art

When I have the time to paint, which is a really special freedom these days, I put out all my paints and brushes onto a drop cloth.  I get a large container of fresh water and I pull a few canvases to rework. Sometimes I work from a brand new canvas, although I usually make paintings from canvases that already have some strokes of paint on them.  If I could find large used canvases - someone's else's work - I would be so happy to make them into something entirely new.

Lately I have been reflecting on what I am going to do with the rest of my life. My kids are getting older now and our first born is already looking at colleges.  We have eight more years before our youngest is eighteen.  The children still need me around, but eventually they will go off on their own to live their lives.    

So I have been thinking, should I go back to school to complete my PhD in psychology?  Eighteen years ago I started this graduate program, but after our first child was born I stopped.  I recently found out that I could rejoin a new class at the school where I was, and the first year and a half of coursework I completed would still count.  I could attend school there one weekend a month, or do a program where I attend two week long series of classes for two quarters and then take independent study courses half the year.  Or maybe I could take about six months of psychology classes and get my masters degree and stop there.

But it doesn't feel like the right time to make this decision.

Sometimes the romantic notion of making my living as an artist creeps in. Could I sell my artwork?  I have never really tried.  I imagine painting all day in a studio with poured concrete floors, a sink, lots of natural light, an easel from France sitting in the corner, my green-blue glass jar filled with brushes on a tall shelf.  I play music and get into the zone and find the place inside of me where I can create. Because I feel like there are thousands of different paintings, sculptures, installations and tapestries just waiting to be born from my hands. They come so easily now, effortlessly really, if I just make the time.

But I get attached to my artwork, and rarely want to get rid of anything I make that I like.  And if I don't like a piece I rework it until I like it.  If I was making massive amounts of art I would likely be willing to sell some of it, that is if I would ever find a buyer.  I tell this all to myself.

I also want to learn woodworking.  I love wood, the textures, grains, colors, and scents.  I think it would be so wonderful to make small simple furniture.  And I also want to learn to sew, maybe make a crazy quilt or two, a wall hanging, even clothing.

I wonder is there value in art?  Is this my calling, my life's work?  If I worked from home I could also finish three books I have been working on, I tell myself. All different writings, all with some value I hope.  Or should I work as a therapist and spend my life as a healer, a listener, a guide?  Both types of work are quite solitary, with little in the way of colleagues and support systems and people to bounce ideas off of.  

When I think of all of this these fleeting images come to mind -- an old cobbler woman in a long green dress in her little shop, wooden frame on the door, shoes hanging from the rafters, hammers and pliers and colorful pieces of leather strewn about; a young mother living in a cottage in the woods, her face covered from a light blue calico bonnet as she leans over and stirs a pot that hangs from a hook, dangling over the fire, surrounded by towering pine trees, one lonely tear drops into the cast iron pot -- she misses the family she has left behind; a young woman sits in a rocking chair, reading by windowlight, feet crossed at the ankles, catching the last hours of sun, she puts the book down and stares right at me.  I know she dreams of being a painter and moving to Europe.

In all of these scenes there is one window that lets the sun in and allows these women to look out onto the rest of the world.  And for that they are each grateful, so grateful.