Photos ©2009 Pia f. Walker/Attaining Creativity

Backdrops/Background Series Statement:

“Backgrounds shape how the present looks like - do they also color the future? Are they merely the backdrop of our lives or do they contain us always? Are they merely theater curtains that must be dropped as the scenery changes? Can we move forward with them - do we give them strength by dragging them along or do we give them strength by respecting their importance and letting them go?” (work in progress)

The above statement is merely the starting point for this project. A set of 10 paintings/drawings will have their own unique backgrounds. Figures will be placed on top of the drawing, and the colors underneath will hue and tint the figures, just as our backgrounds and past experiences do have a habit of forming and shaping our present ideas and reactions to situations. The question is - do we allow them to also shape our future and hold us back or do we use them to propel us forward?

Drawing series color palette

(SIDEnote: Currently listening to Koussevitzky Conducts American Music)

Did you think I meant to write my first seRIOUS idea? It could very well be taken like that, a slip of the tongue, those Freudian slips that still take place in everyday spoken language.

Would I tarnish myself by stating that I haven’t as of yet had a serious idea about my own art, or my own business, and this is not only my first artistic idea for a SERIES of drawings, but also my very first artistically SERIOUS idea?

I have to think about that, perchance to dream and see if those pesky symbols that I come up with offer an idling of how to digest this information.

But I digress. I took up a brush last week. If you’ve been following my writing, you’ve seen that statement way too many times and are by now thoroughly bored.

I’ve also written about how fearful that step was, and how even though I did manage to finish that one drawing, I fell off the face of the earth after doing it. But I find myself now in a different place. In the intent of digesting this fear, instead of throwing it up.

A simple step of dealing with fear has placed me in a position where I am now looking at paint as another form of expression, an entity that will allow me to simply play and transform the canvas, the atmosphere of my artwork. It is forcing me to learn a whole new language, to learn the touch and feel of new materials. I am slightly overwhelmed at the possibilities, yet I catch myself simply taking one step at a time: decide on the drawings, then decide on the material, then purchase materials. As I progress through this experience, I can begin to see more possibilities and will begin to test even more materials. But for the time being, I am controlling my galloping gait and keeping it at a slow trot.

Am I perhaps learning how to keep that happy feeling going about longer, as I allow each moment to be its own fruitful, sweet endeavour, instead of hoarding off the buffet table until I can’t move? Perhaps.

• Artist Joan Harvey
  I met this artist during the latest Campbell Friday Art Walk (at the Stone Griffin Gallery) and actually got a chance to talk about her art process! Real fun! She uses various papers to create interesting backgrounds and also incorporates textures into her art. I really enjoyed the mixture of vibrant backdrops and her drawings of women, in different stages/emotions in life.

Photos Copyright 2009 Pia f. Walker/Attaining Creativity

Rather rapidly, the steps leading me forward are taking me on a colorful ride. Cooking creations are taking place (okay, I’m not a complete foodie yet - the quiche pictured above needed some more spice, hitting a 7 out of 10). I am taking more photos lately. I love old cameras (yes, manual cameras are now old) where I can look through the eyefinder and snap a photo. Somehow, looking through the viewfinder made it seem like I was playing a game of hide and seek, which is what I felt like when taking pictures: if I was lucky enough, I would be able to “steal” a moment of someone’s life. Not the posed version of attempted happiness and smiles, but perhaps the calm look of simply being.

Digital cameras do not provide me with that same feeling. I am no longer hidden, as I am able to see the full scenery before me and on the camera. I am more aware of how to stage the picture rather than what is really, really happening with the person  in front of me. But I am trying, trying to figure out how to work with this new technology and bypass its strange light meters and focus lenses.

So it begins. It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas - like the morning of opening presents, of being overjoyed by company and family, of sharing a wonderful meal where there is too much talking and too much food and too much of doing nothing, and yet doing something that creates a memory, a bond, a remembrance to life and people.

So it begins again for me, this floodgate opening of ideas and desire to create, to share, to THINK. to BE.

Photos © 2009 Pia f. Walker/Attaining Creativity

The teak furniture is aged, old, grayed out. As I sand layers of age away, I think of how age is beautiful, about how a person in their 40s, in  their 60s, in their 80s, are perhaps more physically interesting then someone younger. The perfection of youth, of unlined faces and model type bodies is awe striking. Yet years of laughter and even tears begs to question, to understand, to talk to. It begs to be admired.

Although a perfect sand job would require that I sand away all the gray, I am tempted to leave those strands of gray mixed in with the youthful teak color of yesteryear.

Photos Copyright 2009 Pia f. Walker/Attaining Creativity

If watching long periods of TV (especially sappy, motivating movies) is one of my survival mechanisms for getting out of a down spell, working in the garden, especially during spring and summer, is the second step towards recovery. Although we are on drought watch here in the West coast, I have been using gray water to keep my gardens going. Most of my plantings are already the drought tolerant type, but I am enjoying being able to water and care for some of my long-term projects that have been stalled due to water shortages in previous years.

Photo Copyright 2009 Pia f. Walker/Attaining Creativity

So as I plant and water creeping thyme in a rock patio, I am looking at the teak outdoor furniture that has not been sanded down or recoated for over 8 years. So I am moved to start this project, which moves me to actually get out of the house and purchase sandpaper and take a look at some more shade plants. I am also moved, with the power of one step initiating another and then another, to visit the library, check out art magazines and opera music. I am moved to collect new photo images that show me vibrant color combinations. I am moved to pull out paper and begin to draw. And so it goes: one small step after another after another that leads to a desktop filled with sketches and papers and color and questions unanswered.

I am not aware, as of yet, what my latest drawing will be about. But I have put together a series of women in poses that will have me drawing and testing colors for a good week, if not more. And that is how I get out of my slumps and keep moving forward, always ever so slightly

Photos by Pia f. Walker

I cannot fully explain the physiology of it, yet I am learning, beginning to see the trademarks of my own demise. I am the only one that I can attribute my success and failure to; I know and understand that. Yet there are workings, unconscious, that I cannot grasp, cannot understand truly, and have no idea how to fix or change.

It began with a painting last week and has continued with small steps that have felt out of kilter ever since. During my session with a brush and paint, I felt fear, which sounds ridiculous because it isn’t like I was standing on a ledge overlooking a 1,000 foot drop. Yet that little fear began just like a seed and it has grown, slowly, watering itself.

I did manage to continue, at least one day after that painting, with doing things that were new. And I had fun! Yet I have to wonder, looking back, if a dark part of me remained with that fear, and in seeing my smile and happiness, decided to just shut the whole production down? So the downward spiral began: I kept away from the pastel pencils, from the vibrant colored papers, from pretty much anything. I found myself staring at this computer screen, wondering, well, perhaps not really thinking at all.

So I truly wonder now: Does my ego have a built in mechanism that prevents an overflow of doing, of pushing forward, of changing, of improving, of doing better? Am I wickedly damaged in some abstract matter? And how do I go about fixing it? Do I treat it as an addiction of sorts, and live one minute, one day at a time, in which I appreciate the fear and then quickly let it go?

I have always 100% agreed with the statement that individuals are more afraid of success than failure, and thereby purposely sabotage their success by not even trying, or by trying really hard to fail. It’s a shame, really. So many days and possibilities wasted.

I cannot state that my efforts in the last couple of weeks have been wasted - I am seeing traction from my interactions with the world, and I giggle in glee when I see statistics jump, or feel the possibilities rush out of me. But what I have not truly figured out is how to keep that momentum going, all the time. Perhaps that is not 100% possible, but anything else would be better than going back and forth between solitary confinement from art and exposing myself too much.

So I am listening to music, and humming along. I am extracting the inspirational tunes from composers of 100 years past and those from yesteryear. I am listening to pianos and violins, to electronic instruments that allude to a whole orchestra. I am closing my eyes and visualizing my own imagination and I am feeling my ribcage fill with air, wanting to straighten and expand and reach the full universe. I am allowing myself time to decompose so that I may, once again, begin to feel the vibrations of the universe, of the slight sound that wind makes, or the weight of the summer heat, or the warmth of the soil and the plants. Slowly I awaken again to  the world. I know that I am my worst and most destructive critic. Yet I am also the most powerful vessel of my own creation - and that is what I must continue to strive to reach and meet.

• Artist Gavingo
  Abstract art with dashes of realism. I enjoy the colors, the simple strokes that create a visual treat and yet also allow the viewer to interpret, or reinterpret the drawing within their own context. Check out my favorite
• Artist Johnny Apodaca
  A local Monterey, CA artist, I am reminded of older views of California, and yet can still see the Monterey of today in his drawings. As with the artist above, Mr. Apodaca’s artwork is a combination of abstract, broad strokes in vivid, seaside colors, mixed with the hints of realism and humanity. My favorite? “Garden Window“
• Artist Andrea Shear
  Another combination of intriguing backdrops that display the sharpness and beauty of real human lines above.

I’m seeing a trend here: perhaps I am fascinated by these artists because I too am looking to combine the liberating feel of abstract work with the detailed lines of reality.

Excerpt from an interview that Esperanza Spalding (bassist, composer, bandleader, and multilinguist vocalist) gave to Santa Cruz’s Good Times reporter Linda Koffman. (Read full interview.)

Good Times Interviewer: What’s the greatest thing you’ve learned, that you try to instill in your students?

Esperanza Spalding: Just harnessing natural ability. It’s great to have talent but it doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t sharpen…So it’s learning how your mind works, how your talent works, and figuring out how you’re going to discipline yourself to harness that in a constructive and consistent way to make sure you’re continually growing…Talent is a gift, whatever it is. It doesn’t mean that you automatically get to be great at something, it means you have the ability to grow rapidly at it or you have some unexplainable insight into how to grow within that medium.

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I am not going to say much more than what is written. She makes a solid point: practice, practice, practice. Hone your skill, work at it every day, breathe it in and begin to understand it. I’m off to do just that.