new vision, look inward as well as outward

i was so into "blogging" last year, when i thought it a connection to the world of artists around me. Then, not so much. It became another thing on the to do list. It fell by the wayside. I thought who reads it anyway, except my friends and inner circle? Then the circles began to grow, i was invited to be part of a blog hop and i started to meet other artists. Cool.

Art for me is always an internal struggle of how do i put on paper what i see so clearly in my mind's eye? Yet, like many other things, Art is also the thing that gives me the most pleasure. I sometimes forget how happy being creative makes me...
And like all conundrums, art is either when i am most alone or most integrated into community. Alone in my head, in my studio, in prep, or embraced in a group class, workshop or trip to a museum. Bouncing ideas and questions off people who's opinion you value.....

My latest work seems very alone.
January tree seems to be cold and apart. And yet I see it as waving to my son as he drove past it one January morning on his way to Wisconsin. And whats more alone/apart than an apple outside of the bucket?
Artists see differently.
isnt that great?

tidings of comfort and joy

i've been struggling yet again to find inspiration. i see so much beauty in everyday things, yet little desire to put it down on paper. I try not to let old voices creep in to my head about what i should or shouldnt paint. i get inspired when i see others' work, but something stops me. I've been told repeatedly by artist friends i admire, that this is a good thing, it means im on the edge, im breaking thru, im ready to go somewhere else...(bermuda sounds good),,,

so i am still doing my little still lifes. i do see beauty in an apple, a stem of a tomato, the sheer luminosity of an onions skin. so i continue to work, and to work it out. and my fruits and veggies are bringing me joy.

and in my own twisted twist on "comfort zone", i painted just that, the comfy corner of a comfy couch in a comfy room shared with comfy friends painting.
glad tidings all.

A Still Life (for real)

i havent updated this blog in forever, ive been wanting to paint, but sooo uninspired. 
wanted to get out of my comfort zone, antsy, itchy, but nada on paper.
got a new set of holbeins, ordered oodles of antracite pastelmat....
still nada. 
talked to lots of artists and creative people i trust, they all said "been there, done that". --just try playing with a new color, abstract, sketching, moving,,,hmmmmm all doable. 
but then again, no..


what have i never wanted to do? still lifes...booooring, not alive like people or seas or trees or skies.  But a friend nudged me to try something new. After al,l i reasoned, aren't i spending a king's ransom trying to find serenity. isnt that what i perpetually seek, a Still Life? yep.


so for the past three weeks i decided i will paint for the sake of painting. i will see for the sake of seeing, i will look at inanimate objects as if they were alive. and see what, if anything happens.

i mean, i already give my art supplies souls and grieve when a marker dries out as if a relative died. so here are a few of my attempts. and im actually happy with them. look at me, serene with still lifes.

side by side by analagous color

been a while since last post, struggling with a small painting that came from a day of plein air at the arboretum. Hot, tired, cranky because i hoped to "learn" why i cant figure out these dang greens (i can see them just fine, but why do they look like crap on my paper?) So out came that four letter word - Analagous....next to each other, not fighting each other, BUT supporting each other...(working on this with the people in my life, now with the pastels too???) It made sense in my head but my eye to hand coordination was shall we say, uh, somewhat lacking.........
Thanks to the patience of better painters than i, i went back to the drawing board (ouch) and did color theory 101 yet again (are you still out there Kas Zapkus???). Finally in baby steps i started learning a new language (again? for the first time?) and found that the opposite of making mud is making colors sing...and that green isnt necessarily green....LOL

A sweet person wanted to buy the first attempt but that didnt sit right with me, so i reworked it into something i could be proud to sign and kiss goodbye to a new home across the pond...(coincidence that its Independence Day?)

driven to abstraction

all creative people suffer their own version of stuck. writers block, un-inspiration. What to do with an itchy trigger/sketching finger and nothing speaks to you?

You listen to the silence i guess. perhaps thats why i hauled myself back to yoga. Silence is golden to a person with noise in the head... but i digress,

so ive been standing at the easel listening to the colors in my head. Using a viewfinder (real and not) to capture teeny snippets of the world around me, since its the colors or photos i shot that inspire me, not to "copy" them but to use them as a springboard forward. Whats this all about? Where will it lead? who the heck knows. who cares anyway? The come fast and furious and may be the catalyst to somewhere, someone, something else...

stay tuned.

Mothers Day Blog Hop

well first, thanks to Claudia for her invite and intro into blog hopping... I said "count me in" and THEN realized i had to come up with a way to intertwine my artist self blog with Mothers Day Me. Hmmmm but then i realized that the mother part of me is so deeply ingrained that it has only enhanced my love of art, color and all all things emotional and pleasurable..

But very rarely does the line between my paintings and my sons blur. Yes, Ive sketched and painted my kids when they were little, cute and cuddly. I painted murals in their nurseries, Denim jackets with Thomas The Train for little Jake, Sweatshirts and T-shirts and toy boxes and furniture for every little kid in NJ and beyond when it was my business, I even did a painting of Sam with his true love, a football, years ago. But that was about it. I dont do kids cutesy stuff. At this stage of the game, i am so over cutesy. Sorry, but true.
Then it occurred to me how my art and my older son recently connected. He's all big and grown and a manly-man now, but when i see him i still see the buzz cut and gap toothed smile and huge blue eyes of Jake at 6. I still have a landline phone only because the recording is his 6 year old voice saying "we are not home now, pweese leave a message"...he turns red when he hears it to this day.

These days he is a sous chef at a fancy shmancy restaurant in NYC, spending the hours before dawn at the market getting the days menu purchased, and the hours after midnight testing new recipes. He has the typical busy single guy NY life, with a text here and there to the mom, who thinks of him often (um, sorta 24/7) and misses his presence palpably.  The last time he was home he said," I really love some of these little paintings you did of oranges, lemons," and whatever i had around when i was in a "IM BLOCKED but want to paint" mood.
"Can i have this one, I'd love to hang it in the restaurant?" what? really? i said........Yes, I love it, can i have the little one of the oranges to keep at my apartment over my desk?..."sure" i replied, shocked but thrilled.
This from the person who says "hows the doodling business going?" when he wants to get a reaction from me.

Anyway, this mothers day i will be spending part of my day at a course on the business of the art world, learning some more "tricks" to help me handle the business aspect of art. But what I get from my sons, and their appreciation of me and my work, while not paying the bills, is truly priceless. I keep this picture of my boys over my desk, because now that the older one is 6'1 and his baby brother is 6'3 they dont do the "cuddly thing" with me much...Usually its try not to break a rib while squeezing mother.....And it makes me feel like ive done something wonderful by putting these two totally different young men into our world.
Happy mothers day to the ladies of the blog hop and everyone else who shares our love of Art  :-)

Yeah for the Mother’s Day Blog Hop!

• May 1st – Claudine Intner
• May 2nd – Melissa Liban
• May 3rd – Lynn Krawczyk
• May 4th – Ishita Bandyo
• May 5th – Jeri Greenberg
• May 6th – Kathleen Mattox
• May 8th – Amanda Ruth
• May 9th – Judi Hurwitt
• May 10th – Kathleen Murphy
• May 11th – Hannah Phelps
• May 12th – Helen Hiebert
• May 14th – Hannah Klaus Hunter
• May 15th – Claudine Intner

storm clouds on the horizon

i started this a few days ago, my mood may have actually matched this palette then. Too many unfinished threads lying around in my head. But as per usual, the only place i found solace was in my studio with my supplies calling me to come play. We were teased with one day of warm weather, and then the rains came down again, BUT my mood has changed for a few reasons. I got good news about both sons, and except for this damn head cold all is relatively calm..For me that is. For most people my life seems full of drama, but i guess its all i know. The good news is little by little we learn how much we dont know, and how glorious learning something new can be.

and like my pastels nestling in their corn meal bed right now, i feel surrounded by good, and will come out shinier in the long run.....