Week 4: HOLD

Morris Graves, Moor Swan, 1933

A young woman pushing a baby stroller, pulling back the curtain, "His name is David..." A blue car set against tans and pinks and soft greens--touches of blue. One small patch of red. Then, a few squarish shape on white, with maybe a smudge. John Cage. But they're not squares, more gestures with that possibility. Unschooled, not closed. Three coins, one of them darker, more worn, moved back and forth on a white table. Gestalts. "Imagine this one emerging from a fog--when do you first know what it is...?"

Imogen Cunningham, Morris Graves...a mirror...

Baby blues, pinks, gold and black. Tibet. A wooden panel, formal, square, the name in Chinese. "My mentor...he's going there now..."

Reach high for bills. Then two figures, a cart, chiaroscuro. "Who do you think they are?" Mountains of Northern California, red earth, abundant and insistent, our need to name. Another mountain alongside, softer color merging with grays. We move back and forth...

What is inside, what out? Where did this begin? Hold, to be held. Form and touch...

Trees gathered in a circle, seen through lens of today. Strong browns, blurring at the ends... A wide horizontal of small squares, laced with shadow, remnants of the colors held on  one hand...

A girl's face, in pencil, sea of interwoven shapes from far away. "Born in 1784 in the backseat of a sea-foam green space pinto.." 

Los Angeles calling...





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Added later in the week, when I happened upon this collage drawing by James Castle--also a compelling artist, and in many ways Morris Graves' opposite. You can look into his life and his work... Funny, no, how being human can take us all to these shared places...?

James Castle (1899-1977), Gray Goose, collage, n.d.