June 2012

This poem elicits exploration on the part of the art therapists and counselors taking the workshop. They question their need to “help” and ask themselves when it is best to let nature take its course. This year I added material about working in toxic environments. I feel compelled to bring up “environment” in a course called “The Ethics of Nature”. Toxicity can be within an agency, a disturbed family situation, or within the natural environment when we poison the oceans and the air and cut down the forests.

The creative process includes not wasting our resources, individual or otherwise, not trying to fix what is unfixable, knowing when to let go of material that is no longer vital, and also taking risks by actively trying out and pursuing new ideas.

I have recently returned to a large pastel I began a year and a half ago when I was painting outdoors at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM. I started it on the same day I had to leave the beautiful Ranch. I have been afraid to touch it in my studio, afraid to add to it, because what makes it work is so elusive. Today I approach this painting with respect, curiosity and . . . the freedom of the spontaneous mark or action, It is my intention to approach my teaching and students in the same way.

I will be teaching “The Ethics of Nature” again on July 21 and also on August 18.

The image that is featured on today’s blog comes out of a personal experience where I had expectations for how “nature” should look. I had travelled to Lubec, Maine which is the eastern most point in the United States. Donald and I had rented a cottage with an “ocean view.” I had spent time in Lubec a few years prior and was ready to work “en plain air.” I had already done a large body of work based on the curve of the earth where the stretched horizon and the ocean meet. This time my ocean view was a small segment of tidal waters framed by beautiful trees. I sketched everyday, looking at the portion of water allotted me (when you live in the Southwest, you become needy regarding large bodies of water). The tides in Lubec are extreme, so the land would disappear at high tide and reemerge when the tide went out. I felt there was some secret hidden there, a secret that was hidden behind the trees, a meaning waiting to be revealed through the hour glass view of water which I had been given.

When I came back to Santa Fe and began work in my studio.  I had photos, sketches, my imagination and my unconscious. I painted a viridian green layer of acrylic on my sanded pastel paper and then jumped into the tidal waters. The hour glass openings doubled so I had two views, not one. I had already spent a lot of time looking and making small sketches. When I began this larger studio piece, I preselected my palette using a set of relationships from the color wheel. With my colors chosen and a familiarity with the composition. I did not need to think at all . . . I love being in the ocean of the unconscious. My chunky Diane Townsend Terrage Pastels were perfect and the mark making took over. When I look at this piece (a slice of which you see here) I find that within the trees, secret creatures emerge.

This piece has been selected for the 2013 edition of the American Art Collector. Publication date is October 15.

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