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.
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.
