I had a glass of wine with my oatmeal last night

Comfort food and catnip. That's what it has come down to. My head is so fractured with focuses the threads careen forward with untrammeled exuberance. I have eight serious pieces in process and I flit from one to another like a ping pong ball on crack.

Must focus. Must breathe.

I think it was the time away from the studio that did it. Images flicker in my short term memory with such a radiance of immediacy that I am compelled to follow their paths.

Pollinators, detail, Paula Kovarik

Bifurcation. It's a word that floated to the top of my mind the other day. A word that ended up being my vocabulary word-for-the-day. Why? I have no clue. But bifurcate it did. It means "to fork or divide into two branches." So when I look it up on the web the standard rabbit holes show up on Google where scientists and mathematicians start explaining bifurcation theory. The diagrams look suspiciously like my brain on dual focus mode. And I start to study bifurcation diagrams thinking that maybe the answer lies in a mathematical model. STOP.

Lately my bifurcation looks like this:

Can too many ideas lead to fuzzy thinking?


details

Working on the last bits of a piece can be like standing in line at a government bureaucracy. Tedious buzzing calculations — how many more stitches for that one last line of stitching? Will the employee behind the counter tell me I am in the wrong line after standing (im)patiently for an hour in the first line? Can the exhibit use a staple gun to put my piece up instead of me having to stitch a sleeve to the back?  Tedious buzzing reminders that this is a slow art.

Tying this piece every two inches with crochet thread has given it a new dimension as well as a blister on my left middle finger.

Tying this piece every two inches with crochet thread has given it a new dimension as well as a blister on my left middle finger.

I start to question my sanity when I work on little details for days on end and then tear half of them away. Or when I decide to add another layer to an already complicated collage. Is this layering saying something about my state of mind? Short answer: yes.

Pollinators is an assemblage of details tied together with details.

Pollinators is an assemblage of details tied together with details.

The rewards? Meditation, escape, complexity, depth, and mystery. I let the thread lead me.

This piece on nuclear arms testing had to have some olive branches drifting to the edge.

This piece on nuclear arms testing had to have some olive branches drifting to the edge.