Early one morning I found a silver screw on the studio floor. It looked important so I picked it up and put it “someplace safe” so that I could find it later when I discovered what it belonged to. Screw, secure in the drawer of lost things, I sat down to work on the computer.
My “office” set up consists of a folding bar stool and a work table. The folding allows me to quickly and easily stash it out of the way. My work table is a hand crank adjustable standing table from Ikea. The sorta sitting and sorta standing combination is perfect for painting and working at the standing table. The added height is easier on my knees.
Perfect harmony.
UNTIL.
I had an epiphany! Not a slow motion epiphany. A spine crushing epiphany.
In an instant KNEW where the big silver screw belonged.
It had been holding my folding chair together.
Rice paper and watercolor sketch 4×4″ by Gwen Meharag
Ouch!
I think I might be shorter now. I only remember landing.
Legs straight out in front of me, still sitting upright on the wooden seat wondering WHY I had not invested some time finding out where the screw belonged. Just me and the floor.
I was right. The screw WAS important!
The first two weeks my ribs hurt when I laughed or drove or tried to roll over. The next four weeks it hurt to ride. Last week I was able to ride pain free! (I hurt like the dickens the next day, but now WHILE I was riding!)
Perspective change?
I have a clear understanding that procrastination hurts.
May all your screws be tight.
May you follow through with the tiny details. May all your landings be gentle.
Fuzzy’s momma was feral and only came in for food and to deliver kittens. She did not tolerate being touched.
Oh, the difference a generation can make.
The new trainer, Liz, brought three cats with her when she came to the barn. (Liz is a college history instructor at Weatherford College.) They balance on the precipice between house cat and barn cat.
Shadow is a slighter duplicate of our Fuzzy with a gentler temperament and a quick purr. Her kitten is a spritely calico pounces on anything that moves. Crystal has bold black and white markings on her long lean body and Crystal is the most conflicted of the three. She knows she is a barn cat so tries to be standoffish, but she sorta likes being loved on. Conflicted.
The other two barn cats are tabby cats. Lobo, who has been around for years, got fat when he transitioned from feral cat to barn cat. Lobo doesn’t tolerate, Lobo LOVES the occasional belly rub and indulges us with a deep rumbly purr. Always on his terms. Lobo has his dignity to consider.
Notch the smaller tabby has a beautiful golden brown belly. Notch arrived feral along with a half dozen of his closest friends. Nah, they were not friends. They came from an organization that rescues feral cats, notches their ears, then matches them up with rural locations to be mousers. Notch is the only one who stayed.
Notch is also conflicted. Notch is transitioning to barn cat. Today Notch allowed me to scoop him up into my lap. He could have avoided me, but he deemed to tolerate me if I was willing to put out the effort and commitment towards catching him.
We sat together, Notch in my lap, his sharp claws ever so gently embedded in my knees, waiting for Jubilee. He never totally relaxed but when I lifted his paws he did not protest and he retracted them making us both more comfortable. Reconciled to some expert ear rubbing and he almost purred. Notch hesitated before jumping down and scampering off when I stopped rubbing his ears.
Mostly feral, Notch is moving towards barn cat.
Notch got me to thinking about various people in my life.
Hmmmmm?
Which ones are house cats?
Which ones are barn cats?
Which ones are feral?
Who is moving towards?
Who is moving away?
I don’t have any answers.
Cherie arrived with Sonny Grace so Jubilee and I indulged ourselves in some baby time. Sonny Grace is definitely a moving towards kind of gal and she isn’t six months old yet. Jubilee and I were so happy!
Confession. I do nor did I ever have a Great Aunt Fanny.
Gwen Meharg in front of Transition painting.
I had an Aunt Mary who was ALL KINDS of magnificent.
Aunt Mary is my Auntie role model. Everything I know about Auntie-ing I learned from Aunt Mary.
She could balance a tea cup on her massive breats! She rocked full figure.
I was enamored as a child and after I grew up we developed a deeper relationship and she was even more awesome. I saw her cut out a blouse pattern and sew it by HAND in an afternoon.
There was a cousin Franny and there was a Boo bouncing around the family tree, but no Fanny.
But
-honesly-
you DO know what I am saying, dontcha?
This morning I took Wesley on this morning walk before Jubilee left for school. If I leave before 7: 45 my walk is in the shade. I love shade. Not all of it is in the shade.
I was wearing my, “Oh Lord, I am gonna sweat and I hate sweating!” clothes. They fit close and are supposed to magically wick away puddles of perspiration. They sorta work.
Freedom From Expectations by Gwen Meharg 30 x 22 ” watercolor and collage on watercolor paper
Passing between shadows the morning sun caught me from behind and there to the left and in front of me, N by NW, was my shadow! I liked how the low angle of the sun elongated my physique. From the inside of my head I look like that shadow. Long and lean.
From the outside I am formerly 5’6”, currently 5’5”, and 175 pounds. I have been 175 pounds since my bonus baby arrived 11 ½ years ago. I am reconciled to 175. I am less reconciled to outweighing my father-in-law by 40 pounds, but such is life!
My shadow melted back into the tree shadows and my mind took a meandering journey.
Carolyn. Carolyn was one of my best friends. She died when Peter was four months old. Peter is 17. I have lost a great many friends. Carolyn is the only one who I still reach for the phone to call.
Carolyn was brilliant. She was talented. She was kind. Carolyn could say things and I would hear her.
My shadow reminded me of one time when Carolyn came for a visit. She would bring her embroidery scissor and snip knots from out Ribbons’, mane. Ribbons, our black and white long haired cat with the spirit of a dog. Snip. Snip. Snip. Just a few hairs at a time. She was so careful and gentle.
Ribbons loved Carolyn, too.
One visit I opened the door and she was so thin. She looked great! Just like a magazine model!
Carolyn had been away for treatment and my voluptuous curvy friend came home model thin.
She was sick. Very sick and she looked magnificent. We talked about it. How horrifying that to look like the models, the ideal, one had to be dying.
What is wrong with us when death is our standard of beauty?
Perspective by Gwen Meharg 22 x 20″ watercolor on paper
Wesley caught scent of a bunny and my mind wandered down its own rabbit trail. Models. Magazines. Clothing. Thin Within. Thin Within is a women’s large size clothing catalog that showed up unsolicited in our mailbox. UGH!
Husband David doesn’t rant or rail often but Thin WIthin set him off. “Look at the name of this catalog. Thin WITHIN! It is so offensive. They are targeting large women and through the title insinuating that they can gain value by embracing their inner thin-girl. That by wearing cloths offering the illusion of thinness they are okay!”
My misogyny radar is usually tightly tuned but I missed it. David, deep thinker that he is, did not miss it.
I remember hearing conversations in both Poland and Ukraine that ran along the lines of, “How can she let herself be so fat? Why doesn’t her husband leave her?”
Maybe she was THIN WITHIN! (She replied snarkily through clenched teeth.)
Jonquel Norwood. Holiday Series 2015 https://www.instagram.com/p/BAz9VckSfMG/
Look! Geese migrating! Migrating. Migration. Jonquel. Jonquel and Kirkland moved from New Orleans to Atlanta to NYC. Thriving. Jonquel’s art is taking off. Jonquel, her magnificent self and magnificent art. Isn’t Jonquel the best name ever for an artist!
Jonquel and her husband are Ruth and Matthew’s dear friends from SCAD Atlanta. Jubilee and I stayed a couple times with them when we were in Atlanta to see Ruth. Jonquel came to Ruth’s wedding and fixed Faith’s hair. Her illustrations are all sorts of wonderful. She is building her name painting curvy women.
Jonquel is a curvy woman. Through her art she and others are seeing and embracing the beauty of curves. I am so proud of my beautiful friend.
Jonquel Norwood Fashion Illustrator.
Death be afraid.
I am learning to embrace myself. I have a way to go. I have not worn a swim suit in years. Before Jubilee was born I swam 3 to five miles a week. In July for Josiah’s 21st birthday the entire family floated down the San Marcos River together. Six kids, two spouses, and my spouse, David, the aforementioned feminist hero. IT WAS AWESOME.
I could not even find my swim suit so I wore my nifty sweat wicking pants and a long sleeved shirt. I looked thin within. SNORT!
I don’t look like my shadow.
Do I have to be a shadow of myself before I am acceptable to myself?
Am I playing into death’s game?
I DID eat a doughnut and a mini-cinnamon roll and almond and ginger cookies for lunch yesterday, but I had company so it doesn’t count.
Squirrel!
I am 55. I am strong. Mostly. I compensate and find ways to work around the inconveniences of aches and pains. Genetically speaking, I have another 40 years to go. It is time to love myself and my body. Within and without.
Two Choices by Gwen Meharg 30 x 22″ watercolor on paper
A shadow is not a good role model.
I don’t want to be a shadow.
I want to be the whole enchilada.
Hmmm. Enchiladas.
Didn’t eat breakfast.
Wesley and I walked over a mile this morning.
(Uphill both ways!)
Transition by Gwen Meharg 4 x 5 ‘ Acrylic on Canvas with Rice Paper Collage
Transition
Season
Today Now Each word.
A finer point.
Fine points.
Sometimes they hurt. If they are mishandled.
Fine points.
Sometimes they are just what we need. If we know how to use them.
My friend Claudia introduced me to felting.
My artist daughter Ruth taught me how.
Searching for Home. by Gwen Meharg 22 x 30″ 2014 Acrylic on paper with Hand Carved Linocuts
Long thin notched needles are used to hand felt.
I’ve felted my way through several packages of 50.
Ruth still uses her first felting needle.
Stylistic difference?
Today my bonus baby, Jubilee, waited under a pomegranate tree for the school bus.
I home schooled for 22 years.
For both of us this year will be vastly new.
This year I focus on the marketing side of my art business.
This year Jubilee is going into 6th grade.
Benbrook built a new “middle school” this year and we thought Jubilee would go there. Nope.
They decided to move the elementary school students into the new building and move the middle school students into the 28 year old elementary school. (I watched the elementary school being built so to me, it will always be the “new school.”) The street between the elementary school and the middle/high school was closed off to make one enormous middle school/high school campus. The middle school students will cross over to the high school for extra curriculars and lunch.
Sixth graders are so tiny. Twelfth graders are SO BIG!
All That Glitters by Gwen Meharg 12 x 10″ Acrylic on Paper
Jubilee has five older siblings.
Jubilee is NOT intimidated by the older kids.
Actually, she is not easily intimidated.
Not easily, but occasionally.
This morning Wesley, our 70 pound boxer mix, and I walked the half mile to the bus stop with Jubilee. (Uphill in the rain!) She did not need us there. She rode her brother Peter’s scooter. We could not keep up. Infrequently she deemed to wait for us. We were thankful.
Jubilee was chill. Wesley was NOT chill.
He suspected something ominous was about to go down. It did. Jubilee pulled her chair out of the neighbor’s bushes and plopped down to wait for the bus. We left Jubilee at the bus stop.
Wesley and I walked home.
Wesley whimpered. I groaned about the humidity.
At 8:30, school start time, Wesley and I drove to the bus stop to take Jubile to school.
The bus did not come.
She was chill. Wesley was ecstatic.
We drove the two miles to school and spied a passel of students in a myriad of sizes trudging up a zig zag wooden pathway to a bottleneck of a door. They disappeared into the building.
River Glow II by Gwen Meharg 24 x 24 ” Acrylic, Gold Leaf, Acrylic Collage on Canvas. Available at Dahlia Woods Gallery in San Marcos, Texas.
An image of German prisoners marching to the gas chambers flashed before my eyes. I shook it off.
I pulled our painted van over and told her to follow the crowd.
That is not really what I want her to do.
Follow the crowd.
I want her to make her own way.
And try not to step on others along the way.
This morning,
she followed the crowd.
As an artist the push and pull of the crowd is very real.
Follow the muse.
Keep clients happy.
Consider this year’s Pantone IT colors?
Consider decorator trends?
Does SIZE MATTER?
I want to make paintings that invite stories. I want my paintings to create ambiance. I want my paintings that invite contemplation. ( I read that looking at a painting for three hours can make you smarter. I want to paint paintings that won’t be boring after three hours. ) I want to make paintings that incite passions.
River Glow I by Gwen Meharg 24 x 24″ Acrylic, Gold Leaf and Acrylic collage on Canvas. Available at Dahlia Woods Gallery in San Marcos, Texas
I am prolific. A jump in with both feet kind of spirit. Juggling children and art has been my passion for 27 years.
Can I even make art without the energy of children in the house? Can I paint if I am not juggling? Do I even remember how to focus?
I hope so.
It is 2:15 and I have a business call at 2:30. I pick Jubilee up at 3:30. We have an appointment at the barn at 4. I don’t even know if swim team starts today, later this week, or next week. The boys were supposed to tell me and we all forgot and watched the closing ceremonies of the 31st Olympics. My calendar for tomorrow is full. Next Wednesday my eldest and her husband move to Italy.
It was good to have Ruth and Matthew home today. I helped with a photo shoot. I was not lonely. It was not silent. I don’t remember silent.
Poor Wesley. He is hanging off his doggie bed, his head under my chair. Wesley reveled in the early summer hubbub of everyone here. Eleven human beings. Family dog heaven.
Harvest Moon mixed media on paper (acrylic, watercolor, collage) 22 x 22
Every once and a while Wesley and I hear thunder.
It is 2:28.
I am glad I have you to keep me company.
Each morning I take our dog, Wesley, for a walk around 7:30 because the low angle of the sun is such that a great deal of our walk will be shaded. Once there was a breeze.
Yesterday, after the storms, I saw jays, cardinals, mockingbirds, cattle egrets, a dove, crows, sweet little brown birds and, flying overhead, one great blue heron. Oh, and cattle, there are always cattle and, only occasionally, a squirrel or two.
What I so seldom see are human beings. Over the past three weeks these walks have taken on a new weightiness. It is hot. Hot and sticky.
In the spirit of Independence Day I am reconsidering nudity.
Everybody has heard the term “scapegoat” but most of us aren’t exactly sure what it means. My understanding is that the term refers to shifting blame. I looked it up this morning. Here is what dictionary.com has to say: Scapegoat: A person or group that is made to bear blame for others. According to the Old Testament, on the Day of Atonement, a priest would confess all the sins of the Israelites over the head of a goat and then drive it into the wilderness, symbolically bearing their sins away.
Okay, so I knew exactly what it meant. I thought I would gain some deep insight by looking up the definition. Nope. Same insight.
MAAAA.
That is the bleat of a goat as opposed to the baaaaaaa of a sheep.
(My granddaddy Simpson had goats and sheep. Goat tails go up and sheep tails go down. Just saying.)
Symbolically we think sheep when we think of God. Lamb of God. Good shepherd. Lost sheep. Lion and lamb. Etc.
Sheep good.
Goats baaaad.
“Maaaaa,” says the still small voice in the wilderness.
The still small voice in the wilderness says, “maaa?”
WHAT?
Heresy!
Heresy is another word I looked up this morning. Google defines heresy as is a noun : a belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine.
An opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted.
Synonyms: dissension, dissent, nonconformity, heterodoxy, unorthodoxy, apostasy, blasphemy, free thinking.
That is revealing. Americans pride themselves in being free thinkers. (Watching this election cycle play out, delude might be a more accurate word choice than pride!) Free thinking is a form of heresy! Oh, I what fun I would have had in my high school Sunday school class if I had only known!
Back to the scapegoat theme. A group of people for whom I care deeply has split into two factions. Both believe they heard/are hearing from God. What they are hearing is in direct opposition to the other. There are no innocent parties, well, God, but the rest of us are complicit.
Accrediting/blaming one’s actions on God makes God the scapegoat.
It makes God look bad. Really bad.
In the process God is exiled to the wilderness. Maaaaa!
I am confessing charismatic tendencies. I am one of those people who hears from God. One of those people who have credited/blamed God for my actions. Prophetic is the term some use. Remember the old hymn, He Walks With Me in the Garden? Hymns often carried with them a different dogma than the sermons I grew up with in my Southern Baptist churches. Prophets, those who heard from God, were dead people from bible stories. All the answers are in the bible. No hearing from God for today. The bible was worshiped. (And yes, bible worship is a form of idolatry.) And yet, we sang powerful, charismatic songs. Some of us heard the hymns more clearly than we heard the sermons.
The point I am trying to make is that while the bible was and is very important to my life, God is not limited to a bestselling book.
God is represented in the bible,
but God is experienced through the body.
God is experienced in the heart, in the mind, in the soul, in a cool breeze, and in acts of kindness and mercy. God is experienced through the arts. (We watched “Warm Bodies” Saturday night and that movie preaches!)
When we are at our best God is experienced through humanity. The job of the church is to be Jesus with skin on. We, the church, regularly miss that mark.
God is not a genie trapped in a bible-shaped lamp waiting to be rubbed when we want a wish granted. (Here comes the rub.)
People, good people and bad people, credit (blame) God for their choices and actions.
Harvest Moon mixed media on paper (acrylic, watercolor, collage) 22 x 22
Human beings have used scripture to control and manipulate ever since there was scripture. (Slavery and misogyny come quickly to mind.) As easy as it is to manipulate the written word, the prophetic word, the word heard through the heart is oh so much easier to manipulate. The personality and reputation of the speaker determines the potential benefit or damage.
What happens to one’s faith when you find out the sheep is a goat, but not just a goat, but a scapegoat?
How do you trust God when those who claim to speak for God are not acting godly? How do you pray when the experts are so obviously wrong?
How do you believe when a good word comes from a flawed mouthpiece?
If they are wrong, how can I trust myself to hear God?
No easy answers! My art has a prophetic edge. I believe in the mystery of redemption. As screwed up as life can be, I have hope. I have hope that there is something more than what I see. I have hope that the ugliness will be redeemed. I have hope that the confusion, the mistrust, the manipulation, the disappointment and the hurt is for a season. I have hope that God, the overseer of seasons, has a plan and that we are all part of that plan.
The voice I accredit to God tells me a lot of things.
“You don’t know what you don’t know.” (“That was fun to hear,” she said sarcastically.)
Do you see that there is a LOT of wiggle room here? Room for interpreting how this is going to play out in my life and through my art. Room to be complicit. Room to set captives free.
How do you have faith in God when people beat you with the word of God?
I don’t know. I have no answer for you.
I only know what I do. I cry. I spew. I stay up late. I go outside. I walk. I get still. I read. I journal. I paint. I take a nap. It depends!
I tell myself that while I am flabbergasted, God is not surprised. God knew and God knows and God is okay with my befuddlement.
I paint hope. I also LOSE hope on a regular basis. Somehow it seems to come back around. Hope doesn’t hold a grudge when neglected and neither does God.
For those who are estranged from hope, I will hope for you in this season. Maybe in the next season you will hold hope for me.
Can you hear my dog barking? Try. I think you will be able to hear him all the way through the internet wires/waves/whatever the internet is.
Poor Wesley is going to have a sore throat before the day is done. What is stressing our chill selves?
BEES!!!!
This morning I learned that bees developed to use hollow trees as homes for their hives. As the number of hollow trees decreases and the number of hollow EVES increases the bees, opportunistic in the most sensible sense, have been moving into our hollow spaces.
Being on the edge of a wooded area a couple miles from a reservoir, living in a home with lots of cracks, nooks and crannies in the mortar between the bricks, the bees have found our home as cozy as we have.
We lived in peace for 16 years, the bees and us, but this year they started objecting to Peter mowing
the lawn. He has been stung twice mowing and I was stung once just walking in the front door. All of us have sprinted from the car to the front door with bees in hot pursuit.
At the Magnolia Street Festival a few Sundays back we met Ryan and George of “Honey Bee Relocation Services: Bee-friendly Hive Removals” 214 577 9562 Ryangiesecke@gmail.comwww.honeybeerelocationservices.com . These guys are great. They do public education/speaking as well as bee removal. They began as hobbyist and the need was so great they started the business. They remind me of my guyss, articulate, passionate, and focused. There will be lots of eve replacement to do when they are done, but it is quite possible that I won’t be waking up to buzzing every morning when the sun rises!
Hooray for Ryan and George! Horray for bee relocation! Hooray for not being chased by bees at my front door any longer!
Watching from a distance I was stung twice today. I guess I was not distant enough. I have a cure for bee stings. We learned it living in Poland. Forrest was eating a burger and a bee landed on it and stung his mouth. We were walking through the Bulgarian outdoor market when it happened. A vendor saw it happen and grabbed an onion and a knife and cut a big wedge from the onion. He showed us to hold it against the sting and it worked!It worked today, too.
PPS. The honey combs just keep coming! George is carving them down to fit into the rectangle honey comb holders. Darla would know what they are called. Some are very dark. Some are picture-book bright yellow. I wish we could be outside watching but they are very angry bees. I am sure they thought they were grandfathered into the house before we got here.
I am inside and my adrenaline is on high! Getting lots of painting done, and blogging is like talking to a friend so I can do this. IT IS SO EXCITING!
PPS. I am soothing my bee stung self by having cookies and green tea for lunch. I am feeling much better.
Have you ever NOT seen something that was right in front of your face?
Maybe you were proofing a resume and you had worked so long and so hard on it that you just could not see the looming typo that sunk ANY chance of gaining an interview?
You proofed and proofed EVER so careful and yet a typo slipped right past your brain.
In a proof-reading fog, believing you have achieved perfection, you gingerly fold the resume, printed on cotton rag paper, into thirds and place it into a matching rag paper envelope with a patriotic stamp. You travel to the post office and pop it into the mail shoot.
Breathing a sigh of relief, you climb back into your car when suddenly your brain awakens from its proof reading coma and – big as day – you see the typo flash before your mind’s eye.
It is too late … the next resume will be better.
(Rag stationary might be from the olden days, but typos still carry the power to devastate, only they devastate much faster these days with email and auto-correct.)
This happens with art, too.
Sometimes there is a penis in the middle of a butterfly painting. Sometimes you don’t see the penis until it is framed and hanging in the group show at the local community center.
Rest assured, YOU might not see it but SOMEONE will!
It will often be the person with the loudest, most shrill voice. Think 9 year old boy. They will notice and point and call others over to see the penis.
Once you and the audience have SEEN the penis you can’t unsee it.
It is all over. Nothing to do but change the title to Penis Butterfly and pretend there is a deep, but not perverted, meaning to the piece.
“Ah, yes,” you mumble and scurry away hoping the cookie table is well stocked. Leave them wondering. And giggling!
Honestly, the painting hung for several years in the boy’s room before anyone noticed. Once noticed the boys thought it was so hilarious that they re-titled it and proudly show it to all guests. SIGH! (I will NOT reveal the child who penned this masterpiece, nor the child who first discovered the penis. (It just doesn’t matter.)
When you are a grown up artist, it does matter.
Before a work of art is sent out into the world most of us take the time to look for things that we did not intend to be there. The big five are: penises, potatoes, boobs, figures, and eyes.
Heaven help the artist who is working from multiple reference photos. It is devastatingly difficult to get things “right.” You want wings on a horse? No problem, just print off a photo of a bird and a photo of a horse, right? Yeah, it would SEEM to be that easy, but it is not easy. It is painfully difficult. The longer you work on the artwork the harder it is to see it as a whole. As each part is perfected the whole becomes lost, even to the greats. (Michelangelo!)
It is easy to miss the image “typos.” Critique groups and teenage boys are adept at finding artistic typos.
It is ever so easy to paint rocks that look like potatoes. And to paint potatoes that look like rocks. “Those beautiful river rocks, did you INTEND for them to look like a pile of potatoes?” UGH!
“Nice barn. Maybe you should add eye lashes to the windows since they look like eyes.” UGH! UGH!
“Cool phallic image. Interesting colors.” UUUGGGHHHH!
“CLOUD CLEAVAGE!” ugh…….
The human brain is designed to identify faces. It is also quite adept at finding figures and figure parts!
MOST artists would rather discover that something is not READING as intended before the artwork is finished.
Who hasn’t done a portrait with something wrong with the mouth?
Who hasn’t been in a museum and suddenly noticed that legs are attached to the body at an unnatural angle.
Boobs! Oh my.
What was Michelangelo thinking!
Dear friends and family.
PLEASE, if you SEE something BEFORE IT IS FINISHED, please let me know.
IF I have attached an arm to a torso rather than to the shoulder, please let me know. If my wings are flapping independently of each other, speak up ASAP! If genitalia is the focal point of my abstract painting, it was UNINTENTIONAL!
Michelangelo Buonarroti Title: Nude Woman, Kneeling Date around 1500 Repository Muse du Louvre, INV 726, recto.
AFTER THE PAINTING IS COMPLETE FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE!
(And feel free to giggle in the corner.)
We all have opinions.
I do a lot of non-objective work.
It is NATURAL to look for SOMETHING in the painting.
IF I do my job what you will find is a memory, an idea or inspiration.
HAPPY MONDAY!
PS There were typos in my last email. EVER SO SORRY.
PPS If you are interested in a small print of my newest work, please subscribe to my occasional email. VIP members receive a small print.
PPPS! If you are already subscribe and want to upgrade, send me your snail mail address and I’ll get the print out to you ASAP!
The heart and the painting want what they want. Neither should be forced.
Honestly, I am not certain I have a process.
Do I HAVE a process? Yeah, yeah I do, but not just one.
The process I am embracing right now is most closely akin to not looking before I leap.
I like to starting. Anything I can lay hands on is fair game. Not a lot of thinking and I like some skin in the game. This video shows me quite literally doing just that. I had fewer finger prints when I finished than when I began.
The thinking comes later, usually accompanied by moments of deep regret for not having begun with a plan.
Sometimes I do begin with a plan, but held very loosely. Usually it is more an idea than a plan. I start with a strong determination to resolve the painting, to find beauty. I start.
start with feeling, start with color, start with a prayer for someone or about something, start with an experience: good, bad, otherwise. resolving chaos to beauty, remembering beauty and pretty are not synonymous, beauty freeing hope.
Starting is exciting, but in the excitement chaos shows up and builds a camp right in the middle of everything. What began in abandon becomes something else. This is where the fight begins. This is where the struggle takes place. This is where the rubber meets the road. Starting may be fun, but finishing is the difference between fun and joy.
Resolving the painting brings SATISFACTION and sometimes UNDERSTANDING.
Looks like life.
It is often repeated that each work of art is a self portrait. It is kinda true. Process also reflects the artist.
I use what is at hand. Process is marginally important and somewhat interesting. It can be part of the story, but if the end product, the finished artwork, doesn’t tell the story without knowledge of the process it is a weak story.
(WAIT! I LOVE CONCEPTUAL ART! Honest, I do, but I did not love it until I learned the stories behind the concepts. I don’t want to do that to people. Conceptual art, without the story, leaves viewers feeling stupid or feeling that the artist is stupid. Not my scene. )
I create art that releases hope not frustration. Hope that the big hot mess that is so life will ultimately resolve into something beautiful. Hope that, no matter how messed up we are and life is, there is a bigger plan that will resolve our chaos into beauty.
I paint hope. My process is a search for beauty. A search for hope.
Jubilee and I planned to ride this morning, but the horses were out and it was already hot and steamy. We decided to try again at sunset.
Which ones are house cats?
Each morning I take our dog, Wesley, for a walk around 7:30 because the low angle of the sun is such that a great deal of our walk will be shaded. Once there was a breeze.
Can you hear my dog barking? Try. I think you will be able to hear him all the way through the internet wires/waves/whatever the internet is.
This morning I learned that bees developed to use hollow trees as homes for their hives. As the number of hollow trees decreases and the number of hollow EVES increases the bees, opportunistic in the most sensible sense, have been moving into our hollow spaces.
We lived in peace for 16 years, the bees and us, but this year they started objecting to Peter mowing
great. They do public education/speaking as well as bee removal. They began as hobbyist and the need was so great they started the business. They remind me of my guyss, articulate, passionate, and focused. There will be lots of eve replacement to do when they are done, but it is quite possible that I won’t be waking up to buzzing every morning when the sun rises!
You proofed and proofed EVER so careful and yet a typo slipped right past your brain.
It is too late … the next resume will be better. 
Critique groups and teenage boys are adept at finding artistic typos.
start with feeling, start with color,