When we move, six separate muscle groups interact in the human back. My model, a tolerant dancer with a string dipped in wet white paint across her shoulder blades, shrugs, humps forward, raises each shoulder up and down, then bends side to side, creating an image that depicts what these movements look like: wing-like designs. […]
MOTION SPEAKS | Blue Back-Surrender Read More »
Fling your arm wide, up and around. The shoulder is the only human joint that rotates 180 degrees. I asked Joan, a dancer, to do this after I’d tied a string, wetted with paint, under her shoulder. After she’d completed her task, the wet paint made complex swirls. I found the design intriguing, resembling, to
MOTION SPEAKS | Shoulder Read More »
I stripped off my shirt and dipped a string in black paint. Jane, an artist and friend stood ready with my camera. When I held the string out to her, she took it and carefully tied it around the center of my back. Slowly, I raised my right shoulder as high as possible. Hearing Jane
MOTION SPEAKS | Wings of Paint Read More »
Last spring, when COVID started, I decided to paint a self-portrait. This seemed like a worthy endeavor during a pandemic: to leave my countenance behind should I succumb to the virus. I enjoy combining oil paint with an 8B pencil. First, I stain heavy paper with abstract oil wash designs, the paint thinned with turpentine.
Portraits In This World And The Next Read More »
2020 November 11 – 2021 December 31Making the Invisible VisibleVirtual Exhibition Kauffman creates mixed media pieces that depict people in meditative states; they dwell where the physical and the spiritual meet. As in much religious art, the creative process itself strengthens the artist’s private contemplative practice. View the exhibit online here. Kauffman begins by making
Making the Invisible Visible: In Meditation Read More »
Bravo to Henri Matisse (1869-1954). He followed his vision in spite of harsh art world judgments. In 1908, he wrote: What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter…a soothing, calming influence on the mind. The art world has always taken itself seriously, no
Bravo Henri Matisse Read More »
Every ten days or so, I spoke to my spiritual counselor and she often advised me to deepen my gratitude. In our land of plenty and at a time of personal financial comfort, I tried feeling sincerely grateful for food and shelter, things I normally took for granted. Slowly, in my everyday life, an appreciative
Full Exposure to Gratitude Read More »
The pandemic has held us captive for almost a year. We’ve needed to make long-term and on-going adjustments to protect ourselves. As we approach our first anniversary with COVID19, we’ve seen the people who couldn’t cope: the ones in denial who said it wasn’t real, the ones who rebelled and met together in large unmasked groups,
Vibrant Inner Structure Can Sustain Us Read More »
In October, our thoughts turn to those spirits who may still roam among us. Other cultures didn’t try to keep these phantasms away, but encouraged them to stay with us, believing them to be ancestors who could help us from the beyond. The Standing Gong from North Ambrym Island in Vanuatu, a South Pacific nation,
Keeping Ancestors Alive Read More »
The great American writer and critic, Albert Murray (1916-2013), felt that art should make sense to a person. He believed in artistic struggle and creativity, not as a means to achieve fame or wealth, but as a way to evolve personal order in the world and to comprehend one’s place within it. When I read
Art That Makes Sense Read More »
