roadside finds

"The physicality and silence of drawing served over the years to restore 
focus or bring comfort in difficult times"

...Roger Lipsey in Angelic Mistakes: The Art of Thomas Merton

Drawing is a large part of my life. My sketches are not monumental pieces and some embarrass me and almost convince that I don't have a bit of skill after all these years. But I keep returning to a page each morning and after drawing something especially ordinary, life is better and the day is started properly. After reading and finding a place of internal quiet, I go on a five mile walk.

It's easy to notice the lovelies--the tree bark, the wild turkey, the flowers, the seed pods, but about two months ago I started noticing the discarded man-made stuff on the shoulders of the roads. The first morning I stuffed two pockets with my treasures and almost every day I bring something back and put it in the growing collection on my desk. I wonder about many of the pieces...their history and why they landed where they did but mostly I am taken with finding beauty in unexpected places.

Intentionality of Drawing

The semester is over. Grades are almost posted. Drawing must be an intentional act for me...not a thing that happens on a whim, but calculated into the day. In February I began a daily morning sketch/journal time that has been lacking in my day for a while...The drawings are usually quick and the painting in watercolor.  

Design II is Going Online

The Design II class is beginning a blog that will provide a record of the projects we have done this semester and the semesters to come. I will post the link to that blog in the next few days.

Art: An Essential Part of Education

"....the creative arts, the branches of art scholarship, the various departments of art are to be recognized as an essential part of education, a part without which the individual will be deemed less than educated."

 Ben Shahn in The Shape of Content

Reading Ben Shahn makes my work feel supremely important. I am absorbed with what happens in the classroom. I am passionate about facilitating the creative process and all it entails...the quiet attentiveness..the revelation of  seeing...and the internal movement into the realm of the brain where the work of creating art flows unhindered.