The Eye of the Artist – Art Notes
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Happy Holidays!
Here’s wishing everyone a very happy, safe and peaceful holiday!
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Winter …
Winter–in the eleventh month Snow falls thick and fast. A thousand mountains, one color. Men of the world passing this way are few. Dense grass conceals the door. All night in silence, a few woodchips burn slowly As I read the poems of the ancients. –Ryokan (Japan, 1758-1831)
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The longest night of the year …
Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit.
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Pinhole research – December chill
I’ve recently started up again with some explorations in digital pinhole photography. How this works is: you take a digital SLR, take off the lens and replace it with a modified body cap that serves as the ‘pinhole.’ (I don’t recall where I purchased the pinhole cap, but if you Google ‘digital pinhole – Nikon‘…
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Painting of the week: “Osage chiasm”
This week’s featured painting is an odd one I created way back in 2009. “Osage chiasm” (that’s chiasm not chasm) is 20″H by 16″W, and is acrylic on canvas. The piece is essentially a stylized portrait of one of my favorite trees: a very old Osage orange that lives on the Nethermead in Prospect Park,…
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Winter approaches …
We’re in the deep-freeze here in New York, just in time for winter, which officially starts next week. The poetry of Ryōkan (Japan, 18th century) calls for my attention: “Returning to my hermitage after a journey to distant mountain villages; Along the fence, the last chrysanthemums linger” –translated by John Stevens
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Wednesday’s watercolor
For today: something from February, 2015.
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Today’s watercolor
Getting into the holiday spirit…
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Actualizing truth
So I’ve been working on refining the “motto” of sorts I wrote about last week: “Create what you would like to see in the world, and then make it public.” I’ve now whittled it down to: “Actualize the truth you want to see in the world.” The making it public part should go without saying. I’m…
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Featured painting of the week
This week’s featured painting is “Reach” — a triptych I created in 2012. This painting and some other square format paintings I created then were precursors to my Lifeworld series, and should almost be considered honorary members of the series.
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For the time-being …
Because you think your time or your being is not truth, you believe that the sixteen-foot golden body is not you. However, your attempts to escape from being the sixteen-foot golden body are nothing but bits and pieces of the time-being. — “Uji,” Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253)
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How to start?
Starting is always the hardest part. A good place to start is by decluttering, cleaning up my workspace. Nothing stops the creative process more for me than clutter. That could be physical clutter or mental clutter. The two seem closely related. Also why not freshen up the blog format! Nice, fresh template! Then, what to…