Painting the Cosmos : Jill Berry Blog

Life here has been hectic. Pipes bursting, loan officers disappearing with our mortgage papers, dental work gone way wrong, it goes on and on. Sometimes I think that elements in our lives get accidentally connected and make agreements, “Let’s all Leap!” Random Chaos, swirling around us. I decided to paint it.

I started with Sumi ink on Arches Cover, using an eye-dropper.

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I let it tack up, then pushed some of the lines around with a feather.

Then I got my cosmos generator mojo going, and painted planetary shapes and swirls in layers, carving through some of them.

p52242491 p52242513 I only painted the colored layers on half of the sheet, so I could use the other half as a contrast. Then I made this book, influenced by Paul Johnson’s tongue and groove methods for non-adhesive book forms. His are elaborate and wild, this is my baby-step toward that.

p52242521 Then I made a person inside the book, looking out at the swirling chaos. The person is woven into the window, just by cutting and folding the paper. No glue. Love the no glue.

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I am going to try this out on the people in my class next weekend at Whispering Woodlands.

Today I feel lucky to be a visual explorer. It is impossible to imagine my life without being able to paint my own cosmos. I feel better now, a tiny bit of “me as God” and a whole lot happy about learning this hinging thing with Paul Johnson. Everything around me is still swirling, but it matters far less because I can make things that are new. I am a creator, my kids are healthy, and the swirling things around me can be fixed. Gotta be grateful for that.