The weather has finally cooled here and fulfilled its autumnal duties - just in time for pumpkins and holiday cookies. With the promise of such seasonal cheer ahead, I also look forward to turning inward to keep my creative hearth warm, small flame aglow, patiently waiting for the next bundle of wood to arrive to feed my artistic endeavors. In balancing a need for precious time with family with a maker’s need to create, I will soon be living in the embers of my work from this year - surrounded by small projects and swatches of ideas slowly being stitched together in between baking bread and long walks with the people I love.
But not quite yet. For now, I continue to work through my final art events for the year - my last call being at the Arts Center of Corvallis Dec 2-3, after which I’ll take a break from my online activities (including my Substack writings) until 2023. And as in years past, in lieu of a gift guide showcasing all my art for the season, I’ll instead soon share my favorite artist picks with you.
Coming Soon - Look for my 3rd annual Holiday Gift Guide featuring artists and artistic finds I’ve enjoyed over the years.
Until then, with these thoughts of seasonal changes, I recall my response to a question an artist friend recently posed about the current state of my art-making: “I feel like I am collapsing inward”, I responded. I continued to explain how I felt myself pulling my creative process closer to my heart while retreating from my traditional methods, venues, and activities. I am experiencing my art in a new way, and it’s confusing and bewildering and I don’t know where it’s leading, but I know it’s necessary. I feel something new and interesting is on the horizon. I just have to keep my faith in the process and know that the weight of the unknown will eventually lift to show me what is possible.
The Weight of Nothingness
The conversation had me thinking, as I often wonder if I have climbed onto the hamster wheel, constantly spinning in circles without realizing I have nowhere to go. But after we spoke, I started to see my feelings of retreat as more of a natural cycle, albeit longer than I would normally expect. But what even is “normal” anymore? Maybe it’s more of a tide, ebbing and flowing. Right now the moon is pulling my waters inward, but when it’s ready, I have faith it will once again release me from my frustration, allowing me the opportunity to return to shore in a splash of refreshingly unexpected delight.
This tidal pull, churning the waters, is a setting well served by the abstract. As I prepare to turn further inward, a palette of muted brushstrokes and intuitive markings unexpectedly appeared on my canvas that specifically captured my mood for the coming winter.
An unstructured environment can be both empowering and terrifying. I think what attracts me to abstract art is this conflicting energy. I want to make sense of the lines, shapes, and designs while immersing myself further into its untethered reality. I feel the visual humming circulate within me like a power line strung across the landscape. It defies resolution, leaving a note of sadness and sweetness in my heart.
“I look into… the “Weight of Nothingness”, and see myself. I see all that came before and all that is yet to come.”
I remember, at 18, barely an adult, the thrill of leaving home for college and embracing the agency of independence. I never looked back. My first summer away, with a part-time lifeguarding job to cover my portion of rent for a small corner of a room I occupied in a Seattle fraternity (yes, they used to rent out rooms from their houses to non-fraternity students during the summer, and maybe they still do?) - I began carving out a life of my own. I biked to work in the mornings, made lunches of cottage cheese with banana and pepper, played grass volleyball at Golden Gardens, and found friendships and loneliness all jumbled together within the drama and insecurity of youth that encompassed my new adult life beyond a once secluded childhood. But despite days of uncertainty, this new freedom was mine, and I somehow found my way - sometimes filled with oppressive emptiness (as my recent stroll through old journals found), but more often filled with what I remember most - new friends and adventures within the barely contained chaos of youth.
As a young adult and new parent in my thirties, I again found new beginnings turning from a decade-long career that landed me in the world of management information systems to the instability and uncertainty of life as an artist. I relished the opportunity to foster creativity once confined to spreadsheets and diagrams with paint and self-reliant determination. While difficult, I found beauty and lightness in an unstructured world filled with more family time amidst new creative opportunities. I felt grateful to leave behind the stress of my corporate world experience despite the fears of taking a path so completely unknown and filled with the natural anxiety of leaving my home state of Washington and building a new career and life in Oregon.
Now in my fifties, I find myself once again feeling the changing of tides as I move from those initial adult and parental responsibilities to a new form of empowerment in mid-life maturity. My art career grew and allowed me to provide relative consistency as my children also grew and became the remarkable adults they are today - leading their own lives and giving me the gift of a new type of adult relationship with them. And while I thoroughly enjoyed the inevitable chaos of an early career and younger parenthood, I am also enjoying this new chapter I’m now entering. I enjoy quiet mornings lingering over that first cup of coffee, long hikes in the woods, frequently pausing to watch birds and wildlife, taking more time for personal health and growth, and yet, all while still bonding with my family in longer conversations over movies, books, art, music, and food. I love hearing about my children’s successes and listening to their frustrations. I am grateful for their good judgment and tenacity to see their goals through even when it’s difficult while understanding that goals may also change and grow. As they are empowered, I am too. When making, I am less concerned with an end product and more concerned about the process. I am more insistent on connection and meaning in each step I take. There is a sweetness to this moment in time that I’ve never known before. And yet there is also a sense of sadness. While I look forward to fulfilling new creative goals and seeing my children enter into the ebb and flow of life’s deeper waters, I also hold dear those treasured memories of youth - theirs and mine. That first trip to Disneyland, camping under the stars, jumping over ocean waves together, concert performances, and long road trips - constant reminders of a continual, unstoppable, passage of time. Scanning a horizon stretching further than I can see, I must remember to pause, let the oars float alongside the boat, and feel the moments in between the insistent ticking of a clock. To let go of regrets over mistakes made along the way and let them be overwhelmed by a sea of joyful memories surrounding me as I slowly drift with the urging of the tide.
“This is the beauty of abstract art. It is an enigma - simple, complex, impassive, and passionate. It begs for each person to dive into its depths and find their own connection with the impossible and possibility.”
I look into the canvas, into the “Weight of Nothingness”, and see myself. I see all that came before and all that is yet to come. I am buoyed by an infinite potential defined only by the unrelenting presence of time while holding steadfastly onto each precious moment. I broadcast my existence with a broad stroke of the palette knife moving across the entirety of the canvas and show my vulnerability within the small scratches hiding within soft hues of color. I am ebbing and flowing, retreating inward and pushing outward, trying to not fight the drifting tide. The weight of each moment pressing upon my heart - an endless galaxy of stars bound by love and gratitude. I am empowered by possibility and terrified of the infinite unknown. I stop. I listen. And with each breath I hear, I can feel myself expand and collapse until I finally turn once again to the remnants of a distant fire patiently waiting for me to prod and stir light into the darkness.
This is the beauty of abstract art. It is an enigma - simple, complex, impassive, and passionate. It begs for each person to dive into its depths and find their own connection with the impossible and possibility. It is vast and yet personal. It takes hold with its power and vulnerability, whispering its secrets under a moon destined to guide us across the bounds of time. It allows me to see an ocean spilling out before me while also allowing me to feel the warmth of a winter hearth at home.
And this is where you will find me. I will soon prepare for the season by putting away studio tables and paint to make room for guest beds and time with family. I will be returning to smaller projects in fiber and collage while spending more time writing, considering, and sharing tiny moments of creativity.
I may not know where I’m going, but I will be here with an evening mug of tea, a blanket with a cat on my lap, a creative project nearby, and a commitment to keeping these embers glowing.
In gratitude,
Jennifer
I loved reading this post. Well written and thought provoking. As we move through an unusually mild autumn in the UK and towards winter, I too have similar changing thoughts on where my work is going. Inspiration comes in many forms, and I know that my inspiration changes with the seasons!
A beautifully written post about new seasons in our lives in a place of tidewater. An encouragement for those of us facing new seasons and memories of our children.