S  u  s  a  n    F  i  e  l  d     gualala, ca

                                      

Home

Wall hangings

Sculpture

Resume

Artist’s statement

Upcoming

Contact

 

 

Journal

 

 

Drawings

 

 

April 14, 2007 – Saturday

 

Have worked 6 hours today to organize the studio.  Arrived at 8:30 this morning, and it’s 2:30.  Have done all I can with what’s up here.  Now it’s nearing the time to rent a U-Haul truck for the tables & chairs, flat file, bookshelf, etc.

 

I’m elated.  Things are fitting great on the shelves, and I didn’t have to throw out as much as I’d expected.  Have organized areas for textures, drawing materials, paints, with completed works either on the bottom shelves or at the very top, where I won’t need them every day.  The front room has been cleared, with the gumboots in a corner to pick up where I left off months ago. 

 

I watched the movie “Art School Confidential” a few nights ago.  Most of it was right on the mark.  The main character watches as another student wins all the praise:  gets the prize, gets the dealer, gets the girl.  He tries to figure out what to do, since talent isn’t enough.  The twist in the plot that lands him where he wants to be -- recognized and commercially successful -- is a funny/sad commentary on the tension between art and “making it.”

 

This morning, before I put on my iPod earphones, I heard the hawk screech high in the outside trees.

 

 

April 28, 2007 – Saturday

 

Yesterday as we were driving up, I told F. I haven’t done any artwork since New Zealand, i.e., since September.  “You haven’t?” he said, surprised.  It got me to thinking I should set up a space today to try to do some little bit, something to get my hands going.

 

So, for lack of a chair, I’ve dragged the ladder over to the end of a table and am sitting on one of the steps.  The window at my back is open to the sun.

 

***

 

Just now, for 15 minutes, I did some drawings.  My sketchbooks aren’t here yet, they’re in boxes in the old studio, so I dug out old lined memo paper, maybe 4 x 6”, and set out 12 sheets on the table.  Found a pencil and just started drawing.  Sometimes the lines were repetitive as if searching for something hidden in the paper.  The shapes weren’t particularly interesting but I let the pencil drift where it wanted, and I let my hand feel the pleasure of movement.  I listened to the guy in his metal shop next door humming a Gordon Lightfoot song.  Sometimes I pressed the lead down hard, sometimes I let up.  When it was time to move on to the next blank sheet, I did.  Toward the end, the shapes became like leaves, which I like to think points to something growing, something alive.

 

I’ve tacked a couple of them to the wall, my first work done here, come to inhabit this place.

 

 

July 2007

 

 

© Susan Field, LLC 2007.  All rights reserved.