Comments on: Painting as food for the word

By: Christine Martell

Christine Martell — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:04:55 +0000

@susanne Oh those art supply stores can be so tempting. I have gotten in trouble in them a few times in my day. Yea to painting. Yes, I want to see what you are doing

By: Christine Martell

Christine Martell — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:02:42 +0000

@victoria thanks for the encouragement. Even after all these years, pushing the button to publish a post with my visual work is hard. I’ve always thought of it as private process work, so I’m just starting to see it speaks to others too.

By: Christine Martell

Christine Martell — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:59:18 +0000

@Ken Allan:

I had a conversation with an author several years ago. He had written dozens of books, but one stood out for him. He was asked to write the text for a book of photographs, where the layout and sequence was already done. He had to fit the words to the images. It got my attention when he described a kind of feeling like his brain was being inverted to have the images go first. All of his other books were illustrated after the words. Interesting stuff.

By: JoVE

JoVE — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:59:53 +0000

I think many of us struggle with some sense of things not being “real work”. Our culture has become very narrowly focused on an instrumental definition of “work” that is tied to “the thing that earns you money”.

But a life includes more than this. And the most important things are sometimes more abstract like “creativity” or “inspiration” or “conceptual understanding”. Getting there isn’t about sitting down and working efficiently on an instrumental task that will lead to that. IT is about working on things that may or may not produce what you think they will and seeing where they lead you.

For you this work is painting. It is good that you recognize it’s importance in your ability to do any other kind of work. ANd to give it pride of place in your daily schedule.

For others it might be something else. But we all need to recognize that sometimes what looks like “wasting time” is absolutely crucial in the longer term.

By: Ken Allan

Ken Allan — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:27:48 +0000

Kia ora e Christine!

Every time I click on my subscription to your blog on my RSS reader I see this wonderful, powerful picture. It glows with vibrant sunlight, and I see hills of sleeping contented giants.

You are right about what art can do for writing.

I use it a lot and never thought about the process as you have. My ploy, when I have an idea for a blog post, is to first design a picture to go with the idea. It’s always digital – no paint . Most of my blog posts this year have started that way and many of last year’s too.

What I found was that I spend as much time on the picture as I do writing the post. I don’t spend THAT much time on the picture, but when it’s done the rest (words) seems to flow at the same pace.

It is difficult to write to a blank page. I know this of old. So much better to write to a vision brought from the mind while contemplating the whole thing.

Catchya later

By: Susanne

Susanne — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:17:48 +0000

Christine, its taken me two years to finally find the mecca of painting and art in Munich. Of course, it isn’t in Munich, but I have a car. I went there last week with Isabelle and we managed to escape with only a 65 Euro purchase – most of which was my very first easle (I’m forgetting my English spelling) and several canvases. I decided not to worry about brushes or paint and to use whatever I had to just create. I also bought some blank postcards and a blank stamp and carving tool. I put a lot of stuff back and decided to focus – which can be hard. If you share your paintings (which I LOVE) I’ll share mine

Hang in there. keep it flowin’
Susanne

By: Victoria Brouhard

Victoria Brouhard — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:08:33 +0000

I love when you share your paintings here with us – they are truly beautiful. They always fill me with a sense of joy.

Hoping you’ll continue to share the fruits of your painting-first-thing-in-the-morning labors…

By: Christine Martell

Christine Martell — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:30:31 +0000

@barbara and @Tzaddi Yes, I will be at Wordcamp PDX, so lets connect there for sure. We can sit in the back and paint…..

By: Tzaddi

Tzaddi — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:40:15 +0000

Hey Barbara! It was a link on the eventbrite reg page that brought me here (this time). You can see who-all registered here:

http://wcpdx.eventbrite.com/

Looking forward to meeting you there!

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Yay! Glad you are back to painting. I love this piece, it just sort of *hums* visually, not sure how to explain it but I have this great reaction to it Awesome!