inspiration – Page 6 – Mixy's Art Blog

Dawn

This morning I launched my newest project – a year full of color – “TWELVTY” All as scheduled, 9am my time, so the early wee hours for the cross-pond recipients.

Each month this year has it’s own color: January is yellow, and it’s flooding my thoughts.

It’s the sunrise of a new project.

01yellow-33-copy — each month I’ll be making art in just one color for TWELVTY: yellows gathered in readiness!

The idea came to me just a couple of months ago when I was on holiday. Bumbling about taking photos… as one does.

I notice color everywhere.

I had a moment of profound realisation when I found myself taking photos of a group of tourists emerging from their (red & blue) coach, just because almost all of them seemed to be dressed to match in some shades of red & blue….

I had one of those moments: Do other people see this too?

Like the fish who doesn’t know it’s swimming in water, my ideas have only swum in my mind, I’ve got no comparison unless I step away and try to look in from outside.

I mentioned the tourists & matching coach to someone a few days later – with gushing enthusiasm – but was met with blank nothingness. Not even the edge of a WTF? response I sometimes get when I share arty revelations like this, just a totally empty, disinterested blankness.

That was the moment I knew: I need to connect up with others who see & appreciate what I see & appreciate. My tribe. We need each other.

We need each other in a world of unknown areas of empty, disinterested blankness, a world with WTF? reactions to gushing arty revelations.

We need to reflect back to each other the magic of seeing some crazy spontaneous colour synchronicity, of seeing some beautifully matched chance happening, some little something somewhere that gets overlooked by most but makes our hearts sing just because of its orangeness, or blueness, or purpleypink, or whateverness.

I love how the idea is resonating among the folks who’ve joined already, the excitement bubbling up, and most of all the anticipation of what will emerge from this group as the year unfolds.

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It’s going to be bright and glorious and I love it!

Want to make your 2017 brighter and more colorful?

Sign up below for more news on my doings & makings through the year, and get a lovingly hand crafted ebook all about color

…oh, and you can join TWELVTY too !

yearfullofcolorbypenngregory_page_01

<a href="https://mixygecko.wufoo.com/forms/z1pfxfus0jq7ftl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fill out my Wufoo form!</a>

Be well, my friends, Much love to you all X

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(Your email is absolutely safe with me, I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.)

The world is bigger…

So here’s the thing I keep coming back to: how many people do I know? how many do you know?

Finding the color in everyday things

I’m not big on movies & tv & such, I don’t remember actor’s names or follow their public lifestyles. Despite this I’m aware there are way more folks in my orbit than there would have been for someone like me just a few generations back. Maybe you’ve got more?

I ‘know’ some of people who will read this, we haven’t met and probably never will, but we share thoughts an opinions from across the world and life feels richer as a result.

I’ve got a sense of knowing some people through youtube & blogs & social media – they don’t know me at all but they bring a brightness into my days with the parts of their lives they show.

In the big scheme, this is very new.

Noticing the color in everyday things

Because of social media and modern life I’m in touch with friends from waybackwhen and family I previously didn’t know at all.

Suddenly it became so easy to type little messages to each other, to find common ground through memes and whatnot, to ‘know’ more people, sort of spend time with them.

Looking at the color in everyday things

So together we’re all trundling along this finite lifeline, we don’t know when it will stop and our job (IMO) is to make the best of what we have in this blip of time.

Seeing others we know (in any sense) fall off that time-line is a reminder of our mortality. There’s a sense of don’t leave me here – I don’t know where I am.

The wonder of the color in everyday things

So what to do?

Find the joy where we can, hold each other up, share the moments of love and fun and lightness, let it ripple outwards and who knows how many lives it might reach.

That’s all we really got.

Because color is everywhere in everyday things

We’re all here to find our own way; find what works for us and when we find the ones who share what lights us up there’s a sense of being on track. Whatever it is we’re meant to be here for, we’ve got each other. We are walking each other home, as Ram Dass said.

Enjoying the color in everyday things

My passion is color. If yours is too, or if you’d like to find out more about my fascination, I made this for you. Just add your email below and I’ll send it over to you.

yearfullofcolorbypenngregory_page_01

<a href="https://mixygecko.wufoo.com/forms/z1pfxfus0jq7ftl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fill out my Wufoo form!</a>

Be well, my friends, Much love to you all X

**********************************

(Your email is absolutely safe with me, I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.)

Let’s Light up 2017

Things have been weighing heavily around here lately, you noticed that too? Even when you do your best not to get dragged down there’s still an underlying sense of being, at best, completely unsettled.

As I’ve shared here before, if it weren’t for my art practice I think I would have sunk many times.

A few days ago I found myself re-watching this TED-X talk by artist Callie Curry, aka Swoon. She’s a real inspiration to me. I love her style, but I most especially love her – her persona – her magic.

She talks about how she created the Heliotrope Foundation. After the 2010 earthquake she was compelled to find a way to help the people of Haiti. But how? in her words, ‘I’m just an artist’. If you watch the talk you’ll see how she brings hope and light and practical support in a way that only the ingenuity of an artist could have thought up. And she continues to spread this magic around the world.

“I’m just an artist”

Me too. I’m just an artist too… and one who really wants to bring the light into other folks lives in the way that creativity has done for me. But how?

How can I shine light in these turbulent times?

I think about what has helped me in the past, where I’ve turned when I felt like I might just crumple, and that’s what I can share.

My sanctuary has always been in my art. Not just the act of creating – I don’t always have the time, the motivation, the space or the will. But I can always see it. I can see the patterns and the colors and the wonder. It’s a skill I’ve honed over the years and as each year passes I get more from it – it works better – it’s more reliably everywhere I look.

This is what I want to share, and this is my intention with the program I’m starting in the new year. I want to show the way I see, to share the sanctuary I carved out n my imagination and is with me everywhere I go.

I’m gathering a tribe who will all be contributing, in art, in ideas, in insights, and between us we’re going to make magic happen.

Want to join us?

It doesn’t matter if you think yourself ‘arty’ or not – in fact the more diverse the tribe is, the more we all benefit, everyone brings their own magic to add to the mix.

Don’t feel like you have magic to bring? Let me prove you wrong!

If you want to find out more, read more here. Any questions – comment below or send a message on my site. I’d love to have you join us.

Let’s light up the world together in 2017.

Color in connection

All I had was this two word note that me-in-the-past had dropped in time, for me-in-the-future to happen upon and to investigate further.

A while ago I found a scrap of paper in my studio, on it was scribbled the name Neil Harbisson. Neil who? I don’t think I know any Neils these days… my mind wanders back in time to past acquaintances, the connections, the links, the friends of friends…

No. No Neils there.

Some times passes, some weeks, I go on my usual drifty way blundering through my days, cherishing my studio time.

Another day, while rooting round for just the right scraps to collage into my art journal, the color that pings, the shape that blends, that one piece that harmonizes and unifies and completes.

And I see him again, this Neil I don’t know, scribbled on a scrap, and my memory rolls back in: the thought process that produced this scribble.

I was listening to the radio in the studio, and this guy – Neil – he’d either been in an interview, or the presenter had spoken about him, enough to make me want to find out more.

But more what? The memories weren’t stretching that far and they didn’t hold any content.

All I had was this two word note that me-in-the-past had dropped in time for me-in-the-future to happen upon and to investigate further.

(More time passed.)

Then on one of those days when I must’ve had a deadline so close, a task so pressing, so so much, that I was on the brink of shutdown.

Those times when the overwhelming emergency of it all is so loud all I can think to do is nap or run away.

And the easiest run away of the moment was to dive down one of the rabbit holes on the internets and hide out there until bedtime. Or a little later.

And I remembered this name. I visualised the scrap. I recalled the recall.

I urgently wanted to know what was so fascinating I couldn’t let it float by in the past. I’d anchored that moment for a reason, and I was going to find out why.

And here is what I found:

I smiled at the notion of becoming fascinated with something so very visual I’d heard about on the radio. The magical crossover of hearing and seeing was repeated, overlapped in a pleasingly elegant irony.

So why am I remembering this to you? Why here and now?

And where exactly are we here and now anyway?

We’re back in my art journal, the one of the moment. This is the place my mental fallout lands.

I began it on the last Equinox a couple of months ago and I figure it will be my art-ing abode until solstice. (I’m alligning my makings this year, it seems out be working out well)

And when are we?

We’re (well, I am – and you seem to be here with me too) riding the rapids of thoughts and ideas that unless I take these diversions I’ll be utterly swept away.

I’m putting together a program all about color, so previously explored rabbit holes like these are the mileposts along my journey.

And I figured you might find this interesting too.

And if you like this, you’ll almost certainly want to play with me next year in my TWELVTY program. If you haven’t already – sign up here and you’ll be the first to hear all about it.

<a href="https://mixygecko.wufoo.com/forms/z1pfxfus0jq7ftl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Fill out my Wufoo form!</a>

(Your email is absolutely safe with me, I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.)

The more you look…

…the more you see.

Have you ever been on a color hunt? You can do it right now – pick a color and look around you, as soon as you choose to see, it pops up all over the place. I went looking for primaries in the everyday everythings…

You don’t need to go anywhere special, you can cast your eyes around while you sit at the traffic lights or stand in line at the shops.

Look around your town, your home, your wardrobe, your bookcase, your refrigerator…

Tune in to a color and it will appear like magic!

the ancient and the absurd

When a birthday falls mid week, mid winter, mid-school holidays (not to mention mid-life) – a less inventively inclined type might find this precludes fun activities – y’know, with friends, outdoors, not surrounded by a gazillion anxty families…. One thing was for sure, I wasn’t going to spend it in the office pretending it’s just another day. (Too many years have passed that way – a postponed birthday never really works for anyone over the age of 6)

So taking advantage of being close to London, I took myself off to the V&A.

It’s indoors (even the walk from the tube station is underground and out of the rain) and although families visit, it’s museumy and sedate with minimal shouting and squealing. (Even from me)

I’ve visited many times before, but despite this, hardly begun to see all there is on offer. I didn’t realise how much there was to see until I looked it up just now (thank you wikipedia)

The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A), London, is the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects.

….

The V&A covers 12.5 acres (51,000 m²)^[3] and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture,medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

Several hours and 4 aching feet later, we sat down for a tea and food before wending our way back post rush hour chaos. Minds were blown. Awe was inspired. The extremes of the ancient, the enormous, the itsy teeny detailed, the extravagant and ornate are all there. Most too amazing for words.

A tiny handful came home in my camera and in my mind’s eye.

Some of these will be characters in future art…

And as always I’m drawn to the abstract imagery, both in the art and in the architecture, it kinda blurs into one big gestalt experience.

Water In Parallel (part 3)

Having left off at this point, the next question inevitably is: where next?

Well. Now it’s dried the hasty haphazard approach to the initial gluing has resulted in a bumpy bubbled surface. Which kinda appeals, not least as a literal interpretation of the Water theme. But it doesn’t give the substrate the integrity we all know it needs, given I’m just into week two of a six week projected plan, and I’m not gentle with my art. It’s gotta be tough to survive.

So some surgery is required:

Delicately lifting the blisters and… oh who am I trying to kid?

Stabbing and slashing with a palette knife! pulling up anything not firmly adhered….

preserving the torn scraps in water to replace and patch with later.

Part way through the slash and patch process, I’m loving the way splashes of colors emerge back to life in places. And there’s almost a suggestion of composition beginning to emerge as well! Lordy whatever next!!

Water In Parallel (part 2)

Last post I had just constructed these thick papery substrates on which I had not the foggiest idea what was to happen.

Which is a really exciting place to be!

When in doubt, I like to make a big move: a doing or an undoing, doesn’t really matter which. Time to make a change: lose the colors.

They were there to serve a purpose: get focused on the theme of Water. Now move along!

Diluted white gesso on scrumpled paperis just lush – all those lovely rivulets and wrinkles were already there, but they needed shining up and showing off!

Next installment coming soon….!

Shadow Monkeys (8/52 cont/d)

Week eight of 2015: a busy page that’s warranted 2 posts…

And that’s without any mention of the butterflies.

Or Steve Jobs. But that’s all for another day…

The thing I wanted to tell you about now is monkey related:
Since I spent a weekend in conversation with my daemons, they’ve been magicking themselves into apparency here, there & all over. This week they’ve manifested in a semi-Cubist, heavy handed biro scrawl, merged, their tribal Día de Muertos faces peering out from the recesses of the page.

We’ve been sharing the available space in this mind for a few decades. It’s refreshing to shift the power balance between ‘them’ and ‘us’ (for want of better terms).

So when I read the post from Danny Gregory this week, asking for tales from our Monkeys, another bunch of dots connected: Monkey minded me, the battles with my daemons, and all the reasons it took me so long to go to art school.

I dedicated a corner of a page to the Monkeys (they were chief trouser-wearers and direction-choosers in my life for way too long. They get a corner to play in now. I get the rest of the page. That is ALL) A place to start unscrambling some thoughts:

These are the bare bones of those thoughts:

My monkeys bewilder me with their faultlessly formed logic.

They have faith only in the opinions and the hard-hearted snipes of the the hardcore cynics. They know why I can’t and what I can’t and all the reasons why.

They will poke at me with pointy sticks if I turn my back on them for long. They stand in my way. They say: don’t show yourself, not your real self, cos then the haters aren’t hating the real you. You tricked the haters, the mean kids, the ones who know. You win. See?

The monkey’s logic is flawed at a level so deep I sometimes forget : Do not trust the monkeys.

It was the Monkey’s determination that as art isn’t a real job, and work isn’t supposed to be fun, and all the associated hooey, that defined my existence until quite recently. A large part of life (by my reckoning) is unpicking the knots that we spend the preceding years tying ourselves up in. Unattended monkeys will continue tying knots.

Wordful Week 7/52

Week 7 turned out to be a wordy week. And full of stuff : New (super) Moon, Valentines, I hit my weight lifting target that I set at the start of the year…. All in all, a week of giddying goodness. And…..

My Birthday, which involved coffee, cake and kitties at Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium in Bethnal Green. I am soppy in the extreme about cats and since my home has been empty of furry friends for a few years now… you can imagine this was like the ultimate in birthday fun for me!

When I saw this list I knew right away it had a place in the book of 2015 : these are the things that matter to me:

To Be An Explorer of the World:

Always be looking (notice the ground beneath your feet)
Consider Everything alive & animate
Everything is interesting – look closer
Observe for long durations and short ones
Alter your course often
Notice the stories going on around you
Notice patterns: Make Connections
Document your findings (field notes) in a variety of ways
Incorporate interdeterminancy
Observe movement
Create a personal dialogue with your environment: Talk to it
Trace all things back to their origins
Use all of the senses in your investigations.

It sits neatly alongside the list of new moon intentions (which tbh are not much different from the last few intention lists. Basic stuff I’m trying hard to hammer home in the subconscious).

Love is in the air: Love and Be Loved

I guess it’s fitting that my love of words and lists is really prominent this week! These things that bobbed up on my horizon this week (would love to credit where they came from, but only there long enough to scribble down before getting buried in a million tangential thoughts and surfs and immediately-pressing-need-to-knows that the www sends my way.) The second one is more mantra/affirmationy:

I’m neither doomed nor completely free
But I’m creating my future with every word, every action, every thought.
I find myself in a very dynamic situation with unimaginable potential,
I have all the support I need to simply relax and be with the transitional, in process quality of my life. I have all I need to engage in the process of awakening.

Thank you to whoever put those words together and sent them into the internet ether. I get where you’re coming from and I wish you happy adventures.

So that was last week… a scattering of butterflies (more next week – new project I’m about to launch into later today), and again with the eyefish. What’s with the eyefish? Srsly?! X