Two more days on the island (updated - reread)

Warning:  I got a cold right before I wrote this.  My desire to organize my thoughts decreases when that happens. . .

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It's time to be really honest.  

Just how did the art making go?

Three weeks. . .that's enough time to see summer change to fall.  To learn some key Greek phrases.  To soak in who lives around you, what they do on a daily basis, where their family comes from, and what kinds of foods they recommend.  To see things I've never seen before, like roadside shrines, goats that drink salt water, and other islands in the distance.  To sleep well, know my preferences for certain local foods, and know how long it takes my socks to dry on the lines on the north vs. south sides of the apartment.  To know who to talk to for problems with ants, or for the best path to the best beach.  To trust people (who aren't strangers anymore). 

It's also enough time to come to the studio daily (except for one day) and to learn to make art without judging it.  (If that's all I learned, that would make this residency a big success!)  It's enough time to internalize what a hook or line means to me.  To learn my environment through its physicality.  To understand the light.  The water in the background of my pieces.  Most of all, it's enough time to find myself amazed that my art and my life are suddenly merged. . .

This is where I stand now:  three weeks here has reinforced in me that I am extremely material based.  That ink and paper and sea waves are as physical to me as metal and wood and wax.  And that my tendency to use worn objects is one that I may be ready to leave behind.  In other words, maybe, in my psyche, the found object represents something past, and I am having second thoughts on my habit to always reclaim it.  (Don't hold me to this. . .)  And finally, it is long enough for me to realize that it takes at least three weeks to work with new materials in a new place.  To stop and start and stop and start again.  And then to settle down and let myself lose myself in a piece I'm making.

The most significant part of where I stand now is that, by coming here, I planted LOADS of seeds.  They'll pop up in my mind, dreams, and art inthe coming months.  Now that is exciting!  That is the real work I have done here.

Something to work on:  I'll admit, I still have a hard time concentrating on one piece at a time.  My pattern is to play out the possibilities until I am ready to settle in to a pattern or theme of work.  Solution:  It's a wonderful gift to be able to ask for input from a fellow artist when I feel bogged down with my own myopic vision.  Sometimes someone else's advice can help me hone my energy in on a project.

I will leave this residency and island with the sense that I developed part of a larger new vision here.  In the past year I've been pushing my work in a new direction (can't describe it well yet but I can sense it); coming here has meant that I've pushed in Skopelos, an effort that will merge with my Albuquerque push.  What's exciting is to see what the total outcome will be in the coming months.  A hybrid of outer spaces (Greece and the high desert of NM), and my inner space, where the dreaming happens.

In three weeks I've expressed a personal metaphor visually in book form and other forms.  I accept that I didn't reach the artistic heights I dreamed of six months ago -- you have to dream big! -- because I just don't work that quickly at this point in my art career and maybe never will.  That said, when I have what I feel is a big vision, it comes around and my subconscious gets me there.  I have to take the back roads of my creative process to do it, but these steps get me there:  1) envisioning, 2) back roads and frustration, 3) then, a surprise art making that takes me exactly where I envisioned it would.  (Since it takes me months to get there, I always feel I should build a temple out of gratitude -- you just never really know that dreams will come to fruition, and then they do and it's mind blowing.  That's why I keep this gig.)  I've been in Step 2 here.  A personal accomplishment is that I've learned to appreciate and enjoy Step 2.  It's like watching my own life unfold. . .

One of my personal challenges here was to come and make books.  I had never made them before, and now they are a new part of my artistic vocabulary.  A part that exists in the category of New Things, along with hooks and line, and rubbings, which are also fairly new in my art life.  It will be interesting to see how my concept of books will develop.

That said, I leave here with materials -- namely hooks and line! -- that I will live with, untangle, and know more as I continue my Skopelos art in Albuquerque.  And I have a vision for what they will be in an upcoming installation.  Although I need more time at home to make it happen, that is the height I'm really reaching for.

One last thing:  I had hoped that there would be one final "big" piece I would make.  Instead, I got a cold and a reason to sit back, take care of myself, and see what I have done.  Sometimes that's what life asks of you, and that's what I'm doing today.

A thought:

"If you want to test your memory, try to remember what you were worried about a year ago today."  -unknown