Sketches
In August 2018, I enrolled in a Masters in Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Honestly, I do not think of myself as an “artist” but as creative in terms of program design, communication plans, and other practices from my consulting business. Then in a class focused on imagination and active imagination, I learned about collage and free form drawing whatever comes to mind which made me realize that I loved working with lines and colors. One day my friend, Brian Giberson - an extraordinary artist said to me - you NEED a creative practice, what is your creative practice?! My inner default was - “I’m good with words but I’m not an artist. “ How many of us sit with this critique of ourselves?! So from that moment, I decided to commit myself to create something daily. I first went through the house to see what we had to work with and found my husband’s drafting tools, a set of colored markers, and a package of old graph paper. And with that, I got started.
Color Explorations in Conversation with the Tao te Ching
Each color exploration begins by my sketching lines in ink and then adding color using color markers. Part of the freedom in this is having no advance goals or design. Instead I make a cup of tea or coffee, light a candle, and then try to still my mind. Then I just sketch lines and add color using whatever colors pop into my head. I then let the image sit for a few days. When I’m ready, I randomly open the Tao te Ching (Stephen Mitchell translation) to a verse, incorporating that verse into the overall image. Technically, this is an arts based method incorporating drawing and then a form of Bibliomancy (translating an image using a randomly chosen selection out of a holy book). At some point, I’ll analyze the images/Tao te Ching verses to see if there’s any patterns, messages, or lessons learned.
Color Explorations in Conversation with Hafiz
Hafiz (aka Shams-ud-din Muhammad, c. 1320-1389) is a Persian poet. Ladinsky described Hafiz as a spiritual teacher, and his collected poems as a “classic in the literature of Sufism and mystical verse.” For this project, I spent 100 days selecting at random a Hafiz verse accompanied with creating a sketch. Then at random, I selected the sketch to accompany each verse. All verses are cited from: Ḥāfiẓ, & Ladinsky, D. J. (2010). A year with Hafiz: Daily contemplations. Penguin Books.
