a small rain
seals our talk –
the walk home
susan lee kerr
Living in the in-between. It is difficult to reflect on change when you are in the middle of it. I tend to paint first and figure it out later. I painted pomegranates, then realized I was in a stage of transformation and magic. I painted adolescence when I was playing catch up on some developmental stages. I painted flowers and still life, then saw that the work was reflecting a new domesticity. It is usually by looking back that I recognize what my art was telling me. (If it is telling me anything at all. Sometimes a painting is just a painting.)
We humans like to know what’s what. We like to get things solid. No matter that things are never really solid. It is comforting to think they are. There is a term in Tibetan Buddhism called the bardo. (Currently reading In Love with the World, A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying by Helen Tworkov and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche). My understanding is that the bardo is a “becoming”. It is when you are definitely no longer where you were and you are not yet where (or what) you expect to be. It is amorphous, undefined, unknown and uncharted. And full of possibility. It seems to me now is like that. It is unsettling. It is a time to live the question – in the bardo – and be open to what is actually happening.
Sketches of Home
Four years ago, I was working in Portland, but my new house was on the Olympic Peninsula. For five months, I circulated among generous friends’ homes, doing a lot of house sitting. I guess it was a bardo interval then too, since I was about to leave my home town of 32 years, but I had not left quite yet and I wasn’t yet settled in Port Townsend either. I was often alone. I had time to read, write, draw. I had the peace and comfort of warm, inviting, well-loved homes – most were places I had spent a lot of time in, over the years. I loved hanging out in the aura of love and memory, with books, cats, a dog, house plants, comfortable sofas, musical instruments, art on the walls (some of it mine), gardens – all those things that make a house a sanctuary for the self, for the family. I was struck by the beauty and the personality of these dwellings and made a series of ink brush drawings of the sweet places. I would leave a drawing for the host family as a gift and thought someday I’d do something more finished with the rest of the sketches. I love the conceptual theme of home.
And today here we all are. Home. Home. Home. I have decided these little drawings are complete as they are and so, put them together into a small slide show to celebrate HOME. I hope you enjoy it, cozily. And thank you to my dear friends who opened their doors to me. Click on the image above or here to view the slide show.
Haiku Synchronicity
My brilliant writer sister, Susan Lee Kerr, is a member of The British Haiku Society and a compilation of her work, The Walk Home, is being published by award-winning small press Alba Publishing. For the cover of the book, Susan asked me to look through my existing work, or to create a new painting. I welcomed a project with a deadline – it helped to move me to action from the ennui I was feeling during this unsettling time. I painted three pieces (Chiswick Walk Home, A Path Through Old Cedars, and Sunlight Arboretum – still in progress), and also sent a number of watercolor sketches, letting Susan and her publisher decide what felt right for the cover. I love the synchronicity of this commission – the path toward home – a reminder of our global shared experience of staying at home, and the warm friendliness of peeking into so many living rooms.
I have been teaching for Port Townsend School of the Arts via Zoom video conferencing (yes, a peek into my home studio!), a format which works surprisingly well. It feels good to be in the community of art making, even if it’s distanced. Upcoming classes include Ways to Inspiration a 2-day workshop on May 20 and 21 and Paint From Poems: Exploring Literary Inspiration on June 10 and 11. and Mindfulness Practices for Art Making on June 17. Keep checking at PtArts.org, I may add more classes as folks express interest.
