Today in the Studio

Outpouring of emotions, few words, works in progress...

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The Road Home (now less travelled)

Here is the completed 36" x 48" painting of the 8" x 10" graphite and acrylic sketch done previously http://hollyfriesen.posterous.com/the-road-home-11

I enjoy doing the small version first as I can plan things and then let loose in the larger version with more confidence and zest!

Today I read (on @KellyDiels blog) these words.. "leavings have led to profound findings" http://ow.ly/JSs7

Sometimes letting go of old forms is so frightening and painful that we cling fast to them which leaves little space for the new forms to emerge and grow.

I have managed to let go and a vast expansive space has opened up before me, far greater than I ever even imagined was possible.

This "road home" serves as a metaphor for leave taking, expanding and a rediscovery of the home that lives within.

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Sounds of Release

Painting by @holly59 / Poetry by @lilyofoz

you cannot give 
what you never had
your soul caves in
your mind scrambles
for a shovel

release the sounds
send them on their merry way
back to the sorrow filled houses
where music lay still
as a graveside after the weeping

send them back to the carnivals
the smoky bars
the houses of shouting
the wanting
the wanting
the gaping mouths of need

beads of sweat
on my forehead
roll down my nose
drip onto my chest
i absorb them back
into my body

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Wild, Psychedelic, Studio Trip!

Today was like a psychedelic trip into color! My brushes started to move in a new way, partly influenced by @katost and her use of dancing lines, and partly by an impressive exhibition I recently saw by landscape painter, David Alexander . The colors and brushes just started to sing on their own, it felt like learning a new form of calligraphy but one that I already knew how to read and write intuitively. As long as I didn't stop to analyze or think but just kept moving and dancing, this flow of "writing colors" kept flowing! It was all I could do to contain myself and relax into this new freedom of mark making that I was experiencing. It was like trying to remember a dream, the more one relaxes and doesn't "think" about it, the more the dream is revealed. It felt so simple and familiar yet it is something I could never have done consciously or even have attempted before today. The painting process never ceases to amaze me!

Rocks, Rivers & Forest Pools

I am back with my beloved rocks again. I take these wild detours away from them and then all of sudden, there they are again! I am so in love with painting rocks! My paint brushes are smoldering from all their use today! Had the music cranked and literally danced my whole body into these paintings. They are side by side and both relatively large canvases so they are a joy to bounce back and forth from. Painting rocks is like building something with my hands. I once built rock walls for my gardens and it is a similar feeling, a feeling of constructing something, almost like sculpture. I collaged Washi paper (handmade japanese paper) here and there to add to the overall texture. I love to watch how the painting takes on a life of it's own and starts telling me what to do! At first I am unsure, full of doubt and just splash some paint on loosely to block in the composition but then all of a sudden the piece starts to speak and I start to dance! I just LOVE to paint when this happens!

Figures Entwined with Landscape

Out on a Limb

It is rare that I work without a reference photo or sketch but this is one of those pieces that is coming from within. I started it in the early spring, took a different direction and put it back in the storage rack. Pulled it out today and put it on the easel. It was definitely not the painting that I thought I would work on today. Sat on the couch and looked at it and looked at it. Read from Anne Carson, Charles Olson and looked at Kahlil Gibran's paintings as well as photos of the Omo tribe. Thought about my recent trip to California, my Persephone ptg for the Collective Egg project, my last year of living alone, separated from my husband and daughters...and began to paint. This is the result so far. All I have just described is within this painting, all the sorrows and joys, all the beauty and ugliness. I have no words for these things, only images, movement and paint. I was able to translate the ideas of my mind into body movement which became the strokes of paint. This is not a painting about my skill as an artist but a painting that takes me out on a limb and pushes me to the edge of my limits. I am frightened and vulnerable out here but oh so alive!