Sketches from Spain

Above: "Female Mask," one of the drawings from my art journal.

Last week's journey through London and the south of Spain was deliciously rich on the art front. I loved meandering through the new Picasso Museum in Malaga and seeing some of the striking street art in Granada. Perhaps the most memorable visit, however, was to the childhood home and birthplace of my poet hero, Federico Garcia Lorca.

Above: The cover of my art journal, collaged with scraps of the Picasso Museum brochure, plane ticket stubs and a photo of Lorca.

By all accounts, Lorca was quite a special soul. Reading his biography one is treated to numerous tales of his silliness, pranks and child-like delight with life.

Above: Lorca in Uruguay, 1934.

One anecdote describes how he and a friend "coated their faces with rice powder, donned bogus nuns' habits and boarded a city tram, where they cast lascivious glances at their neighbors."

When Lorca visited New York (having convinced his parents he would study English), he didn't learn a lick of the language. Instead, he chose to spend his time visiting aquariums, playing with toys in dime stores and wandering the city streets. According to one friend, his favorite English phrase became "I DON'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING," which he would "shout while standing in the middle of the street, arms flailing, his face red with laughter."

I think Lorca was definitely on to something.

Above: collage from my art journal with photo of baby Lorca taken from Lorca museum brochure.

Aside from this happy pilgrimage to Lorca's home town, our trip provided many lovely moments filled with park picnics, impromptu puppetry, art-making on airplanes and sitting in the plazas watching pigeons, wedding parties, accordionists and other forms of life pass by.

Above: Picnic with family and friends in Regent's Park, London. I finally get to meet Francesca (front right), a fellow artist/writer whom I first connected with right here in the blogosphere!

Above: "Two Feet," pastel and watercolor paintings from my art journal.

Here are a few more images from the art journal I kept during our trip. If you'd like to see more photos from London and Spain, along with the rest of the sketches and paintings from my travel journal, please visit my flickr page.

Above: "Male Mask," pastel, pen and watercolor on paper.

Above: "Winged Creature," acrylic on paper.

Above: "Maskuline and Feminine," pastel and watercolor on paper.

Above: "Toro" collage using corrugated coffee cup holders, London tube tickets, magazine scraps, etc...

Comfort vs. Aliveness

One of the themes that seems to turn up again and again in my life and art is the choice between comfort and aliveness.

I think an artist's work is always partly like walking in the dark, moving forward without knowing exactly where we are going, but moving forward nonetheless, because that's how we say yes to life.

Above: "Untitled," mixed media on canvas

When we find something comfortable, perhaps something we do well, and we stay there, saying no to growth because it means beginning over, and not knowing again, part of us goes to sleep.

A wise teacher recently told me: "A yes to aliveness is also a yes to insecurity, fear and anxiety." I found it revelatory to remember that you simply can't have the one without the others. Insecurity, fear and anxiety are the bedfellows of any artist, any seeker, anyone, really, who is willing to leave behind familiar realms in favor of growth.

Above: "Dreamflight," fabric collage

We never know, when we step boldly out into life, what awaits; we have to be willing to make a thousand mistakes, or we might as well stay at home on the sofa and watch reruns.

In art it's often a matter of experimenting with a new material or form, working outside our comfort zone, or inviting an unknown element into our process, like a wild collaborator or a tool we know nothing about.

Above: Working on a new junk sculpture

It seems to me that the same principles apply to life at large. We have to throw ourselves into life wholeheartedly (even cluelessly, I might add) willing to hate something, to say "this isn't for me," to buy the one-way ticket only to change our minds and come right back, with new eyes ready to see something that we were previously blind to.

Above: "The Patriarch," junk assemblage

Sometimes we have to spend time somewhere unfamiliar to us, somewhere that wakes up our senses and jostles our brains into new ways of thinking. Or we have to invite something into our lives that perhaps scares us a little bit (or a lot), something that is not cushioned in sureness, something that brings us right to our edge.

I try to remember this choice between comfort and aliveness whenever I'm faced with big decisions in my life, especially when I'm afraid of making mistakes. As that same wise teacher so rightly reminded me: "If there isn't a spirit of adventure, what's the point?"

Perhaps this is part of the reason I feel drawn to art, again and again in my life. Because at its root, it's about adventure, about following our instincts and learning the way as we go. There's no real formula in art, despite what some teachers or textbooks may advise. Every artist, every creator, has to start from scratch, and chart his or her own course, knowing it will be different from the rest.

Above: "Corazoncito Cocodrilo," collage

And taking risks is part of that. For me, wielding a screw gun or a welder is a lot less comfortable than moving paint around on a canvas. That doesn't mean that I should do one over the other, but it does mean that I can venture into new ground, and find my edge by trying something that feels foreign to me. I may get stuck, I may occasionally fling things across a room or feel about as safe as a toddler with a table saw, but even so, I can feel a surge of aliveness in me as I struggle.

Above: Me playing with junk in my backyard

Through risk-taking in art we get to practice choosing aliveness over comfort, again and again. And each time we do, the part of us that wants to grow, that wants, like a flower, to turn its face up to the sun, is letting a new petal pull back, is letting more of us be exposed, is choosing to open.

Keeping an Art Journal

I like to use my art journal as a place to experiment with new ideas and materials and process what's going on in my life.

Above: "Ticket to Ride" (left), "Leaving to Meet New Life" (right). 5/8/08.

Having a fairly small, portable book that I can carry around and pop into on a whim helps make art more accessible and less of a "big production."

Most importantly, these pages help me to reconnect with myself by tapping into whatever is most real or true for me in the moment.

Above: "It's still spring without you," 5/12/08

To me, the art journal is one of the best places for spontaneous new work to arise, because I'm not so worried about what it will look like. The focus is more about the process of discovery, not about creating something pleasing to the eye.

Above: "Abstraction II," 5/13/08

Lately, life has been particularly full, and I've found myself feeling overwhelmed just setting foot in my studio. In times like these, the art journal is a way for me to invite art into my day without too much fuss. I can crack it open on my lunch break and slap a layer of paint on some pages. I can come back to it in the evening and collage in a few odds and ends from my day—a pay stub, some duct tape, a doodle.

Above: "Baby's Gotta Haunt On," 5/14/08

Opening my art journal, even if it's just for a few minutes, can be like opening the door into another world. Just spending a short time inside is often enough to flush my spirit with life again and bring the spark back into my eyes.

So, as a way to commit myself to some creative time this week, I've given myself the challenge of just doing a page a day in my art journal. I like to think of it as an invitation each day to drop into myself and see what's moving under the surface... So let's see what happens. I'll be posting the rest of the week's pages here, as they come.

Above: "Elegy for Robert Rauschenberg," 5/14/08

In the mean time, if you have any tricks, tips or ongoing projects that help you connect in with yourself daily through art, please post a comment or shoot me an email. Perhaps I'll try your idea next!

Random Acts of Art, Part One: First Fish

Every now and then, I like to put aside any creative projects or plans I may have, and simply commit random acts of art. "Random art," to me, is art with no gain in sight, except the sheer delight of making it. Committing random acts of art is like resetting my inner art compass…suddenly again I am pointed in the direction of pure fun, able to follow my gut and forget about whether something looks good, what purpose it serves, or whether anyone will like it.

The Magic of First Fish
I first got turned on to the joy of random acts of art by friend and fellow art-maker, Donna Otter. Many years ago, Donna began an annual artist's gathering called "First Fish." First Fish was loosely based on the tithing tradition, in which the first salmon caught during the spring season was thrown back into the waters as an acknowledgment of nature's bounty and as a blessing for an abundant season.

Above: Invitation to the East Coast Version of First Fish

Catch and Release Art-Making
At Donna's First Fish gatherings, a group of artists would make crazy collaborative art pieces, and then "throw them back" into the universe in some ceremonious and fun fashion…Sometimes the group would decide to burn them, or hang them in a tree, drop them off a pier, or mail them out at random, anonymously. One year, the group decided to put all the art together in a big box and mail it to the first "Fish" name in the phone book. Shortly thereafter, a certain Mr. and Ms. Fish received a mysterious box of messy, colorful art with no return address.

Random Art Goes on Retreat
A few years back, while working at Insight Meditation Society, a meditation retreat center in rural Massachusetts, I decided to hold an East Coast version of First Fish. I was living in a renovated grain silo at the time, and a group of us squeezed into the top floor and stayed up into the wee hours painting and collaging on big pieces of cardboard.

Above: My silo abode in Petersham, MA, and First Fish participants

Late that night, after finishing our work, some members of the group dropped off wild art surprises into the mail boxes of the sleepy New England town where we lived. The next day, others deposited colorful art into secret spots around the meditation center, where it would be noticed only by the keen-eyed retreatants that roamed the grounds.

Last I checked, before leaving the retreat center to come out West, there was still a bright piece of art stashed away on the back door of the retreatants' medicine cabinet…Success!

Above: Pile of First Fish art

Casting Back our Catch
It's easy as artists to get attached to our creations. Making random art and throwing it back into the world is a way of acknowledging that it doesn't really belong to us…If we can see, instead, that creativity arises out of a much larger source, and that that source is inexhaustible, then our art can flow freely out of us, and into the world, with less clinging and constriction.