an idea evolves

Ursula With Dots

Sitting here with my ginger tea.  It is still not coffee.  My big success yesterday was getting the dots on the panel, and I think this tiny panel of Ursula in Ustrasana might be done.  I didn’t measure, instead preferring to place them by eye into their geographical locations.  It’s a different look, the imprecision of something done by hand.  I’d like to see the same panel with perfectly cut circles placed in precise coordinates, just to compare.  But then I’d have to find a hole punch or something to get the little circles more accurate than I can cut them by hand.

Anyway, a layer of matte medium and I think it’s done.  The funny thing about this one is that one night I was listening to an NPR Fresh Air interview with Johnathan Lehrer about his new book “Imagine:  How Creativity Works.”  He talked about moments of insight, their defining features and how they come about when you least expect it, perhaps during the shower or after a nap but not at the moment in which you are fighting your way through a problem.   So the next morning I practice yoga in the morning per usual, lay in Shavasana for 5-8 minutes or whatever it was.  And there it was, the image of the panel with the dots superimposed over it.

So all this really tells me is that I’m heading in the right direction even if I can’t clearly see where it’s all going and scarcely have any time to shepherd it there anywhere.  My goal this week is just to get back to the 15 minutes of day art habit I was cultivating but have slipped on the last week or two.  I did draw at the Sarah Jarosz concert on friday night at Club Passim.  But this thing happened.  I did one drawing that was good enough that I wasn’t embarrassed about it, didn’t feel like I had to explain that the light was bad or the musician kept moving.  It looked like Sarah playing her instrument.  But as we were leaving the bass player – Nathaniel Smith I believe, who had seen me drawing asked me about it so I showed him and then in one of those moments of spontaneous generosity that overcomes me sometimes, I asked him to give it to her.  Which I could have done myself but she had a line of people and I knew I’d change my mind if I had to wait.

Didn’t think to sign it.  So I wish I could post it here but that one has flown away.  I’ll just have to bug my buddy Steve to get us a good seat the next time a show comes around that we want to see.  And of course, keep drawing.