Dragon, Odditorium, Time and Burritos

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, fine art, household surrealism, Odditorium, poetry, printed books, Sustainable creativity, whimsical art

Unveiling an art exhibit during a pandemic full of unknowns has gotten me thinking about uncertainty in general. In the recent past of human history, at least as I read it, “uncertainty” about the weather, if a restaurant was open or not was more normal – in general things tended to be more uncertain, unplanned and unscripted. We didn’t have phones and the ability to search for information at our fingertips, no digital assistants or handheld calendars to organize our days, we couldn’t “know” in advance when a package was arriving much less know about a person. Things unfolded over time and that was mostly okay.

Jerry Seinfeld’s term for this is “garbage time” – quotes and a link below:
https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-emotionally-intelligent-people-build-better-relationships-develop-trust-employees-family-friends.html
“Garbage time is when a moment is not planned and optimized to within an inch of its life. When a conversation is not fraught with meaning and purpose. When an interaction or event is not filled with expectation — and accompanied by the resulting pressure to live up to those expectations….. Garbage time is the best time.  With co-workers. With employees. With friends and family, and especially your kids.

Garbage time isn’t weighted by the expectation that a moment will be special and memorable and perfect.

Garbage time just is.”

And I think we need garbage time with ourselves too. Times when however we feel, whatever we do or don’t do is just fine. Especially during a pandemic.

My new coloring book poem “How To Draw A Dragon” covers a bit of the “garbage time” territory, the dragon in my book wants everything to be just so while the rabbit wants to be playfully creative. The rabbit just wants to be.

Below are some photos of the printed version of “How To Draw A Dragon”. In my last post I mentioned working on a portfolio page about this new book – so I’ve begun that here. Storyberries said that they will likely have this book on their website the first week in September – but there is some uncertainty. Pandemic you know.

Speaking of uncertainty and time: my  Odditorium exhibit at Caplan Art Designs is being done a bit differently – pandemic again – and who knows how it will go. While the opening is officially the first Thursday in September it won’t be the big party of times before. Masks are required to visit the Gallery and there will be appointments arranged at other times, art will be shipped or delivered in a safe way and this virtual page used as a catalog. For my artist talk videos like this will serve – the videos and the virtual page will both be used by the Gallery rather than the physical presence of either the artist -me – or a large group of the public on one evening. So really rather than a single night opening party every day is the opening! At least that’s the thought. But who knows… and it’s okay that it’s uncertain.

What I did know for certain was that all of the paintings needed to be framed before delivery to the Gallery. So I’ve spent most of my time last few weeks doing that. Below are a few pieces newly placed in frames.

Random unplanned unscripted  associations were how I got the ideas for each artwork in my Odditorium series so a little more uncertainty about the exhibit itself isn’t really a problem. Of course I hope for sales – I almost can’t help hoping that – but I don’t have big expectations. My main hope is that people will just enjoy my artwork, that it will brighten their outlook at least a little, give them a sense of comfort and care as we all cope with this pandemic. The funny thing is that this hope of mine, that my work will lift spirits, is something that I may never know whether it worked. And that’s okay. A songbird doesn’t know when it’s music is enjoyed either.

Here’s me all masked up to deliver the artwork. The gallery owner didn’t wear a mask because we had to talk business and I’m deaf and lip read.

Sue Clancy at Caplan Art Designs

After our conversation I left my art in the Gallery in boxes. Not very long later the owner sent me this photo of the paintings hung on the wall!

Sue Clancy’s Odditorium series at Caplan Art Designs

From now on I won’t be physically at the Gallery at any point. The main things I’ll be doing are the videos and the virtual page plus I will be supporting the exhibit by talking about the inspiration for the artworks and the Odditorium book on social media.

This is all *very* different. In the before times (pre covid) I would physically go to an opening party. Lots of people would come. I would give a talk. I would talk to people all evening long and go home exhausted (and happy) with a hoarse voice from having talked almost nonstop for 4 hours.

It’s not the same but this year I did 5 different videos on my YouTube channel of me talking about why I do what I do. Here’s a table of contents, so to speak, of the videos:

ABOUT ODDITORIUM https://youtu.be/-kkCVoAQejk

Household surrealism as a way of coping
https://youtu.be/hqlkz7gMrHI

What Clancy is doing
https://youtu.be/MML0OSY9OpQ

Three Things Inspire Clancy’s Art
https://youtu.be/cSiGGj1cgxk

Why I make art by Clancy
https://youtu.be/GYiby2CfySc

The food this week was much better! I made a pot of my magic beans and have been using my precooked pinto beans for burritos inspired by this recipe (I omit the meat in the recipe)  https://www.theseasonedmom.com/easiest-burrito-recipe/

Besides wrapping burritos in foil and baking them as per the recipe above I had a craving for some roasted vegetables. So I made my bean, onion and cheese burritos and put them in some boat shaped ovenproof dishes. Then I covered the burritos with chopped zucchini, corn and bell peppers that I tossed in Penzey’s Northwoods Seasoning mix. A few slices of tomatoes and shredded cheese completed the dish. I covered the boats with aluminum foil and baked them in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Then I removed the foil and used the broil oven setting to toast the cheese. With hot pads on the table I served the boats directly from the oven. So yummy!!

My “garbage time” evening reading is: Ireland by Frank Delaney, The World Of Edward Gorey by Ross and Wilkin, Making Mischief by Gregory Maguire.

May we all have some good restorative “garbage time” this week. And some good food. See you next Monday.

Too hot for a crocodile

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, books, fine art, household surrealism, mental health, public art, sketchbook, Sustainable creativity, visual story

June 25 through the 28th we had an intense heatwave here in the Pacific Northwest. It was hot enough to melt cables on the streetcar. It was hotter than the Mojave desert. My spouse and I stayed in the room of our house with the ceiling fan and the portable air conditioning unit. We drank water like it was a career. We ate salty snacks to help stay hydrated. We hugged ice packs to help cool our cores.

Most homes in the Pacific Northwest don’t have A/C because normal summer temperatures average in the mid 70’s to low 80’s. Very rarely are the temps higher than 90 degrees. A strategy of opening windows and doors in the cool of morning and at night then closing them just before the temperature gets to the 70’s is usually enough to keep a house comfortable all day.

Allegedly the recent heatwave was a once in a thousand year heat dome exacerbated by the climate crisis. Whatever you want to call it – it was very hot. And it took me most of a week to recover. 118 degrees outside and 93 degrees inside even with the air conditioning running full blast feels hotter than you can imagine. Hugging an ice pack like a teddy bear really helped.

During the heat wave I did a lot of reading and by habit I continued my daily drawing in my sketchbook. But my new crocodile project (prior post) is spread out in my studio where it was far too hot to stay more than a few minutes. So the only progress on my crocodile was an email discussion with the folks at Storyberries about formats. Still some forward motion and I’m glad of that!

Anyway, here’s some random sketchbook pages created under the ceiling fan next to the A/C. And yes, besides water we did drink our morning coffee.

What do you eat for meals when it’s record-breaking hot? Milkshakes, salads and sandwiches. Here’s the relevant pages from our Favorites So Far kitchen sketchbook. I was glad I had made a book of our favorite foods to pull from because it was too hot to think properly much less be creative in the kitchen.

Favorites So Far – https://www.blurb.com/b/9759759-favorites-so-far

The process of dealing with the heat was something of a learning curve. Did I mention that heat is not normal for the cool rainy Pacific Northwest?! Here in case it’s needed – which I hope it won’t be – is an article about being safe in extreme heat.

Then later, July 2nd, there were my art openings at Burnt Bridge Cellars and at the Aurora Gallery! Fortunately I felt enough better by then to do social media to share about them.

Below is part of what Burnt Bridge Cellars shared.

Here below is what the Aurora Gallery shared of part of the Gallery exhibit. My “Bear, Matt” original art and a few of the prints can be seen in the lower left corner.

My original “Bear, Matt” painting was done on a beermat coaster I’d gotten on a trip to Buoy Beer. (details in an earlier post)  So the back of the original art shows the brewpub logo. You can see both sides below.

In case you missed it here’s a blog post about my “Bear, Matt” project. The photo below shows a few of the prints. You know it’s a print because the back is plain except for my studio logos.

It was a treat this week, a real bright spot, to hear from my favorite college art history professor! She wrote of her delight in having gotten a copy of my new childrens book On Looking At Odditorium and her pleasure at still having one of my paintings in her dining room! Wow!! How nice is that?!

Back when her children were young I had the thrill of having her children as two of my “favorite fans” – one of her girls had even specifically picked out artwork of mine to buy for their very own collection! Oh, that ranks high in my list of happy memories!

Now this week my professor added to my happiness by sending me this photo!! In the top left corner you can see one of my artworks circa 20 years ago give or take. I remember being so excited back then when my painting found a home with this professor!

Also this week I got to sign some of my green dragon bookplates for another dear friend’s two grandkids!! That was another high point!!

It was also an uplift, during the heatwave itself, to post here the conversation I’d had earlier before the heatwave began with Mrs Perry, the guest art teacher I featured, and then to follow the readers comments!!

I just love doing the work I do and I would do it even if there wasn’t anybody around to notice. But I really like creating my artwork as part of an ongoing conversation with friends. And it certainly helped my own spirits this week to hear from friends that my artwork brings them joy!

So note to self: go ahead and write that fan letter, send that card, type that text and tell someone something kind. You might make a really big difference in someone’s week and help them get through a rough spell.

Stay cool and hydrated this week and know that I appreciate it that you follow my blog. See you next Monday.

On Looking at Odditorium

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, book design and layout, books, children's book, creative thinking, ebook, household surrealism, Odditorium, On Looking At Odditorium, printed books, public art, published art, sketchbook, Sustainable creativity, visual thinking, words and pictures, writing, writing and illustrating

To my awareness there aren’t many books for children that talk about looking at an artist’s exhibit whether the fine art is in a book or on walls.

A child looking at a painting by Sue Clancy in the Caplan Art Designs gallery

I think looking at a book of fine art is similar to looking at a wordless picture book. Looking at one artist’s series of paintings on a gallery wall is like a wordless book too. But looking at fine art, while there are similarities to wordless picture books, it is also different; a collection of fine art often refers to the feelings and lived experiences of the artist in addition to any visual story there may be within the artwork itself.

So I’ve been lucky enough to work with Storyberries to create a childrens book On Looking At Odditorium that I hope will help kids enjoy looking at artwork and be able to speculate about the artist’s thinking.

Towards that end I created cartoon drawings of myself so they could take a trip (or tour) through a book of my Odditorium fine art exhibit and explain what I was thinking and how I created each painting.

Here’s a closer look at all of the avatar drawings. In many of my childrens books on Storyberries.com there’s a photo of me wearing a sweater. For consistency sake I drew myself in a sweater pointing this way and that.

Below are several sample pages from On Looking At Odditorium. You can see the avatar and a speech bubble on each page.

I want to encourage imaginations so in the book I try to both show and tell what using imagination is like.

For a childrens book I didn’t want to get too technical about art materials and methods but I did want to share something about them. I wanted to share especially when the materials and methods directly interacted with my imagination.

Below is a look at the book layout so you can see the little avatars on tour across a page spread.

The adult version of my Odditorium exhibit coffee table book does not have the avatar or descriptions. Here’s what the cover of the adult book looks like.

https://www.blurb.com/b/10698335-odditorium

And here’s the childrens book version titled “On Looking At Odditorium“. The cover design is very similar to the adult book on purpose – to emphasize that anyone of any age can look at art. The layout inside this book is different as is the kind of paper for the printed books. I wanted paper likely to withstand children’s hands.

https://www.blurb.com/b/10758158-on-looking-at-odditorium

Storyberries has a extra special ebook edition that went live within hours of this post. And I love the nesting specialness of this project: it’s a fine art exhibit called Odditorium at Burnt Bridge Cellars via Caplan Art Designs that has a companion exhibit book titled Odditorium. The Odditorium exhibit book then has a companion childrens book version titled On Looking At Odditorium. Then the special ebook on Storyberries – which you can see here for free – about looking at On Looking At Odditorium! Here’s what the Storyberries ebook version looks like at the top…

https://www.storyberries.com/bedtime-stories-odditorium-free-art-books-for-kids/

Did you get all the nesting nuances to this project? I’ve hopefully laid it all out clearly on my portfolio page about this project… but even if no one besides me sees the nesting qualities – thinking about it in this interlocking way served to help me construct it all – my main point is for people to have fun.

Needless to say it’s been a very busy week. There’s been food, some of it tasty and blog-worthy, but I was tired and just ate it without photos or noting recipes.

Also due to busy-ness not much was done on my new crocodile project mentioned last post. But I have kept up my sketchbook activities and reading books of an evening. Sketching and reading are like breathing.

So I’ll not promise anything specific for next Monday… but there will be something. Hopefully, something that encourages your own creative life or is at least entertaining for you.

Till next time – have a good week looking at stuff.

Odditorium exhibit, lots of books and a sandwich technique

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, art techniques, artist book, artistic inspirations, books, fine art, illustrated gifts, life of the mind, mental health, Odditorium, printed books, sketchbook, Sustainable creativity, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing, writing and illustrating

Last week I took 3 boxes containing all of my Odditorium fineart into Burnt Bridge Cellars where it will be through the end of July. Everything I’ve done over the last year is now in the capable hands of the winery and the Caplan Art Designs art gallery!

My spouse took this photo as I paused with one of the boxes on my way into the back patio door of the winery.

Due to our state’s Covid19 protocols reservations are needed for drinking and eating indoors or outdoors at the winery. Masked people are welcome to drop in to see the fine art and buy bottles or growlers of wines. When not seated masks are required.

Reservations can be made here:
https://www.burntbridgecellars.com/

(I see that I have new followers to this blog – welcome! – to catch you up to date more photos and info about this project, the art and access to the artistbooks is here https://sueclancy.com/portfolio/odditorium/)

While not exactly a full art opening  the winery took reservations for a special Friday night dinner: marinated salmon or chicken sate by Class Cooking and of course one could sit and enjoy a variety of wines!! Masks can be removed when seated it’s just when walking about that they’re needed.

Friday night there was live music outside on the winery patio. And you could go inside to see my fineart and artistbooks then you could go outside to hear the music or vice versa.

These photos below are a look at my Odditorium artexhibit on the winery walls before people came (there are more photos here).

Below is a photo of the artist books that are in the basket in the photo above.

And my green dragon bookplates did come in time!! I had hoped in my last post to sign a few of the bookplates for the exhibit in case someone wanted one in one of my books.

Anyway, I was very aware all week that in the best of times and conditions I don’t hear well. Add the masks worn sensibly during a fading pandemic and lip reading isn’t an option either. So I made the decision to stay home even though I could have made a reservation at Burnt Bridge Cellars and spent at least some time at the winery during the first Friday my Odditorium art exhibit was  available.

But I know myself and I know that if I saw someone looking at my art I’d want to pop up from my seat put my mask on and try to talk with them and try to hear what they’d say even knowing it wouldn’t be likely…. so I just chose to not put myself in that situation.

While it was a sensible decision I still had some upset feelings about it. So I worked on remembering this 👇

Bookstores and libraries have often been my places of consolation. So my spouse and I went and had our first in-person visit to a local independent bookstore Vintage Books ! We’ve both been buying online from Vintage Books for a year now…but the impulse buying when indiebookstore shopping in person can’t be beat!!
https://www.vintage-books.net/

Here’s a selfie I snapped inside the store. At the time we went there were only two other customers and two store employees. We were all spread out throughout the store. It was silent (at least to my perception) except for one of the two store cats who sat up when I neared the shelf where she lay and said “meow”. Vintage Books has both new and used books so the store smelled like book heaven even though my mask. I loved the sights of the colorful book spines and book covers displayed on shelves from floor to ceiling. The staff write handwritten notes about books and I enjoy seeing the various handwriting styles in various places on the shelves. There were multiple spaces where books from different topics/genres had been collected together with staff comments like “if you like the topic in this book then you may like these too” – and that’s a sure way to get me to impulse buy! 🤣

Here’s a photo of my book haul.

Then after we got home I used my usual “how to pick a book” method. I’ve described it in Another Sketchbook and also included it on this coffee mug in my Zazzle shop.

https://www.zazzle.com/how_to_pick_a_fun_book_to_read_mug-168374730790857937
https://www.zazzle.com/how_to_pick_a_fun_book_to_read_mug-168374730790857937

It felt so good to have an extended length of time reading!!

Another soul satisfying restorative was finding that my order from Paperblanks came!!! (https://www.paperblanks.com/en/) Yippee!!! I buy blank books 5 or 6 at a time because it gives me the joyous feeling that I can write with impunity. I can draw with abandon. I can liberally spread the sunshine of my imagination. I can run around with my pen… I can…I can… I can…❤❤❤❤🖋🖋🖋☕☕❤❤❤❤

So this weekend I immersed myself in my books, I dipped into novels like a diver into a swimming pool. I also swam freely in my new orange poetry sketchbook book (mentioned last post). The orange book was the last unused book from my last order-of-5 books. Whenever I get to the last few books I order more immediately.

Several meals this week were quick sandwiches: cream cheese, various vegetables chopped up and some spring greens on lavash bread rolled up. A rolled sandwich only requires one hand to hold it which leaves the other hand free to hold a book! The Atoria Lavash are some of the best I’ve tasted and they ship directly from the bakery! Anyway here’s a link to the sandwich rolling technique https://www.atoriasfamilybakery.com/wrap-like-a-pro/

While my Odditorium exhibit will run through the end of July in subsequent posts I’m going to turn this blog towards new projects. I’ve already started new fine art that continues this Odditorium theme. The new art will be destined for exhibit in September. There’s also the children’s book version of my Odditorium exhibit book still to be released. So periodically on this blog I will probably return to this theme. But I’ve also got a different project in progress that I also want to share with you…

More about that next Monday. I hope your week is a good one!

An Odditorium of stories, poems and mugs of soup

A Creative Life, art exhibit, artist book, author illustrator, books, fine art, household surrealism, humor in art, magic realism, mundane and magical moments, Narrative Art, Odditorium, poetry, printed books, sketchbook, whimsical art, words and pictures

Early this week I’m delivering all of the Odditorium fine art and books to Burnt Bridge Cellars! This weekend I made sure the art is ready to go and signed some of the artist books.

These artist books are stories within the Odditorium series fine art visual stories. First there’s the Odditorium exhibit catalog which tells the story of the exhibit itself and has images of all the fine art.

Then each additional artist book that I wrote and illustrated, whether for children or adults, contains an odd look at a household or mundane experience. Numpurrs is about a shared meal. Patch La Belle is a collection of whimsical poems about drawers, chairs, cake and much more. This Rabbit is about liking activities at home. Another Sketchbook is about enjoying books and ones own mind. Favorites So Far is a collection of my favorite recipes. Pembral Forgets, written by Steve Tubbs and illustrated by me is about fall leaves and good food.

I didn’t sign all of the books and I hope the green dragon bookplates, that I spoke of in a prior post, come from the printer soon. I plan to sign a few of those for Burnt Bridge Cellars to have on hand just in case someone wants a book signed that wasn’t already signed.

Here are boxes of fine art ready for delivery. One of the side benefits of working in a series on the same size art boards is the ease of packing for transportation.

It didn’t take long to double check that all of my exhibit ducks are in a row because I was basically ready a week ago. So I’ve begun to work on other projects and a starting point is to read about stories and imagination.

Here’s a wonderful essay I read this week on these topics by Salman Rushdie (another favorite author) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/24/opinion/sunday/salman-rushdie-world-literature.html

And here’s another article on stories and how stories can help us think well. https://lithub.com/on-the-evolutionary-uses-of-storytelling

Poetry, in this article, is just what the doctor ordered…I enjoyed reading about the connection between poetry and good mental health! https://www.today.com/today/amp/tdna219376

Speaking of poetry: I’ve started a new poetry sketchbook. I like the mini books from paperblanks.com with the unlined thicker paper as I can both draw and write on it. I don’t paint in this book as the paper isn’t suitable for watercolor or gouache. This is deliberate as the attributes of the paper in my poetry sketchbook helps me focus on the words and the illustration idea itself instead of getting focused on color too soon. I have a bound watercolor sketchbook for when it’s time for color considerations and serious ink work. This means I may start something in my poetry sketchbook and then try the same sketch in color in my watercolor sketchbook. The 3 photos below show the new (orange) poetry sketchbook, then one of the poems I wrote in the new poetry book. The 3rd photo shows my watercolor sketchbook and a color effort with my poetry idea. At this point I’m just playing.

Related to my household surrealism thoughts I wonder…Can poetry or short stories also be a mug or notecard? What if the mug is big enough to hold soup?

https://www.zazzle.com/daffodil_gifts_mug-168964634508229714

What if the card is itself a pun shared between people…?

https://www.zazzle.com/just_a_note_note_card-256813794765519171

I want to make things that help people connect with other people. This is part of why I enjoy having fine art exhibits at Burnt Bridge Cellars – via Caplan Art Designs – people connect over my art, the wine and food. It does feel strange – and anticlimactic – from my point of view to have an exhibit at the winery and not have a big blowout multiple hours long opening party due to the sensible covid restrictions. (The winery is at 50% capacity and reservations are necessary for eating and drinking at the winery. They welcome masked people dropping in to buy bottles of wine and see the art.)

But last year during the worst of the pandemic shutdown I was delightfully amazed at the many kind responses – virtual comments on social media – about my art, my books and my efforts at a virtual exhibit! (This years virtual exhibit is here) And because in the past exhibits I’d had trouble hearing in the winery when it was packed with people – during shutdown 2020 I actually enjoyed my online interactions with people because I could actually read what they said!!

Anyway, I have hopes that somehow it will all work this year too – and that people will go to the winery and enjoy the wine, the food and my art and books!

Speaking of food… Here’s a yummy soup I made this week. I like having soup in large mugs – makes it easier to get the last bite. The potato soup recipe I used is from one of my favorite cookbooks. I love thinking about things that build community: books, music, art and….soup!! This book is fun to read because it’s also a series of stories about food and friends in different communities.

A person doesn’t live by soup and bread alone we also need our personal green dragons, aka our imaginations, carefully nourished so we can deal with the emotional wolves inside us and be able to participate in life. What do you feed wolves? Stories, poems, music and fine art!

An illustration I did for Dr Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit

Here’s another sketchbook page somewhat related to this topic.

May your dragon and good wolf be well fed this week. See you next Monday?

Flamingos enjoying life in the Odditorium

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, book design and layout, books, children's book, fine art, household surrealism, Odditorium, poetry, publications - publishing, sketchbook, visual thinking, words and pictures, writing, writing and illustrating

Frankly, I’m tired. But it’s the I’ve-played-hard good kind of tired. So more pictures and less text in this post and you get a special peek … I’ve been thinking about Kurt Vonnegut’s book If this isn’t nice what is? Here’s an article I enjoyed about this Vonnegut book. Here’s a photo of the book in my library with other Vonnegut titles.

Below is one of the poems I read during breakfast this week in a book called Animal Poems. It’s one of the titles in the Pocket Poetry series by Everyman’s Library. (I love this series! Especially with breakfast!) The poem in the photo is by Wiliam Cowper. I love the last line “The comfort of a reasonable joy.” So I’ve also been thinking how important it is to have regular reasonable enjoyments. I take the phrase “reasonable enjoyments” to mean the simple kind that don’t require lots of money, a travel agent or dressy clothes. Anyway, here’s the poem.

In my last post I talked about the pace of creative life. I’ve still been thinking about the skill of crafting daily rhythms and here’s a link to an inspiring article I read on the topic: https://www.wired.com/story/calendar-tips-post-pandemic-reentry-organization/  Maintaining a daily rhythm has enabled me – to get very tired 🤣 – but also to have nearly everything completely finished two weeks early prior to delivery of all the art and books for my Odditorium exhibit. Being early gives me flexibility to have time to rest as well as to deal with any unexpected issues.

Below are some of my sketchbook pages … and some kitchen gadgets I looked at and thought about as I worked on one of the last paintings for this exhibit.

Here’s a photo my spouse took of me working out how flamingos might carry things.

Below is the finished painting on my easel drying. Below that is a close up of the dry painting. I titled it “Is Not This Nice?” The title fits with my thoughts recently and echos the collage text I found in my falling apart copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It was fun to find text written by Austen that was similar to what Vonnegut said.

Is Not This Nice? By Clancy – acrylic and collage on board

If the background of my painting reminds you of the ocean….we went there recently and seeing the sea lingered in my mind. The Pacific Ocean isn’t far from our house. I find it soothing to visit.

By now my studio is chock full of boxes of framed art ready for exhibit at Burnt Bridge Cellars and Caplan Art Designs. This is part of how I earned my tiredness.

The other way I’ve been earning my tired is that I’ve been working on the exhibit catalog aka a picture book of my Odditorium exhibit. In addition to that I’ve been working on a kid friendly version of my exhibit catalog. Children need fine art in their lives too in my opinion. When I was a kid I would have loved to see a book talking about looking at fine art. That’s why I took the extra steps to make a children’s book version too. I have sent the kid friendly version to Storyberries.com and they have an exciting plan for the book design! Below is a screenshot of a post they did on Instagram about it!

Here’s a special early peek into the Odditorium – at my exhibit book!!! And a link so you can see the whole book!!! Even in the midst of being tired I’m excited!!

One of my reasonable enjoyments this week was my spouse’s homemade biscuits for breakfast. The recipe is in my kitchen sketchbook Favorites So Far and you can see more of it here.

More next Monday about the Odditorium exhibit book and the other fun stuff…after I have a bit of rest. Hope you have a good week full of relaxation and reasonable enjoyments.

Crows, cookies and thinking in the Odditorium

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, art gallery, art techniques, artistic inspirations, fine art, household surrealism, magic realism, mental health, Odditorium, Sustainable creativity, travel art and writing, whimsical art, words and pictures

One of the gifts of travel is the awareness that things don’t have to be what you’re used to in order to be enjoyable.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 I’ve been looking at household things with the eye of a traveler. I’m practicing being okay with things as they are, seeing them in new ways and enjoying them – like how I would enjoy things on a trip. Along the way it occurred to me that domestic arrangements are one place in life where things can be more or less to our preferences. Home is a place of fairly reliable comforts. There’s a gift of comfort in that.

The sketchbook I began this, ahem, journey in has been published as Another Sketchbook.  I decided at first to view household things as if they were public monuments, things we might travel to see. Then I decided that was too distant…the people too small and far away. Then I decided I didn’t want to draw people after all because animals feel more comforting. Anyway, here are a few pages from Another Sketchbook…I’m hoping you can see how I got to my present Odditorium art series via this trail.

Here below is the book cover and a link where you can look through the entire book.

https://www.blurb.com/b/10134263-another-sketchbook-by-clancy

Of course after publishing Another Sketchbook I’ve kept on keeping a sketchbook. I post these new pages now and then on my social media. Here’s a few pages from my new sketchbook that are relevant to the painting you’ll see in this post.

While musing about the crows I often see in my yard I thought of how the kitchen gadgets I have are so useful. And I love herbs and spices – especially those from Penzeys. So I took a photo of the kitchen tools and spices I was about to use at that moment.

Then as the days progressed I began a new acrylic painting full of my thoughts about my ongoing efforts to dance and appeal, so to speak, to the various gods of good-food cooking. My spouse snapped this photo of me working.

As I worked I tried a new-to-me color scheme that includes magenta, an orange-red, a light pink, grass green, a grey-blue and a creamy yellow. The crows aren’t really black there’s a lot of dark purple and deep blues to their feathers. The color nuance shows more when you see the painting with a human eye. I have another camera that shows more of the color range that I use when taking pictures of the art for publication. Anyway, I’ve titled this new painting Domestic Comforts

Domestic Comforts by Clancy- 8 x 18 inches- acrylic and collage on board

Another thing I keep thinking about is the different speed of time at home. When traveling in the past I have tended to be very rushed and scheduled. But at home and in my art studio, which is in my house, I tend to be scheduled but usually much less rushed. In fact for quite some time – even before the pandemic – I have intentionally tried to maintain the habit of a steady but relaxed pace in my studio and home. Sustainability of energy is my focus. No, I don’t do this perfectly it’s an ongoing goal. During the pandemic this goal has strengthened as I’ve realized this habit also maintains a critical space for long-form thinking.

Long form thinking is a term usually applied to reading and literacy. It’s a discussion of cultivating the ability to pay attention. There’s an article by James Patterson here and another related article here on the long form thinking as it relates to literacy.

This reminds me of what Dr Bob said in Dr Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit about attention “what do we get when we pay attention? The power to choose.”

I think of the term long form thinking as applying more generally to creative efforts that stretch over a longer span of time. The actual work may be done in fits and starts or in short bursts of actual hands on time but a thought is held in mind, come what may, over an extended time period. Long-form thinking, in my opinion, allows for a sustained leisurely attitude towards time for art, for reading and writing.  Creativity requires time to meander and travel in ones mind – even while cooking dinner or mowing the lawn one plays with the thought topics currently being considered.

Long-form thinking purposefully includes time for making homemade cookies or any other bits of meandering fun. This week I tried a cinnamon sugar cookie recipe. I cut this recipe in half, dumped all the ingredients in my Cuisinart (kitchen gadget!) blended the dough and otherwise followed the recipe directions.

The cookies turned out very yummy!! As hinted above taking the time to read books is an essential part of my creative process – with or without hot from the oven cookies and hot chocolate. Here’s one of the books I’m reading…

My art is a part of my life and vice versa. Creativity is a continuous thing I’m committed to doing within and amongst all of the various domestic concerns and that’s-life stuff.

In fact I view the public aspect of my creative life of making artist books and art exhibits as like the game of musical chairs. I do steady continuous studio work then about a month before the fine art exhibit goes up the music stops. As in the hands on action of creating paintings temporarily stops, and I start framing, photographing, publishing everything I finished up to that point.

It is exciting as I frame and publish the artwork to both see and feel my Odditorium series coming together. The work that I began last year will be exhibited this year in June and July at Burnt Bridge Cellars and when my work is on their walls that will add to my ongoing Odditorium thoughts. Then there’s another exhibit at the Caplan Art Designs Gallery in September. After delivering art to Burnt Bridge Cellars later this month the music (active painting) starts again – specifically the thoughts I have when seeing my works hung together will inspire more work in the series. Then I will begin making the new art in this Odditorium series with an eye towards the next exhibit. Some of the art at Burnt Bridge Cellars along with the freshly made new art will go to Caplan Art Designs when the music stops again at the end of August. This is the way my exhibits grow and travel.

So yes I like long-form thinking. I like projects that stretch over a years time. This allows me to explore a topic from several angles as well as to change my approach as I’ve described in this post. It’s risky as I don’t know at the beginning where my thoughts will go. Plus I do all of the hands on work in short bursts of time each day so I “live in” small slices of my thoughts. My sketchbook is the way I both develop the exhibit idea and keep track of my thoughts – but still the uncertainty is there. I’ve just learned to ride with it.

My long-form working process is like reading a long novel –  when you have a few minutes you read a paragraph or a page or two a day. When you begin reading you’ve no idea where the book is going. But if you keep reading a bit per day pretty soon you’ve read the whole book and you know the book conclusion.  Same goes with creating an art exhibit.

There’s an excellent article here about the counterculture of commitment. It describes well what I’m talking about. I see this concept of long-form thinking (aka commitment) as similar to the idea of slow food/ home cooked food but about the subject of creativity. Inherent in this notion is the acceptance that things can develop slowly over time and that slowness allows for uncertainty and changes of mind.

I have a quote by Christopher Morley thumbtacked to my art studio wall. The quote applies, in my view anyway, to ones sense of time and space too.

It’s okay maybe even good to be a little odd. It’s not a goal to have domestic life or travel or art projects or life in general be perfect. The goal is to have the coping skills to deal well with imperfections when they happen. To be able to do the domestic dances and appeal well enough to the gods (metaphorically) of home cooking. Or to the gods of plumbing or whatever the household issues may be. To be relaxed and calm enough that one’s able to see the solutions, comforts and enjoyments near to hand. This is my approach to art projects too. Slow but steady, to have the coping skills to fix artistic mistakes, to adjust, to try something new.

Since this month began – besides framing the artwork a bit per day – I’ve been creating an exhibit catalog, a coffee table picture book of my exhibit. Last year during the worst of the pandemic it seemed to please fans of my artwork that they were able to get a printed book or an ebook of my entire art exhibit. So that’s why I’m doing a book this year too.

Additionally I’m doing a few greeting cards and coffee mugs with my art from this series. Both the cards and mugs are in keeping with the root idea of my Odditorium series – taking an uncommon view of ordinary household things and surreally creating souvenirs of pleasant moments. Here below is an example of a note card with the artwork  I wrote about in my last post.

Crow with Pen note card – https://www.zazzle.com/crow_with_pen_note_card-256278283808038581

Yes, the temptation to stress, to worry, to rush is there, especially as the day nears to deliver all of the artwork. But I remember those pre-pandemic travels when I rushed mightily because the day the trip ended was coming nearer and I didn’t want to miss anything … what I remember now of those trips isn’t the scenery or the food but the stress and rush. So I try to remain calm now and go slowly as I continue towards the exhibit. And I rest knowing my thinking-work will continue …

Thanks for reading! I hope you have many enjoyable domestic comforts  this week – and if you try the cookies I hope you like them. See you next Monday?

Crows, writing, art and the odd sandwich

A Creative Life, animals in art, art exhibit, art gallery, Art Word Combinations, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, books, children's book, fine art, household surrealism, magic realism, publications - publishing, published art, recipe illustration, sketchbook, sketchbook suppers, visual thinking, whimsical art, wordless story, writing, writing and illustrating

This week in the Odditorium aka household  surrealism I thought of how often I use the same pens to write and draw with.

It’s not surprising really as elsewhere in this blog I have written about the similarities I see between art making and writing. Here’s a link about that… https://sueclancy.com/similarities-of-art-and-writing/

These thoughts swirled in mind as I watched the crows in my yard. I don’t know where the wingtip shoes came from… but here they are in my sketchbook.

From my morning reading I added the quote from Plutarch. And I thought of how all too often we see only what we expect to see. It takes practice to work on our inner selves, to moderate our expectations and let things just be however they are. Then I put away my book and puttered in my studio cleaning things up, sorting pen nibs back into their places and cleaning the nib holders.

With these thoughts still swirling I started a new painting loosely based on my sketchbook page above. After a few days of work my spouse snapped this photo.

And then my spouse took this photo to show that sometimes I “hide” things on the edges of the paintings I do on cradled board.

Some time later I took a photo of the finished painting. I’ve titled it “Enjoyment”. I keep thinking of how we can choose to dip our pens in our pleasures and write them on our souls rather than rehearse the things that upset us. That choice can change one’s attitude and the kind of day one has.

Here’s a close up photo of the area of “Enjoyment” that contains the collage elements. I carefully chose text from the falling apart copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that I’ve mentioned in recent posts. So much of Austen’s work is a social comedy of people’s expectations and emotions. That’s why I choose this book for my collage source material besides the fact that it was already falling apart and was handy. (I have a collection of collage material to choose from and could have chosen some other theme.)

After I posted “Enjoyment” on social  media a friend who had studied poetry and Victorian literature in college commented that crows represent transformation. And the symbolism of crows was definitely on my mind. What a good word the word transformation is and I appreciate my friend for reminding me of it. When we are able to remember to enjoy the smallest of pleasures – and to be curious – we are in a position to transform moments of stress into something manageable.

Getting curious and writing and drawing (however well or poorly) are all tools of the emotional transformation process.

It wasn’t until later after conversation with my friend that I realized that in my new crow painting I echoed a theme (transformation) I have played with before. Such as when I took a tale by Aesop and made a wordless story “The Crow And The Water Jug” (you can also see the whole book via this link at Storyberries.com )

The Crow and the Water Jug – a wordless Aesop counting story – by Clancy https://www.blurb.com/b/10109198-the-crow-and-the-water-jug

More details about this children’s  book project on my portfolio page.

As I mentioned last post I’ve been working on writing a short summary for my entire fine art exhibit that I’m calling Odditorium.  Writing in my sketchbook as I work on art projects helps me focus my fine art onto a clear theme. I write my thoughts down as I work on fine art and vice versa so there’s a *lot* of both writing and art to winnow when it’s time to write an exhibit summary statement. Besides helping me sort my own thoughts the short summary text is something that Burnt Bridge Cellars and Caplan Art Designs will use when talking about my exhibit with the public. Anyway, after more rewrites than most humans can count without a calculator here’s what I came up with:

Odditorium: I’ve been practicing household surrealism; painting visual stories inspired by looking in an uncommon way at common objects and plants. A useful mental health technique for dealing well with feelings is to deliberately look at the feeling in a new way. This is what I’m practicing when I do household surrealism. I take ordinary things found about the house and depict them in odd, different from the usual, ways so that instead of feeling mundane they evoke feelings of magic, wonder and laughter. Perhaps the flowers, the wine opener, the coffee mug are really souvenirs of pleasant moments in life?

I use gouache, ink, color pencil acrylic and collage to make my images. The collage text is from a falling apart copy of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen that I had in the house. Austen wrote about emotions and dealing with them so I enjoy the visual pun of including bits of her text in this series. I use animal characters because an animal behaving like a human highlights our humanity.

That’s the end of my statement which counts to about 200 words. I may tweak at it a bit more. But there it is.

No grand food experiments to crow (sorry!) about this week but I did repeat a reliably good sandwich recipe.

So I hope you have a very good week. See you next Monday?