Stillpoint

Stillpoint 750 x 500mm

Here's my painting from Sunday - I'm still deciding whether to reduce all the busyness from the background... at the moment I'm OK with it because I like the way the eye scans the painting for sense before it rests on the face of the dervish - which is so still.
I might go see Anna at the French Art Shop and talk to her about 'stickiness' mediums for my paint though, I'm not ready to relinquish the acrylics yet, but I wish I could push and blend the paint more before it dries so that some of my my marks are more blended. Sorry my photograph is so average - it is actually very rich like this though.

Painting in the flow

"Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being." -Rumi

While on the subject of Sufi poets and rituals, this quote describes my day.

Painting stillness in the midst of movement is a lovely challenge.
A whole day at my easel is the best kind of nourishment you can have after a late Saturday and a broken night .
I spent the day painting in the flow today, (not just moments of it) and it raced by while I worked on oblivious. Now I feel as if I can face my week - my piled up jobs, patiently waiting clients and urgent tasks will go easier... I'll see if I can photograph my painting from today, but I'm not sure about the background just yet so it might be a work in progress still.

Spinning out of nothingness

Photo still from video footage by Marcel Baaijens (and the rest by me!)

Eastern music, haunting ancient Persian prayers, the wind of the whirling skirts as they pass and the stillness of the cloaked turners 'in their graves' ... the experience I had last night was both enchanting and haunting. I'm moved and inspired to paint.

Turn Turn Turn

On the day that Michael Jackson died I'm going to a Mukabeleh to watch whirling dervishes turn.
Sounds like a great first line of a novel doesn't it?

Through a nice turn of events (yes, I'll stop now) a small design job for a group of Wellington sufi's has enabled me to attend their ceremony with my sketch pad a camera and my friend Marcel with his video camera. I'm hoping I can come home with some imagery to draw from - dervish turning was on my mindmap a year or so ago, as a form of non verbal communication that I might investigate - in part because of the wonder at the movement.
I do like serendipity don't you? I'm looking forward to it and hopefully I'll have some images I can post here soon.

“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust” Rumi

Roughing out an idea

Well that's done it !

Yesterday I had a call from Red Gallery in Nelson because NZ House and Garden magazine are doing an editorial on the Nelson Arts Festival for their September issue and I needed to describe my coming show at Red in October for the editorial... Yikes! It's creeping up fast and I need tying down.

Think quickly, be decisive Adele !

...So yes, focusing on working up the little postcards, and thinking about the 'cartography of the body' as Ondaatje so beautifully puts it... I came up with a title for my upcoming show, and a theme which allows me to explore either the huge seam of the body markings (with all it's possible textures and oubliettes for the brain art) or if time turns against me, the little terrains.

And that's what I'll call it - Terrain

Here's my description.

The subjects of her paintings are imaginary maps, places evoked by emotional
journeys or travels and suggestive of postcards or fragments of abstract
cartography. Adele is interested in the maps we leave as indelible marks on
those we meet and the lasting impressions we take on and add to ourselves.
These smaller paintings are the first foray into a larger body of work to come and
though their scale is intimate, her characteristic mix of line and mark making is
still present.

That should do the trick I hope.

Small works

Crossings 305 x 405

Another little painting by me, this one is more a map of an emotional terrain. It's from the Postcards series.