Blog

I had the pleasure of being interviewed Wednesday morning on WUWU 100.1, the new low-power FM station in our area.

Mike Lane, an Elberta resident who worked for NPR in Alaska for many years, had invited me to be on "What's Up With You," a program that features local persons of interest. All that stood between me and that radio date was a major winter storm that was dumping so much snow the plows wouldn't attempt to clear the streets of Frankfort until late afternoon.

I moved to northern Michigan from Atlanta (Georgia). I couldn't imagine driving to the station in what I saw out my window. Yet, I had a date with destiny in the Village of Elberta, so I inched my way along the mile and a half of unplowed roads in whiteout conditions. Heedless of parking regs, I angled my car into a snow bank and hoped I could get it out again. Then, finding a path through the new fallen snow, I made my way to an  RV parked in backyard of a house that (fortunately) was signposted WUWU.

I'd been forewarned the repurposed vacation home would be unheated, so I layered up; but as it turned out, it wasn't so cold in there. The body heat of me and the 4 others cozied into the small space of the studio raised the interior temperature. (While I kept my down coat on I was able to remove my hat and mittens.)

 After a round of introductions, a bit of "Sleigh Bells," and a weather report, we got started. I felt I was on the set of Northern Exposure. Mike had told me there might be 6 listeners "out there," or maybe 30. In any case, just as on Northern Exposure, this is very local radio--I'd never felt so comfortable on air as I did on WUWU. After completing the interview, I bundled up again, and left with an invitation to return again, to host my own program, if I want. I said I'd think about that.

By the time I got back to my car it was covered with about 6 inches of white stuff. Visibility was practically nil. I was almost to the Cabbage Shed before I realized I'd missed the turn onto M-22. No matter, I'd done what I set out to do, tell my story to whomever had ears to hear. And you can listen too by clicking this link!

I'd love to know if you have comments. And, also, what you'd think if I offered a radio program with art/spirituality/transformation kind of content. Really, I'm thinking about this, so let me know!

Stay warm!

Ellie

Making your unknown known is the important thing, and keeping the unknown always beyond you - catching - crystalizing your simpler clearer vision of life... that you must always keep working to grasp.

Georgia O'Keefe

I've been fascinated by the appearance of a painting I've posted here:

"Flower Power" began life as a demonstration of a color-mixing exercise in the Open Studio Workshop I gave last August. I used as my painting support a square of Masonite to which months before I'd applied several coats of white gesso. (I favor the textured surface for my Haiku Birds.) Now, it was simply a blank surface on which I created eight different mixtures of red and blue pigment. Demo complete, I put it aside in a pile of other unfinished work. There it languished until November when, in a moment of unthinking, I plucked it out of the pile and added the larger yellowish shape. Over the next few days, I spontaneously added the pink and, finally, after adding the dark marks, I signed the painting using a dark red mix.

I'm as puzzled as anyone at the evolution of my art from representational to abstract painting. I never know what's going to come off the brush next and, if I try—as I inevitably do—to make a painting do what I think it should, the result is never satisfying. Indeed, it's the encounter with my own Unknown that thrills me. I sit with the painting, then, and let its language of color, shapes, texture and line speak to me, a mystery unfolding itself from my insides out.

At this point in history, many are distressed by how out of control the world seems to be. Things have not gone the way we perhaps thought they should and, afraid of the Unknown, the mind runs on to imagine worst case scenarios. We shrink back in fear, lose sleep, eat too much We often create, in our reactions, far more misery than is necessary.

Creating art, not fear, has taught me how to look for and find peace in Unknowing. The actual Unknown—Reality—may turn out to be more interesting than what we've conjured up with terrified imaginings.  When painting, if I direct my mind away from disaster thinking and trust, I see how the marks I spontaneously make frequently pull themselves together into a cogent picture, one that couldn't be planned ahead of time. I don't have to know in advance the right way to proceed; I simply follow the flow and hold nothing back.

It's not always easy, but when I can manage to work in this manner, the outcome is never what I expected; it is always something else, Something More, often a soulful painting that pleases even if I don't know why. A work made in this way invites me to yield to my unknowing and  behold with gratitude the fact that in this painting, at least, I was able to hold nothing back and, yet, not do more than was necessary. I feel tremendous peace in these moments.

I hope you'll take a few moments to sit with "Flower Power." I'd love to know if its Unknown quality intrigues you. If you have words for what you experience, please share them with me here! If you don't, maybe you'd enjoy painting a painting from your own Unknown.

Peace,

Ellie