The Universe Answers Back!

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 Last week I declared my intentions as an artist  and the universe, in the persons of some of my lovely friends, is answering back.

Bonnie Ford Woit wrote back; this painting is hers.


Budding, Looking Up

54"x54"

This what she wrote to me;

Barbara,

Keep working!
I am now 90 years old, painting for at least 65 years.
The advice I got from other artists when younger and frustrated by the gallery system was simply-- 
keep working,
It is the doing as a way of life that we crave anyway!
❤️ Bonnie

And Molly Heron


New Beginnings 
by © Molly Heron
Prints available upon request. 
"Happy new year 🎈❤️
From your mouth/writing to the universe’s ears. May it be so. 

As one person said, 
Other fools have done it. So can I. 

Not that you’re a fool😉

I’m putting a similar intention into the universe. May I sell my paintings and photographs, have several galleries that I love working with who sell my work widely and that my work continues to open up doors of perception, discoveries and art adventures for me and the viewers. 

Cheers!
Molly Heron"

When I think of Molly this pencil drawing by Hans Holbein always comes to mind
;

Lady Cecily Heron.


And Leah Poller,


Non, The Gas Mask
Bronze
"The real secret is learning how to formulate the ASK - and not following it with a but, or when or if…

Say it again - over and over
WrIte it again over and over
21 days - things changes.

I join IN supporting your ASK!

LEAH "
Leah Poller

And this:
Do It!
Love, Marla

There were other answers that I don't want to jinx by telling, so watch this spot for further developments.


Have you seen the Jasper Johns show at the Whitney?  I LOVE his work, especially his 

Map of the USA


And his Bronzed Coffee Can


But as I walked through gallery after huge gallery all brimming with his extraordinary output, knowing that there is a twin show at the Philadelphia Museum that's just as overwhelming I began to feel that bad old feeling; I can never produce work like this, what am I doing and how can I call myself an artist when I look at Jasper Johns.
Anybody else ever feel like that?
Then I stumbled upon an essay about Agnes Martin and I can't find it now, and I can't remember it all but she says, "never compare." She says a lot more than that and eloquently but I got it.  And I know it. I'm not Jasper Johns but Jasper Johns isn't me.

So I'm going back to the Whitney and just enjoy the show.  Here's my favorite.

Slice


I think it's beautiful. 

It combines an anatomical diagram of a human knee that he saw in his orthopedist's office, drawn and signed by a high school student named Jean Marc Togodue. That floats on a map of galaxy positions in a slice of the universe in front of a radial pattern derived from a "knot drawing" by Leonardo Da Vinci. 
The label says, 
"Made the year Johns turned ninety and the world faced a deadly pandemic, Slice holds in balance the human, intimate and ephemeral with the vast, ungraspable and eternal."

All I can say is, Mr Johns, Keep Working.

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