Blogging is my lifeline

In Process. Acrylic & pastel on masonite, 48 x 48 inches. © 2011 by Kathy Crabbe Damn it's hard to start painting when I tell myself that I won't be blogging about my Journey into Intimacy Series anymore.

It feels like a void is opening up and I'll just keep falling.

It seems as though this blog is like a lifeline to the world for me. Without it I feel lost and even sapped of the energy necessary to start painting.

WOW! I had no idea how important it was! Just knowing that my poetic ramblings pre-painting had to be heard, or at least put out there is important (but with my Mercury in Leo, I shouldn't have been  surprised!)

The fact is I have to paint and print and write and blog because it makes me feel good and strong and healthy.

Day 2 - Carborundum Collagraph with a Side of Monotype

Day 2 of a 4 day printmaking workshop with Amber George Carborundum Collagraph with a Side of Monotype Creative chaos using Akua inks which are non toxic.

 

 

 

 

 

Carborundum Collagraph with a Side of Monotype

Applying carborundum (Silicon carbide) to a sheet of mylar. After it dries I'll ink it up the carborundum with Akua intaglio inks and then apply it to a monoprint and then reprint it using an etching press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's All About the Trash

100 Words This blog has turned into an artist's blog (with a smattering of interviews) although nothing new has been painted (altho I did paint a 10x10 building and am preparing my front hallway for my printmaking equipment.)

Kathy Crabbe printmaking etching press

It's all about the trash. I'm clearing, cleaning, consigning and giving away HEAPS of STUFF!

 

My portfolio is up on my new Flickr site, my Artist's Resume and Statement are up and I'm takin' a class. I need a photographer (or do I? Ask Amber).

Moon Musing, as always continues especially for Wednesday's total lunar eclipse and Full Moon in Sagittarius.

Innocence Lost

Innocence Lost. Acrylic & pastel on masonite, 48 x 48 inches. © 2011 by Kathy Crabbe100 Words 5/24

It is amazing how one stroke of a brush or line of charcoal can exhilarate. Without over-thinking I let the painting itself guide me into new territory, Aries rising leads the way, until something unique and intriguing is discovered.

Sometimes a little insanity is a good thing...that's what art has taught me.

Amorphous forms arise from the murky deep. Sea creatures feed.

Art making requires supreme faith in one's humanity, or what's the point in living? Working alone we face ourselves - can you handle it? What kind of world do you want to create given a choice?

5/25

My painting dreams ME into being almost as if I don't exist until I paint it so. Sometimes I'd like them to be more political, but often they just don't care...their roots grow deeper, their consciousness primeval...a reminder of hidden depths we've yet to plunder.

Innocence lost, a forgotten melody, a charm, a far off friend, a sorrow buried...these marks I make a reminder.

Paintings I love: the Post Impressionists, Expressionism, the Fauves: Matisse, Gaugin, Kirchner, Nolde, Munch, Der Blaue Reiter, early 20th century Paris, woodcuts - raw emotions.

Where to go next? One false move it's ruined.

5/26

"No" to painting today. It's so perfect and sunny but paint it is and so I sit and stare and wait and ponder and write and dream and worry and wait and hem and haw and fiddle and fuss until the birds and the breeze and me are in synch then I close my eyes, take off my glasses, put down this pen.

Can things be easy just for once? Like having someone else sell my work so I can paint and printmake and write and Circle. Does there have to be a hard part. Can't we all flow?

5/27

What's the good of expressing emotions? Well, for the "armoured amazon" (Schierse Leonard), let down by an emotion-less father figure it spells hope for mankind and I do mean the 'man' part.

The fire that burns within must be released or else one dies from the inside. Commercializing art-making brings no joy or hope or spark to me. Creating and releasing. The trick takes place in the next act: the selling and marketing of the work - not my job, but like breadcrumbs to the wolf, my paintings are being discovered by the trickster who resides in each of us.

EXTRA BIT: Perhaps by facing and owning this trickster, this huckster of dime store dreams, we can save what's left of our culture and ourselves. If dreams are paintings let mine save nothing, not souls, not dreams, not minds, no escape from ourselves. So what's left? What's the point? There is no point. We've only got our own life to make a difference. How will you make a difference? The point is to go beyond everything and into new territory and yes, I'm sure it's been explored before, but for me it's new - that's where the thrill lies. New for me, is having faith in my work in and of itself and for no other reason other than that it exists and its good and its speaks to me.