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.              

today i went to a yoga class...

original watercolor painting 1991

....Because it was time.  I sensed it.  It had been months.  It took something -- courage, strength, resolve, reserve -- to get me there.  I don't know why it was hard to jump back in.  What I knew this morning was, it was just time.

This quote was on the yoga studio's website;
Nothing would be done at all if we waited until we could do it so well that no one could find fault with it. - Cardinal Newman

I worked with a teacher named Erika.  She talked about opening our hearts to being our authentic self, and as I write it here it sounds kind of cliche', but it was actually really beautiful.  She worked us with just the perfect amount of athletic poses, but also stretches that I needed.  I am very picky about teachers.  Years ago twenty-something Erika and I were in the same class together.  She was the yoga star, the super fit energetic young thing.  We had this incredible teacher named Marc.  After he moved away I tried many classes but I never found a teacher I liked half as much as him.  So I stopped trying.  Now Erika is a teacher with something genuine to offer me, and others.

I liked her class.  It felt great to do an actual class, versus practicing yoga at home which I have been doing.  I naturally worked longer and harder than I do when I am on my own.  And I didn't make a complete fool of myself!

I will go back.  Thanks Erika.  

corner view~longing

original watercolor painting 1993

It seems to me that most people long for freedom from something.

What do you long for?    

corner view~am i an artist?

acrylic paint on canvas, 2011

For as long as I can remember I have identified as an artist.  I was the class artist in elementary school, took many classes in high school, and majored in fine arts in college.  I then went on to get my master's degree in art therapy.   We had to do a lot of drawings as part of our study.

These days, twenty years and three kids later, I still try to find time to paint, make collages, write (I am working on a few books), take photographs, and blog.  For me, they are all artistic expressions.

I am very happy when I am painting.  Saying I am an artist gives life to a part of myself I am trying to resurrect.

well i guess i'm out of the slump

Can you tell I like to work in blue?

Yesterday, in under four hours I worked on nine paintings -- four existing and five brand new ones!  A couple of days ago our kids' acting coach paid me such a nice compliment, and told me he is a huge fan of my work and he wants me to make him a painting to hang in his studio.  Plus an old art school friend and I are going to do an artwork trade as well.  So I decided to get to work.  I started by finishing something I started long ago, in realism.  Then I went right into abstract expressionism.  I used all of my new canvases but one. 

When I was in art school our professors encouraged us to trade art with fellow students.  I miss those days.  I love being in people's homes that have lots of colorful art on the walls, by different artists.   My house is becoming like that, but it's mostly my work.  I don't have enough wall space for all of these paintings. 

The only hard part is that I don't feel that most of the paintings are finished yet.  Even if the rest of the family loves it, I have to love it.  But it's okay, because it's a process, just like life.

I am so grateful for people who encourage me, my friends and family are great! 

corner view~impression

Evening boat dock, Alexandria Bay, Virginia, 1992

oil pastel on paper

There was a time in my life when I made art all the time.  Like when I made the drawing above.  I was single, living in Old Towne Alexandria then and could walk to the water's edge from my apartment.  I often did this at night when the weather was warm.  There were street musicians, family with strollers, live music, buzzing restaurants.  I would bring my sketchbook with me wherever I went.  I carried a large bag to fit it in.

My artmaking started in childhood and lasted into my twenties.  I became an art therapist after completing my masters degree, which I did right after college.  I worked in a psychiatric hospital full time as an art therapist.  I did several groups a week, they lasted about two hours.  There was a big art room full of great supplies on our unit.  While the patients created art in the first hour, relaxing music playing in the background, I often painted with them.  It was just a part of my daily life.

Now I carry a smaller purse and I don't even have a sketchbook.  I bought one this summer, but it sits on my desk, crisp, clean, still new.  I am trying to break through the resistance.  I don't know how to get back there to daily artmaking.  I have been painting some.  I feel like I don't have the free time to get myself into that creative space.  I do have some free time in the week, but it's hard for me to get there.  But every time I take the time I enjoy it so much.
   

 Laura Howard and artist me, 1992.  

Laura made such an impression on me.  She was my friend.  We worked at the hospital together.  She was a nursing staff member.  She had a great sense of humor and a fierce sense of loyalty.  She was really intelligent, but totally approachable to staff and patients alike.  Some people are solid.  They are who they are and they never change.  Laura is one such friend.  To this day she is a fan of me and my entire family.  I miss her.  How lucky we are to find the friends we do on our life's path.

multicolor

mosaic in San Anselmo, CA

 my drawing, oil pastel and watercolor

 shopping in Venice

Multicolor is an inspiration for art, everywhere I have been in the world.

blue

I'm joining Francesca today at fuoriborgo in this blogging experience of a week of colors.

I made this painting this weekend, completely forgetting that Monday we would be writing about blue.  Well here it is!  This is the first time I experimented with dripping paint, it was fun.  I have to be careful not to use too much blue in my artwork because it is my favorite color.  

I have been sooo busy lately with the kids' new school schedule.  It is far more driving and activities and weekly days off and half days than ever before.  So I was really happy when Gary took the kids out this Saturday to play tennis and later shop for new rackets, because after I cleaned up the kitchen I decided to paint.  Painting and blogging are my creative outlets, so when I take the time to paint or blog it is a way for me to do something I enjoy.  When my life is organized and I have free time I blog more, so when my life is busy and I take the time to blog anyway I feel an expansiveness, like I still have free time.  It is a luxury I give myself even when I have other things I "should" be doing.  And trust me, the "to do" list is still there, unfinished.  But we all have to figure out a way to find balance.

corner view~emotion

What emotion does this evoke in you?  The art therapist in me wants to know.
 
I made this painting some years ago when Shawn was a baby.  Probably 2005 or 2006.  (I didn't sign it, silly me).
I had taken a many year hiatus from doing paintings, immersed in mothering my three little ones.  But one day I sat down and decided it was time to do some art by golly, and while Shawn was napping I did a few paintings.  It was a magic day.  I get there every once in a while these days.       

corner view~room with a view

Years ago, before our son was born, we lived in a house on a hill with many rooms that had views.  We had views of mountains dotted with homes and beautiful large oak trees.  Deer would come to munch on our gardens, and an occasional turkey vulture would swoop overhead in search of his dinner.  There was a roof deck where we would sometimes eat dinner, and sleep on a futon on a hot summer night.  Up there, you really felt like you were on top of the world.

Annabel and Skylar were born in this house.

Gary especially loved the expansive views.  His music studio, that he designed, had a large picture window to look out on the vista.  I put in a colorful flower garden right outside his room, and sometimes he would wander out there to talk on the phone.  

I remember sitting in a front bedroom, when Sky was a baby, nursing her in our glider rocking chair.  I put the chair in a position so that I could see into the nearby bathroom, where I had done a mosaic over the bathtub.  I loved to look at it from afar, at the colors and images I came up with years before, in a stroke of creativity in the middle of an otherwise chaotic bathroom remodel.

We had been looking at tiles, and the only ones I liked were the super expensive Italian kind, and that's when it hit me.  I should do my own tiling.  And so I did.

Are there corners of your home where you sit and enjoy a room from afar?

this moment

acrylic painting, 2012

 

{this moment}  

A Friday ritual. 

A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, ordinary, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama

new artwork

oil pastel, paper

acrylic paint

work in progress

Inspiration, our summer trip to Giverny.

i've started up again

We remodeled a room last year.  We replaced the carpet with wood laminate floors and hung several mirrors, side by side, for dancing.  It is a large room that leads to our pool, where I have my desk, and we have the only TV in the house, some rockers, a comfy couch. I imagined this would be a place for the kids to sing and dance and act.  They do a little bit filming there.  But the room isn't really being used for its intended purpose.  The kids do their dancing and singing upstairs where the piano and drums and microphones are.  Although I do love the new floors I have felt a little bad about not using the room for its original purpose. 

But a couple of weeks ago I realized that the room was an art room.  Just a different kind.  It's MY art room.

Duh.

Over the years I have dreamed of an art room with cement floors and a sink, and convinced myself that it's the only way to truly make the type of messes I tend to make when making art. And I have been so immersed in parenting that I have forgotten how important it is to live life as the artist that I am.  I have spent only a few days in the last ten years doing something I used to love so much, painting.   I have justified that writing, photography, and blogging is enough for me.

Duh.

And so I began setting my studio up a couple of weeks ago, since we have been home.  Without cement floors, or a sink.  Sharing the space with many other family activities.  And two days ago, I made my first piece of art with various papers, oil pastels, pieces of magazine, scissors, and a glue stick.  After an hour of fun and layering and working with colors I came up with the image pictured above.   The next day I made another drawing, an anthropomorphic cut out figure with oil pastels, on a used brown paper bag.

I remember in art school when people would make mixed media images like this and the professors would call them drawings and I would think that was so cool.  Because I had always thought of drawings as lined images made with pencil or pen on paper.

But actually, drawings can be much more.

I feel like I have a little bit of art school still with me.  I feel like a college kid again, only a bit wiser.  This rebirth makes me so happy I am bursting at the seams.  I can hardly wait to make more.

corner view~indispensable

acrylic painting, 1992

Creativity is indispensable.  Absolutely necessary.  That's what I see as I visit your blogs.  So many artists, expressing themselves in word and image.   

Sometimes for me creativity comes in the form of cooking, garden or house design, photography, painting furniture.  Years ago, in art school, it came in the form of ceramics, bookmaking, drawing, metal sculpture.

Sometimes creativity comes in the form of painting for the sake of the pure joy of painting.  It has been a long time since I painted.  Seven years I think.

I'll get back there.

Today I was talking to my husband about how appreciative I am that he supports me in my creative pursuits.  Perhaps it is because he himself is an artist, a songwriter.  He understands.  Perhaps it is because he likes what I make.  Perhaps it is because he appreciates the magic of paintings.  He will spend hours in an art gallery, sometimes longer than I will want to stay.

Whatever the reason I am lucky.

Because I live in a house where if I spend the day wearing ripped, paint splattered jeans, blaring music, making art, paint in my hair, losing track of time, oblivious to the rest of the cares of the world with a bit of a wild look in my eyes...

...well, my husband thinks it's the coolest thing in the world.

corner view~wood

Every once in awhile I create something that I am really happy with.  This is one such thing.  It all started with a piece of wood, layers of acrylic paint, shells, twigs, rocks, and more wood - driftwood, gluegun, and...

viola!

My version of our family crest.

saturday

I have been very busy this week with the music business work.  But it is a lot of fun for me.

I keep thinking I will get to my writing...ha ha ha.

Today I took a morning walk and connected with an old friend on the cell phone, worked on marketing Gary's music, made impromptu lunch for impromptu guests, washed a bunch of dishes, did an recycled random object art project with Shawn and Annabel (left the mess on the floor, we will finish tomorrow), and watched part of Jerry Macguire.  I also read a blog and watched webinars of a woman in the kids entertainment biz.  Sky won a contest this week and has a free Skype session with her.  The kids occupied themselves all day.  The two youngest played together from morning til night, while Sky recorded music most of the day.  I did read to my boy at night, he sure does love that. 

I did this painting about ten years ago, in watercolor.  I especially enjoyed working with gold paint.  I met a woman last night whose children are grown now, men in their 30's.  She was visiting here on vacation and showed me her sketchbook filled with drawings and watercolor paintings, a hobby she has just begun exploring.  She was talking about how happy she is at this point in her life after raising her sons to have more time to do things she enjoys.

I do sometimes wish for more free time. But for now I am am enjoying life with our busy family in our often messy house!

corner view~anything goes

I made this painting a few years ago, after a ten year hiatus from painting.  I woke up one morning with Shawn still a baby and decided if I didn't paint then, I might never paint again.  Later when Shawn was taking a nap, I grabbed our art supplies, and I included my girls that day along with our babysitter, Annie.  They each made their own paintings, and we all had so much fun.  

This painting came from that day.  I worked in warm colors, which was new for me.  

I really love how it turned out, like a rosebud waiting to blossom, but beautiful as it is.  Isn't that the goal?  To be happy with the process of our lives, and enjoy every stage, including the rosebud stages?

It is for me.

This painting was then chosen to be in a book about artists who are also poets.  I also had some poetry published.  I will share one of the poems, written about our son when he was a baby.

First Boy

My wondrous child

with bright red wavy hair

resembles the great grandfather

he never knew-

who tinkered and built

gadgets of all sorts.

"A man needs a workbench"

was his motto.

This boy is on a mission.

Just today,

he unloaded the dishwasher,

drawers and all,

pulled a painting off the wall,

and joyously dumped

a box of three hundred toothpicks

on the kitchen floor.

Someday he will learn

from his grandfather

how to repair a door hinge,

refinish an antique,

grow a green lawn.

He may build a rock path, a fence,

and maybe, just maybe,

fix something for me.

This is the book.

Thanks to Ninja, for this idea.  Next week's theme is "taking a different perspective" and it comes from Dana.  And please feel free to leave me ideas for more corner views.  I like to include you all in this, if possible.   

my creative space

OK guys.  I got out my brushes.  These are my daughter's paints, but still. At least it's a step in the right direction.  Note the new laminate floor, perfect for spreading a drop cloth and painting on top of with no worries about getting on the carpet.  Not an art studio, but kinda.

I did this painting a few years ago for fun when I was teaching my girls how to work with acrylics.
I am teaching home school art this year.  I even have a textbook.  Now that I put it in print, I have to follow through!!!  And be organized!  haha  That will make for fun creative time for me and my kiddos.  I want to include my son in the lessons too if I can find the time when he is home from school.

Those of you who don't know me - I am a stay at home mom, home schooling two middle school girls with the help of an awesome tutor and working part time to promote my husband's rock music.  Just started working with my husband last spring, so it's all new.   I am learning very quickly about the music business!

I like the idea of posting about my creative space.  It will give me a chance to make it a priority :)   Thank you Kirsty for creating this.  It is fun to see what other people are doing, a little bit like my art school days.

Because mostly my creative space as of late has been occupied with helping with video production of my cool rock star hubby, helping him with wardrobe and lighting, etc.  We are making YouTubes of his songs with him in them.  If you are really interested let me know via the comment section and I will send you some links.  Here is the first song we put on YouTube.  My daughter made the video for her dad.  It is a song he wrote called "Sky High."

But I hope to get back into painting, or any art making this year.  It has been a long time since I have personally made something just for sheer joy of creating.

a lifetime ago

My husband and I were married and lived in northern California for the beginning of our life together.  This was back in the days when I really lived as an artist.  I created things for our home, painting shelves, redoing furniture, painting flower pots, fashioning garden trellises...

I had been to college and had studied fine arts, mainly pottery and metal sculpture.  Forward five years...and my favorite form of expression as a new wife, and then a new mother, was mosaics.  I was self taught.

When we got our first home, the bathroom was in bad shape.  So we hired Rolf, and he laid new flooring.  He told me to pick some tile I liked to put over the bathtub.  I looked and looked.  The only stuff I really liked was very expensive, imported from Italy.

Then I got the idea to do a mosaic myself.  I gathered free samples of tiles, broke them in pieces with a hammer, and since I ended up with many blues and greens, decided to create an underwater scene.

It was so much fun.

Next thing I knew I was going nuts, mosaic-ing everything in sight.  I did this to the front wall of the house.

The house was unique.  Made to resemble a Shaker barn, we were told by the previous owners.  It was a great house.