Addicted to Art

"True artists, whatever smiling faces they may show you, are obsessive, driven people."  So said John Gardner, and I agree.  But is it so bad to be obsessive and driven? With regards to art making, I think it is a fine state to be in at least once a day--hopefully more.

I am reading Ensouling Language, again, by Stephen Harrod Buhner because even though he is writing about the art of nonfiction, the practice of the craft--with its intense, insistent, stubborn passion--is the same urge to mastery in all artists, be they painters, dancers, musicians, cabinet makers, or writers.

This quote from Wallace Stegner struck a particular chord:
Except for amateurs and dilettantes, writing is not a part time occupation, nor is it the automatic spilling over of genius.  It is the hardest kind of work, the making of something from nothing.  No one but a dedicated, disciplined, even bullheaded individual is going to go on, day after day, sweating for five or six hours to make a page that may have to be thrown away tomorrow.

When an image comes into fullness, alive on the painted surface in a way that I could not quite grasp when first beginning to work with it, when that something takes on its own life and joins me in a blend of breath--that moment is gold.  In that brief glittering moment there is no amount of money or acclaim that can match the sensation of fulfillment.

And there is an addiction to that experience.

I am using images from the Oracle cards of my Journey Oracle deck to illustrate these thoughts, because while all 47 pictures did not rise to this moment of gold, these did. 

#12.  This image was painted in my Mother's house the first time I returned after her death.  While a few suggested it was a bit callus of me to paint instead of grieve, this is my grief.

#30.  Sometimes it is the intensity of detail that suddenly transforms into the felt intensity of a passionate "Yes, this is it!"

#20.  In the best way of art that transcends itself, I have no idea where this image came from.  Here is form and essence, together.

#32.  All artists check their work by feeling it. What is remarkable in this oracle image, for me, is not so much its construction as its sense of conversation with the other-than-human.  I have felt like that too. 

#10. Most times my art reflects back what I know, sometimes, it shows me what I don't know.

For me this is the most powerful sensation to which I am addicted--being led into the unknown.

How to read a painting using 7 ideas

Paintings are made of marks that are built upon a surface much like a writer builds words into a story.  And just like a reader can connect words into a larger meaning, a viewer can use these 7 design ideas to read a painting: unity, contrast, dominance, repetition, harmony, balance and gradation.  I am giving an art talk on Friday, August 16, 7 pm at the Old School House Gallery about how these 7 ideas can help us see more deeply into the new work of Annie Belcourt, in her exhibition titled "evanescent."

Here are 7 questions I will explore in a gallery walking tour of Annie's work, combined with images of her oil and cold wax landscapes that appear, like the definition of evanescent , to "gradually disappear like vapor."

Repetition

is the repeating of colour, tone, shape, texture, size, direction. 

 It may be exact or with variety. 

 How is repetition like an echo? 

Balance

Marks are felt as well as seen.   

Why is balance a force as strong as gravity?

Gradation

is the sequence of small steps from one extreme to another.

What do we feel when gradation moves 

in all directions at once?

Contrast

can be opposition, conflict, or complimentarity.

How is contrast like the plot of a novel?

Dominance

is the rule of a superior force. 

Can more than one kind of mark be equally dominate?

Harmony

happens when marks have similar attributes.

What are the extremes of harmony?

Unity

is integration, a oneness of all the parts.

Why is unity the single most important idea?

A special thank you to Richard Trueman for these beautiful photographs of Annie's paintings. 

How to accept your own authority

Do you accept your own authority?  Are your direct experiences the credentials that generate a sense of confirmation and worth for you?  I sometimes struggle with believing that I am the authority in interpreting and understanding my life experiences.  It is easy in our over-trained, over-specialized modern life to believe that someone else's view has more validity than mine does regarding my personal power.

Yet I have been self-taught in so many parts of my life. I became a drum maker by learning from the drums themselves.  I taught myself to do shamanic dreaming without any formal training in dream psychology.  I created an Oracle by following the dance of intuition and art, by listening to nature and my inner wisdom.  So how come I don't accept my own authority?

I recently created a new one-card reading technique for using the Journey Oracle, and I am using it in this blog to explore this question.  ( In case you don't have a Journey Oracle yet, all the instructions to go to certain page numbers are referencing the book that is part of the card set.)

Follow the instructions in the Oracle book on page 7, 
except only pick one card.

Feel free to choose either side of the card, 
and to reorient the image, before you begin.

Quite the image for a reading about personal authority...

SEE THE PICTURES

Begin the reading on page 8 
by looking first at the beginning side you have chosen.        

This is a picture of your situation. 

I see alarm, or surprise, or rapt attention.  The red squiggles feel like lightening crackling the air. My second impression is one of power, rather than fear. 

Turn the card over and follow the instructions for Card 2. 

This is a picture of the experience you are having in your situation. 

I see stillness, a pensive expression; my overall impression is one of uncertainty. 

Turn the card back to the first side and follow the instructions for Card 3. 

Notice new aspects of the picture not seen the first time. 

This is the change calling you. 

The eyes are looking intensely.  I am struck by their concentrated curiosity, 
like something really amazing is going on just outside the picture frame. 

Turn the card back to the second side 
and follow the instructions for Card 4.  

Again, notice new aspects of the picture. 

This is the resolution of the situation.

This time I notice that the eyes are looking in different directions.  This feels very powerful.

MEET THE ORACLE

Follow the instructions on page 9 for Card 1. 

This is the Oracle representing the Celtic tree month: Ruis,or Elder.  The time of year associated with this Oracle is November 25 until December 22. The qualities of Withdrawal, Renewal, the Threshold, and the Brink are associated with this Oracle.  Certainly these four words seem to capture perfectly the flow that withdraws from other authority to renew a sense of one's own inner wisdom, which creates a threshold of hope and fear, and then balances on the brink of choice: do I accept my authority, or do I stay uncertain?

RECEIVE MESSAGES

Follow the instructions on page 10 for Card 1. 

Because I chose the side of the card with the circle symbol, I turn to page 21 in the 
Journey Oracle book and look up the question for card #46.  
Do you accept direct experience? 
I cannot imagine a more potent question for this inquiry into personal authority.  

THE ORACLE SPEAKS

Turn in the book to the four sequential pages that correspond to the 

Card number. Begin with the Situation: read the 

Oracle pronouncements 

about the situation and your alignment to it. 

Receive what has resonance and pass over what does not.

Continue reading the next 3 pages with Oracle pronouncements 

about your Experience in this situation, 

the Change calling you, and your Resolution. 

Although there is much valuable insight for me in the four pages corresponding 
to card 46, I am only going to share the last page in this blog:  a fairy tale that 
contains a pathway into my question, that opens deep transformation

THE  RESOLUTION

A Journey Oracle fairy tale

MAKING  A  BEAD

There was a child who so loved butterflies that she wanted to 

make them a gift.  She felt communication without words when 

she was near one, like a coming into power.  Her mother 

suggested she made a bead to give and that in doing so she

would discover a secret of something, a knowledge that

cannot be out there, and this knowing would be the gift that

the butterflies would most like to have from her.

"But what material shall I use? I don't want to be a death 

bringer to wood or bone" the girl said. "I'll use an empty

shell" she thought.  "This will be no harsh look at reality 

because the creature will have already left." And so the girl

found a shell and chipped and sanded it with a rock until a 

circular shape appeared.  "But now the fairy tale's over"

she realized, "now I must be doing the work to make the hole."

The girl looked for shards amid a scattered focus of rock rubble,

like seeing horns of stone that would be able to pierce without

breaking the shell. She began twirling a sharp piece into the

center of the shell circle, and felt her inner tension clearing, 

like she was going to a new place in how she used her hands. 

This twirling took a long time, the layers of shell were like

hard news that does not want to be forgotten.  Yet finally the

girl felt a little tickle against her finger, the way butterfly feet

tickle when one was walking on her hand.  A hole appeared! 

"This is the secret my Mother told me about" she exclaimed.

"A bead is not something that surrounds a hole; a bead is the

hole with something surrounding it so it can still be seen.

I am giving the butterflies something invisible." Then the girl

looked at her sore fingers, dented from all the twirling.

"Maybe this is the knowledge from making a bead that 

cannot be out there--that the butterflies want the gift of my

effort more than the thing my effort makes."

This is a way of accepting one's own authority.  It is a knowledge

that cannot be out there as a declaration of ego.  As an 

announcement of credentials.  Personal authority is 

the 'hole in the bead' that is made visible by

intention, resolve and action. 

Receiving messages from spirits of place, or, sailing into Toba Inlet

Here is a story of my attempts to understand a message and its meaning. We left on a sailing trip, “going to go up Toba inlet,” we told our friends.  Before leaving I packed some tobacco offerings, although our time away did not include any of the moon phases I honour in this way.  

Two days out in beautiful sun and perfect breezes and we are at the head of Toba. The traditional territory of the Klahoose First Nation, the inlet is a grand sweep of mountains and sky with the ocean shading from blue grey to pale green in the distance, where the cloudy glacial silt begins to enter and mix. 

There is no wind out in the Pryce Channel entrance and we imagine motoring up to Brem River, then turning the dogleg right and going “a ways up.”  I am gawking at rock bluffs, scree slides and the remnants of snowfields.  I enter this holy house like a spiritual tourist eager for revelation.

A breeze begins to follow off our stern and up go the sails. It picks up slightly and as the dinghy we tow begins a happy gurgle we decide to sail “wing 'n wing.”  Probably my favorite set—the main and the jib out on opposite sides so we are under Pearl's wide, white wings.  This is a difficult configuration to steer and my full attention goes to maintaining the balance between the two soaring sheets of canvas.  

Much more wind now, white caps are beginning to tumble alongside.  The distance to the headland where we turn right into the main run of Toba is beginning to seem too far way, even though it appears calm.  Behind us, back in Pryce Channel, we can clearly see calm water.  The wind is only here. With us. 

Too much.  Too much.  We have to turn around. What follows are long minutes of tense action. Struggling into the wind to wrestle in the jib. Then the engine on so Pearl can claw her way back toward the entrance of the inlet.  “I don't think Toba wants us to come in here" I shout over the clatter and roar.  Then I suddenly remember the tobacco offerings.  And not doing anything to acknowledge the spirits of this place when we entered their house.  Just as there is community law, and forest law—unwritten but understood ways of behaving honourably—I believe that there is spirit law.  And my somewhat mindless behavior violated several. Reciprocity is communication. Respect the elders.  Contact is not friendship. When you don't know you are forgiven for not knowing...when you do know, you are not forgiven.  I made no gift to acknowledge the spirit presence of this place, I behaved with entitlement instead of humility, I knew better.  

We are back near the entrance to Toba.  I take the last part of my lunch sandwich, which has been languishing for some time in the bottom of the cockpit because it has been too rough to eat and steer at the same time, and I drop it overboard, saying, “I feed you. I feed you.”  The wind stops. Abruptly. The sea ruffles into tiny wavelets. A vulture rises from Channel island just ahead and circles several times directly over us. I cannot resist a smile at the synchronicity as I go below to begin my belated lunch dish duty when suddenly the engine goes quiet. Already coming up the companionway I hear just one word. 

“Whale.”

About 40 feet from our beam a humpback is slowly surfacing.  We are close enough to hear a squeak and a belch as it blows before slowly submerging. A small skiff with three people has been watching because they start their engine and move off as the whale resurfaces and turns toward Pearl. It stays on the surface for a time, then moves a short distance to rest again.  Like we are disturbing its nap.  We drift off in a wide arc to give plenty of space before motoring away.  For as far as we can see behind us, the whale is still on the surface, taking the rare breath, apparently back to sleep.

That evening I reflect back over this story of wind and visitation. My intuition tells me something significant happened, a message from the other than human world. My rational mind tells me don't be silly.  

But in Barbara Tedlock’s words, I know how to “embrace casual but meaningful coincidences of inner and outer events.”  The wind, the remembering, the sandwich, the calm, a soaring vulture and a surfacing whale are of themselves surely quite ordinary, but the emotional and intuitive connections created a sequence that woke me up to something not ordinary.

The wind is force. Like the place shouting, “no one invited you here to take without giving.” Reciprocity is communication.

 The vulture is an ancient presence. Us white folks usually learn to dislike them, but they are the only bird that does not kill, that does not eat souls.  A creature that does not harm.  Feels like a wise admonishment.  Respect the elders. Contact is not friendship.

The whale is the iconic spirit of this place.  Do not disturb my sleep.  When you don't know you are forgiven for not knowing...when you do know, you are not forgiven. And you know better.

So, did that sequence of events really have this meaning?  

They did to me.  

You will have to tell your own story about a windy day.  

Happy sailing from the Journey Oracle. 

What is Community Law? Or how we live here

Community law is not the legal system; it is a way of behaving that is unspoken and unwritten, but mostly realized among people who share a place. Of course there are many terms in psychological, social and cultural studies to describe how people act with each other, but in a small rural place community law is not a detached examination of applied concepts, it is a certain tilt of will.  

Here are some examples of community law in action: Telling the house sitter to call a neighbour to help with an alarmingly low tire; asking the guy with tools in his truck if he knows how to get into your locked car; creating a spontaneous phone tree among people who have farm animals to find who is missing the sheep that has turned up in your yard; lifting off branches that have fallen on young trees and ferns as you walk through an adjoining property to the beach. 

So what are the community laws embedded in each of these four examples?

Flat tire: There is an expectation of receiving and offering help to people one does not know. 

Locked car: There is trust in the honesty of others. 

Lost sheep:  Animals as well as people deserve to be safe and well cared for.

Fallen branches: Property is neither wholly private nor openly public but held in a kind regard by those who use and care for it.

Each of these examples also has a deeper thread in common: that of “we" instead of “I.” In a remote location such as Cortes Island, there is no, or only very expensive,  access to services from strangers: BCAA, a locksmith, the SPCA. What we have is each other and so we cannot afford to isolate ourselves behind gates and surveillance cameras—figuratively or literally. 

Why is this blog illustrated with images of cloud-swept mountains?  Because community law is like this: ways of behaving that are both solid and enduring, and are also a shifting flow that depends on the nuance of intention and intuition. And why pay attention to these laws ?  For those of us who have been here awhile they don't enter consciousness so much as they just are the way we are. For those of you who have recently come here, I think they do bear thinking about, because this is how you live now.