LiDona Wagner: Gifts from the Unknown

This grew from nurturing a seed of imagination.

Each day when I walk into my studio I face the unknown. In confronting the dark and amorphous unknown all I have is discipline, commitment, and trust in myself to figure things out.

I approach the studio with nothing more than vague ideas of something that wants to be created. As an experimental artist, I do not rely upon specific settings for landscape paintings or model sessions for figure paintings. From a tiny seed in my imagination something wants to be created but its shape and form are unknown.

Ecosystems Stick Chart that accompanies Southeast Asian paintings,
part of Eve's Imprint: A Global Family.

Seed of Imagination

The seed of imagination that currently drives me emerged spontaneously from conversations with a few visitors to my studio. Upon seeing my three-dimensional Ecosystems Stick Chart that accompanies my Southeast Asian paintings, they asked about other navigation tools that might have been used. They encouraged me to have more three-dimensional pieces in Eve’s Imprint.

I liked their idea because three-dimensional pieces come into a viewer’s space and are more immediately accessible than two-dimensional pieces hanging on a wall. I began considering what three-dimensional pieces might go with my paintings for African origins and Southwest Asian migrations.

Walking sticks came to mind for Africa since early Homo sapiens traversed miles and miles on foot. I also thought of sticks used to push rafts along the coast. And of course, I thought about the bones found by archeologists that have provided DNA for the genetic research that shows the migration routes of Homo sapiens from Africa to the rest of the world.

A page from my sketchbook. The seed for The Happy Bones
installation was planted back in January.

These ideas merged into an image of colorful walking sticks perched against the wall that would have replicas of human bones hanging from them.

Branching Out

Upon sharing these ideas with my mandala class, they asked, “Where are you going to get the sticks?” In response to, “I don’t know”, one student said she had a big pile of branches that the yardman had pruned from her trees and I could have as many as I wanted. Within a week I had five branches sitting on my back patio to dry. Over the next few weeks I realized I had chosen some branches that were rotted or not the correct height so I threw them away. Fortunately we had several windstorms and I was able to drag home fallen branches found when I was out walking.

Examining my collection of variously shaped branches, I realized that I had no idea how to remove the bark. People at Home Depot suggested a box cutter but that didn’t feel right. I sought the advice of one of the women in my Tai Chi class who is a woodworker. She had never removed bark but was sure that a box cutter was not the correct tool. She advised me to go to the Woodcraft store in Delta Oaks for tools and advice.

The knife and beige glove that protects me from seriously injuring myself.
The black glove helps cushion my healing right hand.

At Woodcraft I was directed to a salesman who makes walking sticks as a hobby. He showed me the correct tool and advised me to get a special protective glove for the hand not using the knife, in case the knife slipped. He told me I would need to sand the sticks and put at least one coat of polyurethane on before painting them. As I left the shop I saw several tall sticks that were already stripped and cured. I was tempted to get them, but newly informed and empowered, I resisted. For some reason I felt that I needed to prepare my own sticks.

This is when procrastination and distraction set in. Now I had good branches and the right equipment, but I hypothesized that my branches were not dry enough to debark. I decided to wait for warmer weather. Then the branches would be dry and I could do the debarking on the patio instead of making a mess upstairs in the studio.

My outdoor studio in May after my Dogwood tree
had leafed out and I'd planted flowers in the garden.

On a warm day in March I saw that the bark on one of the branches was petty much coming off by itself. Using my new tool, I was able to get it off fairly easily. But when I took a second branch, debarking was really hard work, especially since my right hand is still recovering from a fall last August. More procrastination and distraction ensued.

This whole area was covered in weeds. It took weeks
to reclaim it and to use cloth, rocks, and mulch to deter weed growth.

When a string of nice days appeared, perfect for working on my patio, I found my garden was overgrown with weeds and surely that was more important than the difficult task of debarking.

A Branch Becomes A Walking Stick

Weeks went by. It was May before I admitted my procrastination and was willing to face the moment of truth.

Of course, having broken the spell of distractions, I promptly forgot everything I know about how ‘small wins’ help to ease the path to larger wins. For my initiation into the ‘I will debark these branches’ phase of my life, I selected the largest branch. Maybe I thought that being the straightest and strongest, it would be easy to do. Wrong.

Here are the many stages of stick preparation: outer bark partially removed,
inner bark, fully stripped, a film of polyurethane, a painted stick. Debarking
the stick in the upper right corner took three days.

One of many
protrusions.

In the long process of removing the outer bark, I discovered that the angle of the knife made a difference in how easily the bark came off. By the time I was stripping the inner bark my right thumb ached. I tried gripping the knife differently to relieve the pressure. I tried cushioning the thumb area. Regardless, the dang thumb just plain hurt.

Even so, as I got into the rhythm of the knife, I began to bond with the branch. I thought about the bird nests that it had supported. I considered all of the insects that had chewed on it. I was grateful for the shade it had once provided.

There were protrusions where smaller branches and twigs had come off. I trimmed these off using a hacksaw. These protrusions made me think about the various roads I had pursued in my life. Roads that had provided specific and sometimes fascinating journeys but that turned out to be branches rather than the major path of my life.

I cleaned up all the little areas I’d missed. Finally, stripped of all of the twigs, insects, and bark that it had once supported, the beauty of the bare wood was revealed. I thought about how much like a human spine it seemed.

It took three days for that branch to become a walking stick.
Somehow, that branch had a purpose that transcended all of the stages of growth and decay it endured before I found it lying in the mud beside the sidewalk.

Middle stick simulates grass.
Two outer sticks imitate birds.

Now both hands were really sore. I was pretty discouraged but by now I had broken the spell of distractions and was committed. Lathering my hands with Arnicare gel, I moved on to the next three branches. To my amazed delight, these took far less time – maybe because they were smaller or maybe because my hands had developed a bit of dexterity with the knife. By the middle of the second week, I had four walking sticks sanded, coated with polyurethane, and upstairs in the studio ready to be painted.

Now the Fun Begins

The black and white pattern on the left reflects coloration and patterning
of Red-and-Yellow Barbets. Middle stick alludes to Lilac-breasted Roller.

As I was prepping my walking sticks I began to think about how to make them augment the African origins paintings. It occurred to me that they could mimic the landscape and animals of East Africa. As a colorist, most of the East African animal images I looked at were uninspiring, until I saw birds of the region. Bird coloration and patterning were amazing. I decided to do one stick to simulate grass, three to reference birds, and one imitating an animal.

I'm in love with the Red-and-Yellow Barbet stick!

Although painting is surely a lot more fun than debarking branches, it doesn't flow seamlessly. There are errors of judgment that have to be corrected. The green 'grass' stick looks pretty simple, but I made several mistakes before achieving the simple elegance I wanted. I initially wrapped lime green raffia near the top of the stick only to discover that it was totally wrong. I had to test several colors to find the best one to paint over it. There were large black holes where I had dug out protrusions. I fixed these with wood putty but then these had to be sanded and repainted. I thought maybe I should carry the Raw Sienna used to cover the lime green down to other parts of the stick. That totally did not work. I ended up having to repaint the entire stick with my original Pale Olive and Raw Sienna mixture.

The grass stick looks simple but I made several missteps.

In addition to painting the sticks I had decided to wrap various sections in colored raffia (dried grass) and jute twine to connect them to the African landscape. Wrapping raffia and twine is not only time intensive, it was also hard on my already compromised hands! Not to mention that standing in one spot to glue and twist is not easy on one's hips. I experienced a lot of consternation over how difficult this little project had become.

Collecting ideas for the Red-and-Yellow Barbet
and the East African Crested Crane.

The large Three-Days-of-Debarking stick is still in my studio. It will mimic the East African Crested Crane but I'm still figuring out the "crested" part. The final long skinny stick will be an animal; which one is still a secret. Hopefully, sharing these three completed sticks gives you an idea of how a seed of imagination, nurtured in the mystery of the unknown, can evolve into something one never anticipated.