Dawn Breeze Daily

A day that doesn't happen often

2012-02-29T18:51:00.001-08:00

I have created a new installation that is currently available to observe at the Germantown Nature Conservancy in upstate NY.

I have been envisioning this piece in various forms at this location for over a year but yesterday the pieces all came together and just like the year-I leaped in to action. I am pleased. This Video is from my walk today.

I am waiting for the title to become clear and in fact I don't have much to say about what the piece is exactly. Its five "dress-up" dresses half-way hanging on a clothing line and half-way underground (or buried) in a spacious hidden field. The strange part for me is that it makes sense without having the defintion of what that sense is.

2/28/12

2/29/12

Me & my helper

Starching the Victor Costa to be hung to dry

I am excited to watch this piece these next couple days.

Today.....

2012-02-28T17:31:00.002-08:00

Today I....

Girl Dolls

2012-02-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

"For surely it is time that the effect of discouragement upon the mind of the artist should be measured, as I have seen a dairy company measure the effect of ordinary milk and Grade A milk upon the body of the rat. They set two rats in cages side by side, and of the two one was furtive, timid and small, and the other was glossy, bold and big. Now what food do we feed women as artists upon?"-Virginia Wolf

I found some precious treasures at the thrift store the other day, a pile of antique broken and aged dolls lying tucked away in the backroom on the shelf. My heart skipped a beat and I thought to myself they must be saving these for something really special. I asked if they were going to be for sale and how much they might be. The woman said: "Oh those, yeah those are really good for nothing I was just saving them for my son because maybe he could make art with them. That's about all they might be good for." Happily she sold them to me for a couple bucks and I felt like I had won the lottery.

Now a couple more days have passed and the remark has stuck. I wonder why do I think of these beautifully worn and aged dolls as precious and art in their current form. While others think of them as garbage, but even more worthy of consideration is why is art only one smidgeon above garbage on the the value ladder?

I could argue why a doll holds artistic beauty and purpose, a beauty created by the maker and infused with love by the beholder, but does one need to argue the obvious? What's less obvious that needs arguing is the devaluing of feminine interests and artists as a whole in our capitalist society.

This week I read 'A Room Of One's Own' by Virginia Woolf. This essay is incredible. There are so many highlighted pages to return to in my little copy. I think what spoke the clearest to me was that in order for art to have integrity, it must emerge from an incandecent mind, free from bitterness or desires unfounded. I couldn't agree more; but she goes on to illustrate that for women the ability to be free of these woes is near to impossible considering our history and position in society, again this rings true to me. I admit that until I had my son I didn't consider what the differences may be between myself and a man, but for the last three years I have grappled with them. I often find myself angry and bitter and conflicted as a woman, mother and artist. How do we do it? How do I do it? How can I move beyond anger at never having enough alone space to create or being provided for financially to make art? I do not have answers, but despite it all, there is a flicker to create that has not been snuffed. This flicker is a determined brave naivete, I am so grateful that my soul is strong enough to respond to the constant devaluation as an artist not by giving up or fighting but instead by acknowledging the abundance of beauty that is freely available to me every moment, as I am: a woman, mother and artist.

PS. I LOVE MY NEW DOLLS

Photographs of the water painting

2012-02-10T15:15:00.000-08:00

I think I have begun an affair with the pond down the street. I visit it and each day there is a new freshly painted canvas reflecting up at me. The elements determining what to change on its icy surface. When I look at it I am fully mesmerized, engrossed by the enormous generosity of its beauty. I am thankful that its a small pond, I doubt that I will ever know all of it.

A couple people mentioned my photographs could be beautiful paintings. I think they already are photographs of beautiful paintings.

I don't photoshop my pictures. They are straight from the camera. I don't think there is anything wrong with editing photographs-but I am interested in having something depict the truth as much as possible without the artists interference. I want people to believe in their own capacity to see beauty in everything. I think that's one of the largest problems in print and film, that we confuse reality with fantasy and we no longer accept reality with its imperfections as beautiful. We aspire to an unnatural beauty. I aspire to find gems in the ordinary...but really there is no such thing as ordinary in nature. I suppose some of these photo's could benefit from some little tweaks of contrast or saturation but I'll wait until the print stage to see how the paper affects the images.

Sunnys day with a camera

2012-02-08T10:08:00.000-08:00

I bought Sunny a kids camera this week and took him out for an adventure to take pictures together. It was so wonderful to observe his attention....airplanes, poop, footprints, me, sky, shadows (that was the first thing he wanted to take a picture of-his shadow).

Here he goes..............

If I feel love thats all I need to know

2012-02-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

Last week I began painting, photographing and being with my neighboring environment, it feels like falling in love. While I was working I kept hearing the inner dialogue of "What are you making?...What's it supposed to be/look like?...What is this art? Is the painting the art, is the action the art, does it matter?" I arrived in the same place as I did in Iceland, that the experience of "being" is the art. The process or participation with creation, inspiration and the environment is what is the art. When I paint with the environment the painting is the product or documentation of an experience. I believe art is primarily sensual and nature is too, intellect secondary.....so, perhaps feelings trump thoughts and if I feel love that's all I need to know.

The wonderfully scary spider that jumped out of the dirt in the painting

"a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns" -Wordsworth

Today I found a galaxy growing in the mud

2012-02-03T15:07:00.000-08:00

I have so much beauty to reflect on, so much so that I will need to post a bunch this coming week. This past week has been so exciting and inspiring between an epic visit to NYC where I saw so many of my favorites, screening my film at the Masters On Main St. Film Festival (It won the Peoples Choice Award for best experimental film!!!! HURRAY!!!), starting new paintings and new gallery arrangements here (Stafford Contemporary/totally amazing director: Melissa Stafford) and in Italy(The gallery is opening in March, I will update with links then).....But I thought to start reflecting with today's beauty, I found a galaxy growing in the mud.

This little video is raw and unedited. Listen closely. One of the best things I learned in Iceland was the magic of stopping, watching and listening, magic happens when you stop and slow down enough to see what you see, hear what you hear. I think more and more this is what my art is about; what already is.

Easy Does It

2012-01-18T06:48:00.000-08:00

The harder it is, the easier I must make it.

I am beginning again with simple daily actions. A daily drawing.

Noticing (and noting)

what I see.

Today is the artwork

2012-01-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

My drawing this morning, my timer (1hr of creative work) and a petal

Let me start this painting RIGHT NOW
To begin with a pink and yellow prayer
To cover myself in a warm red outline
Moving back and forth and all around
My son will boldly zig-zag
Brushing yellow and green across the day
Tensions splattering angst
A bit of darkness that brings depth
This painting will find its resting place tonight
The masterpiece complete
When I no longer wake.

Sooooo....I've been thinking and feeling and thinking and feeling. I've been feeling badly because I feel I haven't been making art. I haven't been producing. I haven't been working in my studio (its cold out there!). Soooo yesterday I was thinking about this and wondering how I would do it? How would I make art when I wouldn't have anytime alone, I had Sunny all day yesterday and then a meeting in the night. Then today during my 4 hr slot of "free time" today I have a dentist appointment followed by another appointment....how can I do this???

A remark a wise friend made a long time ago came to me. She asked me why I defined my studio as having 4 walls, a roof and floor? She said this once when I was complaining about not getting in to the studio. This was one of those illuminating, uh-huh? moments....and it was again yesterday, I all of a sudden got a birds eye view of my day and me in it, I saw this was my art work, my canvas. I was the brush, painting or the pencil, drawing and everything was my material.
Today I began the day reflecting on what happened yesterday, what I did, made, saw and learned. I've decided that right now this is my art project-living. I am my artwork. My life is my piece. I think I will just be and document it for a while, notice and participate in it, in this way.

Yesterday I had 4.5 hours with Sunny inside my home. No car. No escape. I decided to involve him in a crafting/art activity. I thought we would make collages. I brought out the magazines and helped him select images and then gave him scissors to cut them out. He became completely engrossed in the cutting. At a certain point I introduced that now we would "make a picture with our pictures, glue them down and turn them in to something", well he didn't have much interest-he just wanted to keep cutting. Then when he got tired of this I realized he really had a lot of attention and focus and thought he would enjoy the act and concept of sewing. I brought out my needle and thread and showed him how to start sewing the pieces he cut by stringing them together. He loved it!!!

What I thought about today was how much he loved the PROCESS it wasn't about the product, it was the making that was so enjoyable. I realized that at a very young age we begin to be rewarded with praise for the completion of a recognizable product. When we finish a drawing we are asked, "What is it?" if someone recognizes it and likes it, we are praised. We learn by what is given attention (negative or positive). In autism treatment they teach my rewarding certain behaviors. This works to strengthen those behaviors-well this is the same in creating. We reward a finished product and job well done. We reward what we can understand and recognize-this becomes whats valuable. Watching Sunny yesterday I saw myself being lost in his process, the excitement of discovery. I hope I can be a teacher for him. To be able to not put the emphasis on making snowmen that look like cookie cutters, but rather put the emphasis on trying new things, indulging in discovery, appreciating the "beingness" in process and to encourage the confidence in him to know when something is something because the knowing originates within him-not from a suggestion from someone else who needs to believe the lumpy white thing is a snowman.

Today is my art piece.

Free Art

2012-01-08T14:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterdays Sunset (down the block from home)

Artists 'Selling Out' and 'Cashing In' on other artist ideas was the theme of the week.

I went to the city for an opening on Friday.

What I profitted from on my trip to NYC was not the gallery connection but rather a confirmation of my belief that the power of art and of life is that which is FREE and that we suffer greatly by believing in false ideas of value. Gold and Diamonds are only minerals.

I saw beautiful art in Chelsea; when I walked outside of the Sean Kelly gallery there was the most precious little girls jacket, soft, fluffy and flattened on the asphalt by the big white van. When I left 26th st I looked up in to the dark purple sky and there a cluster of lost pink birthday balloons blossomed from a bare tree branch.

Is there a place for art to truly live in the commercial world? Should art be sold & collected?

I think my current affair with tribal art is that it is about "usage" and "purpose" and for the betterment of the tribe, for all that belong to the tribe it is freely given.

"African art never gilded the lily-its function was spiritual, the peices used, never collected."-The Art Of The Maasai

We are self-obsessed.

We must learn what we value.

We have whats free.

PS. There was one artists work that gave me something. Her masking taped wooden dowels propped up against the gallery wall, gave me permission to be me and to be free. Thank you!

A New Year for everything to be loved

2011-12-31T12:20:00.000-08:00

(Top picture from Iceland residency, bottom picture from Ashfield residency)

I love my blog as a time capsule, to skim through posts and visually see work as well as to read my musings. It truly is a gift at this time of year to take an account and pay attention to certain standout particulars in my art and life. However, this year has an irregular appearance almost awkward like a pre-teen, a little of this and that, intense feelings and questions appearing in poems and collages, paintings about growth, cellular growth...Iceland about self-discovery (recovery?)...my movie completed, Running Still.

What was this past year about?

Rainbow out the bus window on my way to BAER artist residency Iceland

Rainbow my first day at Wellspring artist residency Ashfield, MA

Reflecting on this question today, the first thing that came to mind was not my artwork but rather this was the first year in 22yrs that I didn't color my hair. I chose to grow my hair naturally, to live with the color I was born with. This may at first seem like nothing of importance but I actually think its a symbol of the type of growth I am beginning to experience and maybe my artwork as well. A sliver of self acceptance. Reasons I never wore my hair brown before was that I didn't think I looked good even my mother always told me I looked prettier with blond hair, changing my hair was like a change of identity, one that was always something more then just me. Eventually I forgot what color my hair actually was and I became afraid of that. How could I trust myself when I didn't know anymore what that was?
I think the only way I was able to be willing to try to grow my hair out was ACCEPTANCE of whatever would be, good and bad no longer mattered.
So perhaps this past year was about growth, a new beginning that seems to be starting from a place in myself that I departed from 22 years ago with a bottle of bleach.
I am really excited to be alive, growing and evolving in 2012.
My wishes for 2012 are that this newly found sliver of self acceptance transpires in my work and that I have the courage to continue opening to what I don't already know, allowing good and bad to fall away so I may be enough as is. (Please wish me luck.)
My wishes for you are the same, that you experience a time that your truest self shines forth and finds peace in being enough and that we all can love each other as we individually are.
All my heart for 2012 and thank you for being with me.

The Mouth and Knife

2011-12-17T11:27:00.000-08:00

Stag Goddess 2010

Collage, Photo Transfer, Nail Enamel

I am so pleased! Today one of my very favorite blogs; The Mouth and Knife published three of my collages. Its so thrilling to be included in what I consider one the best curated art and fashion blogs.

Believe

2011-12-13T06:16:00.000-08:00

A journal doodle

Up in the air?

2011-12-12T11:40:00.000-08:00

Delivered (detail), 2011

Swan feather, hand knit silver thread, 35 pairs of paper hands

I am working on a NYFA grant application. I am struggling with the selection of 8 images that best represent a specific body of work, my category being multi-disciplinary. I want to submit my handmade project, I am wrestling with this application and keep changing my image choices. I find this to be one of the most difficult aspects of "getting the work out there", tirelessly submitting images of completed work in a limited context that rarely receives feedback beyond a yes or no. I often know the work is good, but how to express a varied body in 8 cohesive images without being redundant or too varied? I think I could easily do this for another artist, I could be their critical eye, but to be one's own? When your wrapped up in the meaning of your work & personal significance it gets cloudy. Each of these applications consumes a good amount of energy and time, yet it feels as much a gamble of chance as winning the lottery. Maybe the answer is spending the $1 on the lottery and the days in the studio?

Your Invited

2011-12-07T05:56:00.001-08:00

Pieces from the installation: Finding my existence.

Floor in my studio

Two Wall Drawings from Iceland and sculpture 'Delivered'

You are invited:

1. Please come watch my short film at the Catskill movie theatre Jan. 29th, it will be presented as one of 32 short films in an exciting film festival that is free and open to the public. I am so excited to see it on the big screen, holymoly! Also, I am very happy because all my wonderfully talented collaborators will probably be there, (Claudia Frank/Director, Katie Greaves/DP, Alexander Turnquist/Music) and we will be available for Q&A. And shamelessly I admit, I am especially pleased that my video still is on the poster! Whoo-Hooo!

2. I have set up my studio and have been hosting private studio visits. I am sharing select pieces from Iceland. You are welcome to contact me to make an appointment. The visits so far have been tremendously helpful and informative for me. Having feedback and direct communication with other people about my artwork after being so solitary for quite a while has been wonderful! Its funny because I treasure my alone time and making artwork without distraction but there is a place for connecting with others that is so valuable. Choosing the life as a working artist means that there are no office Xmas parties, pats on the back for jobs well done(unless your patting your own back in some yoga pose), promotions-validating your worth from a job well done....I suppose there are all these things but just differently. When your isolated from others your at your own mercy, critic, boss, worker...your everything and it can become a lonely and fragile working environment. ( Of course it also is illuminated and divine.) In any case, I appreciate the recent studio visits and it makes me think that even this form of communication (blogging) with you, the outside infinite world helps me feel connected. I make art to connect; to connect with my source of creation, to connect with all that has passed before me, to connect with you and all of life now and to connect with what will be after me. Sharing my art is a crucial element of the life of the art and me the artist. Thank you for participating.

Roaming Today

2011-12-05T12:56:00.001-08:00

Today I took a little tour of small abandoned shacks in my area.....looking for treasures in whats been left behind, which is one of my favorite past times and has been for a long...long...time...

I Love God

2011-11-28T06:00:00.001-08:00

(The rainbow in the sky this week at Wellspring)

I Love God

I hug trees, kiss the ocean, float on dirt

My sisters a star

I'm Dawn Breeze

My son, the sunny delight cradled in Summer's arms

Heavens tear burned on my flesh

Reminding me of infinity blessed

Star dust sprinkled in the sea

Daffodils blooming where you lay

Rainbows gushing your breath, Hurray!

I love you, all of you, everywhere.

Sweet Sister Summer Star

Wellspring

2011-11-20T10:54:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow I set out on an adventure-a mini residency at Wellspring House in Ashfield, MA. With notions of jump starting new artistic ideas and immersing myself in much needed solitude and privacy. I'm not sure what will transpire, my intention is only to reconnect with my wellspring and begin.....

Bright Wishes

2011-11-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Oh, take me, take me, take me!
With no other place I'd rather be,
I come to thee.

Me a small giant,
crushing a million lives as I lay.
Here under weightless infinity I pray,
watching your clouds tuck me into sleep.

Eyes closed, dreaming further then I can see,
your wet breath kissing me.

The sun opens the lids of the sky, and shines on.
Bright wishes for a new Dawn.

Breath

2011-10-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

Breath is a small visual journal of my daily meditations in Iceland this past Summer. When I was at the BAER Artist residency I devised a series of daily rituals that enabled me to move through my intense fears and insecurities. Breath was one of these. Breath is a small journal that I kept, each page has one daily watercolor and one word or sentence that seemed to me the essence of my focus for that particular day. It was the last meditation before I left my chamber and entered the outside world, venturing off into my art making. Although this book can be considered art, I consider it more my art underpinnings, the intimate hygiene I needed in order to breathe and create.

This book will be included in a unique exhibition, the weekend of November 5th.

bookMARKs: self-published photo-based printed matter

The show will be installed in Light Work's Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery, located in the Schine Student Center of Syracuse University. The Schine Student Center is the location of the SPE Conference's portfolio reviews and we will be sharing the Menschel Gallery with the exhibition "En Foco / In Focus: Selections From The Permanent Collection". This exhibition has been put together by photographer and curator; Carlos Loret de Mola
The opening for the event is November 5th from 1:30-3:30 The regular hours will be those of the Museum.
It is my pleasure to share this humble and precious little book with you, it is for sale here and will be on my website as well. The price of the book is $25 including shipping and taxes. The book is a small softcover book with a total of 16 illustrated meditations. I am taking orders now and will be able to ship by the second week of November. You can use paypal here and include the qty. and your shipping address.

fragile and strong

2011-10-18T17:05:00.000-07:00

On my walk yesterday I tried to sink my feet into the asphalt-admitedly it did look a little wavy when I looked down, maybe next time I'll go further?

I was so taken and inspired by the incredible force and strength of this fragile plant, to have the audacity to push the asphalt aside and grow up towards the light. A plant that is so fragile that it squishes and breaks between my fingers at the slightest tug, yet it's strong enough to break stone?

It made me think how the desire, the innate desire to grow drew the will of this one seed up-up-up through the darkness, against reason and probability into another universe. I'm sure many seeds where tarred over and just a few pushed up through the asphalt, what made them unique?

And how is it that I know this plant is fragile and I can break it and I know the asphalt is too strong for me to break?

Maybe what we think we know is what limits us?

My Movie online

2011-10-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

My film Running Still had a wonderfully successful premier!

It is now online on my website dawnbreeze.com just click this link and enjoy!

Running Still

2011-10-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

Running Still, 2011

Reflection of the moment between the past and present, the moment that one changes their direction and runs back into themselves.

I am really excited to be premiering my short film this coming Sunday at the Spotty Dog's Film Festival, in Hudson NY. I was able to create this short film(6.5 minutes) because of an awesome collaboration. I was so fortunate to be able to work with really talented artists. Claudia Frank directed and edited, Katie Greaves was the Director of Photography and Alexander Turnquist provided his amazing music. I am so grateful for their support and enthusiasm towards this small and beautiful project. If you cannot come to the film festival this weekend I will be posting the movie on my website next week.

Other news is I am here, running still! But I am home and have been enjoying coming back in to this reality, here in NY. Last week I sent out a letter of gratitude to all the many people who helped me financially make it to Iceland. I am publishing it here today, because I want to thank all of you! Acts of kindness and encouragement are infinite and it is with that form of generosity as well as the financial that made my dream of Iceland a reality.

This letter is for all of you!

Dearest Friends and Family,

I have been home from Iceland a month tomorrow. It is remarkable how fast the time has flown from the point of departure until now. My experience in Iceland far superseded all expectations immediately! It was nothing short of life changing-mind altering inspiration. The gift of my time at BAER Art Center was the biggest gift of my lifetime and I am not exaggerating. I knew it would be phenomenal, that I would have fun and make new artwork but I didn’t know I would discover the gift of self-confidence that I found there. I discovered a new confidence to truly express and be my authentic self and alongside that discovery I created some of the very best artwork of my life. I left Iceland with a feeling of self-worth as an artist and a person that I have never known before. I thank you with all my heart for this gift.

I have created a new updated website since my return from Iceland. I included much of my work from Iceland on the website. The work from Iceland can be found in "Portfolio" and "Recent Work". My website address is www.dawnbreeze.com I am planning on having an ‘Open Studio’ by appointment later in October and the beginning of November to share my work and story one on one. Please contact me if you would like to make an appointment for a studio visit. Also, I have a solo show scheduled in April at Gallery 135 in Hudson, NY to exhibit work from Iceland and I am actively looking for a NYC Gallery to show the work as well. Lastly, if you have not already viewed the blog that I created while in Iceland, sharing my work and process, you may still view it at www.eylenda.blogspot.com

I thank you, thank you, thank you for your generous and loving support with all my heart!

xxDawn

PS. Please don’t hesitate to contact me for any reason, I would be happy to answer any questions or have a further conversation with you about my recent experience in Iceland.

Found: My existence

2011-09-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

Me looking through my final installation at Baer; "Found: My existence"

I just posted about this installation on my Iceland blog www.eylenda.blogspot.com I recommend visiting the site to see more pictures and information. It is one of my favorite pieces I've ever made!

I'm back in NY. Still swirling. I have lots of work left to complete-mostly writing and photography. I am wondering how do I integrate a life changing experience into the "normal" I had before? Its funny to observe how I am reluctant to open back to my life here, just as I was reluctant to open to the newness of Iceland. I suppose we are always in battle with life's constant: Change. Perhaps with continued experience change will become welcome with every breath. I do still feel madly enchanted and in love with nature and today on my first walk since Iceland, I found magic here as well.

Me during my final studio presentation.

or come to Sicily!!!

2011-08-23T14:44:00.000-07:00

Two art exhibits this week on two different Volcanic Islands. I will be at my exhibit in Iceland and Gianni & Sunny will be here in Sicily for me:) Which are you coming to?

Iceland Exhibition

2011-08-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Planning on seeing you all here!!!!!!!!

Heartlisten

2011-08-14T02:22:00.000-07:00

Heartlisten: (heart·lis·ten) v. pronounced artlisten (a silent 'H')

1. The art of hearing or listening with your heart.
2. To feel the sound of something.

I sat on the cliffs, heartlistening the ocean.

One needs to go out in the fields and heartlisten the winds.

When searching for your truth, heartlisten for the answer.

origin:
2011, North American English, a compound word from the nouns Heart and Art, and the verbs Hear and Listen. Created by artist Dawn Breeze

Inspiration:
Jónas Hallgrímsson (November 16, 1807 – May 26, 1845) was an Icelandic poet, author and naturalist. He also contributed to the Icelandic language by adding words, such as; reikistjarna. This word means Planet and is derived from the words Að reika ((to wander) and Stjarna (star).

I understand Jónas's need to create words here in Iceland. Every day I am experiencing nature and myself in new ways, soft nuances as well as bold pronouncements and many of these experiences do not have the correct descriptive word in our English language. Our common language has become so broad and dull, and our experiences generalized in our vocabulary. I think that if we were able to communicate about finer particulars we would have and feel a deeper connection with one another.

Iceland Dazzles

2011-08-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

If you havn't already visited my Iceland blog, www.eylenda.blogspot.com you should. Today I was completely dazzled by sun stars shooting off the arctic sea. I am in awe of the majestic beauty.

Iceland

2011-08-05T04:45:00.000-07:00

I've changed my mind about the internet and decided to create a special online diary of sorts, while here in Iceland. You can visit it at www.Eylenda.blogspot.com I had decided before coming to Iceland that part of my work would be to document my experience. I feel that the blog format helps me do that by visualizing and understanding a bit of what I am doing, seeing and experiencing. I had decided to disconnect myself from the internet while here, to deeply feel the present moment. I still plan on doing that, mostly. It is vast here, I feel a bit like I'm bobbing. I wanted to meet myself here, it has been an intense greeting.

"So the sea journey goes on, and who knows where!
Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck we could have.
Its a total waking up!"
-Rumi

Arrived into my dreams

2011-08-02T05:12:00.001-07:00

What is in front of me now, what I saw last night at midnight when I arrived

My lodge(has a green roof) last night at midnight

My studio (there's a skylight & a mini fridge w/ a coffee maker, HEAVEN)

Rainbow on my way to BAER on the bus
Rainbow on the way

I've Arrived! After many-many hours of travel and discomfort I arrived, I am here in my living dream. I am so grateful to be here. Thank you all who have helped to make this possible. I've decided that while I am here I will "unplug" from the internet and not be posting (I think?). I want to really be here in all my capacity. I want to only hear the voices of the other 3 women here and the wind. There is nothing I want or desire more then what I have right here, now. Thank you.

Thank you for helping my dreams come true!

2011-07-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

T h a n k YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hallie Goodman, Claudia Frank, Wenonah Webster, Gretchen Kelly,

Dale Stewart-Frank, Kirin Buckley, LizFeldman Rice,

Oscar & Jenny Strodl, Paula Forman, Katherine Darling,

Melody Price, Amy Weinberg Paul DeMarchin,

Helen Anderson, Kristen St. Jean, Carla Sadoff,

Carrie Haddad, Wendy Mcdaris, Nancy Barber, Janet McClure,

Tabitha Grasing, Gabrielle Knight, Conamore Alexander,

Sarah Kilborne, Katherine Moore, Helen Sacco,

Timothy Ebneth, Robin Palmer, Walker Savage,

Cynthia Wright, Jennifer Mayer, Sanne Ameln, Set Editions,

Otto’s Market, Joseph Bartusis, Ann Moore, Susan Ball,

Mary Patterson, Kathe Izzo, Jessica Pisano, The Stewart family,

I have a week until I leave for Iceland. My bags have been packed with well wishes and support from you, my dear community (near and far!) The generosity and excitement I’ve received in response to my request for support has been beyond incredible. Baer gave me the chance to attend the residency of my dreams, but it is you who are giving me the opportunity to go. It is you who have given me the financial support now as well as the cheering and hurrah’s along my path. You are mamma’s, sisters, artists, art appreciators, friends, neighbors, friends of friends, you are my dream team and you are also my patronsJ Thank you, thank you, thank you!

There is still one week left to add your name to my list of patron saints, you can become a philanthopist for $5 or $500, I will publish my “Thank You List” with the program for my Iceland show this spring. Please visit my blog at www.growdreams.blogspot.com to donate using paypal. Or you can mail a check to: Dawn Breeze 228 Main st. Germantown, NY 12526

The first 25 $25 grattitude totes have been given out! But the next 10 $10 donations or above will receive a homemade postcard from Iceland!

Grow Your Dreams

2011-07-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

I created a blog www.growdreams.com to tell my story and help raise some much needed funding towards my residency at BAER Iceland this summer. NYFA helped with a grant, my recent yard sale helped but I still need a bit more to make this happen. I've never considered asking out right for help towards my dreams as an artist, there's something so terribly uncomfortable about it. Perhaps its the idea that one must always work hard for what he wants and needing help somehow implies a weakness...but in this past year what I've learned is that no individual is a success alone-it is the support of the community, and the friends that believe in you who help you become your brightest shining self. I've had the great pleasure of helping others and witnessing their potential come alive with support and so I ask for you to put your hand together and help build my dreams too. We can do this for each other. We can help each other live our dreams. My success is as much your success!!!
I've hand silk- screened the cutest eco totes for the first 25 $25 donations to say THANK YOU!!!! Please check out my blog www.growdreams.blogspot.com and consider throwing your coffee change my way today, and making my dream come true♥

Artists I Find, I Love

2011-07-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

Attention: This post is a bit lengthy, but worth it.

Rose III by Cy Twombly 2008

XIV

Summer: to be for a few days

the contemporary of roses;

to breathe what floats

around their souls in bloom.

To make of each dying rose

a confidant,

and to survive this sister,

absent in other roses.

from ‘Les Roses’ by Rainer Marie Rilke

Two great artists have moved into the next life in these past two years; Cy Twombly and Louise Bourgois. Both artists I love. I found Cy for the first time 3 yrs ago at the MOMA in NYC. They were showing his 'Four Seasons' and I just stared open mouthed at the beauty and also because I related so much in my own work-working literally with the seasons and beginning to loosen my line. I found him just after I finished 'Spring Flowers' and 'Spring Orchard' paintings. I was so excited because I felt a kinship, his work encouraged me by nudging my soul with "see, see...we share something...we share this life, we share a vision, we share what we see and feel..." At this point you may be wondering why I had not already known about Cy Twombly, simply because I did not go to art school and I did not begin my practice until 2007. I am quite the naive freshy! There is something so wonderful about not knowing...not knowing how I am going to make something, not knowing if its similar to something else, not even always knowing why or what I am making. Although I face many challenges this way; each time I set out on a new project or new canvas I am not distracted by what I know....I am not trying to be different....or be right...it's only me in my own way. Which is enough already.
What I really want to get at is that I believe that as much as I'm finding these artists by chance they are actually calling me and leading me...literally. Last month I had a beautiful and eerie experience with Louise Bourgoise. I had never heard of her before this May. I went to an artist presentation at Bard College. After it was over there was q&a, one of the students remarked that Louise B. had once said she "drew a circle and put all her fear in it, then she drew another and put all her fear in that" I wrote down Louise's name because it reminded me of a Mandela and I was studying Mandela's for a potential creative arts workshop. When I looked up Louise's work I did not see my work in hers, but again I felt a magnetic pull to her. I decided to splurge and order a bunch of books on her history and her work. One of the things I liked most about her was her moving between disciplines to execute her vision, also that she created what I consider "feminine" work. Weeks later I was browsing through my friends Art Forum, and an image grabbed my attention because it resembled what I working on with fabric and quilting and it just drew me to it. It turns out it was Louise's most recent work before she died-called the fabric works. Works that I had never seen before and wasn't like anything else she had previously done. These were fabric drawings she was doing made from her clothing. (Most of her notable works are gigantic marble sculptures and huge metal Spiders) The show was in NYC and Cheim & Read gallery. I went. When I stood in front of the piece that I saw in the magazine, (which was actually part of a larger piece) I felt such an emotional response that I welled up. I was like ; I get it, I get it, I get it..without knowing what I got. I even talked to Louise B, asking her what was she telling me? I know its totally crazy! But it gets crazier. After looking at the work, I asked for the title sheet because there were no titles on the wall. The piece that brought me to tears was titled, "Dawn". (and the cover that said Dawn had its back to the wall, so I hadn't seen it) After this happened I actually had to take a mental time out, because I thought I might be loosing my mind. But here I am again....finding clues and finding myself and finding answers to questions in a recent piece by Cy Twombly-The Rose III. Again, this piece grabbed my attention last night when I was looking through the internet, when I looked at it I saw my name painted in it 'Dawn' and scribbled below was 'Rilke'. This sent me in to a deep google investigation, which lead me to the poem Les Roses by Rilke,(as you know Rilke is one of my highest teachers along with Rumi) This poem inspired the last series of paintings by Cy Twombly. In this poem (see above) Rilke wrote about me and my sister Summer. He also painted this painting 2 months after Summer passed (the season and my sister).....I suppose anyone rationally minded would say its all just a name, a coincidence; but for me as Einstien said: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” I want to go everywhere, as the sun graces this earth and reaches every open space each morning .....I am going to everywhere....and Summer, Cy and Louise and many others are lighting my path.

Spring Orchard by Dawn Breeze 2008

Spring Flowers, by Dawn Breeze 2008

Pages from Dawn by Louise Bourgois 2006 ( as seen in the June 2010 Art Forum)

Dawn by Louise Bourgeois 2006

Louise with a rose

Telophase

2011-06-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

'Telophase'
Another linking collection of oil paintings in the cellular growth group

Painting details below

New Growth

2011-06-24T11:05:00.001-07:00

Anaphase 1.Anaphase 2a.

Anaphase 2

Anaphase 3

Anaphase Complete

Anaphase Seperated

Anaphase Detail

I will break these up with more posts over the next couple days-because there are so many paintings in this group. The idea is that they all(the individual paintings) fit together and create new formations, (larger paintings). Each painting is oil and most canvas's are 16" x 20". Each canvas was recylced and I left little windows or transparency's from the original paintings. When I completed these paintings I realized they looked like abstract life and represented new growth and development for me-as a painter, as a person. This motivated me to investigate cellular growth. Which shocked me, because there under the microscope were my paintings. I have never worked so "backwards" in the sense that I didn't know I was painting cellular growth until I found it after I was finished. It shocked me. It also encouraged me to trust in the guiding intuition and unconscious artistic process. One of the most interesting things about cell growth and terminology is that they call cells and chromotids , "Sisters, Mothers & Daughters" I feel there is a personal parallel with cellular growth and my personal and spiritual development.
"Mitosis is the process in which a eukaryotic cell separates the chromosomes in its cell nucleus, into two identical sets in two daughter nuclei.^[1] It is generally followed immediately by cytokinesis, which divides the nuclei, cytoplasm, organelles and cell membrane into two daughter cells containing roughly equal shares of these cellular components. Mitosis and cytokinesis together define the mitotic (M) phase of the cell cycle - the division of the mother cell into two daughter cells, genetically identical to each other and to their parent cell."

On another note-I saw Tree of Life last night, I feel like I am a part of that movie, I am certainly on a similar quest of acceptance and understanding during this time. That is a movie you must see.
Lastly, I incorrectly said in my last post I saw Sol Lewitt Charcoal drawings at the Met. NOPE, it was Richard Serra!!! Oops!

Daughter Cells

Mother Cells

Mother Daughter Cells

New Connections

2011-06-21T17:55:00.001-07:00

Connection 2
28" x 36"
Charcoal, Crayon, Acrylic, Photograph

Connection 1.
28" x 36"
Charcoal, Acrylic, Crayon

Inter Connected
32" x 40"
Charcoal, Crayon, Water Color, Photograph

Detail

First One
32" x 40"
Charcoal, Crayon, Photographs, Silk

I am drawing. I have had a desire to draw ever since seeing the Sol Lewitt drawings at the Met last month. He drew large abstract black charcoal drawings. I have not drawn with charcoal since high school and there is something about charcoal that makes me cringe like chalk on the chalkboard. But seeing these massive black drawings just impressed the desire to handle charcoal again. Charcoal retains the original gesture and leaves beautiful ghost marks.
I am drawing 'Connection' and 'Creation'.
I have been thinking so much about connection and the endless cycle of life and changing or evolving forms of life. We are so stuck on understanding life by what we ordinarily see to the naked eye. We base beliefs around simple ideas based on a sliver of what we know to be true. Today I was imagining a dress that went through a wide field with many openings for peoples heads, so many of us could wear this snaking dress-and we would be all connected (visually)....and then I thought do we need these visual symbols to understand that we are already all connected and touching all the time through all the tiniest molecules and atoms. Truly we are not separated from any living thing, when you realize this you also realize that we are not individual life-but really all of existence is one organism in a constant state of change. We use time to measure change, but time is not real-it is a concept...what is real is that life is constant, and death is not an end it is a point of change. I was reading about cellular growth because my last group of paintings (which I still need to post in their final state) made me think of New Growth in my personal development but they also visually looked like micro-life. After reading about the cellular growth I decided to read about what happens to cells when you die. The very interesting thing is that scientists don't know exactly when you actually die ( a great article about this http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1842627,00.html ), because what happens is a series of events in your body and your cells start changing, and start decomposing, but where is your consciousness? Death is not the end of life, but rather the end of what we saw before the moment of death. I also recently watched a TED talk about quantum physics and connections. A scientist Aaron O'connell created the first object visible to the eye that is literally in two places at once. This video has been rolling around in my thoughts-especially what he said at the end of his presentation; "Your connections to everything that is around you, literally define you." http://www.ted.com/talks/aaron_o_connell_making_sense_of_a_visible_quantum_object.html

PS. My studio window boxes are off the hook!!!!

New Studio Visits

2011-06-05T05:11:00.000-07:00

New Work (Oil Paintings)....Titles coming

We're All Dirt
Mixed Medium (Dirt, Collage, Oil)
16" x 20" (10 pc)

Attached
33" x 22"
Mixed Medium on Wood (Fabric, Oil, Acrylic)

Crazy Quilt
5'x5'
Mixed Medium on Wood (Oil, Graphite,Fabric, Encaustic)

This week I had my first studio visits (in my new studio!!!). The first was with a curator followed by an artist/friend. It was a great time for me to get some feedback with the new work-which some is complete, some just beginning and in general the beginning of a new body of work....

I think one of the most obvious changes in my work in the past two years is that I have incorporated more "ideas" and personal elements in to the work....slipping into what others may call conceptual art. Whats funny for me is that I don't really know what the difference is in my own practice? I consider myself a visual artist, moving between mediums and forms to express what wants to be expressed....painting, drawing, sculpting, video, performance....a freedom of expression. Perhaps critics and curators want categories of creation to narrow in on specifics....does it matter that my eyes are blue when determining who I am as an artist? I suppose in some way that help classify me.......Classified "classy".

Needless to say I am very excited about new showing opportunities that are ahead!!! And the other great news is that paintings arrived in Italy in time for the show!!

This painting is in its first incarnation (well actually 3rd-but I havn't published the other resting points)-needs a lot more loving time. I thought it would be fun to show it in process.

Showing in Sicily this week.

2011-05-27T18:10:00.001-07:00

If your in Sicily next week and if my paintings clear customs in time, you will see 8 of my paintings!!! I was asked to participate in an incredible new art festival in one of the most beautiful city's, Scicli. The curator of the event is Antonio Sarnari who runs an exceptional gallery of contemporary art. he is also the son of a famous Sicilian artist, Franco Sarnari. What was a very happy coincidence for me was that 2 years ago I saw a special exhibition of Franco Sarnari's work and really enjoyed it-bought the catelogue etc. So when I saw his work last year at the gallery 'Tecnica Mista' in Scicli I told the gallery director how much I liked his work..yada yada yada..it turned out that Franco Sarnari was his Dad, he then generously gave me some books. A very good friend of ours( Gratzie Corrado!!!!) shows at this Gallery and recommened me and my work for this show and to be included as one of the artists in the gallery. So I just shipped them 8 smaller paintings I did in 2009. I selected these paintings because they are somewhat transitional work. they were painted when I really wasn't painting and they were painted when I was experiencing such intense greif. When I rediscovered these works while thinking about what I would give to this gallery and show, first I thought they were not not my strongest work. But I was still drawn to the "not so strong" element and I read the writing and looked at the lightness of materials. They are so fragile and the writing is so raw in that moment of dysfunction and questioning. I decided these works are powerful in their testimony of my truth in that period, they are markers. They were weak. They were a transition. They were a breath. They were honest in a moment when I didn't know what that looked like. Their strength is in their fragility and humble marks. Hopefully they make it, which is a whole other saga......another thing for me to learn about. How the fuck to ship to Italy and it arrive there!

A inter-woven day

2011-05-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

New Work.....

Installation materials in the dining room....

My new chair in the studio....

"Sassy" water, supposed to be good for digestion...

I have so much to share that I've been too overwhelmed to start...and today will not be the day I go in to it all. But I shot some snap shots of the day for another project and thought to share them here. Taking snap shots is a wonderful way of seeing. I saw all these funny tell-tale signs of who I am in the random un-planned shots of the moment...Italian hair gel next to a Thomas The Train toothbrush, the artifacts around the house...a sink full of dishes another sink full of paintbrushes and the other sink with a childs "potty" in it....I'm busy, I'm working, good things continue to happen...sometimes I almost drown in anxiety....I am an artist.

Beautiful Day

2011-05-13T13:44:00.001-07:00

My sweet sweet little studio- I chose the color for the door when I found this old bucket of paint in the basement and the title was "Pretty Dawn" I'm a total sucker for titles and coincidence. I may change it, I don't know yet

I am so in love...... with my studio, with my studio schedule, with my life as an artist at this moment, so much so that I am also in love with everything all around me. I am so in love.

Today:

This morning I put some makeshift curtains/bug screens/light diffusers for the studio windows by cutting up some sheer curtains and stapling them to my "painless" windows. Tomorrow a photographer is coming to shoot a portrait for a series of artist portraits that she's working on-should be fun:)

I went on a studio visit in Athens, NY with the artist Andrew Dupont. It turns out I have been an admirer of his work and recently just met him, which was a happy surprise when I discovered he was the painter of these juicy paintings!!! I enjoy studio visits so much-listening to someones process, thoughts, inspirations, looking at their studios and the life that surrounds them. It's honey. Last month I went on a studio visit with the artist Tim Ebneth; same thing...so inspiring. I think I will aim to make it a regular practice.Twinkle Lumberland , oil and enamel on masonite, 24x24 inches, 2008 by Andrew Dupont

Then I jetted to a property in Pallenville, NY to look at a site for a possible installation for a friends wedding party. She asked me to do something, she said she was thinking of me with blankets...obviously she's psychic because I had already been collecting blankets for an installation! We'll see....Possible Installation site......

On my way home to pick up Sunny I spotted a dream truck....had a burrito from a seasonal shack and now I'm headed up the road to an opening for Judy Pfaff's Bard art class.....its all so good right now!Dreams on Wheels

Making it!

2011-05-10T12:14:00.001-07:00

Surrender (Installation)
blanket, clothing, dirt, flowers

Surrender (Installation)

Paintings in progress

My new favorite piece of furniture-all hand made little drawers that are turquoise with red metal frame

Why I love tulips so much-as they die they dance a twirling ballet

Sunny's sculpture yesterday

The cool mouse house I found in my art supply's, the mouse harvested much of my husbands hair, lol!!!

First exciting news: I WON A GRANT!!!! That's in big letters because its a big deal-each of these victory's are hugely exciting for me! This is a small grant from NYFA (New York Foundation For The Arts) its called a SOS Grant, which is specific to fund opportunities that will benefit the growth and development of NY state artists. This money was awarded to me to help towards the costs of the Iceland residency. (I still need to raise quite a bit of money for this opportunity and have some fundraising ideas cooking-but if you have any cool thoughts please send me your ideas!)
Second exciting news: I set up my studio today and yesterday I put together an installation in the studio...so much fun! (Even though I jumped the gun and began painting last week before the studio was set up) Now its officially fabulous! I am in love-completely in love! I've decided to try to keep the studio really minimal-no table or shelves, just 3 pieces on wheels with small materials. The rest (the ugly stuff) is in the adjoining crack shack. This way I can have the studio itself be a canvas for ideas, installations, exhibits, disco dance parties, etc.
Whooooo-Hooooooo!!!!!!

Mothers Day Gift

2011-05-08T05:18:00.001-07:00

Summer my sister, my angel, my star

Summer & Sunny

I Am
by Summer Knight Wibel 5/5/98

I am the angel whistling with the winds.
I am the one drop of honey left in the jar for none but one.
I am the child stomping in the mud on a mild march day.
I am the goddess of love waiting to erupt.
I am your song, play it again so you can hear me sing.
I am the star that shines so brightly above your head.
I am your favorite blanket, hold me in your arms so I can
feel your stale breath fall upon my neck.
As you see I am, just as I am your angel, honey, child, goddess,
song, star, and blanket. I am your love, your one. For I am.

My sister gave me this poem today.

Every morning I write, read and pray at the end of my bed. There is a makeshift alter on my windowsill, love symbols and such. This morning I was contemplating Mothers day and the way I feel. Which is actually pretty black as a result of some serious hormones & chemistry related to my menstrual cycle. I was thinking of that powerlessness-how its not just a choice to be happy when you are powerless over your mood because of your physical makeup. I was thinking about my destructive behavior yesterday as a result of my "black" feelings. I was thinking "OK, how can I can I plan ahead next month, how do plan for this inner insanity and live through it. I thought (PMS) Prepare Make Safe. As I was thinking about this I thought of my sister Summer, and her disease; Bi-Polar Disorder and how powerless she was over her chemistry I also thought about how she wanted to be a mom too and how she died in a fragile time during her menstrual cycle. I thought about how on this Mothers day I understood the real need to be acknowledged for the difficulties of being a Mother, a woman destined to intense chemistry and hormones and body changes in order to bear children to bring forth life.
Sitting at the end of my bed thinking about this, feeling my sister, looking at her picture hanging in the star, I thought to maybe read something of hers. I have kept a bag of her journals and writings at the side of my bed, which I have not yet gone in to. Then I thought, "No, that will only make you sadder." but then I did anyway. The one piece I pulled out was a book of poems she made, the cover said; "HAPPY MOTHERS DAY"
a gift on this mothers day.......

we are so lucky as mothers; sometimes we give birth to angels........

Worship

2011-05-04T08:03:00.001-07:00

Worship
a. Flowers strewn outside of the castle of Princess Diana when she died
b. Muslims Praying in front of the temple in Palenstine

Prayer Bomb
a. Children praying on the 1st anniversary of Pearl Harbor 12/1941
b. School Children have a bomb drill 11/1951

Field Flowers
a. Jim Jones suicide at the Peoples Temple
b. Poppies of the field (Palestine Lillies)

I want to share some recent collages. These I actually made about a month ago, which now seems strangely time appropriate with the royal wedding and the death of Osama Bin Laden.

I had an incredible vision of inspiration during a yoga pose-child's posture, which lead me to these images. As I was laying in the posture, which is all about surrendering with your head bowed to the floor, I felt myself covered in grace. I saw grace. This vision had me looking up other images of 'surrender' which before you knew it had me looking at dead bodies. There was something so beautiful and haunting about the body without the breath of life strewn on the ground....and when I told my husband what I was inspired by and what I wanted to paint-I think he got a little scared and said "Enough with death, just paint flowers again"...which inadvertently was the clue to the connection and these images....because for me there is nothing different from us (humans) then the flowers of the field...which reminded me of the scripture about being like the Lillie's of the field( I was raised pretty fundamental christian FYI) When I tried to google search it what shocked me was the same scripture had 18 versions in English with 8 parallel translations...some where trying to persuade one to understand exactly what type of Lilly the scripture was speaking of -which they argued was a poppy in Palestine, others just said grass of the field...etc. etc. and we wonder why we fight? But anyway here is one version:
" If that is how god clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you-you of little faith?" Matt 6:30
I think what is so powerful about these images is the connection about worship, faith and the similarity between what are complete opposites...and that ultimately we are all fighting and wanting the same thing-to be blanketed in grace "oh we of little faith" perhaps its more like "blind faith" that doesn't recognize that we are all flowers of this field on earth....

Springing in to

2011-05-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

My Magnolia is Blooming, Spring has Sprung

My NEW backyard studio!!!! Stay tuned for an inaugural celebration (June or July)

Already working on new paintings before I'm set up...so excited and so eager to paint again!

The energy of the spring is full of new possibility, ripe with birth. The energy is intoxicating and exhilarating for me, I just want to jump into NEW, NOW!!!! It has been almost a month since my last post. A month full of making preparations for new work, by completing older and ongoing projects. The one thread that persisted through the month was discipline. In order to feel more open to whats ahead I knew I needed to bring my ongoing projects to a resting place if not complete them. I have to say that sticking to these longer projects is challenging for me, patience is slightly an underdeveloped muscle. I think even the traditional oil painting class helped me with this. I did not really enjoy painting in that manner-full of technical and craft decisions-rights and wrongs, somewhat boring still life's on small canvas's....but there was the discipline of showing up weekly because I committed, there was staying with the focus for 3.5hrs this strengthened me. It was in a way a meditation, to really slow down enough to see all the colors, to take the time to mix them before applying, to follow a slow and steady rhythm. I gained some discipline. I also gained a freedom because I am no longer afraid of the medium, so in turn I am little more liberated!
The reward of seeing out the bigger visions of these works is strengthening my scope of possibility. I suppose its giving me more courage, because I am learning that I can trust my willingness to go the distance.
Below are some images of the ongoing projects of 2010 and 2011, some of which I have not even mentioned in this blog because they were just seeds-now some are seedlings, flowering, or re-seeding-all of which I am very proud of.

Projects:

1.cre·a·tiv·i·ty-I developed an ongoing workshop series that I will begin facilitating later this season, for an Adult Drug & Alcohol Rehab Facility.

2. Running Still -A short film I wrote and have been working collaboratively with my dear and very talented friend Claudia Frank (Director/Producer/Co-Editor) We are very close to finishing it! YAH!!!!!!

3. Garbage Girl -A modern fairytale I wrote and have been illustrating. This book has been shelved for the time being and will most likely resume this fall after Iceland. I would like to turn this in to a crossover book-a book that is an 'artist' book, children's book and coffee table book.
4. Sunny -My sunshine.

In Grace

2011-04-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

In Grace
8.5" x 11"
Collage, Pastel

Sacrifice the Cloak

2011-03-31T17:08:00.000-07:00

Sacrifice the Cloak
collage 14" x 18"

I'm kind of stuck on fear right now...today I was thinking that courage is the transformation of fear....like you rub two fear sticks together-or the friction of staying stuck in a form that's not authentic drives you to question what you are, and you wonder what happens if you just????? Next thing you know you started a fire out of your fear; and that is courage.
I don't know...its like the chicken and the egg...what comes first? Again back to yesterday-perhaps neither is without the other.

On another note-I've decided to make collages for a bit...as a warm up into whatever is next artistically. I think collage is like a visual poem-pulling images from the unconscious and within minutes you have a picture of your thoughts, dreams, ideas, feelings...its a very fast and informative fix.

Twins

2011-03-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

Blinded, fear walked out with courage
Collage Photo 9" x 14"

Today I was just thinking about what my fear looked like?
I think it looks like myself-perhaps a bit childish sweet and crazy. Like a child throwing herself in my way to trip or stop me in my tracks so I don't dare fail. This Fear child doesn't want me to get hurt feelings or hurt anyone else.
She wants to be felt.
I realize now that she likes it when I listen to her, then give her a hug and take her for the walk by my side, in hand. She doesn't go away, in fact she has always been with me. No matter where I go, she is there.
However so is her twin sister Courage. Courage is so much quieter, usually not in front of me but behind me, gently nudging me forward.
I think the two are one...non existent without the other.
How would I feel courage without feeling fear? Is courage any less painful then fear, or fear any less beautiful then courage?

I WANT MORE

2011-03-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

I WANT MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was screaming in Jerilyn's office a couple weeks ago-she's my therapist. I was screaming it, so I could play with the feeling of how uncomfortable it is for me to ask for what I want. Or not even ask-just saying what I want makes me squeamish. Just saying it in my head makes me blush and splotch up. You may not know that about me? But you wouldn't because its here that I occasionally am swept away with wry courage and the veil of the computer-the blog is a bit of a confessional and you are the audience behind the wall and curtain. (Of course that gets fuzzy when you write me a comment and I realize your reading this....)

In any case, that's not all I want to talk about. I want to tell you that two weeks ago, I felt like I was on the verge....of what I don't know, a bit of insanity I suppose. To some friends I described it as tremors coursing through my innards....a feeling of screaming insides, fierce yearning for more, more of myself EXPRESSED outside of myself... much more....and at the same time that I want "more" in contrast I want "less"-less stuff, less worry, less responsibility, less busyness, less distraction....so there has been a very intense feeling of inevitable change-shape shifting.

Getting to the point-I felt change-big changes inside me...and I felt big changes outside me....Tuesday the 15th was gigantic!

I decided to contact another more local adult residence program for adults in recovery from substance abuse and dual diagnosis, to discuss the idea of artistic creativity as a tool for self recovery. I was given an appointment that Tues. to speak with the director, which I went there to open a channel for dialogue, which I thought could inform me and help me to propose something for the other adult residence program....30 minutes in to my meeting, I was offered a job!!!!! I have been asked to develop and facilitate a program of creativity as a tool for deepening self awareness and expression for people in recovery. OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!! ( I don't know if that's the appropriate response, but here in my confessional that's my honest response, along with crying and sort of jumping up and down with excitement, joy and tremendous fear) It felt like god was showering me with golden jackpot winnings. (there is more I want to say about this place, but I am saving for another time...)
That afternoon, I also found out I was selected for a month long artist residency at Baer, Iceland. Which is a residency I have been dreaming of for 5 years...and it is REALLY A DREAM come true. REALLY. I found this residency the first year it opened, by whim..a whim that whispered Iceland in to my conscious, but the deadline had passed when I found it. The next year I was going to be delivering Sunny, then the third year I should tell you that I applied and I was not accepted. I wrote the director asking for pointers on how to improve a future application, as well as telling her how much the residency meant to me. The fourth year, they took a year off for public service, so this year I applied and I was accepted!!!!!!

Alway (always) try again when reaching for the stars.

Needless to say, I am still completely out of my mind. I had insomnia for a week, which I am now treating with some Yogi tea...today I settled down and began working on my "creative program" which I will share with you as I go......

I think what has me most excited is that I am beginning to feel and believe that my dreams do really come true, and that my truest dreams are all about being my truest self....that our work, is really about being ourselves. I have often thought "wouldn't it just be amazing if you didn't have to work, and you could just be supported for being yourself" I think that's just it, the work is being yourself.

(and it helps to let go of a clock or measuring stick-because god does not reign by our systems. Just try-try following your heart)

Pupa

2011-03-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

Pupa

Claustrophobic Cocoon
Silk thread wound tightly
Body bound and gagged
Dead, died, mush inside

Unraveling

Built in lines of weakness
Tearing easily from inside
Instincts, true salvation
Crawling towards flight

Breakthrough

D.I.Y. the art of discovering "I am"

2011-03-09T05:49:00.000-08:00

Here goes a thought tangent....
This morning had a "Oh, maybe that's it!" moment.
Recently I contacted an Adult Residence Program for people living with Mental Illness. I contacted them because I want to be of service in some artistic way. I strongly believe that we can learn to connect with each other in deeper ways through the creative language, (Visual art, fiction, theater, music, etc) I also believe that this may be the portal to hold hands with someone who is experiencing a psychotic break, and if it is; then we can use it as a meeting ground to comfort each other when people are simultaneously experiencing extremely different realities. Which would then lesson the fear and isolation between people. In any case the facility responded that they are potentially interested, and would like me to propose something. Which is terribly exciting but it brings up the question "What can I teach or offer"? I am not an expert in anything!!!!!!!!!
I realized what I most want is to help others develop the courage to deepen self acceptance-which struck me as interesting because that's what I want most for myself and what I need supportive help in...and then I thought maybe that's just it!!!! We cannot teach each other this, we must D.I.Y. We must discover our own way-our own remedies, and along the way we need loving support and compassion-the kind of support that's not teaching "right or wrong" the kind of support that is as much teacher as it is student.
Which then made me think maybe I can just introduce a creative path towards self-discovery, with some of the regular tools I use.....and this morning I wrote another 'manifesto' which totally needs editing, etc. but anyways with all its imperfection and overused words here it is:
The process of creativity leads us to the artistry of our lives, not to becoming museum artists
(sometimes it does!). It strengthens and deepens our understanding of our self and others. Its through creative thinking and acting that we discover truth and beauty. Its the path to a divine or soul connection. Truth is not always joyful, it is also sorrowful-but truth is what sets us free, free to be ourselves, free to accept others as they are. The truth is not perfect in a dictionary sense, its perfect in its imperfection. Our souls know truth and we respond to it, its the guidepost in decision making. Once we know and accept our truths we can make decisions that are right for us. When we choose to be authentic we help others to do the same. Truth is love and love is what we live for. Love fulfills our heart. Our pain and searching is always about fulfilling our hearts. We can fulfill ourselves by loving ourselves but in order to love ourselves we must first know and accept ourselves. As soon as we are born we are taught methods of living based on right and wrong. We begin to immediately move farther and farther away from ourselves, because we don't want to identify with "wrong". We reach a point where we don't trust ourselves, like ourselves or even know ourselves. I think our recovery of self begins when we breakdown. How we are living in our life becomes so completely unsustainable because we are so far away from ourselves that in essence we are dead. It is then that we begin the D.I.Y process of recovering the "I Am". I think this is where creative process begins. The creative process is not about learning whats right or wrong. Its a process of sifting through ideas, actions, examples and finding your own way, your own path. It is a D.I.Y creative path. It flourishes in a non-judgmental supportive environment and it struggles in an academic critical environment. It is not about how much you do, or how well you do it, it is about the willingness to try. The willingness to constantly touch the fear, to constantly be a beginner, to constantly meet yourself where you are, which is always changing. So its the willingness to try new things all the time, to always be a beginner. If you think about flowers-you plant a packet of poppies, each one will grow in to a poppy, but not one the same. They all need similar conditions to grow. Some grow tall and some short, they are all beautiful. Some of the seeds are sick or more sensitive then others. Some need more shade or more water. We too are that way. When we are aware of who we are and accept our conditions for growing into our highest potential, we can nurture ourselves and attend to ourselves. This includes asking for loving help in areas we can not do alone. It means standing as we are clearly and unashamed for who that is.

Oh man-wouldn't it be nice if there was a "courage" pill!

I also want to thank all of you who are with me, reading this blog and occasionally sending me notes. You are the most encouraging audience-watching me try new things, blunder and be silly. Its so awkward and scary sometimes. I'm always afraid I won't be liked or my work won't be liked....but somehow I still want to climb up the ladder and jump over and over again...maybe sooner then later I will learn to dive gracefully and swim with confidence and won't just keep belly flopping and doggy paddling....I definitely think that part of the reason I keep trying new things is because every time I flop you laugh and applaud with me:) Thank you!!!!!!!

Scarlet Dream

2011-03-08T07:15:00.001-08:00

Knowing your sorrow, I surrender with compassion

You paint my lips and nose scarlet
I wipe away the symbols of our desire
And give you the key to my house

Outside in the embrace of Matrimony
Enemies spy weakness, asleep
Undefended and raped, hard won evidence
I return home seeking comfort
But the door is locked and you not there

I deserve my love.

Beggar Of The Sun

2011-02-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

Beggar of the sun

I yearn to to be the mad fool.
To dance wildly with those who sing their truth
undressed
bearing their hearts to the sun.

This pain, the weight of a secret mind
Shame an iron gown

I am afraid to tell the guard
“Unlock the gate!”
I am afraid I will meet loneliness

Will the mind in all its evil trickery lead me to or away from love?

Imprisoned in this glass house
I see distorted visions
My heart hides the key, fearing willfulness.

Why look at blurry possibilities?
Why not look in?
Asking; “How did these people and things join me?”
Or perhaps I joined them.
Is this my house?
Or maybe there is no glass, no gate, no guard, no inside, no outside.

A glint of sun, all is changed.
Another reflection.

Love Word

2011-02-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

Love-to give to you!

Masaro Emoto's water molecule when exposed to "I Love You"

I just received my new business cards!!!! After contemplating what image would best describe my current work, I decided that perhaps a word (or few) would be better suited and I decided to create an art project with my new business cards. Each card is printed with a different word selected from my artist statement on one side and the other side is printed with my contact information. There is so much power in a word-just one word evokes an idea, a feeling a memory or personal thought. The reader absorbs the significance of that word in their own personal context and then has a personal meditation based one that unique relationship in that moment. Each card is printed differently (actually, I only chose 32 words for this printing) drawing a card is a bit like a tarot draw, what you select will be special to you.
I believe that there is immense power in a word, even on a physical level. I am interested in the studies on water molecules by Masuro Emoto he claims that water molecules actually become more beautiful or ugly depending on the words they are exposed to. It is far out, but why not? Just think about how you respond when someone tells you: "You are beautiful" or "I love you" don't you feel that physically? I certainly do-just those words cause me to turn crimson, get tingly and smile. I am really thrilled about this art project its such a fun way to spread love!
I love you
Happy Valentines Day!

A selection of my new business cards/art project/Love Word!

Integrate Life

2011-02-12T16:37:00.000-08:00

Chotchka's at Shannondell

The 'Memory Rose' at Shannondell

A wall of ancestors

There is so much to talk about from the last three days....
I went to a college art conference in NYC Thursday, hosted by Artspace; "Making it with or without a gallery"-then boogied down to to PA to visit my 85yr old grandmother and zipped back to make it to my oil painting class today in Germantown. (which I will blog about later...)
The conference was wonderful, it highlighted ideas that NYFA had already installed in me during the NYFA MARK fellowship of 2008. Particular standouts where; Be proactive, DIY, Community and "Integrate your life in to your art." The concept that all that you are and do can become your art. There is a misconception as an artist that until you are being supported 100% by your fine art, you are not an artist. The panel strongly urged artists to accept their whole selves, including their "other work" into their identity as artists. I particularly loved this because I feel that I myself have gotten fuzzy about what category to put what idea and experience into. Even my blog has become a personal window in to my ordinary life and my artistic process vs. how it originally was just a sketch a day. When my life shattered with the birth of Sunny and death of Summer, a new identity as an artist began, one that is more whole vs. fragmented. My work also started to come from the inside out, where as before it was externally inspired by my environment.
Being at my Grandmothers was tremendous! For many reasons, #1 being that I adore her and she has always been a fan of me. She is an amazing woman with a history I am hungry to learn in detail. That was one of the reasons I went to visit. I brought my voice recorder to look through old albums together-she is the living key to our family history and I am especially curious lately. She is living in a deluxe retirement community in PA called Shannandell, its like living on a cruise ship-Seriously! But one of the most interesting elements to me is the understanding that you go there to live until you die. Its like the last stair before heaven. I think there is an odd quality to living there because there is an expectancy of your death and your neighbors. Its not grim, but strange nonetheless. For example there is a custom of putting a white rose on display for whomever dies in the hallway. Every day the guests check this floral display, and every day there are new names. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live when you no longer are "working towards your dreams" but instead have boarded the ship to never never land and are waiting for take off.

Grandma & Me

My great uncle in "Mask & Wig" at Penn. University-a proper "Drag" club
He was quite the man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lowe_Kunzig

Grandma's Jersey Shore Crew
Only two women aside from my grandma in this photo are still alive-One of them made her the needlepoint to the left

Strictly Learning

2011-02-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

1. My first oil painting since high school and my second oil painting in my whole life! Pretty ridiculous!
Remember my last post and I claimed "outsider" as my proper title.

2. This is where Melora stopped me for "putting on the eyelashes" before I had blocked in enough painting. Which I stamped my feet at because as you can see below, the "eyelashes" were some of the best parts of the still life. I think there are two types of people those that save the best for last on their plate, and those that gobble up the best first. Guess which one I am?

3. "the eyelashes"

The Still life
(I like this photo much more then the painting)

My beautiful set up in Melora's Barn

I just finished my first "oil painting" class with Melora Kuhn. She is a GREAT teacher (and GREAT artist), and I am tough student. For the same reasons I always have been a tough student-I want
to learn "my way", I want to have fun and like what I'm making too. Which don't always line up with learning new things. I am in class to learn traditional methods of oil painting, so I think for next week I need to try following her suggestions with less balking. Melora is very refined and considerate in her painting techniques, which are so beautiful to observe. (The
way she sets up a pallet, the easel and table, the lighting, the layout of the subject) What she tried to impress on me as I left class today, was to consider these paintings and still life's as exercises in learning a new vocabulary-that it was less important that I like the final painting, and instead immerse myself in the learning. I think that was what I needed to hear, next week I want to bring that attitude to the canvas and surrender to the experience of learning something I may not like, be good at, or have fun doing. Sound fun!

(Melora punching the holes into the can for the paint to fall through when we're cleaning the brushes, I liked this!)

Outsider

2011-02-03T07:51:00.000-08:00

This pretty much sums it up for me-I would add "and shares them with you"

I have been thinking lately about myself as an individual artist and my art as a career lately. I have also been thinking of popular culture and my un-popular childhood. It seems as though my definition of an Artist is not in line with the actual definition:

art·ist

–noun

a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.

a person who practices one of the fine arts, esp. a painter or sculptor.

a person whose trade or profession requires a knowledge of design, drawing, painting, etc.: a commercial artist.

a person who works in one of the performing arts, as an actor, musician, or singer; a public performer: a mime artist; an artist of the dance.

a person whose work exhibits exceptional skill.

a person who is expert at trickery or deceit: He's an artist with cards.

My personal definition includes parts of the 'Artist' especially in creative expression but my definition is closer to the common definition of Beginner, Outsider, Thinker and Innovator. It seems like an oxymoron to be considered an "outsider" and "popular". Which makes the notion of being a high selling artist in ones lifetime almost obsolete. It would appear that innovative and new work is harder to sell because naturally we are less likely to trust what we don't already know as good. Its not the masses who try something new, its the few outsiders, and for successful commerce you wouldn't focus on the few! I suppose we can say Lady Gaga is an artist according to our dictionary's definition. But I would like to say that Lady Gaga is a successful re-packaged blond doll, created by and for our current popular culture. As an individual she is a willing pawn, sacrificing herself for fame.
The thing is that I am happiest when I make new things, learn new things, and think about these things......I think I may just be an outsider!

think·er

–noun

a person who thinks, as in a specified way or manner: a slow thinker.

2. a person who has a well-developed faculty for thinking, as a philosopher, theorist, or scholar: the great thinkers.

out·sid·er

–noun

a person not belonging to a particular group, set, party, etc.: Society often regards the artist as an outsider.

a person unconnected or unacquainted with the matter in question: Not being a parent, I was regarded as an outsider.

a racehorse, sports team, or other competitor not considered likely to win or succeed.

4. a person or thing not within an enclosure, boundary, etc.

in·no·vate

–verb (used without object)

to introduce something new; make changes in anything established.

–verb (used with object)

to introduce (something new) for or as if for the first time: to innovate a computer operating system.

3. Archaic . to alter.

be·gin·ner

–noun

a person or thing that begins.

a person who has begun a course of instruction or is learning the fundamentals: swimming for beginners.

a person who is inexperienced; novice.

Facebook Fan Page

2011-02-02T18:45:00.001-08:00

Spring Flowers
60" x 60"
Mixed Medium on Canvas
2008

Well its very cold, snowy and icy here in Upstate NY. I've been inside for two days which has been really enjoyable. One of the things I did during my "snow-in" was create a Facebook fan page for my art. I am on Facebook so often and find it's a great newsfeed for the many things I enjoy. Its like my own personal newspaper that I am constantly refining. I love it! I'm actually a bit of a Facebook addict. And I would really love for you to be my Facebook fan!!! Its going to be a place for even quicker and perhaps more informal posting from me about my art. I will post show schedules, photo's of artwork, pictures from events, related links, notes, etc. It will be a great place to get very current, casual, friendly information about me and my art. You can become a fan by going to my page Dawn Breeze Art and clicking the LIKE button.
The other very good news is that my studio is almost ready!!!!! After 2 yrs without a studio, I'm just about 3 wks away from having my very own studio on my property-out of the house-and it will have electricity and heat! YAHOOOOO!!!!!! I really cannot imagine, actually that's not true, I imagine me getting crazy busy with new paintings, installations and all kinds of exciting art projects....OH, I can't wait, I can't wait!!!!!

Beginner=Not so Still Life

2011-01-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

(The first painting on this post is a high school still life I painted age 16 w/ the notorious berries you will read about below, and the second still life shown is my first "real painting" at age 8)

Much of my new years resolutions have to do with being a willing beginner.
So, I've happily signed up for two workshops this spring being taught by two amazingly talented artist friends Melora Kuhn, and Maureen Cummins (which I've included below in case your interested). I am also actively working on a new project, and I mean NEW! I have been working on illustrating a fairy tale I wrote this fall. I decided to just do it, despite my belief that I couldn't because "that's not what I do". The part of me that decides I can't do something has everything to do with fear that I won't be good, because I don't always trust in "my way" as being valid in its difference to others or what I've seen already accepted as good..but every time I have allowed myself the freedom to try something "my way" I have fun and my work expands. To better describe "my way"-it means full of messiness, plenty of mistakes, lots of exploration, and a stubborn ambitious attitude till I get to a good place.
One of the workshops I'm taking is Oil Painting, which is really funny because I am a painter. However, I have actually never learned officially how to paint. (I have only taken 1 full year of college-so far!). I don't know how to traditionally mix oils-I don't know the rules...which the only thing I really like about rules is breaking them. Growing up I knew I loved making art-but somehow I didn't think I would be an artist, and definitely not a painter...in fact I didn't even like painting. I didn't like painting because my only experience was a still life in high school-which was sooooo boring and technical. I remember after I was almost finished painting the painting, I just decided to screw it and paint over the branches and just add the berries all over the canvas as I opened and closed my eyes and looked at them. My teacher walked over, and she said with a half grin" Well Dawn, actually I think you may just be a painter" which I laughed at and rolled my eyes because she knew how much I disliked it. That is the same experience I had in my first still life painting, I made when I was 8. It was my first "real painting" on canvas, and I started off trying to paint what I saw, but then I decided to paint outside the lines, and lastly I took my finger and smudged the straight line.
I don't know exactly why I want to take the painting class, since I'm not a fan of still life's. I think its mostly because I want to learn about oil paints, and perhaps its to repeat my history with formal technique as a beginner but with a new sense of artistic self worth.
Beginner=Not so Still Life

Below are the two workshop descriptions and I think there may still be some spaces open?

Dear Poets, Writers, and other Creative Souls,

I'm offering a weekend workshop, Printing for Poets (see enclosed flier) that I taught for years in the city. Students learn how to design, print and bind a simple chapbook. It's fun, dirty hard work and everyone leaves with their own limited edition of poetry, prose or found text.

Class size is extremely limited and spots will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Please feel free to pass on my email to others who may be interested.

Many thanks,

Maureen Cummins

3 Church Lane

High Falls, NY 12440

845-687-9125

www.maureencummins.com

Dear friends,

Happy new year! May this one be filled with love, health and prosperity.
In this neighborhood, I am teaching two classes leading into the spring, so come take one!

Enter as a complete beginner, or brush up on your skills.

Introduction to Drawing:
10 Saturdays, Febuary 5-April 19 9am-12pm, $250
Lessons in measurement and proportion, perspective, contour, shading, texture and composition, using pencil, charcoal, contate crayon, ink wash and pen.

Introduction to Oil Painting:
10 Saturdays, Febuary 5-April 19 1pm-5pm, $320
Lessons in stretching and preparation of canvas, color mixing and theory, composition and arrangement, and the use of different mediums and glazing.
Both classes will work from observation; still life and clothed model.

Spread the word. Raise the lanterns. Satisfy that urge you've always had... let me know soon, the space is filling fast...

Big hugs,
Melora

CONTACT: melora.kuhn@gmail.com
(518) 537.5378

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com

2011-01-07T07:30:00.000-08:00

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability | Video on TED.com

So Good!!!!!

Chrysalis

2011-01-04T06:24:00.000-08:00

Then Sunrise kissed my Chrysalis-
And I stood up-and lived-
-Emily Dickinson.

01012011

2011-01-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

Imagine

New Beginning-New Day-New Year

This year seemed like a series of blinks, each moment a new vision fleeting in time. It feels like just moments ago I was hot in August at my show, and that many years ago I bandaged a skateboard.

I just reviewed my blog from the past year-very few posts compared to the years before, very few paintings....however there is a theme which started with the first works of 2010, the planted paintings-Darkness, Patience, Transformation, Beauty, Acceptance,

Looking at my work, and my posts of 2010 I believe this is the beginning.....to what, I am not certain. The seed was broken open 2.5 years ago as my life was shattered. It has been in this darkness that something has opened in me-I believe it is my heart opening to my truth, my life, my love. Creation begins in the darkness, like the metaphor of the seed- the growth in this powerful place cannot be measured because it can not be seen....this is a place of feminine nature, which I have often denied and discouraged in myself because I have over valued product, pushing myself to produce what can be seen by others. I believed my goodness and lovability was equal with my recognized deeds. Seeing myself through others eyes, judging myself based on the ego's triumphs and in comparison to others I lived a censored me-basically Vanity and Insecurity ran a tight ship. These two captains also known as Fear, have resulted in severing much of my authentic self, a self I hid for many years. A self that is vulnerable, feels pain, is not made of stone and will alone. A self that is woman, unique and beautiful in many softer ways.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.-Anais Nin

I believe the pain of not accepting myself for all that I am and was became to great-and with that came the crack of my soul-and the hard nut that held my heart, opened up to the same world, the same life, but all would never be the same again.

I can see through my artwork this past year that I am growing- slowly-in the dark. I can also see that I am learning that LOVE is the alchemical ingredient necessary for all positive changes in life.

I really am looking forward to this new year and what it is bringing me as well as what I am bringing to it and to you.

My wish this New Year is to continue learning how to LOVE myself
and without a second breath LOVE you too!!!

Lastly-my sister Summer gave me a card that said:
Open your heart and allow your hands to follow

This is my artist meditation for 2011

Lupo

2010-11-20T06:34:00.000-08:00

Lupo

I'm putting some boobs on God today
I'm naming her Lupo
We're going out dancing

She's really pretty, divine.
She even has dirt under her fingernails
She smells like air
air, that's been licking wet leaves

She smiles, she laughs, she farts
She takes me in her arms
She tosses me into the sky

And I tumble down into a bed of stars.

New projects, musings, imagery....

2010-11-08T12:13:00.000-08:00

Stag Goddess
Collage, nail enamel 14" x 9"

I am playing with some imagery, illustrations of current thoughts and places in my mind, writing a lot too...it all feels funny to put it mildly, but this is where I am right now...

Lame Deer

Is the deer my spirit guide now?
Staring at me with his bloody mouth,
tongue lagging out, terrorized,
as everyone watches him smash
his face into the chain link fence
over and over and over again.

Can he not see the fence, or feel the pain?
Does he think it will give if he smashes harder?

Bleeding his eyes graze my soul,
and I feel his.

He didn't know where to go.

I saw him again yesterday,
leaping across my path in the meadow.

Daughter in the deep water
Collage, twine, magic marker 8" x 10"

Roses

2010-10-16T11:41:00.001-07:00

Thanksgiving Roses by Edith Dora Rey
doreyme.blogs.com

Rey-A-Day#287, Thanksgiving Roses, Aerial View, 7x10, ink +watercolour, Oct 16/10

Roses are on my mind, last night sleepless-I saw myself as a rose bush, giant, menacing and towering like a crooked mountain, surrounded by petals. A pool of petals, like red tears. As I ruminate about the image, I think perhaps I am a rose bush that forgot myself in the garden, I discounted my needs and desire to be tended and cared for as a rose bush, I grew up being tough and strong, powerful branches covered in thorns, lacking the tender soft perfumed petals and buds, ashamed of their beauty, their feminine quality-sultry-intoxicating-delicate-velvety- petals ...I think it has been many years of not recognizing or acknowledging I was what I am...now there is an innate stirring, a remembering and a desire to bloom into all the softness, reds, pinks, perfumes....but there is a need for cultivating care, specific to who I am.
And the courage to be what I am.
And maybe I'll discover that I'm not a rose bush after all, but the wind that moves the perfume through the air, or the soil that wants to be kissed by petals, or the bee that's hungry for the honey. Maybe all of these?
I wonder what form my art will take?

The Roses
All afternoon I have been walking over the dunes,
hurrying from one thick raft of the wrinkled, salt
roses to another, leaning down close to their dark
or pale petals, red as blood or white as snow. And
now I am beginning to breathe slowly and evenly-
the way a hunted animal breathes, finally when it
has galloped, and galloped--when it is wrung dry,
but, at last, is far away, so the panic begins to drain
from the chest, from the wonderful legs, and the
exhausted mind.

Oh sweetness pure and simple, may I join you?

I lie down next to them, on the sand. But to tell
about what happens next, truly I need help.

Will somebody or something please start to sing?

-Mary Oliver

Lucky

2010-09-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

I feel love
I feel gratitude
I felt successful today
Thank you

Touching Down

2010-09-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

Blink Bling
24" x 30"
Mixed Medium on Canvas 2010

2 Great notes:
1. Check out the wonderful article in this months Chronogram Magazine about my work!!! You can access it online as well with the link below.

http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2010/9/Arts+%26+Culture/Where-Life-Touches-Down

2. Come to the galleries open house this weekend from 4-7pm, share a glass of wine with me and see my show! See invite below.

A Few PIctures From the Opening

2010-08-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

Invitation to Opening

2010-08-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Opening August 7th 5:30-7:30
Deffebach Gallery 135 Warren st.

"Amidst obvious joy, these paintings demonstrate a sense of the inevitable, an acquiescence to the seasons, and a homage to the terrifying beauty of transformation."-Wendy Mcdarris

Audacity of Hope

2010-07-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

These are two small mixed medium paintings on paper. I actually made these last year, 2009. I have been thinking about working daily on paper, thinking how it was a beginning for me and is always a touch stone.

Escaped into the present moment

2010-07-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling a disconnect from the hands on process of making art. Life has been big and very full. My 10 hrs a week of non-Sunny time has been gobbled by the minions and millions of to-do's. Leaving me in my head. Tonight I felt envious, frustrated, exhausted with a livid desire to escape my circumstances.
It seems my unconscious is becoming better friends with my conscious, because before I reached for a internet fix, I thought to go outside- lay down and watch the sky. I've never done that so spontaneously and I highly recommend it as an immediate vacation solution. The great escape into the sky.
This small action delivered me into the most vast moment. Its all here now, an extraordinary instant, full of sound, light, and feelings. The difficult moments take us to the precious moments, places where our soul can touch our heart.

Press Release!

2010-07-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

For Immediate release: Deffebach Gallery presents “Finding Joy,”
a solo show of paintings, photographs and installations by Dawn Breeze.

In this intensely personal solo show, artist Dawn Breeze presents paintings, photographs and installations exploring such weighty topics as suicide, mental illness and societal attitudes toward both. Surprisingly, the results are anything but dark, in fact, there is a joyful, (if fragile) exuberance to the collection.

In 2008, Breeze's beloved sister ended her life. Soon after, still reeling from the loss, Breeze began to explore her sister's death in the only way she knew how - through her art. Abstract paintings suggest brightly colored flowers, or markers buried in snow. An installation piece, made of her sister's dresses or, "shells" as Breeze calls them, is an ethereal reminder of the things we all leave behind - as well as the magic and beauty of being a girl. A large-scale photograph of another clothing sculpture surrounded by farm land brings to mind Mongolian prayer shrines.
The through-line connecting them all is Breeze’s determined search for beauty through despair. Together, the pieces are challenging without being abrasive or aggressively confrontational.

Dawn Breeze lives in Germantown, NY with her husband, designer Gianni Iacono and their young son Sunny. This is her first solo show.

Opening reception: August 7, from 6 to 8 p.m.. Show runs through September 20.
Deffebach Gallery, 135 Warren Street, Hudson, NY, 12534.
e info@deffebachgallery.com
p 518 . 828 . 2222

For press requests, please contact the artist directly at: dawnbreezepaintings@gmail.com, or 917 . 622 . 5141.

Artist Statement 2010

2010-07-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

Dawn Breeze
Artist Statement 2010

I work with a wide variety of mediums and materials including: natural and found objects, clothing, seeds, dirt, photographs and cement. I explore my personal relationship with grief, love, and mental illness; examining the fragile yet powerful brevity of life and the innate connection between all that is. My approach to the work is intuitive in nature, I collaborate with chance, accidents and impermanence. I include marks of time and wear, emphasizing beauty in imperfection. My inspiration is unbound from category, thus flowing freely between artistic disciplines and forms. The thread of artistic inquiry and intention is what connects the work, whether it be performance, painting or sculpture.

My work is greatly influenced by the transformative experience's of giving birth and the death of my sister. I am curious about the connecting points in the eternal life cycle, and the depth of love. My current work is a form of syncretism; the work collides and transmutes disparate eclectic objects and ideas through artistic alchemy, creating new life, new meaning and surprising harmony. It acknowledges that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect - that the only truth in this reality is constant change, and that love is life's elixir. It celebrates the beauty of the limited mortality of an object, the transcendence of form and the liberation of life from the material world.

There is a sincere urgency behind my inspiration, I am compelled to create artistic expressions of feelings and thoughts; my artwork is my heartwork and a cathartic experience. While engaged in my artistic process, elusive emotions and concepts emerge visually, physically and symbolically. My finished work is always a surprise greeting me over the edge of fear. Only when I have surrendered completely to authenticity can I then see things from a new perspective. It's at this point where my work transcends previously held ideas of truth, provoking a deeper personal understanding of life.

Kintsugi

2010-07-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

I showed a friend my silver leafed cracked cement pieces, and she informed me of a tradition (Kintsugi) of fixing broken pottery in Japan. When a tea cup breaks, they glue the piece back adding silver or gold to the crack, they appreciate the fragile and unique beauty in the imperfect thus highlighting it. This serendipitous connection feels similar to my experience with my installation Free Now and the Mongolian Oovoo. I am amazed by our innate and intuitive senses to heal, transform and acknowledge beauty in life. The impulse is seemingly in all of us despite our culture, location or time.

Kintsugi (金継ぎ) (Japanese: golden joinery) is the art of fixing Japanese broken pottery with a laquered resin sprinkled with powdered gold or silver.

“Outsiders may indeed wonder at this seeming much ado about nothing,“ historian Kakuzo Okakura wrote of the tea ceremony in his 1906 work The Book of Tea. “But when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity; we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea cup. Mankind has done worse.”

Portrait of an Angel

2010-06-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

Portrait Of An Angel
Mirror, Shoes, Oil Crayon, Poem by Summer Knight

I originally started working with this piece this spring, and actually it started brewing as far back as last year when I found the poem. I am finding that patience with an idea is amazing, because time is truly a benevolent friend. My first attempt to work this poem, did not feel right. The work was hauntingly beautiful, but it literally felt like being punched in my chest. The feeling wasn't right, it was too personal and painful. I didn't recognize the discomfort correctly at first, I thought it was fear and I wanted to push through fear, but a lucky accident occurred and I was given the chance to cool off and sit with the "finished" piece before showing anyone. The longer I sat with it the more I felt the truth of what wasn't working and in turn saw a clearer vision. Then I put the project on the shelf and haven't touched it in 4+ months.
Today, I decided to take it out.......
I started off with my "idea's" but in the process I let go of form and "saw" what I needed to literally see "You Like Me" and the piece emerged! But what shocks me is that it aligned itself in a way it couldn't possibly have any time sooner, and its meaning and significance to me in this moment is what it was whispering to me all along....ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

I am not certain what to call this work, is it an installation, a sculpture??? The audience is also an integral part of the piece, because it is the viewer reading the poem and looking at himself in the mirror that completes the piece.

I am continuously grateful to my beautiful sister Summer who endlessly inspires me with her beauty, honesty and courage. Everything I do from my heart is with love for her.

I want to share excerpts from another poem, which has been ringing in my soul.

If you put on shoes that are too tight
and walk out across an empty plain,
you will not feel the freedom of the place
unless you take off your shoes.

People at a distance see you walking there
and wish they were out in the open like you,
but as the saying goes, They are not in your shoes.

Your shoe-constriction has you confined.
At night before sleeping, you take off
the tight shoes, and your soul releases
into space it knows. Dream glide deeper.

.............

Normally when a horse gets the scent of a lion,
it keeps a distance. But there are exceptions.
Every now and then a horse comes
that will gallop into the blazing moat.

Do not hold back what you know to say
about your inmost self. Say everything,
no matter how much hypocrisy and hesitation
you sense is here. Don't guard the mystery.

Heat the horse so hot it rises off the track
into the emptiness of the soul.

(The Freedom Of Place by Rumi)

LOVE LOVE LOVE

New Work

2010-06-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

Balance (For Now)
60" x 72"
Acrylic Latex Paint, Wax Pencil, Golden Charm with Safety Pin

(detail)
I finished this painting the other day. I have been hesitating to post this piece and the one below, which was completed 2 months ago. I have been hesitating because I am curious myself about the direction of my work, and quite afraid of critical reception. My own voice being the loudest. I feel a bit uncomfortable, the space in these paintings is new to me. However, I am choosing to breath into this discomfort without doing more because that is precisely what I am working with inside myself, taking the moment to pause before reacting to vulnerability in groundless space.

Shell 1.
Gesso, T-shirt, Dirt,
24" x 30"

A Clouds Gesture

2010-06-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

Today I took my paintings outdoors to work on them. I madly traced dancing shadows all over the canvas-only to cover them. Like a clouds gesture.

Plein Air Painting

Studio Water Source

Beauty in the cracks

2010-06-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

cement, silver foil, clover

Today was my second day painting in the studio.
After working some on the painting, I found myself outside searching for broken and cracked concrete. Staring at broken walls.

I had an intense morning, breathing life.

In the midst of it, I was reminded that beauty can be found between the cracks. The courage to continue growing and living between weighted pressure. Delicate Power.

Someone once told me that we draw pressure towards ourselves, that may feel painful, so we may cut facets into the diamond that we are.

There is always beauty in the cracks.

PAINTING

2010-06-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

Today is my first day painting in my new Summer studio, its in my back yard!!!! Its a very raw space, feels great! I don't have to worry about ventilation, and I spoke to the squirrels who occasionally visited.

It has been a year since I last painted, in the traditional sense.

It has been two years I have been carrying a thought, that maybe ready to emerge in these new paintings?

I am tingly and excited!

I'm really grateful that I didn't have a studio this past year, if you asked me earlier I was pissed about it and frustrated. I am a student learning patience(divine time). This past year my work expanded off the canvas to include: Performance, Installation, Video, Sculpture, working with recycled materials and found objects. My work took a deeply personal turn, as I opened my heart to the exploration of love, death, and life.

What limits us also directs us. What causes pressure also polishes.

Transformation with every breath.

UPCOMING SOLO SHOW!!!!
PLEASE SAVE THE DATE: OPENING AUGUST 7th
Deffbach Gallery (2nd & Warren st)

I will be showing paintings, installation and maybe a new performance?

Planted to die

2010-04-15T17:54:00.000-07:00

I am beginning another group of planted paintings. These will be specifically planted to die. The first experimental group was received while living. I was astonished and inspired by the response. Everyone was concerned that they(the paintings) would die, and that somehow it would be their responsibility to keep the paintings alive for ever. Also, it was clear that the belief was that the paintings were only beautiful in this delicate and fresh stage of life. Well, life is always changing and dying is part of life. Its that funny thing we have no control over, just as we have no control over being born.
I am inspired to create another larger group, that will be celebrating the beauty of the plants death; the fragile ghost print they leave, as well as the living impact in my memory from the day to day nurturing activity's. Here we go part #2.
Already, I am a little nervous.
These are planted with flowers, which are not so quick to sprout, they are aprox 7.5" x 9" encaustic, paper, oil, photo transfer, silver foil, and seeds...I will keep you posted:)

studio visit

2010-04-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

Anger; A Help In A Time Of Need

The Antics Of Quentin And Archie

Lilacs and Plums; Grandma and Grandpa

Never Saw Toys As Anything Other Then Toys

For Linda; A Favored American Setting

Here are the remaining paintings in this series. Each is 16" x 20" Acrylic Paint, Photo Collage, and Dirt on Canvas. I thought there we're 12, but apparently there are 11. That's a weird number! Maybe I'll do another?

I hung two of these this weekend at the reinstitute. A fabulous new art venue for warm weather, (its a converted barn). I am thinking of proposing something for 2011 there, its really an inspiring space.

I mentioned the titles in my previous 'We're All Dirt' post, (if you look back at the previous posts they've been added) These titles are "combines". Combining the title of the original painting (when there was one), with text that accompanied the original photographs. Thus, creating new meaning with what pre-existed. I am enchanted with the riddle of unity, or a continuous connection throughout everything.

Moving with love

2010-04-07T05:37:00.000-07:00

I thought to follow yesterdays post with another 'home' announcement, as its directly related to my art practice and life.

We have decided to sell our Germantown property. www.gtowncrib.blogspot.com

This decision was sudden and took us by surprise but feels incredibly light and wonderful in nature. As you all know, the past two years of my life have been flooded with changes, changes that others may never experience in one life. Death, birth, new home, finances, work,etc.
During this time, I sat in what has felt like a cave of darkness, just trying to breath. After what seemed life many lifetimes, I began to see glimmers of light.
The darkness and pointed light has led to deep inward reflection. A gift.
As I sit with myself, a 33yr old-Artist, Mother, Wife, Sister, Daughter, Woman I realize that I have been running away from myself and the circumstances I've never had any control over. I have been running to achieve, to have, to be, to succeed, to be something other then who I always have been.
I have always been an artist, I have always been an intelligent, kind-hearted, creative being who loves much.
Now, I want to revel and explore the fullness of my truest self, being an artist. I want to sit with myself, looking inward and outward, expressing love.
I want to dedicate my life to my artistic practice and fill it with open space to explore, expand and love more.
So, following our hearts (its a family decision) we have decided to let go of the extra loads that demand our attention and need our care, and start again so we may be closer to our joy. We are not sure exactly whats next, possibly Italy? What I am certain of is that I will put my art in front of the line, not lastly, or when I have more money or more time.
My art will be my money, and where my time is spent.
Our beautiful dream home will go up on the market this week, as we realize our dreams:)
PS. I am a great investment, and am accepting benefactor applications:)

Hudson House

2010-04-06T04:39:00.000-07:00

Our hudson house was just featured on The Nest. Its a great slide-show article of our former dwelling...we now live in a Victorian Farmhouse 10 minutes away, in Germantown. Its a fun article, thought you might enjoy it! Also, this house is looking for a new owner/s, if you know of anyone great looking for a great property in Hudson NY, contact me:)
Check it out with the link below!
www.thenest.com