Back home in Chicago for a few days. Actually out in Grayslake with my Dad. Not much time for art today, I spent the entire day cooking for my family, all fourteen that were available, to celebrate Dad’s birthday. He will be eighty-one on Thursday. I unfortunately have no photos, but I made sun-dried tomato pesto jam, served with herb goat cheese and crostini. Fresh pesto, potato ravioli with an Alfredo sauce, crispy pancetta, and fried sage. A wedge salad with freshly made Thousand Island dressing, baked tomato with pine nut, Parmesan crust, a baked ham (Dad’s favorite), and cabbage (the only green that should exist according to my Dad). By the time we ate, had cake, and presents and did clean up, I had no time for art. I did a quick little watercolor late this evening. I’ll be here until Sunday, and it may be difficult to get to my project every day, but I’ll do it. If illness doesn’t get in the way, what’s a little family time? I just have to make sure I don’t give myself an excuse or an out, and more importantly, I just have to make sure I give myself the time. I always heard that if you exercise for six weeks it gets in your blood and you crave it. Who ever (or is it whom?) came up with that gem is clearly insane, or is someone who is genetically blessed and doesn’t need to exercise. I know, I exercised for a long, long time, and I hated it. It never got in my blood, but this project definitely is. I know there are days when my work isn’t my best, there are days when life gets in the way, or days I’m honestly just not in the mood, but I know I need to do this. I feel like I’m playing catch up on a lifetime of wasted time. This is it, no more false starts, no more empty promises to myself.
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Painting On The Fly
I’m getting on a plane in the morning, and anyone who knows me, knows that is an issue. I have major league claustrophobia. When we make plans that involve air travel I tend to worry weeks in advance. It’s all about control. Yes, I have control issues too. As I tell Dan, I would be fine with flying, as long as I am the one flying the plane. He always tells me that the rest of the passengers might not be thrilled, but I believe I’d do a fine job. I understand the science of flying, and I know all the stats about how safe it is, but let me remind you all once again, I’m Irish, glass isn’t half full, nor half empty, it is broken on the floor, except when I’m about to get on a plane, in that case a piece of the broken glass is lodged in my big toe. We had a friend who was an airline captain, nice guy, goofy guy, but when it came to his job, a very serious guy. Knowing him has helped a little. I also remind myself as I fly that the people who work on the plane probably fly a lot, and I assume they believe its safe or they would choose another occupation. The strange thing is that when I was a kid I wanted to be an airline stewardess. (I know, politically correctness calls for flight attendant). There was a girl who lived down the street from us that was a stewardess. Madeline, I still remember how she looked in her uniform. I wanted to grow up and be her. Then when I was thirteen we went to Ireland. It was my first plane trip. I loved it, in fact I loved it so much that I came back from that trip and investigated the Air Force. I was disappointed to find out at the time that they had no female pilots, but the Navy did. I actually entertained the idea of joining up, but then the reality of basic training came to mind. Have you seen An Officer And A Gentleman? There was one female candidate, Seeger, she barely made it through the obstacle course, well she would look like an Olympic champion next to me. I’ve since flown to Scotland, Ireland for a second time, and France. Of course I’ve flown several times here in the States as well. I’m not sure when the awful fear began, maybe when I realized I had more to live for. I guess it might come down to losing fate in humanity (deep right?) I have learned a little trick or two along the way.
1. Take Xanax , it’s amazing how a half of a Xanax works so well. It’s as though my brain is screaming, “We’re on a plane!”, but my body is saying, “Its cool, relax.”
2. Memorize a Novena. For those of you non-Catholics out there. It is a series of prayers. Extra special religious insurance. Repeated in a loop as the plane is taking off.
3. Break the fingers of your traveling companion by squeezing them as hard as you possibly can.
4. Close your eyes. Any four-year old can tell you that all the bad stuff isn’t there when you can’t see it.
5. Travel with watercolors. It always takes my mind off where I’m at when I’m involved in my art.
So that’s it. Countdown to takeoff has commenced. (It’s actually more than ten hours from now, but why waste perfectly good worrying? ) For tonight just a little watercolor and ink. Inspired by an old piece of stationary. Tomorrow night you will see just exactly what can be accomplished in the air.
The Core
Several months ago I had made the decision to not be mad any more. As simple as that. Life is too short, and far too often we allow ourselves to be upset about things that just don’t matter. I for one could care less about the condition of my toothpaste tube, I also don’t care which way the toilet paper hangs (as long as it’s there), and I don’t keep score on who does what around the house. I am choosing to focus on being happy, making sure the people I love know that I love them, and feeling like I make a difference in the world. There is of course my relentless recycling, but beyond that in little ways, with individual people, particularly children, I want to feel like something I did touched their life. Much like my Myra and Emma story, I’d like to be the “lady” that a child remembers from their childhood, I don’t even care if they recall my name. These days however I am trying to be to be the rock for a number of people in my life. It is definitely easier with some than with others. Stress, tension, worry, and exhaustion can cause people to lose sight of what is important, they speak without thinking, fly off the handle at nothing, and what ends up happening is the fracture of otherwise loving relationships. I’ve mentioned that Dan is out of work. I can honestly say that these past few months have only proven how much we care for each other. Some weeks are like a see saw, he’s up, I’m down, and vice versa, we support each other through the bad days, and are currently planning for a future business together. During our troubled times I have also been trying to be as much help as possible to two friends who find themselves in very different, but also very difficult situations. Then there is my family, my Dad was injured and then had a bad reaction to some medication. My sisters are worn thin, and again I am trying to be as much help as possible from thousands of miles away. Tonight when I tried to work I found myself unable to concentrate on anything. I started and stopped several pieces. I thought I had given up. I sat at the table and worked with my watercolors, swirling paint on the paper thinking that I was just playing with color. Something began to happen, my swirls of paint began to speak to me. I began to add intended shapes to the page, and in the midst of all of the chaos a solid core. It’s what I feel like these days. I am trying to be what the people in my life need, someone that they can count on in the middle of all of their problems that they know will listen, offer advice, or just offer some support and understanding. Through it all I am trying to maintain my new philosophy of living happier. Sometimes it’s difficult, but what always makes it easier is having Dan by my side.
Waiting By The Phone
A few days ago I wrote about the prehistoric times of my youth when phones were attached to walls with cords, an inconvenience when you were trying to have a private conversation with your boyfriend/girlfriend, and your parents wouldn’t leave the room. I got to thinking about that today and the expression “waiting by the phone” came to mind. It’s what I’m calling my piece of art for tonight. I sat my twenty-two year old son down and explained my work to him. When I was a teenager if a boy said he was going to call you, you waited in your house, usually in your kitchen for that phone to ring. You didn’t go out with your friends, pleaded with your mother to let you stay behind instead of accompanying her to the grocery store, you sat and waited for that phone to ring. It would ring, and your excitement was palpable, you would rush breathlessly to be the one to answer, trying in that moment to sound careless and mature, and it was…your grandmother, or your aunt, or your mom’s best friend. A piece of you would die as you silently pleaded with your mother to hang up, how could she not realize that your entire existence relied on that call from that boy? Didn’t she remember what it was like to be young? Of course not, parents were never young. No call waiting, no answering machines, no cell phones, your entire romantic life depended on that phone, and to think he might call and get a busy signal was devastating. What if he didn’t call back? What if he called another girl because you didn’t answer yours? I realized that my children have never and will never experience that. I see six-year olds with iPhones. In this instantaneous world we live in with tweets, instagrams, and Facebook, our children are losing a little of the romance of the phone. Sure it’s still a thrill when that call comes, but think about having your entire world revolve around that call, when you had to sit and patiently wait to hear the voice on the other end of the line. There is a romance in that, unlike the call that comes at the mall when you are hanging out with your friends. Our kids are so accustomed to instant gratification that they are losing out on some of the best times, the best memories. Years ago Brian asked what we did when we were kids. He assumed that we were bored, no DVDs, no video games, no iPods or iPads. We told him we were never bored, we had our imaginations, the same imaginations that we used dreaming, waiting for the ring of the telephone.
Quitting While I’m Ahead
No, I’m not quitting my blog, or abandoning my project. What I am referring to is my project tonight. I wrestled with the devil, by that of course I mean perspective, and I caved. I am in the midst of planning a birthday gift for my Dad’s eighty-first birthday, which is a week from Thursday. It involves many photos of his favorite subject, which happens to be him. I feel slightly guilty making fun of him since he isn’t feeling well, but he has a great sense of humor, and I kid because I love, and he loves…himself…I really can’t help myself. I’ve mentioned the Natalie story (for those of you who may be unaware, short story is I look like my Dad, so I look like Natalie Wood. His idea, not mine). If you are as old as me, or have studied ancient history, you know that at one time in the history of man telephones were attached to walls, and had cords…gasp! Imagine being a teenager and wanting to talk to your boyfriend, you would stretch that curly cord until it was a straight as possible as you pulled it taut to get around a corner, out of parental earshot. My Dad pulled it tight as well, not so that we couldn’t hear him, but so that he could look at himself in the bathroom mirror as he talked. We of course, being the family of merciless critics that we are, made fun of him for it. He didn’t even try to deny it. He would just get a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
Back to our regularly scheduled project…my painting for this evening. As I was looking at all the old family photos on my computer I came across one of my Mom that I love. In 1957 my Mom and Dad were married in Toronto, Canada, and had their honeymoon at Niagara Falls. It was really beautiful then, of course the Falls still are, but the area around them hadn’t yet been developed by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and Madame Tussaud’s, and the endless souvenir and t-shirt shops. In this particular photo my Mom, who never had a shred a of confidence looks like the coolest chick around. She was really cute. My Dad, not so much at the time. He grew into a handsome Clint Eastwood look a like later in life when he actually gained a little weight. I told my Mother that she was way too cute for him, thankfully she didn’t share my opinion or I obviously wouldn’t be here. I’ve never been the “cool chick”, I was the clumsy chick, the nerdy chick, the artistic weirdo (my Dad, once again), I was never a cheerleader, or a sorority girl, I was just me, always striving to Never be like anyone else. Being an individual is important to me and always has been. My Mom looks like she could be Rizzo from Grease in this photo, or at the least one of the Pink Ladies. I never saw her that way, I saw a lonely, very wounded woman. I like looking at this picture of her and thinking about a time in her life when she felt empowered, or at the very least that she thought she looked really cool.
In high school one of my artistic classmates did a painting of herself and her little brother using only shades of gray, with the exception of a fish, the fish was painted green. I loved it, still do when I think about it. I always wanted to do a painting in those shades, I think hers was oil, mine is watercolor. It was a little more difficult with my watercolors, but it captures the essence of my Mom. Where I quit was the background. I mapped it all out, sketched it in, it was an elaborate cement rail with pillars, and I screwed it up again! Watercolor isn’t always the most forgiving medium, had it been oil or acrylic I could have fixed it, so I quit while I was ahead. I liked the way the figure looked, and quite frankly was afraid I would ruin the painting. Perspective-1, Me-0. It doesn’t mean I’m giving up the fight, just the round.
Damaged Goods
It’s been some time since I’ve discussed my complete lack of coordination. Many people who know me believe that I am sick quite often, which actually isn’t true, I’m just injured a lot. I think it has a lot to do with my very active mind (previously known as Monkey Brain). I am always concocting something, could be a new recipe, or I may have seen a piece of junk I am re imagining in my head, or maybe it could be a piece of art I’m working on. All of this thought apparently occupies so much of my brain that I fail to see curbs, steps, and open doors, this of course leads to bumping into things, bruises, and in my case the six knee operations I have previously referred to. There is also the accidentally slit wrist (the gory details of that little episode are in a past entry), two sprained ankles, two broken fingers, an almost severed Achilles’ tendon, and an almost broken nose. There is so much more, but I’m sure everyone gets the general idea. It’s amazing that I don’t spend my life in a cast, or worse yet live like John Travolta in The Boy In The Plastic Bubble. I know it sounds pathetic, but I guess for me it’s just part of who I am. I have a tremendous amount of creative talent, so I guess the lack of coordination is the price I pay. I bring all of this humiliating information to the attention of everyone that reads my blog because I injured myself again today, and as a result I am posting a piece of art that I painted last year. I am also, in anticipation of tomorrow, giving a sneak peek of elements of tomorrow’s project, which hopefully I will be able to create, (that is if there isn’t some other spectacular event in the uncoordinated Olympics). I am hoping to be up to working on yet another cabinet door. So what was today’s calamity? How did I manage to hurt myself once again? I hugged my husband. Seriously. Dan is about six-foot one, I am currently five-foot four. I say currently because much to my surprise I have lost an inch. No, not osteoporosis, my bones are good, it’s all those knee surgeries. Anyway, this morning I hugged Dan, and somehow upon disentangling myself from him I pulled something in my back. I have been dealing with scar tissue from a head on collision for a few years, and now who knows what I did. Who ever knows what I do? Maybe it’s Murphy’s Law, I am 100% Irish, could it be that Murphy is a not so distant relative? Maybe it has to do with my continual lack of sleep. Monkey brains don’t turn off easily, so sleeping is and always has been an issue. I’d like to believe that all that sleep deprivation fuels creativity, even if it does cause me to do idiot stuff like walking into walls, or God forbid hugging my husband. Hopefully tomorrow I will be a fully functioning klutz once again, and I will have new work to post.
The Battle Rages On
I almost called this post “Glutton For Punishment”. Why? Because I was feeling the pressure, self-imposed pressure, but pressure none the less, of painting another watercolor with perspective. As you know last night I was blaming my skewed brain, but the truth is that my perspective has always been awful, and I have simply not done enough to change that. It is oh so easy to fall back on the “woe is me, my parents wouldn’t let me have art lessons”, or there is always blaming “not good enough”, my alter ego that resides in the corners of my mind. Last night I said it, practice, practice, practice, so tonight I followed through. I chose a simple subject. Near my Dad’s house in Northern Illinois there is a subdivision named Prairie Crossings. It was designed to be a self-contained subdivision. Schools, train station, walking paths, but what I love most are the wild grasses, and wild flowers that are allowed to flourish there, and the houses, designed to look like old farm houses. I love just driving by and looking at the houses and fields. Based in part by a photograph and my memories of Prairie Crossings, I painted a simple sketch of two houses set in a field of grasses.
One of my favorite paintings is Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth. I love the feel of that painting. I’ve spoken about my own art speaking to me, in the case of Christina’s World, it is the work of another artist that speaks. I feel a sense of longing, but not belonging when I look at it. It’s a feeling that I’m sure we may all have come across at some point in our lives. Whether it is within the confines of our own family, or within a group of friends, there are times while we “technically” are part of the group, we somehow find ourselves feeling on the outside. It’s a situation I find myself in quite a bit. I really think it has a lot to do with the remnants of my childhood shyness, and that I don’t speak as loud as most. I have a soft voice, and find myself repeating myself quite often, particularly at the deli or fish counter at the grocery store. When I’m in a group, I’m the quiet one, it’s just too much trouble to try to be heard. It’s funny to me how just bringing up that painting inspires all of this. That’s really what I want to achieve with my art, not perfection, but emotion, even if its disbelief at how bad the perspective is.
My Skewed Brain
We all know that perspective is my arch nemesis. Maybe my brain is skewed. All I know is that if I don’t draw some kind of guideline everything goes to the right. That includes my handwriting. If I write on an unlined piece of paper, it will inevitably start climbing towards the right edge of the paper as if it were trying to make an escape. Tonight’s watercolor is a perfect example. It looks good as I’m sketching it, but when I pick up the paper and hold it away from myself it is definitely veering to the right. Its frustrating. Of course I know the answer to the problem, practice, practice, practice. I should be drawing daily. I also might try watching that perspective DVD I own. I think I may have mentioned it a few weeks ago. I did take a major step towards watching it then, by that I mean I took the wrapper off. I seem to have an aversion to actually learning how to do anything with help, but if I want to be a better artist I need to bite the bullet.
On a much better note, I love my gift for Dan. I actually ended up turning the cabinet door over and using the other side. The trim is flat instead of rounded and just worked better with the painting. I mixed a little flat black with a metallic gun metal and painted the door. I am also a huge fan of a worn edge, so I sanded the edges down. I glued the cut canvas down to the recessed area. It looks great. I do need to add a little trim inside around the painting. I may also add a finish coat. Dan and I also discussed putting a piece of glass over it. Not sure yet, but I’m really happy with it, and Dan loves it. When I think about it painting a cabinet door is the perfect gift for him. He is continually closing them behind me, and also shutting drawers. Its not really my fault, it’s really because my brain is skewed.
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,
Nothing But Trouble (In A Good Way)
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 watercolor
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