In the Works

     In keeping with my resolution to work more on my poetry I spent my lunch hour on Friday writing. I worked on extending a previous poem. I'll see later if the two will join neatly or if they'll remain two separate works.

Monsoon Sunday

     Feeling a bit cooped up today, I went out to photograph in the rain. I ended up shooting through the vehicle windshield. I was pleased with a couple of shots.

Slammed Part 2

     As a follow-up to my post on my first poetry slam experience I want to say that I feel the urge to work on my poetry quite a bit more. I don't think I'll need to compete in a slam but it occurs to me that I might benefit from reading some of my work publicly. Just as an artist's daybook is meant to enrich my art practice, so might reading my work enrich my writing. I maintain an audience in my head while I write, perhaps a physical audience might similarly enhance my writing.

Slammed

     Tonight I attended a local poetry slam and found out that, for me, poetry is not a sport. I had a difficult time reconciling how I feel about my work with the delivery styles of the poets I heard tonight. Snapping, clapping, and scoring were very foreign to me. Maybe it's because I was the oldest person in the room, or maybe it's because my influences are too conservative, but I didn't really identify with the slam style at all. I found their delivery interfering with my voice as I tried later to compose my own verse. I think I need to detox with some W.S. Merwin or good old Walt Whitman.

Tiny Purple Fishes

     I remember doing a record cover project in high school. We were allowed to copy a band's artwork or create our own. I think I created my own but can't remember 23 years later what it looked like. I'm sure I'll create a lesson plan around this idea at some point. It requires so much more in the way of creativity than just the skill to create it. The personality of the student artist and their interests and influences are engaged as well.

     The album cover artwork for Cream's "Disraeli Gears" has to be my favorite right now. And while we're on the subject, "Tales of Brave Ulysses", side two, track one, has got to be one of the best examples of poetry set to music.

Top 5 Records

     Last night after watching "High Fidelity" for about the 7th time I decided to attempt to track my musical interests by documenting all of the songs and artists whose music I enjoy. I presume that this will lead to some sort of web connecting my interests and influences. I think this may be useful in understanding myself a little better, or at least from a different angle. I started to build a "Top 5" but so far the only sure bet at number one is "Flowers of Guatemala" by R.E.M. We'll see what comes of this, if anything.

Morning Fireworks

     On a humid hike this morning I enjoyed the benefits of the summer monsoon rains in the form of wildflowers bursting like fireworks from the ground in deep slow motion.

New Forms, the Beat Generation, and Owen Davis

     This afternoon I enjoyed an intense two and a half hour conversation about art, music, and the Beat Generation with friend, composer, and partner in collaboration, Owen Davis. Both of us are drawn to the mid-twentieth century renaissance of new forms in the arts. Among the topics of discussion were John Cage, Jack Kerouac, and Peter Voulkos. We also discussed the impact of Buddhism on key artists of the time and the fact that their explorations may have just been the beginning of what can be accomplished in the arts. We exchanged favorite internet audio and video clips and talked about our collaboration together, further defining our roles and intent. Ours is a project that promises to delight the senses and I look forward to seeing and hearing it performed.

     With regards to schooling, Owen and I expressed our inspirations and apprehensions about pursuing graduate studies in our respective fields. My perspective is heavily influenced by my need to develop a deeper art practice. I feel that in order to be an effective teacher I must support my instruction with an exemplary body of work. My passion for creativity has always leaned very heavily to the mental side and while that finds its expression in my writing I feel that the visual component would benefit from deeper practice. Just as I have chosen to embrace the habit of keeping an artist's daybook, I have to feed that book with experiences through which I engage the world, giving fodder for creative acts.

     It is rare to find one with whom you can communicate easily about things that inspire you; more rare to find one who understands.

     You can find out more about Owen Davis and his work here and here.

New Blog

     This week I started a new blog, as if I didn't have enough trouble keeping up with this one. The new one is geared specifically toward keeping a regular artist's daybook, a log of all things inspiring. I'll be posting photos and text related specifically to my art practice. I plan to continue to maintain this blog as well, using it much the same as I always have, for reflection, poetry, and photos from hikes and backpacking trips, etc. The new address is: http://anartistsdaybook.blogspot.com/ Enjoy!

Death Masks

     Today's find in a box from yesterday's shed cleaning project is a mask I made in high school from a slip cast mold of my art teacher's face. I remember him rubbing petroleum jelly on his face and hair, stuffing his nose with tissue, placing his face through a hole in the back of a box, and holding a paper roll in his mouth so he could breath while a student poured plaster over his face. I also remember this not being planned too far in advance, sort of on a whim; which is how most things seemed to happen in that classroom and which I enjoyed thoroughly. I decided to push the features of the mask around while it was still soft to make a sort of death mask to which my teacher replied, "Oh, thank you very MUCH!" (I also remember that during the time in which this was made I was into Alfred Hitchcock and Edgar Allen Poe.) After the mask was fired I finished it with colored pencil and washes of acrylic paint.

     I decided to photograph it with a bronze mask I made of my own face during my undergraduate studies. The mold was taken using alginate which is skin safe and sets quickly. The only weak spot was my nose where the mold was too thin. I had to build the nose up with wax before dipping it in the investment material. I finished the bronze cast with a black patina. Two casts were made. The second was left plain, without patina, and my mother keeps it in her home.

     It is interesting to see the similarities and differences in material and appearance between the two masks. Recently I wrote a short lesson plan on mask making for my future students, complete with plans for wearing the masks in procession around campus during a time of peak activity like a lunch break. I can't wait to see how that turns out.

     There are numerous sites on the web for death masks. This one loads quickly and provides images of death masks of historical figures.

Shedding

     Cleaning out the shed today I came across some potentially useful items for future projects. Most notable were some assorted adhesive mailbox letters. Additionally I found that I still have several boxes of personal memorabilia that I haven't opened since moving to Flagstaff. I'll spend some time here and there digging through those in hopes of finding more project ideas and materials.

Go Figure

     This weekend I looked over some figure drawings I had done during my undergraduate studies. I was surprised to see how good they were. They possess beautiful line quality and accurate depictions of scale and form. There is particular sensitivity to subtle curves which lends a sort of poetry to the overall feeling of a drawing.

     As part of my efforts to continually develop and reinforce my identity as an artist I must find a way to integrate figure drawing into my overall practice.

Welcome to An Artist's Daybook

Welcome,

     I started this blog in order to focus specifically on my practice of keeping an artist's daybook. A few years ago a good friend enlightened me to his practice of keeping an analog photo journal. It's a habit he's maintained for many years and the ease with which he builds his record is inspiring. As a pre-service art educator I intend to communicate to my students the importance of maintaining such a log. 

     Here I will be posting... anything I want to. This is the only rule I will give my students, that they can enter into their own artist's daybook anything they want to; from poetry to grocery lists, from thumbnail sketches or ideas for projects to doodles having no obvious relevance, from the heaviest thought to the lightest note about the seemingly least consequential of blips on their mental radar; mistakes included. I purposefully chose the term "daybook" as opposed to "journal" or "diary", first, because it's a term used less frequently to describe such things, and second, because those other terms carry specific connotations about their content. Again, anything can go into an artist's daybook. The minutia surrounding those things that would be expected in a journal is what lends context. For example, if I write in my daybook a short poem right after a list of needs for an upcoming trip, followed by a drawing of the view out an open window, I've created the potential for an interesting personally expressive project. If I had omitted the list in favor of the more structured or exclusive forms of a typical journal or sketch diary I might forget the surrounding context of the poem and drawing. Chances are, that trip I had prepared for in some way impacted the poem and drawing I later created.

     Now, I doubt I'll be posting grocery lists here but you get the idea. This is my way of making public my ideas about what an artist's daybook might include. My students will understand, if I achieve my goal, that the keeping of such a log is integral to their artistic practice; a habit whose value will be inestimable. By recording their experiences and perceptions they will create a recorded personal history which will enlighten their creative processes into their adult years. In short, their artist's daybooks will become storehouses of inspiration from which they may draw at will.

     Without further deliberation, let the fun begin...

Summer Moths

     This week's Summer Solstice brought the excitement of moths. Yes, moths. On a short walk Wednesday morning I came across the largest moth I've ever seen. The wingspan was pushing 4 inches.

antheraea oculea - Oculea Silkmoth

     It was very exciting to see something so beautiful taking rest at my eye level in a short Ponderosa Pine. I felt like I was seeing something I shouldn't, a creature of the night caught sleeping in the open.

     After that experience I wanted to set up a sheet and light in the evening to try to attract more moths for close inspection and photographs. Last night the kids and I set up our potential viewing area. We snapped a few very mediocre shots of some moths that would have come just as readily to our porch light.

     Dejected and scheming to procure a more powerful light and a whiter sheet I settled in for the evening. A few minutes later my wife heard a rattling sound outside our bedroom window. I was, of course, dispatched to handle the disturbance. Amidst the toys, bikes, and art supplies on the porch was a struggling moth of decent size. I coaxed it gently from against the house and held it loosely in my hand as it fluttered wildly. My oldest daughter retrieved my camera and I took a few shots while holding the now calm moth as it stood content on my thumb. 

smerinthus cerisyi - One-eyed Sphinx

 

      After we had a long look I released our fat little friend into the air with a push. I felt a tug at my skin upon release. Fearing the worst, a leg segment left behind in a knuckle's crease perhaps, I examined my hand under the porch light. There I found three neatly laid eggs. Looking further I found two more on another finger.

     I was amazed and humbled to have been entrusted with these tiny pale green jewels containing future moth lives. I gently removed the eggs and deposited them neatly on the nearby vegetation in hopes that their mother's trust had not been misplaced.

Recent Paintings

    The following images are from a new painting series I started recently.
     I would say that I've always loved painting but honestly there was a long period of time during which I couldn't bring myself to paint. Part of this block was due to how I had come to view the process. After my early undergrad experience as a painting major I had become overwhelmed by the dreaded and sacred white canvas, the purity of the materials, and the deliberate nature in which I was trained to work.
     At the suggestion of a friend and colleague, I abandoned all respect for the process and materials. I forgot about fine stretched canvas and gesso, earth-toned under-paintings, and thick luxurious oils, and picked up some paper, old craft store acrylics, cheap watercolors, and disposable brushes. I set to work on small pieces that could be literally taped to a board, actually an old oil painting on panel to ensure complete sacrilege.In an effort to integrate my love of drawing I also added ink pens and colored pencil. I am pleased with the results so far. I'm able to complete most images in a couple of hours or less. It has been very liberating to take ownership of a means of expression I had previously dreaded.
     I have attempted to arrange these images chronologically, earliest to latest. The series includes all but three works that have found other homes. Color accuracy is a slight issue due to lack of controlled lighting but these are near representations. All works are smaller than 8x10". I'm still working out titles for these.

 

Place

Tropical Kingbird - Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico

      In examining my relationship to place I realized that I largely experience place through birds. Regardless of where I go I look to birds for clues about where I am, and look at where I am for clues to which birds I might see there. As soon as there's a window to look out of, a place to walk or sit, I look for birds. My first time visiting my sister in Indiana a couple of years ago I saw my first Yellow-shafted Flicker, a woodpecker, along a freeway on-ramp on the way to her house from the airport.

     My love of birds goes back as far as I can remember. When I was maybe four years old I would stay with my grandmother at my great-grandfather's cottage on the beach in Rhode Island. My grandmother would save table scraps for the seagulls. I remember picking favorite individual gulls, especially the young brown gulls who hadn't yet molted into stunning white and grey, and asking my grandmother to be sure they were fed too.

Ring Billed Gull - Island Park, Portsmouth, Rhode Island

      Even after we moved to Phoenix when I was eight years old I watched the birds in our front yard and remember seasonal newcomers like meadowlarks and starlings as they moved through in migration. 

Meadowlark - Elgin, Arizona

     I'll never forget one especially close encounter with a burrowing owl when I was about 18 years old. I had ridden my bicycle down West Bell Road and noticed an overgrown open desert field clearly undeveloped. I laid down my bike and started walking down an arroyo; on the opposite bank I noticed a pair of eyes watching from behind a neat mound of gravel and dirt. As I stood up straight to peer in, the eyes lowered, and as I crouched they raised to track me. I could feel a relationship develop in that moment as we expressed our mutual curiosity of one another.

Burrowing Owl - Tucson, Arizona

       Much later, at thirty years old, my wife and children and I moved to Tucson. It wasn't long before I made friends with a couple of folks, Homer and Jen, who were really connected with the local ecology in a way I hadn't experienced before. One of the ways they expressed this connection was through bird watching. Our first outing was to the local cemetery where Vermillion Flycatchers and Say's Phoebes inspired me to pursue bird watching more avidly.

Greater Peewee - Carr Canyon, Huachuca Mountains, Arizona

       One trip after another I experienced new habitat and enjoyed looks at birds I had never seen before. The same could be said for my own backyard where Harris and Coopers Hawks were regular visitors looking for dove and quail to eat, and Cactus Wrens abounded scavenging on our patio for food scraps abandoned by our children. 

Cactus Wren - Tucson, Arizona

      This relationship to birds developed very naturally as did the friendships that came with it. The watching of birds was never about tallying as many species as possible or checking off a list of species for a certain area, it was about really knowing birds in their chosen habitats and engaging deeply socially with the people I had as company in those places. We never called birds in with recordings or waited in massive crowds of birders for a glimpse of a rarity to an area, we just took the birds as they came, or didn't, and when they didn't come we took the time to enjoy the landscape and its other inhabitants. 

Hepatic Tanager and Black-headed Grosbeak sharing a bathing spot - Carr Canyon, Huachuca Mountains, Arizona

Three Barn Owls - Willcox, Arizona

House Finch with young on nest in cholla cactus - Empire Gulch, Arizona

Gila Monster - Catalina State Park, Arizona

Kissing Bug on a Cottonwood leaf - Empire Gulch, Arizona

Horned Lizard - Greaterville Road, Arizona

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake - Sweetwater Water Treatment Facility, Tucson, Arizona

Found fallen bird's nest at sunrise - Rucker Canyon, Chriacahua Mountains, Arizona

Zone-tailed Hawk kill, likely by Great Horned Owl - Empire Gulch, Arizona

Devil's Claw and water tank - Sonoita, Arizona

       One year on the Friday after Thanksgiving we took a long route through multiple transitional habitats in Southeastern Arizona visiting grasslands, riparian corridors, and sky islands; as we made our way over Canelo pass we stopped in our tracks to watch as over 20 Merriam's Turkeys strode casually across the road not far ahead of us. We followed at a distance and watched silently as they leapt into the low branches of the surrounding trees to roost for the afternoon while others gently foraged below.

Merriam's Turkey - Madera Canyon, Santa Rita Mountains, Arizona

      Looking back, I realize that engaging place isn't just about me and my private experience but it's equally about who I engage with. I am tied to birds and the people with whom I experience those birds and the habitat we share, whether occasionally or daily, past, or present.

Here are some related posts:
Shrike Tuck
Tecolote

     A quick update: After rejection from the creative writing program I entered the College of Education graduate program in Secondary Education with an emphasis in Art Education with Certification. In short, I want to teach high school Art. It's taken me years to figure out what I want to be when I grow up (I'm now 41); and once I saw with fresh eyes the path that I've been on it was a relatively easy decision to make. This first two months of classes confirmed my decision was the right one. We're on spring break now. I started the break with a backpacking trip into the desert wilderness of Northeastern Arizona. Here are a few photos from that invigorating journey.

I can see our camp from here!

A very intentional re-purposing of a pot sherd

Archetype

Buddha Cave

Moon over Conical Hill

Coffee

Sweet coffee stain

my mother's breath

her laugh

her smile

with friends

her giving

free

happy

loving life

coffee stains

kitchen table

small windows

neighbors

sunlight

fresh air

springtime

grass greening

tree budding

birds descending

my mother laughing

smiling

happy

sweet coffee stains

Put your ear to my lips

When I was a child

I swallowed the ocean

when I close my eyes

I stand at the ocean

I see the ocean

when I reach out my arms

I offer the ocean

I hold out the ocean

I offer you the ocean

Getz/Gilberto

     My Pioneer PL-10 turntable now has a new belt but no counterweight. Luckily I was able to purchase a backup turntable at the local thrift store for $2.50. I have a copy of Getz/Gilberto's Girl from Ipanema on CD and now a copy of the same track on vinyl LP. A comparison of the two through the same receiver and speakers reveals the superior listening pleasure of vinyl. The tones are flattened on the CD despite the bolstered bass tones, while the vinyl reveals the sound of the room, the naked voices of the artists, and the mastery of the musicians of their respective instruments. You can almost feel Stan's breath travel from his lungs through the saxophone, and into the microphone. I am by no means an audiophile but this re-discovery of the romance of vinyl has been very pleasant and has slowed me down a bit to allow a more thoughtful enjoyment of the music I thought I knew.