True North

Came, Toured, Conquered

It has taken me a few days to be able to sit and organize my thoughts about the Artist Studio Tour in which I participated last weekend because yes, it was fun, but man was it also intense. The whole process, from initially registering for the Tour ("Am I good enough? Am I ready?"), to hanging my paintings in public and inviting total strangers to talk about my work with and in front of me, pushed me so far outside my comfort zone that I practically had vertigo. I had to cut waaaaay back on my coffee intake last week just to get through those last few anticipatory days leading up to the weekend without succumbing to a full-on caffeine-induced panic attack. But despite how neurotic this all makes me sound, I really did thoroughly enjoy the Tour. Enjoyed seeing the people I had invited and meeting the new folks, enjoyed workshopping the one unfinished painting I had hung and benefitting immensely from people's feedback, and most of all enjoyed that Big Life feeling that comes - if you can get past the fear - from pushing beyond the boundaries you thought were set in stone and realizing that maybe a lot more is possible than you thought.

with my wonderful stepmom, Karen, in front of some of my work

Tomorrow I'll be posting a virtual tour so that you can check out the paintings yourself. For today, I want to focus a little bit on the take-aways from submitting myself to this experience. What did I get out of it? What did I learn?

• Well, for one thing, the reminder that deadlines are really, really good for me. The painting I was working on all last week so it would be finished in time to show? Not only would I not have finished it by now if I hadn't signed up for the Studio Tour, I don't think I would've finished it three months from now. When left to my own devices, creatively, things can get very sloooowwwww. I hem and haw, do a teensy bit before taking a break, decide I need to live with it as is for a while before moving forward. Perhaps you can identify? And all that is fine - after all, I'm not competing in a race; this is all for my own growth and enjoyment - but there is something to be said for finishing, and making space for the next endeavor. I've got some real momentum going now.
• That giving yourself (or forcing yourself into) bigger boundaries makes you expand yourself to fill them. I did not think I was ready to show, and would never have signed up for the Tour without this one particular, unexpected day in March, when coincidences and opportunities conspired to make it briefly seem possible. Once I signed up, I had to turn myself into an artist that was ready to show. I worked on getting my actual paintings ready, as I have said, but I also ordered myself a bunch of contact cards from Vistaprint to give out during the weekend, a business-y step I wouldn't have found necessary otherwise, but which I'm so happy about now - I feel about a thousand times more legit with the cards in my wallet and the Tour under my proverbial belt, a feeling I could have waited around forever for, but which would never have actually happened without just doing it.

card front

pretty, pretty card back

• That my school marmish tendency to want to do it all by the book (the "Artist" book, as if there even is such a thing) just needs to be ignored. In preparing for the Studio Tour, I kept banging up against my "better judgement." It's amazing how quickly I can decide that I am somehow cheating. Hanging one unfinished painting, for example, was cheating, until I talked myself into it by thinking that if people were visiting my actual studio, they would surely be seeing some works in progress. Putting up photos of recent painting projects I couldn't show (murals, gifts, etc.) was cheating, until I convinced myself that not to put them up would be a missed opportunity to show the things someone can hire me for and therefore not to do it would be stupid, cheating or not. I am not the same as every other creative person, but I'm confident that anyone else trying to recover or reclaim their artist self will doubtlessly run into their own better judgement: all those protective mechanisms that seem very rational, or pure, or smart, or _______, but which also keep you from creating and then putting your work out there. For me, pure is a big one - "if it can't be perfect/right, it's not worth doing" is an insidious thing I tell myself to keep me from moving forward. This weekend helped loosen its power, which is great. Especially since showing pictures of my murals seems to have (fingers crossed) garnered me a new mural commission: I'm meeting with a possible new client next week, whom I met when her family stopped by on the Tour. Take that, school marm!
• And lastly, the weekend made it clear that I am lucky to have some truly generous, supportive, loving people in my life. So many friends and family members came out, driving in from Brooklyn and New Jersey, coming with newborns or all four children or between dashing to other commitments, and the ones who live too far away have made a point since of calling or writing to say they were thinking about me. My husband single-parented for days and days without complaint. This may sound like boasting, but the reason I'm saying it is that - once again - it was signing up for the Tour, despite all the compelling reasons not to, that gave me the chance to see and feel the community I really do have encouraging these crazy dreams of mine. I knew that in theory before, but now I know it for sure.

So at the risk of sounding like a Nike commercial, I'd say the overarching lesson learned was just to do it. "It" being whatever feels hard or scary but which you really, secretly would love to do. Because no matter what happens, just putting yourself out there brings you rewards you can't expect. And because action is good for art - your art, Art in general, all of it. Thinking about action? Preparing for someday? Pondering when is the right time to do something brave?.. NOT so good for art. That's the thing about creativity - it doesn't really give a shit about what you think, but it does respond really well to what you do.

Ego Boost

Above is an excerpt from this year's nursery school auction catalogue. I can't vouch for the 'celebrated' part, but won't say I didn't like seeing it there!

Will show you the layette set I did tomorrow...

In the meantime:

This Patchwork Prism video from favorite fabric designer Anna Maria Horner and Janome sewing machines makes me want to start quilting.

I'm digging two audio interviews from NPR: this one with actress Greta Gerwig (I love what she says about every well-known actor/director she knows having made "mistakes" in their careers) and this one with poet and recent National Book Award winner, Nikky Finney, in which she talks about the power of poetry to say the unsayable, and wisely points out that "Art is about being provocative; art is also about beauty and if you leave the latter out, the former doesn't matter."

Thinking about trying my hand at some DIY beauty treatments, starting with this lemon salt scrub.

I grew up with the beautiful lady featured in this interview on Good Food Jobs, Merida Gorman. But I would love what she has to say about building a creative career in the food industry and the importance of pushing against self-doubt even if I didn't know first-hand how cool she is.

If you're on the east coast, enjoy this GORGEOUS day! xx, A

New Piece

Remember this old canvas from high school that I painted over with white, so I could turn it into something new?

I turned it on its side and started a new painting of my girls. These days it's looking more like this:

It's based on this photo I took of them last summer in Montauk:

Not quite done, but I'm happy with it so far, and happy to share it here.

Bright Eyes

I wrote recently about my new project of making a little doll (pattern here, courtesy of Emily Martin via Martha Stewart,) for all of the special babies in my life, near and far. This second doll in the series is for the sixteen month-old boy of one of my best friends in the world, my Seneca. Her son's name is Oren, and he is incredible. Gorgeous and charming and smart, just like his wonderful parents. I would give an awful lot for us all to live closer so I could hang out with Oren more. But since - for now - we don't, I want him to have some reason to hear my name thrown around and some good associations with me. I'm selfish like that. So I made him this.

Like the real boy, this little Oren doll has short, growing-in brown hair and sparkly greeny-hazel eyes.

Ridiculously, it was actually a little hard to part with this one because I thought it was so cute and because it made me think of Oren, but the thought of sending it in the mail to arrive on my little buddy's doorstep helped.

Seneca let me know that they received it, and that after they told him it was from Alison, he toddled around with it saying "AL! AL!" and wanted to sit with the doll at his little table and chairs. Makes my heart so happy...

Very Wholesome

Chris and I were out with some friends recently and one of them mentioned that he comes by to check out True North sometimes, which was so nice to hear. And then he said something absolutely terrible. He said, "Your blog is so wholesome." He didn't mean it disdainfully - though there was a hint of brotherly teasing, perhaps - but wholesome is only really a compliment if you are a loaf of bread. Or a preschool television show. Wholesome when applied to my own passions and challenges seems a little like code for LAME. For days it was stuck in my head.

But then I decided: you know, screw it. I know my life is pretty kid-centric and I'm ok with that. If it wasn't for my kids - for the fact that I've been a mostly-stay-at-home-mom with lots of time but little of it available to myself, for our lack of extra money necessitating me to think outside the box for birthday presents, for wanting to model for the girls that you do what you love and trust the process and don't give up on what's important to you - I don't know that I would have had the opportunity OR drive to "reclaim" my creativity. So True North is pretty wholesome. I work here on being honest and brave, and I craft a lot for and with my kids. It is a bit of a preschool television show, and that's how I like it.

All of which is a prelude to saying it's about to get a whole lot more wholesome up in here, because I have a new project that is all about the babies in my life. And wait, it gets worse: I'm making them all dolls. Yep. In the past couple years, many of my closest mama-friends have had their third children, and my high school and college friends are finally catching up and having their firsts. I have a lot of new "baby friends," as Maeve calls them. Some of those little friends live frustratingly far away, and so I hit on the idea of hand-making them something special as a way to bridge that divide and give them each a little piece of me to include in their days.

It started with newly 1 year-old Lee, who's first birthday party we were headed to last month. (You may remember the tree jammies I painted for him when he was born.) Lee is a third child with two older brothers, so this is not a household that needs more toys. But a little soft buddy that could be smooshed in the carseat and tossed in the crib, especially a doll for a little boy, well, that sounded just right.

I had wanted to try making simple dolls again ever since I made these hand-holding gals two years ago as a present for one of Maeve's friends (details in this post):

So I went back to the source: this tutorial (with video!) by Emily Martin of The Black Apple on Martha Stewart. And this time I actually printed out the pattern instead of winging it. (Older and wiser...) Though I did modify it a bit, as I explain below. This was the resulting dolly for little Lee:

The shirt is a batik print fabric I've had for a while (it has made an appearance on True North before, here). The face and arms are thin canvas appropriated from old curtains, with the features painted on with fabric paint. The legs, peace sign, and hair are all felt. The real Lee was born with a fabulous head of dark hair, so the doll had to rock some serious hair, too. My dear friend, Lee's mom, has a great sense of humor and style, and I knew she'd get a kick out of the giant peace sign, which I cut out of orange felt and appliqued onto the shirt front before sewing the body parts all together. To make Mr. Lee-doll a bit more boyish than the Emily Martin pattern, I slimmed down the shirt and kept it more of a rectangle, less of an A-line dress shape. I also purposely sewed his legs slightly farther apart to further indicate this idea of shirt and pants instead of dress and tights. I think it works.

Here he is standing up. He has quite long legs. And wonky arms that seem to reach out for a hug.

The little glint of white on the eyes helps bring life to his expression.

The real Lee is an absolute little bowl of sweetness, and I think that somehow the doll captures that. Can't wait to show you the others!

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

Back on the Playground

Yesterday, Stella and I took a rainy day field trip to the kindergarten playground. She had never seen it in person, and it was so cute and unexpectedly moving to see her jumping around on the games I had designed back when she was in kindergarten herself. She was my muse - we even used her outgrown 5 year-old sneakers as the template for the footprint path.

Plus, I got to show her the murals I've been working on this summer...

The playground project was always a two-parter: first, last November, games painted on the big, empty blacktop, to inspire and expand the kindergarteners' play. You can read more about that and see pictures in this post. The second part, the murals, had to wait until the seasons changed and gave me more consistently good weather, which didn't end up happening until this summer. For the past few weeks, I've been running over the school every possible morning while the girls are at camp - which for Maeve is only from 9-11:30am. Subtract time for the long good-byes each morning, driving over to the school, setting up, and then cleaning up at the end, and that looks like about 1 - 1.5 hours of possible work time per day. I am focussing on the mantra "slow and steady" so that this schedule doesn't drive me completely insane!

And it is - sloowwwly, steadily - coming along, from the original bare brick columns:

to getting them cleaned up and primed:

to the basic design sketched on and the background colors almost finished:

The two columns are cubes with little storage sheds inside them - the doors to the sheds take up the fourth sides you can't see here - they face in towards the school. I am painting the other three sides with springtime nature scenes.

On the lefthand column: a garden scene, with daffodils and tulips and their roots, bugs flying around, worms and ants and rocks and bones underground...

On the righthand column: a pond, with a duck couple and their nest, a goose, fish and frogs, cattails and underwater weeds...

This coming week I'll be finishing up the brown background sections (you can see in the pic of Stella pointing to the goose, above), and starting the best part - breathing life and substance into all the details with lots and lots more COLOR.

Mosaic Mural Wrap-up

I promised a couple days ago that I'd post photos of the finished mural at The Purple Crayon Center for Learning and Social Innovation, and finally here they are. The mural is my riff on a traditional Arabic mosaic, the "tiles" blown up large and floating around the four blue walls of the Center's entryway. Coming together, they fit and form a cohesive whole... floating off away from each other, they go back to being just independent shapes. A bit of a metaphor, I'll admit, for the mission of the Purple Crayon Center - the idea that we are better together than we are alone; but also, the idea that the exploration, the embracing of the unexpected, the looking at life in a different way, can itself be beautiful. None of which I was thinking about when I designed it, by the way! Though subconsciously I'm sure it was rolling around in my brain. I generally really dislike the idea of designing something visual/artistic to prove a rational concept. It doesn't usually feel authentic to me and I think it runs counter to the way inspiration happens. But I love when the reverse happens: when a concept hides in a piece and only reveals itself to be there after you're finished, coincidentally and synergistically -- the cherry on top.

The paint colors were chosen as part of a conversation between the colors and feeling of the building's exterior with the Center's interior spaces. Since the mural is in the entryway, it is both purely decorative and also serves the purpose of carrying someone through the transition between approaching the building and being inside.

{the crosses on the building's spire and front doors are vestiges from when it was a church}

I wish I had great photos of the inside but I don't.. yet. There are some photos available of the space pre-launch, as well as a brief rundown of the Center's mission, in this online article, if you're interested. Also, if you're curious about the process, I've written about creating this mural in previous posts: Mural Preparation, Mural Process and, just a few days ago, Ready to Launch.

So there you have it: my latest mural and my new job. Both of which I am so excited about!

Ready to Launch

If you're coming over from Amanda's blog, hello and welcome!

As many of you local folks know, the organization I work for, The Purple Crayon Center for Learning and Social Innovation, celebrated its opening with a huge launch party this past weekend. It was an amazing night! I'll post more about the actual event soon, but I'm still in that aftermath-y, catching-up mode, and I wanted to put up more pics of working on the entryway mural first.

I'm really excited about how the mural turned out! I wrote about starting it here and then other, non-painting work for the Center had taken over and caused me to go on a long painting break before getting back to it a couple of weeks ago. I painted three days last week and finally got it done the day before the party. To those of you reading who have known me for a long time and are nodding your heads at this, may I just say - getting it done the day before the party is a huge victory over getting it done the day OF the party, no??

It's not such a large piece, but it took a long time. Partly it was that I was painting it on walls that were already a pretty saturated blue, so it took three coats of almost every color to get the coverage I wanted. And while painting the geometric shapes was easy in some respects - it was a very meditative process; the original design was creative but the actual painting was more zen than anything else - it was hard in others, since they called for a uniformity that doesn't leave a ton of room for error. On top of that, I really wanted it to look hand-done and have an organic, almost sketchy quality, but I couldn't let it look unfinished or just... bad. So it was a bit of a balancing act, though that challenge was itself enjoyable. I always like the part of making art that feels like solving a problem or answering a question. These innate dilemmas always present themselves, and then the work has to respond... I love feeling like both the responder and just an observer at the same time. I really don't know whether that makes any sense! It's hard to put words to the process.

I love the colors, the mix of the watery blue and green with the vibrancy of the orange and pink. But it wasn't until the brown kite-shapes went up that it started to visually make sense to me. The brown grounds it, I think. It's the bass note. And the brown is also completely a result of collaborating with my friend and the Center's executive director, Sarah. She advocated for brown when I was hemming and hawing about more orange (you can see my original sketch in this post - middle photo) and thank god she's the boss so that I went with it, because it made the difference.

Tomorrow I'll put up some pics of the finished thing.

Until then,

Alison (the luckiest girl in the world)