Arrivals

Matchbox God

2008-07-08T23:14:00.004-04:00

Dear Grace,

This weekend I made something very different. I made an assemblage. Not only is it not a sculpture, but it is a very small assemblage that hangs on the wall. It was a lot of fun! This piece is about the order of the universe and how we tend to see Christ in a little matchbox within that order, rather than the author of it. Sure, it is a lot to read into a little piece like this. It wouldn't be me if it wasn't over-thought, now would it?

From left to right: there are three rusty nails that were the instruments of the Passion. One of the nails pierces a cork, alluding to the wine. In the center-right is a medieval image of the Baptism of Christ in a matchbox. Also within the matchbox is a piece of wood- a piece of the True Cross? Then to the right is a piece of wood divided into phi ratios. Each square that is made by dividing the new shape into phi begins to spin off. The squares are cut out from an old book on political philosophy. This section is on Augustine's concept of the summum bonum. You see the words "peace, harmony, order," which is how Creation was orginally designed, but then in the postlapsarian world things have spun out of order, out of harmony and out of peace. There is an eight-sided rusty bolt that contains a fragment of a nautilus shell- the shape of the universe and another example of phi. The scrolls of paper mimic that shape. Then there are three golden bottle caps. Three is a sacred number. Or you can just see it as fun.

So there it is.

I love you! I hope we can have fun in the studio again.

Love,
Sarah

Who Said Quitters Never Win

2006-11-07T09:11:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

I gave notice that I am leaving my job at the small college. I feel like a big weight has been lifted. I was so nervous to tell the department head. He freaked out and begged me to stay until the end of the semester. I might stay, but not one day longer. He understands the call of the studio. Besides, I've been away so much this semester.

The question remains: now what am I going to do? The answer: go to my studio and make stuff! I am not accustomed to just making stuff without being commissioned to do it. Jump and the net will follow. No excuses now. I will have to make art.

So, who knows, perhaps the stork will visit us as well.

Love,
Sarah

Territory

2006-10-20T13:40:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

In his book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield contrasts hierarchy (where do I fit in the pecking order of artists?) and territory (what's my home base and hunting ground?). Hierarchy is about battling it out with other artists for supremecy. Territory is about knowing your psychological territory and recognizing that in it, you are invincible. Here are the qualities of a territory:

A territory provides sustenance.
A territory sustains us without an external input.
A territory can only be claimed alone.
A territory can only be claimed by work.
A territory returns exactly what you put in it.

For the past two weeks or so, I've been working on a painting that has been languishing under my neglect for almost 3 years. It's the elephant in my studio that I've been blaming for my inability to work for so long and I've resolved to finish the thing or kill myself trying. Under this sense of determination, I've been painting almost everyday and remembering, to my surprise, how much I love it. It makes me happy, energizes me, gives me hope and pride. Most of all, it feels like home.

Yesterday, I was walking past my easel and the smell of the oil wafted over to me. It was so wonderful that I literally went over, stuck my nose in my paint box and took a long whiff. It's the smell of where I belong, my territory and I can't tell you how great it is to be back.

High on painting (and maybe paint),

Grace

Going pro

2006-10-11T09:24:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

It's been forever since I've written and a lot of things have changed for me. For one, I finally got out of the city and into the country like I wanted. I'm in the middle of Amish country, Ohio and it's beautiful. I spent the first couple months sitting around wondering what I was doing there, what I should do next, etc.

Then one day, I got up and did something you've always been telling me to do - I wrote out my goals. They fell into different categories: financial goals, artistic goals, personal goals, spiritual goals and life goals. One of my life goals was to 'live a professional artist's life.' I'm mean this in the Pressfield way, not in the sense of wanting to sell X amount of paintings, have job Y or get one of my works in museum Z. I mean, I want to make art like it matters, like I need to do it to survive, like I have to show up everyday or else. It's not about what I accomplish. It's about how I treat myself. I respect myself as an artist. I give myself a space to work, devote time to art everyday, make a point of really mastering my craft. This time I'm going to beat my block, not because I've figured out how to make the world take me seriously, but because I know that first and foremost, the professional takes the work seriously.

My 'Artistic Goals' were mostly about taking the work seriously and being a pro.

Paint everyday.
Make letterhead and business cards.
Put together 2 artist packets.
Finish 4 paintings by May.
Make a creative friend nearby.

Well, maybe the last one isn't necessarily needed by a pro, but the rest are all about it. I'm going to paint everyday like I shower everyday. I would feel unpresentable otherwise. My letterhead and business cards are almost done and I e-mailed someone at the college to see if I could use one of the lightboards in their slide library to mount slides. I figure, I might kill two birds with one stone. Get started on the artist's packets and make some aquaintence with the local arts scene.

I was going through boxes of slides last night when I came across two slides of the textile work I was doing a few years back. Remember it? It was the deeply personal, ethereal pieces of silk-screened organza conterposed with patches of hand embroidery - the ones I took to my MA candidacy review and failed with. I don't have them anymore. I felt so betrayed and failed by them that I tied them up in a little sack and threw them (I still remember how light and weightless even the whole set was) into the dumpster outside the studio. I despised myself for even making them.

As I gazed at these tiny squares of light last night, the works seemed so honest and vulnerable to me, so close to expressing something tangible and meaningful. I was mesmerized by their embryotic beauty. Suddenly, I said to myself, They was something there, and they killed it, and it pisses me off. I kept repeating it over and over in my head. They was something there, and they killed it, and it pisses me off. I had, for all this time, put some stock my failure with these works. Maybe they were right, the work sucked, the idea sucked, I sucked. But last night, my revelation that there had been something to what I had been doing, that it deserved to be encouraged and nurtured and that they had rejected it without decent explanation, made me, to my own surprise, angry. Angry and convinced that they were wrong. Totally wrong. And I had been wrong to listen.

I'm not saying that the work was ready for showing yet, or that it would ever have been ready, but I let them short circut my honest pursuit, gave over to them my love of the game for the sake of a degree. I played into their hierarchy of artistic merit and threw the gifts of my muse in the trash, told her to shut up. Never again. From now on, I make my art because I should, come hell or highwater, and the devil take the consequences.

Here's to going pro,

Grace

Resistance is futile?

2006-08-15T10:22:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

Sorry, couldn't resist the 'Star Trek' allusion. All (good) forces on heaven and earth are conspiring to make me get off my duff and make art. I even have a random internet friend I've never even met, who is hounding me to paint. To be honest, I've run out of other things to do. There's nothing left put to sit in front of my easel until something happens.

I will work on Matt a little more. He is very worried that the cost of gas will be the lemming that will start our whole financial situation plummenting into the ocean. God bless him for being conscientious though - one of us should be anyway.

At any rate, I, Grace, resolve that I will prepare no less that two painting surfaces in the next 3 days so that I have something to paint on should our daring daylight art escape come to fruition.

Love you,

Grace

Grab on for Dear Life!

2006-08-14T22:20:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

Finally, the time has come where avoiding the art has become far more uncomfortable than doing it. I fought all of my excuses.

“The studio is too small and uninspiring.” I moved the work outside.

“The work I do is too big for such a space.” Peace in Christ Lutheran has offered me a room at the church.

“I cannot afford a model.” Portraits can travel. Erik suggested the senior center near our house, where the models are free. A friend I haven’t seen in ages has invited me to her studio to draw from a model tomorrow.

“I won’t have the time or energy to work in the studio this semester because of classes. I shouldn’t start anything now.” I canceled my classes for this semester; I went to work in the studio. It felt great.

I cannot fight it any longer, Grace. There is art that needs to be done and I have been called to do it. If don’t stand up, God will find someone else to do it. I don’t want that to happen to me, or to you.

You have done so much to get me to this point. Letters to a Young Artist has been great; thank you. Arrivals has helped me to work out so many things. I just cannot avoid it any longer. I am not sure that you can either.

Now, get your butt over here and we are going to make some art together. There are no excuses. Erik is in on this, too. He’ll put a full tank of gas in your car. I’ll cook. We have an extra bedroom. My neighbor is a plein aire painter who’d love the company. We’ll spend a day at the carver’s studio; another at the National Gallery if you like. The Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting is still up. Perhaps Titian can speak you to as well. Don’t tell me that you need to find a job. THIS is your job, Grace. You are a painter; you just don’t believe it right now.

You hoisted me out of my pit and now it is my turn to lower a rope to you. Join me here, Grace.

All my love,
Sarah

Having Vision

2006-08-10T08:55:00.000-04:00

Dearest Grace,

I don't know that I am brave. I expend a ton of energy avoiding the studio, just like all the lazy sack artists that are out there. Sometimes I just have to do it.

Yesterday I finished up a portrait for the museum figures company. The subject flew out from Nashville for the sitting. I cannot tell you what came over me, but I felt alive! It felt so good- I cannot explain how good. Good like I am doing what I was created to do- that sort of satisfaction that comes from being truly who you were created to be! I stood for five hours straight and my feet ached, but I did not stop. I looked and moved the clay, looked again, tooled it here. I talked to her, an amazing woman who has won a silver medal in the Army, and felt her energy. Parts of the portrait weren't perfect, but it captured that energy. I cannot tell you how to capture energy, it just happens in that interaction with the model. The museum directors said that it was "Excellent." It is excellent because I was alive making it!

Dr. Gene Veith writes a great deal about "vocation." This is my vocation, Grace, as it is yours. God created us to create art. He also created us as communal creatures. We cannot hide out in an isolated studio and expect to make any decent quality art. I get energy from the model or from others involved in creative endeavors in the same corporate studio. I remember a time working in the studio at Sage. Carolyn was working on her life-size woman and Kayb was finishing up a cast. We weren't interacting, but the energy of all that creative work fed me.

God also created us as women. As women we are chosen and blessed to nurture the most creative act of all! So, a vocation of motherhood is not at odds with an artistic vocation. Embrace all of whom God created you to be, Grace.

If you find yourself in a quaint small college town, sign up for a drawing class. Don't tell them that you are a professional, just draw and enjoy the model. Just don't let yourself get too rusty.

I love you and still dream of a communal Grace-Sarah studio some day.

Love,
Sarah

Courage

2006-07-30T21:20:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

Do I tell you enough how much you inspire me? I'm happy for you - happy that you're refreshed after your sabbatical, happy that you find exhibits and silly projects to inspire you. How did you get to be so...brave? Artistically healthy? I don't know...

I'm out here in the country - finally - and yet I can still drum up an endless number of excuses to put between me and my easel. I know it should be 'Make art or die,' yet somehow I manage to keep myself lingering close to death indefinitely.

Teach me to be like you. How does you get past all the excuses? Where do you find your courage? Tell me what it's like in the mind of Sarah on a morning before you have to make some art. Maybe there's something I'm missing.

Grace

Awakening the Inner Artist

2006-07-03T09:52:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

On Saturday, the husband took me to the grand re-opening of the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery of American Art. It has been closed for six and a half years, just half a year before my arrival to the area. They had music, free ice cream, a portrait competition, and my favorite- art activities for children. One such activity was a self-portrait paper bag puppet. I asked the hostess if grown-up could come in, too. Of course we could, though we were the only grown-ups there without children. So, we let our inner children play. My husband even played a long and made a paper bag puppet. Between you and me, I think he really enjoyed it!

Then, the following day we went to the National Gallery of Art to take in the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting exhibition. I have never taken such a close observation of Titian's work before. I felt really encouraged, as if the hand of Titian himself had reached out and patted me on the shoulder. "You are on the right track, Sarah." I have four mostly-finished heads and one face in my studio right now. They are portraits insofar as I used a model, but they aren't really portraits. I am not sure how to explain them, but I understood when I saw Titian's portraits, which aren't really portraits either. "So we must be care to understand that the woman on the couch [in Titian's Venus and Music] is not a real woman...Titian makes it clear that she is of a different kind, living in a different realm (Rookmaaker 28)." Or could I perhaps be creating characters, as a novelist does? Sometimes the characters are more real and more true that the real people they were modeled after.

I have to write an essay for the application for the Artist-in-Residency program. I am not sure how to sum up my work in a paragraph or two. Thanks, Titian, for helping me out a little.

Love Always,

Sarah

Sabbatical's End

2006-06-29T14:21:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

I was weary of sculpture. I lost my way, or worked too hard, or some combination of the two. I got married in October, closed my studio in February, worked on my Master's Degree, and now am ready to get my hands wet again. I made a maquette the other day. I spent Monday reading that book you sent me: Modern Art and the Death of a Culture. The whole day. I woke up and read, went into town to get a haircut, stopped at a cafe to read some more. Then I went home to make dinner and spent the evening finishing up the book. I wandered around Frederick wondering, "What do I make now?"

Erik and I are going to Italy in September, which will no doubt change my life and work. Italy has that effect on artists. I am applying for an Artist-in-Residence program. Plus, we are working on perhaps the most creative endeavor of all- a baby.

I'm back, Baby! A Sabbatical was just what I needed. I pray that the next chapter of your life helps you to unfold your artistic gifts in ways you never thought imaginable.

In his Peace and Grace,
Sarah

Lineages

2006-05-06T22:55:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

As I have been researching this work by relatively unknown artist, Naddo Ceccarelli, who reportedly studied with Simone Martini, I have been thinking about my own artistic lineage.

I studied with Tony Frudakis, who learned from his father, Evangelos. Evangelos Frudakis presumably worked under Paul Manship, who was the assistant to Charles Grafly, who studied with Thomas Eakins! Grafly also studied with Alexander Milne Caulder, the grandfather of the famous Alexander Caulder. Eakins studied in France with Jean-Léon Gérôme. I wonder how far I could go back!

Thought for the day, from Cennino Cennini: You, therefore, who with lofty spirit are fired with this ambition [to paint panels] and are about to enter the profession, begin by deking yourselves with this attire: Enthusiasm, Reverence, Obedience, and Constancy.

Love,
Sarah

Muddling

2006-04-25T08:16:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

This weekend I participated in the "Spring Arts Festival" at our small college. I sent up a portable studio and did a portrait of the graduating senior who works in my office. People really enjoy watching the mysterious process un-fold. Many asked me how I could work with all the hub-bub and noise around me. I told them that I love it; I thrive in a sea of creative energy. One person showed particular interest and had so many praiseful things to say. I thought to myself that she was going overboard and couldn't possibly know that much about art. It turns out that she is the dean at our illustrious small college.

It felt good to get my hands deep in the clay, but the next day my palms were stiff and sore. It just shows me how long it has been since I have worked in the studio. Graduate classes, having a job and being obsessed with gardening all have consumed my mind and time so much that I can scarcely even think about sculpture. Wasn't that the idea of my "sabbatical?"

Gideon Strauss quotes the posted Donald Hall on his blog. "One of his topics concerns the worst days. He writes, earlier on in the book, Feeling miserable over work that fails is preferable to depression which makes work impossible. When I feel overwhelmed by too many things to do, or frustrated by my inability to sustain work over a twenty-four hour day, or unable to keep up with the ideas that rattle in my skull, I suspend discontent by remembering months and years of anguish and lethargy, lying on twisted sheets, painful, too miserable to get out of bed."

I will repeat how I responded in his comments field: I feel comfort in knowing that I am not the only one. Making sculptures has often been complete anguish to me and I have experienced the sort of depression Hall describes. In fact, he describes my own experience with frightening acuity. This depression over work, over having too much work and not enough money and simply being overwhelmed by work has driven me to take a "sabbatical" from sculpture. My hope has been that by depriving myself of it an insatiable hunger for it would grow inside of me.

It is working thus far.

We have three weeks of classes left. This is the last week of lectures. The following two weeks we are giving presentations of our research papers. I am overwhelmed and paralyzed and just want to retreat into the familiarities of the studio. Better yet- the garden. I am taking a summer course and another heavy load in the fall. That leaves me one class left.

I am eager to be done.

Just muddling through,
Sarah

"F" is not Love

2006-03-22T11:50:00.000-05:00

Dear Sarah,

I'm slacking again. No posts. No art. No art. No posts. Funny, how that is.

Your quandry about the significance of an Master of Fine Arts is one that plagues me too when I allow it. I remember a time when I wanted nothing more than to be Sam Knecht and nuture young artists the way he nurtured us. Unfortunately, my experience in graduate school has left me jaded to a degree that I'm not sure is repairable. Most times now when I think about being a professor, all I can call to mind is those wretched, cold and unloving jerks I suffered under to get my MA. The last thing in the world I want to be is one of them. The whole profession feels tainted to me on their account. Worse, when I let myself think about it, I can't help but remember that I labored for two years to get a lousy MA, where if I had picked a different school, I would have at least had that stupid F between those two letters and the chance to redeem the teaching profession from the sadists. Instead, I've nothing but baggage and two letters that as far as I can tell have outlived their purpose in academia.

I'm way too adept at resignation and, I'll confess, I have more or less resigned myself to the belief that the "F" in MFA is one letter that just won't fit in my life. I've given up on it. The "F" elluded me and I'm willing to live with that. Maybe it's an act of defiance more than anything. I'm angry and frustrated, as you are, that who I am and what I can do counts as nothing and an "F" counts as so much. I'm angry that the gatekeepers to that letter are such snobs and jerks. Angry that holders of the "F" get preference based solely on that letter, regardless of whether they care about inspiring and nuturing other artists. If that's all the "F" is, then it's pretty much just a worthless sham of a title and I don't want to play along.

After all, it wasn't the "F" that made Tony or Sam or Serrin great teachers. They were great because they had a passion for what they made, what they taught, for their students, for posterity. I think a "Master"- a good one, anyway - is, in his very nature, self-giving. He holds nothing back from his students that they really need. He pours knowledge and confidence and hope into his students. He nurtures and tends like a parent or gardener. Some of histories greatest Masters are known best by the brilliance of their students.

I think this is where the modern idea of Master is all wrong. The gatekeepers of those coveted letters think it is about the mastery of the craft or worse, just about the mastery of the ideas of art. It is a single-minded, indulgent form of self-congratulation. I submit that what makes one a Master is having followers, be they students or disciples. It's the existence of people who believe your knowledge and leadership is worth having and submitting to...and it's having the magnanimity to provide it. It's the desire to regift that which was given to you, to pass the torch of learning, to take the aspiring under your wing and into the tradition and history you all share.

Maybe being a Master is fundamentally about showing Love.

Sounds squishy, but an unloving or dishonorable person with no authority or title is hardly of consequence. But one who is given authority and mastery ought to be better than those beneath him - wiser, more generous, protective. Seems to me that the good master has far more power and hope of producing future masters, than the holder of letter who pats himself on the back just for what he himself has accomplished.

Well, I've wasted many thoughts and given you few answers. I guess, like I've said, I think the the idea of what an MFA is is so off that I can't bear the thought of going through the motions just to get that last letter. One can be a true Master (maybe a better Master) in places other than academia.

My two cents,

Grace

What Constitutes a Master?

2006-03-16T09:20:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

Your previous letters have been so insightful. I am much to lofty in my reasons for making art. I want to change the world, take the artworld by storm and kick them in the pants. I am not even sure why I care; I am not even interested in being a part of their dialog. The art world reminds me of adolescent girls who develop their own language so that the girl that they left out in their BFF circle cannot understand what they are talking about. I have made up languages before.

Yet, lately I have been feeling that same push that you describe. I am really good at sculpture and frankly, it is the only thing I am really good at. Why do I waste my time doing anything else?

Yesterday, I was talking with a new professor who stopped by school yesterday to get some work done over Spring Break. We talked about teaching and MFA programs. That nagging feeling is back, Grace, that I must get an MFA. I want to be a professor, sure, and I am angry that having an apprenticeship and five years working on large-scale commissioned sculpture counts for nothing. Even when I finish my MA in Humanities, art departments are going to overlook my resume for someone with an MFA. Even if my work is better, even if my personality lends itself more to nuturing young artists, even if I have more experience in the studio; I will be overlooked.

Armed with nothing but anxiety, I poured over nearby art department webpages. I have been doing this several times a year since my senior year at Hillsdale. I even asked Erik if he was interested in moving to Philly for a few years. I don't regret the artistic path I have taken, though, but I am angry that I do not have that precious three letters after my name. What constitutes a Master, anyway? The master with whom I apprenticed still doesn't have an MFA and he seems to be doing all right.

Miss you, my dear friend,
Sarah

Mites

2006-03-13T11:41:00.000-05:00

Dear Sarah,

I know what you mean by not being as good as you once were. The drawing I started over a month ago sits about 80% finished and staring at me in rebuke as I type. You see, part way through I realized that once upon a time I could have done a much better job of it. As ever, my perfectionism is my downfall and I can't decide if a finished badly-done drawing is any better than unfinished badly-done drawing. Either way, it's badly-done and hard to live with.

A post back you asked why I paint. The first response that came mind was actually, "Why do I not paint?" I have been inspired before by grand ideas - the thoughts that my art was really important to the betterment of mankind, my substantial contribution to the beauty and truth of the universe, etc. That's a heavy burden, though. The idea that I must paint as act of 'cultural stewardship' or 'to create and imagine a better world' (both quotes from your Makoto Fujimura article) is terrifying - especially when at the current time you are only capable of producing unfinished badly-done drawings. In fact, the idea that what I do has some bearing on the salvation of mankind is precisely why so many of my works remain unfinished.

Well, that establishes why I don't paint. But when I do paint, why do I do it? I'll confess there's nothing grand or important in my motives. Like I said awhile back, for the most part I paint for a lack of anything better to do. I'm not really made for anything else. God wired me to paint and knows that if He had made me better at anything else, I would totally do that instead. I paint out of obedience (I'm a pretty disobedient child, it seems), out of submission, out of humilty. My unfinished badly-done drawings are my widow's mites - the only thing of true value I can offer back to my God. Concerns about cultural stewardship and a better world be damned, it's about all I can do to just do what God made me for.

Your right, 'Vein of Gold' can wait until the summer. I have a drawing to finish.

Love you,

Grace

And I Drew

2006-03-13T08:42:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

This weekend, while I was recovering from the flu, I started to draw again. It all started out with a sunny Saturday early morning. My good-steward-of-the-earth husband has been distressed over the amount of trash that has collected in the branches and weeds of the more or less "wild area" just at the edge of our neighborhood where he and the dog like to walk every morning. The weather was just right and there was no wind. I was far to dizzy and feverish to help, but wanted to be outside nonetheless.

I sat atop a small ridge where the 'burbs meet the farm and watched my dear husband gather trash. Beyond the field, tucked away, stood the old Lutheran church in the distance. Now, it served a Korean congregation. It was brick with a little white steeple in the fashion of nineteenth century country chapels. Charming! Then, I was overcome with the urge to draw a little picture of it. So, I went back to the house and blew the dust off of my old drawing materials. I found some beautiful handmade paper that I have been hanging on to for many years- waiting for that masterpiece. And I drew.

It didn't stop there, you see. The next day, still unwell, I was laying on the sofa having read as much agrarian literature as one could handle and having watched as many cheesy sick-day movies as I should like. So, I set up a still life and laid down on the sofa with my drawing board. And I drew.

I cannot tell you, Grace, how amazing it felt to have my pencil up against that beautiful paper again. I am not as good as I once was, but it is still there. I think I shall do it again.

Thanks for all the inspiration!

Love,
Sarah

Why Art?

2006-03-08T10:35:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

I haven't touched any clay since November. I feel a desire to head down to the studio and then find something else to distract me. Now we are surely in the same boat. The "Vein of Gold" sounds like a great idea, but we may have to wait until the summer. I am so swamped with graduate work right now.

I found this really great webblog of a Christian artist, Makoto Fujimura, through Gideon Strauss' site. He posts a good rumination on "Why Art?" It is a question that I have been asking myself a lot as well. It seems obvious to me that Beauty is important, but what about marble statues of the Blessed Virgin and other saints? Is they still important?

Why do you paint, Grace?

Miss you,
Sarah

Direction

2006-02-23T21:33:00.000-05:00

Dear Sarah,

Long time, no blog. I have such a difficulty staying interested in things for any period of time. What with my new schedule, I've had an opportunity to dig up some old paintings and I wonder, do I finish anything?

I've decided to send 'Letters to Young Artist' - the book that started all this - on to you for a little inspiration. Also, I was curious as to whether you would be interested in going through a book together. Maybe 'Vein of Gold'?

Write back. Love you,

Grace

Handing Over the Keys

2006-02-02T08:44:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

Yesterday was the last day at the studio. I was there shortly after nine to wait for the freight company. I brought a lawn chair and set it upstairs where my sofa once was. I took in the empty space that was once my home. I almost expected that Ivan the cat would come running around the corner and jump up onto my lap. I remembered where each painting hung. I cried a little, mourned a little, took in a flash only the happy memories and looked forward.

The freight company came shortly after and my darling husband came to help load the giant crate into the truck. The truck was, in fact, too large to come down my alley way and we had to wheel the five-hundred pound statue down to the street.

As usual, I nearly had a heart-attack watching my life's work being precariously loaded into the back of a truck. I felt exhausted and took my hard-working husband out for a lunch. I could do nothing afterwards except nap. Everything had been in me had drained out in the drive way outside of the studio on Fifth.

Later, we met with the landlord. I handed over my keys and gave my final good byes to the studio just as two potential renters walked up to see the place. How poetic, that I should end something wonderful and the very same moment some people begin.

Love you,
Sarah

Nearly Done

2006-01-22T21:17:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

The studio on 5th Street is nearly empty. We finished with St. Joseph's crate and hopefully he'll go out this week. It feels good. I have thrown out a lot of junk and only kept the essentials. Well, that chair from the old Ethan Allen Room at Hillsdale isn't really a necessity, but I cannot yet bear to part with it.

I feel a resurgence of creativity coming on. Now, I have clayless armatures, fresh ideas and a new space in which to work. Hey- I even have a handsome muse living here with me.

So, no more freaking out about leaving the studio. Great!

Love you!
Sarah

For a lack of anything better

2006-01-11T10:26:00.000-05:00

Dear Sarah,

As you know, I've changed my work schedule so that can I spend more time at home and less at work. The theory here is that a professional artist would devote more time to purposeful making of art and less to the mindless making of money. I've tried this before, of course, and it is difficult. I just want to goof around all day. My avoidence doesn't go away just because my main distraction (work) does.

Last night, at the end of the day two of this experiment, I ran out of stuff to distract myself with and so, for a lack of anything better to do, I figured I would rifle around in my art cupboard, dig up some old reference photos and, yet again, go through the motions of getting ready to do some artwork. Between a case of colored pencils and a notebook, I found The Letter.

You remember The Letter: that typewritten one from Richard Serrin, delivered all the way from Italy. The one I carried around with me all through college like some sort of talisman. The one where he speaks so kindly, thoughtfully and tells me the Truth of what I really need to know about art.

'Dear Grace,
Thank you for your kind letter. If I have emboldened you to make a life in art, I have done my job well. You seem aware of the difficulties in store, if you perservere. They are very real, for so very few have the genius of those masters we admire. Quite rightly, however, you must proceed as if you had that genius, only then will you give yourself totally to your art, and you will never produce anything artificial.'

This letter is a treasure; an inestimable gift in its content. It reminded me that once - not too long ago - someone thought I was worthy of such thoughts and encouragement. It reminded me that someone saw me as worthy, simply by virtue of my aspirations, to be part of the great heritage artists, passed down from teacher to student. It reminded me that once someone who mattered, who knew something, thought I might or that I could make something of my art, of myself.

I shed tears over those pages because I do not feel worthy of them. I feel undeserving of such a great letter - a letter that deserves to be honored, published in books and deemed part of the history of a much greater artist than I.

After a few seconds, I sucked it up. Well, I thought, there's nothing left for me to do but make art. Either that, or burn this letter and all it's well-wishing. Call Serrin a fool for ever believing in me. Either make art or finally get rid of this letter because it has no purpose in my life; it was misgifted - like a fine fur given to street urchin in a southern climate.

I couldn't destroy it, of course. As long as I have the letter, I have hope and trickle of belief in myself. So, last night, I tenderly put the letter away and, for a lack of anything better to do, pulled out paper and pencil and started to draw.

I may still not be worthy, but in the end, doing something is the only proper way to say 'thank you.'

Thank you,

Grace

Procrastination

2006-01-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

The other day I found myself knee-deep in an errand to-do list. I had the idea to park my truck at the small college of employment and walk to the post office, to lunch, to the office of my new landlord. (By the way, did I tell you that I rented a storage unit for all of the art stuff that we cannot fit into the basement? It is an old slaughterhouse holding pen very near to my current studio, in an alley behind a tattoo parlor. How's that for character?) Well, it was pouring rain and the distances were too far for my pedestrian-wimpified feet, so I called my beloved husband to join me for lunch. We enjoyed a really fine lunch at the restaurant owned by the incumbant mayor. It is really fantastic to have such a democratic mayor. We saw her there with a bowl of soup. She is so friendly!

Anyhow, we ended up running errands together- to the grocery store, the pet store, the hardware store, etc. etc. ad nauseum. I always feel so exhausted after running errands that I simply mail order or avoid them all together. Oddly enough, when I actually walk the errands I feel cheerful and rejuvinated. Oh, blast that damn automobile! Neglecting to do the laundry or buy cat food while living by myself, however, didn't cause anyone else to suffer. Now, my poor dear husband, must endure with me the ongoing absent-minded- professor-syndrome that I continually suffer. And I am not even a professor!

It seems, however, that we are not alone, Grace. This fellow delineates between "good and bad procrastination" and very well, I think. (Hat tip: Gideon Strauss.) This essay, while it might distract you from whatever you are doing will at least make you feel better. It did me!

So, while my house is still under construction, my studio unpainted, Joseph not yet crated, I feel just a little better. At least I am not alone.

Love you bunches,
Sarah

Avoidance

2005-12-30T09:26:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

Here I stand at the last month of renting my studio. I cannot bear to go there. I have procrastinated in finishing my space downstairs. It is as if my inner artist says to me, "Maybe if we have no place to move to we won't have to move at all."

I am not sure what I am afraid of. Yes, I am. I am afraid of embodying the stereotype of the woman who gets married and has children and forgets her art until she is old. I have met those women and they live with regret.

You are right that I thrive on far away goals and dreams. Right now, I am not sure where I am going. I just know that my life has changed dramatically and I am trying to find and even piece of land on which to stand.

Love you bunches,
Sarah

PS Thanks for the handmade knife; I love things that are both practical and beautiful!

The virtue of being short sighted

2005-12-19T21:31:00.000-05:00

Dear Sarah,

Forgive my silence. I've been involved in a game of hide and seek with my muse.

Matt and I went out for coffee today and while marveling over his utter lack of resistance and my phenomenally pre-emptive defeatism, I realized something about my muse: Nothing scares her off faster than the long term. I don't even get to the canvas most days. In attempt to 'play it through' in my mind, I see the difficulties, the possibility of rejection and failure and abort my ideas before I've even begun. Some people, like you, are inspired and driven by long term plans and goals, but nothing cowers me near as much. I have little control over the future - and my ideas might indeed fall flat, be ridiculed or over-looked altogether. That's bad enough, if you know where you want to go, but me, sometimes I have no idea where I'm headed.

Matt reminded me today that it's not all about the end. In fact, as it is largely outside of our control, it mostly matters not at all. We live, we work, we create to learn and it's these little discoveries and accomplishments that really matter. I have for weeks avoided this portrait of mine. I didn't see the point. It didn't inspire me. I didn't know what it was about. It would be nothing to my 'career' but a laughable exercise. But one thing has been niggling at me about it: expressing the form of a white object in colors rather than shades of grey. Not a simple task at all and the challenge to learn how...well...I get creatively hungry just thinking about it.

So, I've learned that I must take my artist as she comes and she is, like me, very near-sighted. I will get to that altar piece someday, but for now, I'm working on conquering white.

Love you,

Grace

New Space,Small Space

2005-12-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

Our house has been filled with the thumping, sawing, and pounding sounds of contractors. My new studio space ought to be ready to receive paint, which I have already purchased, by this weekend. A man is coming by today to finish the drywall and another to hang the doors. (Incidentally, we also added an additional closet space, since the new studio has already wiped out all of our storage.) I love watching the space transform from a pile of clutter to an inspiring room where creative work is going to happen!

I have been filled with thoughts of drawing lately. I miss that old flame- figure drawing! I have been working out a curriculum, in my head, for teaching drawing. You and I have had so many wonderful drawing instructors. I would love to pass that on.

I need to focus, Grace. I had an idea for a novel yesterday and I told my husband about it. I asked him if I should write it. "No" he said. What!?! Isn't my husband supposed to lend me unequivocal support. I was astonished. He went on to explain himself, "It isn't that this isn't a good idea for a novel, but what about all those sculptures, drawings, articles, course proposals, MA classes and home projects that you have been talking about? You cannot do everything at once, Sarah, you need to focus your energies." I can always depend on him for a good dose of Truth. How can I focus my energies? My interests touch so many different aspects.

I think of all these ambitious projects and you know, the moment I find out that we are having a baby is the same moment that all of those things will *poof* totally disinterest me. Soon my bookshelves will be lined with books on what to expect the first year, nutrition for pregnant women, herbal remedies, baby lullabies, vaccine controversies, educational options, nursery room decor... you get the idea. Then, what if it takes us a long time to conceive? How much time do I have to devote to this project and that? Are any of them that important? With many friends having babies lately, it is hard not to think about it. I ask Erik about everyday, "You are constantly thinking about babies, aren't you?"

He always replies, "No, Sarah, that's you."

Sarah

Moving

2005-12-02T17:56:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

Today I drove through Balitmore with St. Joseph strapped into the bed of my pickup truck. Imagine the stares I recieved from on-lookers! Well, he is back at the studio only to be crated up and shipped over to Pietrasanta. Only thing left is to somehow get you and I shipped over to Pietrasanta. Want to spend a month on a cargo ship?

My ever-gracious husband had some contractors over to the house today to see about converting an unfinished storage room into a cute little (and I do mean little) studio. It might seem crazy to move my center of operations to a teeny room in the townhouse, but at this point this is what we must do. Emotions are all over the place. Prior to today, I hadn't been to the studio in weeks. I cannot afford this much for storage.

It is the way of the universe: always expanding and contracting, only to expand and contract again.

Miss you. Love you,

Sarah

Paper Cups

2005-11-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

That really struck me when you said that "plenty of strong trees have started their lives in a paper cup." I remember growing beansprouts in paper cups when I was a small child. Our two-year-old niece was visiting this past weekend. I realized how much she and I have in common and how adults are really not as different as we'd like to think we were as children. I woke up one morning grumpy enough to cry. As an adult I knew that it was inappropriate to cry just because I was grumpy, so I hid in my bed, regardless of the guests we had waiting downstairs, until my darling husband came in to find me. I asked for a hug. That's all I needed and my grumpies melted away, just like the toddler's tears dry up when in the arms of mommy. We are frail and needy children, Grace. Not just us -everyone. Being all grown-up kills art. So, go ahead and plant yourself in a teeny paper cup. Maybe you can decorate it with glitter and glue.

Is it possible for an artist to flourish once she has had a whole garden to herself? I am still plagued by the daunting notion that first instincts are often right and that by holding on to my studio, I might strangle it and my art within it. Can I, also, grow in a paper cup?

Grace, the reality of how much I must work in order to maintain the studio, even if I find people to share the space, really is shaking me down. Plus, should we have a child I will be out of work and out of the studio for several months. The fact of the matter is that it is not economically feasible to do so. I have a space here- a small workshop in the basement and an office upstairs, complete with a fancy new laptop. No, it isn't the same, but it is something. Perhaps we'll have children here and when they are a little older we'll be able to buy a cute little bungalow with a fenced in yard and a studio out back- one where I can leave my car in the driveway much of the time, or get rid of it all together, and return to pedestrian life.

Believe it or not, I actually feel all creative thinking about those beansprouts in paper cups! I think many people are scared that when we have children I'll stop creating, or perhaps I am scared that other people are scared. In all truth, children are the most creative people in the world. Spending time with them always leaves me in a sense of wonder about the world around me. I think that creativity shall only increase.

Much love,
Sarah

Bloom

2005-11-24T17:54:00.000-05:00

Dear Sarah,

Yesterday, someone asked if I had been painting. I hate this question because I always feel like my response is a rather feeble pile of excuses that only seem to elicit a sort of uncomfortable pity from the poor soul who did the asking. I realize now that people ask if you have been making art for the same reason most people ask, 'How are you doing?' They're filling air. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but I think they would rather hear me prattle on as if I'm up to something then for me to say, in anguish, that I do nothing - and worse, that I don't really know why.

Last night, my explainations rambled into a pained diatribe about the characterlessness and cultural void of the suburbs. Almost immediately, the unfortunate person who asked, "Are you doing any art?" started to get a glazed look in his eyes. My speech trailed off and I offered up a simple, "I'm just not in the right frame of mind," and fell silent, ashamed of myself. My father-in-law spoke up at that moment.

"Well, things don't really bloom there."

This was the truth. I want to get planted and bloom somewhere and from where I stand now the land looks rocky and infertile.

What does is take to bloom? You and Sam (and that author) are right, of course. Regardless of the circumstances, nothing will bloom if you do not till, water and weed. My artist deserves time and attention - if just a few moments a day. Just her and I. Fearing her, running from her, ignoring her will certainly not solve anything.

When I return to Texas in a few days, I will rethink my plan of action and find a place and time for my art. It will not be a permanent planting, of course, but in the mean time, I'll think of it as container gardening. Plenty of strong trees have started their lives in a paper cup.

Love you,

Grace

I Just Don't Love You Anymore...

2005-11-22T09:14:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

Wouldn't it be grand if we felt that insatiable urge to create all of the time? Wouldn't it be grand if we felt infatuated with our husbands all of the time? No, it wouldn't. It would get exausting and we would never get a thing done. Art, as in marriage, you cannot always depend on your feelings of "love" to make it work. There is commitment and the daily nuturing that feeds into both things. You cannot just give up on your art and say, "I just don't love you anymore..." and walk away.

I don't think you've become complacent; you are miserable when you are not painting. That graduate school experience really did a number on you. Sam has a really good point about "Going Pro" on his blog. Have you read "The War of Art?" It is a nice swift kick in the pants, if you need one.

You are right about a room of one's own. Perhaps you need to find yours. Sam has found a coffee shop where he writes. I have the studio, which I have historically been avoiding, but lately have been feeling a sense of renewal there. Perhaps you need to find a place where you can draw. Sometimes the more time you spend with your beloved (be it lover or art) the more deeply in love you feel and the more you want to be together. I have been plagued with thoughts of that old love of mine- figure drawing. There is nothing like three hours with a model, a pencil and a nice piece of Italian paper to cure any ill feelings about artmaking. Is there anyplace you can go? Preferably someplace you can walk to? A nice walk clears the head.

While I am sad to hear about the job, I know that you are in the palm of the Most High and He has something in store for you. Something beyond all we think or ask. Trust.

I miss you like crazy and cannot wait for that day when we can work together in the same studio!

Love,
Sarah

Between contentment and complacency

2005-11-18T13:45:00.000-05:00

Dear Sarah,

Matt didn't get the job and my plans for a daring daylight escape to Ohio have been foiled. Am I sad? Yes, but I know now that there is, as you said, a season for everything and Patience in a lesson I still have to learn.

Beyond all my excuses, I am surprised that you and I can live without doing art. I feel like I repeat myself but I just feel like there ought to be some irresistible urge that makes us do art whether we want to or are in the mood or not. Alas, it is so much more complicated than that. I could laugh at myself, really. We artists are such needlessly complex creatures. I am not content, as you are, but have I become complacent? I have an endless litany of good excuses as to why I cannot, or don't want to, or am uninspired, but in the end, there is a simply discipline that escapes me. Am I lazy, complacent? Maybe...it's complicated.

Well, that's good news about your studio. I hate to say it, but I feel like if your studio lives on the possibility of making art, and a room of one's own live on. When there is a room, there is always a possibility.

Looking for possibilities,

Grace

Possibilities

2005-11-18T08:17:00.000-05:00

Dear Grace,

Remember how I said that I wanted a painter to come and rent the upstairs of my studio? Well, next week a painter is going to come by the studio to see about renting the upstairs of my studio. Remember how I said that I'd like to have a place for creative women to work at the studio? She has a similar vision.

I think I need to stop worrying so much about what is going to happen and what I am going to do and let God do what He is going to do.

You might notice that the time on the bottom of this post is obscenely early. I am turning into a morning bird more and more as I enjoy getting up to see my ultra-cheerful-in-the-morning hubby. Yesterday I drove to the studio and walked to the college and Erik picked me up here, so the truck is at the studio. Today, he dropped me off before 8:00am at the college and I'll work here until after lunch and then I'll head over to the studio. I'd like to clean up before the painter arrives and I need to finish a portrait bust for Monday. I'll also be picking up Joseph on Monday!

So, things are cheery right now.

Love,
Sarah

New beginnings

2005-11-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

Dearest Grace,

We are finally back from our month-long sojourn! We are settling into a routine and I am so enjoying setting up house with my beloved Erik. I think I have never been happier. This sort of happiness is so much different than I have ever experienced before. This sort of happiness is similar to the Rest we all hope to find in Christ. Truly, I have found that Rest in my bridegroom. This is the sort of happiness that permeates the soul, but does not cause one's innards to be all a flutter. This is the sort of happiness that movies and stories cannot even begin to portray. It is more beautiful than I had imagined. It is like seeing a post card and then actually visiting the most breathtaking place you can imagine, only better.

So we have had a week of breakfasts together, dinner on our new china and missing one another while at work. It was wonderful to get back to my job at the college. The people there are so gracious in showing their appreciation for what I do. I was greeted with many hugs and congratulations. I am indeed very lucky to have found such a job!

I went to the studio the other night to pick up my salad spinner, my bicycle, a silverware divider and a month's worth of uncollected mail. The feeling was strange there. My cats are up in Michigan with my folks and were not there to greet me at the door. It felt lonely and cold and I didn't want to be there. It made me think of what my future with sculpture beholds.

Frankly, Grace, when I set the table the other night with our new tablecloth, china, silver, candleholders and beautiful bouquet of flowers Erik brought home for my birthday, I felt this sort of satisfaction that I usually only feel when I complete a sculpture. I stepped back to take in the beauty of my perfectly set table and then at the food I had so carefully arranged on the plates and I thought, "It is good." I certainly never imagined that making a beautiful meal for my appreciative husband would be so satisfying and fulfilling. For a moment there, I felt inflamed in rage. I have been fed such a pack of lies from the prevailing culture about "women's work." They have been hiding this all these years! I have worked so hard to become a successful artist and even in all of my achievements and accolades I don't think I have ever felt as pleased as I had the other day at my set table. The following day, I awoke early and cooked omelets for my husband and I, again with silver and china. The same bliss overcame me. You mean, it is possible for me to feel this way every day, rather than every few years when I complete a sculpture? I am nearly speechless.

Grace, you and I are makers of beauty. We needn't limit ourselves to studios and paint brushes. What I did in that dining room was to transform a plain wooden table into a piece of beauty. This is what we need to do in all other aspects of our lives.

I don't know what the future holds for me and for sculpture. There are seasons in everyone's lives. I do not regret my path and am thankful to have done all of the work I have done. Right now, I want to invest my energies into making a different kind of beauty. I want to prepare my home and my heart for children. If society has fed me this many lies about marriage, just imagine the awesome wonder of having a child with my husband! One of those lies is that we need to wait until we achieve this and that and until we are "ready." Well, I just turned 28 on Tuesday and the reality of my best and most fertile years are behind me has me just a little discombobulated. My priorities have taken a dramatic shift and even though a part of me is a little unsteady in my footing, there is so much security in knowing that there is someone next to me to hold me up. That is the beauty of marriage.

Much love to you, Grace! And what an honor to have your at my side during our wedding.

Love,
Sarah

Sculpture isn't over. And like the season, spring comes every year, but it isn't spring all year long.

And now on to the next thing..

2005-10-10T22:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

Well, you're married. How about that?! I was honored to be there. When you called last night, I embarrassed a little that your mom had told you about how I was crying baby all weekend. I couldn't help it. I am so happy for you...and so weary with myself.

It seems like I have been waiting for the next stage of my life for so long. I just want a house in the county, a baby and a slow passage of days to enjoy both. This is the place I dream of making art in. Is that silly? Just an excuse? I'm not sure. I only know that I am unhappy here in this place with cookie cutter apartment, traffic, smog and so many strangers. I am unhappy with my job. I am unhappy to be childless. How does one make art while being so unhappy? I feel guilty that I cannot find contentment in my current situation.

I'm such a whiner.

I hope you enjoy Hawaii and see lots of beautiful things that inspire you. I was glad we were able to spend a few days together before your wedding. I will forever remember seeing Verocchio's Doubting Thomas with you. Next time we see it, maybe it will be in Italy?

I await your return. Love you bunches,

Grace

Fretting

2005-09-24T01:15:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

My dear Grace, do not fret so much about what I am going to do. I am in the Lord’s hands. Frankly, I don’t even know what I am going to do about the studio, studio mates, the cats, the job at Hood, the master’s degree. Right now, all I know is that I am getting married to the man that I love in two weeks. I also know that and that I am very, very tired. I have been balancing working at the studio, working at Hood, occasionally taking a class, and making periodic trips to Baltimore for that ‘wax’ museum company- not to mention blossoming a relationship with Erik and spending a lot of time whining about not having any time for girl friends here in Frederick. I am exhausted. Something needs to go. I cannot afford the studio without working at Hood, but that takes up so much of my energy away from the studio. Sometimes I think that I just want to drop it all, be a cute little wifey, take some art classes, and work hard to restore my health. We forget about that little element of my life a lot. I am still sick, Grace, and it weighs on me. I know how to get better, but it is going to take a lot of time and a lot of work and right now, doing all these things, I have neither. So, I drag myself through each day trying not to complain too much and trying to tell others to do those things, which I have not been able to successfully implement in my own life.

So, yeah, I am torn. I am a twenty-seven year old with the energy of an eighty-year-old woman. Spunky may I seem, I hurt all over and I am perpetually fatigued. On the other hand, I am passionate and dedicated to my work. Then I have dreams of domesticity. And babies. Perhaps this is the quintessential conundrum of the modern woman. Frankly, I hope to one day have a place with Erik in the Midwest near a college with a studio on site and the cats playing in the yard, climbing trees and coming in and out of the kitty door in the studio. Can she really have it all? Perhaps, but not at the same time.

Well, I am off to bed. See you soon.

Love Always,
Sarah

The plain

2005-09-23T14:01:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

Still waiting your return - though I figure I have more days ahead without you instead of less. It's alright, I suppose, gives me time to think out loud.

Well, I climbed the mountain of inspiration, fell down a cliff of self-doubt and now I'm in the plain of apathy. I just don't care right now. Ironically, in spite of not caring, I have been painting, which is more than I did while doubting myself - maybe even more than I did while being 'inspired.' I haven't painted of for the past few days because I work so late, but I've gone in a few times and looked what I did on Monday. I can't seem to get very far back from it, which is a problem, but my work space is way too small. I've used this an excuse not to work before, but now I don't care. I'll work is box if I have to. Distance is overrated.

Speaking of distance, last time we talked you mentioned that you were sending your cats home with your mom because you didn't know what you were going to do with your studio. I'll admit it worries me a little. I'm not sure if it is serious worry or just a vague fretting but I thought you had made up your mind about it all. You interviewed studio mates and everything. Maybe it's just too much to think about right now...and someone has too feed those two kitties of yours while you are on your 2 1/2 week honeymoon! Still - is this the end for a while? I think I've been living vicariously through you. You were my proof that one could make it as an artist on her own and, like a child, my favorite bragging subject. My best friend Sarah, the sculptor.

I worry about you, that you'll get stuck in a tiny room like me without enough distance to see what you're working on. I guess, it's alright when it's that or no working at all. Still, I would love a studio of my own. I envy you so much. The grass is always greener on the other side, right? Enjoy marriage, drink it in...but don't forget who you are.

Fretting,
Grace

Still me

2005-09-19T20:28:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

Well, not long now. I did a little illustration for your shower invitations and I was actually quite pleased with myself. It's amazing how a little project like that gets the creative juices flowing.

I painted again today. I also enjoyed myself mostly. I need some new brushes but feel a little guilty about spending money when I paint so infrequently. Of course, new brushes would make the experience all the more enjoyable.

It's a full length portrait I'm working on and I discovered, sort of to my surprise, that having to get things 'just right' makes me a little annoyed. I think all those cloud paintings from a few years ago has made me want to be a little more free with my brush. I told you I was a landscape painter at heart.

Well, I'm already out of things to say. I just wanted to check in.

Love you,
Grace

Questions

2005-09-15T09:35:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I hope the wedding plans are going well. I hear from you so little now adays.

I'm still in a bit of a slump, but I have done a little bit of painting again this week and, to be honest, I'm sort of excited about what I'm working on. I realized after your last post how there is so much more going on here than just an art crisis. This isn't just about art. It's about life and God and faith. Right now for me a lot of the stuff is really off kilter and I think it's hard in that context to get straightened out to do anything, let alone art.

Work, as you know, has been a mess and I've been thinking about leaving, but I'm not sure what to do next. I hate being in this position because I always find myself asking those hard questions: Why am I here? What is my purpose? What should I be doing with myself? I'm not one of those people who can easily separate life and work. I feel like the work should mean something and feed my soul somehow.

And then I ask myself the harder question: Why did God make me an artist, if I can't figure out how to make a living at it? It's funny to me that I want so desperately to make a life making art, but I won't even do it with what little time I have.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'm really cut out for that sort of thing. I hate being alone in my studio for more than 15 minutes at a time. Another question: Why did God make me so outgoing and give me such a solitary talent?

Ugh, this was so much easier when we were kids and the question was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I think I wanted to be a ballerina.

Just thinking outloud,

Grace

Shiva's Dance

2005-09-08T22:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

I apologize for my recent silence. With the wedding only a month away, you can imagine that my mind is preoccupied with thoughts of marriage and our "big day." Nonetheless, I wanted to at least send a little note, to reassure you that I am here.

I think that we have come to an interesting place here on Arrivals. It really isn't about art at all, but about our Creator. He has given you the gift and will enable you to use it. He never gives his children a stone when we ask for a loaf.

Today, I went to Baltimore to work on a museum figure and then I traversed the city three times before arriving at the studio of the mould-maker, Pat. Baltimore roads have no system. It is as though the city planner was drunk the night he planned the city and doodled crazy lines all over the map of the Bay, with some roads going over and under the Bay itself. Craziness. It took me nearly an hour to find my way from Dundalk, which boasts the greatest Italian restaurant this side of the Atlantic by the way, to the "Arts District" (aka the slums of Baltimore where landlords get tax breaks if an artist works in their building.)

We loaded pieces of St. Joseph, five-hundred pounds in all, into the back of my wee Nissan pickup truck. Many people have asked me if it is painful to see two years worth of work crumpled up in the bed of a truck. Not at all. In fact, I really look forward to the destruction of one sculpture because it means that I can start something new! It always reminds me of the story of Shiva's Dance, where Shiva destroys before creating. Perhaps like death and resurrection? Now, I have five-hundred pounds of formless clay in the studio and I can hardly wait to get my hands on it to create something new.

The only question now... is "what?"

I miss you and cannot wait to see you in one month!

Love,
Sarah

Quiet

2005-09-05T14:02:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I know you are busy planning your wedding and have no time to write (or return phone calls, it seems) so, I guess, for the time being, I'll just journal away until you come back. I'm okay with that. Sometimes, one just needs to think outloud without interruption.

I painted yesterday. It was altogether unmomentous - I just got tired of seeing the painting undone and ran out of other things to do. I was pleased with what I did, though there is plenty of work left. It's funny, because I always say that I just want sometime to sit quietly in front of my easel until something happens. I think I'm right. After a while, something just happens. You can't have a void forever.

When we last talked you suggested that my block was not really about art, but about faith in general and I think you're right. I've prayed for a lot of things in my life and had those prayers answered and so, I've prayed for an unshakable faith. I suppose that that is a pretty presumptuous thing to pray for but, honestly, I don't care. I've asked for greater things and recieved them. Why not unshakable faith? I expect everything to come to me so dramatically, in a gush a tears, but faith must often be a much more quiet assurance. I feel pretty quiet right now and for me, that's saying something.

Here's to simple solitude,

Grace

Ask for ransom

2005-08-28T22:57:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I know you’re not there (yet) and the past week has given a lot of time to think…and to avoid thinking. I think I’ve been reading too many novels about feudal societies or paying to much attention to politics - doing anything to avoid dealing with the truth in front of me, but then there it is again before me more clearly than ever.

I see it now - the truth that I’ve made a poor treaty with the Devil. I’ve paid him tribute with my obsessive doubt and worry and, in accordance with our agreement, I do not make art and he does not attack what I have not made. I pretend my kingdom is autonomous but, in truth, he rules. I would rather do nothing, make every assurance that I am no threat to him, so that I do not have to fight him. I would rather be "blocked" than meet him head on in a field of battle.

And why not? I am weak. I could never beat him. If I tried to stir up an insurgency, he would surely crush me with brutal vengeance. I cannot outsmart him. I’ve tried and failed miserably. Every book of strategy has availed me only the passing appearance of power because, in the end, I still pay him tribute and I still fear him.

I know a King that is strong. He has a army that would fight for me…and I know He would win. He has never been beaten. Truth be told, it is to Him I owe my allegiance for he has ever been my friend and ally. I have only to go to Him, throw myself at the foot of His throne and beg for His aid. I can see myself now, stretched out on those carpets; a thin, wan and broken thing; a traitor returning to ask for mercy and help.

And yet, I do not ask. I can’t. The humiliation and shame is so great. How can I when I have been so false? How can I when I have lived so long in treaty with the Devil, so long in fear? I cannot tell which is the greater part - the shame or fear - but both keep me away from hope, from redemption, from freedom.

God forgive me. I am a poor, helpless thing.

Yours,
Grace

A different war

2005-08-22T23:27:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I'm sorry that it has been taking me so long to write back to you lately. I have only been doing a little better - a few scribbles and thoughts, but still three weeks since I picked up a brush.

I received your package in the mail and have been flipping through the copy of The War of Art you sent. More and more, I'm convinced that the creativity experts have the major challenge of art making (mostly) wrong. Patterson calls it "Resistence." Cameron calls it "the Censor." Both, though, see it as a simply a learned pattern of behavior, an internal dilemma to be ignore, outwit or overcome. I beginning to see it as something far different (and more insidious) than just a troublesome neurosis resulting from a "wetblanket" world. It flabbergasts me that Cameron can acknowledge a Divine Creator that wishes us good, but sees no actual darker force seeking to thwart us. Truth is, I have no idea how to get rid of my own issues. I have tried to snap out of them, trick myself, think positively and they still come back. If, on the other hand, it is the Devil who is really in my way, I am familiar with the arsenal of weapons at my disposal. I know that he can be beat with prayer, meditation, rebuke and exorcism...now, if I only had the courage to use them.

When I read you account of finishing Joseph and being left alone in your empty studio, I tried to fish up some similar experience of my own. The only thing that kept coming to mind was the bitter memory of being tossed out my studio mid-semester after completing my M.A. Here I am over a year later, and I'm still dragging around with me like a ball and chain all the feelings of anger, distress, betrayal, and victimization from my graduate school ordeal. I know I have the key to it, that I can get rid of it anytime I like, but I don't. It has become a familiar thing to me and so, comforting in its own way. I have known this feeling before and I know that, like rotten organs, such things are hard to part with because we're not sure we can live without them, even if they are killing us.

What did I do before when the Devil had me under his thumb? Well, I guess I finally got sick of being miserable. The bitterness was choking me and left no room for love or happiness. In the end, I had to choose between the familiar pain and the scary new happiness. Praise be to God, I choose happiness and was healed. Am I not in the same place here? I must make my choice between the Devil's small comfort of no risk of shame at the price of helplessness, insignificance and self-doubt or the terrifying leap of faith based on God's promises of eternal reward, come what may. I guess the choice is obvious, but the obvious choice is never the easiest.

Pray for me,

Grace

It is Finished

2005-08-18T22:58:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

Joseph has left the building. My mould-maker, Pat, came by yesterday with a big Ryder truck. The truck was way larger that we needed, but it was essential that we have a hydraulic lift to get the five hundred pound statue up in it. The lifts only come on the chumba-wumba-huge-o trucks. Do you remember my studio location? Well, getting down that long narrow driveway, loading the sculpture and turning around proved quite challenging. The man across the street who sits on the porch and smokes all day next to his wife with emphysema had three cars in the way that we had to ask him to move. Usually jovial, he seems quite indignant at the possibility that we were going to hit his old Jeep, precious Chrysler, or his son's new Kia. I tried to explain to him that the reason I was asking him to move the cars was so that we didn't stand a chance at hitting one of them. He grumped and moved them and then was back to his smiley self. His wife never smiles, but I suppose that is likely because she is hooked up to an oxygen tank and her husband is a chain-smoker. I digress... The endeavor to get Joseph from a garage in Frederick to a studio in Baltimore was more or less a success. We only took out one person's phone line and my gutters. At least no one was hurt, especially not St. Joseph.

Afterwards, I just wanted to sit on the floor of my newly emptied studio and sob. We artists are emotional creatures, aren't we? I felt that huge burden lift. I felt scared. It is finished, no more fussing or adjusting was I able to do. Now however he looked on August seventeenth was going to be carved in stone. So, you think I never get scared, huh?

Tony used to have these CDs at the Sage Center that I enjoyed listening to when I worked late at night. One of them was Seinfeld stand-up. In one sketch, he reports that the number one fear among Americans is public speaking. Number two? Death. He interpreted this to mean that most Americans would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. *laugh* I am not into thrill seeking. In fact, I avoid bungee jumping, rock climbing, skydiving. Heck, I don't even like to walk too fast. So, maybe I like to check my own pulse with an occasional public speaking gig. My heart still pounds and my mouth still goes dry, but there is certainly a thrill in it.

I feel a little numb right now, honestly. I slept well last night, though; and intend to go to bed early tonight, dreaming of real estate.

Hope your birthday was grand!

Love,Sarah

A lion on one side

2005-08-16T22:33:00.000-04:00

Sarah,

I guess we are not alike in all things. I hate public speaking. You know that I will gladly hold court in a group of ten, but the thought of officially presenting something to a larger audience turns my knees to jelly. I have always had terrible stage fright. I don't suppose you've ever felt such a thing. It's funny to me when I recognize that we are, in fact, different people while still being so much a like. That scene from Lady Jane keeps coming to mind; the one where Guilford tells Jane that they are like two sides of the same coin "with a lion on one side and a head on the other." The question is which one of us is the lion and which is the head?

Thank you for putting my self-doubt into perspective. I had never considered that is was the devil whispering in my ear and not just my own character failings. I suppose it should be a good sign then, when I am waylaid by these thoughts - it means I was going somewhere important, right? It is so much more difficult and dangerous on the narrow road than I ever anticipate. I know this is the way I should go (have known it) and yet, when I peer into the misty future, I am terrified. It is easy to heed the devil's insinuation that I am too weak-willed, too cowardly, too pathetic to continue.

How did you get to be so brave? I'll admit, I have always envied you on that account. You jump and expect to hit the ground with both feet. I fret that there might not be a net and avoid getting to close to the edge at all. I wish I could be more like you.

Hmmm...I think you're the lion.

How about that,

Grace

Not My Turn

2005-08-13T23:29:00.000-04:00

Hi Grace,

I know, I know, it isn't my turn yet, but I am up and it is late. So I write.

Erik came over today for several hours of hand modeling. I have rigged Joseph's arm in such a way that I can remove it from the figure and place it on a sculpture stand facing up, like the way Tony used to do back at the 'Dale. I find that I work very well when I don't concentrate too hard; when I just look and tool the clay. We talked, mostly light stuff, but it was enough to just let things flow. Perhaps this is how I become hollow, as you say. Hands are tricky business, but I was really cruising along. I have re-attached it to the forearm late tonight and Erik will return tomorrow so that I can go over the forearm and model it just so. My mould-maker is coming on Wednesday, your birthday, right? He is bringing a big U-Haul truck. Remember that great photo of us attempting to put the Virgin into the U-Haul? I thought that I was going to hemorrhage from nerves!

Anyhow, only three days and he’ll be out of there. All this time, Grace, I have been terrified, tricked into thinking that I hated sculpture. All this time I have struggled and whined, cried, and had countless anxiety attacks. And now here we are only three days until his departure. Seems almost anti-climactic all the sudden, doesn’t it?

I heard back from my museum head client. Close, but no cigar, he says. He cannot put his finger on what to change, so he is calling up a committee. OH NO! NOT THE COMMITTEE! This could take forever.

I am really getting excited about talking at the Global Missions Expo sponsored by the ELCA. The woman in charge of the arts component of the event really seems enthusiastic about having me there and you know how much I love public speaking. They want me there all three days if I can swing it! I am patinating sculptures and have been working out my talk in my head all day. I had it all worked out in the shower this evening, but lost it as soon as I dried off. There is something about that shower; I get all my best ideas there. Anyhow, I am talking broadly about Faith & Art, and she would also really like for me to address the nudity and art issue, especially because this is a Christian audience. Where is that copy of Francis Schaeffer’s Art and the Bible, when I need it?

Things are looking back up, again! We are all moody creatures, indeed.

Well, I miss you a ton!

Sarah

PS I watched this movie, Dogma, yesterday which I found very funny. Anyhow, Jay refers to Bob as his "hetero life-partner." Is that what we are? It cracked me up!

Exorcisma

2005-08-11T23:23:00.000-04:00

Grace,

I am sending you a care package with “The War of Art” enclosed. I will help you to gird your loins. I’ll get it out tomorrow.

I almost don’t know what to say. I feel the same much of the time, not as much about being a real artist because I play one on TV, you know; but, more about my self-proclaimed health-nuttedness. What sort of health nut takes nearly all the allotted sick leave a generous employer has to offer, just because she is too damned tired to walk to work? Yeah, I slept all day on Wednesday and then somehow I managed to get a hellovalot of artwork done that evening. Why can I not listen to my own advice and take the very same herbs I advise others to take? Why, as a hypoglycemic, so I forget to eat and then go run an errand during what should be dinner so that I am so dizzy and nearly pass out while at the library looking for a copy of A Room of One’s Own? A hypocrite? Or just human?

I don’t know why you and I beat our artist’s senseless. My poor artist is so scared to do anything half of the time; I spend more time screaming at her than I do mushing clay around. Yet, I do get things done… eventually. You see, in my position, I have to make art. I have no choice really. If I don’t, I am homeless, starving, and the subject of a rather nasty lawsuit. Maybe that is the only thing keeping me going- the fear of being homeless and starving to death is worse than the fear of making art. Perhaps we all have to put greater things on the line.

See, Grace, this battle with Art is a spiritual one. The more God desires you to do something, the greater threat you become to our Adversary and the more powerful forces he sends to thwart you. So, whatever it is you are meant to do must be BIG because he is flinging critics, resistance, and fear left and right all in your direction. Plus, you have extended your arm into my pit and helped to pull me out. You see, he almost had me defeated if it weren’t for you and your artist urging you do all of this. We are a threat to him, Grace. So, take heart you are headed in the right direction. Just pick up that brush.

This may sound weird, but I have done it before and it works: perform an exorcism of your house and your workspace. I like to squirt sage oil mixed with water in the room (it is said to have cleansing properties) and then I simply tell (as loudly as you need to) the Critic, the Adversary, Satan, whatever you prefer to name it, that he is not welcomed here. As a child of God you have that authority and he has to listen. Banish him from your home and from your thoughts. Remember: this is not just about art, Grace.

May the Peace of the Lord, which passes all understanding, be with you and give you grace!

Take Heart,
Sarah

PS I didn't work on anything today and I don't feel the least bit guilty! Take that, Critic!

The bottom

2005-08-11T21:38:00.000-04:00

Sarah,

I feel like a big fat fake. It dawned on me this weekend that I've been talking a lot of art and not really doing anything. Again. I spent my 15 minutes painting - the Monday before last. Since then, I've spent a lot of time whining, avoiding, complaining and beating my inner artist senseless. Sunday, guilt finally convinced me to fuss around a bit with some visual references for my altarpiece and another painting in the embryonic stages. Monday, still feeling a great big fake, I avoided even looking at the painting I have been working on. Since then, nothing. Am I hypocrite? I feel like a hypocrite. It's easy to pretend to be an artist, but one is really only an artist if one makes art.

I wish I knew why I am so cruel to myself; why I make myself feel so awful about not making art that I can't even lift a brush I'm in such misery. How did I learn to be such a defeatist? It's fortunate that I have you and my husband, the poet, or I think I would be seriously tempted to slink away and never make art again. It's too hard. I'm too pathetic. I hate myself.

Am I going to get over this? Not just this hump, but humps in general? I feel like just when I'm getting somewhere - WHAMO! Self-doubt tackles me full force. I'm sick of it. It's tiring to be vigilant against one's own neurosis all the time. I keep hoping that one day I'll just be cured. Is that even possible?

I'm being a big whiner. I'll stop now.

Love you,

Grace

The Grind

2005-08-08T23:35:00.000-04:00

Dearest Grace,

All of this art excitement has been great, but the real test is coming. It is nearly midnight and I have just set down my tools for the evening. My mould-maker is coming to fetch Joseph next week and I, intending to have it done Sunday, continue to struggle with that Dorfman head. You know, sometimes these portraits really come easily and sometimes I rework the face a hundred times. Things in Virginia are not looking good and the moment Joseph leaves the building, I have to put my diplomat's hat on and head down there to try and get our church a stone Mary. So, you say you want to make art, huh?

Well, I have already had two women interested in rooms of their own! One women immediately came to mind, so I sent her a note. She wrote back today. Perfect timing for her! She is still at the Blue Elephant, but just had a baby and it isn't the best environment for a little one. She asked how I'd feel about having a second, much smaller, studio mate! I feel very excited and we hope to get together next week and see what we can work out. We have met before, quite some time ago, in fact. We really hit it off. She is only a few years older than me, married and is a bery bright and talented ceramicist. She is positively adorable, you'd love her!

The other woman I met briefly during the summer ceramic sculpture class. We didn't have a lot of time to get to know one another, but she seems really lovely. Again, only a few years older than you and I. Can this studio support three women, two cats and a baby?

So, while I am excited about the things to come, I am attempting to stay focused at the grind at hand, namely the Dorfman head and Joseph.

Working hard,
Sarah

Gold

2005-08-06T21:56:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

Of course, I remember your first bronze - your first sculpture - How could I forget?! We, as artists, always have these sort of aesthetic hankerings. You want to do a full scale bronze. I want to paint something that opens and closes on hinges. I can't explain it, really. Just something about two paintings in one with an opening or revelation fascinates me.

I think it is natural for us to be interested in certain themes. It's not the same as a series in the modern sense. A series in the modern sense assumes that you can explore something fully and move on to the next thing. I'm not sure that what you and I do is really "exploration". It always struck me more as meditations. We contemplate something God has revealed to us and then, as best we can, pass on what we have learned. Is it possible that He has given us a gift of insight into very particular things? For you, it might be the Annunciation. For me, it is Pietas and Depositions. There is definitely something deep within these themes that speak to us, a vein of gold running through them for which we have a special voice. This is something to think about, for sure.

As far as sharing your studio with some other women, I think it sounds like a fabulous idea. Doing so would benefit you in so many ways: providing companionship, encouragment and creative and financial capital. In addition, it would give the space an opportunity to be a blessing to other women looking for a room of their own. Maybe you could post a notice somewhere and see what interesting women take interest. I admit, I'm jealous. I want to share in your space and have a room of my own. Alas, Matt still has a least a semester to go, but I promise I will get there as soon as I can.

See you soon,

Grace

My Room

2005-08-05T23:50:00.000-04:00

Hi Grace,

Do you remember that episode of Star Trek when the telepathic aliens go into Spock and find it to be a lonesome place? Well, as long as you and I know one another, it will never be a lonely place. Oh, it is as though we read one another's minds! I was just working out a pose this afternoon, before I even read your post. A garden, you say? I am dying to do a real bronze. You know the only one I have ever actually had cast was that first head back at Hillsdale. You remember the one? Now it is in a private collection at a doctor’s house in Atlanta. So I've done the bronze and now the marble sculptures.

It is difficult to wriggle out from one's own shadow. The Handmaiden has been deteriorating in my studio these past five years. In fact, her hand fell off again. Whenever people visit they are automatically drawn to her. I sometimes get angry with her. I did that sculpture six years ago and sometimes I think it is the best thing I've done. That depresses me. Have I not improved over the years? Or is it simply that I poured my soul more into that piece than any other? Now she is beyond the point of rescue and I must recycle the clay soon. Even before I knew what an "Annunciation" was I envisioned that sculpture and she has set me on this path that I hadn't expected. As much as I hate the "series" in art, I cannot help but be obsessed with one of the greatest displays of faith the world has known. I told you that I wept at the National Gallery in front of a stained glass Annunciation. I was reminded there of my direction. I make Annunciations, Grace, perhaps in some way preparing the people of God for a visit from Gabriel.

I admit that I am concerned about the stress involved in paying for the studio and keeping it up. So, today I sent an e-mail to a very lovely ceramicist that I met a year or so ago. She is young and married and wonderfully cute and smart. I am not sure if she needs space or not, but she seems like she'd make a lovely studio mate. Plus, I sent another note to another potential high school studio assistant. My darling Diana is going off to college and I won't have her help around here any more. I am hoping to find a writer who needs a room of her own to rent my office space upstairs. It is a great office and while I enjoy it tremendously, I think that I can transform one of the upstairs rooms in our home into a room for writing. I would enjoy the company and creative energy here at the studio. Of course, my hope remains to fill the upstairs with paintings and a small artist.

While I am enjoying this Arrivals log tremendously, I look forward to the day when we can celebrate a true Arrival at Baltimore International. There is always space for you here, three rooms of your own, if you like!

Good Night,
Sarah

Reworkings

2005-08-05T12:13:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I'm glad you've reconsidered closing your studio. You know how important Virgina Woolf thinks it is for a creative woman to have a room of her own. I see studios as spaces filled with potentiality. Even when there is no particular "project" at hand, the existence of the space implies that creation can and does occur within it. This why I long for an "official" studio rather than just a corner of the living room. A space devoted to creative endeavors begs to be filled. An easel next to the couch begs to be moved. It is in the way, rather than part of the way. The role our environment plays in our process can never be underestimated.

It's funny to me how the challenges you and I face echo in each others lives so much. You say that you're not sure what you will do next - that you've already achieved your life's goal of an over-lifesized marble. Could this be one of the many reasons I have been stuck so long? I always wanted to put an oil painting in church. My pieta has now hung in St. Anthony's for over five years and I've been living in its long shadow ever since. Having a next goal and a new goal is very important I think. Perhaps you should consider working on a project that you design first and find partronage for later? Something more broad than just one statue - like a Mary garden or something? Just a thought.

By the way, I wanted to mention that with the return of my artistic vision, I've made a most surprising discovery. Unearthing my sketchbooks and supplies, I've been astonished by the dozens of tiny drawings, sketches and plans I've amassed over that past few years. I thought I had done nothing of worth all this time, but I apparently squirreled away a sizable trove of ideas without really noticing. It seems the time was not wasted as much as I thought. So, don't be hard on yourself if it takes some time for you decide what to do next. I think our creative inner child does her best work when she is not under the scrutiny of our full attention.

Take care,

Grace

Letting Go

2005-08-03T22:20:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

Your artist is on to something. These letters have helped me a great deal! I had such a splendid day in the studio yesterday. I didn't go to Hood, just stayed here with the garage door wide open. See, the windows in here are not fabulous, but the garage door faces north. So, with it open the light is just right. Granted, it was about 95 degrees yesterday and I had sweat dripping from every part of me as I sat perched atop a stack of blocks set high enough for me to reach St. Joseph's face. I worked hard and feverously. I reminded myself of a great photograph, of Brancusi I think, stripped to the waist, drenched in sweat and carving a large block of stone. The sweat actually added to the experience, not to mention the odor of hard work.

I was visited by a man with eight children. He was doing some construction on a house nearby and saw my work. He is a Christian and loved the sculpture of St. Joseph. An old friend from Market Street popped on over. I hadn't seen her since the day I introduced Erik to Cafe' Anglais. Then my gardening neighbor brought over some fresh tomatoes and good conversation. I was alone all day in the studio and not alone at all really. It was grand.

Then today. I have spent the day sobbing. I don't know if I am ready to let all of this go, Grace. I have drempt of this space since that first sculpture back at Hillsdale. I have been working hard to establish my own studio for the past several years and here I am on the threshold of letting it all go.

I mailed a rent check to my landlord in order to lease one of the smaller garages for storage and sent them also my two month's notice for my time here. She rented the small space to someone else the same day she mentioned it to me. At first I was really upset that she rented it out already, but then maybe God is trying to tell me something. Does He intend for me to be here a bit longer? Money is really the key issue here. He has overcome that obstical before.

I really should turn that question I asked you back to me. Honestly, I have no idea what happens next. I was so focused on establishing my own studio and making a giant marble sculpture; and now here I am. What do you do when you accomplish a goal? Set a new one, I suppose.

I feel a little confused and yet delighted that some of my desire to make art has returned. In fact, it is stronger now than it has been in some time.

Thank you for these letters,
Sarah

What I know

2005-08-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

You asked some really interesting questions today. I don't know if I would rather work under the pressure of a commission or of my own volition. I do know which circumstance is more likely to lead to the creation of art. I'm a creature that always needs structure and purpose. If you put me alone in my studio with no instruction other than to make something, I will make myself absolutely crazy in 3 days flat just trying to figure out what to do. Give me a project and three hours and I'll actually do something, even if I whine and complain the whole time. This is human nature really - we always imagine the other situation is SO much better.

You're also right about the importance of coupling the baby steps with a long term goal. I have for some time avoided thinking about my long term goals. Finishing Joseph scares you. Having a goal I might not get to terrifies me. Goals seem like so many potentially unfulfilled dreams; things that will some day burden me with regret. I fear that I could dream too big and disappoint my own expectations. My feeble solution then is to give up on having goals at all; to keep my dreams at bay with pessimistic reason and reality. I give up and give up and give up until I've practically lost all reason to pick up a brush at all. I haven't a clue in which direction to head, because I'm too scared to think about where I want to go. Fifteen minutes at time is great, until you realize that it can turn into years of going in circles.

Right now, I just have the immediate goal of finishing the painting I'm working on. I consider it practice, something to hone my skills for bigger and better things. What are these bigger and better things? I'll confess that with all my pessimism, I didn't think I was capable of bigger and better things. Still, a few weeks ago, I asked my husband (the poet) if he held out a particular goal as part of fulfilling his purpose in life. Unexpectantly, he turned the question back on me. Giving myself over to the thought, I found that my dreams - my old dreams, the ones I had abandoned - still tugged at me fiercely. I felt tears of longing well up. I thought I had changed so much, that life had altered me, but it was still there. There had been no adequate replacement, no substitute. Could it be that when you know your purpose in life - really Know It - you find that while you can run for a time, it does not change?

You know me too well. What you spoke outloud, my soul echoes in a whisper. An altarpiece by Advent 2007? I know just the one.

Thank you,

Grace

Letters to a Young Artist

2005-08-02T16:56:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

I think that you, Sam, and Julia Cameron are on to something here! Since Ivan had to go to the kitty hospital today and I may need to run and get him I stayed at the studio to work on Joseph and took the day off at Hood. My only goal was to finish Joseph's face. Things have gone really well and I have worked many hours and I am not quite tired yet. I will finish just his face tonight and then I will make another goal for tomorrow.

I asked a seasoned pro and a mentor of mine about his studio experience and how he has managed to work all these years without being totally burnt out. He wrote to me, a young artist, "It can be very tough. I did get a bit fried after the 12 saints. The next new project is always exciting to me and I draw energy from that. Somewhere along the way I learned how to work quickly and not beat myself up for not working. To just set things aside and work on something else for a while when I get stuck. The long hours of isolation actually appeal to me, but when I've had enough of that, I bring in a model or a helper to break the monotony. (emphasis mine)

"Also, when you have multiple projects going at once, it is much easier to stay interested in sculpting and to manage the finances. Make the deposit amounts as big as possible. 1/4 - 1/3 at least. And keep money coming in from multiple sources. (Easy to say). Keep all business receipts for tax purposes and never spend a nickel you can't deduct. Deduct for an in-home office. Take no vacations for years at a time. Work for other sculptors for many years to learn and to cover the bills. That's how I did it, along with the cathedral work and financial help from my family. It's not an attractive life unless one is driven to sculpt."

After only five years I am ready for a sabbatical, yet as these projects come to an end I can feel my energy and enthusiasm returning and I am already dreaming up the next big thing. Who knows what the Lord has in mind next. Do you think, Grace, that you want to find a commission to push you to work or do you prefer working on your own projects without the pressure of a client and deadlines? They can be killer, yet they help to get the work done. There is no real perfect solution, I guess. It is extremely helpful to have 15 minute goals, but I also think that we need to have long-term goals. For example, a goal could be to paint an altarpiece by Advent of 2007. What steps can you take, 15 minutes at a time, to get closer to that goal? What are yours, Grace?

Miss you, love you,
Sarah

15 minutes

2005-08-01T20:54:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I'm convinced that Julia Cameron's (and Sam's) discovery of the power of just 15 minutes of work a day could change my art life forever.

Last night, I couldn't sleep because I had so much on my mind. When I woke up this morning, aching and still exhausted, I began to write list of all the things I needed to do today. As usual, I started the list with "Make some art." I do this most often out of habit and as a point of self-flagellation at the end of the day when I (as usual) don't even attempt to accomplish this task. Today, however, it dawned on me that "Make some art" was uselessly vague. How would I know what art to make? How would I know when I had done enough? How much time to set aside? When to stop? The directive is so hopelessly open-ended that I'm not surprised that I have spent so many days of my life avoiding the first thing on my "To-do" list.

Determined, I went back and erased "Make some art" and replaced it with a very small, but specific goal - namely, to get paint on the last 2" x 2" square of bare canvas still left on a painting I've been working on. It wasn't much, but I knew exactly how to accomplish this task and how much time it would take me. It took about 15 minutes. I checked off this thing on the top of my list and felt a little glow of accomplishment. Even better, I'm inspired to go back at it again tomorrow.

I tell you, that Torode fellow is a genius.

Love you,

Grace

Work and Sometimes Not Work

2005-08-01T15:59:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

I think that Richard Serra just became the arrivals poster child for highly successful, in worldly terms, artistes that we do not wish to become. He obviously has an over-inflated sense of his own importance. "Art is not democratic. It is not for the people." He says. This question begs to be asked, “For whom do we make art?” He may be right that a popular vote is not the way to determining good art, but I will venture to say that neither is the collective voice of a bunch of egotistical, overly-educated, esoteric art snobs in New York.

I had a surprisingly productive weekend. This isn’t to say that I actually finished anything, but I worked and I don’t feel punished. I am actually feeling fond of sculpture this morning. It seems that creating creates its own desire to do more of the same. The more we create, the more we desire to create. Sam admits to writing, on many occasions, only fifteen minutes per day. Cameron is right- just a little track each day can bring us across the entire continent!

I have been invited to attend this year’s ELCA Global Missions Event. The idea is to share my work and do a portraiture demo. This is part of the impetus for the cheesy self-promoting postcards I had made that you will soon get in the mail. I am actually really excited about it. Honestly, I hope to sell a bronze and perhaps land a speaking gig or something. Just one bronze and we are both off to Italy!

Inspired by Sam’s comments, as well as the recent visit with my Mary and Joseph client at the studio a few weeks ago, I have been thinking about the nature of commissioned work, personal work and “selling out.” I haven’t done a piece of “personal” artwork in well over a year, and yet in some ways I have been able to make my commissioned work highly personal. This is both a dream come true as well as a hindrance to the work. The more personal a work becomes the more terrifying and thus the more I procrastinate. The Dorfman heads will be cast in vinyl and painted to look like flesh; there is no personal investment. This makes them emotionally easy to do and I need that right now. I don’t think that making these vinyl heads are selling out, either. At least I am practicing my craft and paying my rent. I don’t sign them, but then again, I don’t remember if I even signed the Virgin or not!

Joseph, on the other hand, is deeply personal. There are parts of him that are parts of Erik; that are parts of me. He is a devotional aid to Christians seeking the Divine. He is going to be carved in stone. Oh My! I think I just wet myself, thinking of the gravity of it all! Without being commissioned I would never have done the work; I would never have been able to do it.

Commissions keep me honest and keep me finishing work. I never finish work that doesn’t have a check waiting for me afterwards. Am I scared? Or am I so practical that I cannot justify making art that isn’t making my living? Perhaps I am so scared that should I create something truly from my soul and actually manage to finish it, there will be no client to blame for any criticism. At least now I can say that my client made me do it.

After getting married to my beloved Erik, I will no longer have to rely on an unsteady stream of commissions to pay my rent and feed myself. I can be particular about which commissions I eschew and which I accept. The only stipulation is that, in our current situation at least, if I want to have a studio outside of the house it has to be able to support itself. So, when my “break” is over I will have some decisions to make.

I am not sure if any of us are any closer to relieving ourselves of artistic angst. The only cure, as I see it, is to work and to sometimes not work; and never to feel guilty about it.

Love as always,
Sarah

What matters

2005-07-31T14:04:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I can't believe you just brought up Richard Serra. I'm going to be perfectly frank and admit that I can't stand the man or his art. He's a quintessential example of one of those stuffy, self-absorbed artistes and thus, is worshipped by other stuffy wannabe artistes everywhere. Remember dour, oversexed Mr. Abstract Expressionist? He LOVED Serra. Myself, I get his stuff but don't appreciate it much. So, it's a big rusty piece of metal that stands up in it's own. Big whoop. The biggest impact it has on life is that people have to walk around it. WOW. Now that's what I call bettering society.

This sort of grandiose, yet vacuous, philosophical drivel makes me crazy. Take his Tilted Arch, for example. In 1981, the taxpayers shelled out $175,000 for a rusty curve of steel 120 feet long and 12 feet high to be placed smack dab in the middle of Federal Plaza in New York City. Everyone in the nearby buildings hated the thing. First of all, it was ugly. Secondly, they now had to walk all the way the sculpture to cross the plaza and could no longer use the area as a public gathering place for concerts and such. Furthermore, it looked like a great place to hide behind if, say, you wanted to lob bombs at the buildings. At the cost of another $85,000, the suggestion was to have the sculpture moved, but Serra claimed the work was 'site specific' and thus would cease to be the work he intended if it was placed anywhere else. In other words, its purpose was to be in the way in that particular place and it just wouldn't be the same if it was in the way somewhere else. The end result? In an incident known to serious artistes as the Greatest Travesty against all that is Good and Artistic in the Modern of Memory of the World, the Tilted Arch cut into pieces in the dead of night and carted away to a scrap heap somewhere. All I have to say is "boo-hoo." It was a monstrosity and society is better off without it.

As to be expected, the man is no prize himself. I was once forced to watch a PBS interview with Serra in which, after defending his reputation as an abrasive ass, he was reluctantly led into a discussion about September 11th. He was there, you see, but from his tone of voice and concern, he might as well have been talking about small fire on his front lawn. "We saw people falling from the buildings," he said in a ho-hum voice, "It was horrible." Well, would this horrible experience effect his art? "No, not directly," he answered quickly, as if it was stupid question. Real artists aren't effected by anything happening outside of them. What they do is too lofty, too timeless, too esoteric to be effected about the toils and troubles of the world. I think this was the moment I truly came to despise him. Of course his art wouldn't be effected, because it has absolutely no bearing on actual human experience!! The beat-up pieces of metal caused by the terrorists have more meaning in this world than his stuff ever will.

Well, my blood is boiling now, but that's not a bad thing. We needed to be reminded every now and again that worldly fame means nothing. You can have an army of devotees and still make art that is, for all intensive purposes, empty and useless. I will never rid myself of the conviction that whatever we do, it's the real people and real experiences that matter.

Speak to me,

Grace

Watch

2005-07-29T14:40:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

Yesterday, I went to a talk where a recent MFA grad showed slides of her thesis exhibition and illuminated us as to its somewhat obscure meaning. It was a performance installation, which was very visually provocative and inciteful. In the background she read aloud the Myth of Sisyphus while an assembly line of labwear protected workers threw, trimmed, preserved and canned teeny bud-vases in an entirely white room. We discussed the nature of art and where is the art within an installation/performance piece. Is it the visual objects within the gallery, the documentation of the exhibit, or the fleeting moment of the performance itself? Many galleries who want to host her work want something to sell. Does she sell trinkets and memorabilia or photograph postcards of the show?

This made me think of how you and I were going to hire Will Farnham for our senior exhibit at Hillsdale and make him sit in a pile of sand and beg for food, only to refuse it. What would we have sold then? Pieces of Will's gorgeous mane?

I also considered how photographs of sculpture are false representations of a sculpture. A photograph of a sculpture can only show one view and uses light and shadow to create an image that is, in a way, its own piece of art. I recently ordered postcards to advertise my work, but I was too impatient to wait until I have fine photographs of the Virgin installed in marble at the church; soI simply used a snapshot of me working at the studio. I am really glad of my decision. Maybe I will do away with "portfolio" images and just use snapshots friends take of me working. Then the sculptures can live in peace where ever they are.

Have I mentioned how much I dislike galleries? I used to avoid galleries because they are economical infeasible for what I do. Moreso, I like sculpture that has a home even before it is begun. Galleries seem to be to be like shopping centers for art where people come to buy something that would go well over their sofa. Even as an artist, I go into galleries thinking, "Wow, I can imagine this on that one wall to the left of that great leather chair..." Can you imagine if fashion designers designed clothes that look good in shopping malls? It often seems that artists are designing work to go in galleries. This might not apply as much as to painting as to sculpture, because painting is more or less contained within the frame, but a sculpture inhabits space. I am thinking out loud here.

Anyhow, after all this I felt all intellectually stimulated and was going to go to the studio and make stuff, but instead went out to Isabella's with the group and drank wine and ate tapas. I have always had really good luck with Spanish reds; I highly recommend that you try some. Matt especially would enjoy a glass or two. They are not sweet, but go down smoother than a regular merlot or something. Drinking makes me really chatty.

Does it make your inner artist crazy when you read about big shots like Richard Serra install a bunch of stupid pieces of metal in Spain and the Guggenheim Bilbao pays every cent of it?

I don't have any serious animosity for Serra or his work. The most I feel is a "meh, it's big." All artists over the world, after watching one of those aforementioned artist movies, see someone like Serra make it big and go a little more nuts.

Your previous letter about the maniacly obsessed artist made me think of a certain artist I used to work with. He was like that. He is much more prolific, but I seem to be more sucessful. Manaicly obsessed doesn't equal sucess. Hey look at da Vinci- he hardly finished a single painting, but all of the ones he managed to finish were awesome!

Well, before I babble on any further with no point what-so-ever, I must close here. I think I need to do away with the coffee, too.

Crazy as usual,

Sarah

Why we shouldn't see movies

2005-07-29T10:30:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I understand your self-abuse as much as I do your "lazy-sack" ways. Frankly, if my inner artist and I were seperate people, I would surely have gone to jail by now for all the cruelty I've heaped upon myself. It's so hard, I think, because we'll never be what we imagine an artist should be.

Remember how much we loved the book My Name is Asher Lev? I was enraptured with the fact that Asher couldn't not make art. Even when he tried, it still came bursting out of every pore. As a child, I also remember watching this movie about Robert Schumann where he became so obsessed with extending the distance his fingers could span across the keyboard that he practically ruined his hands. And don't even get me started on Amadeus or The Agony and the Ecstasy. These are real artists, right? Talented, devoted, obsessed...Do we have even a glimmer of a hope of measuring up?

Truth is, the ideal of the obsessed, manically productive artist does nothing but dishearten me. During long unproductive periods, I may have felt like art might come bursting out of me, but ever longer unproductive periods have proven that eventually the need to make something gets buried, leaving only a nagging guilt behind. Even when I'm working, I will never be terribly or consistently productive. It's just not in my nature. I'm more of a 'putzer.' When something gets done, it feels like it's almost by accident - a little painting that slips in between hours of tea times, surfing, reading, housekeeping and lolling about. My question is, if some art, rather than no art, gets done can any day truly considered wasted?

You ask if you can forgive yourself for your lazy-sack artist habits. My answer is, there is nothing to forgive. You have been as productive as you could be, bit by bit at a time. If anything, forgive yourself for being so demanding as to scare away your desire to make art at all. Your artist has always served you the best she can. Praise her, nurture her, give her attainable goals - and, for Pete's sake, don't let her see any movies about artists.

Love you,

Grace

The Forgiven

2005-07-28T09:28:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

I will begin with confession: I have to finish this Dorfman head and Joseph and I am so scared that I fear I may wet myself. I am procrastinating right now. If it weren't writing, it would be something else; I've already cleaned my living room. I have taken way too much time with Joseph and without all of this trepedation I could have finished months ago. But, I didn't. On to absolution... Is it possible for the self-abusive artist? Can I forgive myself for my bad, lazy-sack artist habits and start this day fresh? Do you think God felt any stress trying to get the universe completed in seven days?

Somehow we need to find a way to forgive ourselves each new day for whatever we didn't get done the day before. Doesn't Julia Cameron recommend in lieu of a "to do" list, a "ta-da" list? It is so much easier just to beat ourselves up, isn't it?

I haven't touched any clay all week. Instead I have been catching up on bills and house keeping. I spent a lot of time earlier this week tending to the business of art, namely sending out for price quotes at a Baltimore ship yard, and working a time-schedule out with my mould-maker. Plus, I moved some books over to Erik's house. Where-ever my books go, I am not far behind; it offered me some encouragement.

I have some ambitious ideas, I just need to get through these other projects first.

Off to work,
Sarah

Bit by bit

2005-07-27T10:36:00.000-04:00

Hi Sarah,

Once again, I am writing you just before I jaunt off to work. I'm glad you're back. I have trouble feeling motivated to make artwork without you. I loved the Nike picture, by the way, but then, I have a thing for headless goddesses. Winged Victory is one of my favorites.

I painted on Monday and it was once again grueling to get to but surprisingly comforting once I started. I've been trying to make myself little goals. "I will fill in section x through z and consider myself to have done some art today." It works. Little bits at a time get done; I feel like I've done my job and the project gets somewhere. What more can you ask?

It reminds me of Sam Torode, who confessed recently that he sits down to write with the expectation that it will happen all in one perfect first draft, revised as he goes along. This worked for non-fiction but not so much for novels. I think this is true of 'big works' of art, as well. You want to sketch in one go, but paintings take more patience and revision. Donnie always used to say, "The sooner you just get the whole canvas convered with paint, the sooner you get somewhere." I guess this is the painter's version of "Don't get it right, get it written!"

Well, I'm off. Have I mentioned that frequent painting has rekindled my romance with certain shades of paint? I have just added Green Umber to my list of 'Most Loved Pigments' - right next to Naples Yellow and, of course, Vermillion.

Love you,

Grace

Stop thinking and Just Move

2005-07-26T10:05:00.000-04:00

Dearest Grace,

Yes, I am back now. I do seem to take a lot of vacations- Arizona in January, Dallas in March, and Olivet in June, and again to Michigan in July. I won't be traveling again until our honeymoon, which is in two and a half months! Perhaps I truly am Italian.

I had a really fantastic artist-date last Wednesday. I had a flight out of National at 5pm, but the last train out of Frederick left at 7am. So, I walked to the train station from my studio, rode an hour and a half into Union Station and took the metro to Teaism, where I had a delicious breakfast. Needless to say, I packed extremely light for my trip, taking only my signature red, monogrammed backpack. As agrarian as I might be, I loved that I could travel all the way to Michigan without getting into a car!!

Anyhow, I stopped at Olsson's and harassed the youthful clerk about certain books I was hunting down. I found a collection of short novels by Wendell Berry and read in the sculpture garden. Those stories were written either about or for my father! I could just imagine him in some of these grisly farm-adventures Berry lays out. So, I wanted to give the book to him. He is a born, albeit stuck, writer. His own life reads better than fiction. Who knows, perhaps I will leave my penchant for non-fiction and make him a key character in a novel. No one will no what is true and what is not. In fact, many of the stories he tells about his own adventures we are still unsure which aspects are a tall tale and which are the honest-to-goodness truth. Sometimes the truth surprises us the most.

I popped on into the new sculpture wing at the National Gallery as well. Oh, Grace! There was a medieval stained glass of the Virgin Annunciate. I cannot escape this theme. My heart swelled and my eyes pooled at the sight. My devotion to the Virgin rivals that of many pious Catholics. I just cannot get beyond her faith, simple and perfect. "Be it unto me as you have said." O! were I to have that sort of faith! And perhaps the in-progress Mary is not that last for me.

One of my sandals busted on the ground of the National Gallery Sculpture Garden and the only other pair of shoes I had were five-inch platform shoes. Being tall does offer a different viewpoint. While I was attempting to fix the broken sandal I felt like the Nike relief. Grace, art haunts me. I cannot escape it.

With this recent surge of creativity, I have been lamenting the loss of my studio. I know that my fields need to lie fallow and perhaps mourning is appropriate here. That studio has been my dream, but it has not fulfilled me. My father always encourages me that the Lord will give His children the desires of their hearts. He has given me so much already and I have been ungrateful. Recently, while I was home my father encouraged me that I am on the right path and that closing my studio is key to unleashing more creativity. He doesn't offer advice too often, so when he does I listen.

So it is when the Holy Spirit speaks, or our "inner artists" who we pray are plugged into the very same Spirit. Perhaps they are, in fact, one in the same. Your artist told you to start this blog and to lay a little track each day. My dance instructor is constantly reminding me to stop thinking and just move! Whenever I get hung up on the next step, or trying to guess which move he is going to attempt next, someone gets kicked in the shin. We are dancing with the Spirit. He leads and we need to stop thinking and just move.

Love always,
Sarah

Affirmed

2005-07-25T09:44:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

Are you back from Michigan yet? I compliment (and envy) you on your ability to take frequent vacations with a clear conscience. It is very European of you. We work way too hard here in the U.S. It's like we think that the whole economy would go to hell if just one of us stopped working every now and again. I will always envy the Italians who have the good sense to only work nine months out of the year and even then, to work fewer hours a day.

I have been a lazy-sack artist all week, just as I have been a lazy-sack blogger and for very much the same reason: I'm dying for some form of affimation. Where are the inquisitive comments, the press releases, the bloggers dying to link to us? Where are the book deals, already? I'm getting ahead of myself, of course, but I have uncovered a part of me that seems to require leagues of cheering fans before believing that project is worth doing at all. That's not the point, I know. I blog and I make art because I was told I should. Whether or not anyone else in the universe acknowledges my efforts is secondary - or should be.

Yesterday, I heard a fiery little Baptist minister preach about vision and misson. It was something to the effect that we are to seek to fulfill our mission in life regardless of the wisdom of the world and the appearence of success. He even threw in a nice story about a missionary that preached in a market place in Burma for 20 years before he saved a single person. 20 years? I'm trying to imagine making art for 20 years and never having a sale. Would I carry on because that is what God made me to do? I worry so much that the art I want to make has no relevance in this world - no chance of "success" - that not only do I want to give up, I don't really want to "waste" my effort trying to begin.

Julia Cameron prays to God and says, "Okay, You take care of quality and I'll take care of quantity." In other words, she does what she must and doesn't worry about the "results." Fine then, I'll pick up this mission, heft it on my shoulder and start walking. I know where I'm going but the road looks so long from here.

Pleasant journeys,

Grace

Heads Up

2005-07-19T12:37:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

As usual, you are full of wisdom and grace. I actually got a lot of work done yesterday. I awoke early, came to Hood by 9am and was out by 2pm. I had to run to the post-office and I took a few minutes to eat a chicken salad croissant from a downtown cafe that offers outdoor seating. As much of a country girl as I am, I love dining alone al fresco at city cafes and I love chicken salad. I am going to love Italy.

Anyhow, I had plenty of time in the afternoon and evening to work on the Dorfman head. I blocked the entired head in and nailed down the profile. I need to make it presentable by this evening, for the first review by the client. These Dorfman heads are great art-exercises for me. I don't have any emotional investment because they are not my "work of art" but rather a detail in a wax museum somewhere. I am not offended at critiques, though sometimes I get frusterated with time constraints. I enjoy portraiture and this sort doesn't wear me out. Well, it does tire my hands. After a few hundred of these guys, I will beable to knock out a head in my sleep. Plus, only two heads and we're in Italy!

So, how can I just produce other artwork as I do with these heads? How can I separate myself from the work enough to be able to actually face it every day?

I will be working all evening trying to finish up the head enough for the client's first view. Tomorrow I leave for Michigan, but since I don't have a ride to the airport I will walk to the train station and ride into Union Station, where I will take the subway to the airport. The catch is that the last train out of Frederick leaves at 7am. My flight doesn't leave until 5pm. I think my artist and I will have a date at the National Gallery and Teaism.

Miss you,
Sarah

Under the surface

2005-07-18T11:00:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

No offense, but your blogging rate and content exhausts me even at this distance. No sooner have I cogitated over how I will reply to one post when you have made another. I hope I haven't led you astray by giving you place to spend all of your thought-capital prematurely. I practically held my breath through the last post, fearing you would spill your whole idea right onto my lap. I'm relieved that you didn't, but it was still more than I know what to do with. Thus, I will just say, "You have ideas? Good for you. Make something."

As for the post before last, I think that you, like many artists (myself included), have a habit of confusing visual or ideological adrendaline rushes with useful bouts of real creativity. We overdose on them, make nothing and then wonder where all our 'inspiration' has gone. You asked how you can maintain the momentum from such a day and my answer is, you don't. It's one big myth that artists create most of the work out of some passionate storm of creativity - where they stay up to late, eat little, forget to pee, and stop only to be stimulated by overwhelming visual beauty, emotional ecstasy and deep philosophical discourse. Give me a break. That maybe how Hollywood imagines it happens, but no one could actually produce very well out of all that nor for very long.

Stop beating yourself up. And, for goodness sake, please don't drug yourself into a Tavist induced-stupor anymore. Take it for your runny nose if you have too, but it is better that you learn to ride the wave of your own emotions (irrational as they may be) than to bury them under sleep in the hopes that 'cooler heads will prevail' in the morning. Who says the cooler heads are always right? Your rhetoric maybe whiney and grumpy late at night, but does that make your feelings any less genuine? I say, dig them all out again and sift them for Truth. Maybe there's nothing but dust, but it is better to know for sure.

Take care,

Grace

Go To Your Studio and Make Stuff!

2005-07-17T23:03:00.000-04:00

My Dear Friend, Grace,

So I girded my loins and worked on the Dorfman head. The Museum Figures Company gives me this decade-old Roma and an armature so that I don't have to use my own clay. What a terrible, terrible clay this is! It is all dried out and doesn't seem to want to stick to itself. Even after being in the clay -warmer all night long it is still as hard as a rock. My hands started to hurt and I returned to being all whiney.

Kayb called. As usual our telephone conversations are long, confessional and overwhelmingly inspiring. I had a recurring vision of a sculpture that I have been wanting to do during this conversation. I went to a Revive Our Hearts conference sometime during my time in college, my second one. An image of a sculpture came to me then, but I pushed it out of my mind. The Critic told me things like there was no composition, it had been done before, boring! I ignored it. It came back about the time we were going to begin the Stations. I doodled a picture of it, but it seemed like such an uninteresting sculpture that I didn't devote much more thought to it. Later on I tried to add some things to it to make it more interesting, but to no avail. Stations 10, it returned, so I put some of the thought into that Station. Out of my mind for good? Nope, it came back again today. So, in lieu of working on my commissions I made a maquette. It wants to be life-size, but I will have to put that on hold for now. Nonetheless, did that feel good; it has been trying to get out for so long now! In keeping with Frudakis' advice I will refrain from saying much more about its content until I am done or close to it. Otherwise, I will never finish it.

I realized that if I re-do the Dorfman head in the J-Mac, of which I have a ton, I can whip that thing out in mere days. I sent an e-mail to Mr. Dorfman pleading my case for more luxurious clay that won't give me tendonitis. Ug, the perils of working in cheap clay.

I think that taking a break will be tougher than I imagine.

As always,
Sarah

A Moody Creature Indeed

2005-07-17T15:04:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

So rather than getting out of my own way and making some art, I wore myself out in all the excited of Friday's happenings. I went to work at Hood yesterday, having slept little the night before. I came home tired and hungry and took a nap at way too late an hour. I woke feeling not myself at all, back to hating art and feeling completely ungrateful for all that I have. I was mad, once again, about moving off of 5th Street and whiney about the sculptures. I called Erik in Chicago and grumped at him. He grew weary and then I called my mom, who I can always count on for a swift kick in the ass.

You have to love my mom! She gave me the what-for, told me to take some herbs and go to bed. I locked the cats up in the studio and drugged myself with my faithful "Tavist" allergy medicine. The only side effect, for me, is a good 10-12 hour sleep. Not exactly the best daytime allergy med, but great for stuffy-nosed insomniacs like me. I woke up this morning feeling much better, but have spent a good part of the day avoiding the Dorfman head. I was suposed to have had a date with Jenn, but instead we talked on the phone for a good hour while I ate a cheese and onion sandwich.

So, Grace, how do we get that sort of momentum I had on Friday and hold on to it? For me, I get so excited that I simply wear myself out and have to sleep. I, like you, have a painfully short attention span, except it seems when it comes to blogging or redesigning my website. I need to lay a little track each day. Even 1-2 hours I accomplish a lot. It seems that it takes me four hours to talk myself into working on the art and by that time I am hungry. So I eat. Then I get distracted for another hour blogging or some such thing and finally I can procrastinate no more and I have to face the dragon. Then it isn't so bad. I think to myself, "I have just spent six hours avoiding this and it isn't even such a big deal!!!"

So, enough procrasitnating for me. I am going to go down to my studio and make stuff, namely the Dorfman head. Then, when I weary, maybe I will take my artist out for coffee. Don't worry, I will bring my wallet this time. After a little date-time, I can work some more. It helps to reward myself with small things for small steps.

Oh, were this artmaking less painful! As I said to my mom about my anxieties of having children, though in a sense I was talking about making art, "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy."

Moodily yours,
Sarah

A new way of making art

2005-07-16T11:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I must run off to work in a few minutes (well, I think I shall already be late) but I wanted to shoot you a quick line. I'm glad you meeting with the church went well. See? I told you it would be fine and that you were worrying too much. Sounds like you had an eventful day all in all. I hope you didn't waste all your reflections on me. Make some good art out of it!

I painted yesterday. Just a little, but it was wonderful to have a brush in my hands again. I'm really trying to take Julia Cameron's advice to just 'lay a little track' each day. I always faced the canvas with feeling that I need to accomplish so much and make a lot of headway each day. I think little bits of work will get me farther with less grief. My attention span is only about 15 minutes long anyway. You wouldn't believe how weak my hands have gotten though. A large brush slipped right of my hands at one point!

Here's to the gaining of Strength (and Wisdom.)

Love you,

Grace

The Day To-Day

2005-07-15T22:10:00.000-04:00

Dearest Grace,

My goodness, what a day I have had today! I was up most of the night with insonmia last night. So, rather than tossing and turning I sat up redesigning my sculpture website. Seeing all of my sculptures there in one place made me feel a sense of accomplishment. Eventually I managed to get a few hours of sleep, but had to wake up and go to work at Hood. There is a grad student at Hood whose ceramic platter Erik recently purchased for our home together. When she delivered it to me in the slide room, it was all wrapped in towels. She had asked me to bring back the towels so that she could wrap up her new work from a two-week intensive class and bring them home. Of course I forgot the towels. When I saw her, I was reminded of them, so I cut out of work and walked home to fetch them for her. We have been getting some of the residue from the hurricane down south and it has been pouring for several days. Even with my lovely "Paris Street, Rainy Day" umbrella, I was drenched upon reaching the studio. I changed clothes, grabbed the towels and headed back to Hood.

I didn't realize that those towels had meant a divine appointment. Perhaps Douglass Adams is right. Walking down 5th Street, I saw a woman lying on the sidewalk with blood everywhere. I recognized her. She is the neighborhood drunk, always swaying as she walks up and down the street. I didn't know her name or anything about her, but I recall helping her out of a snow drift this past winter as she wandered into it in a drunken stupor. I knelt down and handed her a towel. I asked her what had happened. She was sobbing telling me how she shouldn't have been drinking. Apparently, she fell on the slippery sidewalk and hit her head and nose; she was bleeding and crying profusely. Luckily, I had three towels and I made a pillow for her head as another neighbor called the EMT. Where we live you can see the hospital, so it would be no time at all for them to arrive. She cried for her boyfriend and still another neighbor went to find him. I knelt down and touched her shoulder and asked her name. She became human at that point. Always the no-named town drunk right now was a human being bleeding and crying. I don't know what happened to me there, Grace, but I understood the shortest verse in the Bible, "Jesus Wept." Can you imagine God seeing his creation lying on a wet sidewalk, sobbing and so intociated? What in her life was so bad that she needed constant inebriation? I felt overwelmed with compassion and all of the sudden the problems in my life, the nerves I felt for the visit that would take place in a few hours, all of the sudden felt small. Nothing in my life was so bad as to drive me to a point of permanent intoxication. After the EMT came and took her to the hospital, a neighor came out and washed the sidewalk of her blood. I continued to walk to Hood and the rain came down even harder. I wept.

I returned back to the studio in anxious anticipation for the client visit. They were delayed due to rain and I had a moment to collect myself. Upon seeing the three of them, my heart was lightened. Over the years, we have built up a nice relationship and I have grown to such great affection for them, despite my ramblings of yesterday's e-mail. It was like seeing old relatives again. They came into the studio and we had a lively discussion about the sculpture and St. Joseph's face. They were unsure about the strong nose and the wild beard. One of them sat on a low-lying stool close to the ground and looked up into Joseph's face. She gasped and my heart was moved; in fact goosebumps covered my whole body. She beckoned the others to come and sit low. The sculpture will be placed high in a niche, so the low stool was a more realistic view of how it would appear in the church. They were very moved by the sculpture. I confessed to feeling nervous, but by the time they left my heart was so light and so moved. I feel energized again, Grace! That visit gave me the ~umph~ to finish this piece and really give it my best. What I needed was, as you said, to become hollow and it would happen. Honestly, I feel such a renewed love for sculpture and for what I do. It is as though today changed my life, my whole perspective. I am most grateful.

After they left, I was starved and emotionally exhausted, so I went to the Frederick Coffee Company in hopes of devouring a huge bowl of soup and seeing some familiar faces. On my way there, I met a couple on 4th Street and we chatted away. I was about to hand them a card when a quick shuffle through my purse made it blatantly obvious that I had left my wallet at home. No soup for me. So, I walked back weak now from hunger. I finally figured out which house my dear friend and her husband had purchased and renovated, so I knocked on the door. She wasn't home, but her extremely hospitable husband and some of his friends where having drinks and Italian food, so they invited me in for a bite and some wine. We enjoyed some lovely conversation.

I continued my journey home and ran into a beautiful young blond. I asked if she was my newest neighbor. Indeed, she and her husband had just purchased the home whose back yard backs into the parking lot surrounding the studio. I met so many of my new neighbors today, both by tragedy and by inhibitions deminished by wine and Italian food. I feel such a love for this street, my street for five years. There is a house going up for sale across the street, the blonde tells me. Oh, how conflicted I feel between my agrarian tendencies and my love for 5th Street and the pedestrian life! Think of all of the souls I have encountered today!

I miss you so dearly, my friend! I think that your artist and my artist have had a secret meeting behind our backs. I haven't felt this excited, this passionate about art in years now! This blog is a nice outlet and I love the fact that we are better kept in touch. It isn't just art that feeds our souls, but a full soul has the capacity to be hollow, to allow the muse to work through her.

God bless you, Grace.

Love,
Sarah

1-2-3-4 PRESSURE!

2005-07-14T17:57:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

I read your letter this morning and thought to myself that I have my critic pretty well under control. I am a working artist after all. The universe laughed at me. I cannot even be honest to myself. The truth is that I am scared to death to finish St. Joseph, even as much as I have extended the deadline and want to just be done with it. Everyone knows the saying "it isn't set in stone, you know!" Well, for me, it is. This is an enduring piece of artwork. I feel sick to my stomach thinking of the very thought of my apparent lack of genius being set in stone forever. *gulp*

The other day I sent some photos to members of the liturgical arts committee. I recieved an e-mail this afternoon from one of the members of the church in whose niche St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin will live forever. Yesterday's comments, as hard as they were to swollow, I knew were true. Something needed to be done with Joseph's face, and idealizing it is the solution. It is as though I am being pushed back into classicism. Is it a box I cannot escape, or is it rather my artistic calling? Being in that figure sculpture class the past few days had my heart yearning for time with just me and the model- drawing or sculpting. What is the point of it all, though? Who cares that I can model a figure in clay? What place does figure sculpture have in this postmodern era. Uh, do I sound like one of those emergents?

Anyhow, back to the conversation with my client. I wrote him back telling him that he was absolutely right about the face and then I stayed up way too late fixing it. Plus, he and some others are coming to the studio tomorrow. Then he sends this description of what he hopes to see in the face of St. Joseph:

"This is someone refernced only seven times in the scriptures. The moment to be captured in stone is when he comes out of a "dream" in which it is revealed to him that Mary's pregnant with the Son of God and he comes to accept this news. There are two words in Greek for "dream". One references a dream in the nature of a fantasy evoking a frivolous thought or flight of fancy. The other references an idea of substance, an insight that percolates into the consciousness and can be further reflected upon. The Joseph story uses the latter formulation. At its core, then, the act of faith Joseph makes is predicated on an act of his intellect and not on the whimsy of a fleeting fantasy.Thus, when he comes out of that state, he is in the continuing intellectual act of reflecting on what was revealed to him and, ultimately, wholeheartedly in faith ,embraces the truth of it. His face should not be in torment or gripped in uncertainty or even troubled. On the other hand, he should not be complacently accepting such an incredible idea. He should be in the process of allowing his faith to fill in the interstices of doubt and wonderment so that he becomes as accepting of his role in the salvation story as Mary is. He is on the verge of discovery and, once understood,of immediate acceptance. This is the moment of his wordless Magnificat. I hope I have not intruded on your imagination of this moment which, by the way, is as faith filled (perhaps, even more so because he does not have a baby kicking in the womb) as Mary's. "

After reading this, I had to make a run for the ladies' room. I was going to be sick. How can I be expected to produce such a face as to say all of this? And by tomorrow? Needless to say, the Critic is laughing her little hiney off.

If God placed us on earth to make great works of art then it is, in fact, Satan who employs the Critic, Sensors, and Resistance. Can we do the same as Christ, "Get thee behind me Satan?" After all we do have His authority over spiritual powers and principalities. Grace, this isn't simply a War on Art, this is a spiritual battle. Satan intends to demoralize us and what better than to keep us from enacting God's gift? The battle over death and the grave has already been won. How much less is a battle over art, then?

Yes, I feel the same apprehension even in blogging. Your writing is some of the finest I have come across and you have a keen ability to perfectly express yourself verbally. In order to get my point across, I usually have to make use of diagrams, gesticulations and sound effects, which incidently doesn't work well on blogger. So, yeah, I am scared to death, sick as I write. The key- do it anyway.

Loving and committed,
Sarah

...and now, an audience

2005-07-13T22:06:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I'm doing it already. Five posts into it and I'm worrying that our exchange has become terribly dull and uninteresting. Why? Well, now we have an audience. It is SO hard to make art when you are worried about how an audience will recieve it - not that this is art, but the principle, apparently, applies. I know I should make art for art's sake or for my sake or for God's sake ("Make some art, for God's sake!") but I constantly worry how it will be recieved, talked of, reviewed, etc. Worse, I let this affect how and what I work on (or don't work on, as it is.) I've been twiddling away at a few bits of art these past few days and, as they are mere twiddles, they seem to have escaped my merciless internal censor. Our letters seem far less lucky. Right now, I feel as apt to be authentic as a novelist whose N.Y. Times review begins, "A creative failure, this author's latest book...."

This makes me think of an artist I know. He is a charismatic abstract expressionist with a dour, elitist attitude and penchant for jaded, philosophical monologue. He drinks and smokes way too much and has a notorious sex life that cut a wide swath through the undergraduate population of the our school. While I studied with him, he was the darling of one of the professors, breezed through his reviews, sold work and was annoyingly productive. In other words, he is a perfect example of what we think of as a 'serious artist.' I'll admit, I both hated and admired him. He made it look so easy, brushed off the criticisms of the most intimidating professor and continued to work unceasingly. On the other hand, all rest - the attitude, the lifestyle, even the work itself - seemed so forced and fake. You wouldn't think he worried about critics, but I wonder sometimes if his internal censor had him so backed up against the wall that he had become an entire person that was not himself. I guess, I don't envy him as much as I thought.

A dear friend of mine says that she was told early on by a professor that when you work, you have to kick the critic out of your studio. She seems to live by the lesson and I percieve it has served her very well. I remember once a certain professor had raked her over the coals as poor professors do - without intelligence or purpose. Though irritated, she went back to work and produced a lovely series of paintings. At a show later that year, she pointed at one of them and whispered that she secretly named it after the evil professor. To her neverending amusement, the 'Sad Sack' painting, as she called it, was sold. I wish I knew how to turn my critical dross into gold.

So you have a critic at your door? How do you get her to go away?

Love you,

Grace

Undressed

2005-07-12T08:28:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

I will have to admit that I am feeling a wee bit nervous for my modeling job, which starts in about a half-hour. It is a little strange to be deflated from the sucessful sculptor to the model. Actually, it is rather humbling. I feel so anonymous; the people in the class do not know how talented I am. And yet it is perfect. The myth of the artist being somehow different or higher than other humans has somehow managed to burrow into my attitudes and this might be a perfect way to shake it loose. Why is it that that damned pride keeps on showing up when we need humility the most? You and Julia Cameron are right that we are hollow vessels and trying to get in the way is merely pride- trying to be like God. It is death to us, not only spiritual death, but what can come from our human hands? It is death to art.

Perhaps the narcissism of the post-modern age is related to "a death of a culture." They have wanted to be like gods.

I have just finished reading "The War of Art" by Steve Pressfield. The Torodes recommended it to me. I may have to mail it to you, but if you can find a cheap copy on Amazon or some such place, I might like to reference it later. If you can manage to find a good used copy, the hardback has an especially cool cover. Pressfield recognizes many of the same creative pitfalls as Cameron, though he calls the Critic Resistance. Either way, they are employed by our Advesary. Perhaps we ought to have a book list going on our sidebar?

Well, I am off to spend the next eight hours undressed, hopefully inspiring some creative people! I will let you know how it goes.

Love,
Sarah

Hollow Pursuits

2005-07-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

Thank you for your encouragement concerning my returning vision. I'm trying not to make too big of a deal about it and, actually, if I had not been told so explicitly to write to you about it, I think I would avoid doing so altogether for fear of killing (talking) it to death. It's funny that you should write about my returning vision, while joking that it might be better not to have yours in the desolation of surburbia. I seems to me that we always look for what we want to see and often miss where there is to see right before us - like the Japanese maple near your townhouse and the morning-glorys that grow in the cracks of sidewalks in Philadelphia. Learning to see and not just look, is something I'm learning more about everyday. It takes a bit of setting aside oneself and being a vessel into which images and thoughts can be poured.

Julia Cameron said her book that she feels very 'hollow' when she is the most inspired; as if she is simply a channel through which ideas are flowing, not something full of ideas herself. This caught me off guard because I have always felt the same way and thought there was something wrong with me. When I felt hollow, I would cast around in a desperate attempt to fill the space with a 'good idea' and, failing that, distract myself from the hollowness by avoiding art entirely. That's pretty much how I've been for a year now (maybe, in reality much longer.) Well, now that I recall that this hollowness was with me even when I created 'good art', it seems like a thing more to be embraced than avoided. I'm facing the 'gap' for the first time in a long time and, even empty, it is not the terrifying thing I made it out to be. It's emptiness shows clearly how much possibility it can hold and this is, in itself, very encouraging.

Well, I'm off to sit in the middle of the void and see what happens there.

Love you,

Grace

Sabbatical

2005-07-11T00:13:00.000-04:00

Dear Grace,

I think this is a wonderful idea! You know how much I love to write letters, especially handwritten ones, but this will have to do. Today I took my artist to the pool, but was especially cautious about getting too much sun. I didn't wear my glasses and everything was blurry, which is perhaps just as well, as I have been struggling again with my usual moving-to-the-suburbs angst and being overwlemed at the vacancy of beauty that exists there. Perhaps I have been walking around the neighborhood all along without my glasses unable to see the beauty there. So, now it seems that I am on a quest to find the beauty in suburbia. Beauty exists everywhere and it is a shame that any place has to be so vacuous as to warrent a search, but here I venture on. After all I will be living there soon. There is a nice Japanese maple near my new place of residence. I will focus on enjoying that maple until I find the next thing.

Yes, I am serious about just taking a break after closing my studio. I have no intentions of "quitting" what-so-ever. In fact, I have made sure that my dear Erik fully understands the seriousness of my creative pursuits. I told him in so many words that my "soul will die" if I do not create. This does not mean that I have to continue with giant statuary, just that I have to create. Being so close to completely Joseph has me pretty excited about art again. The lack of satisfaction that I feel doing such large peices has really worn me down. Small is beautiful, indeed. Honestly, I have a wonderful feeling that stepping back from this complete artist-lifestyle, getting married, having children, will bring me to a new place of life expereince and perspective that will enliven my art and renew my spirit. My well is empty, Grace. I need to let the rains come and fill it again. Then I will draw once again- pun very much intended!

I am really excited about modeling for this sculpture class on Tuesday & Wednesday. As I told you the other day, the creative energy is really high with this group and I think that being a part of the creative process will feed me. I won't have the stress of finishing anything, having a critique and possibly being roped into having a show. I'll just be a part of it. Nice.

My father used to always tell me that a man (or woman) with no vision will parish. I think it comes from Porverbs or somewhere. I am glad to see your vision reappearing. The soil needs to be tilled and planted before anything can grow. I see you doing that now and am really excited to be a part of it. We are committed, after all.

Well, it is getting late and I must be off. Peace and Blessings.

Love,
Sarah

Conversation (not) amongst art

2005-07-09T20:06:00.000-04:00

Dear Sarah,

I've started a new blog for us to talk in. As you know, I stunk at my last blog mostly because I was constantly worried that it wasn't interesting, smart or relevant enough. Then I didn't post for long periods and hated myself for not posting. This is funny because that's exactly how I feel about art too most of the time. You said once that too many artists think and talk about art but never really make anything. That's me except that (in shame) I try not to talk about it too much earlier.

I've been inspired by a new book by Julia Cameron called "Letters to a Young Artist." It's clever and I've always been fond of that format, so I thought we might give it a go. Maybe we might even help each other or some other people for that matter. This seems like a weird time to start a correspondence about art, seeing as you are about to close up your studio for a time and I've not a made a thing in almost a year. But then again, perhaps we are going into a period of incubation where talking (a little, but not too much) might be beneficial.

On the phone, you seem quite insistent that you are just 'taking a break' when you close your studio. Aren't you afraid of the interim or are you just so exhausted and drained right now that you don't care? I don't feel like I'm on a break. I feel like I'm completely stalled - right in the middle of the road. I feel a little better today, like there might be hope, but the shame of having done so much nothing is hard to live down.

Tell me what you think,

Grace