there’s an artist around here somewhere

I spent the morning with local artist Carolyn Abrams. (Jill and I met Carolyn at a poetry workshop almost a year ago.) She has agreed to help me get my visual art groove back.

Since I opened the studio in September 2008 (and closed it in August of this year), I have done very little art. I’m saddened by it, and I miss it. I need it as much as I need the poetry, but it’s often the thing that gets neglected when something has to go. Encouraged by Carolyn, I have started an art journal (for doodles and collages and notes). I have posted four of the spreads — labeled October 2009 — in my journal pages gallery.

We are also meeting a couple of times a month at her studio (a large shed in her backyard, not unlike Kelli’s writing shed) to play with various techniques. Today, we spent more than an hour using acrylics to make gelatin prints (mostly on rice paper). Here are a couple of those:

They are created by spreading paint onto a block of hardened gelatin, lifting it off in specific areas with objects (stamps, leaves, string, anything!) and rubbing the paper onto the wet paint. These can be displayed alone, used as backgrounds or incorporated into collages.