I am in between studios and yearning for a warm room with a horizontal surface; which brings me full circle to the good old kitchen table, a surface upon which many artists have launched their careers. Just ask them. Including Rochester, NY-based artist Jane Notides Benzing. Jane's work of manipulated-painted-paper wall reliefs originally captured my attention because we both work in paper. The artist has since progressed to plexiglass boxes containing not only paper but illumination and mixed media. Just how does Jane coerce her paper to bend into those voluptuous shapes? She offers to demonstrate...on her kitchen table.

My kitchen table is "distressed" naturally, from decades of moves, disassembly and reassembly, decorative attempts followed by subsequent paint removal, and loans to others. It is an understatement to say that it has character, but it is a workable stand-in horizontal surface.

Ironing wood? I discovered that birch veneer, designed for refurbishing countertop edges, is perfect for finishing cradled wood pieces. As it is thermally bonded, my "craft iron" - the classic heavy steam iron model - allows me to literally iron this edging. Hence, ironing wood.

Stitching paper? Yes, on an inherited 1960s model sewing machine. I love the textural element that sewn thread adds to paper collages, while also creating a more malleable surface. The stitching additionally serves as a visual unifier to the collection of prepared and found papers.

I have recently created a new work surface from a door mounted on sawhorses, but it is nonetheless reassuring that the kitchen table is always here for me.

Note: Jane Notides Benzing - see pages 20-21 of Metropolitan magazine's fall 2011 issue

The customer service person at Home Depot and I pull over a dozen 1x2-inch lengths of 8-foot pine, staring each one down - literally - to find just two that are "true," or are closest to true. Warping in several dimensions is more common than not, making the discovery of the best among the stack a timely task. The same is also the case when selecting a 2x4-foot hardwood-surfaced panel.

And to what purpose, you ask? I am creating my own cradled wood substrate for a new collage. Of course, in order to do this I invest in a miter box and saw, spring clamps, c-clamps, and wood glue. Let me be honest here: I am not a carpenter. My respect for this skill has just grown another notch as I test my own patience while constructing the frame. But this is the desired size and one I can create, rather than wait for UPS to deliver a prepackaged frame at my door.

While the experience of building the frame is yet another character-builder in a life beginning to brim with character, I am glad for it. It reminds me of the concept of "true": "reflecting the genuine character of something," one of the many definitions in my 2001 Random House dictionary. I would normally edit myself for using the same word three times in two sentences, but it fits here, so I won't.

"Accurately formed" is another definition. I seek accurately formed wood products to serve as ingredients in my homegrown recipe for a cradled wood frame. While the task of discerning the best pieces of wood for the job seem almost unattainable, the next task is even more daunting. It is the blank canvas or more accurately blank wood - staring so objectively at me - waiting for my subjective art to appear on its planar surface, that is my next and ultimate challenge. So, here I go, once again seeking "true."

I have yet to meet a state capital that is an attractive urban center, and Columbia, South Carolina, is no exception. That being said, my sojourn to Columbia is twofold: to attend the opening of Enid Williams' exhibit "Systematic Chance" at ifArt and to peruse the collection in the Columbia Museum of Art. The latter is more successful than the former, as rainy weather progresses to flash-flooding. While I am able to view Williams' engaging paintings and monotypes, and to meet the owner/director of ifArt, the thought of driving in the dark fog of rain pushes me out the gallery door prematurely.

The scale and scope of the Columbia Art Museum feels familiar, akin to that of the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York. The museum receptionist suggests that 2 hours will be adequate for touring; I am here from Noon to 3:30pm. Then again, I'm actually reading labels this time around and paying attention to what catches my attention.

Fans catch my attention. Such as the one held by the bride in 17th-century Flemish oil painter Jacob van Oost the Younger's "The Groom Presenting the Bride to His Mother." And another in 19th-century British portraitist Rowland Holyoake's "Portrait of a Woman."

Texture captures my attention, as it must have captured that of Holyoake who portrays a variety - lace, fur, feathers, velvet, satin, beads - with a deftness of technique that is enviable. I often sense that painters are mirroring how we perceive the universe. Up close, our planets are mere paint strokes on a cosmic canvas. The universe we inhabit stretches beyond our field of vision but, with the aid of telescopes, its greater scope unfolds. On the canvas, images coalesce as we step back to appreciate the relationships of paint strokes.

Models catch my attention. Who are these men and women, boys and girls - who are paid a pittance for enduring hours of posing as stand-ins for the Virgin, the saints, and the angels? Who is the young redhead modeling for 17th-century Venetian School painter Bernardo Strozzi in his "St. Catherine of Alexandria"?

Workers behind the scenes capture my attention. Who mines the lapis lazuli later ground into pigment for the Nativity fresco by Sandro Botticelli? What is it like to be required to consider the import of every single detail and choice of color in religious art, such as 15th-century Florentine painter Giovanni dal Ponte's triptych "Virgin and Child Enthroned with the Archangel Michael, and Saints Lawrence, Stephen, George."

While the weather tries its best to dampen my spirits, it is the art that triumphs and buoys me. Engaging art - from Williams' exhibit at ifArt to a sampling of Asian, European, Colonial, Medieval, Ancient, and Contemporary art in the Columbia Museum of Art - provides me with food for thought and inspiration for creating.

How exciting to exhibit for the first time, and how vulnerable for the artist. Sharing a work in progress with classmates is a brave act in itself; sharing a finished drawing with family and friends yet another. But opening oneself to the public - to the stranger's probing eyes, to a jury of professionals, and perhaps to a reviewer's critical tongue - takes bravery to the next level. I have been there, and remember the sensations that accompany rejection, acceptance, and admiration. So, as the Student/Faculty exhibition at the Spartanburg Art Museum comes to a close tomorrow, I applaud Jung for her Indian corn drawing, and Morgan for her dog portrait and imaginative owl drawing.

If I was wearing a hat right now, I'd take it off as a gesture of respect to all of my students. To Jung for all of her hours at home completing projects begun in class. To Morgan for defying the stereotypical image of a "know-it-all" teenager and actually listening, and for being the youngest member of the Artists Guild of Spartanburg. To Pam for staying up until 3am working on a technical pen still life full of cross hatching and mark making, "trying to get a handle on this style."

To Linda for honoring her instinct on the portrait of her late husband, "I stopped short of where I thought I could go because I felt it was better than pushing too hard and getting to a place where I lost everything. My new art professor liked what I had done and wanted me to take it farther but I have decided to stop where I am. It is probably the best piece of work I have produced this year."

When the "I can't draw a straight line" student tentatively fingers this new set of tools - graphite pencils, colored pencils, kneaded eraser, paper blending stump - I remind them that I would feel the same were this class in music, drama, or dance. Their nervousness is acknowledged but quickly refocused into making a unique mark onto paper. Again, I take my hat off to Anne and Karen for enjoying a friendship around the common bonds of nursing, quilting, and drawing. They were students from two different classes whom I introduced. To Dan for following his drawing passion from graphite to new mediums ("Late Summer Field" below).

Since 2009, I have taught more than 45 art classes in museums, private studios, enhanced living facilities, developmentally-disabled day centers, and senior living centers to innumerable students, ages 6 through 90. When I revisit the class rosters, I envision almost all of them sitting around those long tables in the morning, afternoon, and night sessions. The classes were often intergenerational; I can still hear gregarious 17-year old Nick conversing with his neighboring 70-year old at the Memorial Art Gallery/Creative Workshop. There were classes with: brain-challenged Marc, so proud of his battleship and jet drawings from middle school; the mother who traveled over an hour on Monday nights just to draw with her college age son; and Scott and Audrey, the father-daughter duo who sat side-by-side sketching in Lamberton Conservatory. The memories are as many and varied, and vivid, as the students themselves.

Violist Margaret contacts me a year after class to share her creative blog site ("Shoreline Hwy" below) and emails this thought: "... I often think of our class, which was my first real drawing class, and how exciting it was for me, and how it helped launch this art adventure I am on, confirming my commitment to discover what I want to do and how I want to do it, giving me ways to think about things and tools to help me discover things." As a teacher, how could I ask for more? Thank you, students. I take off my hat to you.

Expectation, anticipation, and trepidation are all folded into the days prior to attending the November 15-16 Artists U in N. Charleston, SC. Expectation: dealing with social media. Anticipation: resources, tools, grant writing, and new ways of looking at the business of art. Trepidation: dealing with social media in a room filled with eye-rolling young artists. Before I reveal "which pea under which cup" emerges, let's discuss what I did know about Artists U as of November 14.

Choreographer Andrew Simonet is founder and director of Artists U, operating initially from Phildelphia but now expanded to Baltimore and South Carolina. Facilitators include visual artists, educators, writers, performers, directors, and professionals from other disciplines.  The SC Artists U is open to 30 artists; applications were due September 13. The weekend intensive is part of the South Carolina Arts Commission's Artists' Ventures Initiative and is, I believe, the second occurrence of this event for the state.

Here is what I know as of November 17: it is unnecessary to be expectant, anticipatory, or trepid. All I need to be is open.

From the moment Andrew greets the ensemble ringing a horseshoe of tables, there is acceptance, validation, and encouragement. My fellow creatives are all ages, genders, ethnicities, and in different career stages. Okay, I do eagerly wish Friday evening would begin on time, as chitchat with tablemates is dwindling and refreshments are reduced to crumbs on plates. However, when the program officially begins, not for an instant does Andrew lose my attention.

Participants are asked to bring a notebook and pen. Only. Handouts are provided, PowerPoints are absent, smartphones and computers are temporarily irrelevant. The facilitators - Tamara LaValla, Darion McCloud, David Mitchell, Karen Ann Myers, and Rodney Rogers - join in the discussion as appropriate and lead breakout groups. The SC Arts Commission has a supportive human presence - Program Director for the Initiative, Joy Young; Board Commissioner, Barbara Nwokikie; Program Director for Arts Participation, Susan DuPlessis; and Executive Director, Ken May. All of these totally engaged individuals are working as a team, just for us. Delicious.

There is homework the first night: write a list of goals for what I want personally, professionally, and artistically in the next 2 years. No one checks the homework on Saturday; this is my job. I'm instructed to leave it alone for a week, then choose three goals (total), and write small steps for reaching the goals. It is helpful to be reminded of the concept of "small." I tend to conceive of artistic progress as going bigger. This weekend, I consider small as a way to go big.

Without recounting a play-by-play as the intensive unfolds, I'll attempt to recapture its essence. If our art is mission driven, connected to our values; if we have community, manage our time and resources; if we think in terms of an art life versus career, then we can build one that is balanced, productive, and sustainable. Good stuff.

Although It is a ubiquitous exercise - tell everyone one thing we don't know about you, it didn't fail to lighten the atmosphere and connect participants. Who knew that one can be an artist as well as a roller derby teammate? or a former medical photographer? or still hold a long jump record as a former gymnast?

I find it is actually refreshing to rewrite my artist statement, and to hear how other artists deal with common issues. It is so relieving to be freed of the should's: the external and internal voices telling me I should be tweeting or tweaking. Unless tweeting and tweaking are relevant to my mission and are manageable.

The sensation of being overwhelmed is not felt, even if I do have a handful of notes and handouts. Not overwhelmed even on Sunday, when I am one of the early recipients of an integral part of Artists U: one-on-one mentoring. Actually, my one-on-one is one-on-six, with Andrew and all the facilitators present. This session is clarifying and focusing as I look ahead to 2014 and beyond. Honestly, what a gift!

I fully intend to consume my plateful of info and input from presenters and participants, until all is reduced to crumbs.
  

On Monday, September 30, I gingerly push the door handle of Spartanburg's Chapman Cultural Center; inside the monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery are creating a mandala sand painting. Expecting a rush of silence, I am instead greeted by the grating of metal. Rounding the corner, my focus reaches the center of attraction and I pause. The mandala is mapped out in white on a square table where color is being applied from the center outward. With foreheads almost and sometimes actually touching, three robed monks lean in, pulsing scrapers over the ridged surfaces of metal tubes, dispensing one color of sand at a time. Incredibly intimate is this collaboration; incredibly ritualistic.

This intimacy is unlike any I have witnessed in artistic collaborations. Perhaps it is a cultural comfort zone common in Tibet. Perhaps it is the absence of ego as each serves a larger purpose. A monk pauses to refill his tube - from a separate tabletop brimming with white bowls of brightly hued sand - and glances back at the mandala, as if to remind himself, "What next?". I recognize the question, "What next?", as I too have stood in my studio, tool in hand, caught in the interval between thinking and doing. The sand mandala experience is what I dub as the "sound of color."

On Sunday, November 3, I rest against my studio desk while listening to a petite elderly visitor describe her reaction to one of my artworks, "Golden Rain 6." Collaged onto the surface of a 12x12-inch cradled wood substrate, the piece is subtle. Perhaps too subtle to be noticed. Not so. "Golden Rain" is an unexpected series evolving from my experiments with the required parameters of the All Squared Away exhibition. Sponsored by the Metropolitan Arts Council, the exhibition's 12x12-inch format allows 124 Open Studios artists an opportunity to feature their work in a smorgasbord presentation at Council headquarters in the West End of Greenville, SC. Even if you couldn't take in all of the actual studios during the November 1-3 self-guided tour, All Squared Away lets you "taste" the art.

Back in my studio, I am listening to this stranger craft words of eloquence about "Golden Rain 6" while goosebumps travel my arms. In this series I attempt to strike a balance between imagery - the kimonoed silhouette carrying an umbrella, and abstraction - a vertical curtain of rain. To this end I assemble super thin strips of paper in a value range of greys with only hints of color. Interpretation belongs to each individual viewer. She calls it "the sound of silence."

Thank you, monks. Thank you, stranger. I am speechless.

One of my favorite quotes by John Berger comes from his 2005 book, Berger on Drawing: "To draw is to look...A drawing of a tree shows, not a tree, but a tree-being-looked-at." Not replicating nature but reinterpreting it, reimagining it. Berger reminds us that while the familiar is confirming, it is the unexpected that proves we are alive. The author challenges us to not merely look, but to see. My drawing students hear me repeat this, almost ad nauseum: the more you look, the more you see.

What I appreciate about Berger is how he shares what the world looks like through his eyes, filtered through his inquisitive mind. This collection of essays, originally published between 1991 and 2000, now comprise the 2001 publication The Shape of a Pocket. I can chew on one sentence in The Shape of a Pocket for longer than usual, like the hearty crust of a bread which finally yields its delectable flavor. The Shape of a Pocket is a multi-course meal where the taste and smell of the musty earth, from which the harvest was plucked, remain fresh and pungent.

Why this book? An art group in which I participate convenes next for refreshment, camaraderie, and the sharing of a favorite book. While this is my book of choice, The Shape of a Pocket is not necessarily my favorite. It does, however, quietly impact - using art both as metaphor and vehicle for exploration of ideas, philosophy, and life. "Maybe it's time to ask a naive question: what does all painting from the Palaeolithic period until our century have in common?" Berger replies to his own query: "Every painted image announces: I have seen this... Non-figurative art is no exception. A late canvas by Rothko represents an illumination or a coloured glow which derived from the Painter's experience of the visible." (p 14)

The "visible" to which Berger refers might actually be one of those rare glimpses "between two frames." To illustrate, the author muses in chapter one on the intersections of "other visible orders with our own." He references the speed of cinema film at 25 frames per second, comparing this with the cinematic speed of the human brain: "God knows how many per second flicker past in our daily perception. But it is as if, at the brief moments I'm talking about, suddenly and disconcertingly we see between two frames. We come upon a part of the visible which wasn't destined for us. Perhaps it was destined for night-birds, reindeer, ferrets, eels, whales..." (p 5) I love it when a writer condenses a concept to the level of ferrets and eels!

The more I look, the more I see. But in our contemporary, frantically paced culture, it is more difficult to look - at least for me - due to an excess of images. Berger concurs and adds a lament: "Today images abound everywhere. Never has so much been depicted and watched. We have glimpses at any moment of what things look like on the other side of the planet, or the other side of the moon. Appearances registered, and transmitted with lightning speed. Yet with this, something has innocently changed." (p 11)

Yes, a multitude of images to draw, paint, photograph, sculpt, and Photoshop. But how many of these stir us? "When a painting is lifeless it is the result of the painter not having the nerve to get close enough for a collaboration to start. He stays at a copying distance," states Berger. "Every authentic painting demonstrates a collaboration." (p 16) Cited as just one example of collaboration is a portrait by the 15th-century painter Petrus Christus, “Porträt eines junges Mädchen.” Christus reveals his model's maturity as she stoically poses, and also reveals - by capturing her probing pubescent eyes - that it is essentially the painter who is being watched and considered. Or as Berger explains, the painter and the painted are both "...participating in being seen." I find this book delightfully exhausting, in part because I want to go online to discover or rediscover all of the artworks he references (a lot).

Each essay is a course in the meal, like chapter 3, Studio Talk. I enjoy learning about the spark that ignites Berger’s imagination; to follow as he weaves his thread through thought. For example, in Miquel Barcelo's studio Berger retrieves a discarded crumpled scrap of paper with two words: face and place. These two words launch a discourse: "Whatever the painter is looking for, he's looking for its face...He's looking for its return gaze and he's looking for its expression - a slight sign of its inner life. And this is true whether he's painting a cherry, a bicycle wheel, a blue rectangle, a carcass, a river, a bush, a hill or his own reflection in a mirror." (p 27-28) The face of a bicycle wheel? Berger’s prose verges on poetry in a delightfully profound manner. "The painter is continually trying to discover, to stumble upon, the place which will contain and surround his present act of painting... When a place is found it is found somewhere on the frontier between nature and art. It is like a hollow in the sand within which the frontier has been wiped out. The place of the painting begins in this hollow." (p  29) Berger concludes, "When a painting becomes a place, there is a chance that the face of what the painter is looking for will show itself there." (p 31)

I am on page 31 of a 260 page book, the third chapter of a 24 chapter tome. My appetite is sated but there are multiple courses to come. Just one more bite, then I offer you my seat at this feast. 

When you walk into my beginning drawing class as a new student, I ask you to trace one of your hands onto a sheet of paper mounted on the wall. Then I circulate a tin containing charcoal, and white and sanguine conté crayons, representative of earth's original palette: soot, chalk, ore. I show you a photograph of an Australian cave painting from thousands of years ago, multiple hand silhouettes overlapping on a cave wall. The entire exercise reinforces the human desire to make our mark. So it is no surprise to me when Berger visits the Chauvet Cave, both literally and in chapter 4 of The Shape of a Pocket. "Deep in the cave, which meant deep in the earth, there was everything: wind, water, fire, faraway places, the dead, thunder, pain, paths, animals, light, the unborn...They were there in the rock to be called to. The famous imprints of life-sized hands are there, stenciled in ochre, to touch and mark the everything-present and the ultimate frontier of the space this presence inhabits." (p 41)

And on and on Berger writes: imagining Vija Celmins inspired by Velazquez, the gaze of the encaustic Fayum portraits, the unfinished work of Degas, correspondence with Leon Kossoff as he prepares for a retrospective at the Tate, the drawings of Van Gogh, Michelangelo in the Vatican, the late self-portraiture of Rembrandt, from oval heads to The Kiss by Brancusi, the films of Antonioni, an obstinate recluse Morandi, the awkward monuments of Raymond Mason, the sentient pain of Kahlo, Gericault's paintings of asylum inmates, refinding (Berger's word) hope in Bosch's triptych, and ending with final chapters that dive into politics more than anticipated from the previous essays. As though bitters are served rather than dessert. Nonetheless, this meal, The Shape of a Pocket, is what I imagine dining once was: long, slow, circuitous, satisfying. Enjoy.

When Charlotte, NC-based artist Terri Otten peers over my shoulder at the sketch of "Tundra," she smiles slightly and comments. Interacting with museum-goers is not an unusual experience for me, as I prepare for a Sketching in the Galleries demonstration at the Greenville County Museum of Art. What is unusual: a visiting artist who specializes in portraiture. All of my insecurities surface as I pause with a #2B graphite pencil in hand. I am not a portraitist. "It certainly is a good likeness," Terri comments. Her gracious tone relaxes my pencil grip, and we exchange website information.

Previously, on May 26, I presented another Sketching in the Galleries, focusing on the female in Sidney Dickinson's 1936 painting, "The Pale Rider." It is part of a traveling exhibition, Southbound, that has a limited viewing at the Museum. I sketch the entire composition, then the portraits of the two main figures, and finally concentrate on the piercing gaze of the female. Over and over again.

I repeat the process for the September 22 demonstration, this time opting for Andrew Wyeth's 1993 portrait of his wife Betsy. Both selections are mine. As I struggle to capture Betsy's strong facial features, I question my choices. I find it a challenge to translate oil paint, in the case of "The Pale Rider," and watercolor and drybrush, in the case of "Tundra," into graphite on paper. It is a challenge, albeit rewarding.

And it is one that I ask of my beginning drawing students. Yes, I am the instructor who places a mirror in front of each gulping student and tasks them with self portraiture. If a plaster cast of a skull is available, I will bring it to the table; all the more for understanding the armature of our human sculpture. I recommend a most intriguing book: Eye Contact: Modern American Portrait Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, as it showcases portraiture from caricature to Impressionism to Pop.

On May 26, more than 20 participants appear for the demo at the Museum, and on September 22, over 30 participate. We are all learning together at the feet of a master: Andrew Wyeth. His work is as dry as the New England landscape he portrays. Wyeth's description of Maine is quoted in the catalogue of his Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit: "all dry bones and desiccated sinews." But, oh, how well he records those bones and sinews!

Wyeth's work varies greatly from portraits by artists whose work I am inclined to study: Alice Neel, Vincent van Gogh, Berthe Morisot, Chuck Close. Alice Neel's (1900-1984) 1980 "Self Portrait" is about as honest as it gets: gravity pulls the 80 year-old's nude flesh toward the horizon line while the artist confidently raises a paintbrush in one hand and rag in the other; her silver hair is combed, her eyeglasses frame a straightforward gaze, and all this in contrast to the crisp blue-striped upholstered chair on which she sits. Neel does not slump but instead angles forward, as if toward her canvas. It is an unabashed look at reality. Her probing portraits make me squirm (not as much as Jenny Saville's), while at the same time appreciative of her artistic prowess.

Similar comments can be made about Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890). In fact, what can I say that would be "new" about his work? Perhaps this simple fact: he painted 30 self portraits between 1886-1889. He found drawing himself a worthwhile exercise in skill building. Accomplished and famous artists need to build their skills? I arrive at the conclusion that all artists need to build, or least hone their skills, and to state the obvious, we always have ourselves as available models.

From the same time period as Van Gogh but less well known than her brother-in-law Edouard Manet, is the oft overlooked French Impressionist Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). Her 1885 self portrait reveals both the artist's physical beauty and beauty of brushstroke. The immediacy and energy of that captured moment is not diminished by the passage of time.

Returning to the contemporary, I am fascinated by Chuck Close's continual exploration into portraiture. In 2006 I toured the Albright Knox exhibit, Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967–2005, which included photography, collage, printing, painting, drawing...80 works, most of a monumental scale, that constantly inquire "Who is Chuck Close?". Portraits formed of fingerprints, gridded portraits molded from paper pulp, portraits from photorealistic to conceptual. His experimentation with media still reverberates in my creative consciousness. 

All of this to say that, while not a portraitist, I do appreciate the genre. Drawing from life, drawing from paintings or sculpture, drawing while looking into the bathroom mirror; it's all good practice. See you around the Museum; bring your sketchpad and an Ebony pencil.

Years ago I suspended magazine subscriptions, finding that only a select number of issues are immediately relevant. The remainder are fodder for recycling. Now, my art magazine browsing happens while sipping chai tea, sitting next to natural light from a window in a bookstore café. The bookstore seemingly doesn't mind that I am using their facility more as a library than a commercial venture. I do occasionally purchase a magazine.

What interests me is, well, watching what interests me. I take notes on names and websites for browsing at a later time. What catches my attention this trip? The contemporary artists in a Minneapolis Institute of Art exhibit "Edo Pop: the Graphic Impact of Japanese Prints"; the rusty mark making of fiber artist Patricia Vivod; the translucency of the work of Korean paper artists in "Bojagi and Beyond"; the title of Claire Campbell Park's self-published 2010 book "Creating with Reverence: Art, Diversity, Culture and Soul"; and Aurora Robson's recycled plastic installations.

The Edo period captured my attention decades ago for its aesthetics, although not for its historic cultural values. I am surprised to discover that contemporary artists bother to reference an art form from 400 years ago.

The previous two books that I digested - Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart" and Natalie Goldberg's "Long Quiet Highway" - are rooted in the Buddhist traditions. Although I am not aligned with either Tibetan or Zen Buddhism, there is a thread that runs through Eastern philosophy that does connect with my art, my life. In fact, I noticed these two book titles while scanning yet another but more contemporary book, "Crafting for Calm."  If you have perused Campbell Park's book "Creating with Reverence," I welcome your thoughts.

And then there are the organic plastic (this sounds like an oxymoron) installations that Robson designs, working at a scale about which I simply daydream: BIG. My daydreaming has, however, recently propelled me to apply for an intensive workshop and a 2-week artist retreat; places where I'd explore the methods and means to not just visualize, but potentially manifest my musings. I'll keep you posted on the outcome. Not only do I enjoy the environmental aspects of Robson's work - both socially and visually, I enjoy her "Links and Inspiration" webpage listing several dozen influential artists. Among them is one of my former university instructors, Martin Puryear.

My initial thought: small world. My second thought: big world. It's all connected in an enigmatically, delightful way, right here in the magazine section of Books-A-Million.

Process oriented. This is how in 2009 one of my instructors at The College at Brockport SUNY describes my approach to creating work. I also work with concepts: the beauty of impermanence, the textural character of nature, the manifestation of ethereal qualities. But these are just thoughts that float forward as I select collage pieces, cut paper with an x-acto, weave strips, and perform all of the practical steps that move concept into reality. So it is with the latest fan (Black & White Fan #19) to emerge from my studio.

In the midst of working on this fan, I remember the principle of balancing activity on the paper with a "place for the eye to rest." Every viewer that inhales a landscape crowded with trees, hills and meadows also needs an expanse of sky, or at least the still surface of a pond, where they can exhale. Did I give you a place to rest in this fan? Does the balance of texture, scale, black and white values, positive and negative space, and imagery as well as mystery work for you? Before I put the finishing touches on this fan, I ask myself those very questions, even if in a nonverbal intuitive fashion.

Did I stop soon enough? Too soon? Through trial and error over the years, I am finetuning my sense of when to stop. Sooner rather than later is generally better. Keep it fresh instead of belabored. I want you to feel the shadow of my hand having just left the piece.

This breath, the inhalation and exhalation, are on my mind lately because my body wants to involuntarily cough spasmodically. The lingering of a cold, turned bronchitis turned walking pneumonia where, after a month, I barely remember the freedom of breathing without a tightness in my chest and bronchial tubes. Occasionally I attempt the Vipassana-style meditation of watching the breath, particularly the quiet space between inhalation and exhalation. It's a wonderful space, a place to rest.

We breathe 22,000 times each day; a fact I discovered while a nontraditional student at SUNY working on a mixed-media project. I started with a concept: body by the numbers. How to visually and abstractly portray these phenomena? Through the process of playing with materials, breathing 22,000 times daily expresses itself as dual plastic tubes, one filled with teabag paper and the other with a diaphonous white tissue. This series departs from the Asian-aesthetic imbued in the art I make today, but is nonetheless valid in that it provided me figurative breathing space to create anew. I think of the experience as existing in the space between inhalation and exhalation.


Black & White Fan #19 is part of the invitational exhibition "Connecting Concept to Medium: Fiber Art in South Carolina," opening September 7 and continuing through November 14 at the Pickens County Museum of Art and History.