I thought of a poem: The dogs are barkin’ The cats are meowin’ and Dads watchin’ football.
The poem is about the ordinary everyday.
I was at work thinking about the ordinary everyday. It was actually a bit of a long day, I was on my 10th or 11th hour of continuous boringness and I started to really space out. I was in a flow state, just moving boxes around and was lost in thought.
In that groove I was thinking I could do this forever and I wouldn’t know the difference. Forever just moving boxes and thinking. It’s like a different state of consciousness when I’m at work. [and] In the 12th hour of moving boxes back and forth and thinking, loud sounds going off, and more moving boxes~ almost autonomously. Just thinking and working eventually everyday *DIIIINNNG The bell to break and go home. I start to leave and my thoughts shift~ I’m no longer day dreaming… I want a vape, I think about what I have to do that day, I want to check my email, I wonder what I’ll have to eat soon.
Maybe life is just a big break time, a time to work and get away from the ordinary-seeming-extraordinary afterlife. Boringness to make us appreciate where we were, before we born, more fully.
This relates to my art in such: I take too many breaks and don’t get into an ordinary groove of just making art for a good couple of hours anymore. I noticed I sit and make art for one 35 minute album. When I finally start spacing out and zoning into my art the last song plays~I’ve earned a break, maybe not. I’m thinking 35 minutes is not enough time to really get far with what I’m wanting to do. Or it could be enough…if I don’t do just one 35 minute session a day.
I’ve been reading some books but barely finishing them, my habits are an analogy for my art, and other parts of my life. I have these grand ideas I want to get done that I just keep chiseling away with in the planning phase until it’s all planned out, then I start on it for a little (like a new book) and I get a new idea and plan->start…bored. I need to sit down and read for a couple hours; I need to paint for a whole playlist instead of just an album. It takes forever to read a book when one reads one chapter or 3 pages at a time.
If I painted for longer periods of time I would finish more paintings.
“The wonder is that we can see the trees and not wonder more” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
An interpretation I have for this poem is we get so caught in our routines we fail to see all the beautiful things life can be. Life is full of beauty and that’s not usually found checking email. (Except maybe this newsletter right?! 😀 ) I check my email for fun but maybe I should look at squirrels or something. I check my emails when I should be sketching or reading another chapter or a 35 minute paint session. Ralph Waldo Emerson was often writing about the interconnectedness of nature; and he spent lots of time outdoors contemplating. So his understanding on the sublimity of his poem idea goes a lot deeper than my interpretation.
But
Right when I get into a state of mind where the thing I’m doing is my whole life I get tired get up then get on my phone usually. To start back up again I have to sit around, put my phone down, put on some music, and build back up the energy. It’s a long process for a short amount of work. (that could be a medium sized amount of work)
Well to break a pattern one must first notice it first. This is what I need to start working on; so one day I can have a collection of prints ready for an exhibition or for a little section of an art gallery.
This week I didn’t get much done. I was tired. I was pretty much finished up with this last week; just had to do a little more for this initial sketch for my next Lino cut print.
Excuse the glare but all the orange (it is red printing ink thinned down with turpentine over a gray linoleum block) ((so I can see where I’ve cut better, the red cuts away)) is cut out to make a stamp basically. And all the black (drawing w a felt tip pen) is a raised surface and rolled on with sticky printing ink and a piece of paper is put on top and then smushed on with a little press.
I cut away at all the red, all around each line, with these curved knives~ which will show a tiny divet of gray linoleum, eventually all over the red surface, leaving only the uncut black drawing part to be inked. It will all print in reverse so I had to turn around the letters.
Side note: In the back on a sail there are letters that spelled out “AIR” vertically and I couldn’t think how to draw the R in reverse vertically. The A and the I were easy to rotate and flip because they are symmetrical so I made it say “AIM”
I was inspired for this print on a trip to San Diego. We walked by a marina and all the boats were kinda awe inspiring. It is like a grid lock pattern but each boat can come and go.
I’m making someone a print for their birthday so this was a perfect excuse to start this one, which has been on the idea list back burner.
I’m going to start cutting today probably. I also am putting down my big painting that I’ve been talking about. Too many chapters. I’m not abandoning it completely, I’m going to leave it out and maybe work on it here and there but a little less. It will get done! I just want to finish a commission first and a different big painting Christmas present… after those I plan on doing studies of different smaller parts to-a-whole of some ideas I want to work on; and working on the big painting again. Until then have a beautiful but ordinary week.
Bye
P.s. This song reminds me of a song I used to like a lot. “Ordinary” by Yonaka is the 1st song of this preformance.
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