Ninety-Six

Study (after Sherrie McGraw). Even when copying, something else emerges. There's a point where I have to let go and allow this new drawing to come forth and not be frustrated that I can't get it "right," reminding myself that learning is a dance of effort and surrender.

Ninety-Seven

Study (after Sherrie McGraw). I originally thought I would do the practice of one hundred heads in drawing and craniosacral in the same time frame. It was a while before I could get back to drawing but with the craniosacral practice I went forth and I have now surpassed the one hundred heads my teacher encouraged. 

With the first head I could feel nothing, with the one hundredth head I could feel nothing but awe.

Ninety-Eight

Study (after Sherrie McGraw). I really like this one, especially the chest. I like how just a few lines capture the turn of the form. 

This project took form in my mind as the gems of my road trip came tumbling back. Just wait until you get to one hundred heads, you will see, my craniosacral teacher in Chicago said, when I was filled with doubt. Once you do one hundred color studies you will really see color, the instructors at Studio Incamminati said. 

As I draw I hear the whisper of Rob Liberace...Clavicles are very important. Don't round out the brow ridge. Be very careful about eyes and nostrils, leave those for last. Mass in different directions according to muscle or shadow then unify...

Ninety-Nine

Study (after Sherrie McGraw). I'll be drawing heads from the work of other artists, sculptures, photos, and when I can, real life. I'm starting by copying drawings that work, and for that reason, I'm starting with the drawings of Sherrie McGraw. Her drawings are beautiful and the ones I most want to learn from. There is something that she understands that I want to understand. 

One Hundred Heads

A new project is starting here at Daily Art Works called "One Hundred Heads." It begins with the drawing of a sculpture I found amongst the roses at the Huntington Gardens during my internship in California, two years ago. A bridge between now and then.

I've always been uncomfortable with drawing faces, they never seem to come out quite right. Drawings from my art school years are filled with faceless torsos. Back then, it seemed there would be time later to get to all the things I didn't understand. Now that later is now, it's time to come face to face with faces. My 40's seem to be a time of delving into all that is uncomfortable, in order to see what is really there. 

I'll be drawing one head a day five days a week in conjunction with the opening of Arise Therapeutics, my occupational therapy private practice. Five days a week means daily drawing with weekends in order to honor another project I'm working on -closing the gap between love and money. For so long, the things I love to do have lived like decorations on my life, attended to in spare time, while work has been a stressful chore that takes up the majority of my days. 

Can watering the seed of what you love crack the concrete? Is it really possible to close that gap? What might happen by facing the uncomfortable? 

What might happen by one hundred heads? 

Highway One

I spent my last two days after class was over exploring the Monterey Bay. I loved Pfeiffer State Park in Big Sur, Point Lobos and the butternut squash pizza at La Bicyclette in Carmel, the Hidden Peak teahouse in Santa Cruz, and Asilomar Beach and the aquarium in Monterey. 

I remembered the Hanuman temple I had visited on my road trip and how it overlooked the Monterey Bay. When I visited the temple two years ago it seemed so remote, a place I would never get back to. I realized from where I was now it was less than an hour away. I wanted to return and say thank you for the book on yoga therapeutics I found there, Anatomy and Asana, that brought me to Toronto. And to honor the journey that carried me, like Hanuman, over the obstacles of the last few years.

Next to Hanuman, at the top of Mount Madonna, I could see fog hover like a quilt over the ocean. I noticed from that vantage point how much space there is above the clouds. I thought about how much had changed since I last stood in that spot next to Hanuman, how I was on the way to start my internship then, and now, two years later, I was a running a private practice, specializing in yoga therapeutics and craniosacral. How it came faster than I thought because the need was greater than I knew.

I thought about this blog and how I set out to draw and started to write. When I first thought about becoming an OT I was afraid I was giving up on my life as an artist. I saw them as separate things. When I told Nick Bantock, years ago, about this concern he told me, "It's as if your interests are drawing up a mountain. You can't see yet because they're on different sides, unknown to each other. But keep going, keep feeding them because they are drawing upward and will one day meet at the peak." 

From where I stood at the top of Mount Madonna, I could see that he was right.

Lift Off

On our last morning of class we learned that Dr. John Upledger, who developed craniosacral therapy and whose work I was studying at Esalen, passed away the night before after a long illness. Both Gabrielle Roth and Dr. Upledger were pioneers in exploring the energy, waves, patterns, and rhythms  of the body. A dance of inner worlds and outer worlds whose transformative powers can only be felt by being present.

What must it have been like for them to feel something that was uncharted and go forth with that curiosity? How lonely and exciting it must have been. In the five days I was at Esalen, two of my most influential teachers ended their human journey. One who was an entry point, from whom I first heard of Esalen, and one whose work I was studying now. A full circle of sorts, with me in the middle. How strange that I was there at that very moment, in the most Western edge of the country where land turns to sea, for lift off.