Small Brown Snake 2014

My rules were this:  all ingredients of the work I did while teaching an Intensive at Anderson Ranch this fall  http://www.andersonranch.org/ had to be found or given to me.  The second day of the workshop, one of my students, Trace Nichols,  showed up with a plastic bag with something inside.  On her run that morning she had found a small brown snake, dead, by the side of the road.  As the days went by, I had 4 stripped pine cones(squirrels getting ready for winter) which resembled paws of some strange beast, two dead flies, about 15 tiny sea shells, some smashed pine cones(from being driven over), a stack of lovely Japanese printmaking paper (tear offs), beautifully stained tissue with  which a student had blotted her paintings, old, yellowed, dictionary pages, a DASS transfer of leaves, and numerous copies of images printed and then discarded. And these were just a few of the things I collected or that were given to me by my students as the workshop went on. My last gift was laying on my work table, beautifully wrapped and tied in leaves.  Trace had, once again, on her morning run, found a dead animal, this time a squirrel, and knowing that she wasn't going to come back that way, had wrapped it in leaves and tied them with stems so that she could carry it comfortably on her (long) run home.  I opened the beautiful present, simultaneously gasped and jumped a several feet backwards, then thanked her profusely for the lovely present.

,

Big Head(Thinking) 2014

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein

 “Stop thinking, and end your problems.”
― Lao Tzu

“ In thinking, keep to the simple.”
― Lao Tzu

I have a hard time with thinking, or rather, perhaps better said, thinking has not always been my friend.  My thoughts shape me:  they can create much anxiety and loneliness, and I don't understand why.  The thoughts swirl and repeat, swirl and repeat, especially at 4:00 am in the morning, when whatever thoughts I have seem always to go to dark places.  When I teach, I tell my students to let their brains go outside for a smoke while they stay inside to work.  I see my students convincing themselves that they can't paint, or can't collage, or don't understand color, then, when given a little push, and their hands are allowed to take over and their thinking discouraged, they are able to do all those things, and much more,  beautifully with complex creativity and, often, with profound meaning.