What books about the process of artmaking are on your shelves?

The Story Begins 26 x 28 mixed media 2007 L Pressman


I am trying to organize my books that are everywhere: the office, the bedroom and the studio.The dust is settling on the pile of philosophy and psychology of art books. I haven't even begun to collect the catalogs and individual artist books. I am looking forward to seeing what is up in my attic.

This week I have been looking through the creative process books ...here are several I have found so far. Always looking for new ones to add.

Have any suggestions?..............Maybe we could start a list of the essential creative process books.

Anais Nin: all the journals
Twyla Tharp: The Creative Habit
The Artists Way: Julia Cameron
The Writing Life :Annie Dillard
Daybook: Anne Truit
May Sarton: The Journals of Solitude ( Marie-this one is yours-I will bring it back)
Centering: M.C. Richards
Spirit Taking Form: Nancy Azara
Trust the Process Shaun Mcniff
Art and Soul: Audrey Flack
Concerning the Spiritual in Art Kandinsky

Reading now or on "the list" to read:

deKooning An American Master Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
On Writing Stephen King
The Extreme of the Middle:Writings of Jack Tworkov JackTworkov; Edited by Mira Schor

Garden Project

For the past days, we're in a plant and tree hunting mode. We're looking for nice green thing for our future garden. We've been to three landscapers but their price is out of the world.

So we decided to put first garden soils and blue grass and concentrate on the garden project when we're here in november.

Garden Project

For the past days, we're in a plant and tree hunting mode. We're looking for nice green thing for our future garden. We've been to three landscapers but their price is out of the world.

So we decided to put first garden soils and blue grass and concentrate on the garden project when we're here in november.

The Public Market

In search of a cotton fabric for Dirk's short pants, we try the binan public market. There are lots of stalls but they're not selling cotton fabrics for jogging pants or t-shirt. They advised us to go to divisoria for that material. Our trip was not wasted because we found a glass and aluminum shop that will supply us with window screen and sliding door for our closet.

While browsing the area, we found this barber shop and the haircut is just 15 pesos, very cheap, isn't it???

The Public Market

In search of a cotton fabric for Dirk's short pants, we try the binan public market. There are lots of stalls but they're not selling cotton fabrics for jogging pants or t-shirt. They advised us to go to divisoria for that material. Our trip was not wasted because we found a glass and aluminum shop that will supply us with window screen and sliding door for our closet.

While browsing the area, we found this barber shop and the haircut is just 15 pesos, very cheap, isn't it???

What are your influences? Lisa Adams

"A Mechanism of Harbingers" 2008, oil on panel, 48 x 72" Lisa Adams

Lisa Adams is a painter and public artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California.She is represented in LA by Lawrence Asher Gallery and in San Francisco by Michael Rosenthal Gallery
Check out her work and her influences-I had a blast looking at her choice of artists. It is a west coast view!!




"Next Services 264,458 Miles" 2008, oil on panel, 72 x 48" Lisa Adams

"The long, meandering, and challenging process that brought me to art making involved a never-quite-fulfilled reclamation of my own freedom as a woman living in the world today.

To do so my paintings must ask difficult questions of both me and of the viewer. These questions fuse my personal feelings of joy, sadness, rage, and despair – things I am often afraid to look straight in the face - with larger concerns of spiritualism, pathos, and the strangely complicated and enigmatic discourse between human beings.

The images that appear and reappear in my work stem from a desire to suffuse sources of inchoate matter – the formal elements, the grist of art – with a deeply felt, psychologically-charged world-view, which in turn allows my personal integrity to merge with larger, more universal concerns, cathartic to me, accessible to the viewer

In my most recent work, I create a negotiated reality forged from the world of the imagined—images of a Ground Zero (rather than Edenic) natural world with urban artifacts--to create a largely graffiti-free netherworld, animated by a tension between the unexpected and the predictable. By creating a “safe” space for myself in which to imag­ine, I offer the viewer an opportunity for Koan-like contemplation, a moment not Here nor There but somewhere In-Between."

"Everyone Talks' 2005, oil on panel, 30 x 34 Lisa Adams

Here is her list of 10 influences:

1) Nature--just being out in nature to experience a world of beauty and tragedy beyond my control.

2) Birding--watching birds in their natural habitat. It allows me to sit still and put my attention on silence and minutia, much like a meditation and I just love looking at the colors and hearing the sounds of songbirds specifically.

3) Film--so many films inspire me in different ways depending on mood. Film is my great escape. For me any of the films of Werner Herzog remain the most meaningful and inspiring.

4) Meditation--a dedicated practice of simply following the breath.

5) Travel--having traveled extensively throughout the world alone, there are so many places that have stayed with me but the most profound places are in the Nordic countries, the very top of Norway and Finland where the Sami people reside.

6) Other painters--again there are so many painters I take great inspiration from. Here are a few: Kristen Calabrese. She is a big inspiration and seeing her work in the studio always makes me want to paint better.
Also the work of Lucian Freud, Kiki Smith, Mathew Barney, William Kentridge, John Currin, Susan Rothenberg, Jeff Wall, Robert Gober, Amy Sillman, Llyn Foulkes, David Amico, Tom Wudl, Tomory Dodge, Joshua Aster, Kim Dingle, Samantha Fields, Cole Case, Andre Yi, Marie Thibeault, Joe Biel, Ann Diener and many dead artists such as Max Ernst, Philip Guston, Jay Defeo, Henri Matisse, Van Gogh, William Blake, the Pre-Raphaelite painters, and many more.

7) Imagined Apocalyptic Events-- mostly these come to me in dreams though I do have conscious anxiety about apocalyptic events. Perhaps this is the result of being the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Though these events frighten me they also give me energy and provides me with one extreme scenario against which I can weigh the other extreme of beauty, stillness and feelings of well-being.


8) Natural Disasters — love watching floods, fires, earthquakes, Tsunamis, etc I think it’s the out-of-control aspect of these events that capture my imagination.

9) Surrealism— my first love in painting was surrealism. At age ten I saw a reproduction of Dali’s painting “The Persistence Of Memory” and a knew I would be an artist, though I didn’t know what that really meant at age ten. As I later came to learn, it was the notion of the subconscious that drew me in.

10) Psychotherapy— having had many years of psychotherapy, it’s clear that this investigation has had a profound influence on my life and my work. The realm of subconscious material, unlocked memories and childhood trauma have tacitly informed my work and offered both and personal associations to my audience.

________________________________________

Cool mom in Ukay-Ukay

After visiting my daughter in the hospital, i saw an ukay ukay store nearby. I really have no chance of going to any ukay ukay store because of time constraints. I just browse around and didnt buy any clothes. The store offered very cheap clothes and womens accessories. In this time of crisis, people are just being practical.

They also sell shoes and bags.

Cool mom in Ukay-Ukay

After visiting my daughter in the hospital, i saw an ukay ukay store nearby. I really have no chance of going to any ukay ukay store because of time constraints. I just browse around and didnt buy any clothes. The store offered very cheap clothes and womens accessories. In this time of crisis, people are just being practical.

They also sell shoes and bags.

Monday Adventure

Today, we have a sumptuous lunch at Kingbee, the new chinese restaurant opposite paseo de santa rosa. We then drive to tagaytay to order two beds and couch for our terrace. My two daughters enjoyed very much shopping for fruits. I thought the 4 pineapple for 100 pesos is very cheap, but they were able to buy the same size for only 10 pesos each.

The girls had fun posing in one of the furniture store

Monday Adventure

Today, we have a sumptuous lunch at Kingbee, the new chinese restaurant opposite paseo de santa rosa. We then drive to tagaytay to order two beds and couch for our terrace. My two daughters enjoyed very much shopping for fruits. I thought the 4 pineapple for 100 pesos is very cheap, but they were able to buy the same size for only 10 pesos each.

The girls had fun posing in one of the furniture store

The Eye Doctor

Tink 12 x 12 oil 2006 LPressman

Chapter 4 24 x 18 2007 LPressman

I have been wearing glasses since I was five. A while ago, I went to the eye doctor. He is an older guy, in his seventies, and he asked me as he was looking at my prescription, "what do you do?" I told him I am a painter. He said: " What do you paint?" I said: "I am an abstract painter."

He said "I can absolutely see why you paint abstractly." He went on to tell me it is related to my eyesight. I have severe astigmatism/near/far and now the bifocal thing ....whatever....it is bad.

Time Piece 30 x30 encaustic 2007 LPressman

It was an Ah ha moment- the idea that the ophthalmologist could understand what I paint through my prescription was something that had never occurred to me. He then preceded to tell me about being at a conference where he and other ophthalmologists visited a museum to look at Matisse, Van Gogh, Monet, Degas and others and diagnosed their eye conditions.

Interesting articles on the subject here at the Science Geek Girl blog and here.

I retold this story recently-taking off my glasses. When I put them back on, it occurred to me that my original vision is one of blurred distorted shapes, colors, values, shadows light.......


Time Travel 38 x 41 encaustic L Pressman



and the correction by my glasses creates a focused magnified view.

Another ah ha moment!

I flip back and forth between the two when making art- Welcome to my Macro/ Micro world!


The Microscope 16 x16 encaustic 2007



Linking 3 24 x 24 encaustic 2009 LPressman

Southforbes Tour

Today, we toured around the southforbes area together with my sister who's also here for a vacation. At tokyo mansion, we chanced upon some movie stars of TV 5 taping for Lipgloss. I don't have any idea if its a teleseries or just a tv program.

One of the star, rosanna roces was kind enough for a photo ops with cool mom. She is half German and Filipina and even tried to speak the german language.

Take note of the skin color difference but i'm proud of my brown color. From villas, to tokyo, we then proceeded to bali mansion.

We also showed her the chateau de paris houses and was surprised of the price.

Our last stop was at southforbes golf terraces. It's very near the golf course and there are at least 30 units, 4 of shich still not sold.

Southforbes Tour

Today, we toured around the southforbes area together with my sister who's also here for a vacation. At tokyo mansion, we chanced upon some movie stars of TV 5 taping for Lipgloss. I don't have any idea if its a teleseries or just a tv program.

One of the star, rosanna roces was kind enough for a photo ops with cool mom. She is half German and Filipina and even tried to speak the german language.

Take note of the skin color difference but i'm proud of my brown color. From villas, to tokyo, we then proceeded to bali mansion.

We also showed her the chateau de paris houses and was surprised of the price.

Our last stop was at southforbes golf terraces. It's very near the golf course and there are at least 30 units, 4 of shich still not sold.

The B's are Busy

Yesterday, we did drive to market market to do some house shopping at MC Home depot. Because of the on going skyway construction, the traffice was very heavy. We bought some bathroom accessories and door locks. We then have our lunch at Sbarro, an italian restaurant inside the market2.

On the way back, we encountered the same traffic situation. At alabang home depot, we ordered doors and granite for my dirty kitchen. It's really very hard if you're constructing a house.

But today, our tagaytay adventure is a mixture of nature trip and fruits shopping. Along the tagaytay road, there are lots of stalls selling pineapples, bananas and other fruits and delicacies like buko pie.

I bought 4 pieces of big pineapples for 100 pesos only and cluster of bananas for 30 pesos. Its really worth your money, everytime we go to tagaytay, we really stop in these stalls.

We also tried the mexican restaurant along paseo. The lunch buffet costs 330 pesos and I would say that the price quality relationship of the foods was superb.

The B's are Busy

Yesterday, we did drive to market market to do some house shopping at MC Home depot. Because of the on going skyway construction, the traffice was very heavy. We bought some bathroom accessories and door locks. We then have our lunch at Sbarro, an italian restaurant inside the market2.

On the way back, we encountered the same traffic situation. At alabang home depot, we ordered doors and granite for my dirty kitchen. It's really very hard if you're constructing a house.

But today, our tagaytay adventure is a mixture of nature trip and fruits shopping. Along the tagaytay road, there are lots of stalls selling pineapples, bananas and other fruits and delicacies like buko pie.

I bought 4 pieces of big pineapples for 100 pesos only and cluster of bananas for 30 pesos. Its really worth your money, everytime we go to tagaytay, we really stop in these stalls.

We also tried the mexican restaurant along paseo. The lunch buffet costs 330 pesos and I would say that the price quality relationship of the foods was superb.