Finding Stillness

canvas stitched

With everything I make whether a painting or a ceramic piece, a stitch or weave the intension is stillness.  Meditation influences me greatly - finding stillness within oneself is such a necessary part of being human.  Living in New York city influences me to!  I think I look for stillness everywhere like little posts to hang on to as one goes through the day.  Whether it's the shape of a building against a sky, the way a plastic bag floats in air, a poster scrapped off in the subway or a billboard, a plant fighting it's way through the pavement to the light, yesterday it was the shine of the river- all these things are somehow a stillness in a day.

I have been working away for a while on a few things that combine paint and stitch or at least the thought process starts that way... it's been an ongoing exploration and I have just realized that at present the majority of these pieces are white.....or from the family of light.

not a great picture -but a detail of a piece I have been working on for months and months.  Very time consuming business stitching a large canvas and you have to be in the right frame of mind!

Interesting to see where they lead and its nice to have an openness to process at this moment.

I am feeling that familiar sense of removal from nature.   It's like a dull ache.  I get so tired of the constant vibration of the city, the noise, the claustrophobia and the feeling that we have buried nature under us.  Sure it fights through, or we allow it to here and there, but mainly we are in control and we have smothered it.  Today I miss the smell, and the sounds.  I am very grateful for my studio in Red Hook, but the vague smell of fish or is it oil(?) and the hum of the tunnel are strong as I sit.

I long for the ocean, or huge trees..... but instead of running for the hills or taking a sledge hammer to the concrete in the back yard to try and find earth, I meditate and I paint.  A new 5ft by 6ft canvas is my friend today.  Sometimes it can be the enemy or part of a battle but today, blissfully it was a friend.  Im using oil again after a long break, and it feels so good and so right.  It is actually such a sculptural medium, and one I have missed.  The shapes begin to form and slowly I'll find what is there to bring stillness......