That tiny blip of understanding

June 1, 2017

We may not be immortal. Life is fast, challenging and unpredictable.

My husband is undergoing treatment for a (curable) cancer.

Stop.

You know that feeling of your mind going blank? White out. Black out. Everything fuzzy gray? Can't remember your name? I'm there -- blank, buzzing, and slow-witted. The blank is that blip. blip. blip. of realizing that we may not be immortal. The buzz from anxiety. Slow-witted because changing our daily focus to include radiation is a gruesome choice. One we did not want to make.

My husband is undergoing treatment for a (curable) cancer.

Stop.

Think.

Re-focus.

Curable.

It's about the inside coming out

May 12, 2017

Ladders, clouds, arrows and eyes. Especially eyes. These are common motifs that show up in my work regardless of the subject. The thread is trying to tell me something.

Reach for higher meaning.
Float above it.
Find a new direction.
Look within.

While preparing for a couple of studio visits by local curators I looked for a consistent, underlying message in the work. Something that tells me that I have a point of view -- a recognizable voice that makes sense to me. And it came down to these: ladders, clouds, arrows and eyes. Pathways to understanding, swirling confusion, angular edginess, underlying monsters provoked by overwhelming current events and an inner dialog. Its' the inside coming out. They are about the edges as defined by line. The layered, ripped, cut, and sandwiched together. Some are more successful than others, but all share a common bond: The work reaches for mystery...an elusive target.

focus on something else

April 14, 2017

One of the goals I set for myself this year is to invite curators and other artists to my studio to show my work. I've spent about two months recording, measuring and carefully storing the quilts that I have done in the past 10 years. I'm running out of closets and storage materials. So the question I ask myself lately is "what's the point?"

focus on something else, detail, Paula Kovarik

What's the point of spending hours on 2 square inches of a three by four foot square of fabric pieces stitching in little stitches, little stitches, little stitches. What's the point of going back to an unfinished piece to see if the answer to the problem is there on the 50th time I look at it? What's the point of taxing my body with every stitch, every ironing chore, every patch? Wouldn't I be more useful at a soup kitchen? or children's reading group? or making more protest signs and organizing the resistance?

Am I being selfish by spending time within rather than spending time reaching out?

And I don't have the answer. So I focus on something else.

Focus on Something Else, 2017, 32" x 32"

Making art keeps me healthy. Making art releases demons. Making art makes sense of confusion and brings confusion to sense.

I am compelled to do it -- without regard to results. Without regard for where it takes me. And sometimes it takes me to dead ends. Where my brain is blinkered and stupefied.

That's when I look for another way to make little stitches, little stitches, little stitches.

Then I can think about something else. Something quiet and consuming. Something that closes away the worries, the news, the predictions, the warnings and the opinions that litter my consciousness. Red stitch, black stitch, green stitch, blue.

So maybe the question shouldn't be "what's the point?" so much as "where to go from here?"

I'm losing it.

February 3, 2017

After this morning's brief journey through the news I am looking for my brain reset button.

People in Ulan Bator are burning coal, plastic and tires to heat their homes. People from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria, Albania are dying on the shores of Europe in an effort to find safety from war and prosecution. Sovereign Indian nations are being trampled by oil oligarchs in North Dakota aided and abetted by our government. Water reserves everywhere are threatened with poisons from greedy industries. Refugees in Australia are fenced into offshore island prison camps. Scott Pruitt, an EPA enemy has been named to head the EPA. Young African-American boys are perceived as targets for an overzealous and racist population. Veterans of our army can't get medical coverage after cleaning up the Pacific atoll we bombed into oblivion during nuclear testing. Our new president taunts and preens in his narcissistic acrimony.

They say that if it hurts your heart make art. But there are days that I just can't face it. Days when the news chokes me with despair. My friend Pat Pauly mentioned Mozart's Requiem today in her online journal. I want to offer the Kyrie, part of Mozart's Mass in C minor as balm to my darkening vision. Click on the feather to hear it for yourself.

And now I will breathe deep and proceed. After darkness comes the light.

thugs

January 20, 2017

Today marks the beginning of the arduous task of bringing people together regardless of beliefs, regardless of prejudices. The task now is to speak truth to power, recognize that government can be a force for good and also a tool for disaster. We live in a country of laws, checks and balances, and citizens who care. I recognize that my truth may not be your truth. I will listen. And I will not be silent.

Here are my feelings: malaise, worry, trepidation, confusion. Is this what it feels like when black turns to white, lies become truth, thugs become leaders? It is a dark day. A day when all I can hope for is that bureaucracy forestalls disaster. Dark days beget dark thoughts. Looming edifices of oligarchs and predators march in to offices that purport to protect the meek, the under-served, and the threatened. I'm going to get this darkness out of my system soon but for now I wallow in it. I sink in disbelief. I am sad.