Tabula rasa

"Man is a creature who walks in two worlds 

and traces upon the walls of his cave

the wonders and the nightmare experiences

of his spiritual pilgrimage."

-- Morris West

Discovery of the very first "A Face A Day" blog 10-18-13

"I've always thought that one of the most intriguing moments in human history 

was the birth of artistic imagination."

-- Kathryn Lasky

"One of the strangest things is the act of creation.

You are faced with a blank slate -- a page, a canvas,

a block of stone or wood, a silent musical instrument.

You then look inside yourself.

You pull and tug and squeeze and fish around

for slippery raw shapeless things that swim like fish made of cloud vapor

and fill you with living clamor.

You latch onto something.

And you bring it forth out of your head like Zeus giving birth to Athena.

And as it comes out, it takes shape and tangible form.

It drips on the canvas, and slides through your pen,

it springs forth and resonates into the musical strings,

and slips along the edge of the sculptor's tool onto the surface of the wood or marble.

You have given it cohesion.

You have brought forth something ordered and beautiful out of nothing.

You have glimpsed the divine."

-- Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Female Figure (or Sibyl with Tabula Rasa), 1648
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez 

Okay, so I may be stretching the "disguise" theme a little bit. But it's my blog, so bear with me.

Today's "disguised" face is a blank slate disguised as a cave wall decorated with my silly attempt at a prehistoric cave drawing. My son Leo found this flat, smooth piece of slate when he was out squirrel hunting last week, and gave it to me as a gift. He said he figured I could come up with something creative to do with it.

Smart kid.

Even though today's nod to the primitive origins of artistic expression is light-hearted and simplistic, it is a subject I take very seriously, because I encounter it daily. Here's the scenario: 

I need a face for the blog, but ideas have dried up. My mind is a blank. My creative tank feels empty. I wonder, will this be the day I don't come up with something?

Then something burbles deep down inside. I see it. I watch it. I observe it as it wiggles, as it swims, as it crawls to the edge of the primordial pond and drags itself onto the shore with its little tail and flippers. It sprouts legs. It stands upright. It walks. I let it go where it wants to go, do what it wants to do. Out of my "nothing," the once-blank slate is filled.

I am neither an anthropologist nor an art historian, but the way I see it, despite our evolutionary advances over primitive people from the dawn of humanity, we have a lot in common with our ancient ancestors when it comes to art. Because the way I see it, artistic expression is not an intellectual thing. It's a visceral thing. It's a gut-level thing that rises up out of our own inner primordial ooze. 

Our minds may be superior to our prehistoric ancestors', but our guts are the same. Our hearts are the same.

In my experience, intellectualizing the creative process -- thinking about it too much -- kills it. I've found that I have a much higher success rate if I just let it evolve and stay out of its way.

I love the quote at the top of today's post, from Australian writer Morris West. It reminds me why I do what I do, why I make the pictures that I make. It's the same reason cave dwellers drew on their walls. It's why they picked up a rock or a burned stick and scraped and rubbed and drew images (sometimes crude, sometimes extremely sophisticated) for others to see.  

It's why I pick up my camera.

It's my way of saying "I was here, and this is who I was while I walked the Earth."

Unfinished business

"In hell there is no other punishment 

than to begin over and over again 

the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime."

-- Andre Gide

Polymer clay mask 7-25-13

"I don't like the word 'experiment' in the context of art in general. 

It implies something immature, unfinished, 

something entertaining for a moment before it becomes irrelevant."

-- Abel Korzeniowski

Peg Boggs:   Oh, my. What happened to you?

Edward:      I'm not finished.

 

-- Edward Scissorhands

Typically a face has to be "finished" before I post it on the blog.

But sometimes I like to indulge in a process that takes a little longer than a day to complete, from start to finish.

Often, if I am waiting for such a process to take its time, I make other less time consuming faces simultaneously, post those, and wait for the time consuming one -- the lolly-gagger -- to be finished.

But today's face, even though I plan to do more to it, looked kind of cool in it's unfinished state. 

So I decided to share it, and some of my process.

For anyone who's interested.

This face is a mask -- a life-sized face -- made of polymer clay.

Usually when I make a mask this size, I use the clay as a mold only, and render the final mask from it in papier mache.

But this face  looked pretty cool in clay, and it had some details that I didn't want to lose in the papier mache.  Plus, I haven't ever made anything this big in polymer clay and I was in an experimental mood.

So I went ahead and baked it and made it permanent.

Here it is "raw," while the clay was still pliable and before I glued in the teeth.

Polymer clay mask (unbaked) 7-25-13

Polymer clay mask, baked, with teeth 7-25-13

And here it is "baked." With the teeth glued in.

While I was photographing it, it was getting dark, so I had work lights on. 

I dug how the light filtered through the mask highlighting and shadowing the different thicknesses of the clay. 

Also, it made this face look super-sinister. Which I also dug.  

It looked like this:

Polymer clay mask (2) 7-25-13

He looks pretty devilish, doesn't he? 

Or maybe she's a she.

 I haven't decided yet. 

Stay tuned.

To get the image at the top of the page, I used this same image, and just fiddled with the colors and contrasts, turned and tweaked a couple of knobs.

I plan to do more with this mask, but I enjoyed playing with it the way it is. 

It's a lot like raising kids.

You don't have to wait for them to grow up before you can enjoy them.

They're lots of fun at every age.

And its nice to take pictures to chart their progress along the way.

Also, just in case I fuck up this mask by doing more with it, I wanted to have a record of its existence while it was still pretty good.

Which is also a lot like raising kids.

Half and half

"Life is half spent before we know what it is."

-- George Herbert

Self portrait 7-20-13

"He has the deed half done who has made a beginning."

-- Horace

"Begin -- to begin is half the work, 

let half still remain; 

again begin this, and thou wilt have finished."

-- Marcus Aurelius

Bone head

"It is not my intention to be fulsome,

but I confess that I covet your skull."

-- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

 

Self portrait  7-15-13

“Life's true face is the skull.”

-- Nikos Kazantzakis

Self portrait (2) 7-15-13

“The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.”

-- Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase

This face is on fire

"To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following:

mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime.

Distill this over a charcoal fire and the liquid which results 

can be burned on the face without harm."

-- Harry Houdini

Face in the fire 7-13-13

 

"Fire has a mind and a determination. 

You don’t see it as a blind raging thing, which I suppose it is, 

but something that attacks and thinks and changes tactics. 

It has a malevolence that uses surprise, dirty tricks, cunning. 

You get to think of it as someone, not something, and it’s someone you have to beat, 

but right from the start you don’t like your chances 

because it’s so big and unpredictable and can do so much harm.”

-- Bryce Courtenay, Four Fires

Face in the fire (2) 7-13-13

“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.” 

-- William Butler Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire

Jill, my super-awesome friend extraordinaire, came to visit yesterday.
We went for a motorcycle ride, had Tacos for supper, and then my son Leo built us a campfire on the back patio and shot off some fireworks.

I didn't have a face for the day yet, and it was getting late. I seriously did not know what I was going to post today. The cupboard was looking pretty bare.

Face in the fire (3) 7-13-13

Then Leo put some kind of color-changing glow-stick into the fire, and the flames started burning blue, green, red, fuchsia. I grabbed my camera and took a few pictures. When I started looking through the photos I'd shot, my imagination conjured faces in the flames. It was kind of like seeing pictures in the clouds. Some of the faces took a moment to see, but once I saw them, they were obvious and extraordinary and magical.

The face at the top of the page reminds me of the Hindu fire god -- Agni.

The second one looks like a flaming warrior -- some kind of Spartan or something -- turned in profile, wearing full regalia, face upturned with a plume of fire on his helmet.

The one to the right is a little trickier to see. Take a second and look for it. The face is a sad one with little eyes and a frowning mouth.There is a large, gaping black space spreading across the middle of the face, just below the eyes.

The one below reminds me of a flame-engulfed comedy/tragedy theater mask.

Face in the fire (4) 7-13-13

If Jill hadn't come to visit, these faces never would have happened.
We probably wouldn't have lit the fireworks or built the fire.
But Jill did come to visit.
And these faces did happen.
Like Jill, they only stayed for a little while.
Like Jill, they burned and flickered bright and beautiful, and then they were gone.

Freak show

“We’re freaks, that’s all ... 

We’re the tattooed lady, 

and we’re never going to have a minute’s peace, 

the rest of our lives, 

until everybody else is tattooed, too.”

-- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey 

Self portrait 7-11-13

 “I was always an unusual girl.”

-- Lana Del Rey

“Eschew the ordinary, disdain the commonplace. 

If you have a single-minded need for something, 

let it be the unusual, the esoteric, the bizarre, the unexpected.”

-- Chuck Jones

“All forms of madness, bizarre habits, 

awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, 

are justified in the person who creates good art.”

-- Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

I may not be the bearded lady.

I may not have a conjoined twin dangling from my chest.

I don't have the face of a wolf, or an elephant, or a bat.

I am not missing, nor do I have any extra, body parts.

I am neither unusually large nor unusually small.

I don't swallow swords or eat fire.

I am not "half this" and "half that."

My "deformity," my "biological rarity," is insomnia. Chronic sleeplessness is the thing that makes me feel like a total freak of nature. Insomnia is the thing that has shunted me off the bright, happy midway of life and into the murky shadows of the side-show tent.

It may sound like I am exaggerating, but I don't think so.

Lying awake all night long, night after night, alone, physically and emotionally and psychologically craving sleep that evades and eludes, nerves jumping, followed by days where I am useless, strung out and rattled from the exertion of exhaustion, when all I want is to semi-regularly experience a basic, biological, natural, normal human function ...

Yeah. 

I should sell tickets. 

Step right up! Step right up! 

Maybe a few strangers gawking at me through the tent flap would lessen the loneliness. 

At least there'd be witnesses to my fabled sleepless reality -- people who could confirm, awestruck with jaws on the ground, "She was awake, the whole night!" because they'd seen it with their own eyes. 

At least I'd be earning a living from the very thing that, right now, seems like a midway pick-pocket intent on stealing my life right out of my hands.

For now, I guess the best I can do about it is to make art out of it, hence today's face.

I'd keep company with the other side-show freaks, but they're sleeping.

Sam I Am

"You use contour all around the face 
so no matter what light Lois steps in, 
she'll photograph well and she'll look good 

no matter what angle you see her in."

                                                                                                   -- Robert Williams

 

Self portrait (contour drawing) 7-10-13

"The outline of your future path already exists, 

for you created its pattern by your past."

                                                                                                       -- Sai Baba

Sometimes when I feel creatively blocked, I do blind contour drawings to get things flowing.

Blind contour drawing is an old art school technique used to train students to really see their subjects, without looking at the paper. As you draw, you keep your eyes fixed on the outline of the model or subject, meticulously tracing it with your eyes as you draw its outline on paper. You go slow and steady, and you never lift the pen or pencil from the drawing surface, so the finished image is one continuous line.

If it was made of yarn, you could pick up one end the whole thing would unravel.

The end-result is often a drawing that is not very good. But that's OK. The point of blind contour drawing isn't to produce a masterpiece. The point is to develop your drawing skills. That said, the drawings can be kind of interesting, often distorted, and I think revealing. They often uncover or magnify a little truthful something that I didn't see before.

Today's face is a blind contour drawing of myself. I drew it while looking at my face in the bathroom mirror. But when I looked at the paper, the tangle of lines looked a lot more like my son Sam than it did me.

People always comment on how much Sam looks like my husband. And he does. They share many obvious similar traits and characteristics, for sure. I have looked hard to see the resemblance between my son and me. It's there, but below the surface and a little harder to see. I loved how this contour drawing helped me uncover a striking similarity without looking for it. Without looking, period. Even though it's a rudimentary nothing special kind of drawing, it kind of magically captured a similarity that made me feel a really cool connection with my child.

It's a fusion of us both.
Sam in me.
Me in Sam.
Sam I Am, green eggs and ham.

Hold on

"I like to use my hands and make things ...

It might seem pretty stupid or  pointless but that doesn't matter ...

Some of the most interesting work is the stuff that starts like that --

out of a raw need for activity."

-- Bruce Nauman

Self portrait in polymer clay 7-7-13

“I don't want to be the one who says life is beautiful.
I want to be the one who feels it.”

-- Marty Rubin

Shiny happy Jesus

  "Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer is simple -- to be happy. 

Maybe it's this expectation though of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there. 

Maybe the more we try to will ourselves to states of bliss, the more confused we get -- 

to the point where we don't recognize ourselves. 

Instead we just keep smiling -- trying to be the happy people we wish we were."

-- Meredith, Grey's Anatomy  

("Shiny Happy People," Season 6, episode 2)

Crucifix with a stick-on smiley face 7-6-13

 

"That's me in the corner

That's me in the spotlight

Losing my religion

Trying to keep up with you

And I don't know if I can do it

Oh no I've said too much

I haven't said enough."

-- R.E.M., "Losing My Religion"

Anonymous

 “I didn’t even have a name for her, shade or human, 

but I didn’t need one to know her.”

-- Shannon A. Thompson, Minutes Before Sunset

Face (detail), acrylic paint and marker on paper 7-1-13

"I discovered about 150 dots is the minimum number of dots 
to make a specific recognizable person.

You can make something that looks like a head, with fewer dots,
 but you won't be able to give much information about who it is."

-- Chuck Close

Face, acrylic paint and marker on paper 7-1-13

 “Who are you?"
"No one of consequence."
"I must know."
"Get used to disappointment.”

-- William Goldman, The Princess Bride

"Who is that supposed to be?"

I seriously hate that question.

As a kid, when I'd draw or paint a face, and someone asked "Who is that supposed to be?" I always felt a little deflated. Even when it was just an innocent question, it felt like an insult. Like judgment. Like the subtext of the question was really something like, "I can't tell who it is, so I don't think it's very good."

Because very often, it wasn't supposed to be anyone in particular. Not a specific someone. Nobody recognizable.  It wasn't even meant to be good. Or bad. Or anything.

Often, it was just a face. Just an exercise.  A sketch. Just me playing with lines and planes and angles and shading and medium and space and whatever.

When I go to a museum and look at the paintings of unnamed people, I don't automatically ask "Who is that supposed to be?" I don't really need to know who the model was in order to appreciate and enjoy the work. And even when I do know who it is, it doesn't always matter. Knowing "who" doesn't add to or detract from my experience with the piece. In fact, anonymity helps me enter into the work.

Anyway.

Today's face isn't supposed to be anybody.

It isn't supposed to be good, or bad, or anything.

It's just supposed to be.

Totally worth it

“Your mind is a canvas, 

your experiences are the paint colors 

and your actions are the brushes that show the art in you.”

-- Louise Philippe Dulay

Self portrait 6-29-13

"I search for the realness, 

the real feeling of a subject, 

all the texture around it."

-- Andrew Wyeth

Linoleum block for self portrait 6-30

Inked linoleum block for self portrait 6-30

These are the linoleum block prints that I shed my blood for.

 

There is something about this low-tech, hands-on, gouging out process that is immensely gratifying.

Unlike a photograph, which is a one-step process, a lino-cut self portrait happens in several stages.

First I shoot a photo, then pare it down to it's barest shadows. 

With carbon paper (yes, it still exists, and yes, it's still as much fun to play with as when we were kids) I transfer the image to the un-carved block.

Then, with a really sharp set of carving tools, I remove the material that fills the negative spaces, one little curled shaving at a time, until the image is revealed. This is the part where I am prone to cut myself. I almost always do. Sometimes it's just a little nick. Other times ... well, see yesterday's post about the other times.

Finally, I ink the block and press it onto paper. I can make as few or as many prints as I want to from the same block, and every one will be slightly, uniquely different from all the others. The flaws become assets -- character.

The ink is thick, so the print has texture that I can see and feel. It seems "real-er" than anything that comes out of my computer printer.

Yeah, my finger still hurts and is going to take a long time to heal, but the prints were satisfying enough to take away the sting. It was totally worth the pain.

Art and soul

"You use a glass mirror to see your face; 

you use works of art to see your soul."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Self portrait 6-28-13

"Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?"

-- Pablo Picasso

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul,

and paints his own nature into his pictures."

-- Henry Ward Beecher

Best. Scarecrow. Ever.

“I promise not to hurt you, unless you try to take my shit. 

Then I'll twist your head off and hide it in a bush somewhere.” 

-- Cedric Nye, The Road to Hell is Paved With Zombies

Zombie scarecrow 6-23-13

“Brains, BRAINS, BRains, brains, BRAINS.
BRaiNS, brains, Brains, BRAINS, BRains, brains, BRAINS.
BRAINS, BRains, brains, BRAINS, brains.”

-- Ryan Mecum, Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry for Your ... Brains

I planted a lovely vegetable garden earlier this spring.
It is fenced in and gated to keep out the rabbits and squirrels.
And now, for extra protection, it has a zombie scarecrow as a security guard.
He is guardin' my garden.

The way I see it, scarecrows are scary enough as it is.
Zombies are even scarier.
So the one-two punch of scarecrow and zombie is a fright cocktail that should keep out anything with a brain.

My son, Leo, helped me build this scarecrow, which is standing sentinel between the yellow zucchini and the red bell peppers.
I, of course, made the face. I made it from a Styrofoam wig head, some spray paint, some polymer clay rotted teeth and raffia (for hair).
Leo provided the arrow penetrating the zombie scarecrow's heart, as well as the materials for the dangling eyeball (covered wire and a bouncy ball). He also helped me pick out the zombie scarecrow's wardrobe at the thrift store. (I particularly love the adorable little -- er, I mean super scary -- Freddy Krueger sweater.)
Leo also built the frame and distressed the clothing, and he made the hands.  

A zombie scarecrow really is the best kind of scarecrow.
Think about it.
I don't have to worry about him eating my broccoli, zucchinis, cucumbers, peppers, basil and tomatoes, because zombies don't eat vegetables.
Zombies eat brains.
And vegetable plants don't have brains.
Except cauliflower kind of looks like brains.
And I am growing three cauliflower plants.
I will keep a dangling eyeball on those.

Cut & paste

 “We're all misfits here,” he says, almost proudly. “That's why I started this squat, after all.  

For people like us, who don't fit in anywhere else.  Halfies and homos and hopeless romantics, 

the outcast and outrageous and terminally weird.  That's where art comes from, Jimmy, my friend.  

From our weirdnesses and our differences, from our manic fixations, our obsessions, our passions.  

From all those wild and wacky things that make each of us unique.”

--Terri Windling, Welcome to Bordertown

Collage 5-29-13

"There are no extra pieces in the universe.

Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill,

and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle."

-- Deepak Chopra

“We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves 

to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, 

incessantly editing who we are until we fit in.” 

-- Charles de Lint, Happily Ever After

I haven't made a magazine collage in a while. So ... if you hate them, bear with me. And if you love them, today is your day! 

I have been chipping away at this collage for a few weeks. It just kind of lives quietly on a little table by the window, and every now and then I noodle with it, usually while I'm sorting out an idea for something else. A collage-in-progress functions like creative free-time for me, creative recess. It's malleable and changeable and forgiving and ultimately becomes a picture I didn't maybe imagine. 

A side-benefit of collage is that it also kind of frees your mind while your hands and eyes are busy searching for just the right piece (kind of like rummaging through a mountain of LEGOs for just the right block or working on a jigsaw puzzle). For me, it's kind of a palate cleanser between other projects. Like doodling.

Anyway, after a few weeks of fiddling, this collage kind of decided it was done, and I'm trying to be a good collage-whisperer who knows when enough is enough and just let it be what it is.

Remember, I am not  collage artist by any stretch nor do I profess to be. This is more of a peek into a part of my process than it is any kind of attempt at an actual finished product. I find ideas and inspiration for future faces through this medium, and I feel like some of my unspoken, underground artist's ideas get to drop by and say "hi" and have a voice.

I do think I like a couple of things about this collage, though.

I began this piece with the cascade of falling smiles that flow from the top left corner and filter through the birdcage and out the bottom. They come in all toothy grins and laughing and chatty, and then they go through the cage. It's kind of hard to see it, but there's a bird cage teeming with fading smiles, holding them captive until they're tamed, or quieted, or shut down -- until they're made into less of a smile and more of a sneer. There are still teeth visible, but all the happy is drained out in the cage. And when the cage gets too full and some of the caged un-smiles finally do escape, they are not smiles at all anymore. Just lips. Closed lips saying nothing. (*Your interpretation here!)

I am also pretty crazy about layering on faces -- putting someone else's mouth and another someone else's eyes over a another someone else's face, with someone else's hair or body. So that the eventual collage is a collection of mini-collaged individuals -- hims, hers, boys, girls, pick your mashup -- cut apart and re-made from any number of who's whos into brand new characters who all owe their existence and appearance to any number of others. They're made up of parts of each other.

Also,  I seem to use a lot of arms and hands in my collages. I am not sure what that says about me, but they are actively doing stuff all over the place, so that hands and faces tend to dominate a landscape run through by a ribbon of words.

There are lots of words in this piece, but my particular favorite words are shooting from the gun in the lower left corner, just above the chameleon. They say: "The artists will save us. Or at least blow our minds trying." 

Yep. We will.

Clayface

"What is a face, really? 

Its own photo? Its make-up? 

Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? 

That which is in front? Inside? Behind? 

And the rest? 

Doesn't everyone look at himself 

in his own particular way? 

Deformations simply do not exist."

-- Pablo Picasso

Self portrait with polymer clay face 5-22-13

Polymer clay face with jiggle eyes 5-22-13

 "No man for any considerable period 

can wear one face to himself 

and another to the multitude, 

without finally getting bewildered 

as to which may be true." 

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Facing it, always facing it, 

that's the way to get through. 

Face it."

-- Joseph Conrad

You're nobody 'til thumbody loves you

"Do not underestimate the power of the Thumb!"

                                                             -- Black Helmut Man, Thumb Wars: The Phantom Cuticle

Thumb face with cutout eyes, bandana and a cowboy hat 5-9-13

Under my thumb
The girl who once had me down
Under my thumb
The girl who once pushed me around

It's down to me
The difference in the clothes she wears
Down to me, the change has come,
She's under my thumb

Ain't it the truth, babe? 

-- The Rolling Stones, "Under My Thumb"

Kung Pao Barbie

Hot and spicy faces.
Ready in five, ten minutes.

Barbie heads Chinese takeout 5-6-13

Pin up girl

“This thief was an artist of theft. 

Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, 

but this thief stole the nails as well.”

                     

                                                                                                -- Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

"Pin up girl" collage 5-3-13

When I was born, they looked at me and said
what a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy.
And when you were born, they looked at you and said,
what a good girl, what a smart girl, what a pretty girl.

We've got these chains that hang around our necks,
people want to strangle us with them before we take our first breath.
Afraid of change, afraid of staying the same,
when temptation calls, we just look away.

 -- Barenaked Ladies, "What a Good Boy"

Tangled up in blue

 

“You can keep as quiet as you like, 

but one of these days somebody is going to find you.”

                                   

         -- Haruki Murakami, IQ84

Self portrait 5-2-13

 

“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by --
And never knew.”

                                                                                 -- Shel Silverstein, Everything On It

 

Mayday. Mayday.

"When you're drowning, you don't say 

'I would be incredibly pleased  if someone would have the foresight 

to notice me drowning and come and help me.' 

You just scream."

                                                                                                            -- John Lennon

Drowning styrofoam face 5-1-13

Mayday is an emergency procedure word 

used internationally as a distress signal in radio communications. 

It derives from the French venez m'aider, 

meaning come help me.