Artist Trading Card Club

We started an Artist Trading Card Club. I am excited to see where this takes us.

In 1996 a Swiss artist, M. Vänçi Stirnemann, exhibited a collection of miniature art he had done (around 1200 in all). They were the same size as baseball or hockey trading cards – 3½" X 2½". At the end of the exhibition (in 1997) there was a trading session, which took his exhibition to the new level of 'Collaborative Performance'. Other sessions sprung up around the world with the same idea of trading between people who created the miniature art, rather than open market buying and selling. 

On my birthday this year, I decided that a couple of friends and I would go to Galveston. (Fortunately, they obliged.) It just happened to be Mardi Gras weekend, which added to the festivity. In preparation for the trip I bought three sketchbooks – one for each of us – and various pencils, pens and erasers. When we weren't exploring the historic district or partying on the Strand, we chilled and sketched while we talked. (That was the plan, anyway. In practice we only sketched a couple of times.)

At the end of the weekend I introduced the idea of an Artist Trading Card club. I asked if they would be interested in starting a small group and then seeing where it led us. There was interest and it grew as time went by. So, last week I made all three of us commit to a time. (It would have been beneficial to commit to a place as well, but 'live and don't learn' is my motto.) It's easy for good ideas to remain ideas and never grow into reality, unless somebody pushes forward. So, I decided to give us all a little shove in this direction.

This week Barry, Tamara and I met for dinner, along with Tamara's niece, and after eating we began drawing. We had fun chatting and sketching, much to the puzzlement and dismay of the waiter. I had brought the same pencils, pens and erasers along with a set of Prismacolor pencils. Tamara, a graphic designer by trade, more or less kicked our collective artistic butts. Barry was a little artistically blocked, but eventually did a lovely abstract piece, reminiscent of his jewelry. Tamara's niece, an RN, played lightly with text and I putzed around with a couple of ideas. At the end Tamara made the observation that we all kind of stayed in our comfort zone, but that is a reasonable place to start. We've all been kind of artistically blocked in one way or another (except maybe Tamara's niece who is busy saving lives daily in an ER), which is why I came up with the idea in the first place. So, Barry made a couple of suggestions for future meetings. One was that we all start with a shape – the same shape – and see where each of us takes it. Another was that we each draw a shape on a card and then pass that card to the left and let the next person take over. Both are very good ideas and will help us break out of our comfort zones. 

Hopefully there will be more to come of our little club. There are already a couple of other people wanting to join. We'll be international in no time. 

Stay tuned...

Praying with Zentangle at the Café del Mar

It seems like a long time ago, like I'm remembering something from years back. In a way I am, but what I'm actually thinking about is much closer in time than it appears to that delicate place in my mind that might be labeled My Heart. I began seriously thinking about Zentangle last year, if I'm not mistaken – 2016. Also, I began listening to Chillout music on Youtube, more or less for the same reason: stress from work. I don't know if maybe I'm not cut out for high-stress jobs, or if maybe because I didn't get a college degree I didn't get the training that would help me deal with them. Maybe that. I've always thought that there is a lot to be said for a well-rounded education, and I certainly didn't finish what I started there.

What is Zentangle? It is doodling on purpose. It is a way to mix simple repetitive line drawings with meditation. Zentangle was developed by an artist/calligrapher and her husband who is a Buddhist monk. She was doing a repetitive design on a piece of calligraphy and he walked in and interrupted her reverie. She explained to him how her mind had gone to another plane while she worked, and he told her that what she had experienced was meditation. From that exchange, Zentangle was born. 

I remember going to an art festival a few years ago, one that is held annually in a one-block town named Edom, up in Northeast Texas. I remember sitting more or less brain dead. I may have been twitching. I know that I was dreaming of and longing to be checked in to a mental facility. To this day I can't tell if it's because I don't handle stress well, or because things were just super-duper bad. A lack of ability to assert myself and to handle manipulative people definitely contributed to the state of mind. I desperately needed Zentangle then, but I hadn't heard of it yet.

If I look even further back I can remember a time when I was really on the brink of losing it, and that was mostly a combination of bad choices and clinical depression. At that time I turned to The Church and I stumbled across a book called The Cloister Walk, which led me to learn about The Litergy of the Hours. Saying a series of prayers based on The Psalms at regular intervals every day – every single day at the same intervals – helped me through a great deal. Later, I let the Hours slip, as I found I didn't need them any more. How's that for a fair weather friend? I don't need prayer now, so I'll just let it go. 

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I began the Zentangle and the Chill-out music at roughly the same time last year. With the music, I focussed on one compilation from YouTube (produced by Café del Mar), so the repetition was there again. Café del Mar's music is laid back, designed to... well to chill the listener out. Mike G from ambientmusicguide.com writes, "The world of Cafe Del Mar is an oasis of old-school ambient, warm Arabian strings, liquid dub, Latin melodies, nu jazz and lounge. Sometimes there's snatches of filtered vocals amid the relaxed breakbeats and ambient house, even whole songs on occasion." Though I was not partying or drinking on a Spanish island beach, I could use the music to take myself to a different place mentally and spiritually.

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Words from the music I listened to obsessively began to make their way into my drawings.

I would come home every day and do a Tangle. I would sit in a coffee shop with my earbuds in, tangling and listening to my music and letting it all put me into a trance. I began to incorporate some of the words into my drawings, "Why do we always fall in love?" and "Al conocernos me prometiste, darme tu amor para toda la vida." Those two lines were taken out of their musical context and woven into the Chill-out mix, and then into my brain where they were inseparably associated in my mind with Zentangle. I found myself praying, meditating, escaping more and more frequently with only doodles and strange compilations thereof to show for it. My job was again heating up and again I didn't feel up to the challenge. I applied for other jobs and ultimately found one at the state, so then it was a matter of getting through the hiring process and then giving notice at my current job.

Now, at my new job for a couple of months, I look back at all of the tangles that I did during the transition and the notes that I wrote to myself on the back of them. I love reading those notes. If it was a significant day, or something interesting happened, or just something that I could find to distinguish that day from all of the others, I made a habit of writing something on the back of every card, after I signed and dated it. I notice that I'm not tangling daily any more. Just like the Liturgy of the Hours, I've let them slide. Also, the Café del Mar mix doesn't put me into a trance any longer. I try, but I can't achieve that place I used to escape to, possibly because I no longer feel the urgent need to escape.

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A recent drawing (Zentangle Inspired Art)

I shouldn't stop, though. One shouldn't stop praying because life has gotten better. One shouldn't stop drawing and meditating because they have successfully reduced the stress that the world puts on them. These are healthy habits that should be continued. When you are very, very hungry – starving, even – that first bite of food is like heaven. It is by far the best bite you'll ever take. But, that doesn't mean that we don't need to eat regularly. Likewise, we need to pray/meditate/draw regularly, continually.

The folks who started Zentangle have a course that they offer (for a few grand) to become a Certified Zentangle Teacher. I don't necessarily feel an inner need to have a ", CZT" after my name, but I have thought about taking this course for a few reasons. I believe that doing this in a workshop setting with others would add to the experience. I can vouch for the fact that writing in a workshop with others adds to the writing experience. I haven't been able to find a Zentangle group in the area, though. So, why not learn to teach it myself? I'm certain that they have ideas and methods for running a workshop and an approach to teaching that would be useful for me to learn. Also, being a writer and an artist, I am rather sensitive to the notion of copyright. I do like to pay my part, and teaching this and calling it Zentangle without being properly certified (and paying for it) would not be right legally or ethically. Sure, it's doodles that anybody could do and that the Zentangle folks may not even have created in the first place. But, they did take the time – an artist and a Buddhist monk – to put together a method to help people get the most out of it.

I have the perfect studio space here to hold a workshop, so that idea is still on the table. (It will have to wait until my art pays for it, or until I can be certain that the workshops themselves would.) I envision the Zentangle method incorporated into a larger creative project/workshop involving painting, writing and meditation – a sort of spiritual retreat. Complete with Ambient music. Perhaps we could contemplate why we always fall in love. Maybe taking this to the next step – conducting retreats for others – will help keep me on track with my own praying, drawing and meditating. 

And, it is getting late. I do still work and tomorrow is Monday. I don't feel the need to medicate myself any more, but I should probably go ahead and get to bed. I'll write more later.

Thoughts, anybody? Ideas? Suggestions? Does you use drawing as a way to meditate or pray? Please leave a message in the comments section below. I love to hear from you.

Prisma Phone App

I have discovered a new phone app; it's called Prisma and it sort of picks up where Instagram leaves off, with regards to photo enhancing. It makes works of art out of your images. There are over 30 filters and they keep adding new ones. The filters create works in the style of various artists like Van Gogh, Lichtenstein, Munch and Picasso. They have worked to include all manner of artist styles – line drawing, pen & ink, artists like Thota Vaikuntam, Mononoke and Daryl Feril, and styles like comic books, posters and holiday themed. 

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Anastasia in the Sun

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Clarice in the Sun

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Salad

I've also used Prisma with another app called Layout, which allows me to combine several filters of the same image into one image.

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Anastasia in a Clay Pot

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Young Guitarist

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Hamburger (Made locally by Daniel's Burgers)

They have added their own social networking aspect to the app, but none of my friends are on it yet. (Which kind of defeats the purpose of the app.) So, I post on Facebook and Instagram and other places where my friends hang out. It's nice to have something that keeps me busy while I should be doing something productive, or when I am trying to go to sleep but can't. It's fun and it takes very little work on my part.

So, what do you think? Is this an app you'd use?

Reasons my Friend, Sunny, Should Blog

My friend, Sunny, as I have mentioned, is involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). Her main interest seems to lie in the reproduction of period costumes, and the idea of maintaining integrity to the era that is being represented by the group at the moment. She is able to incorporate her love of art history AND her love of research. She posts on Facebook when she finds something new and interesting.

I love to read what she posts and the conversations that she starts, so I told her that she should blog. Because, after all, I worked with her briefly – albeit in a different department – so, that entitles me to tell her how to live her life. She responded with a predictable list of excuses why she couldn't. I mean, "I don't want to" would be a legitimate answer. But, if you're going to give me lame excuses, I shall retort. Let's look at some of them, shall we?

"I don't have time"
Fair enough. She has two small children. But, she's posting on Facebook, so she has that time, which she could reallocate to the blog. And, I feel that what she puts on Facebook would be perfectly good material for a blog post. (The period costume and related posts, that is.) Not every post has to be 10 pages, complete with footnotes. Her posts are compelling and interesting, even to somebody who has never sewn in his life. (That would be me.)

"I'm not an Expert"
Sunny introduced me to The Modern Maker on Facebook. He is an expert on period costumes and he also is a professional – in making the costumes and also in lectures and books. While I've enjoyed what he writes, it's a bit over my head. I am more interested in what Sunny posts. Why? And, why should she care?

I am a likely follower of hers. Sunny would be much more likely than I to follow The Modern Maker because she is serious about the pursuit. I am merely interested; I am not a part of SCA and I don't have much interest in becoming a part of it. I do like her take on the topic, though. While she may not be the expert (and I'm not certain I agree), she is exploring. And, she has her own passions that she brings to it, and her own problems – like a life to live aside from the costumes, for instance. How does she balance it? Many people have to do this balancing act and they are likely (and grateful) followers. There are a lot of people like myself for whom her perspective is appealing. Don't believe me? Look at the number of people responding to her posts on Facebook.

"I'm too shy / scared / insecure"
Do it for your daughters. Show them what women can do. Do it for yourself. Every creative person knows that that feeling of insecurity, of being scared, is the next challenge to conquer.

Some thoughts from Kristen Lamb: Facebook may not always be around – or they, as a company, may not always be nice or cooperative. Your posts on Facebook are Facebook's property. Your blog posts are your own property.

So, maybe Sunny doesn't need to work right now. Perfect. Building a loyal following takes time. Kristen gives a general number of 200 posts before your online presence really kicks in. Then, all of this discussion, research and writing are your valuable commodity. Your followers are yours, not Facebook's.

"But, I love Facebook because I like to keep up with my friends." Great. That's how you promote your blog anyway. Not by "promoting" your blog, but by socializing with people of similar interests.

I'll close with two more thoughts:

1. I wish that I were HALF as passionate about ANYTHING as Sunny is about period costumes.

2. Every time I see her post a gem on Facebook, I feel like she's giving a part of her creative self to them, and she can't really get it back.

3. (I lied.) What does she have to lose? Maybe the cost of the blog/website if she starts on her own to begin with (which Kristen recommends and explains in her book Rise of the Machines.) But, there are free sites – Blogger and WordPress, for instance.

I know that Sunny has mentioned my suggestion on FB before, and her friends rallied around her, encouraging her. I get the feeling that she kind of wants to do it, but maybe doesn't have the confidence that she feels it would take. I hope that I have come across as encouraging and not being pushy. And, I hope Sunny knows that I would love to work with her while she builds a blog, if that's what she wants to do.

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This picture of her embroidery really stuck with me

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Finished embroidery

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Finishing up the cap

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Finished product (a detail from the image at the beginning of this blog post)

Okay, I'll stop now. Thank you, Sunny, for putting up with me. I hope to see you soon. Until then I remain...

Yours truly,

Earnest Painter

Art as Therapy

Things continue to progress here at the cat sanctuary, where cats have taken over from the flying monkeys. The new job is going well; the plan to consistently get through workdays without medicating myself is going as planned. In fact, the new job has rekindled an interest in archives and libraries. More on that later as the interest blossoms into a full-blown obsession.

Speaking of obsessions, have you ever felt paper? I mean really felt paper? Good paper. I have fallen in love with the way a Sakura Micron Pigma ink pen feels as it moves across a fine-tooth surface. I use 3 1/2" square tiles made from card stock, and sometimes larger – 5 inch squares – for larger projects. The ink from the pen does not bleed into the paper. I get a nice, crisp line that dries fairly quickly, without any need to blot. As the pen moves across the surface, I don't feel the tooth of the paper breaking. It's smooth, and relaxing and delightful.

Last year I began playing around with Zentangle. I could relate to the explanation of how it started – an artist and a Buddhist monk couple discovered the meditative aspect of art, specifically repeated patterns. It reminded me of when I was younger, of becoming almost intoxicated while working on a drawing project. I would get into a bit of a trance and I would barely register the things happening around me. When I looked up from the drawing, I felt that the songs playing on the radio were so much better, food had so much more flavor. I would be positively radiant with happiness, which made my family give me strange looks. Working from a photo, slipping into the zone of drawing was a physical experience as my eyes moved from the photo to my drawing and my hand moved across the drawing paper, recreating the space relationships and the tonal values with my soft-lead pencil. It's like when you put earbuds in and the sounds from the world turn off, or like when Bilbo Baggins puts on the magical gold ring. Slip, and then I would be in a happy place.

So, now as I think about the story lines that I'm trying to develop, I let my pen work on the simple strokes that make up the Zentangle method – simple strokes that repeat and create patterns, relaxing the mind and letting it wander in a way that cannot happen if I'm staring at a computer monitor. Per the Zentangle method, I write a little note on the back of my tiles and now I have a small artistic journal of my time since I decided to make a change in my life. I've expanded into mandalas – modern mandalas, not the Buddhist or Hindu religious pictures. I feel a little guilty for borrowing a sacred style, but there are mandala coloring books every three feet in bookstores, so I don't think I'm breaking rules or taboos – none that haven't already been trampled to unrecognizable bits anyway.

Below are some of the things I've done.

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Zentangle desk. I have finished the larger piece that's in the top middle of the picture above – here it is a work in progress.

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Zentangles / creative journals

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Zentangles 2 – I tend to incorporate phrases, lyrics and quotes into my tangles, the kind of phrases that stick in my mind for days on end.

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Mandala 1

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Mandala 2