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A Worried Mind

Tonight was a struggle. I started and tossed aside several drawings, unable to find my artistic mojo. I spent the day on the phone with my sisters, our Dad is still having issues from the fall he had last month, in the last twenty-four hours he has been struggling with a great deal of confusion. In the end we discovered that he was suffering from several of the side effects from a new medication. I find myself again feeling frustration, guilt, and a tremendous amount of worry. It is frustrating not being near when my Dad is not well, and as I have mentioned previously my sisters are carrying a heavy load, I feel terrible that I am not there to help. When we made the decision to move to California we didn’t imagine what the future would and could hold. All of that worry got in the way of my creativity. As the evening wore on I tried several ideas, what I ended up with was a simple line drawing of a pot of flowers, and another quite small recycling project. Several weeks ago I had purchased some goat Brie cheese in a circular wooden container. When we were through I kept the container, it’s a bad habit of mine, again with the “I’ll do something with it” notion in the back of my head. As I was putting my pen away I saw the container, which is circular, and thought, “Man in the Moon”. I scanned it into my computer and added a few effects. Not sure what I’ll do with it, but it was fun and took my mind off things for a bit. My second passion, which is cooking, comes easy to me and relaxes me, so a photo of a small plate that we snacked on this evening.  Homemade pesto, peperonata, and sun-dried tomato pesto, with a goat/cream cheese mixture and some crostini. Delicious! Hopefully my Dad will be more himself tomorrow, and I can get back to work.8 31 (1)

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Just Listen

Late night post, one of those days when I over schedule myself. I always think I can do more than time allows for.  Alas, as always neglecting to put myself first, and again not making art a priority. I think I’m producing good work these days, but I also think that I could produce better work if I gave it the time. It seems to me that too many of us feel guilty when we give to ourselves. What a difference we could all make in our own lives if we  allowed ourselves the time to be quiet and find what it is we love. The noise and obligation of every day life drowns out our inner voices. Have you ever tried to hear yours? I wake nearly every day to a promise that today will be the day where I make that time for me, and every time I make that promise I break it. I am the kind of person who is good for their word. If I say that I will do something then it gets done even if I don’t feel like it. Not for myself.  Do you make the New Year’s list? The list of all the ways you will be better? My life is that list. A trail of paper lists and empty notebooks. It really is my last hurdle. Lately I’ve been cleaning out boxes of paper. So many hours lost tearing out ideas for projects, paintings, or just stuff to read. The collecting became the project. Not that I didn’t do a few. There always needs to be something to justify what I’m doing, a promise of something on the road ahead is better than the thought of an empty life, so every now and then I would look through the boxes and do something. Mostly I just reorganized the paper. I’m done with that. Maybe it’s time to stop making promises before time runs out. I did however notice that the piles of papers to read had a recurring theme, self-esteem. (The O magazine in particular, it’s like the self-help bible) I had an epiphany of sorts today. As I was looking through the papers I realized that I no longer want or need to read those self-esteem articles. This project has done incredible things for me. I’m not all the way home where my self-esteem is concerned, but following through on this one promise to myself has made a difference, it has introduced me to some confidence in my artistic life, something I never thought I’d have. I just realized that maybe I had my quiet moment and it led me here.

Tonight a Hollyhock in watercolor on paper. I love Hollyhocks, they apparently do not like me. I planted some three years ago in my garden. They lived for a few months and were gone. I was very upset that they didn’t return the next Spring. They did return, but not for me. They have been lurking on the other side of the fence. The side where a neighbor who does not care lives. For the entire summer there have been two dead stalks of something that tower over the fence. How does she not see them? Why doesn’t she cut them down? Why are they bothering me so much? And then it shows its face, the Hollyhock, my Hollyhock (I know she didn’t plant them), tangled up with the dead stalks, peering over my fence, taunting me. Betrayed by a garden flower.

 

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Broken Promises

Did I break the promise I made to myself last night? Of course I did. The last thing I wrote last night was a promise to myself to start my day with my work. As usual I let everything else get in the way. Cleaned my house, ran errands, you know the “anything I can put in my way” stuff. Are you like me? Do you keep your promises to everyone, everyone but yourself? Why is that so easy? When I say I’m going to do something I do it. Sometimes I don’t even feel like it but I do it anyway. Like telling someone you will call them when in fact you really don’t want to talk to them. I call. Or agree to help a friend do something, and then you are tired or lazy or just don’t feel like it? I do it. I have a sneaking suspicion that Catholic guilt plays a role, and I’m a woman. Women seem to feel bad awfully easily, at least I do. But if it’s for me, bottom of the list. I think I need to do a “Stuart Smalley”, remember Al Franken on SNL? I need to sit in front of a mirror and repeat, “I’m good enough”. But only after I clean the house, right?  I did finally sit down to do some art.  “And what time was that?” you ask. Well, if I’m going to be honest, about 7:30 this evening. By that time I was quite frankly ready for bed. Still unbelievably tired, but I was upset with myself last night. I did last-minute, under pressure homework for this blog last night, and it was crap. I really didn’t even want to post it, but I did say I would put up everything, even the crap. So as tired as I was tonight I was determined to put up something to be proud of.

When Dan and I went to Paris in 2009, I took in excess of two thousand pictures. The most beautiful, in my opinion, were the ones I took in Giverny. Every home and garden were spectacular. I looked through those photos today and pulled a few of my favorites. I believe I have mentioned my odd love of gates, windows and old doors. (If I haven’t then here’s the scoop. I take many, many photos of old doors, gates and windows. I never, ever take photos of people, except for Dan, who is of course my favorite human) I chose a photo for tonight of a gate I liked because of its color. Watercolor on paper. It was sort of last-minute, but its work I like, not something that I will feel bad about in the morning. No promises as far as a schedule for tomorrow, only the promise that I will put up work that I am proud to put my name on, and I will try really hard not to put myself last…I’m smart enough…I’m good enough…

 

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Mind Games

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I love words. I love quotes. I love the way the manipulation of a few characters of an alphabet can change the course of a relationship, can propel a person to success, even sadly, when used to break a heart. I decided about two years ago to take up collage. This again for me is an exercise in frustration, collage really has no rules to follow, and how can one be perfect when there is no guideline? But what I do love about collage is that it is a place for me to add some words, some phrases, and a quote or two. I have a very different piece of art for tonight. Last night was a tough one. I promised myself that I wasn’t going to let things get to me. I promised that today would be the day where I put my art first. Did I? Of course not. We had plans this evening for dinner at our daughter’s apartment. I needed to bring something so I baked brownies. Then my son told me that while we were out he would be having friends over. You know what that means. On the chance that even one of the twenty-somethings would notice, I cleaned, and cleaned, oh and then, I cleaned some more. We were leaving at three. What time did I start my project for today? 2:45. On the forty-five minute drive to our daughter’s I sat in the passenger seat of the car sorting words. I mentioned above that I love words. I have a box of them. Single words, phrases and quotes cut from newspapers and magazines. All cut out with the intention of working on those collage projects. (I actually did do three or four small ones) Hundreds of little pieces of paper, each one speaking to me, and almost all of them having to do with changing my life. I had decided that for tonight I would use some of them. I’ve been cutting them out for years, and they waited for me to get where I am now. That was the first part of the project, choosing words. The second part was deciding how to use them. It came to me as I looked through the box.  I find that I have taken quite a few photos of fire escapes. (Dan believes it is symbolic of how I felt about myself, I think I agree)  When I looked at this particular photo, which had somehow found its way into my box of words, it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. This isn’t a completed project, it is actually part of a larger piece I started a few weeks back. Tomorrow I will marry them together, but for tonight, and particularly if you read last night’s blog, you will get it. I hope. Image

From My Artistic Fridge Into The Frying Pan

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Tonight’s project isn’t really in the pan, it’s in the oven. Just sounds better doesn’t it? As I promised myself at the beginning of this blog, I intend to use up the supplies in my studio over the course of the next year. I started today with adding a little gold leaf around the table top that I painted. I’m really happy with the results. I need to touch up the underside of the table top, and then Dan will be attaching it to the bottom. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but the bottom is the stand from a bubble gum machine that I purchased at Goodwill. It’s an ornate metal which I think will look really good with the top. It is a little too shiny, kind of cheap looking right now, I may repaint it and possibly add some gold leaf there too. I was liking the effect of the gold leaf so much that I looked through my crap to find something else to use it on. I found a cheap unfinished wooden frame from the craft store. I decoupaged some vintage wallpaper on it, and then gold leafed the edges. I also have a book of project ideas. More craft than fine art kind of stuff, but I paged through that to look for other ideas for the day. I found something about transferring photo copies using a black and white copy, coloring the back with light gray marker and then transferring it onto another piece of paper. I did it twice, followed the directions exactly and it didn’t work. I was more upset about using up my gray marker than anything else.

The crafty stuff comes really easy to me. I honestly don’t even have to think that much about it. I wish I could find that ease and confidence with the stuff that does matter to me, the fine art stuff. Hopefully by the end of my year-long process that will happen. I’m hoping to gain confidence, but also I think like any instrument if you don’t use it you aren’t going to play well. I’d honestly at some point like to have enough work to have a show. That would be a real achievement for me. I’d also like to get some prints made of my work. Does anyone who reads this know the best place for that? I’d really appreciate the info.

Back to tonight…What’s in the oven? Not a cake, though I wish there was one. I sculpted a few flowers out of home bake clay. In my search for something to do I came across a rough piece of wood. I’m not even sure what it’s from, but I like the texture of it. I thought adding a few sculpted flowers would look beautiful on it.

I’m back with a finished project. Well, almost finished. I glued down the flowers and then painted the whole thing with a coat of white wash. I’m not 100% sold on the white, but it’s late. Tomorrow I plan to finish the table and post a photo. I also am anxious to get back to my oil painting. I need to see if it is dry enough yet. I feel good tonight about the things I got done today. I felt like I let myself down last night. I need to stop second guessing myself!ImageImage

I Am An Artist

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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.Image

 

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.