Playlist or Podcast?

In the studio, I often need silence to be fully present with my work- to pay full attention to what is often the smallest hint of the next step in the evolution of something.

Life Line II (detail #1)
wire, pulp, encaustic, collage
©NanciHersh
photo: Dain Simons

It also depends on what I am doing. Working from life or well into a piece, music can be a great energizer, moving the brush, wrapping the wire, dipping the pulp-caught up in the momentum of the beat, the words.

If I am on a path where I can see the light of sorts and would like inspiration or interesting conversation, but may need to pay more attention to my footing, then I podcast. 

Life Line II
wire, pulp, encaustic, vinyl tubing, collage
©NanciHersh
photo:DainSimons

Yesterday was a podcast day, working on a painting I listened to OnBeing's Krista Tippett's interview with Ann Hamilton at the Minneapolis Museum of Art in January 2014. I loved Ann's insights about time and presence and "letting things take the time they actually need."  There is that time and trust as Makers (Ann prefers that to Artist)  that we need to give something so that it can become what it needs to be. 

Life Line II (detail #2)
©NanciHersh
Photo:DainSimons

This Catch & Release Series of my nets has been and continues to be a lesson in allowing the time for it to become what it needs to be.

Threads, materials, and parts come together, find each other and are connected with fishing line and vinyl tubing to feed off and sustain each other. Each component is a vessel that holds something and whose strength comes from its ability to be a part of something larger than itself.

We may not know where are are going but where we are is worth our attention.