The Potential To Create

"There are two basic motivating forces:

 fear and love. 

When 

we are afraid, we pull back from life. 

When we are in love,

 we 

open to all that life has to offer 

with passion, excitement, and 

acceptance. 

We need to learn to love ourselves first, 

in all our 

glory and our imperfections. 

If we cannot love ourselves, we 

cannot fully open to our ability to love others 

or our potential to create. 

Evolution and all hopes for a better world 

rest in the 

fearlessness and open-hearted vision 

of people who embrace 

life." 

— John Lennon

I was allowed to let my creative juices flow today when I learned how to 

cut linoleum and make a print from my pattern. It is my new

favorite potential art form.

John Bergmeier, a very talented lino cutting print artist, 

came all the way from Pontiac, MI to teach this awesome class in my shop.

Here is John's artist statement from his website: www.johnbergmeier.com,

ARTIST STATEMENT

Piece by piece, the experience of each real or imagined person is depicted by certain icons left behind in time, such as images from old children's books, passages from Sunday School, photographs of family, farm tools or other implements, and more.  While referencing familiar or traditional themes, these images, as applied in each piece, become intriguingly profound and layered in meaning.  These narrative works reflect my fascination with choice and how coincidences converge in our lives to comprise the personal path each of us ultimately walks during our lifetime.

  This is one of John's beautiful prints. He brought several to show as examples. This one has several

overlays of different cuts to give it an awesome layered effect. He quite often glues other mixed media to his prints in order to make a more textural statement. John was such a patient and informative

teacher that I credit him with my ease of taking to the craft.  

 Here is an example of the many "cuts" John uses to create his amazing prints. He quite often

uses plexi-glass to mount the lino cuts to for ease of placement when printing.

 Here is John illustrating how to make the cuts on a piece of linoleum.

 After using a brayer to spread some black water soluble ink on a piece of plexi-glass, he is rolling the ink on to his lino block and then checking to make sure it is evenly covered.

 Here are the lucky students cutting away on their lino blocks.

 And here is my lino block after inking it up; this was so much fun that I was giddy!

 This is Tillie, one of John's very talented daughters, who is currently getting her Art degree with a minor in lino cutting and block printing. You can see some of her wonderful prints behind her hanging in my shop.Read more about her work here: 

 http://aworkofartstudio.blogspot.com/2011/02/life-without-art.html

She is also a very talented musician, listen to her perform here: http://www.reverbnation.com/tilliebergmeier

 And the great Ben Lambright, who taught writing classes at the shop earlier this year.

Read his beautiful writings here:

http://benwriteswords.wordpress.com/tag/benjamin-t-lambright/

 This is what Ben's inked block looked like. Very apropos for the upcoming "Dio De Los Muertos", otherwise known as Halloween. This was Ben's first lino cutting experience also. I get to hang with such a talented bunch of peeps!

And this is my lino block and the print that came from it.

I can't tell you how gratifying it was to carve on this block; way better than peeling old wallpaper off the wall.

Thanks again to John Bergmeier (and his lovely family) for coming to the shop today; what a great pleasure to spend the afternoon with such a talented bunch.