Wabi Sabi

I'm reading "The Artist's Rule" by Christine Paintner and the sixth chapter introduces the idea of Wabi Sabi.  It is an Japanese aesthetic that speaks to finding beauty in things that are imperfect, broken and impermanent.  I have been thinking about how beach glass or in this case river glass embodies this for me.  Tonight I spent some time sketching a couple of my favorite finds this week.

Sanctuary Studio

I led a Sanctuary Studio gathering tonight at St Aidan's.  It was fun to watch creations grow as participants worked.  The photo below shows two collages in process.

We used this poem by Mary Oliver to begin our meditative time...

My own making included this treeish collage...

... and a close up drawing of a willow oak branch.

Sanctuary studio...

For our sanctuary studio time tonight at St Aidan's, we began with arranging small natural objects.

The second step was to observe carefully by drawing the arrangement...

I was thankful for the courage of those who joined in, particularly in taking on the challenge of drawing.  

Making time and space...

PThis morning I walked at Huntley Meadows without my camera or my phone.  It was nice to make time to just be in nature.

Tonight I made a space for community making.  We had an intervene rational group gathered in the church at St Aidan's for Sanctuary Studio.  We focused on careful observation and drawing of flowers from outside and also had collage materials.  It was interesting to watch artists move from careful detailed drawing to more expressive representations with colored paper...

My own exploration began with drawing and then I experimented with adding collage...may come back and add more later...

I also made a collage of greens inspired by a tree in my back yard but I forgot to take a picture before I put on the photo transfer...will have to see how it looks tomorrow.