I thought I’d share our “artistic” lunch too!
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I thought I’d share our “artistic” lunch too!
Home » 2013 (Page 26)
Yearly Archives: 2013
My Anonymous Legacy
I did a simple pencil drawing tonight. It addresses several issues that I need to work on, one of which is perspective. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve had bad eyesight forever, or my complete and total lack of any mathematical ability. I also need to work on the basics of drawing. But the real truth is that my project was at the bottom of my list of things to do today. I started my day helping to care for a couple of kids who unfortunately have lost their mother. At home we are still dealing with the effects of job issues for my husband. Then my inner Julia Child was feeling neglected so I had to make a focaccia bread pizza with potato, roasted garlic, fresh sage, truffle cheese and crispy pancetta for lunch. Finally there was the play space for my very dear friend’s niece that still needed a little work. In the midst of all of that I had started a watercolor, but I really wasn’t into it.
I gave thought to not producing a work of “fine” art today, but then I realized that my finest work is exactly some of what I did today. I mentioned doing craft shows, I’ve done more than my share, but I don’t make crocheted covers for the extra roll of toilet paper, or planes out of old soda cans. A lot of what I do has to do with children. Painted boxes and stools, fairy ornaments and little signs. Everything I do, everything I make has my heart and soul in it. I have been fortunate enough to have created items that will be keepsakes. I painted a toy box for a dying grandmother as a gift for her granddaughter’s first birthday. She didn’t live to see the second birthday, but when I painted the box I wrote a poem inside the lid and left a place for the grandmother’s signature. That little girl will never know her grandmother, but she will have that box. I signed it, but only my first name. I have made countless gifts for friends children, and sold more pieces than I can remember that were for a child I didn’t know, and the truth is most of them never met me, or were too young to remember me. I know, and that means more to me than anything. A few years ago a therapist spoke to me about getting published in an art magazine, but I think she realized after a few minutes that it didn’t matter to me, and it doesn’t. I have been known to say that someone else can have my fifteen minutes of fame, I don’t want it. Do I want to do what I consider museum quality art? Sure I do, but my finest art is and always will be the box that holds cherished memories for little child who grew up.
So here a few of photos of my “work” for today. Hopefully I will have many more days when I can make a difference in the life of a child.
Sometimes You Need To Read The Instructions
Yes, it is after dark, but today wasn’t about putting myself last. I spent the morning getting supplies to make greeting cards, and sorting through my computer photo files. I barely made a dent. I mentioned the over two thousand photos I took in Paris, there are also the hundreds and hundreds of photos that I take every where I go. They are somewhat organized, but choosing what to use took time.
About today’s work…I looked around the studio again, this time I spied a watercolor canvas that I bought to try. Unlike watercolor paper it’s a wrapped canvas. I had printed out a few photos this morning that I wanted to paint. I sketched it out on the canvas and began to paint. Disaster ensued. The paint just sat on the surface going nowhere. I wiped it off and tried again. No luck. It then occurred to me ( genius that I am), that maybe I should have read the little pamphlet that was attached to the canvas. It seems that the canvas has to be wet heavily and let sit for ten minutes before you paint. I had of course, as always, jumped in head first. I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t measure things, I am a “create by the seat of my pants” kind off girl. I have the ability to look at a piece of furniture and see it in five different colors in my head, When I buy something at the flea market I know from the moment I buy it what it will look like when I’m done. However, I can read the same instruction booklet twenty times and still not know how to do things. I’ve owned a kiln for more than two years and I’ve yet to use it. Why? Because I am waiting for Dan to read the instruction book and show me how. Yesterday he figured out my very expensive printer that has been gathering dust upstairs for…you guessed it…two years. Logic and I are strangers. I quit interior design school because I was too intimidated by drafting class. And as anyone has read this blog knows, I have never had art lessons, I do however own an instructional book on just about every form of art imaginable. Here’s a novel idea, maybe I could actually start reading them, and then I will have less days like today.
I tried for a third time and then I gave up on the canvas and switched to paper.
I may have mentioned that I have a thing for doors and windows. ( Some deep-seated need to escape?) This painting is a watercolor of a door I came across in Monterey, California.
I’m not sure what I’ll do tomorrow, most likely something with no instruction needed!
I Am An Artist
The sun is still out. Although it’s after seven, I am so happy with myself for taking some time today to really work. I finished a piece of art today because I wanted to, and not because bedtime was looming and I still hadn’t produced for my blog project. It is a pastel and pencil drawing.
As always I had no idea what I wanted to do when I started. I looked around my studio and at some photos that I had either taken myself, or at some time in the past clipped from a magazine for the “to do” pile. There are a lot of pictures in that pile, I’m ashamed to say how many. I took more than two thousand photos in Paris in 2009, that makes up most of the pile. I reassured myself continually that I would some day “work”. Setting aside ideas made the illusion seem that much more real. As long as I had projects for the future it meant I wasn’t giving up on myself, when in fact I had given up a long time ago. That again is another source of pain for me. When I think of the countless hours I spent organizing my photos, my supplies, and rearranging my studio, I could cry. All it was was a way to avoid the reality of not being good enough. Money spent, not wasted so to speak because the supplies are all still there waiting to be used, but I honestly have enough “stuff” to fill three lifetimes. I was playing at being an artist. Doing a project here and there so I could lay claim to the title because it was the only part of me that I hadn’t given to my family. I stopped working a time-clock job in 1994, I did a few murals in Chicago, did more than my share of craft shows, and even entered a painting that was accepted into a museum show here in town. The reality is I gave all of me to my husband and children. Do I have regrets? Yes, but none having to do with time I gave them, but for the hours lost when Dan was at work and the kids were in school when I could have given myself permission to be more than “mom” or “wife”. Instead I felt guilty of every moment I gave myself. Days were spent cleaning, rearranging, making things as special as I could for them. They all have nightmare memories of craft shows, when the night before they were frantically helping me to finish things because I hadn’t given myself the time. I’m sure more than a few people wondered how many strip clubs my husband went to, he was covered in glitter for days. And at the shows I found myself being approached by people asking me why I was there, telling me my work was too good. I didn’t have enough faith in myself to believe it.
I have written here before and will write it again and again until I believe it. I am an artist.
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A Step In The Right Direction
It’s late as usual, but today wasn’t about avoidance. To begin with I did only a very small watercolor today, but I honestly thought that this would be the day I didn’t accomplish anything. I have a horrible
, horrible neck and shoulder injury from a car accident, and some days it rears its ugly head and becomes painfully intolerable. Today was one of was one of those days. From the moment I woke I was in pain. All that aside I took a major step in the right direction to further my artistic self-esteem. I have a friend here in town that owns the Temecula Valley Cheese Shop. I had spoken to her more than a year ago about selling in her shop. At the time she agreed, but “not good enough” was a major influence in my life at the time. Basically, I chickened out. I changed that today. I made up several cards using my photography and brought them into her store. I start selling later this week. Of course now I’m worried that no one will buy them. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, many years of self-doubt have taken more than their toll. Well, that and I’m Irish. As I tell Dan when you’re Irish the glass is not only not half full, it isn’t even half empty, its shattered on the floor.
So here is the tiny painting of today, pinched nerve and all. I will follow with photos of a few of my cards. Wish me luck, and if you happen to be in the cheese shop and need a card….
Keeping My Promise
I kept my promise to myself today, I took the time for art. Of course I didn’t take the time until late afternoon. That was because “not good enough” came for a visit. I really don’t like the Mia drawing, and that got in my way. I finally decided that it was time for a change. Remember that this project is about cleaning out my artistic refrigerator. I went into my studio and looked for something different to create with. I decided on clay, the home-baked kind. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do, so I gathered my sculpting tools and headed out to the garden. I thought about flowers, but I wanted to do more than copy nature. I turned to my Pinterest boards for inspiration. The board with the most pins is about quotes. I believe I mentioned before how much I love words. I decided to make a three-dimensional sculpture illustrating a quote. I chose a quote by actress Helen Hayes, if you don’t know who she is look her up! Of course loving words also means I love books, and we have more than our share in this house!
I love the quote, which states, “From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot in front of the other. But when books are opened, you discover you have wings.” I like the finished project, although it came out a little “crafty” for my taste. But here it is.
I also added another watercolor. It is a simple illustration with fine black marker added. Someone I love has been hurt and lied about. It is an illustration of how I have been feeling the last few days.
I can’t say or do anything. I feel helpless, angry and frustrated, thus “Voiceless”.
Old Lessons, and a Still Not Quite Complete Mia
I finished Mia this morning. Still not completely happy with the drawing, but I think I might have done better drawing a white cat on a paper with color and highlighting with white pencil or chalk. It’s what I had done on the earlier post of the drawing of my grandmother. Sometimes its best to walk away from a piece and revisit it later with a fresh pair of eyes.
I had a realization this morning. Again, when I started this blog I was excited and challenged, but as I wrote last night I find myself not getting to it until later and later each day. I told Dan this morning that it is becoming reminiscent of high school. I did take art in high school. I wanted it as early as sophomore year when I had my first shot at choosing an elective. However, my dad didn’t see the value of it. My electives were gobbled up by sewing and typing/ shorthand, all marketable skills for a young woman who was sentenced to no more expectation in life than that of a secretary or housewife. (Typing? Yes, I’m that old. My high school graduation gift was an electric typewriter, the latest model of course!) Junior year left me open for an elective of choice. At that point my dad had three of us in high school and was probably too busy to interfere. What I should have done was take Art 1, the basics, but what did I do? I took a few drawings and a painting into Mrs. Miller’s office and told her my sad story. She looked at my work and put me right into Art 2. I lost the opportunity to get the basics. I didn’t know any better…..back to the project.
The first few days of this project I was anxious to get to work every day. I truly was excited about what I would do next. Then my bad habit of putting myself last began to creep in just a little further every day. Cleaning, cooking, bill paying, watering the garden and so on. Finding little ways every day to push it further away. Just like high school. I was excited to get into art, more so that I had been allowed to skip ahead, but as time wore on I began to not do assignments until the night before. There was a girl in my class who quite frankly couldn’t draw very well. We both turned in assignments for a graphic design project, she got an “A”, I got a “B”. I was incredulous, my drawing was so much better than hers, at least technically. When I approached Mrs. Miller to complain she said, ” No she can’t draw as well as you, but I can see how hard she tried. You have so much talent, but you did that last night didn’t you?” I had to admit I had. She said, “I know what you can do, that’s why you get a “B”. I should have learned from that, but here I am so many years later doing the same thing. I am cheating myself each time I do this without my full effort and attention. Yes, sometimes my life will get in the way. Today my son is sick, but there are more than enough waking hours for me to fulfill my promise in every way possible.
Thank you Mrs. Miller
An Incomplete Mia
When I committed myself to this 365 project I forgot to take a few things into consideration, mainly that I have a life! It isn’t as though prior to this I spent my days lazing about. I work every day, not at a job that involves a time clock, or a paycheck (my family couldn’t afford me), but I spend every day employed in the business of making a home. I have on occasion (usually because one of said family members has pissed me off) stated that mothers and housewives don’t get days off, or vacations, personal days, and most of the time we work through our sick days. There are I admit bonuses. Like when your husband still thinks you are beautiful after twenty seven years, or you see some of yourself (and I mean the good stuff) in your daughter, or when your twenty two year old son gives you a hug after years of acting as though you are contagious. (He attempted to hug me last year for the first time in ages, I was so startled it was as if a stranger were attacking me. You can’t blame me, six years ago when my mother died I got a pat on the back.) The point of all of this ranting is to say that I didn’t have enough time for myself today to finish a piece of art. What I really should say is that I didn’t make time, or give myself permission for time to work. It’s 10:30 now, and the two men in my life, my husband and son, are passed out cold, one in an armchair and one on the couch, I need to get them to bed.
I started drawing about an hour ago so I do have a glimpse of today’s project. I had a hard time deciding which cat to draw last night, so tonight I had decided to make it Mia. It’s an older photo when she was a kitten, but my favorite one. And tomorrow I promise to finish Mia, and more importantly to give myself the time to work.
And maybe the next time I sign on for something for a year I should make sure I get vacation time.
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