The Zone

There is a place I go where time seems to stand still and my logical, left brain is silenced, giving my right brain free rein to gallop, skip,or stroll through its musings without fear of criticism. I get there not by meditation or yoga, not by taking drugs or drinking. I get there by creating art. Whether I'm drawing, painting, creating a collage,cutting and pasting,or carving a cork board that will become a print, the moment I begin to create, I am transformed to the most remarkable place. I call it The Zone.

I have known about The Zone since I was ten-years old and picked up a paint brush for the very first time. I was outside, in our backyard. My father had given me a canvas, some paint and brushes. My subject, a bunch of daisies. And with the first brush stroke I was taken out of the backyard and into a blue-green canvas of concentration. With every white petal and yellow center of those flowers I was absorbed into a place I knew I wanted to be. With the last brush stroke, I realized the sun was gone and I was fast-forwarded to dusk.

The Zone is a healing place. A place of escape. I come back from The Zone refreshed,energized.  It's the main reason I make art. And I've been making art in one form or another for over forty years.  I named this blog Time Suspended because I want to take you with me to The Zone through the art projects I will be working on this summer. Life can be pretty tough, I know. But, creating art gives me respite. 

To get started with the blog, I have signed up for the Sketchbook Project 2012. It is through www.arthousecoop.com and is open to anyone. It is a traveling exhibit of sketchbooks through the Brooklyn Museum of Art. You send them $20 and they send you a sketchbook.You select a theme (or they can give you one) and use that theme as a point of departure for the artwork you will put in the sketchbook.They give you a deadline for sending in the sketchbook,which will then be put with the other sketchbooks and taken on a tour around the US and Canada. At the end of the tour,the sketchbooks are put in the Brooklyn Art Museum library.This is not a juried exhibit, so you are sure to get in...could be a pretty good entry in your resume. The only catch is you do not get the sketchbook back. My theme is "Forks and Spoons." Should be interesting... I plan to post my sketchbook entries on this blog as well as the other artwork I create this summer.  

See you in The Zone....