Transition Times (and an Offering to the Sign Gods)

I always used to say that I hated airplanes, but loved airports. I still dislike airplanes - I always feel a little claustrophobic - though I love their speed and relative efficiency. And I still generally like airports - they are places full of anonymity and possibility: you can go anywhere and become someone new, up to a point. You are limited by your baggage.

But transitions are still difficult. The transitions that occur in airports when you're trying to make connecting flights and navigate each airport's unique security requirements (don't get me started on Heathrow's International Arrivals Terminal) are more difficult since 9-11. And of course there are those airports that the Sign Gods* have abandoned utterly (like LAX or Katmandu International), perhaps for lack of the proper tributes or the worship of other gods.

Starting a new class, with new students, is also a transition of sorts. I started a new Playful Prayer class on Tuesday with a wonderful group of women. I was still a bit fuzzy headed from travel, but the class went reasonably well and is off to a good start.

We usually do mandalas during the first of the six-week classes. It's a good grounding and centering introduction to the practice of intuitive and devotional art. The class was small enough that I was able to work on my own mandala:

It incorporates bright, frenetic color; luggage tags from our "lost" luggage; punched circles from our boarding passes; tickets to Tulum area attractions; and images from the travel brochures. At the very center is the logo for Mexicana Airlines, a logo which also very much resembles the pyramid-shaped temples so common in MesoAmerica prior to colonization. This collage is only loosely a mandala - there is a central focus, radial symmetry. But it is more of a whirlwind in search of a place to put down. All that energy from transition needs to go somewhere.

*A note about the Sign Gods: I have traveled a great deal by myself across the United States and around the world. Yet, everywhere I go, when I am most in need, signs appear that guide me: the image of the leaning tower of Pisa with an arrow pointing straight ahead; the sign that reads "Baggage Claim" is six languages; the friendly rectangle letting me know that a much needed Rest Stop is only 10 miles ahead; even the strangely angular outline of a woman on an otherwise unremarkable door that spells "Thank Ye Gods, Relief is Near!" These are all evidence of the Sign Gods whose will is done by lowly shop merchants and bureaucrats the world over. Generally, chaos results if we defy them or ignore their will.

Loose Ends . . .

I thought I'd share how a couple of pieces have progressed . . . one was the mandala that I started the first night of Artmaking as Playful Prayer . . . I started working on it, then photographed my own hands, my own lips, and my own vegetables to incorporate into it . . . I also photographed some of my own lipsticks . . . The orange and lemon slices are plastic fruit that I bought and made photocopies of! Anything I can do to build my own library of images . . .


And here's the four-part self-portrait that I started at Traci Bunkers class at Art and Soul . . . I changed up some of the collage, and added a few color washes, and it definitely feels more unified. Can't say I'm crazy about it, but it feels resolved - and I learned a lot from doing it. Incubation is your friend.

And whether a piece is "likable" or not is probably one of the least important things about it.

Collage Materials - Delivered!

They're not really collage materials in the traditional sense of the word - they're vegetables. And they came to my house via Pioneer Organics. Yet, there they are - delivered - and I've been taking "glamour shots" of them to incorporate into my collage work. I love working with images of vegetables and fruits (kind of like skulls and birds, but different). This photo frenzy? It's all part of my transition to using only my own and public domain images in my mixed media art so that I can publish and reproduce my work. I really want to respect the work of other artists . . . and the food shots in Real Simple have been so tempting . . . their photographers have a genius for capturing the natural beauty of produce. Those images are now relegated to use only in my personal journals! So - I must learn to do my own! Next up: creating my own images of hands and lipsticks . . . then maybe I can finish the mandala I started in the first Artmaking as Playful Prayer Class this fall!