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Afterwards

11.20.2020 by Barbara Grant //

Walking through stocked aisles at hardware stores feels like wandering around a giant art supply shop with huge containers of paint, brushes, all kinds of lumber to construct supports for canvas, and choices of nails, screws and glue too numerous to count. But it is merchandise I’m not familiar with, filling the shelves, stacked 15 feet high, that stimulates my imagination. Examining labels and reading directions on bottles and jars stirs my creative juices. And there’s a tool for everything!

Photo credit: Corporate Home Depot Newsroom

Photo credit: Corporate Home Depot Newsroom

That’s why, one afternoon I was happy to accompany my husband to our local Home Depot in search for just the right tool needed for his current project. As we pulled into the parking lot a storm was brewing and we dashed inside to shop.

By the time we returned to our vehicle a downpour had come and gone, but the sky was lifting in a dramatic combination of peach, lavender and blue. I quickly pulled out my camera to record it for reference. Artists use photographs in various ways: I use them to recall the seed of an idea. In this particular case I wanted to remember how stunned I was at how the heavens had been divided diagonally with dramatic color.

Reference photo

Not too long after that day I used this photo to create a painting for an art exhibit with the theme A Moment in Time. It doesn’t capture quite what I saw that day; it took a different path. Instead of focusing on the colorful sky, I was moved to portray the condition of the horizon. Because my photo showed only dark, vague silhouettes I was on my own to imagine it. I added a circle of textured translucent rice paper rising from the earth. As I spread the glue around to adhere to the canvas, the fibers pulled loose from the fragile paper; I brushed them into the sky the way a tornado would tear apart stalks of corn from a field. Referencing the theme of the exhibit, I created a clock face, numbering the hours but not adding hands to tell time. For added structure I traced one of my favorite found objects, an arc shape I have used in many compositions.

  • Clock face numbers
  • Arc shape
"Afterwards" detail

My creative process took my seed of an idea to an “after the storm” place. After a storm blows through we survey the damage, inventorying what is left. Taking stock of what still stands. This painting makes me think of landscapes that have been devastated by war and crazy weather. The toll that is taken on humanity, the physical clean-up and rebuilding, the means for funding, the stamina…the will to begin again afterwards.

The finished painting was exhibited in 2019 at The Hoard Museum Gallery in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin along with the rest of the series for A Moment in Time.

"Afterwards" painting
Afterwards©️2019 Barbara Grant

Yesterday I pulled it from storage and hung it in our sunny kitchen in order to gather final thoughts for this essay. As my husband was eating soup at the table, he noticed how the noon sun cast an interesting light on it. When he pointed this out to me, I was struck by how it appeared as an opposing slant forming an X across the sky to cause a new balance to the composition.

Shadow/sunlight over "Afterwards"

2020 has been a rough year for all of us, for everyone around the world. So many struggles and losses. And the storm is not yet passed. Traditionally families come together on Thanksgiving Day to celebrate blessings of the past year. It seems surreal that we are presently being warned about the dangers of doing so because of Covid19. My hope is for a better year to come and the strength to rebuild afterwards with a balanced new perspective.

Categories // Creative Process Tags // colorful sky, environment, found objects, Hardware store, photo reference, Rice paper fibers, Thanksgiving Day, weather

Perfect Connection for Now

10.10.2020 by Barbara Grant //

By now most people have figured out ways to stay safe and get through the current pandemic without going crazy. I’m grateful for all the guidance and helpful strategies I’ve found on various media. I miss my extended family, but we’re all pretty much in the same boat as we approach the holidays. I’ve been watching my younger grandchildren grow on Facebook and Zoom since February – not happy about that.

Regarding my work, I consider myself fortunate because not much has changed. As an artist with a studio in the lower level of our home and an on-line shop to sell what I create, I’ve not had to make many adjustments. The main difference was the halt to monthly meetings with my Circle art group, which has provided trusted, critical feedback to me for many years. So when the idea to meet virtually was presented, I was all in. 

And here’s the bonus: my previous art group (before I moved too far north) invited me to their Zoom meetings. The Oddball Artists – friends and colleagues who’d been so important to me while attending art school – are now within reach again! We share ideas, expertise, opportunities, creative energy and — best of all — memories.

For some, virtual is not enough; they need to meet in person. But for me, for now, it is the perfect connection. Checking in with these two groups on a weekly basis has been a lifeline that has helped me be content to work alone in the studio, walk my sweet pups around the neighborhood, and relax and enjoy free time with my husband*.

Photos by Bob Grant*

Categories // Limelights on my friends Tags // art community, artist friends, artwork feedback, creative energy, idea and information sharing

This much Sorrow

08.04.2020 by Barbara Grant //

Every Day is for the Thief by Teju Cole

Earlier this week I finished a beautifully written novel. The final chapter left me stunned. I asked my husband to stay awake so I could read it to him. He yawned through the first paragraph, again at the second. But as I moved through the poetic text his eyelids opened with interest as the author led us gently toward a solemn truth. 

Labyrinth - by Barbara Grant (from Alphabet Book https://bit.ly/2C0Z77u)

Along the way we learned the difference between a labyrinth and a maze – a subject dear to me. I walk labyrinths as a meditative prayer. I also draw and paint them. The author explains that a maze has “dead ends and false signals” while a “labyrinth’s winding paths lead, finally, to the meaningful center.”

Boating and Bob

When the image of boats entered the storyline, my husband’s interest peaked; Bob loves boating. Wherever we go he figures out a way to be near water and boats. Long ago he told me of his aversion to being placed in a nursing home in his old age. He would prefer to be placed in a boat and shoved out to sea… Which brings me back to that final chapter of Every Day is for The Thief by Teju Cole.

With closer scrutiny the narrator of the story realizes that the shapes originally seen as boats are actually coffins, “dozens of them, in different sizes and various states of completion, presented in sober and matter-of-fact array.” He quietly points to the fact that we eventually all die, but there is a truth even more difficult. It is that sometimes the old must bury their young.

I’ve read many articles about how people are coping with Covid19. One article that caught my attention was “We Can’t Comprehend This Much Sorrow” written by Teju Cole. He articulated what I was feeling – what I couldn’t form into thought.

I cannot comprehend this much sorrow.

References: “We Can’t Comprehend This Much Sorrow” by Teju Cole for The New York Times (5-18-20). It is this article that alerted me to the author’s thoughtful writing. I have begun to read more of his work, the first being the novelette referred to in my blog: Every Day is for The Thief.

Categories // Reading Tags // boating, coffin, covid19, labyrinth, novel

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