Summer Was Good
Mabon 2024
PLACE. THIS MUST BE THE
The light is lessening. Already. Already, it’s autumn.
I have new art goals, but right now I must do the “Mabon” thing and slow down to acknowledge what I’ve completed. It’s time to note what I’m now symbolically harvesting and choosing to keep with me during the upcoming period of time with less daylight and warmth.
The West End Celebration happened at the end of August and it was everything I wanted it to be. As I’ve written about in my previous newsletter, I was working all summer to complete works for the sake of a booth I had secured for this annual event, celebrating the arts in the area I live in.
My job as an art teacher began a week before the festival, so I had to be pretty much done with everything before the start of the new school year and thankfully, I was.
On top of that, my partner’s sister and niece came to visit and stay with us. I had been looking forward to this, as we had only spent time together on their side of the continent (at the time, New Jersey and NYC) many years ago and just for brief visits. So much has happened to everyone since then.
I was determined to feel confident about the weekend of the West End event and also be 100% present for the family visit. As it turns out, I needed more help than I thought to set up my art booth and they were more than happy to assist me. In a way, it was kismet and it was such fun to spend time with them. I’m very thankful.
As I had also mentioned in my last newsletter, the whole process of preparing for this and presenting my work in my own determined way was a challenge I set for myself. A revisiting of the “shop-space” energy I had twenty-one years ago, this year.
I received the same kind of response, in that it was a bit different from typical “art shops.”
It was the same during my senior year of art school, where I realized I wanted my little, white-walled cubicle in our shared studio to not just be a working area, but something of an installation- to allow my aesthetic to bring about a feeling to those who walk by or into it, and it did.
Twenty-one years ago, before art school, I was told by tourists and Hollywood regulars that I had created a special space in the little shop I rented on Hollywood Boulevard. People liked being inside of what I had done. I often heard that it felt specifically like an artist’s atelier, which gave me the confidence to make it more of a studio space and less of a shop. I called it Linda Lay Atelier, which worked great since Lay rhymes with the “lier” of atelier.
This time around, at the West End Celebration, I had people enter and mention my sense of humor and the fact that my space seemed like the kind an “artist” would have. That said, who knows what idea those visitors have about what an artist is… Anyway, no need to overthink it. I loved receiving those comments repeatedly during the two-day event. I’m glad that my sense of humor and personal aesthetic came through clearly.
Threaded through those words and reactions were people who stood in front of a large fiber-art piece I had spent a long time working on during the pandemic, and had on display as a central focal point. It’s one of a series of works that revealed my “chops” to those who might not recognize my experience and devotion to my practice in my more lighthearted and affordable works; which I think are important to have when you are at a festival where people from all walks of life are out celebrating the day.
My lively monsters and bright colors and textures always catch the interest of children, so I had candy for them to take (with parental permission, of course). Saturday I had butterscotch, which I found was more popular with nostalgic adults who remembered them from grandparents’ candy bowls during the 1970’s and the Brach’s “Pick-a-Mix” candy bins at supermarkets of the past. On Sunday I had knock-off Pixie Sticks, which were a huge kid hit.
Back when I had my Hollywood atelier, I used to get pretty little lollipops from a section of downtown Los Angeles where people bought bulk party supplies. They were just like the kind sold at the Sanrio store at the mall when I was young, shaped like small, transparent multi-colored pastel flower gems made of sugar on long, skinny, plastic sticks. I had them in a vase as gifts for visitors until I noticed guests (tourists) were often indulging in a whole bouquet at a time. Since I wasn’t earning enough with my art to make rent on my little atelier and nearby studio apartment, I chose to cut back on things like my charming giveaways (sadly, this unremarkable budgeting choice did not help me not lose all of my money and subsequently, the shop and apartment). So, twenty-one years later, after thirteen years of a stable job provided to me by a college degree- I put my experience to use and decided that dollar store treats are the way to go, and learned they are just as appreciated.
“I think we become whoever would have saved our younger self.” Monica Lewinsky
I came across this quote on social media last week. While writing here about my creation of space and in describing how I wanted to ensure kids and folks who aren’t art collectors got something nice from my art booth, I recognize this notion is connected to the value I place on the creation of “space.”
After listening to Moon Zappa’s Earth to Moon audiobook memoir about being raised in a complicated family household, I draw lines from my treasured childhood memories of playing house (outside) with friends and imagining myself as a person in charge of her own life.
While my friends were pretending to cook for their pretend children or get ready for their future professional jobs, I was obsessed with an idea that I could do so much with so little. I needed a space that felt safe and welcoming, and it included the strange and eccentric elements my parents were fixated on, but it was a place without drama and hatred and family secrets. I was working things out. I guess we all must have been.
MABON- The Autumn Equinox
I have to say I truly “summered” it up this year. I took advantage of the patio I’m currently sitting at right now- the little backyard I usually just see from our kitchen table. I learned to be in the sun again. Funny that it’s something I have to remind myself to do- to be in the sun.
Working on the crafty items I made for my booth allowed me the chance to sit on a blanket on the patch of artificial grass we have out here and stitch or build or paint. I listened to music and audiobooks on my headphones. I had three great listening experiences from three inspiring women- Kathleen Hanna, Miranda July and just recently Moon Zappa.
This summer I developed a walking routine and route. It meanders through a very beige housing development currently being built near where I live. It reminds me of the setting of the film, Poltergeist.
The good thing about it, aside from the much needed exercise, is that I reach a spot on my walk with views of a mountain called Mount Toro on one side and the ocean and Santa Cruz mountains on the other. These familiar landscapes bring about memories but the look of the hills, with the plants and trees and fog- and the curve of the coastline informs the patterns and shapes and colors I work with when making art, even though I am an artist who seems to present more “dreamscapes” than landscapes.
Nature, seasons, light and weather, especially as I experience it in this part of the world, makes its way in.
So let’s get back to Mabon and look a bit at what it is-
Up on this side of the hemisphere it marks the Autumn Equinox. Around September 21st (It’s noted this year as the 22nd) It’s the second of three harvest festivals. If we are able to, it’s a time to consider balance, and reflect on the abundance of the year. If we are lucky enough to, express or feel gratitude. Days and nights are equal now, and soon comes the darker half of the year. More night than day. Seal up the holes, patch the blankets, store up the food and memories of the sun we felt on our skin. The warmth, the nourishment and growth. Storing it all for the winter because sometimes it’s long and cruel.
I know, it’s a gift to be able to ponder and meditate, and I’m grateful I’ve been able to work toward a place where I can command peaceful moments for this kind of work. Without this blog, it could very well pass me by and so this self-determined deadline is increasingly what I feel a lot of gratitude for.
Pando Porto
Now it’s time for me to focus on getting my body of work called Pando Porto in a gallery. I’m thinking this work needs to be in nearby Santa Cruz, where I lived as a young woman. I have a gallery in mind, and I’ve taken some steps toward an exhibition. An artist I admire and feel like I have some aesthetic things in common with has shown there, so it would be a tiny but personal goal met, to say I’ve had art on the same walls.
After so much personal upheaval from grad school until now, I’m finally witnessing my work as being “at the place” I’ve been reaching for. It’s amazing how much time and change it took for it all to feel and come across as what I’ve always known it could be. I wonder too, if it matters that I’m somehow not as attached to it, even though aesthetically I’m more “it” than I’ve ever been. Mysterious stuff.
Biblically Accurate Angels and a Cat Magazine
One of my “rewards” for completing all the works I did for the summer festival was to allow myself to get back to a body of fiber art pieces I started working on as “notes” around 2020.
In playing around with some basket weaving fibers, I found I could create perfect circles that could be covered in yarn and scrap material and act as structures for these bonkers dream-catchers that include a highly decorative eye sculpture I made from moldable plastic. The eye has always been an important element of my work, and is increasingly so- as I’ve evolved to integrate so much weaving into what I do. The craftiness of it makes me think of those Gods Eye craft projects made with sticks and yarn.
A lot of what I do is connected to personal explorations of creatures like demons and angels. When I had my first shop space I painted round faces with just eyes and wings near the ceiling and called them angels. It was marking what was a profound and painful spiritual awakening and these creatures felt like protectors. Not to sound too “out there” but I was doing something similar to the artists who made cave paintings I would learn about a year later in my ancient art history class at art school. I imbued them with power and by bringing them to life, I was asking for protection.
In constructing these new sculptural circles that have eyes (I’ll document and share them when I have more done) I am reminded of these angels. On top of that is the relatively recent attention that “biblically accurate angels” were getting online. This is a phase of interest many of my teen students were interested in for two seconds about two years ago, but this idea struck me- that my intuitive method of depicting angels somehow matches drawings done to replicate descriptions of angels from the bible. Obviously I’m not a Christian and I was not raised with religion, but it confirms to me something I learned when I first painted those winged angels on my rented walls, that there are ideas out there we can grab and explore and connect with. David Lynch talks about this and art, that there is a symbolic barrel filled with water and fish out there, fish being ideas, and the artist can “hook” ideas from within this source. Again, mysterious stuff.
Anyway, I’m currently enchanted by my new angels. I have two completed and I’m installing them on a blank wall as I make them, because I initially visualized them as being ideal artwork for a wall at a local cafe in a historical adobe building in downtown Monterey. I’m not sure if that’s the place they’ll land, but we’ll see.
Another thing I learned from my summertime art booth is that people enjoyed a project I did a few times in the past called LINDALAY’S CATZINE. My first issue was made in 2018.
After receiving messages from people who wanted me to feature their pets in my little publishing project, I put out a call for folks to send in images of their cats, then I played around with the photos in Photoshop and wrote a one-sentence fake “fact” about the beloved felines.
For the last issue I put together in 2019, my friend hosted an event at her space and we raised money for The Golden Oldies Cat Rescue, where they find homes for aging cats.
I realized I could do another call, create another issue and sell copies at my partner’s disco-space in downtown Monterey at a CATZINE event, some time in the near future. I could whip up some one-of-a-kind LL CAT tees and maybe some LL CAT dolls, as both of those items were quick to sell at my summer art booth. And of course I’ll donate a portion of sales to the cat-loving charity.
So there it is- I have work to get at a gallery, a series of angels to craft and a cat zine and show to make and plan for.
Currently you can view my work, MEOW MEOW at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts in the heart of Carmel California. That show ends on October 13th.
I wish you all the best this autumn. Thanks for reading.
Eye candy! Thanks for making art.