i match band-aids + other random thoughts

i didn't think that band-aids were real skin colors. really i didn't. and then i put one on yesterday and looked down and what do you know? i'm band-aid colored. this photo doesn't really do me or the band-aid justice, but honestly - it's kind of creepy how well it matches.

these are actually the kind of thoughts that consume minutes of my day.

i was driving the other day -- rushing rushing -- always rushing -- and i had the thought -- i wonder what it would be like not to multi-task. to actually have enough time in the day to do what you wanted to do AT THE PACE you wanted/needed to do it.

we now hear all these buzz words - slow food, slow media, slow fashion [i'm tossing this one around for another side project i'm working on. but that's another post]. but i never do anything slowly really. except for when i'm actually making art.

my brain is full of ideas. grandiose and minuscule art ideas. ideas that make me want to drop everything else i'm doing - which is simply impossible and unreasonable. but my head - it wants to explode with thoughts of kites, cloud formations, viruses, toxins, balloons, bombs, slovakian bobbin lace, and military ribbons.

and then there's the whole color study work i want to do. nothing but thread and stitching and colors. really quiet. shhhh. all about texture and subtlety and getting back to the basics. but that would be kind of a left turn from what i need to complete and things i've promised to folks. i do want to get there... but i may have to be patient.



i've been inspired by these double sided colleen colored pencils that i first spied here . i like the idea of making drawings using their color combos. sometimes i find it relaxing if one element of what i'm working on is determined by some outside force. the scale, or the color, or something. it makes me feel like i have one less thing to worry about.

i'm working on these very small drawings for an upcoming show - and i found i really had to push myself to use more than 1 or 2 colors. i tend to like small shifts in a color family - like a bunch of teals and greens or several pinks and browns together. throw in one more color and i start getting twitchy. i'm trying to use at least 3 colors in some of them [the work is kind of all about 3] and it's making me work really hard. i think this is good, but part of me is still complaining.

i've also been thinking about pressure. it came up with one of my students who has had some early success with showing and selling his work. he said making art right now isn't as much "fun" as it was before because he has all these extra voices and thoughts in his head right now. i feel for him. the best moments in the studio [for me] are when you are present and yet also somehow in some other world - where you don't really have any "everyday" thoughts in your head and you aren't worried. you are just kind of making. it's hard to banish the outside temptations, influences, general "noise". i'm have a particularly hard time of it now. but i'm going to practice what i preach [to my students] which is to soldier on. discipline through it.

on that note. back to work. i have to re-write my artist statement for a proposal. this proposal is big. it's daunting. if i get what i wish for it will be pretty amazing. and that's all i'll say for fear of jinxing it.

happy wed.