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NUDGE-SHOVE

8/1/2022

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Soft Fists (Lola Jovan) oil on paper, 13 x 20

These are unprecedented times.  And I've been struggling for words.

So when artist Helaine Abramson and I collided in a cyber chat about our emotions, frustrations and feelings of powerlessness in these times, something else was born.  The idea of a call and response - the world is calling (shouting, screaming, banging fists on tables) and artists (humans, women, men,) want to respond.  When words fail us, there is art.

Abramson and I stumbled upon a poem from decades ago by Sylvia Plath (Mushrooms), which beautifully gave voice and a loooooooooong trajectory view of women's struggles in the world.  How could it be that here we stood, feeling the need to heave the needles (Plath) and keep moving forward, just as Plath deliciously described so long ago?


Abramson challenged me to channel the poem (and our own feelings) into art.  Art for the sake of expression, without any care for sensibility, marketability or brand.  To push each other to try things we haven't tried, take risks, be bold.  To create an environment between us of growth, power, strength and voice.

NUDGE-SHOVE is a small experiment.

Two artists pushing each other in a tiny, safe environment cocooned within the larger, dangerous environment of the world.  I think we were both surprised by how empowered and edge of the eyeballs we felt in creating the art and in writing the narrative for this experimental show.
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Bloodless No More (Helaine Abramson) mixed media mosaic on wood 12 x 12
We haven't solved any of the world's problems here.

But we have found a way to take the chaos of everything out there and use that energy for something else - to connect, inspire, commiserate, encourage, listen and see.  

It is our sincere hope that our art and words will touch you, dear reader.  We hope to hit a nerve, strike a chord, make a little splash.  Maybe, if we're lucky, it will inspire other small experiments in the world - nudging and shoving until our kind multiplies (Plath).

NUDGE-SHOVE​ is open!  Head over to the show page and take a gander.  We love if you'd linger awhile.  Comments, feedback, questions and all the things are welcome.
2 Comments

This is Sixty

7/28/2022

10 Comments

 
Art is about seeing.  

And the sun is in Leo: See and Be Seen.  21,915 days as a human being. And still the way I see is changing.

I've been stuck in my head, mired in the negative nonsense of the number of years I now am.  How I saw myself (in the mirror, in my mind's eye) was not always flattering (and now and then downright unkind). Until someone who loves me showed me how I look through his eyes and camera lens.  It was (is) the greatest gift.  Thank you, my love, for seeing this me in me.
This all started because I challenged myself to be exceptionally vulnerable about turning sixty.  (You know well, dear reader, how much I value vulnerability and all it brings). Which included being wiling to put my very self out there the same way I do my art, risking rejection and ridicule but going for it anyway.  Because when I am ninety and look back at sixty, I want to know that I was sixty without reservation.

What I didn't expect was to be changed by the experience.
I did not expect to feel exhilarated standing nude on a mist-shrouded beach in freezing water.  I did not expect to feel self-love cover me like a warm blanket, and the weight of inhibition to fall away like unwanted detritus.  I did not expect it to be so awkwardly and wonderfully delicious.
Days later, upon seeing the final photos, I did not expect to be overwhelmed by tears. 

What I saw in those (these) pictures was not the me I knew.  What I saw was a woman much and gently and gracefully loved.  I wanted to be her - and I was (am) her.  How could this be, that I never saw this me?
There are tears as I write these words.  To be seen changes how I see. 

Mark Nepo's words have illuminated my experiences for some years now, and these words (which I have quoted here before) are just the thing, I think, for this:
“We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.

When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy.

It’s like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable.”
Here's to sixty, dear reader.  

​Here's to not covering up who we are, to ungloving ourselves.   

(with deep gratitude to my partner for the gift of his skills as a photographer and artist and all the things.)

NUDGE-SHOVE opens right here on August 1.    Sign up for email notifications (in the column on the right).
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Telling Stories is Never a Neutral Act

7/25/2022

4 Comments

 
"Telling Stories is Never a Neutral Act" - oil on canvas, 24 x 20 x 1.  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

"Why have I told you this?  Telling stories is never a neutral act.  The teller has a motive, and the listener becomes complicit once the contract of storytelling has been executed."

 from The Rosewater Redemption​ by Tade Thompson
Artists are storytellers.

Sure, our stories are told in paint (or clay, mosaic, photography, collage, metal, wood, etc.) but still there is a story teller and a story receiver in the equation.   It is a bit of an interesting tale, though, where the story may or may not be clear, or may change between the telling and the receiving, depending on the type of art and the viewer's experience of it.
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Telling Stories is Never a Neutral Act
Sometimes, as a storyteller/artist, I don't even know what the story is until someone like you, dear reader, comments on how the piece feels to them.  And then there is a little AHA lightbulb - it is often spot-on.  We are complicit,  you and I, in these tales woven in paint.  I like the idea that we're conspiring together.

​About the art:  beginning with a heavily textured and gesso'd canvas, painting a portrait in oil paint (this one inspired by a photo of a coal miner).  The underpainting was allowed to dry for several days.  Then adding thick, loose oil paint (mixed with Liquin) in large brush strokes all over the face.  Moving the paint with squeegee and rubber wedge from left to right.  I returned to the details with a small brush to bring out the eyes and face highlights again.  Then, a Gamsol-soaked wet brush dragged along top edges and allowed to run through the wet paint, leaving delicious texture.  Want to see it in action?  Head over to my instagram for a little video.

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​NUDGE-SHOVE is coming!  Show opens right here August 1.
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4 Comments

Blurred Lines

7/18/2022

4 Comments

 
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Blurred Lines
"Blurred Lines" - oil on gallery wrapped canvas, 16 x 20 x 1.5.  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

Blurred lines - A commonly used expression to reference a situation where things are ambiguous or unclear. Sometimes meaning "to push the envelope" or test the boundaries of acceptability. - URBAN DICTIONARY
The studio is stacked with canvas and board.  All. manner of portraits, in all phases of development.  And one by one, I am systematically ruining them..

Or not.

Blurring the lines, moving the paint, distorting the features, changing the viewer's view.  There's an art to this (pun intended).  Paint does odd things, is unpredictable, has a mind of its own.  I am learning to be a good paint wrestler.
It might be a response to the world.  Or maybe a way of working through to the words I long to have.  Or just a delicious journey of destruction.

Whatever the reason, there are more to come.  And once you get started down this rabbit hole, there is no stopping.



​About the art:  beginning with a black gesso'd canvas, loosely sketching a portrait and building the layers in oil paint.  Moving the paint with squeegee and rubber brayer, then back in with more layers of detailed definition and shadowing.  The final layer is mixed with a generous helping of Liquin to keep the paint very wet.  Moved horizontally with squeegee and wedge.

​Want to see it in action?  Head over to Instagram.com/jenjovanart for a video


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NUDGE - SHOVE
A call and response between two artists and the world.
Helaine Abramson
Lola Jovan



Opens August 1, right here on this site, out here in cyberspace.
Subscribe (in the column to the right) to be notified when the show goes live.
​Already subscribed?  You're all set, smart cookie!
​Get ready to be PUSHED.


4 Comments

Seeing Red

7/9/2022

10 Comments

 
"Seeing Red" - acrylic and oil on Arches 300 lb paper, 22 x 30.  Available here and at Artfinder.

"Red protects itself. No color is as territorial. It stakes a claim, is on the alert against the spectrum."
- Derek Jarman.
Blog and blogger have been on an unintended hiatus.

My words have been stewing, mulling, fermenting, even as the studio is overwhelmed with paintings in progress.  The world has given me (and all of us) much to process in recent weeks, and it seems it is taking me a bit of time to sort it out.  I'm not there yet.  

So I take solace in the art, in the forest, on the mountain, near the ocean.  Solace in the morning walks, solace in afternoon naps and in watching bees and ogling flowers.  Solace in our sanctuary (home) and pooches and kindness and love.  Solace in books and breezes and blowing bubbles.
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Seeing Red
And while my thoughts are fermenting, the art is expanding.  A new show is coming (shhhhhhhh!  It's a little secret!  Details soon!) and it's pushing me in the studio.   If you'd like to be notified when the show begins, subscribe (in the column on the right) and you'll get a little notice in your in-box. :). 

If you've also been struggling for words lately, leave a little comment below.  Maybe we can all help each other figure out exactly what words might  be best right now.

About the art:  beginning with untreated Arches watercolor paper and sketching with charcoal, then blending in acrylic paint to form the structure of the portrait and basic values and colors.  Using rubber wedge and large brushes, going over the acrylic with oil paint and allowing it to move and slide and blend.  I'm delighted to be working in oils again!
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The Courage to See Clearly

6/3/2022

4 Comments

 
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The Courage to See Clearly

The Courage to See Clearly - acrylic on craft paper, 14.5 x 17.  Available here and at Artfinder.


This courage to see clearly what is before us, around us, and within us applies as well to the largest acceptance of all — that we will die. In accepting death, we can see more easily where we can live. In accepting that we have no control over the stream of life, we can see more easily the gestures we do have control of, which sages refer to as our chance to steer in the stream. In accepting that life is relentless in its rush of experience, we can see more easily where it is tender and wondrous. In facing the harsher ways of those we love, we can ask for authentic relationship and accept the hard work of how to get there.   - MARK NEPO
Lately, I've been stuck in the middle of the stream.

Stranded in a tiny, swirling, cloudy vortex of grief,  And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

Two friends passed away in recent weeks, and each was a brilliant well of creativity and kindness, vibrant and generous and sweet. And national events...that, too. A monkey pile of sadness and loss.
And so the inner world has become a miasma of reflecting, ruminating, regretting, celebrating and feeling - oh so much feeling.   All the way to the ends of my fingertips and edges of my eyeballs.  

Nepo's words give purpose here. They point to the BIG REVEAL that we all face when confronted with the loss of others - the inevitable ends of our own lives.  I was fighting the stream until a few days ago, when the overwhelm of exhaustion and feelings had me fed up with my own stew of sadness.  And I surrendered.  

We have no control over this stream -  who it takes, who it leaves behind.  But we can "steer in the stream", accepting, seeing more easily where we can live.  That's where the relief is.  Where the lives of those loved and lost become even more meaningful - they point us ​where we can live.  And so I gently steer myself to the tender and wondrous​ parts of the stream.  I think Heidi and Dana would approve.

About the art: another piece on that lusciously leathery gesso'd craft paper.  Layers and layers of softly blended paint, added with brushes, sprayed, scraped away, then added again.  Embracing the random textures, lines and splatters that result.  Following her gaze to clearly seeing.
4 Comments

Faulty View

5/19/2022

2 Comments

 
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Faulty View
"Faulty View" - mixed media on paper, 21 x 21.  Available here and at Artfinder.


Claude, you have a faulty view of my kin,
Our Corvus family is not responsible
For foot-tracks around your eyes
Or measuring a straight flying distance.
We would not stoop to the metaphor
abasement, such as ‘eating human.

- W.K. GOURLEY

​
The crows continue to roost in the studio.

Sketches and paintings and inspiration images and feathers. 

Rocky, our porch crow, looms large every day.  We recognize his voice, admire his demonstration of territorial ownership, leave him offerings of nuts, popcorn, corn on the cob and eggs.
We've become those people.  The ones who wander with pockets filled with peanuts, chucking and clucking and calling the crows.  And now, often, the crows call us.  Or swoop silently over our shoulders to land in a tree limb ahead, waiting for the morning offerings.  There is great joy in this, for us.  Making contact, forming recognition, learning each other's ways.

It has become a lovely pause in a tumultuous world.  Our eyes and ears are atuned to the crows, leaving little space for news and chaos.  I think of it fondly as crow meditation. :)

About the art:  this piece is painted on one of my new favorite substrates - craft paper.  Once gesso'd, this paper takes a beating and forms delicious textured wrinkles and warps, creating an overall leathery texture and heft on a thin plane.  

Beginning with black gesso'd paper taped to a board, drawing the bird with white charcoal and then adding water and paint to form a value sketch.  Continuing to add the requisite 80 million layers of acrylic paint, this time choosing a very dark, limited palette.  Using the sprayer bottle, squeegee and rubber wedge to force the paper to wrinkle and warp, enjoying the way subsequent light layers cling to the high points in the texture and leave the valleys dark.  Resisting the urge to overly define all but eye and feet.

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The Night Will Give you a Horizon

5/3/2022

4 Comments

 
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.


When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.


Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.


There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.


The dark will be your womb
tonight.


The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.


You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.


Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.


Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn


anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
​

is too small for you.

​"Sweet Darkness", David Whyte


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The Night Will Give You a Horizon



​"The Night Will Give You a Horizon" - mixed media on wood panel, 18" x 24".  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.
There's a lot going on in the world right now.

It makes me tired to think about it.  But think about it I must, we all must, because war and disease and the economy and the people making decisions on our behalf effect us.  The key, I believe, is not overthinking about it. 

I'm a big overthinker.   It comes with being introverted, highly sensitive and a survivor of a measure of trauma.  There are worlds of thinking in my head that are ever expanding during times of strife.  So Whyte's words, the reminder to "give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong", places that brain of mine back in the present moment - this peanut butter sandwich on my desk, the sound of the crow outside, the in and out breath.  

Anything (or anyone) that does not bring us alive, dear reader, is too small for us.  

About the art:  beginning with a wood panel thickly gesso'd in black.  Using colored charcoal and blocking in shapes based on an inspiration photo from a sunset on the rocky Oregon shoreline.  Grabbing the gist of the scene with layers of fiery oranges and then building rocks and pools and edges with a palette knife laden with acrylic paint.  Liberal use of spray bottle, squeegee, rubber wedge and chopsticks (for carving into the paint).  Dollops of colored pencil.  Thin washes of paint mixed with matte medium for the sky.  Resisting the desire to overly define.  Allowing paint to move.

​This piece. moves, me...I hope it moves you, too. xo
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Wonder and Grief

4/23/2022

8 Comments

 
"Wonder and Grief" - mixed media on cradled wood panel, 8 x 8 x .75.  Ready to hang.   Available here and at Artfinder.


Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief.  

from "Adrift" by Mark Nepo


​I am one of the very, very lucky ones.

Nearing 60 years old, and I am able to (and do) wander and hike and witness some of the most beautiful places, in the company of an extraordinary human, and then repeat that experience again and again.  Sometimes, it just leaves me in a puddle.
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Wonder and Grief
Nepo's poem goes on:

In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.


When all that I've lost (in nearly six decades, in my case) meets all that I have (which is more than I ever imagined), I catch my breath.  There is a holiness, an unmistakable sacredness, to this.  Wonder and grief, in a beautiful duet, leaving me smiling and brimming with tears.

Here are some of the recent gems in the realm of overwhelming beauty:
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About the art:  beginning with a panel covered in black gesso, mixing a limited palette of colors and applying them with rubber wedge, paper towel, chopstick and brush.  Allowing the paint to move and dictate its direction, resisting the desire to drop more color than a small piece can handle.  Finishing with colored pencil applied with a very loose, non-writing grip to keep the marks organic.
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Cosmic Octopus

4/14/2022

2 Comments

 
"Cosmic Octopus" (a commission) - acrylic on wood altar.  SOLD

The madcap laughed at the man on the border
Hey ho, huff the Talbot
The winds they blew and the leaves did wag
They'll never put me in their bag
The raging seas will always seep
So high you go, so low you creep
The wind it blows in tropical heat
The drones they throng on mossy seats
The squeaking door will always squeak
Two up, two down we'll never meet

Please, leave us here
Close our eyes to the octopus ride
​

Please, leave us here
Close our eyes to the octopus ride

from ​OCTOPUS, by Syd Barrett
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Cosmic Octopus
The wild Pacific is surging through the studio, and a cosmic octopus dropped by.

This piece was a commission request from one of the most sparkly humans I know.  So when she asked "would you?" I immediately said "yes!"  Personal altars are just that - personal.  They speak to your insides while sitting on the outside, gathering your special talismans and holding your hopes and wishes in a sacred place.  And if you are a very colorful, very sparkly human, your altar needs a candy-coated cosmic octopus.  

I'm going to want one of these for myself!

About the art:  beginning with a solid wood, two-tiered altar, the areas to be personalized were taped off and coated with black gesso.  A colored pencil sketch followed, along with the requisite 80 million layers of color in both acrylic paint and Uni Posca Paint Pens.  Finished with a coat of cold wax to protect paint and wood.
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Here's the blue wild, where
tiny dreamers ride beasts, speak
​ birdsong, hold the moon.

(by poet Mary W. Cox)
​


​Art prints available on request
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