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Needle-and-thread growing along the Rio Grande riparian corridor and associated trail system. This site lies along the Rio Grande and the Paseo del Bosque trail, near Campbell Road NW, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico. Even with immature fruits, the lemmas and awns show no evidence of well-developed hairs that will mature into plumose awns indicative of New Mexico feathergrass, Stipa neomexicana.
Today I’ll talk about breaks. Not the kind you get when your cup of coffee falls off your hands. No, I’m talking ‘bout the kind you take.
You know, I once knew a guy who painted cityscapes. Big buildings, rain in the streets, umbrellas like jellyfish drifting across the canvas. He used to paint for sixteen hours straight, fueled by coffee and the sound of streetcars rolling by. Eventually, his colors started looking tired. Like they forgot why they showed up. He didn’t take breaks.
Painters we are like preachers, or mechanics. We need time to step away. You stare too long at one shade of blue, and you’ll start thinking it’s green. Your eyes play tricks. Your mind plays along. But if you stop, go for a walk, escape to China with Zappa as company, watch the pigeons argue over breadcrumbs -when you come back, that blue tells you the truth again.
Rembrandt used to pause between brushstrokes, just standing there, staring at the canvas like it owed him money. David Hockney lights a cigarette and uses it as a time for meditation. And Frida Kahlo she painted from bed, but you better believe she took breaks.
Painting isn’t an assembly line, it’s a conversation, and you can’t have a good one if you never shut up.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do for a painting... is to not paint.
So if you’re out there with a brush in your hand and your head full of thunder, maybe it’s time to set it down. Get a little air in your lungs. Go listen to the sound of train whistles or a saxophone drifting through a screen door. The canvas’ll still be there. It’s patient. It waits.
Taking a break don’t mean stopping the rhythm, it will surely put you back in it.
//Stay healthy, your always truthful Loana Ibarra
contact ibarraloana@gmail.com
This is a Dimensions mini kit (final design in my Believe, Imagine, Dream series). None of the original kit is evident in this design. Originally this said Love and I adapted it to make it Dream. I love the lettering. The rest of the design is my own.
Received some truly lovely fabric in the mail today- a gift from devin. Can't wait to make this into a skirt- thinking a line with big contrast pockets. #fabric #sew #crafty #pretty #needleandthread #instacraft #1picaday2012 #day253
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2 Comments on Instagram:
zzwhitejd: How sweet!
mcatherineblack: @zzwhitejd isn't it? And now I am thinking maybe a top instead. I can't decide!
The colors of this kit are nothing like what originally came in the kit. I used the materials from this kit to make up Dream. But then I decided I liked Love and wanted to make it. So I raided another kit and made Love and used the floss from that kit. So the coloring is original.
Paint under fingernails, on nail polish and dreams stuck in the bristles of a number three flat.
Now a painter don’t start with an answer.
We start with a question. Maybe it’s “What if the skin appears floating?” Could that show that unpleasant feeling I walk with day and night?
Maybe it’s “What does attachment look like outside the inside?”
Some don’t ask nothing, just dip the brush in turpentine and let the hands do the talking.
First, there’s the blank canvas.
White as a lie, cold as an empty room.
But don’t be fooled.
That canvas? It's listening. It just takes quite some time, patience, effort and dedication to really hear those whispers.
It’s waiting to become something.
Like a woman siting on a train platform with no destination just a ticket and a past.
The painter lays down a wash, thin like old whiskey.
Lets it dry. Waits. Then strikes again.
Shapes start to form.
Maybe it’s a a self portrait, maybe it’s a memory.
Could be just the ghost of a gesture.
Every brushstroke and stitch is a word in a language only she can speak.
But you? You may feel it.
Even if you don’t know what it says.
Sometimes we step back.
Light a cigarette.
Or just stare.
There’s music on the radio,
Or maybe just the sound of the city outside:
sirens, dogs, raindrops drumming against a window, the wonderful sound of the skaters outside, their laughter cheering and yells, the clink of a neighbor’s dinner fork on porcelain or his daily noisy basketball practice in the apartment.
All of it becomes part of the painting, somehow.
The painting’s never done, really.
They just stop, at the right moment.
Not when it’s perfect,
But when it breathes.
That’s the working progress of a painter.
We don’t chase beauty.
We try to reveal it.
One layer at a time.
//Work in progress. Embroidery, acrylic on canvas.
contact ibarraloana@gmail.com
Needle-and-thread growing along the Rio Grande riparian corridor and associated trail system. This site lies along the Rio Grande and the Paseo del Bosque trail, near Campbell Road NW, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico. Even with immature fruits, the lemmas and awns show no evidence of well-developed hairs that will mature into plumose awns indicative of New Mexico feathergrass, Stipa neomexicana.
Needle-and-thread growing along the Rio Grande riparian corridor and associated trail system. This site lies along the Rio Grande and the Paseo del Bosque trail, near Campbell Road NW, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico. Even with immature fruits, the lemmas and awns show no evidence of well-developed hairs that will mature into plumose awns indicative of New Mexico feathergrass, Stipa neomexicana.