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The Art Of Reinvention

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Reinvention:

1.Bring back into existence.

2. To remake or redo completely.

3. To make as if for the first time something already invented.

Reinvention, it’s about more than the cabinet doors that I post tonight, it’s about myself. Like so many women I have spent my life in a number of conventional roles, daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother, and eventually grandmother (no pressure kids, seriously). In all of that I failed far too often to see myself. I was so busy playing the roles, good daughter, great girlfriend, etc…I was so focused on being the best I could for everyone else in my life, that I didn’t do the best for me. I mentioned last night that for a while I didn’t even have a dream, and that is sadly very much the truth. I realized tonight as I was working on these old doors, doors that could have been cast off and thrown away, that I have been throwing myself away for years. My daughter reads this blog, and I want her to learn from my mistakes, not repeat them. I should have been taking time for my art, for myself years ago, but I had learned from my mother to put everyone else first, a lesson I took to heart. I started this blog more than four months ago, and it has been an incredible tool in helping me lift myself out of the rut I put myself in a long time ago. There is so much work that I have produced that I am really proud of. I feel like I’m reinventing myself as much as I am reinventing these doors. Finally becoming the whole person I should have been all along. I am still a daughter, a mother and a wife, but now I feel justified in calling myself an artist and a writer, and quite frankly just being myself. There are still days when I feel like I’m juggling too many balls in the air, and scrambling to get work done, but I’m doing it. I am still managing to care for my family and my home, and still carving that niche out of every day for myself. There are days when I allow myself more time than others, and there are days when I am falling asleep as I type this blog. Life is a balancing act, the trick is to realize that occasionally its OK to drop one of the balls, you can always pick it up again, but to always remember to keep your eye on the juggler. If you don’t take care of yourself, if you don’t love yourself, if you don’t allow yourself to dream, life will pass you by quicker than you can imagine. You may just find yourself wondering where your life went. I’m a little late to the party, but its far from over. I found this quote that I really like.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

George Eliot

As I embark on my future artistic endeavors, as well as a new business with Dan, I know I am more than capable, I know we can succeed. I have reinvented myself, my life, and oh there are these doors…the first photo is one of the doors unfinished.IMG_0767This door has been “reinvented” as a child’s chalkboard.IMG_0773The second door as a serving tray with a chalkboard center. (Theresa’s suggestion, thanks for a terrific idea)IMG_0775

Daring To Dream

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Aside from my artistic aspirations I have always had another dream, and that is to go into business. I don’t think when I was younger I knew what kind of business I wanted, I just knew that I wanted one. I also always swore it would be by the time I was forty. Well, if you haven’t figured it out by now, forty has come and gone. I am unfortunately one of those people who let far too much of their life pass by without believing in them-self enough to achieve their dreams. Actually, there was quite a bit of time when I didn’t even have one. The time has come. I finally have enough faith in myself to dare to think about what I want for me. I have had more than a few moments of deep sadness about the past, but regrets don’t move you forward, they only dig the hole deeper. What makes my dream even more attainable is that I will be doing it with Dan at my side. We work amazingly well together. More than a few other people have commented on that, particularly my Dad. The last time he visited I mentioned again my dream of opening a place, and he was incredibly supportive. He told me that he believes in me, in us, that he has seen what Dan and I can do together. He is right. We have a very warm and welcoming home, and are embarking on bringing that atmosphere to a business of our own. I can’t say yet what it is, the people closest to us know, call me suspicious, but until things are a little more secure I don’t want to reveal too much. Dan is still without a job, and we both think that all signs are pointing to this being the time for us. It’s risky, we are nervous, there are a few non-believers who think we are crazy, but I believe in us, it actually goes beyond belief, I know we can do it and do it well. Between us we have quite a skill set, there is nothing to stand in our way but us. We are ready to start our future.

All of the above being said, I intend to follow through on my blog, on my art. Over the next few weeks I may be producing pieces of art that will serve a dual purpose, they will be for both this project and our business. Today I revisited Jessica for only a minute, I literally had to force myself to step away. I was thisclose to muddying up her face. I have work to do on it, but I need to gather all of my patience and wait. I pulled myself away and began to work on not one, but three projects. All of them involve the reuse of old materials…that’s right! The recycler is back. Two of Theresa’s old kitchen cabinet doors, serving two very different purposes, not enough to bother posting tonight, you’ll have to wait for those until tomorrow. The other is a piece of scrap wood from our garage. I decided I wanted to wood-burn our upcoming business logo on it and turn it into a sign. Alas, I can’t find my wood burner! Me of the extremely organized studio. I’ve looked everywhere (well, obviously not everywhere or I would have it), so I sketched the design in pencil, and then beat the crap out of two inexpensive ballpoint pens carving the design into the wood. When the wood burner comes out of the witness protection program (I burned myself last time, and have no doubt I will again), I will burn the design in. It isn’t finished. If you’ve ever been insane enough to carve wood with a pen you will understand how much my hand is hurting. I’m quitting for the night, will finish tomorrow, and all will be well with the world, unless of course the wood burner makes an appearance, and then it’s a whole new ball game.

Work in progress…to be continued.8 22

Artistic Advancements

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Caught your attention didn’t I? Artistic Advancements. What marvel of artistic achievement could I possibly be speaking of? Did I paint a masterpiece just waiting for the call from the Getty? Not so much, although as I said last night, I always do what I say, so I did work on Jessica’s portrait. I am really pleased with my progress. I am finally losing the flatness that has plagued my work in the past. I have also learned at last to just step back. Even now as I write this I want to be back in the other room fixing all the issues I see. I am an impatient artist, I want the painting where I want it to be as quickly as possible. Art doesn’t work that way, at least oil painting. That led to many, many muddy messes. That of course led to frustration and the inevitable resignation, and the declaration of “you aren’t good enough”.  I feel like I’m learning to let the work speak to me, knowing when to put the brush down, put the painting to the side, and return when its had time to dry a little. That is where I am at with Jessica’s face. I worked on it for a couple of hours this afternoon. I made very few changes, only following a few suggestions made by my “in-house” art critic, Dan. Yes, there are a couple of areas I’d like to work on, but I’m happy to wait until the painting is ready for me.

 

Dying of curiosity yet? Several blogs ago I referred to my extremely bad habit of painting where ever, wearing what ever, ruining many pieces of clothing in the process, not to mention a piece of furniture or two. There is also the olive-green carpet that was christened with a squirt of hot pink acrylic. My huge artistic advancement? When I decided it was time to paint today I was wearing a white t-shirt and a beautiful blue and white floral skirt. I set up my paints, my easel, and was about to pick up my brush when I stopped myself. I thought, “What are you doing?” I went upstairs and put on an old t-shirt, a pair of jeans (the victim of a previous paint), and went back down to go to work. When I mentioned to Dan that I felt like I’d made an advancement in my art, he took one look at me and laughed, he knew exactly what was different. Maybe not the most exciting news that you’ve heard today, but for my husband probably the best news he’s had in a while.

Jessica in progress. I’ve posted a “before” and “after”. You may notice a change in hair length. I took the photograph I’m working from a few years ago, Jessica has since grown her hair longer and I think it looks beautiful, so long hair it is.5 30 2 (2)8 21

 

A Smear Of Inspiration

We had friends coming for dinner tonight, which we know of course means that I need to clean my house within an inch of its life. It also meant that I needed to get a piece of art finished before they came. As always I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I have more than a few pieces that need to be finished, including the biggest hurdle, the portrait of Jessica. It has been sitting on my larger easel in the garden, I just need to bring it in and get to work. I have to admit that I have been avoiding it. I haven’t been hearing the “not good enough” voice in my head lately, but there is something about that portrait that allows it to creep into my mind. There is nothing that forces my hand like a promise, I am one of those people who always do what they say, so here goes…I will work on that portrait tomorrow, that will be what I post tomorrow night. That’s it, now I have to do it. Well, now that I committed myself….back to tonight’s saga. I decided to paint in oils, grabbed a photo from my computer, one I had taken in Giverny of a house and garden. I started to paint and it just wasn’t working. Normally this would be where I gave up, I didn’t. I took some paper towel and wiped the canvas clean, but as I looked at the smeared colors I felt inspired. I began playing with the color and building on what was there, after a bit it began to look like water to me, and since my head was still in Giverny I decided to add waterlilies. I was really pleased with my results, not that it’s the greatest painting I’ve ever done, but I love that I just dove in and did it. I need to keep that healthy attitude with me tomorrow when I climb the hurdle of the portrait of Jessica. Actually, I need to carry that with me every time I paint. One of my complaints to Dan over the years was that I couldn’t get what was in my head on the canvas. There was also my need to depend on photographs, mine or others to paint from. Tonight it was all me, no photo, just inspiration from a smear of paint. I’m still having days where I struggle, but more and more I am excited about work yet to come, and hopefully with time it will come easier. And yes, I did a recent blog about the Van Gogh and Monet’s that all artists must attempt, I can honestly say Monet was nowhere near my head when I did this one.

 

Waterlilies oil on canvas.8 20

Flipping The Switch

Today while sorting through the reams of paper clippings I have, I came across quite a few clippings of words and phrases. I love words, and particularly quotes. I cut them out to use with some collage pieces I had planned on doing. Those collages were part of a past project, one I began years ago, one of many half-hearted attempts at trying to figure myself out, both artistically and in my entire life. Like those “I’ll start Monday morning” diets I keep referring to, these collages were meant to jump-start self discovery because I felt so lost. I have a box of words, hundreds of them, I probably made four collages. I kept finding words that I thought would reflect my new outlook, or that would inspire my art. Like so many other projects the collage project was over before it started. Life is funny. I spent years trying to lose weight, twenty years of on and off dieting, and then one day I did it. I lost quite a bit of weight and although I’ve gained and lost a few pounds, I have for the most part kept my weight down for eight years. I don’t exactly know what flipped the switch, what got me to the place where I cared enough about myself to lose the weight. I find myself bewildered once again. I’ve been trying to discover who I am as an artist for most of my life, and I have the books and supplies to prove it. I may have mentioned that the book that started this blog happened to be one I already owned when I purchased a second copy. I didn’t buy a second one on purpose, it’s just that I have so much stuff I don’t know what I have. The difference is that this time I actually opened the book and read it. What got me here I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pin point exactly, but I’m grateful for whatever it is. I wish I had figured “it” out, whatever “it” is years ago. I can’t go back, I can only move forward. I’m liking so much of what I’m producing these days. That being said, I’m running on empty, not enough sleep, worried about my Dad and my sisters, and of course our situation here at home, so for this evening I did a little watercolor of some beautiful wildflowers that I photographed in San Diego when we went hiking. A tiny project from a very tired woman,8 19

 

Speaking Through Art

Do you ever have one of those days where you are so over tired that you accomplish nothing? I had a day like that today. We’ve stayed up far too late the last few nights and are both exhausted. I ended up working on a lot and nothing at the same time. I grabbed an orphaned painting from my studio intent on finishing it today, but changed my mind about finishing the painting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the idea of it, trouble is it wasn’t my original idea. The painting was based on a photograph from a magazine ad. I loved the pose of the woman and the style of the photo. It was one of the many paintings that I started and stopped due to my fear of judgement upon completion. That was then. I am finishing my work these days. Not all and I need to remedy that. I have roughly four half done oil paintings sitting in my dining room right now. This one I had intended to finish, but as I have also mentioned before, I no longer want to base my work on anything other than photos I take or what comes out of my head. Everyone who has seen what I had completed on this particular piece has said they love it, but I just can’t do it anymore. I want ownership of what I do. I studied the photo today to figure out exactly what appealed to me about it. I realized that it was the way the woman was almost holding herself. I don’t even remember what the ad is about, but the photo evokes a feeling of grieving in me. The posture of the model and how she seems to be holding herself reminds me of when my Mother passed away. There is a loneliness in the loss of someone you love so much. You often hear people say that we all die alone. I think we grieve alone too. Dan was as always compassionate, loving and sensitive. He held me countless times as I sobbed, and continues to be there when I have a momentary sense of loss. The truth is though, that no one can feel my pain and my loss. Even my sisters, because we all had our own relationship with her, and with my Dad I couldn’t relate at all. I said as much to him, that he knew what it was like to lose a parent, I had no idea what it meant to lose someone you have been with for more than fifty years. This photo inspired all of that in me, and as I said, I don’t remember the ad, but I know it wasn’t for something sad. All of this caused me to rethink what I wanted to do. I decided to finish the painting, at least the essence of it. The woman was in bathing attire, I am changing that, her hair, her face, only the position of her body will remain. It is in the position of her body that speaks to me, as if she is comforting and holding herself. I’ve had those moments, I’m sure we all have, moments where you feel so very alone, and in that moment you hold yourself. I want to create my own work that speaks, I want someone to see something I’ve painted and feel. It’s that simple, happy, sad, nostalgic, whatever, I just want to speak through the work.There isn’t much to see as of yet. I began to mess about with the painting before I really knew what I wanted to do. Small preview tonight, and since it is sort of on topic, an artist card I made a few years back that I put a poster edge filter on.artist card, broken heart.jpgposter edge

 

 

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Nothing But Trouble (In A Good Way)

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I had a very special project in mind for today, a birthday gift for my new son-in-law. I don’t normally like to paint animals, I guess that has more to do with my perfectionism than anything else. With all the hair there aren’t definitive lines. If you were to look back at my blog and its accompanying artwork, you would see that one of the worst pieces I posted was of my own cat, Mia. Mia is white with caramel and black swirls. I made two attempts at that drawing and never felt successful. I did much better with Riley, she is a dark striped tabby which was much easier to sketch. John and my daughter, Jessica have a mischievous puggle by the name of Otis. They also have a cat whose name is Dexter. Poor Dexter lives in the bathroom sink, the only spot where Otis can’t reach him. Otis is roughly the size of a bag of sugar, but packed solid, and rules the house. He runs continually, like a spastic toddler let loose in a candy store. Fond of walks on the beach, stealing and eating intimate garments, and terrorizing Dexter. We joined them for dinner one evening at their apartment, as we were eating I looked down to see Otis chewing a piece of Double Bubble still in the wrapper. The little devil had gone in my purse and helped himself. Jessica spent the next five minutes chasing Otis around their coffee table trying to take it away from him. He finally swallowed it. Five minutes later I caught him pulling the bag of gum out of my purse. Roughly fifteen pounds of solid amusement and trouble. You can’t help but laugh as he runs circles around their one bedroom apartment. I wasn’t sure what to get John for his birthday since money is tight, but decided to give him a painting of Otis. I waited until this morning to paint it, because I didn’t want to post the painting prior to giving it to John. Happy Birthday John (a few days late), thanks for making Jessica so happy.

Otis in all his glory, in watercolor8 17

Van Gogh In The Closet

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The last time I discussed Mr. Van Gogh he was appearing in my coffee cup, not tonight. To begin with it is only (hold on to your hats!) seven in the evening and I am posting. A full three hours earlier than usual. This morning I was searching through my photographs for pictures for my daughter, for our joint label design. The client wants some changes, and I was looking through old work and photos for inspiration. She had mentioned that she might like a sunflower and I knew I had a few shots. Well, actually more than a few. By the time I was done sending I think Jessica received seven emails from me, and all before ten a.m., poor girl! I don’t usually know what I want to paint or draw until much later in the day, it’s actually a very last-minute decision most of the time. But as I looked through my photos the sunflowers started to call to me. I have a painting I did a few years ago that I hate. It’s not a horrible painting, but very ordinary, something I referred to as Kirkland’s art. If you don’t know about them, they are a chain of home decor stores. They have those paintings that are reproduced by the hundreds and sold inexpensively. I felt like this one fit the bill, that is until I decided to get a closer look at  my work by cropping the top off. You know what? It really is better than I remember. The sunflowers are beautiful, what I hate is the blue vase I painted them in, and the arranged fruit and napkin at the base (which I won’t be showing you!), to quote Lili Von Shtupp (Blazing Saddles), “Oh, how ordinawy”. I don’t want to create the kind of art that is sold for cheap, now if Christie’s or Sotheby’s came calling that would be a different matter. OK, now that I have gone on and on for far too long, I decided that today I would paint a sunflower.

 

 

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Cropped portion of the top of my older sunflower painting.

New train of thought…this is where Mr. Van Gogh comes in. Do you think that every artist feels the need to paint their “sunflower”, or their “waterlily”? Do we all as artists aspire to be Monet or Van Gogh? Do we all have a sunflower lurking in the corner? These are questions that keep me up at night. Not really. So here on this early Friday evening my new “Sunflower”, oil on canvas, inspired by annoying my daughter before her coffee. Love you Jessica, and I love working with you.

 

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One More Word On Perspective

Last night I requested prayers and good karma for my Dad. He came through everything fine, so thanks to all.

 

My own words came back to haunt me when I got up this morning and saw the news. I’m talking about perspective. My husband is still out of work, my Dad is in the hospital, and in the last month our dishwasher went on the fritz, Dan needed work done on his car that ran us five hundred dollars we didn’t need to spend, I lost a diamond chip out of my engagement ring, I had pneumonia, and my oven blew out, another two hundred dollars. Woe is me right? Not so much. I looked at the news of what is happening in Egypt right now and consider myself lucky. I don’t usually write about politics or world events, but when I thought about what I had written last night, and then saw the horror going on in that country. I have to say something, it altered my perspective on what is going on in my life. Yes, some of it sucks, but I have so much to be grateful for. I told my son this morning that there isn’t a mother in this world who loves her children less than I love mine. I don’t care what the political issues are, I don’t care what your religion is, or about the color of your skin, what I do care about is allowing a mother to raise her children in peace. Maybe we can all send out the good karma and prayers to those people tonight, and to the millions of others who find themselves in similar, horrific situations. My Dad has a philosophy about religion that I love. Everything in his life relates in some way to soccer. He said to me, “Religion is like soccer, I don’t care which team you play for, as long as you play the game.”

Tonight I have a few things to post. My friend Emily (the 4 year-old) found out today that she is getting glasses. I still remember when I got mine, I was thirteen. I needed glasses for at least a year and a half before I got them. My Mom was convinced that I wanted them only because my cousin had them. I couldn’t see a thing. She finally realized that I was telling the truth when I couldn’t find something for her in the pantry. When I got my first pair of glasses the thing I remember most is my Mother’s face. I had forgotten how many freckles she had. For Emily tonight two little gifts, a new “Emily” cartoon with glasses, and a bookmark for her bedtime stories.

I also spent time finishing my cabinet door chalkboard, and a small pen and ink.

A very busy day, but again, I spent it with Dan in our beautiful home, and in my little corner of the world there is no war outside my front door. Lets all pray for peace.

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The Power Of Perspective

If you’ve read my blog you know that perspective is my nemesis, but that is artistic perspective.  There is the other perspective, the kind I try to use in my daily life, the kind I use when I want to stop myself from being judgmental, when I try to put myself in the shoes of someone else.

Today was a tough one. I posted last week about my Dad having an accident, and although he is out of the hospital things are not well. When you are weeks away from your eighty-first birthday and sustain a concussion it really takes its toll on your brain. Dad has been with my sister for a few days and while he has moments where he seems his old self, more often than not he is confused. I am still hopeful that he will regain some of his memory and cognizance. What worries me as well is the rest of my family. I have three sisters, each with our own families and health issues. The stress and burden of caring for an aging loved one can take its toll. It isn’t about not loving someone, there is a great deal of that, but just how much it can break down communication between siblings, between couples, destroy families. I talked to my sister earlier this evening and told her how I felt. We all need to be respectful of each others lives and needs. Two of the girls are carrying the weight of what is happening to our Dad. I live hundreds of miles away. Yes, I can sympathize, I can and do make phone calls for them, but the reality is that it is their lives that are affected. I have said often in the last few days that it is easy for me to suggest something because I am here, and they are there. I told both women today that I don’t want this to come between us, most of our family is in Ireland so there is just us. If we want to truly honor what our father and our mother would want, then we need to stick together. Everyone needs to recognize that what is important to one isn’t important to another. Perspective is a powerful thing. When we as the individual suffer we see it only through the prism of our own lives. When we feel pain, it is no more or no less than what someone else might feel, but it is our pain, and for that it should be respected. In situations such as the one we find ourselves in now it is easy to look at someone else and think that something is trivial, or less important that our “stuff”. It’s not. I want to make sure that throughout this process that no one of us feels alone, singled out, or less valued. Relationships can be damaged beyond repair with a single sentence. I love my Dad, but I love my sisters as well. I would like to get beyond this and be able to look back, say we did our best, but that more importantly, we remain as sisters, as friends. Tomorrow my Dad is back in the hospital for a test that could lead to a pacemaker. Wishes for good karma, and prayers are appreciated.

I don’t have the finished “up-cycled” cabinet door to post as of yet. I am putting multiple coats of the Martha Stewart chalk paint on it. I had done two yesterday, but upon closer inspection earlier today I sanded the corners down and redid the paint. It is a project that I am hoping to sell and want it to be perfect.

What I did accomplish today is a watercolor. We spent part of our afternoon in the Temecula Valley Cheese Shop, one of my favorite places. The owner is a friend, and was kind enough to spend time with us as we consider opening a place of our own. We had some wine, and a plate of cheese. It was a little respite from my worried and troubled mind. Inspired by our afternoon, I did a painting of a cheese plate that I put together. Too bad I can’t share.8 14