Saturday, June 21, 2008

Food of the Gods

"My studio is a temple, I see it that way, I always have and I know a lot of artists who would agree with me there's something about a studio that is a sacred space and no non-artist would understand that but it is my religion. Art is my religion and the studio is the temple where I practice that and it's where I feel most comfortable and where I'm most myself, it's where I express the passion that I have for art making..." Michael James
http://www.unl.edu/mjames_quilts/

Picked up the above quote somewhere because it rang so true with what I have been doing the last 6 months. Constructing my temple. Since I'm going to be working from home, correction, am working from home, it is that much more important to me that this space that surrounds me echo the sentiments that I want to represent in my drawing and painting and art in general. Still not quite there yet...books need to be put away, curtains shortened, pictures hung, but I did nonetheless begin a painting, at least the drawing of it. Already I know this was the right decision, bringing my workspace home, where my heart and center is, even if there lies a bit of chaos to organize.

Spent this last week force feeding myself studies on perspective. It's a kind of math thing so my Brain is rejecting it, but I am insisting, so it is going to bend to my will. I keep trying to convince it, "This is fun! We can move things in space!" My Brain just sits there with it's arms crossed and brows lowered and says, "It's math." "Yes," I reply, "but look at what we can do with it! We can bend and shape reality!" Sullenly, "It's math," is all I get from my Brain. So this week I forced open the door and threw in a few items. A few were thrown back out, but I think I got it to swallow a few bits. Math or no, Brain will have to take this medicine. Anyway, we all know that a bitter pill is bitter because it is good for you, right? Right.

Off we go then, into the temple to study the knowledge of the gods and hope that fruit will be born of such sustenance.

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