Cindy J Sullivan

Sometimes books find us. I recently went to the bookstore and scoured the art section for a book, something on illuminated manuscripts but didn’t find anything, so I thought I’d go to the religious section, hoping there might be one, but again nothing. As I left something caught my eye on a different shelf. There was a book nestled in with the other books with the handwritten words Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen written on the spine. I picked up the book.

Hildegard of Bingen lived from 1098-1179 and was a German mystic, a Benedictine abbess, author, philosopher, poet, activist, composer and artist to name a few of her accomplishments for a woman in the dark ages. When she was 42 she began to have visions and had her visions painted as a series of illuminated manuscripts.

I can’t say Thirst is a vision but more of an illumination, a meditation to bring a bit of light into the mind and think about what something is we may thirst for, whether it be love, truth, joy, playfulness, wonder, wisdom, compassion, knowledge or creativity.

Thirst - painting by Cindy Sullivan (oil paint, sumi ink and book pages 6×9 in)

The Tientai Mountains are my home
mist-shrouded cloud paths keep guests away
thousand-meter cliffs make hiding easy
above a rocky ledge among ten thousand streams
with bark hat and wooden clogs I walk along the banks
with hemp robe and a pigweed staff I circumambulate the peaks
once you see through transience and illusion
the joys of roaming free are wonderful indeed

— Han Shan (Cold Mountain)
from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain 1 - by Cindy J. Sullivan oil paint, book pages, and sumi ink (9×22 in)

This is a collage/mixed media painting I did a few months ago. Cold Mountain was a poet who lived in a cave in the Teintai Mountains in China about twelve hundred years ago.

After reading his poems I sat at my table and started putting together this piece, thinking about Alaska (where I grew up) and hiking off into the mountains. When reaching the tops, in front of me were views so magnificent that all I could feel is this vastness, the transience of our existence and how we only pass through each moment of time once.

Whoever has Cold Mountain’s poems
is better off than those with sutras
write them up on your screen
and read them from time to time
- Han Shan (Cold Mountain)

On a recent trip to visit family, I came across a book in my grandma’s library (a tiny bedroom stacked full of books) about Montserrat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montserrat_(mountain) where part of our group visited during the trip to Barcelona.

In the book was a picture of a monk’s cell. It was small, simply furnished with a bed and desk, terra cotta tiles on the floor and white walls with nothing on them but the words Ora et Labora. Wondering what this meant, I googled it, and found Ora et Labora means Pray and Work (or attentive work).

So, that is what I’ve been practicing and painted/collaged these. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them next, but that’s the beauty of art, not knowing the answer or the end result.

OBRES - Barcelona street rubbing

My grandmother gave me a book called Oriental Brushwork by Wang Chi-Yuan. One of the chapters is simply titled Painting is Work. I love this thought. Just ponder over it. Painting is work.

I recently took a class that went to Barcelona to study Catalan art. Early one morning, a small group of us tromped through the city until our instructor led us to a spot where we made texture rubbings of the streets using ink or pencil. After a few interesting attempts, I saw some Spanish words and went over part of one with my pencil. The outcome was the word OBRES. I had no idea what it meant until our instructor said, “that means work” (it is derived from the word obra which means work).

I’ve hung this street rubbing in my studio, and when I feel tired or distracted, just remember - painting is work. Not some great divine mallet that is going to bonk you in the head and fill you with super human inspiration to paint nothing but masterpieces (artists don’t make that decision anyway).

Painting is practice. It is patience. It is thought. It is letting go of thoughts. It is being quiet. It is work.

Boy with Hawk and Pond paintings by Cindy J Sullivan

Ideas change, they grow, they evolve, they die out and if they are unresolved, they can come back again. That is what happened while painting. My attention reverted back to an unresolved series of work that I was previously working on, but set aside because I wasn’t sure what to do next.

The other day I sat down at my worktable, pulled out some painted paper scraps I had been playing with and just let my mind quiet itself while arranging the paper. Before I knew it, I had about 10 studies to be explored.

I think that was the lesson from painting these fractured images - to quiet my mind. Painting your own variation of a master’s work is good practice to not only explore new ideas and learn different ways to solve visual problems, but to not think so much about “what it means” and to just let your mind be quiet so you can enjoy the moment and work without being critical or over intellectualizing.

I think creativity is eagerly waiting for us in the pause, the moment between moments. It’s good to understand art history and how cultures approach creative expression, but when it comes right down to it, it’s between the artist and the moment.

This painting is in progress, I’m about 2/3 done and have work to do on his face.

It is based on a print by Choensai Eishin (1789-1801). He was influenced by Utamaro and the lives of the young people of the era.

Hawking was a popular sport during Eishin’s time among the warriors and aristocrats and gradually became popular among the bourgeoisie and was a frequent theme of prints and drawing.

In the original print, the artist showed aubergines and Mount Fuji on the falconer’s robe (or haori). These, along with the falcon were symbols of good luck, peace and prosperity in the year to come.

Boy with Hawk by Cindy J. Sullivan based on the print Falconer by Choensai Eishin

Term Project - The Three Sitters by Cindy Sullivan

based on the print Three Famous Beauties by Kitagawa Utamaro

Deciding what to paint has never been an easy task. Narrowing down your ideas can be even more difficult, and when you start painting those ideas and finding out they were not quite what you wanted to paint, can be enough to make you put your brushes away, start the process over.

In my attempt to create a cohesive body of work, I’ve begun to paint 100 fractured versions of Japanese and other master prints and paintings (copyright free of course). My instructor, Jef Gunn, at PNCA (Pacific NW College of Art) who, upon seeing my term project said, “paint 100 of these and you will find something there”.

Why paint from these? Because I think the old masters have a lot to teach those who want to listen. Why fracture the originals? Because my goal isn’t to create a likeness, but to focus on the shapes, space and colors (hey, even Van Gogh and Picasso did this). To make up my own story of the painting and the people. Plus, I want to see what happens and maybe I really will find something there.