It was a dark and stormy day, this day before the day before Christmas. Or the day after the day after the solstice, however you want to look at it. The wind was HOWLING, like it was coming to getcha, the rain was sheeting sideways and then the power went out. A cold, blustery, sucky kind of day.
But with four skylights, three walls of windows and the foresight to warm the place up early, Studio Grande didn’t need no stinkin’ power.
So I painted.
And scribbled.
And ended up with layers and layers of background on three canvases. Three canvases ready and waiting. But you only see two here. Trust me, there are three.
Sometime during the afternoon the power came back on. Sometime during the evening I reminded Mr. Spouse about leftover chili in the fridge he could nuke when he got hungry. Sometime around 8:30 I wandered back home, had an apple and cheese, some tea and Christmas cookies and stretched out alongside Mr. Spouse on the sofa.
We watched the reflection of the Christmas tree lights on the blank screen of the TV. Chatted about this and that. Precious Man Dog (AKA Bean) traveled along the top of the sofa cushions, climbed across Mr. Spouse and squeezed in between us. Sophie came from the other direction, crawled over me and began chewing on her brother. They wrestled atop us before spilling down to the floor.
Oh my sweetums…Arty Life has joined the glitterati literati laptop latte set! Yes, indeed. I am sitting here writing this at a cafe, a CAFE, imagine that! token coffee and pastry by my side.
Like a writer, you know.
Does this mean I am coming up in the oh-so cool o’meter?
No, it means the DSL connection at the Porterosa is down. It means I am a blogging vagabond, seeking wi-fi access wherever I go. Even if it means I have to take one for the team and consume copious amounts of bakery fresh carbs. Carbs that were supposed to contain raspberries but turn out to be apricot instead.
Made with real butter and cream cheese.
My delight o’meter is groaning off the charts.
And the music isn’t bad either.
Lack of ready access has opened my eyes to how the interwebs have taken over my day to day existence. My multitasking e-mail checking-social media hopping-news reading EXISTENCE has come to a screeching halt. Now when I watch TV, I watch TV. Which means I’ve turned it off completely because there’s nothing there that can hold my undistracted attention. I’ve been reading instead. Books. Nearly two in the past two days, marketing books I’ve been meaning to read but why bother when there’s an interesting discussion on FaceBook.
Good reads. Shark Tales by Barbara Corcoran kept me up way past my bedtime. Today I’m reading POP by Sam Horn. Maybe tonight I’ll break out a novel. A who dunnit. Something I used to do every day.
Everyday before DSL and wi-fi and social media TOOK OVER MY LIFE!!!
AT&T, bless their sweet corporate heart, says my life, or at least my DSL line, will be restored by the 21st of this month. Probably not enough time to detox the web from my veins.
Not that I want to. In fact, tomorrow the library will be open. They have comfy chairs and wi-fi access. I know, I was there yesterday. Added bonus…no pastries.
And now a reality check. This short video from 1994 has the cast of the Today show pondering the future. Which is now…
I called my friend Harriet once, around the time FirstBorn was thirteen. Maybe fourteen. Whatever…he was feeling his soon-to-be manly oats and was a total, absolute pain in the ass.
I wanted to kill him.
Oh, indeed I did. But first I needed to find out if a jury of my peers, i.e, mothers of teens, would put me away for life or give me a high five and send me to a spa. Prison was out, horizontal stripes make my ass look fat. But a spa? I could handle that.
So I called Harriet and asked if it was against the law if I did away with my son. Figured her kid, a few years older than mine, was still alive. I wanted to know if it was by choice or grand design.
She told me it was perfectly alright to kill him, as long as I ATE him. She said it with conviction, without any hesitation, so I knew it must be true.
But there wasn’t enough Maalox in the world to pull that one off.
I’m kind of glad I stuck it out with FirstBorn. He turned out okay. Pretty good, actually. And now when he calls and tells me what’s going on with Princess GrandDaughter, I find myself laughing and wheezing and enjoying myself immensely.
Because grandchildren are the best payback.
And now that we’ve established that, I’m going to put on my Arty Life hat and tell you to gather ’round. Because I don’t want to shout, not on the interwebs, not where everyone can hear me. Because they might not understand when I say artists must kill their children.
No no no…don’t jump to any conclusions and call me as your defense witness. The children I’m talking about the ones that bleed paint. Or clay. The ones you’ve put your heart and soul in and then one day you look at them and think you suck. Or maybe just I can do better than this.
The number one lesson I teach my students is nothing you do is precious. You need to be free to experiment and push beyond your comfort zone in order to find your creative boundaries. And once you find them you need to push past them too.
It’s incredibly liberating to create without attachment to the outcome.
This was an assignment from Judy Wise and Stephanie Lee’s Plaster Workshop. I carved a portrait of a young girl into a plaster covered board and then painted it. There was nothing wrong with it, I’m sure someone would’ve bought it some day. But to me it was an assignment. I didn’t feel my artist voice. So after letting her hang around the studio for a couple of months, I whipped out some joint compound and had my way with her.
Looks like buttercream icing, doesn’t it? But it’s not, I assure you it was death-in-a-can for the poor dear. But her passing gave rise to this…
One of my all time favorite pieces. Something from the sweet creative spot.
The title? Portrait of a Young Girl, Revisited. Of course.
Faded leaves. Bleached grass. Frost on the meadow this morning.
I took the long way down to feed the ponies. Long way means heading to the left instead of the right. Means looping down around the meadow before circling back again.
Because there’s something about the light, the sun-with-no-warmth quality of a November morning, that demands photographs.
Demands to chronicle the understated glory of frost rimed leaves.
And deer trampled grass. Andrew Wyeth grass.
Ice in the horse trough, crackled and crystalized along the edges.
Hiding mysteries underneath.
And in between.
Reminders of children now grown.
And ancient horses. Muddy. Waiting for breakfast.
And Jasmine, the sourse of many ‘mom’s hairy ass jokes’ waiting for her kiss. Mmmmmph!
Night before Halloween I was toolin’ along in the back yard chasing after one of the dogs. It was late. Dark. Almost midnight when Gravity stepped out from the shadows.
I said, “Hey, what’s up, Gravity.”
And he said, “Not you, babe.”
Then he had his way with me and I fell for him. Hard.
Right on my face. SPLAT with a side of KA-BOING as I bounced off my nose. On concrete. Of course it was concrete…with all the acres and acres of dirt and grass around here I had to land on the hard stuff.
Oh, the trauma. And the drama. Because there was blood. Lots of blood. And since no one told me not to, I cried. Because everything hurt and I thought I would soon be spitting out my teeth…which thankfully I did not.
But it was quite the OMG factor none the less.
The next day I went to work looking like this. People I work with said, “What happened?”
‘Bikers and bar fights,” I told them. “Pirates.”
They rolled their eyes, said I was a dork (affectionately so) and told me to go home. So I did. But first I went to the co-op for people food. And the feed store for pony food. And this is when I discovered something VERY interesting.
No one made eye contact. No one said a word except for strained chit-chat as they went out of their way not to look at my face. Even people I knew well enough to know by name. But not well enough for them to know my husband didn’t beat me or I’m not dying from some flesh eating bacteria.
The fact that I looked different made them uncomfortable.
Which made me uncomfortable.
Think about that. And remember it next time you have one of those awkward moments with a stranger, someone who looks a little…different.
Last night, while I was sleeping, something special happened.
I woke up, looked out the window and said, “Holy crap!” The sky was gray. And the leaves were tumbling down.
Mother Nature snapped her fingers and Just. Like. That… Said, Yo, listen up, it’s fall. Oatmeal weather. Flannel shirts. Apple pie.
The colors around our place are subtle.
And just starting to turn.
I’m loving the textures. And the colors.
Reds. More reds.
But not every leaf is flashy. I photographed quite a few on the ground. I think these are my favorite. Quiet. Subtle. The colors elegant. Inspiration for a painting, perhaps?
And then there’s the meadow, the grass brown since summer. And trampled where the deer bed down.
After the rains come this week, I’ll light a fire. I’ll hunker down in front of the wood stove in the evening. Maybe I’ll read. Or write. Or draw. Or maybe I’ll just stare into the flames and dream.
Someone once asked me what my favorite season was. My answer…the beginning of each of them. I love the change from heat to cool. From sun to rain. From rain to snow. From snow to spring. And all around the cycle again.
So in a month or so if I start whining about the dreary rain and lack of daylight just remind me the next season is right around the corner. And there’s ALWAYS something to look forward to.
