For last few days, as I get in my early morning hikes along the river, I've been thinking about water.

About how it unites us.

As I play with the new works in my sketch books I keep thinking about the oceans. How we can't really claim them for our own. Although we try to with our off shore regulations and fishing boundaries. It seems the oceans, or is it just one ocean?, belong to us all. They or it is how we are joined.

I heard somewhere that if we look at our blue green planet from space today and compare it with the very first image. That we'll see less white and more blue.

Here are a few new images from my "sketchbook" click on any image to see it larger. The first one is my very first image printed on lexan using Golden's digital ground for nonporous materials. I love it's softness. The second is egg tempera over a digital image printed on lexan. The third is my "floating" jelly! It's casein over a digital image on lexan. And the last one is just a photo of the shadows cast by the egg tempera painted image.

This work has been dormant in me for many years. To have it come to fruition is exciting and exhilarating. I love playing with the transparency: of the lexan, the paints and the jellies.

Fun stuff for these wet rainy days as I ponder water.

I went for a walk last evening after a very long studio day. These play days in the studio are days of exploration and trial and error. Yesterday some things didn't work out but that's part of the process. Late in the day I had one of those break through's and the work came into focus! Perseverance and hard work are much of the art making process.

 Just as my walk was ending my friend the beaver swam right up next to me! In shamanic ways the beaver's spirit offers this wisdom:






Maintaining the ability to be productive in all ways by not limiting your options

Being persistent

Using available resources

Using alternate ways of doing tasks

Master builder of all things

Not damming the flow of experiences in life

Achievement through completion of tasks

Understanding dynamics of group work




It all seems to fit my work just now. We are indeed al connected.

Still working out the new mediums, digital grounds, new materials and new images in the Jelly Scribbles. As I explained to a gallery director yesterday these small drawings, whether they be on aluminum, aluminum foil, plexiglass or sa paper are my "sketchbook."

Being a moistmedia artist my process contains both "traditional" and "contemporary" mediums. My "sketches" are a blending of digital and paint so my "sketchbooks" are complex.

What you see in the Jelly Scribbles is the result of LOTS of research into materials. Things like digital grounds for non-porous surfaces. I don't know what other artists do but I read every Material Safety Data Sheet and all product application sheets. Below is only page one of the four pages that apply to just the white fluorescent pigment!

I prefer my process to be transparent and dynamic. Which is why my "sketchbook" is open for all to see. As I said the other day we are connected and we share our journey. My work is a dialogue with life and these scribbles are it's beginning.

After a week of vacation I spent yesterday playing in the studio. I'd printed on some sa paper, aluminum and aluminum foil (the lexan was too thick, but yesterday I found some plexiglass that should be just right.)

Playing with casein medium, which is made from milk curd or whey (I never get that right.) But it's a water based paint like egg tempera and a bio-medium which adds chi to my work. Life! Energy!

Playing with fluorescent pigments.

The fun thing is playing with the light. The light in the ice images and the light on these drawings. I move it one way and it looks flat then tip it and wow! Suddenly the jelly is shimmering and feels alive!

More fun today!

Here's a jelly scribble on aluminum flashing.

A circle is always happening between my life and my art.  I am forever being moved and moving myself along the spiral.

With the jellies I have come to a place of faith, Not faith in humanity but faith in my understanding of our connectedness on earth. What exists in me exists throughout our world. Therefore how could I not feel benevolent forces at work?

To believe in some power outside myself feels all wrong. The time has passed for that. What I am attempting to share about my journey is that we are joined. That we share this journey.

Last week I went to see the magic jellies at the New England Aquarium. As I watched the movement of the jellies I was reminded how fragile life can be, how delicate and how wonderful. My journey here on earth is such a gift. I adore it. And I adore myself as part of it.

Watching the movements of the jellies in the water made it clear to me I am home. My body knows this movement. It is prayer made visible. The deep comfort of this, I believe, is what earlier mystics referred to as ecstasy.

The fluorescent pigments arrived and the sa paper was coated! Yesterday afternoon it was all play.

Here's the second jelly scribble finished!

The first is still on the easel. I had to play with the orange and purple pigments! I'll get back to jelly one tomorrow.

Last week I captured this image of ice out at the Quabbin Reservoir where I often walk.

I've been thinking, well more like pondering, about ice.

That week after my solo show FLUX opened I needed to find a quiet place to wander. It happened, yes magic happens, that I came across a nearby ice covered stream I'd never visited before. The beauty of the ice and water moved me. Perhaps my body, made of so much water, was responding to something remembered. I only knew at the time I needed to shoot images.

The water rushing and swirling beneath it's own patterns made solid in the ice was incredibly beautiful. Below are two of the images which will be the very first jelly scribble drawings using the new fluorescent pigments. A diptych I think. With a sea nettle jelly.

So why ice and jellies? To me both seem to be messengers of our climate change. Both are delicate and seem fragile. Both have their own unique relationship with the ocean.

I'm also thinking about climate change or global warming.

As I watch our ice out I think about the glaciers melting.

 A few weeks ago I heard about James Balog, an amazing nature photographer, and his Extreme Ice Survey. What I like about James is his positive outlook in the face of clear evidence that 95% of our glaciers are melting or retreating.

He says our understanding about global warming is merely a matter of perception. I think he is correct. He also believes we have the science, technology, and financing available to solve the problems. I think he's correct here too. You can watch his 20 minute talk at TED and get inspired about ice.

That's why ice.

"I think that art can be called upon to light up our situation. I heard the visionary director Peter Brooke give a talk the other night here in New York City. He was speaking of the small but significant effect art has on the world. He likened art to when the black out engulfed the Northeast that summer. He said if a one person held up a tiny match, it could be enough to help someone find the keys they had dropped in the street, and perhaps find their way home. That one match has a powerful effect for that one person. And even if art cannot light up a whole city or the whole country, it might help one person find home. I think of my work as a small moment of fire. Maybe it can be an inspiration, help someone cope or smile or continue on their journey."

~Nora York (check out her TED performance)

I just couldn't wait for the fluorescent pigments! I was playing with the sa paper and had one hanging on my viewing wall and well, I had a brush in my hand. So here's the inception of the jelly scribbles which are the precursors for the large paintings on copper and aluminum. Creative sparks flying today!

I recently heard on the Speaking of Faith podcast of Einstein's God dreamtime described by physicist Freeman Dyson as a state of being in both present time and in eternity at once. Pretty interesting this time, space, energy and matter stuff. Pretty interesting how we are seeing the amazing connections between science, the arts and spirituality.

Back to my dreamtime. I'm pondering, as I wait for my new fluorescent pigments to arrive, the idea of bioluminescence and the light within each human heart. I'm thinking about this new grid we are creating, the smart grid for energy distribution. Maybe what we can do is create a grid from the light inside each of us. From the visions each of us holds in our hearts and souls of a new world. It has been said so eloquently by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her letter to a young activist during troubled times.

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires."
 

Here it is the first jelly aluminum scribble! I'm still in play mode with it all but I'm loving the results. Today I'm ordering the fluorescent pigments and some casein binder - very cool! Casein is even more ancient than egg tempera and is made from the whey of milk. Oddly it seems to be used, in this country at least, primarily by native American artists. Cool!

Sunday a trip to Home Depot for more aluminum flashing and some copper flashing!! I've been given a gift of sa paper from Thailand and I'm playing with that as well. Interestingly it is traditionally used in Buddhist texts. It was a gift from my friend Shireen. Who is a gift for artists in Southeast Asia.

Look for more images soon!

It's all jelly play in the studio late in the day after I've lost the light to paint on the fall scrolls.

I'm printing on aluminum - which is different and fun and shiny! The aluminum takes the ink more heavily than the bamboo paper so I need to make some adjustments in the density of the images I'm using. There's something about printing water and ice on the aluminum surface that excites me! I'm using some roofing flashing I picked up at Home Depot but I'm in search of some recycled aluminum sheets.

I've also been printing on some dao paper from Southeast Asia which was sent as a gift from a friend. I'm coating it with a shimmery pearlescent material made by InkAId for inkjet printers. It's a delicate paper and requires a substrate beneath for support as it passes through the printer. I am loving the images and adding paints and pencil marks. This is the part of the process where it's total play! I've no firm idea yet of this new process and what I'll end up using to paint. But these papers will be where I work out my ideas for the large aluminum jelly works. I guess they'll be the jelly scribbles!

I am ordering some fluorescent pigments from Kremer, purple, yellow, white and orange I think.And some more Gofun Shirayuki, which is crushed oyster shells that were allowed to lay on the beach for years to bleach to a gorgeous pearly white. A long time ago I had a discussion with an egg tempera painter who thought it silly that I thought materials had residual qualities from their source. But I know the gofun shirayki has the memory of the ocean.

Yesterday I mixed some gofun shirayuki with zinc white and a smidge of purple pigment and got a lovely transluscent color. It's like that shimmery purple you see in clear bubbles or in oyster shells. I'm using it in the second and third fall scrolls. I think I'll use it for the jellies as well! Can't wait to play with it and the fluorescents! There's the bioluminescence!

Meanwhile I'm reading ALL (yes every single one) of the Safety amd Material Data Sheets. Working with tempera and pigments on aluminum is tricky and I am feeling my way along.