acrylics, but wasn't able to find exactly what I was looking for. So I ended up just making my own. I figure if you're going to be opening up a basket of art supplies all by yourself instead of in a class setting, you could probably use a little guidance to get you going.

The whole thing, including the basket and plastic wrap (but not counting the feathers, which I already had) came in just under $50 and I understand from the auction committee we made money on it, so I'm pleased. But even more rewarding is the idea that maybe this little basket of goodies inspired someone to start painting, or to take their painting a little more seriously. Seriously, how cool, right?

Inspiration Wall Redux

This is my desk. You've seen it before, here, when I talked about the inspiration wall I had going last year. It's easily the most personal space I have in our home. It is where I do all my writing for work and for True North (I'm sitting here right now, as a matter of fact), where I set up my paints and water when I paint at the easel, where I scribble in all my little notebooks, listen to whatever music I want, and plan and dream and get to be entirely myself - no one's mother or wife or friend, just me.

I loved the pictures and cut-outs on the last incarnation of the wall so much that I kept them up for a long time... long enough to get stale. When that happened, I started to let things pile up on my desk, brought the laptop out into the living room, and generally just ignored the office. I needed a little motivation to get back in there and freshen it up, but let's just say I wasn't feeling particularly... inspired.

Then in October --remember, I mentioned this?-- I started taking Lisa Congdon and Mati McDonough's five-week online painting class, Get Your Paint On. (Which was fantastic, by the way. I very much recommend any of their online classes.) The first week of the course, they told us NOT TO PAINT. I love them for this. The class really made me pace myself, right from the beginning. Instead, our assignment that week was to consciously start finding and documenting inspiration: filling blank books with clippings and photos, using a bookmarking site like pinterest, putting up inspiration walls, etc. Mati and Lisa's instruction was to begin filling up a well of inspiring visuals for you to use later. To use. This was so important.

Last year's inspiration wall was beautiful to me. I loved looking at it. But I didn't DO anything with it. I've been thinking a lot this year about how it's so easy for me to be lazy about "being inspired." Many of us do this, don't we? We fetishize inspiration; we let inspiration itself be the end goal. Last spring, I followed along as a great online conversation evolved on this topic: first Good Morning Inspiration, then Inspiration Fetishism, then the fabulous Blair with Curate or Create?. If you have time, do read these links, they're some seriously nutritious food for thought. (And the comments are good, too.) In this digital age we're in, it seems like the ease of sharing inspiration should be a good thing for creative people, but instead, it can be a hazard. There's this great Ira Glass quote that was making the rounds on facebook a few months ago:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

So, ok, there's a lot we could talk about in that quote. It's pretty excellent stuff. But besides how inspiring it is in helping you get over yourself and keep plugging away at your work, one of the things I just love is this distinction he makes between your taste and your art. Exhibiting your taste level is not a substitute for making your art. Curating a collection of things you like is not the same as creating a piece of your own.  Similarly, it's so easy to troll around the internet forever just gorging yourself on all the pretty pictures and everybody else's creative process. But that's not a substitute either for creating something yourself.

The Get Your Paint On assignment butted up against all this in my head. I wanted to switch up the wall and start using that space again, but didn't want to just decorate. This isn't, after all, my middle school bedroom, with 90210 posters hung up with tape. This had to be a giant mood board that I would actually utilize. Mati and Lisa were not asking, "What do you think is pretty" but "What specifically is inspiring you right now?" And I wasn't sure what the answer was.

So I just figured I'd have to let my eyes decide. I sat down to collect images for the latest wall all in one go, without any themes in mind. I grabbed the magazines and catalogues I keep around for collaging with the kids and tore through them, literally, tearing out anything that called to me, all impulse, no thought. Then I rampaged through the  "inspiration drawer" in my desk, in which I periodically throw things I like, and then I dug out a few overstuffed envelopes of collected art postcards and little keepsakes that I like to fill and then squirrel away in random closets. As opposed to last year's wall, which I added to a little bit at a time as the mood struck, this was much more of an image feast. Afterwards, I looked at what I had and saw some big themes and colorways organizing themselves through the pictures:

Color. Exuberance! Exuberant color. Within this grouping, there's also a lot about pattern, feathers, and, for some reason, parenthood. Who knows why. I love it.

(I dig these side by side. We have one of those rotator painting machines, and my girls can get in a mood and churn out 50 in one sitting. Some of them I keep for myself because they're just so happy and beautiful.)

(photograph of part of my favorite mural in the world, on The Women's Building in San Francisco. Half the time I lived in SF, I lived right across the street from this - in fact, this was the view from my window. What I would give to see it on a daily basis now...)

Pomegranates. And a general vibe of antique, formal still lifes with a riotous twist - been thinking a lot lately about the Dutch Baroque still lifes from the 16th/17th centuries (like this one), with their fruits split open and their flowers crawling with beetles.

The woods - particularly a lush, humid summer forest with an abundance of leaves. Love the idea of greenery growing so rampant that you only get glimpses of what's behind it.

And then, something harder to define. Something that is the opposite of all the wild fecundity above. A feeling of containment and mystery, of secrets kept.

(drawing to the left I did eight years ago when I was pregnant with Stella. It was a stained glass-inspired precursor to this journal cover.)

(bottom is one of my Maeve's paintings)

Similarly to last year's inspiration wall, one of the main benefits of having all these lovely images up in my workspace is simply that I walk into the room and feel immediately happy. The wall is a place for my eyes and mind to rest when I'm trying to think through an idea or figure out how to articulate something. But this wall is also a brand new and completely different entity for me. I have actually been inspired by this wall, as in: I've been making work, the idea for which has come to me because of the pictures I've hung here. Instead of feeling overwhelmed when I try to organize my creative plans, I feel more focused; I know what ideas I want to work on right now. How can I forget them? They're right there, writ large on my wall. I'm almost finished with a close-up still life of a split-open pomegranate, which I'll share when I'm done, and I've started sketches for a large self-portrait based on the Frida Kahlo postcard. I have pages of sketchbook ideas filled with more nascent ideas for paintings, and almost all of it is sourced from the wall one way or another - subject matter, color scheme, or mood. This is the best thing I could have possibly done for my creative process. I am truly being inspired.

Some Good Reads

A few of my longstanding favorite blogs have been kicking it up a notch lately, being so thoughtful and thought-provoking that I'm finding myself bookmarking the individual posts to go back and read again later:

Orangette's Molly Wizenberg on the pain and joy of birthing a creative writing project: In my better moments

Amanda Soule of Soulemama on the courage to say NO to an opportunity: A Squam Story

Catherine Newman (of Babycenter's Ben and Birdy fame, the first bloggy-type thing I ever read regularly) on charitable giving and our compassionate responsibility for serious suffering in the world: We Are the 1%

Just had to share...

xo, Alison

 

Resolving

Aaahh, NOW I realize why I let myself be so busy all December. I was avoiding winter. Avoiding cold and darkness and the hopelessness that follows. Now that it's January, I'm facing down a long line of winter weeks ahead. Last year, I made a point of appreciating and taking photos of winter's own stark natural beauty and sharing them here in Thank you, Winter posts. I think that plan will have to make a comeback, and perhaps the photo above can count as the first one of the new year: the wintertime view from our bedroom window of the moment between sunset and twilight. The rest of the year, when the trees have their leaves, this view is predominantly of foliage. But in the winter, when the sun sets, it casts a bronze glow on the windows of the houses you can finally see between the trees, whose leafless black branches reach up alongside the church steeple into the purple sky...

I have tons of goals and plans for 2012, but if I have any resolutions, per se, they are all about keeping my momentum going through the next three months, about being healthy in all the ways I need to be to keep the winter blues away. Resolutions like eating well, not skipping meals, and taking my vitamins (boring, but crucial). Like walking more, even when it's cold, especially when it's cold and sunny, and reaping the rewards of all the exercise endorphins and sunshine vitamin D. Like weekly nights out on the town with friends, even if it's just one quick drink after the kids are in bed (every mama needs some upcoming adult fun to look forward to at all times, I believe). And like DAILY time at the easel to work on the pieces I'm doing just for me -- painting is the best time I spend with myself, and this winter it is no longer ok to prioritize it below laundry, groceries, work, cleaning, bills, kiddo homework, family obligations, etc, etc. My creative life is just as important as everything else on that list and deserves to be treated as such.

What about you? Any cherished resolutions for the new year - creativity-protecting, sanity-preserving, or otherwise? Do comment and tell me.

A New Year

Happy 2012!

I didn't manage to get here to post one single time in December, which seems completely in keeping with how crazy the month felt. Good crazy, mama-crazy, with present shopping to do and cards to write, class parties to organize and teacher gifts to plan, and last-minute volunteered-for projects to complete. (Because somehow, the longer the to-do list gets, the more I want to say yes to everything. Why is that??)

I didn't do as much handmade Christmas gifting as I've done in past years, but it was a pretty creatively productive month anyway. One cute project was preparing for Stella's Girl Scout troop's holiday performance at a local nursing home/adult care community, The Wartburg. The girls did a variety show to entertain the seniors, with talent acts, a mini play, and caroling, all against the backdrop of a gingerbread village that the troop families had made to recreate the buildings of the community's campus. Our family's contribution was the President's house, in the foreground below. Not our finest creative moment, but gingerbread is a new medium for us. ;)  And no one seemed to mind our wonky windows: on a whim, our troop leader entered the village in This Old House online's annual gingerbread competition, and we took the Grand Prize!

When we weren't obsessing about gingerbread baking times and royal icing composition that week, I was busy making the sign you see in the background above, and collaborating with Chris on a prop tree for the girls' play... thank goodness for handy husbands!

I sketched a big tree silhouette (about 6 ft tall) onto two pieces of plywood, which Chris cut out with the jigsaw and assembled by screwing them into a support base he built, and then I painted the whole thing with a mix of house paint and acrylics. It was one of those projects I didn't have a ton of time to work on, which can sometimes - as in this case - be a blessing, since then I can't afford to become too much of a control freak-perfectionist. There's a time and place for slapping something together. And then, you know, being done...

My favorite part of all this was definitely the sign. After mapping out some ideas on paper first, I penciled the layout of Christmas lights onto a big piece of foam board. To keep the lights a consistent size, I made an easy little stencil out of a post-it. And to make absolutely sure I didn't mess up the Girl Scout insignia at the top, I printed out a copy of the emblem in the size I wanted and used graphite transfer paper to trace it onto the foam board. The transfer paper is a relatively new discovery for me and it is AWESOME. I've even been using it in my personal painting when I want to get something just right or use a piece of a previous design. It's so easy use, and when you paint over it, it doesn't muddy the color of the paint. I generally like to freehand everything, but have been learning lately to allow myself the occasional shortcut in the name of moving forward and accompishing more. Feels creatively healthy.

Once the layout was set, I painted in the lights and the blue background. I knew I wanted to do some faded snowflakes behind the lettering, and figured keeping the whole background light (instead of doing it in red or green) would allow for that busyness without taking too much attention away from the words. Then I painted in the snowflakes, and liked them so much I almost didn't want to put any lettering on top of them!

When it came time for the lettering, I went for a 'more is more' approach, with a bunch of different fonts and colors, vintage circus poster-style. I actually wish I had bumped up the size of the words so that the whole thing was even crazier, but overall I like how cheerful and celebratory it turned out. The candy cane 2011 numbers were fun, and I also loved the red and white mirrored design of GIRL SCOUT. Will  definitely be bringing that idea back into another project in the future.

Off now to enjoy the last little bit of family hang-out time before the realities of work and school start up again tomorrow. But I'm looking forward to a new year and new possibilities to come - one of my new year's resolutions is to be better about sharing those possibilities here!

Watching

Some inspiring videos for post-turkey, lazy weekend watching...

 

First, artist Shea Hembrey's hilarious, fantastic TED talk:

 

The Sartorialist's Scott Schuman shooting pictures in Tokyo:

 

And this incredibly beautiful video of a Lubinje bride in Kosovo being prepared for her wedding day:

Nusja Jone-Our Bride from Kosovo 2.0 on Vimeo.

 

Hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Blank Canvas

When I was seventeen years old and a senior in high school, I took my school's Drawing and Painting class. I had to switch out of Physics at the last minute that August in order to free up my schedule to take it, against the advice of my parents. At the time it felt like a big step into independence to do that. Actually, looking back it still seems that way. It was a choice for myself.

I loved that class and got a fair amount out of it artistically, but the two biggest things that have stuck with me from the experience are that initial choice just to take it, and making the canvas above. Not painting the canvas above, but making it. We chose our size, stretched the fabric and stapled it, primed and gessoed the surface... it took about three days worth of class time, and the whole time I was in heaven. So despite not being happy with the resulting portrait of another senior girl (who I am still friends with, actually), a disappointment which I let really mess with my head at the time, I nevertheless saved it because of the canvas. It has lived in various parents' attics and garages over the past 15 years. Yesterday, I resurrected it to use for the painting course I'm taking now. It was dusty and stained, and after I cleaned it I took a good long look at the picture I had put on it. I remembered how hard I had struggled to paint the shadows on the white sweatshirt, and the shape of her mouth. I remembered how, even at the time, I could see that more than my friend, I had painted myself - my face shape, my jawline, my neck. How I had been comforted, looking around the room at all the other kids' paintings, to see that everyone's portrait of her looked like themselves, but then how this realization had made me feel a complicated blend of pity and hopelessness. How, when it was finished and dry and I was about to graduate, I took it home and put it away where I wouldn't have to see it.

I've always planned on painting over it someday to use for a new piece, but when it came time yesterday to sit there and actually do it, it was surprisingly tough. "It's a memory!" some part of my shrieked, "You shouldn't get rid of it!" Funny, the inclination to save things that you don't even like because of what they represent. I took some photos to assuage the freaked-out voice, and forged ahead with paintbrush and white acrylic. I probably should have used gesso but I don't have any, and waiting for some other day when I have the right supplies is usually, for me, just a procrastination tool. Better just to jump in with what you got.

After that, it was still a strangely emotional process, but instead of freaked out I was ELATED. Talk about reclaiming! This was some serious psychic demon-slaying. Claiming possibility for my present-day self from the jaws of past hurts and disappointments. Reviving an old dream. It felt really great - I was giddy.

My old signature was the last to go. I paused at that point, and thought about my teenage self, and was overcome with compassion for her worries and insecurities. "I feel for you," I said to her in my head, "but I don't want to take care of you anymore."

And, just like that, it was a blank canvas. Still one that I lovingly made myself a long time ago, but also brand new and waiting for me to paint something I love onto it. I can't wait.

Update...

Sorry it's been so long. Wonderfully, at least I can say that I haven't been posting here because I've been so busy creatively, not because I haven't been doing enough!

Got to just jump back in, and hope the momentum carries. Lots to share about!

For now: a playground mural update. I haven't been able to work on it much, which has been incredibly frustrating. But I did manage to get some frogs up there recently, and just generally trying to be very zen about the whole thing. It's a big job, I'm still for all intents/purposes a stay-at-home mom with constant childcare difficulties, and I'm doing what I can. And as a friend pointed out recently, it's kind of cool for the kids to see it grow and change a little bit at a time, rather than having it just be there all at once. Hopefully some of them are thinking they might like to be artists when they grow up, and knowing that an artist is working on their playground makes something real in their heads...

So, frogs. I had so much fun with these two little guys:

And some other views of the progress: {front of pond column}

{sunfish, a bit out of focus, unfortunately}

{mister catfish}

{corner of garden column}

Good to be back! More tomorrow.

xo, Alison