I found a jar of Golden Graphite Gray, I added it to my painting and I think I just heard angels singing!
Isn’t it STUNNING! Am feeling a direction shift?
My low tech standing desk. DIY!!!!
My low tech standing desk is a porch railing from David’s grandfather’s childhood home in Gatesville, Texas, converted to a plant stand, and now converted into my desk.
A tray is taped to the plant stand, a Walkers cookie tin is taped to the tray. An upside down circular tea tray rests on top of the tin to provide a stable work area for the computer.
A box that held a beautiful fan from china sits beside the cookie tin so the mouse is not so low that it aggravates the carpel tunnel symptoms. The mouse pad and mouse sit on the silk covered box from China (thank you Avice.)
Not quite perfection but dang close enough! It is easy to move from one side of the studio to the other so it is seldom in the way. Oh, the nursing stool I bought, used, 26 years ago helps with lower back issues. (Sometimes I stand on a wobble board.)
My process, and life, is all about using what is within my reach and not worrying about original intent.
(Plus I can hide chocolate in the cookie tin and nobody will know about it because none of my kids read anything I write!)
I am currently accepting chocolates.
Painting In Her Dreams
The Short Version Of How My Dreams Are Coming True
Once upon a time
Painting in her dreams
True stories
Waiting to be seen
I have always painted. For many years, only in my dreams. Those years of dream painting were not wasted, I was working colors and compositions and ideas. I was preparing for some day. “Someday” arrived when my mother-in-law found a one day watercolor class and offered to babysit. I found my heart.
Tiny fingerprints added texture. Ruth sat in my lap and I painted. Forrest rocked in the wind-up swing and I painted. Josiah snuggled in the Guatemalan sling and I painted. Roy nursed in a big pink recliner while I drew and studied composition. Peter slept on my shoulder and I painted. Jubilee, our bonus baby, was easy as her older siblings vied for their turn to hold her and I painted. I raised my children. I educated my children. I educated myself. I lived a full life. And I painted.
I believed the fable of the turtle and the hare and I, the Turtle, painted. Slow and steady would win the race. I built a body of work and then another and another. Slow and prolific wins the race. I painted Texas. I painted loved ones. I painted my orchids. I painted my faith. I painted my prayers. As I painted the paintings transformed from representational images of things to emotional representations of experience.
Today, I paint hope.
Tomatoes: Making the World a Better Place!
Some people are avocados. ONE BIG SEED!
Some people are pecans. Two equal halves.
Some people are apples. A star divided into neatly arranged pockets of smooth, shiny seeds.
I am a tomato.
A messy, mooshy array of slimy seeds that stick to everything,
closely related to the deadly evening nightshade.
The seeds represent the myriad of things that I am passionate about. One of the things I am passionate about is being a tomato and encouraging other tomatoes. Society has told us we need to be about ONE BIG THING and society is right, sort of. Those who embrace their one big thing might change the world. Tomatoes bring the spice!
As I age (gracefully?) I have come to realize I was focusing on the wrong thing. I was trying to change my seeds into something they could never be and, honestly, something I did not want. All those sermons, books, articles, TED talks, and lectures on the ONE BIG THING blinded me from my truth. I could not see what was holding all those sticky little passion seeds together. It was never about the seeds! It was always about the fruit! It was about being a tomato. Not even avocados are about the seed! It has always been about the fruit!
I was fruitful, but I judged myself as being inadequate with my multitude of seeds. I looked at others rather than who I was created to be. I compared myself to the one big seed and I found myself lacking. I was so busy trying to consolidate my seeds that I missed the point of being a tomato.
Firmly planted in middle age (if I live to be 108) I have learned a thing or two and I am calling all tomatoes and multi-seeded persons to UNITE! Plant the seeds, toss the seeds, collage the seeds into an art project, but embrace your fruit. Be FREE!
Sometimes human beings need permission to embrace what their hearts have known all along. Sometimes we wait for affirmation that does not come. I am going to help you with that today. Here it comes!
You have permission to be who you were created to be – be it one passion or many passions.
Please, bring your own flavor to the table. Be fruitful.
Be fruity!
Be free from should haves and would haves and could haves.
BE!
Post Script (PS) Eliminating the should’s is hard.
It might help to find a journal, 3×5 cards, a spiral, anything to capture the words. Write down what those voices from the past are saying. Look at the words. Get them out of your head. Decide what is true and what is not. Truth sets captives free. Freedom is contagious. Every little step is a positive change in the world.