Space is Liminal

Listen to the essay here

In Oprah’s favorite book A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle he says there is no such thing as waiting if you’re in the present moment. I don’t have the exact quote because I’ve only ever listened to the narrated version of the book, but I find myself corresponding here as I hope the person with whom I just had a somewhat frustrating customer service interaction calls me back. I guess one could say, I’m waiting for a return call. I’m on the edge of anxiety, trying to calm myself. I’m using all off my tricks and tips I’ve gained over the years of living with my anxiety disorder. I’m reminiscing about how Vaimo told me last night, “well you have an anxiety disorder” as she lovingly affirmed my feelings. I should have reminded her it’s actually two! Somatically I’m wondering if I can breath around the anxiety… welcome it… thank it for being here.

I’m grateful that my elder millennial status means I don’t get a dread flare when needing to make a phone call. I grew up in an era where being on the phone for hours and hours with my best friend was one of the deepest pleasures accessible to me as a young person. To this day, phone calls or video chats with BFF are a near daily joy. The phone is not triggering my anxiety, but rather my lack of control over a situation that I am wishing was different. I’ve got a painting that didn’t sell that needs to come back to me and it’s taking four to six humans to coordinate that return from four different physical locations. Granted, the finagling over who is doing what, will be worth it if the painting returns to me since that will mean less time, labor and expense instead of me driving to Illinois to retrieve it. But wow, the inner workings of logistics feels like such a specialized field of knowledge. It’s a process of the modern world one doesn’t give too much thought to when it’s working smoothly.

The painting is waiting for someone to come collect it, and it will journey back to my part of Minnesota… eventually. Or it won’t and I’ll deal with that reality as it comes. Having just celebrated a birthday I’m finding myself in a similar liminal space of being in-between. I’m trying to make sense of the last year that whizzed by at a pace I was certain I wasn’t going to allow to happen again. I’m still in the early part of a new decade, a career change, wondering if while being present we are all always journeying; never arrived. My intuitive sense knows this to be true. The achiever in me and the controller in me continues to believe it would be best if we could just make it somewhere.

I’m realizing the painting is a liminal object in so many ways. The painting is in liminal space as it waits to be picked up and returned. It remains liminal when it’s on the van traveling in between two destinations as well. To get even more meta, the painting resides in liminal space when it is in any state of becoming. When does it begin? I feel like it’s when it’s only a call to exist comes directly from the painter’s spirit, from the realm of imagination. And when it’s in the process of becoming after paint has been laid but the painting still demands more work. The painting lives in a liminal state when it’s in storage. It exists, but wrapped and tucked away, its existence is stifled when it’s reliant on being in the world. As an object if it’s not on a wall, how is it being related to in the form it’s created for? Today I’m reflecting on the five paintings in various stages of process with paint applied on surfaces, that have crossed the threshold with me from 41 to 42. They are in the liminal muck with me. Because of me. But also, because of other forces and factors I have not yet mastered. I don’t want to master anyway. But these liminal paintings keep me up at night. Begging for things to be done, whispering to me from the studio through the universe, keeping me tied to them when I’m not in the physical room with them.

Perhaps the liminal space of my paintings are here to teach me how to let go and be present. They must slip into this state of liminality otherwise I might go (more) mad than I am already. Countless others exist in various states of becoming. Paintings or people? So many paintings are in limbo existing only as notes in my phone, or on a piece of paper I keep taped to my studio wall. Or as slivers of dreams captured in journals and sketchbooks. I am like my paintings. So many different realms of discovery await. There are joys in this openness and possibility, and also anxieties about the unknown. I’m trying to work something out here in real time, though I’m also fighting the urge to delete all of this and send nothing at all. I’m fighting against the temptation to crawl into the storage area of my studio to lay in wait with my paintings there. As with everything else that is so complex, I’m also itching to work on the paintings I’ve got started. I’m fidgety and unsettled until they move onto the next phase. I’m buzzing with excitement and also a little bit of trepidation of whether the painting I imagine first will come anything near or better than the reality of what materializes.

I’m 42 today. Yesterday I was 41 and 42. The day before, 41. How weird to mark the passage of time in the ways that we do. I don’t really know how to make sense of any of it. I just keep trying. I keep turning the ideas around in my head. I keep wondering when this feeling of unsettledness will pass. It does in moments here or there. Like when I took a recent walk in the woods on a rare 50 degree November day in Minnesota. On the path I walked neither coming nor going, I felt grounded with each step. I felt in awe as the young buck walked by me on the trail the deer use. I sent good wishes to the pileated who came to check one of the trees for a snack. I marveled at the oaks creaking in the wind and didn’t panic. I was whole in the in-between zone, the liminal feeling of autumn, every once in a while forgetting about the paintings on my easels waiting on me to return.

Creative Ritual

The In the Red Debt Flag Banner project is live on my website and I'm glad to report that the installation will be hosted by my friends at Springboard for the Arts at the Fergus Falls office. Pictures to come, we install banner one next week. I am busy working on the second banner and preparing some written materials for folks to learn more about the project. This week I had the opportunity to help amplify and collectively organize Minnesota artists to encourage our legislators to call for a de-escalation of the violence and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel. I wonder if emailing the president of the us will become a new birthday tradition? I'm working diligently on a residency application due at the beginning of next month. And am preparing for my first market like experience at Calendula Gallery 11am- 9pm on December 2! I will have four new smaller paintings on panels, candy paintings and tiny tequilas for sale in person. This means I'll be taking them down from my online shop so grab what you want before I take them to the gallery! Keep an eye out on images of the new works emerging!

Also, I'm excited to share I'll be co-teaching a free 6-month course (for credit if you'd like) for the Rural Advocacy and Public Leadership Program if you live in West Central MN please consider applying. Priority given to applications submitted by December 10th. 

Questions to ponder

What are you noticing in a liminal state? 
What are you waiting on? 
What are you waiting for? 
How are you choosing to be in the present moment? 

Thanks for journeying with me. I hope, as always, that you take what you need and leave the rest for someone else, or for another time. 

-KCF


The Art of KCF Newsletter is a fiscal year 2023 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.