Sketchbook Meditation + Exploration Series: Lolly Owens

Last year, I embarked on a Sketchbook Meditation and Exploration journey with a group of artists from around the world. This supportive community gathers regularly online to work in our sketchbooks, experiment with techniques and approaches, share ideas and experiences as well as converse about important issues that face artists.

Throughout the year, we work in our sketchbooks and discuss topics such as battling the inner critic, handling creative block, working through anxiety and self-doubt and interrupting the patterns that bind. My Rediscovering Your Creative Self Podcast, a free audio series that focuses on developing a relationship with the creative spirit that resides within and making daily lifestyle changes that enhance creativity to build a more creative and playful mindset, serves as the topic of discussion.

This is the second in a series of articles on the Sketchbook Meditation and Exploration experience as witnessed through the journey of each creative soul. Today, I am featuring artist and nature advocate Lolly Owens. 

 

As an artist, the wonders of the natural world inspire, inform and uplift your work as well as your practice. How did that journey begin and how has it evolved?

Lolly: My first memories are of the differences between living in a steel-making town versus living in the country. With my parents, I lived in an apartment in an industrial area where Andrew Carnegie built his first steel mill. People with diverse backgrounds were crowded together and surrounded by lots of dirt, smog, noise, shops and bars. There was a lot of visual stimulation: like Las Vegas for a child under five years of age.

My grandmother lived in a country house, and I spent long periods of time with her. There were grasses, roaming roosters and chickens, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and turtles. Fields of green instead of sidewalks connected by distant houses. The roads were black topped rather than brick and there were no trolleys. It was a wonderful place to explore, once my fear subsided.

“I always had crayons and paper to keep me content. My early masterpieces took on a new look with pictures of animals not seen in the city. My work hung in two prominent locations: my grandma’s kitchen and the closet door in my bedroom. Today, I continue to find locations in nature or the country that remind me of grandma and the peace I found in her presence. When I spot industrial intrusion, I add that element as well, often in symbolic ways.”

I spotted this birdhouse (shown above) during a park walk and its style caught my attention. There are a few other birdhouses in the park: simple ones attached to trees. This one is on a post and ornate in comparison to others in the area. I wonder if special zoning was required.

 

“I walk in cold dreary weather and find beauty in what is. I take dried flowers, branches and leaves to my studio where they are arranged and become inspiration for my art.”

 

Give us a little insight of what it is like when you are in nature. Please share what you experience during your nature walks.

Lolly: Let me tell you what I do now and what I hope to do soon. I wear something that has pockets and I use a walking stick to go off paved areas. In the pockets is a pencil, tablet, small camera, my phone, plastic bag and a water bottle. I walk with soft steps and try not to disturb anything. I often pickup litter or parts of nests or branches that have fungus on them. Looking for old growth on tree trucks is an adventure. When I locate such a tree, I thank it for thriving against incredible odds for hundreds of years. Trees give us clean air and provide for wildlife creatures of all kinds.

I use paper in my work, so I also mentally thank the tree for its cousins who have fallen, as I use their matter in my artwork, pencils, clothes, paper shopping bags, etc. After all of that, I look for a good spot. If I sit, I observe, and my imagination sees tree spirits in the bark formations and I begin to sketch. In the future, I intend to video some of my walks, recording the sounds I hear.

“I enjoy trees and admire their resilience, strength and gentleness. The shadows they cast create a mood and impressions that remain with me when I return to the studio.”

 

How do you come up with your ideas and concepts? Does research play a role in the conceptual development of your work? Explain.

Lolly: Research, observation of the landscapes, animals and humans plus mediation all play roles in developing my ideas. The book The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben explains how trees feel and how they communicate. It was a paradigm-smashing book which backed up what I thought I had insanely imaged. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potawatomi Native American and college professor opened my eyes to how humans could and should relate to Earth. It opened my mind and my art to reciprocal relationships with living beings other than humans. Another book, The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair explains how tubes of paint, that I took for granted, came from early, often tedious or deadly processes involving animals, plant or minerals. In addition, I still read print newspaper papers daily, especially our local paper and then the metro city paper which arrives three times a week. Lack of ideas is not a problem. Narrowing down ideas and finding time to do all I want to do is the challenge.

 

You use a plethora of natural elements in your work. Talk about your creative process and approach.

Lolly: A 15 minute or more meditation is part of my practice. It is my way of transitioning into another space internally. In addition, I also have a routine which includes moving my blue-fronted amazon bird into the studio, making a pot of hot tea, turning on instrumental music, laying out all the materials I feel I might use, checking the lights and stretching my body with gentle yoga moves. I then ask my inner critic to leave for a while.

 

“When my inner critic is gone, I am free to play with all my tools.”

 

Because I work in watercolor, acrylic, inks, crayons, oil, pastels, found object, collage, dried leaves and flowers, I am playful when I work. My process may have an important message or story, but it must be fun for me to create it. I believe we are born to be happy and loved so I like to create those feelings in the studio. Otherwise, it become work and then I know it is time to stop.
My work involves layering and responding to the layers. To see different possibilities, I often turn my support around a quarter of a turn as I create. When it’s time for a break, I ask my inner critic to return to the studio as she has opinions I appreciate when it comes to values and composition.

 

Nature is not only your muse but also a friend that you advocate and speak for when it cannot. Talk to us about your advocacy work as an artist.

Lolly: I did a series of paintings called Churchill Series to help pay legal fees for a small community fighting corporate giant Amazon from building a massive 24/7-hour warehouse in a bedroom community 10 miles east of Pittsburgh. The land was once the headquarters for Westinghouse and was landscaped with a variety of trees and plants, some of which were given by the Japanese government to honor the relationship between our countries. The planned destruction of this land was fought at borough meetings and in the courts until Amazon withdrew the plan, leaving the community with large legal fees. My donated paintings were part of the larger fundraising effort. Each painting used a different perspective of the land and its mysteries, including an ancient Native American walking path.

“It is always a surprise to me just how Spring arrives in Western Pennsylvania. Where there was once brown and grey seemingly barren land, the landscape suddenly comes alive, for a short time, in a riot of growth, color and wildness, expressing an unseen energy. As an artist, my journey is one of a visual storyteller, using color and texture to raise emotions and establish connections.”

 

Currently, I am a member of the Center for Coalfield Justice in Washington, PA located in Southwestern PA. This area has an overlap of extractive industries, including the largest producing underground coal mine in North America. I never knew my grandfather because he died of black lung disease from working in a Pennsylvania coal mine. I did know the canary he took into the mines, as an earlier warning to poison. The canary would die if the air was poisoned, allowing grandpa to escape.

In addition to coal mining, this area has over 3000 fracked gas drilling and limestone operations. There are over 100 studies proving fracking puts our health at risk. Kids living near fracking sites can have 7 times higher risk of cancer. My artwork is more than keeping the beauty for nature alive. It relates to keeping our people alive.

 

Many of your pieces have been remastered from the detritus of everyday life. Talk to us about the upcycling (art-cycling) that you do and its importance to the message you want to convey as an artist.

Lolly: I think that my efforts help to protect habitats and wildlife. My mother told me stories of living through WWII and how items were used until they were rags or unrecognizable items and then, somehow, used in another way. When recycling became a concept, I readily adopted it and took it a step further by bringing it into my art.

I art-cycle wooden and heavy cardboard boxes that are destined for landfills. I do not want to throw items out, so as I began to assemble them in my works of art. I realized that they all cost money and money is one of the reasons the environment is in trouble. Money to be made in drilling, fracking, carbon capture, logging, mining, etc. Art paper and tissue I have painted, found objects and, recently, dryer lint are now covering boxes to be used for storage, gifts or interest pieces for the coffee table.

While visiting a friend whose husband receives monthly medications for his COPD, I decided to take some of the medical boxes she offered. Both of us thought they were too nice to be used only once. She had no idea of what to do with so many. The sturdy boxes were destined for a landfill. I had made many collage papers and decided to use the papers on the box featured below, which I envisioned for storage. After I applied the papers, I added one of my canvas forest walk paintings to the top, as I liked the way they looked together.

After I sent my friend the images of what I did, she decided to keep the remainder of the boxes for a neighborhood party where everyone would collage a box for storage use. Although I lost my resource, it’s great to know the boxes will not be dumped into a landfill.

Art Cycle Box (open)   Size: 10” (h) x 12.5”(w) x 3.5”(d)  Media: acrylic, collage, found objects, bespoke items

 

With the same motivation as the first box, I wanted the second box to look different, so I applied the course molding paste by Golden to the gesso surfaces of the outside box. I like the way it looked so I stopped after sponging the acrylic paint over the molding paste.

A high school friend turned to wood carving after he sold his business. He had scrapes of wood he routinely tossed in the trash. He offered to carve them into shapes that I could use in my art. I hand paint or collage them, stringing the wood on leather straps and adding beads. They have become one-of-a-kind, light weight works of art to wear around your neck.

 

You use your sketchbook like a visual journalist. There are stories that reveal themselves and you follow their lead. Talk to us about how your sketchbook practice has not only informed but also guided your paintings and artistic practice.

Lolly: I don’t try to have a pretty sketchbook. If I sketch something on the back of an envelope, it is pasted in my sketchbook. A newspaper article might appear next to a female warrior I sketched. Maybe a photograph from a walk. Pencil, charcoal, pastel, paint, found objects are all used in a sketchbook. I made one in celebration of nature, the happiness found there, because I felt my recent entries were depressing.

I live in an area severely damaged by mining and fracking. While the Earth in time can repair itself, the newer process, carbon capture, is more dangerous then the others. The written words in the sketchbook spread (featured above) are from those who support and don’t support carbon capture. I imagined a female warrior who can make this madness stop.

In the studio, are your visual surroundings important to you? How does your working environment influence your ideation, process and approach. Describe your artistic working environment. Be specific to things that may make it unique or personal. 

Lolly:  I recently moved into a new studio. It’s a raw space where I could create what I want. Before I brought anything into the studio, I had a smudging ritual performed with sage to purify the space and bring in positive energy. I studied with a Native American artist when I lived in Florida and paid her respect.

Ben is my studio parrot. I once had two Amazon parrots, but it was always Ben who accompanied me to the studio. In the photo (featured above) she oversees Canonsburg Lake. She is part of my art making process so a photograph of her is important. I simply paint better with her in the studio.

I keep reminders on the walls such as Sister Corita Kent’s Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules Rule #1 is to find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while. I will bring items I know or feel good about to this space and the I will sit int the studio for a while to feel it and what is may need.

The studio is divided into spaces. Featured above is where I come to relax. I found an old oak rocker in an antique shop. I like the shape of the rocker but not its seat cushion, so I painted the cushion with fabric paint. Music is always playing and the laughter of children comes through the walls from the after-school program next door. On the working side of the studio, I have movable tables (shown below). I found two old school library tables and my husband put wheels on the them so I can move them around to different locations, putting them together for bigger projects. Through the open door in the background, you can see the storage and sink area.

Shown above are the studio items that I have collected on beach walks, created myself or were made by others. They all have a special meaning to me.

“The Sketchbook Meditation + Exploration experience has led me into areas I would not have otherwise explored, like art-cycling boxes, writing Haiku poems to accompany my new paintings, working with a high school friend to create wood necklaces from scrap wood and adding photography to explore and document my process.”

 

Moving forward, I will add my poems, photographs, art boxes and sound to my paintings so people have a fuller sensory experience at an exhibition. I would also like to give an art talk with my exhibition(s) to suggest how to look at the work as a whole. You don’t have to look at everything but look at something for at least five minutes without reading the wall text. Approach the work like a CSI investigator and get what you get. Then read the wall text or talk to the artist.

JOIN THE SKETCHBOOK MEDITATION + EXPLORATION COMMUNITY!

The Sketchbook Meditation + Exploration social events are once a month on Tuesdays from 11:00am to 12:30pm EST. Artists use the Sketchbook Meditation + Exploration get-together as a time to commit to working in their sketchbook, experimenting and discussing with other artists topics that will help in developing a relationship with the creative spirit that resides within. Be a part of the journey with us!

 

To see another article in the Sketchbook Meditation + Exploration Artists Series:

Sketchbook Meditation + Exploration Series: Lucia K Wolfer

 

 

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