MINERALARTS: Iron and Thorn

I’m doing a series of yin-yang cats for a T-shirt.  The next step will be a larger “whole cats” drawing!

Other black and white art:  I finished sewing both pieces of this autumn outfit - the ankle-length jumper is Japanese cotton dobby cloth in charcoal printed with litte gray birds.  Buttons are made from a big catfish bone that I found in western Kentucky several years ago.  Underneath is basically a muslin nightgown with ruffles at the collar, sleeves, and hem - the long length looks better than a shirt.

Clouds from Mexico’s hurricane arrived yesterday evening, along with the faint smell of the ocean that we sometimes get with these September storms - it’s always a wonderful surprise in the desert.  This morning we awoke to a steady, gentle rain that continued for a couple of hours and left the air feeling cool and soft.  Green shoots are ripening into fruits and seedpods.  Young tree roots and branches are thickening, bark is forming, and growth slows as the equinox approaches.

Too hot and humid to paint or do much at the forge, so I made a drawing that I’ve been wanting to do for awhile:  yin yang cats and kittens.  This is the simplest of several variations that I sketched, and could be simplified even further.  Fits in a 3.5″ circle.

An odd painting for this time of year, but this pomegranate painting shows an ending and the seeds of a new beginning.  I sold the last numbered Ironwing Tarot deck today.  I have a handful of full 78-card decks that are signed but not numbered, which are available for the same price but not advertised on the website.  I also have quite a few 22-card Majors-only decks which are available on my website or through Tarotgarden.  Card XVII - The Star will appear this fall in the We’Moon 2008 Datebook (an annual publication of womyn’s art and writing - I had pieces in the 2002 and 2004 editions).

The seeds are those of a new oracle deck.  More about that later.  For now, like the Tarot High Priestess, I will just show the pomegranate.

Here are various leaves and scales from six desert ferns, finished yesterday, drawn on a 5″x7″ piece of scratchboard (the same size that I used for the Ironwing Tarot originals).  They’ll be used separately but I cram as many as possible onto one board.  Scratchboard is a wonderful alternative to pen and ink on paper, since it allows for a wider range of techniques, greater detail - and you can fix mistakes!  I use Ampersand Claybord Smooth, a kaolin clay coated hardboard that comes in several sizes.  I use permanent technical markers (and even a plain old Sharpie) for drawing, and an x-acto knife blade for scratching white lines on black ink.

Is it art? Scientific illustration? An eccentric spiritual practice for natural history nerds?  Most people wouldn’t define it as art, and some cannot “see” it at all.  Scratchboard is rarely used for botanical illustration, so it strays from tradition there, too.  But I have taken “nature drawing” very seriously since I began to experiment with pen and ink when I was ten years old.  It was probably my first regular, conscious spiritual practice, and remains a precious way to stay connected with the earth.  When you draw something faithfully, trying to capture the truth of it on paper, you truly SEE it and learn about it on a deep level, and it becomes yours.  This is why drawing is a traditional tool for teaching natural history.  I still love drawing twigs, lichens, stones, and other bits and pieces of the “real world”.  I used to fantasize about leading a spiritual retreat (in some beautiful place, of course) for people who wanted to do this…except that those people are rare enough that there are only a few in each generation, and they learn to work in isolation.  The art that I’ve done of this type inspires strong negative reactions in many people who are not comfortable with realistic depictions of obscure aspects of nature (as opposed to greeting cards or “wildlife art”).  But whether people see it as boring or beautiful, “evil” or spiritually inspiring, it’s the underpinning of ALL of my other art.  Although the drawing above is intended to be technically correct, not artistically exciting, I’m sharing it here because it’s worth paragraphs of explanation of who I am.  And there’s a sense of adventure here too - for many of the ferns I’m working with, there are no published drawings of any kind, anywhere - just brief descriptions and perhaps a photo or two.  Maybe it’s because I’m walking near the edge of all the maps:  (Shown below:  U.S.-Mexico border in the San Rafael Valley, AZ.)