Snow Day Gleanings from the Studio

As the snow falls it is putting me in a thinking space. Much as I make fun of Marie Kondo it may not be such a bad idea in the erasing whiteness and silence of winter to sort the collected stacks and stacks of paper, to hold each image and ask in one’s own way, do you bring me joy or anxiety or curiosity and would I miss you if you were gone?

I work on paper. Lots of paper. As a calligrapher I may make one mark hundreds of times, each one on a different piece of paper. In the drifts, in the light from the eastern window, the pages seem simply to melt into the snow. Some fragments have a secret worth asking about. They go in new stacks.

“Symbols by themselves do not unlock the door. It is when there is a shadow in the door, some ambiguity, that symbol becomes image.”– Journal Entry, 1997

It’s always about relationship…..

Tomorrow I am going to sit on the porch in a long wool coat with my tea and scatter toast for the birds. I hope the winter season finds you warm and safe with time to think and dream.

All art work © Iskra Johnson