Colorwork Meditation #14

“The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.”  ~ Lao Tzu


“I don’t know about black or white magic I just know one type and that is your magic.”  ~ M.F. Moonzajer

“All Heaven and Earth
Flowered white obliterate...
Snow...unceasing snow”
  ~ Hashin, Japanese Haiku

 

"Snow" Geese Photo Credit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnanes/14649250626
Snow Covered Alaska Photo Credit:  NASA Goddard Space Flight Centers photostream https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/gsfc/22387064306/ 

Previous Colorwork Meditation: #13 (Black)
Related Post: Midweek Meditation -- Churchill Style
 

Colorwork Meditation #13

"I fell in love with black, it contained all color. It wasn’t a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all.... You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing."        ~ Louise Nevelson

 

Sky Cathedral/Southern Mountain, Louise Nevelson, 1958

 

"Women think of all colors except the absence of color.  I have said that black has it all.  White, too.  Their beauty is absolute.  It is perfect harmony."        ~  Coco Channel

 

 

“Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."   ~  Henry Ford

 

“I’ve been 40 years discovering that the queen of all colors was black.” — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Read more at: http://www.sensationalcolor.com/color-meaning/color-meaning-symbolism-psychology/all-about-the-color-black-4382#.VLcaIcnLpQI | Sensational Color

“I’ve been 40 years discovering that the queen of all colors was black.” — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Read more at: http://www.sensationalcolor.com/color-meaning/color-meaning-symbolism-psychology/all-about-the-color-black-4382#.VLcaIcnLpQI | Sensational Color

 

"I've been 40 years discovering that the queen of all colors was black."  ~ Pierre-Aguste Renoir

 

Two Girls in Black, Pierre-Aguste Renoir, 1881

 

"Black is not a color."   ~  Edouard Manet

 

"There is something about black.  You feel hidden away in it."   ~  Georgia O'Keeffe

 

"Black is a real sensation, even if it is produced by the entire absence of light. The sensation of black is distinctly different from the lack of sensations."   

                                                             ~  Hermann von Helmholtz

Black is not a color.” — Edouard Manet

Read more at: http://www.sensationalcolor.com/color-meaning/color-meaning-symbolism-psychology/all-about-the-color-black-4382#.VLcaIcnLpQI | Sensational Color

 Reprise:

"Black is the most aristocratic color of all.... You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing."       ~ Louise Nevelson

 

Previous Colorwork Meditation: #12 (Red Sky)

Midweek Meditation

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."       ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This is a busy time of year for knitwear designers who like to send out submissions proposals for third party publication.

I sent out three last month.  I will have two of them published! One will appear in a magazine next year and the other in a book(!) early in 2016.  I have not heard back on the third proposal.  It has been almost a month -- not a good sign.  (That third one was really my favorite of the three, so, I think if a rejection comes, it should be my next self-published pattern.)

I will write more soon about the progress of the Playground Shawl KAL.  (Believe it or not, there is still time to join!  Playgrounds are all about fun and no worries.  See this post for the details.  Go to this Ravelry thread to sign up and enjoy the fun!)

Midweek Meditation -- O'Keeffe Style

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”

“I have been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”    ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

In early 20th-century America, art was a man’s world, where women – even those with extraordinary talent and groundbreaking vision – were seen as no equal to men. Georgia O’Keeffe helped changed that. With an idiosyncratic style and bold use of color, O’Keeffe was at the forefront of American modernism. In a career that spanned more than six decades, she “made it possible for other women to explore a new gamut of symbolic and ambiguous imagery.”  ~ as expressed in her obituary in The New York Times*

My daughter painted the tribute to Miss O'Keeffe in an enrichment class at school when she was in the fourth grade.  I do love it!  I took these photos earlier today.  Laying the painting on the floor near indirect window light eliminated most of the reflections on the glass.  Normally it hangs in my dining room not very far away from a similar painting made by my son (Ref: Andy Warhol).  Love that, too!

* Source (Oct 20, 2014): http://www.womenwhochangedamerica.org/profile/georgia-okeefe/ 
 

A Rose Meditation

"You are beautiful, but you are empty.
One could not die for you.
To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me.

But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered;
because it is she that I have put under the glass globe;
because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen;
because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies);
because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing.

Because she is MY rose."

"It is the time you have lost for your rose that makes your rose so important.”                                              
                               ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince


Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/girliebesa/2638641176/in/photolist-52aJ6o-owiUHs-7mDpSg-5T6fiR-ck9V7d-ck5LNf-hE5oza-ietpvH-hXXoDf-ahZRdG-ck7QDN-dVVWV9-cjzoad-cjzpfw-dNJVE5-aPK1Y6-ck9LXf-ck9kAS-hZ7qHj-aPJZb4-cjzcx5-bqezJr-cjyXgN-oeCXNA-cjziKY-oeJc6r-ck9KHu-jBQSYN-owdWuT-owv71i-hLB1Fy-cjA4Dq-iqCokx-oePmes-cjyX5f-oeLo9X-7HWSkv-jC5u26-i9nFR1-aPK17D-jAL9P3-ifAbW6-ck9PuU-jzngwo-j2KLC4-bonZEU-ipa6hz-6Uxzcv-aBDQmt-ifXqaC/

Midweek Meditation - Warhol style

"I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning."     ~ Andy Warhol

I took this photo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in August of 2007.

As a (very young) child of the 60's, I have long wanted to quote Mr Warhol in a blog post.  But each and every time I googled and then read "andy warhol quotes" nothing really worked for me.

"Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?"

Late this evening, truly by accident, I learned that today is Andy Warhol's 86th birthday.  He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928.  Sadly, he died at the age of 58 in 1987.

Though I did, some time ago, rightly decide that quoting Mr W might not work effortlessly for my blog, this photo could help to explain my post tonight.

A painting my son made at school when he was in third grade hangs above my desk.  I do love it!  I took this photo just minutes ago.  Not very far away is a similar painting made by my daughter (Ref: Georgia O'Keefe).  Love that, too!  I will share it on another day.

Some final words from Mr W...

"Sometimes you're invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it's going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can't remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball."

Colorwork Meditation #12

"Sky in Fire" watercolor by Nadia Minic, 2007

“Artists can colour the sky red because they know it’s blue. Those of us who aren’t artists must colour things the way they really are or people might think we’re stupid.”      ~ Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist, born 1929

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/35475855@N05/3332303965/


Previous Colorwork Meditation: #11 (Peaches)
 

Midweek Meditation

“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”  ~ Anton Chekhov, born January 29, 1860

I wonder if this is really true.  I have a suspicion that those born in the winter tend not to be as bothered by it.

Midweek Meditation

“If you can't fly then run,

if you can't run then walk,

if you can't walk then crawl,

but whatever you do

you have to keep moving forward.”

~ Martin Luther King Jr., born January 15, 1929

A New Year Meditation

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”   

                                                                ~ Neil Gaiman, British author

Midweek Meditation - Kandinsky style

"There is no must in art because art is free.”  
                                                                         ~ Wassily Kandinsky

When I think of Kandinsky, this work, Squares with Concentric Circles, 1913, is what comes to my mind.  It is one of my favorites.

"I applied streaks and blobs of colours onto the canvas with a palette knife and I made them sing with all the intensity I could...."

"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul."            

                                                              ~Wassily Kandinsky,

                                                           Russian painter and art theorist.

Kandinsky is credited with painting the first purely abstract works.

On White II, 1923

Composition X, 1939

"Music was important to the birth of abstract art, since music is abstract by nature—it does not try to represent the exterior world, but expresses in an immediate way the inner feelings of the soul...

In addition to painting, Kandinsky was an art theorist; his influence on the history of Western art stems perhaps more from his theoretical works than from his paintings."
                                        ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky
                                                            December, 3, 2013

 Photo credits:  http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/wassily-kandinsky/color-study-squares-with-concentric-circles-1913
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kandinsky_white.jpg
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kandinsky_1939_Composition-X.png

Midweek Meditation

"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."

                                                                        ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Colorwork Meditation #11

Photo Credit:  http://jaimejofisher.com/favoritethings/inspired-by/1588/

"The man who can see all gray, and red, and purples in a peach, will paint the peach rightly round, and rightly altogether. But the man who has only studied its roundness may not see its purples and grays, and if he does not will never get it to look like a peach; so that great power over color is always a sign of large general art-intellect."      
              ~ John Ruskin, 19th century English romantic writer and painter

I also quoted John Ruskin in my Colorwork Meditation #6.  I will admit that he sounds a bit pompous in the quote above... but I do remember when I first really noticed the redness of tree branches in April, and I do remember when I really could see that all grays are really lavender-grays or green-grays or whatever-grays... I believe that it is a gift to all who love color that we can see "all gray, and red, and purples in a peach".

Do you know what I mean?  Do you agree?

Previous Colorwork Meditation: #10 (Water)
 

Colorwork Meditation #10

Bermuda 2007

“I’m intrigued that one can recognize different parts of the world solely by the particular color of the water.”
                                      ~ Leonard Mizerek, American Painter


Previous Colorwork Meditation: #9 (Palette)

Midweek Meditation

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.”          
                                   ~  Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Colorwork Meditation #9

    “Every so often change your palette. Introduce new colours and discard others. You will gain knowledge of colour mixing and your work will have added variety.”
                                               ~ Kenneth Denton, English Painter

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashleymayes/4609488728/


Previous Colorwork Meditation: #8 (Blue)
 

Midweek Meditation

"Don't go an inch without changing color."  ~Millard Sheets

  

Colorwork Meditation #8

"Let the blue sky meet the blue sea and all is blue for a time."   ~Moncy Barbour


Previous Colorwork Meditation: #7 (Squares)
 

Midweek Meditation

"The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown."  ~  Carl Jung


"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."  ~  Albert Einstein
 

Midweek Meditation

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."  ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Great sentiment, but I would have to add some yarn and some needles. ☺