A little bit waxy, a little bit sticky, totally veiny and peeling off in the most wonderful shapes, pojagi voices whispered as I peeled tomatillo skins, “get the thread!” A twisting and delicious adventure in cooking and art unfolded for days.
There’s a moment I think about often. Sitting in my car in Costco’s parking lot on a grey Seattle Saturday in October a few years back. Chainlink fence and train tracks in front of me. A still sunkenness inside, my hands not wanting to leave the steering wheel and open the door. Outside, a blur of movement. Chaos. Screeching tires, wet pavement. Grinding metal, uneven cart wheels. Blinkers blinking.
Just minutes earlier, I had let go of my grandmother’s hand for the last time after she passed away. Now, here I was, sitting in my car with humanity swirling around me, going about their day as if nothing had happened. A huge gaping hole had been left in the world and people were pushing oversized shopping carts with giant stuffed bears teetering on top through a maze of traffic.
It was such an odd moment. Not exactly a sad moment. More of an “Oh, this is how it is” moment. That gaping hole, I’m sitting alone in it for a good reason. It was formed from so many years close to her and from being with her in that intimate moment when she transitioned from physical being to living in the hearts of those who were lucky enough to know her.
With that moment in mind, I made this.
I’m so thankful for quiet mornings at the beach. Thankful for cold, wet mornings that make the colors rich and vibrant. Every piece of wood and bunch of seaweed pops that from a backdrop of sand and gentle waves is a sculpture in itself, but every few feet one shouts to be adorned. The adornments are always found within reach. I barely have to look and there is no trying. Thankful for the smiles, peace, and life they bring.
Life advice: When a hole puncher spews smiley faces on the counter, take them home and make art joy on a used envelope.
Artie Shaw, Billie Holiday (1957), and a pigeon.
FAQ: What’s your medium?
Answer: Whatever is around.
Example: I was lucky enough to receive @harryanddavid pears over the holidays. Each pear was wrapped in gentle green and metallic gold papers. The person who sent said pears had a birthday coming up. Hmmm I said to myself with very little actual thought and took an envelope from the stack I saved from holiday cards, finding the one from the birthday girl herself, and green padding from the pear box to make a canvas.
Theeeeeeeen, I had a cup of tea and wistfully thought about the birthday girl, leaving the tea bag on the tea papers for a couple days to leave a nice stain. Once that was dry, a plain ol ballpoint pen revealed the character hidden in the stain. With a dash of glue stick on the back, that went in the middle of the canvas. I don’t know why, that’s just where it seemed to want to rest.
Layers of tea-as-paint and bits of pear papers fell joyfully in place from there. I found some gold thread sitting next to my sewing needle stash and that seemed appropriate. I let the stitches fall wherever felt right. A few more layers and voilà, birthday art completed with
whatever was around.
Sometimes, I don’t know how to put a response into words or describe how I feel about things in-the-moment. On a certain crisp Fall morning, I sat with words exchanged a few days before. As I hot glued down needles, a beautiful and fragile web formed. I gently dropped in pieces of handmade papers my aunt had given me and blew tiny feathers in, watching to see how they moved through the scene. I laughed at myself when I tried to predict, with hands shaking from caffeine, where a drop of glue or piece of paper would land. Or how far a tiny glue string would stretch. Afterwards, I felt a great comfort and knew what to say. My reply was this process and piece.
Take a relaxing breath and listen to this story about how art was made on a recent Monday morning.
A while ago, I pulled some photographs and paintings out of my uncle’s (davidkingartist.com) trash. I heard one singing to me from a bin in my studio the other day. Then, my pile of stained tea wrappers joined in the chorus. And finally, I turned to my sewing machine to provide a beat.
My Aunt Patti’s Pojagi work providing heavy influence, I stitched the wrappers to the painting following ghostlike lines from the painting beneath, along wrinkles and edges. Whatever felt right.
Once it felt finished, I flipped it over and after a moment spent with hands on hips, I grabbed my watercolors and filled in the stitched patterns. It was hard not to peek, but my hope that paint was bleeding through the holes left by the sewing needle came true. Beautiful blots of color had joined variations of brown and a reversible painting was born.
The End.
One thing leads to another. This is the way art happens in my world. I’ve been unconsciously making piles of tea bags and spoons on counters for years. Sometimes I hang and dry the tea bags. A couple months ago, I paused to examine my thoughts while I was throwing another bag on the heap. I noticed “reusing” was my intention. I pulled apart the layers of the pile, noticing the wonderfully stained papers, and in those stains, wonderful characters.
A few days later, I opened a neighborhood library door and found a bright orange book, “Spanish in Record Time.” Inside was French, not Spanish, instruction. There were letters and notes in all sorts of languages dating back to the 50s - as if it had been sent back and forth between friends and, as it appeared, enemies. My face lit up in a massive grin.
Back at my studio, black ink practically leapt onto the pages of Spanish in Record time and, with it, tea stain characters. There have been many days during this strange time that I either don’t have words or I needed to process words. This journal has become both my punching bag and my welcome mat.
Often, when I paint or draw, I simply follow my breath. Other times, my hands move to music or my heart reacts to words. I welcome whatever comes up, whatever happens, without judgement of good or bad.
Here are some of the things I listed to while creating the pages below:
Podcasts (Spotify Playlist):
10 Percent Happier: #259 How You Can Help Transform America’s Racial Karma | Dr. Larry Ward
Tara Brach: Sustaining Our Caring
10 Percent Happier: #248 How to Be a Good and Sane Citizen in Ugly Times | Ezra Klein
Insights at the Edge: Latham Thomas: Self-Care Is a Radical Act
Tara Brach: A courageous presence with Racism
Insights at the Edge: Larry Ward: Mindfulness in Action, in business.
Audiobooks: Alicia Keys, More Myself, Michelle Obama, Becoming
Music: Tupac Shakur (happy birthday, 6/16!), Alicia Keys, hip hop and sultry mixes.
Everyday conversations: “I can’t breathe.”
I love this “challenge” and had to give it a go! To find an image I turned to The Getty Museum and navigated to the photography collection. Recreating this photo was unsurprisingly fun, but surprisingly challenging - in the best and most addicting way. For the next one, I collaborated with my daughter. She chose a Warhol portrait or Marilyn Monroe. At first, we planned to do a magazine cut out mouth, but then realized the missing teeth in her mug were too perfect :)
Here’s how it works:
1. Pic your artwork (lots of museums are opening up their collections online for this challenge: http://getty.edu/art/collection, https://www.metmuseum.org/, www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksmuseum-pubquiz)
2. Use some items you have laying around home to recreate it.
3. Share @tussenkunstenquarantaine, @gettymuseum, @Rijksmuseum #mettwinning #artwillsaveyou, #betweenartandquarantine, #tussenkunstenquarantaine
The Painter’s Wife (Helene Abelen), 1926, August Sander. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Copyright Paul Getty Trus
The Painter’s Wife, August Sander, recreated by Heather Brincko 2020
