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.
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.
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.
How can there be so much depth in such a small radius, in winter? Layers upon layers seemingly still, but shifting . The landscape spoke with a sly chuckle, “can you keep up?!” I screamed back through the silence, "I’m up on my toes and down on my knees, looking!” Not with my voice, but with my shutter. With my hands touching the frosty ground in the shadows and, just steps away, a warm rock in the sunlight.
We turned on some music and scribbled (6B water soluble graphite stick - basically a big fat pencil) to give some overexposed polaroids new life.
I felt like my mind was constantly going "snap, snap, snap" (camera sound) every step I took in Colorado Springs. We hiked Red Rock Canyon , drove through Garden of the Gods, ventured up (it was uphill both ways somehow?) to School Pond Trail in a thunderstorm, and drove around town picking up magical crystals on the way home. Snap, snap, snap. I've obviously been deprived color in Seattle; the green seemed to jump off the red sand. Boundless beauty and inspiration.
