Before the Rain Arrived [Cultivating 'Today']

Yesterday I felt some restlessness creeping in while the afternoon approached.  For the most part I fend it off well enough, but the doubt worms a little hole in my brain and unease can then readily take over.  I find when this happens, and when I become too self aware, too observant of me going about my day, rather than simply going about my day, experiencing nature helps tremendously.  It gets me grounded.  Kind of like a "reset" button on my mood.  Most often it is as simple as taking a walk.

I decided to sit on a bench in the beautiful park across the street and see what might happen in my sketchbook.  A few drawings of the sinking sun, some budding roses, and thick puffy clouds later and my mission was complete: fully grounded, fully here.  Doing this simple activity was music enough for my spirit, but the sun soon disappeared behind a curtain of cumulus, the air turned cold and the wind became insistent. 

I began my short walk back through the park towards Home.  The old trees towered over me and the sky, in varied and deepening shades of grey and blue, churned steadily after me like someone stirring a gallon of paint with a skyscraper-sized stick.  The chilled air kissed my cheeks.  I could feel my soul sigh with peace and happiness.  True happiness.  I felt it surge up from my feet, through my knees, my gut and settle in my chest, heavy but happy.   

Contentment. 

Then a thought, fully formed and revelatory: "What a gift, what a blessing it is that I get to live the life that I want."  And what else is it besides a blessing that not only do I have the opportunity to live the life that I want, but that I am actually doing so, living it, and then it brings me real fulfillment?  The last three days have brought overwhelming contentment and satisfaction, the feeling of not needing or requiring one single thing more in this whole world.  That in these moments, I have everything I want and need, and I am Whole.  That I have the ability to cultivate today, not yesterday or tomorrow, and each moment I breathe unfolds as its own tiny miracle, over and over again.  As I described it to Brother: All of my many buckets are full. 

While I understand I cannot always feel the bliss of such supreme moments, I cherish them when they gently arrive and float back out again, like a wave kissing the shore.

Parking Lots Appear to Be A Theme

Dream
May 27, 2013

I walk through a parking lot, some of the cars are familiar -- I am wearing a skirt, or maybe a dress, with purple on it, and a cardigan -- Fancy, with somewhere to go -- I see your car and need to put my purse on the back seat for later -- I start to open the side sliding door and you appear, almost materialize from the front of the hood, a disturbingly strange expression on your face -- contorted, odd, not you -- I can tell you find it odd I am putting my purse in your car -- Makes sense to me, especially after the other day --

"You can't use your car?" you ask, uncharacteristically defensive -- you are so kind other times --

"It's not here, I need this for later," I respond -- While this is true, my other car is nearby and I'm sure you notice -- the embarrassment seeps in, feel my face get hot -- You have the strangest grin, a huge toothy smile -- Are you hiding something? -- Gripping the back of your pants and facing me, even when you begin to walk away --

"What's that smile for?" I inquire -- You shake your head, still with maniacal grin, trying to cover a spot on your pants -- "Did you sit in something?"

"I don't know what you mean," --

Confused and disoriented, I leave my purse -- Did i miss something? -- An oddness settles in my belly -- the sky looms dark and painted, closing in on me --

 I wander through the lot, cars and cars, wondering, waiting -- the sense that leaving my purse is a catastrophic idea -- He doesn't want you in any part of his life -- It's not okay to do those kinds of things anymore --

You are at the other end of the lot on a patch of grass taking photos with the rest of the party -- Blues and greens, and bow ties -- They line you up with the others, positioning just so, all the while you attempt to disguise what I have now deduced is the puddle of water you sat in that soaked your pants -- I watch for a few moments, wondering if you see me, knowing acutely you don't ever think twice -- 

I turn around to find your car and it has moved -- start to run and feel frantic, searching, yearning -- I know where it is, I just have to get there, just have to finish this and be done with it -- I see it across the lot away from other cars, underneath concrete beams and a door -- you are sitting in the passenger seat talking on the phone -- I approach the window and gesture "I'm sorry to bug you" -- Your face reads irritation, my heart sinks into my feet -- I realize now, for the first time, it will never be the same --  I open the side door, grab my purse as fast as possible, knowing I crossed some imperceptible boundary -- I feel awful, helpless --

All Women (and Maybe Men Too, If They Want) Should Read This

Love this blog post about body image and strength.  I can do without the political interjection somewhere in the middle, but nonetheless -- the message is great.

http://sophieologie.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/strong-is-the-new-skinny/

Finding Figure Drawing

I've recently had a breakthrough of sorts.  I must backtrack.

I was farting around on Tumblr one day a couple weeks ago and I came across a painting that nearly knocked me out of my chair.  This painting, a HUGE portrait of a girl's face, completely took my breath away.

(To view, go here: http://www.elly.ca/)

I nosed around her website for a while and not long into said nosing did I start to feel bad about myself.

I know, I KNOW.  It is so stupid to compare your art to someone else's.  You can never make someone else's art.  There mere idea is fundamentally impossible.  However, I still could not keep my insecurities from bubbling up to the surface.  They don't very often, with art, but that day they bubbled quite violently.

I think part of it is this artist's work embodies something I would love to be able to achieve in my own work: painting emotionally and loosely, with careful and beautiful use of color.  

I moped for a while and then started thinking.

What do I feel my work has been missing lately?

Where do I feel I'm not exploring enough?

What kind of feelings am I trying to communicate?

How do I communicate those feelings?

To answer my own ponderings, I feel my work has been lacking an energy, a vitality, a movement that it once had years ago.  The gesture and brushy quality that launched my interest in texture and light.  I've swayed the other direction into a more careful and illustrative approach -- I don't believe "too far" the other direction is the proper way to describe this, as all explorations into an idea serve a specific, useful, and grand function in the overall body of work and pursuit of ideas -- but this stirring of insecurities I now see clearly as marking a shift moving back the other direction: painting more expressively, accessing emotions more, responding and reacting openly to the material and the surface, placing less judgment on a mark or expression, being able to laugh at myself and keep trucking on in a very "air" kind of way. 

I really do need to credit Jamie with helping me realize these things.  We were chatting online and she slapped me with this:

[Regarding stumbling upon other good artists]

I hate that so much. But we are who we are. We can't change it. 

But we can take bits of other people and make it our own

[and what to do about it]

Girl, your talent is better than tht. You DO have it in you. You gotta work it out! 

Keep pushing. Play with color. Spend a day mixing color even! Make a color wheel in your sketch book. Definitely find a figure group. This girl has great gesture an emotion and is good with color. 

You can be that too! But better cuz youre you. And f her website. It's better than mine lol

I cannot describe how much I love this girl.  She always knows exactly, precisely, what to say.

But her mention of figure drawing lit me up inside.  THAT'S the thing that's missing.  THAT is the key to communicating the energy and gesture in my paintings -- getting my brain moving, thinking, buzzing with form and movement.  FIGURE DRAWING.  Drawing from a live model, in a room with other people drawing, something in which I am so expert yet haven't pursued for... five YEARS?  Jesus Christ.  That is five years I've not done what my soul is telling me to do. 

Hipbone Studio has three sessions a week for $10 per session.  Two of them I plan to attend on a weekly basis (the third is during the workday).  I went to my first session last Wednesday and it appears I've still got it in me...

Pics of my most recent painting to follow!

Painted Skies and Purple Blankets

Dream
May 15, 2013

I am distracted, in a field, twirling and laughing -- you are there too, nearby -- by my side, laughing and talking and following me wherever I go -- The grass is tall, the sky bright and close -- You are wearing a blue shirt, the deep ocean blue one that I love so much, that makes the brown of your eyes dark and rich -- Your face is happy and warm -- 

I move about the field fluidly, under the huge sky -- You are always by my side -- I wonder if you will always be there with me, if there is anything I can do that will make you run away, disappear -- I run a few yards in opposite directions -- I stop and turn back, you are there, laughing -- Your smile the light of the sun itself! -- the colors of the green grass and purple sky are saturated and thick -- a painted world rich with life, love --

We fall --

Lying on the ground you tell me a whimsical story and I laugh and laugh -- Time slows, stops, the most painstakingly wonderful eternity it takes for you to kiss my cheek -- a most perfect kiss! -- more beautiful than I'd imagined a thousand times in my mind, in my heart --

We swim in purple and white blankets -- Sheepish and giddy, I wonder if you will hug me -- I wonder if you are real -- I am the little spoon, even though you are shorter than me, hand resting gently on my hip -- the most natural thing in the world -- How could I not have imagined?  Why was I afraid?

I am whole -- complete -- at peace with the unrest, One with the struggle -- Your soul lights mine and mine yours, and we laugh --

As I Say: It's Never Too Late

I finally -- FINALLY -- completed a fairly simple project that I've putting off for just about forever: buying a large piece of wood to use as a surface to tack loose canvas and paper to, so I don't wreck the walls in my apartment.  I know -- I, too, cannot believe it took me this long...

 

Who doesn't love BIG STIFF WOOD?

 

And because the only place for the wood to go is where the piano was previously housed, le sweet piano then had nowhere to live.  Solution?  She is now in the boudoir, and along with some very thoughtful and careful rearranging turned my previously lackluster bedside table situation into THIS miraculous piece of decorating genius!

 

...and my favorite painting has never looked better. <3

 



Of Monsters and Empty Rooms

Dream
May 1, 2013

I stand in the living room, no furniture -- Bare, carpeted floors and some sheer white curtains hanging in front of French doors opening to a backyard -- Whose backyard? -- They are out there, it is out there, and I pace -- back and forth, wall to wall -- anxious, tense, keeping it together but still worried, unsure -- Can it see me?  -- the carpet a dull beige, worn, dirty --

From an opening to my left emerges a hideous creature, a gigantic, grotesquely oversized Daddy Long Leg spider! -- Huge, massive spindly legs, a mechanically quick body -- it walks across the floor from the opening in the wall to the French doors on my right, right in front of me -- I cannot move -- it carries a strange posture, appearing visibly to be anxious in the way I am anxious, anticipating what I anticipate, outside those doors, wondering if it can be seen --

I observe the animal with an internal terror and disgust, but I do not flee -- oddly compelled, intensely curious -- I observe the creature move back and forth, wall to wall, darting swiftly over the dingy carpet, thin yet heavy legs thumping softly -- The more closely I observe I realize its legs are spider legs, but with a body partially spider and partially monkey -- a monkey spider? -- and amongst the legs emerge two small hands and a tiny face, coated in hair -- fur? -- I know it to have a mind, awareness, consciousness -- it feels pain, worry, fear -- horrifying in an otherworldly sense, yet beautiful and vulnerable --