What's in a Hand?

Lately I've been pushing myself to focus.  I love to paint, of that I am sure.  But in the process of establishing a career for myself as an artist I have to also think practically,  and focusing both the style and the content of my work is necessary.

What I love most about the creative process is starting with the unknown.

As I work through the process of finding a focus to my work in this moment I have several things to think about: materials, markmaking and style, palette and content.  The problem with my love for image making is that I love creating in many styles, many palettes and a full range of materials.  Content, for me, is an easier place to start.

Certain symbols show up over and over again.  I have spent years depicting hands.

I know I can count on nature,  animals, plants, and human figures (in particular eyes, hearts and HANDS) to provide me with plenty of symbolic meaning.  So much so that each one deserves its own thesis.  Let's take Hands....

If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush... what about a soul?

I can't take any credit here.  The hand is one of the most commonly symbolized parts of the human body.  According to Aristotle, the hand is the "tool of tools.  It can communicate more concisely and definitely more universally than our voice ever could.   Throughout the world hands hold meanings, both specific and general:  Hamsa hand, Milagro hand, Helping hand, Hand of power, Eye in Hand... a more universal and powerful symbol is hard to find.

Hands heal, they also carry, point, grip, release, shelter, wave, gesture and punch.  They can offer assistance and they can do great damage.  In my own musings over humanity and the natural world I often see the hand as a symbol of technology, the human impact on the natural world.  It is a part of nature that has severed itself from its source.  What good is a hand is severed from its body?  What good are we when severed from nature?  These questions present themselves as I work, and I work to understand the answers.

By working with a symbol over and over again I develop my own personal encyclopedia of meanings.

Despite its frequent use in art and culture, I choose the human hand as an important symbol in my work.  I know I will return to it again and again and it will continue to evolve in my visual vocabulary, because I now have a very personal relationship with the symbol and its meaning.  

What's in a hand?  A Universe of meaning.

All paintings and painted stones are available at Dawn Patel Art on etsy.  Prints and printed merchandise available at Dawn Patel Art on Society6.

Planting Seeds and Gathering Fruit

Like so many of us, I’ve been thinking a lot these days about Presence.  That in itself seems to be a contradiction.  We cannot be present in the moment and lost in thought.  But here I am, day after day, contemplating the nature of my mind, it’s insistence on planning, goal setting, list making and evaluating.  

Perhaps it’s not a contradiction at all, but rather a constant shifting.  In order to live in the world, carve out a life for oneself, and reap the rewards of our hard work, we must set goals, plan, and evaluate our progress from time to time.  In order to be present in the here and now we must let all of that go and just BE.  Neither can exist without the other in this life and body we’ve been given.  New discovery, creativity and the pure joy of PLAY cannot be reached without letting go of our busy minds.  Survival, on the other hand, requires thought and planning, and an active mind is required.

What I’ve learned recently, and it’s taken me an embarrassingly long time to learn, is this:  It’s not so much what I PLAN that matters, as it is what I PLANT.  All the planning in the world does not make things happen, and even with diligent follow through and work, your plans are not guaranteed to produce the intended results.  It’s all an act of faith, in a sense, but it doesn’t have to be blind faith.  Presence, that is, the practice of being in the here and now and therefore aware of and receptive to, the signs and signals, gives us vision into the darkness of the future, as well as acceptance of the past.

A few days before my opening reception at Lost Moth Gallery in Egg Harbor.

This is what I have learned from painting, and applied to life.  What I am experiencing at this point is a time of Reaping.  Seeds I planted years ago are beginning to sprout, ripen and fall from the tree.  At a time when I “planned” to go without many luxuries and even some of the basics, in order to live my dream of an artist’s life, I find my world overflowing with abundance.  Love, friendships, support, entertainment, opportunities for learning and growth surprise me daily.  And yes, I’m even selling art.

Live music is abundant, and often the price of a tip jar donation, in Door County.
Elliot Gottleman and Nick Hoover perform at the Greco Gallery open house in Sturgeon Bay.

The seeds that have gestated, taken root, sprouted and flourished all started as ideas.  Often the idea would come to me on a walk, a road trip, a conversation with a loved one, or a dream.  They were ideas that demanded to be given life, despite the fact most appeared to be impulsive whims.  A children’s book, a sketchbook full of masks, an illustrated journal with a cartoon Buddha-like character as it’s narrator… to name a few.  A visual language developed over years of painting, layering techniques learned through trial and error, and drawing skills that grew out of hours of studying so many dog eared art and nature books.  Like my “Mystery Stone” project, I worked on each of these ideas with a compulsive commitment of time and labor, despite the lack of income, interest or even potential for success.  I myself questioned whether anything would come of these projects, I just knew that they had to be given life.  Each was a seed that beckoned a laborious planting and lots and lots of watering and weeding.  I was known among friends and family for my “crazy ideas.”  

One of my many sketchbooks from the 90's.

A parallel lesson has been learned about my life.  I closed the doors to my store nine months ago and my partner and I walked away from the plans to open a new shop this spring in exchange for working at home, on a shoestring, with the hopes that our art could stand on its own in the world and support a simple lifestyle.  Oftentimes I felt the familiar fears arise, that my goals were too shallow, that my life would feel empty.  That no one would be interested in my idiosyncratic ideas and stories. That my paintings are too strange, and definitely not in fashion.  That this somewhat hermetic lifestyle would eventually cease to fulfill my basic human needs.  But I decided to just wait.  And see.  And be.

Stone Painting and Dog Entertaining go hand in hand.

Now, in the middle of this summer of change, here I am in a lush green jungle of growth.  I have supportive friends, family and fans of my work who are cheering me on, purchasing art and engaging me in meaningful conversation.  Today, as I contentedly paint stones at my table, pet the dogs and listen to some bluegrass, I pause to just BE, and check in,  I DO sense something missing.  That old feeling of anxiety that plagued me for so many years, anxiety over my worth, the future, my place in the world… it seems to have snuck out the door when I was not paying attention.  

Or was I?

Dad's Cherry Tree planted in the summer of 2011.  Door County, WI.

Chance and Circumstance

When life hands you lemons, make something nourishing, and get stronger

It's been a long time since I've posted.  A lot has happened and I have not been in the right frame of mind to write about it.  When we are navigating through unexpected changes in our lives, all of our energy goes into steering the mothership.  It's been 2 weeks since my partner Dale and I decided to pull the plug on our brick and mortar business and it feels like it's been months.

I don't feel like it's necessary to dwell on the reasons our business isn't opening, the short story is this: a less than adequate building with an out of town landlord who didn't keep his word.  That's short, and WAY sweeter than it could be.  Life goes on.  And ours has, in a way that makes me feel like I'm swimming with the tide now, and not against it.

In the Winter I drew this to imagine the summer, now I am framing prints to hang in Lost Moth Gallery, Egg Harbor WI

In the two weeks since we decided to move out of the building I have been contacted by 4 business owners that want to display my work.  I have been busier than I could imagine framing prints and making new pieces to put into a local gallery.  I found out there were still some openings in a few Door County Art Fairs and am planning to show my work in person this summer.  The saying is old and cliche, but OH SO TRUE:  When one door closes...  The doors are many, not only doorways to new opportunities, friendships and experiences, but also the doors of the imagination, doors of possibilities, and of course.... the doors of perception.

New Clothing Projects: Find these at Olde Ellison Bay Days in Door County this June!

Of course I am happy to have opened these new doors to income generating opportunities; after all the bills don't stop piling up when plans change.  But my most exciting discovery has been the new ideas blossoming like the Trilliums outside my window.  For the past 10 springs I have been fully immersed in opening a retail shop for the tourist season.  This spring I have been at home, watching the forest floor explode into white, pink, yellow and green.  Today Dale and I listened to an Oriole calling hopefully for a mate all day long, when this evening the call was finally answered.  I noticed the subtle differences of green in the trees, the shifts in the wind, and a bird's nest resting on the fulcrum of a fallen branch.

I have had time to revel in the beauty of random events, and what they can lead to.

My day of marveling at nature led to an afternoon of creative outbursts, and I have begun to translate my experiences of the day into art.  A little assemblage...

I call this one Lone. 

And finally, I have the first exciting ideas forming for an interactive project using my painted stones.  Inspired and propelled by my interest in randomness and chance vs patterns and destiny, I am embarking on what will hopefully be a long term project affecting many friends and strangers.  There's more to come on this later, for now I'm referring to it as "Mystery Stones" and I am painting away!

Hope you like a good MYSTERY!!

For more information about upcoming art fairs, galleries or solving the mystery of the stones keep up with Dawn Patel Art on facebook, or join my mailing list.  Links can be found on this blog.  I hope you are all having your own creative rebirth this spring!

Finally, I have to credit Peter Malik for the title to this post.  It's an album I have been listening to for over 9 years.  That's right, we call those CDs these days.

Aftermath of Speaking Out: What Breaks Us, What Puts Us Back Together.

With every new painting I essentially say the same thing, "I Am Here."

This blog has become a public platform for some very personal topics.  I am driven by the belief that our most personal stories are in fact the most universal.  Everyone has their own way of making peace with life.  And that peace brings us closer to our truth. In truth we have no grand illusion to blind us from the incomprehensible mysteries of life. In peace we have no outside pressure to cause us to fool ourselves.  In my life I have found that true peace can only come from my own individual search and the lessons I learn, which come from a life of searching.

In the process of I confronting my past and facing the fears that had held me prisoner,
I revisited old letters, journals, and now I am revisiting another older painting.

Those of you who have been following my blog already know that a little over a month ago I wrote about my experience of domestic abuse, and the years of harassment that followed.  I was driven by a need for freedom, and I knew by speaking out about my personal experience I would be opening Pandora's box, in a sense.  I had no idea how it would all unfold.  What I was doing was opening a dam that had been holding back my own flow for far too long.  I felt strong enough to ride the tide and let it take me where it would.  A deep and hard earned appreciation for the logic of intuition in this life, a trust in life itself, was the only faith I had to go on.  I can tie these things in to my paintings, because it is often and sometimes only through painting that I understand my deepest feelings and thoughts.

The month that followed that post was tough.  I ended up filing a harassment/stalking restraining order and a few days ago, I won that in a hearing in a local courtroom.  The order is for four years and it doesn't guarantee my complete safety, but it secures my freedom to express myself in my own blog and other public forums without being harassed, frightened or bullied.  The fight for those rights meant going to court where I could legally and safely stand up for myself.  It was an essential step in the process of putting my pieces back together after being broken apart so many years ago.

Sometimes the events of our lives fracture us.  In my case, I had split into two, and each half co-existed.
A sense of detachment, a shadow self, prevented my connected self from fully participating.  

Healing, as I now understand it to be, is not a return to what we were before.  We cannot stay in one place and we cannot go back.  What we move into is our choice, but so often we go through life unaware and half asleep.  We make excuses, we blame, we escape into distractions.  Being fully awake means to acknowledge all the sides of ourselves, even those that have been neglected, disavowed and overlooked in the struggle to keep up, move on and live life in the world as we know it.

When the reality of my own life became too painful to face, I escaped.  This does not mean I became bipolar.  I chose, not knowing it was a choice, to sometimes not "be here" while going through life.  It can best be seen as stepping back, letting life unfold but being somewhere else in your mind.  So many of us, the childhood dreamers, know what I mean by this.  My mental escape became more extreme, and a convenient hiding place when unwelcome emotions surfaced.  Fear, anger, anxiety, sadness... they were unwelcome.  What happens when you push these away is that their counterparts, joy, love, peace and bliss also move into a murky space where thay are inaccesessable.  Because the pain of the loss of my son drove part of my self into a private and safe place, the other parts of my life missed knowing all of me.  I can feel regret, for how long it took to see what had happened, but regret is a backwards road full of pitfalls.  This is life, it is messy.  It is a series of questions that just lead to more questions.  But it can be entered into everyday with open eyes and a recepetive heart.  That is the truth of life I had missed by escaping.  

In the past four years I have become increasingly withdrawn from the relationships in my life as I entered
into a "cocoon" phase.  This was a necessary step towards understanding my own boundaries
and gaining the self reliance and acceptance to assert these boundaries.

What I now understand as the "cocoon" phase, a time of intense introspection and hermetic isolation, has been a wonderful experience for me.  It required many hours at the easel.  Although I had to pull away from the world in order to access my subconscious and begin the healing process, my family and most friends have understood and given me the space and freedom required to turn inward.  There I found the strength I needed to see my own life with open eyes.  The confidence I gained from these recent years has been exactly what I needed to recognize what a violation the harassment and stalking have been.  The courage I had gained made it possible to assert my rights without further fear of retaliation.  I know I have to live my entire life knowing safety is not a guarantee, this person who violated me may at anytime act out of anger.  I have prepared myself for this possibility, and a big lesson for me was that 90% of that preparation is mental.  Our minds can be our strength or our weakness.  It takes a strong heart and a disciplined mind to face a dangerous world.

As I paint this autobiographical painting that I started three years ago, I give form to all of these abstract ideas.  The gestation of my heart in it's cocoon phase, the splitting apart with two significant events, the birth of a child and the death of another.  The incubation of a self-realized identity that arises from the wounds and divisions caused by violence.  The images all arise, situate themselves in the context of a human figure, and I organize them.  I highlight some while glazing over others.  I reflect on their existence.  I acknowledge their purpose in my life.  A swan symbolizes the unseen world, the parts of life where intuition and trust are needed most.  A pair of eyes peering out from my brain, the self reflection and honesty needed to repair.  A grieving mother, a watchful mother, and a hand with a weapon.  A victim, a protector, a survivor.  A heart, a mind, a past and a future.  All the pieces that are put back together, a familiar but transformed and unified version of self.  

Being awake inside of oneself is the now the only option.  It is a the key that unlocks the cage,
the prison so many of us live in.  A cage with a key that has always been there.

 With every new painting I essentially say the same thing, "I Am Here."  It seems an odd thing to do.  I wonder if it's really what we are all doing, all of the time, and I have just found the way that works for me.  I don't feel a great sense of belonging to any particular group, religion, race, social caste or political organization.  As I grow older the purpose for my own existence becomes something that only I can unlock and live.  More social people might think it seems lonely.  But I'm not lonely or unfulfilled.  Those who seek validation in fame or riches would be disappointed.  I have a roof over my head and I eat three healthy meals a day.  I paint, I live my life and I face each problem that presents itself when I'm ready.  It feels like an integration of the broken parts, and it brings me great peace.

At this point in my life the studio is my workplace, my place of therapy, my place of peace.
I am happy here and that is never something to take for granted.

Victim no More, Silent no More. The Healing Power of Art.

The Escape

This is the story of the birth of a painting, but it is much more.  It is the story of life events that nearly destroyed me.  I was not destroyed, but these events followed me.  I moved from place to place, but they were never far behind.  I tried therapy, but they returned in the night.  I grew strong and confident, but they lingered in the corners of my world waiting for a weak moment to pounce.  I built a life for myself, but they built a wall around that life, keeping my fears in and real intimacy out.  This is the story of domestic abuse, abuse from an intimate partner. One of the most insidious and terrifying forms of violence, it is one of the most common.  And it is a story of a painting that has been my way of breaking down my walls, the real and the imagined.  
Two years ago, almost to the day, I awoke with my pillow soaked with tears.  I was still weeping as I awoke and recalled the dream.  I was at a party, a farewell party for a young man at work.  He was loved by everyone there, so when he announced he was leaving we begged him to stay.  He insisted on leaving, so we decided to throw a farewell party as big as our love for him.
At the party we drank and sang, and danced to live music under the stars.  Each person had a dance with the young man, and I was the last.  When I danced with him I held him so tightly, and I wept a river of tears.  I felt like I would not be able to let go.  Finally he held me back at arms length, so he could look into my face and tell me that it was all OK; he loved me and I had to let him go.
When I woke up I knew the young man was my son, who had died in my womb 22 years earlier, after I was beaten with the handle of a hobby horse.  I was beaten with repeated blows to the back, until the heavy wooden pole actually shattered into several pieces.  During the beating I twisted and turned, exposing my back in an attempt to protect my 6 month pregnant abdomen and the baby inside.  A month later I delivered a fetus that had been dead for over three weeks due to causes not completely known, but assumed to be strangulation by the umbilical cord.  This has always been my dark night of the soul.  And I am bringing it into the light.

I would like to say this was an isolated event, but it wasn't.  I was 22 years old, in the final month of a relationship that had lasted 2 years.  I was soon to run away and find safety in a women's shelter. Slowly I began to put myself back together in a life of my own, but at that time I was the shell of a person.  A person who had become a captive in a prison with no concrete walls, but rather walls of fear and manipulation. To this day, I cannot understand or even fathom the undeniable strength of those walls, made of blocks that were harder to shatter than concrete itself.  
Some people may believe that when an abused women leaves the abusive relationship the torment is over.  Yes, the worst of it is.  My own experience of leaving this relationship was in many ways a second chance at life.  I had escaped the brutal world I was trapped in.  I had a one year old baby girl who kept me going.  I had camaraderie in the women's shelter, where I was given the love and attention I had so missed in the years of isolation and abuse.  I eventually reconnected with my parents and my two brothers, and, with the support of my family, I began the long road of recovery at the age of 22.  But one reason so many women stay in abusive circumstances is because they believe the threats.  Most threats end with a promise: if they leave the brutality will be even worse.  It is not words that make the threats real, it is bloody noses, black eyes, and worse.  It is the monstrous way a sadistic person can weave lies through the brain of his victim.  I believed I would be hunted down, and possibly killed.  I believed this for so long, that even when my rational mind had worked through the unlikelihood of such an outcome, every cell in my body seemed to still believe it.  It didn't help that in the many years since I left, my abuser has continued to try to connect with me, sometimes with a twisted gesture of friendship and sometimes with condemnation and demands, but always uninvited, unanswered and unwanted. 

I awoke from the dream two years ago, almost 24 years after the day I entered the women's shelter.  I awoke weeping.  I had said goodbye to my son. Still in my pajamas, I walked downstairs and picked up a painting I had begun a few days before; it was one that had baffled me.  I put the painting down on the kitchen table and picked up a paintbrush.  I knew exactly what I needed to do. 

This is what the painting looked like it when I started painting that morning in my pajamas

When I paint a large painting I usually go through a stage of confusion, when I'm baffled or bewildered by the marks I have put down. This is not unusual.  What, if anything, was unusual about this painting was how angry I had felt while working on it.  At best I am usually challenged and inspired by this stage, at worst I am irritated.  I recognize the feeling and I know it's temporary.  This painting actually made me mad.  But that morning all the anger was washed away and I was mourning.  Suddenly I felt like I understood something very profound about the events of my life, and it was all symbolically taking form in this painting.  

I started "The Escape" as I do many of my paintings on boards, with collaged images.  I glued a print of mine with a dog and bird in ambiguous conflict, pages from the New York Times and pages from Tolstoy.  I thought I was painting about ideas, as I often do.  But the images that kept appearing were too personal for me to connect to the social and political content of the collaged scraps.  A figure appeared, looking suspiciously like my abusive partner from 24 years earlier.  He reached out long fingers that shot right through the head of the upside-down  dog.  A mask that looked like a demon from a dream looked over it all and a Thunderbird appeared that seemed to be flying off the page.  I say "appear" because at this stage in the painting I am not painting with any premeditated brushstrokes, I paint without forethought.  I am as surprised by what comes off the brush as any bystander would be, often more so. 

A close up of what happened that morning

I painted all morning and well into the day, without eating or getting dressed or even cleaning up.  There was a force driving me that surpassed any other needs, and it was the force of healing.  When I painted this piece I truly understood the transcendental healing power of art.  Pi is a transcendental number.  It is real, but not algebraic.  It does not have rational roots. If you try too hard to make rational sense of it all, it disappears, like the memory of a dream.  When I painted the section that most pained me, the one where my abuser stuck his fingers into my head, comforting images appeared to soothe me.  My daughter and my son were soon part of a vortex of circular movement that emanated from the source of my pain.  I saw the good with the bad, healing as an outgrowth of suffering.  One cannot exist without the other.  If you let go, it will be OK, as my son told me in my dream.

On one side, the dead infant leaves the thoughts of the abuser as a mere outline, almost a caricature.  He is in the bottom left corner of the painting, where the pain and deception of the past events weave imprisoning webs that eventually grow into a brick wall.   But the spirit of the baby boy emerges on the other side of my abuser like a rock formation, his leg turning into a wing that becomes one of the wings of my living child. My daughter is the one who was my only reason for living when, lost in the darkness of abuse, I considered suicide.  The left side and especially the bottom left corner of the painting are the beginning of the story, they are real events, but they are the past.  I will never forget the past, but I have to fly away.  

At this point I find myself in the painting.  I am flying away.  I am as far away as possible from the painful events, but my flight has also taken me away from those I love, it has taken me away from the center of the painting where my story is told.  In my desire for freedom from the fear and the pain, in my usual enthusiasm, I have gone too far.

When I realized where I was in the painting, I also realized I was connected to a pair of legs on the other side of the Thunderbird.  And holding onto the foot was a figure seated on a horse.  He has white hair.  I realized who he was and I was a little annoyed.  I can laugh now, but I was really irritated by this.  It was very difficult to let a man into my inner world, although I had attempted to have relationships in the last two decades.  I had either chosen unrealistic, unattainable partners, or I had pushed or pulled at the the men in my life, until the relationship fell apart.  No one had made it into a painting like this.  But the work I was doing at this point was exhilarating, and the white haired man on the horse was a person who gave me a lot of space, and was someone I considered trusting, something I had previously found impossible.  So eventually I was able to accept the goofy turn of events in this image.  After all, there was someone holding me back from completely flying away.  A good thing.

One thing I love about this process is that it can be so serious, intense, even frightening; yet it can be lighthearted, playful and irreverent all at the same time.  I have learned to accept all aspects.  I have learned to let go.  There was a moment, somewhere around two in the morning, more that 18 hours after I got up and started painting in my pajamas that I found myself leaning over the painting and screaming through tears, "You had no right.  You had no right to do the things you did!"  I was lucid enough to realize if anyone walked through the door at that moment they might be concerned for my sanity, but believe me, it was one of the sanest moments of my life.  It was the moment I released the rage inside of me for over two decades and with the rage went the fear, went the walls, went the prison I had been living in.  My catharsis was the result of 24 years of hard work, practice, patience, and all the stuff of life, but it came down like a crashing wall, and it took form in a work of art.

By the time I fell asleep, 20 hours after I started working that day, the painting was nearly complete.

I went to sleep that night as the sun was rising.  I had ended the day laughing through the tears, a day that began crying into my pillow.  There were finishing touches to be done.  There were parts of the painting I still did not understand.  There are still many walls around my heart to be torn down.  I could not know, that night two years ago, the profound effect that day's work would have on my life.  The therapeutic value in art for me is the potential for understanding, control, and release, all through the language of painting.  

Two years later I am revisiting this work.   I am actually making a printed canvas to save it in this stage, and I am taking it back to the easel, realizing now that I am armed with the truth and the absence of fear and shame.  With these tools I can see areas of the painting that are clearly unfinished, and I now feel ready to complete.

Releasing the past through creative work has proven to have a key role in my ongoing growth, most importantly releasing my fears.  What I dealt with in these past 26 years has been the stalking and attempts at communication from my abuser.  I had a very difficult time shaking the fear and damage that resulted from extreme abuse, and the inconsistent, incomprehensible nature of his attempts to insinuate himself into my life have never ended.  But years went by, and I am stronger.  I have armed myself with protection, material and emotional. My paintings, which over the years have become a diary of healing, help me feel less controlled by the past, and therefore, less threatened.  I can honestly say I am no longer afraid, but I am still not free from the unwanted attention from a past I have let go of - a man who has relinquished all rights to be in my world through his own actions 26 years ago.  I have realized that nothing I do or say would define this boundary more than the truth.  The most empowering aspect of my artistic process in this piece has been the courage to tell my story.  The truth, it is said, will set you free.  And now that I no longer feel the need to run away, I am claiming the right to be free.

Layers: Time, Space, Memory, Patterns, Connections, and Movement

The bird without feet flies to the tree without branches

I have been painting in layers for so long now I can hardly remember how it all started.  Ironic, actually, because to me layers are all about time and memory, our experiences and how they sometimes fade, brighten, change, recede, collapse and even disappear under the weight of time, new experiences and sometimes even the strength of our own will.

The beginning stages of this painting consist of a mixture, a paste made of equal parts determination and chance.  I chose the drawings that I cut and paste based on my recent studies of nature, tying them together with past drawings with themes of individuality, strength, power and freedom.  Not knowing yet where all that would take me I added some pages from Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" on the theme of space travel and nuclear fusion with a vintage map of the Southern US, focused on New Orleans.  

Like most of my paintings, I was thinking about relationships, both the connections and the tension between the world of nature and the world of humankind.  In this case I was most concerned with energy.  Our willful energy and it's effect on the earth and on nature is one theme arising, but also the energy of our hopes and dreams that lies under the surface, the subtle forces we impose on events without even knowing.   Sometimes the outcome is not what was planned, but it IS the the sum of the parts that went into it.

While I was cutting and pasting I accidentally cut the feet off of one of the birds and decided to glue them down as separate pieces in different places, not connected as they were previously.  That evening Dale and I watched a film called "Pariah,"  (recommend it, by the way) and the main character in the movie, a teenager struggling with issues of identity and belonging, writes a poem, one of the lines going something like this... "the bird without feet always flies to the tree without branches."  I'm probably not quoting verbatim, but you get the idea.

This little bit of serendipity fueled a newer and more complex meaning in the painting for me, how movement can be a restless never-ending quest for a landing that does and cannot exist.  I spend a lot of time marveling at the spontaneous eruption of movement when I'm painting, and this movement is crucial to the overall content in the painting.  That is, the moment keeps you IN the painting, while it also keeps you from staying in one place. 

The preliminary stages: drawings and vintage book pages

Halfway through this painting I am discovering the meaning inherent in it from the beginning while simultaneously defining the meaning by the marks I make as a result of those discoveries.  Ah, a parallel universe, working through the processes of life itself in a creative act.  Few things, in my mind, are as rewarding.  I layer in order to cover, uncover, highlight, remember, obscure.  All the same things I do with thoughts, actions, words… but how I love to do it with paint.

Some areas are raw, even becoming more raw as the painting progresses.  Some areas are detailed, specific, ordered.  Some fall into chaos.  All is somewhat controlled, but never completely.  There are patterns that arise and patterns that fall away.  There are synapses and there is punctuation.  It is constantly in flux, to the point that I can only arbitrarily, or maybe intuitively, impose an ending at some point, out of necessity.  But through it all meaning evolves.

Fot this particular painting the meaning is poignant.  The bird without feet is autobiographical, while the relationship between nature and nuclear physics is based on observation of the world.  The result is an inquiry into the process of finding ones place in this world of natural laws and the laws of man.  And this inquiry is fascinating enough to me to get me into that studio again tomorrow for another day of work, another glorious day of painting.

Work in Progress: This is the Fun Part

Intermediary: Work in Progress

It's fun to talk about a painting in progress, sometimes for me more enjoyable than talking about a painting after it's finished.  Once the work is finished, everything has been decided.  At that point I'm much more interested in hearing what the viewer has to say, what an individual walking up to a painting for the first time sees, interprets and understands.  

At this point… I would say this painting is nearly half finished, but it's impossible to say for sure, mysteries can still unfold, meanings can show themselves and changes can occur.  I can still have an "aha" moment when the meaning of this painting suddenly goes deeper, or takes a turn I never expected.  At this point I have, in my mind, an pretty general understanding of what it means, to me. 

SPOILER ALERT!  

If you wanted to wait and interpret my painting for yourself before being influenced by my intentions, stop reading now.  I am going to write about what I began to see in this painting, on the second day I worked on it.  

When it began I had some general ideas going into the image.  One was the idea of forces of opposition. Conflict.  Dichotomies.  I used a drawing of a bird and a snake in an attack/defensive struggle.  I also had an image of two creatures facing each other, also in attack/ defense mode.  One is a deer-like creature and the other has computer keys for teeth.  The third image I used is from a Medieval Alchemy text and it shows a bird facing downward with a rope in it's mouth.  At the end of the rope is a large stone.  From it's feet a scroll of paper unravels.

The three drawings, all torn from my sketchbooks, are drawings I have done in the past of things that interest me.  They represent concepts I enjoy trying to understand, ideas that help me make sense of the world.

I began painting by trying to visually tie together the images with paint while thematically tying together the images with new and larger images in the paint.

By the end of day two I found myself with a painting of a sleeping figure.  The meaning of the painting is beginning to reveal itself.  In the center is a seated Buddha-like figure.  He has technology - all that is man-made on one side of him and spirit/nature on the other.  Like the snake and the bird that surround the sleeping figures' head, these two creatures are in a fight- one has an aggressive stance and the other a defensive stance.

At the sleeping figure's feet is the bird, attached to his toe.  And the same foot that holds the bird with its' toe carries a large swan made of stone.

In the center of the painting is the Buddha-like figure.  His eyes are closed and his arms are wrapped around him like a straightjacket.  A tear falls from his eye.  The figure whose sleeping body stretches across all of these images also has his eyes closed.  The bird at the foot end of the figure drops the stone.

To me this painting is about being asleep.  I think it's something human-kind is very guilty of, and I do not excuse myself.  We are here in these bodies witnessing the essential nature of life, but we have our eyes closed and do not know what our roles are, perhaps we are even trapped.
The images in the painting imply that perhaps one of our roles is that of the intermediary between these worlds that seem at this point to be in opposition.  Whether or not they are truly in opposition is a question… is it a result of our sleeping that the conflicts exist, or do we sleep to avoid the conflicts?

I once had a dream, and in the dream a fatherly guide said, "The ones who know why they are doing what they are doing will control the technology."  Today listening to one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Heather Martin, I heard her say, "Know what you are doing."  It seemed to fit.

Perhaps I paint these to teach myself what I need to learn, but in the meantime, I hope I paint something that also gives pleasure to others.

20 Days in the Life of a Painting

Phoenix: Finished Painting

I love to allow the viewer into the day to day excitement of making a work of art.  My style of painting has developed over years of practice and trial and error, evolving into an idiosyncratic intuitive process of layering.

This is the first finished work I accomplished in 2014.  I feel very aligned with the universe with this one, the cocoon - butterfly theme combined with the Phoenix rising from the ashes captures a mood that seems prescient.  Although it seems moody or even dark, to me it is a painting about evolving, about growth and action, and relationships in motion.  I feel a triumph and connectedness within the images, and the dark and the light are both necessary.

I'm starting with the finished Painting, not to ruin the surprise, but rather to give you a step back after seeing the final product.

It's such a rewarding experience to create one of these, I hope you the reader can experience some of the delight with these images.

Here is the very beginning, Day one.

Day One             

I love the first day of a new painting.  Nothing has become a struggle yet, it's pure play.  It's almost impossible to make a mistake or have a critical eye about my work in the very beginning, because it is a journey into the unknown.  All I have to do is be receptive and dive in fearlessly.

I began this painting with a Moth image I had drawn in my sketchbook, a timeline from Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and a diagram from a agriculture textbook illustrating irrigation techniques.  The tiny image on top is a Mayan image, a god, I believe, throwing a comet.

These seemingly random images actually all seemed connected to me, and they set the stage.

When I applied paint on this day I primarily thought about connecting the images.  Although the connecting is mostly just through design, I also began thinking about how they literally connect.  Humankind's relationship with nature, often a theme in my work, was the overwhelming response.  

Days Two through Five

               

Adding both broad areas of opaque paint and detailed areas of drawing (Both with paint and with fabric that is drawn on with Sharpies then layered into the image) the story starts to take on a life of it's own.  New Characters arise, seemingly out of nowhere, and take their place in the drama.  Some of the images that started to appear in this stage surprise me.  The skull and the fish were completely unplanned.  But most of all I was delighted by the appearance of the winged human-like form that showed itself to me at the top of the painting.

When I talk about these developments, I speak as if they happened without my doing.  Of course that's not true, but in a strange way it's accurate.  I painted these images, but I did not plan them.  Often I paint something and step away before I even realize what is it.  I'm sometimes very lucid and sometimes in a trance-like state where time is lost.  Those are fun, I have complete trust in this state of mind, my "painting state."  Whatever happens make sense to me at some point in the process of creating each painting.  There are attitudes and frames of mind I have to maintain while working in the middle stages of a painting, primarily revolving around the concept of "Being true to the painting."  I let the painting itself direct my choices more than preconceived ideas I have about it.  It is a zen-like intuitive response of complete honesty and trust in the process that I often try to carry over into the rest of my life.

Days Six - Ten

                

During the Middle stages of painting I add a lot of paint.  Actually the first of these three images shows a new layer of dark oil pastels, draw over the acrylic paint, which will be worked into future layers of paint.  (Very hard on the brushes, I use the cheap tattered ones for that)  Sometimes during this time I cover entire sections and then decide it is too much and bring back some of what was covered.  I play with color, try things out and change them over and over.  The painting changes daily at this point and sometimes goes back and forth, looking more like it did two days ago.  It is a struggle often at this point.  I may have said I hate this painting a few times at this point.  I don't really hate it, but I do get frustrated with the tedious work of finding the best combination of elements to work together in the image.  A layer of dark oil pastel lines blend with bright colors… a layer of dry brushed whites add dimension, cool colors push back, warm and bright colors jump forward.  It's still fun at times, rewarding at times, but it feels like work more than ever at this stage, a necessary part of the evolution of am image.

Days Eleven through Sixteen

                     


 This particular painting went  through these stages of development more than any I've ever worked on before, that is why I am so happy to share these stages with you.  In the second and third week of painting I often said, towards the end of the day, "I think it's almost finished," only to make major changes the next day that required more and more hours of painting.  During this time I added new colors, a layer of a transparent cool colors and lots of detailed patterns in the solid areas of color that I had finally settled on.  The detail in this piece required sitting over my work table for hours.  I had to do a lot of stretching after studio time!  After a few more days the painting was finally finished, as far as I can tell.  The first image on this post is the final result of all this work.

 For me it is a labor of love, every moment is worth it and rewarding in the act itself.  I am hoping to be able to sell these paintings and others, as well as prints of the work I do this winter.  This painting is available for sale as a print, as well as other printed merchandise on Society6: http://society6.com/DawnPatel/Phoenix-djT_Print#1=45
If you are interested you can copy and paste that link and check it out.

I hope this was enjoyable for fellow artists and/or art appreciators.

I haven't touched upon the ideas and meaning in the work in this post intentionally.  I try not to sway the viewers experience.  I think the individual reading of the work is as important as the intentions I had while making it.  I will post one day in the not too distant future an explanation of the ideas and thoughts that are behind my work… stay tuned.

Back at the Easel

Work in Progress: "The Three Graces Revised"  Mixed media on cast fabric

     After an eight day trip to visit with my daughter I am back in the studio, refreshed and inspired.  There's something magical and mysterious that happens when I approach a new painting, or return to one after time away.  When I return to the easel I have a moment (or many) when I wonder if I will be able to paint anything at all.  

     It reminds me of struggling to look into a "Magic Eye" poster and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't see the hidden images that were supposed to be there.  Remember those?  One day it clicked and I stopped trying to see anything and there they were, the dinosaurs silently hiding out in a field of sunflowers...  Or when you can't remember the name of a movie, but when you're driving home thinking about what to make for dinner... there it is, "Soylent Green" creeps into your brain, acting like it was always there.  Sure you can dismiss this as a right brain/left brain switch... but just because a college class gave me words to describe what to me is one of my life's greatest miracles doesn't mean I'm going to stop marveling.   It feels like more.  It feels a lot like the moment you realize you really do love someone because when they need you to let them go, you can, and you do.  

     The process of creating is a process of letting go.  Nothing can enter your conscious or subconscious mind until you make room for it.  Have an idea?  Grab onto it, hold it in your mind for awhile and let it rest there, and let it go.  What you will create is not the idea, it is the product of the idea.  It is your mind's child, and while you may have a lot of input into the development of your child, every parent knows we have to let them grow to be themselves.  Intuition is a vine, a root system in the air searching for the sediment of the spirit to feed it.  Every time I approach the easel this alchemic process occurs, the paint sits on the brush and waits for the signals that come from a space that I can't see or know any other way except this way.  My past lessons and practice inform every choice, deciding how much pressure to exert, how much paint to load, when to start and stop each mark, but the marks themselves come from a place beyond language and beyond my these thoughts.

     One of the greatest revelries I experience in my life is the reoccurrence of this magical moment, when I think, "Maybe that's it, maybe I have nothing left to paint.  Then I approach the easel and the vine of intuition starts winding itself around me, the easel, the painting, the room.  It is as close to an ecstatic moment as I'll probably ever have, or at least have had up to this point.  It is the feeling that there is a force larger than me and it can be trusted.  I end up saying to friends, "When I'm painting everything makes sense to me."  I'm not sure if the sentence even begins to explain the experience, words always fall short for me.  And that's why I paint.

Believe in your dreams

 Today is the day I have decided to believe in my own dreams the way I have encouraged others to believe in their own dreams.  As long as I can remember I have had one consistent dream, one consistent love and one consistent passion.  Art.  And yet...at the age of 48 I have done EVERYTHING ELSE but pursue my life as an artist with all of my energy, confidence and hard work.  Don't get me wrong, I have never stopped MAKING ART.  I have been drawing, painting, collaging and constructing images almost every day of my life, while waitressing, teaching, owning my own retail store, parenting, traveling, drifting, dreaming and sleeping through life. 

For the past week I have been visiting with my amazing daughter. Yesterday we got to talking about my business plans for the upcoming year.  I starting throwing out all my ideas, various plans of consignment galleries, workshops, even part time jobs.  In short my fear based plans stemming from the deeply embedded data in my brain spelling out: YOU CAN'T MAKE A LIVING FROM YOUR ART.  I have opened and closed two successful retail stores, worked as a barista, waitress, bartender, teacher, social worker.  I have two etsy shops, one for vintage and one for up-cycled clothing.  I have trademarked brand names and been the subject of newspaper and magazine articles.  And meanwhile I run home at the end of the day and sketch in my sketchbook or paint at my easel... usually giving away the products of the late night endeavors to friends and family.

In the middle of this conversation that began like so many other my dear daughter Candance says, "When are you going to start putting all your effort into yourself?"  The question stopped me short.  Being an independent woman making my own living (often through self employment) I thought I was, but after being asked the pointed question I thought about it... I worked hard for everyone, my landlord, my employees, my vendors, my consignment artists.  Not that these people aren't very important, but I was at the end of the list, and often, because of lack of time and energy, I fell off the list altogether!

So that's it.  No more excuses.  I am starting today.  This blog is dedicated to a new beginning, a new life.  The one where I believe in myself wholeheartedly.  Where I live my dreams without fear and follow the words of advice I preach to so many others, "To thine own self be true."  I will be sharing everything here, my thoughts, progress, past work, future dreams and even my mistakes.