Abstract 1/3 by Lori Wolfson

All is tumbling down.  How to proceed safely?  Where to step when everything is shifting?  Like Alice, falling, falling, I wonder at the strangeness of my surroundings as I sink.  What is this sudden hurtling rush of events and circumstances, and what am I to make of them?

Like the midpoint in a painting, when you’re far enough away from the beginning to…

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Grace Cathedral, New York City by Lori Wolfson

I used to look at writing a blog like being one of those people who get on the subway and tell their story to their briefly held captive audience.  Like when you’re on the train in New York and it stops, and people get off and people get on, and the doors close.  And then the train starts to move again.

And sometimes an unusual-looking person emerges from the dulled anonymity and proceeds to…

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what about you?

Why do you make art?

Blue Cat by Lori Wolfson

I mean, if all the outside rewards and possibilities of recognition and praise and money were removed from the picture, what would be left?

Do you ever think about what is at the core – the heart – of this need we have to make pictures?

Do you ever wonder?

To me it’s quite mysterious; I wonder all the time.

But, what about you?  What moves your hand and eye?

Inauguration.  As defined in the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary: to dedicate ceremoniously: observe formally the beginning of.  To bring about the beginning of.

Japanese Buddha by Lori Wolfson

It occurs to me that in this Grand and Sweeping Inauguration, we as a (virtually) global culture, have brought into being a shared myth of hope, of equal respect for all, and of the relentless insistence on the chance for a new beginning.  To observe this happening, to watch us reach for this dream together, takes my breath away.  As an artist I find it terribly satisfying that the forces that drive my pulsing, loving heart and hand also seem to be tumbling and surging about all over this great big world.  That seems like a good thing to bring about the beginning of.

In an earlier post I talked about going back into unfinished drawings and paintings with an abstracted and loosened approach, and how that served as a good vehicle for my re-entry into the world of making pictures.  I continue to work like this on these old drawings, and in the process I am slowly and subtly becoming aware of my developing visual memory.

I remember when I was an art student my teachers would often talk about visual memory.  They told of how…

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It’s New Year’s Eve and I have a blog to write.  My New Year’s Resolution in relation to this blog is to be honest; to speak from this very moment about what it is that occupies my thoughts.  So, here’s my truth for Thursday, January 1, 2009.

I don’t feel like writing a blog today-December 31, 2008.  I feel like letting my mind fly free, unfettered by any tasks at hand.  I know, I know, I’ve been saying that a lot these past few blogs.  ‘I need a break, I need a pause,’ all that.  But the truth is…

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It’s raining. The trunks of the great firs and redwoods are black with moisture.  It’s cold.  I retreat within.  Like a Cloud Leopard in the afternoon sun with nothing better to do, I need to languish in warmth and let that be enough.  I need to pause.    

The thoughts of doing and being will come again soon enough.  Opportunities for seeing and getting will offer themselves.  But in this moment I give myself permission to take a break.  

After all, these are the dark days of the year.  This is the far reach of the cycle.  I will rest on momentum as it swings around again toward the light.

So interesting this Life,

always surprising,

always teaching.

When I try to capture, to tame it

& make it mine,

all I get

is hands full of thin air,

& worry.

But,

when I let it speak to me

& truly listen,

oh, the stories it unfurls,

so 

intricate

& full of

wonder.