This Beauty is one of a pair of Cabintet from a large entertainment stand, The Other is outside, drying…
I have to get the mix just right: a smidgen of anxiety, a pinch of hunger, a good dose of caffeine and just about 48 hours without sleep and *BAM*! The NY creative lightning strikes! Tonight was the night, today was the day, cleaning off my museum pieces with fine brushes, repairing and sprucing up the shelves to display new work… Giving my custom painted floor a deep cleaning in preparation for the faux Renaissance tile I will be handpainting there.
I am pulling out all the stops while the proverbial light is green for GO!! I pulled out all my nearly finished projects for a big push to clear the studio, putting all the months (years?) of pondering into real execution. Clean the brushes, check all the supplies and paint paint paint!!
As it should be, so it shall be. Inside myself I am whole, where I am not broken. I am lonely in a great big crowd, but never alone when I am here. Do you feel the radio waves frying our brains? Or is that just those pickles I ate.? Let’s go with the pickles, the other is too tough to contemplate.
Do you think of yourself as fearless? I used to think I was-when I was very, very drunk. Then I would cling to my “old man”, laughing like a lunatic, as we would race down I-26 at about 120mph on his old shovelhead. Whew…
That is not fearless. That’s just insane.
I was asking God the other day, to let me know what kind of art I should create. He did not suddenly give me skills like Michaelangelo, unfortunately. However, I share the same birthday with that marvelous personage. (Michaelangelo, that is…)
God has remained quiet, and has allowed me to decide what to make. That is why he gave me an imagination. And a drive to put what I see playing on my internal projector out into the real world, for others to see. Sometimes what I choose to show is not pretty, but has some meaning for me. At times my work is mildly odd, at others it can be painful for me to see, because the images or emotions have come from a deep and scary place. This particular type of art can be very therapeutic for me as a survivor; I take the monster out of the box, turn it this way, then that, think on it a bit, maybe beat it up a little, and then put it safely away again.
I feel strong after I do that, because I chose how to interpret the emotion, not the perp.
I saw it thru my lens, from a distance I am comfortable with, and I share what I choose to share. When I am at my bravest, I am not considering what the viewer might think at all. That may sound counter-intuitive , after all, don’t I want to please the viewer? Coax them into buying my art?
Aren’t I actually shooting myself in the foot?
( It really is going to be Allright, Mother…I will not starve…)
I feel like such a big chicken when I create art to please the masses. Well, I don’t have “masses”, how about a ‘mass’. How about a ‘mess’? If messes were my main concern I’d be Uber famous, because I have messes everywhere.
Anyway, I create art because I am an artist. It’s part of me. It’s not a job, it’s my identity, my natural state of being.
Should I paint “safe” so as not to “fail”….
I will create art, that is what I do. As long as I do this , I will always be ‘safe’ in the knowledge that I gave that which I have so graciously been given.
Don’t let fear of failure cause you to fence yourself in. Find a break in that fence, gather your courage and break thru!! When you free yourself from the constraints of creating for someone else, your imagination will soar to great new heights!!
This was one of those paintings that Hurt, as I was painting it… But it had to be done, for my own healing…
Sigh… I’ve been feeling crappy… Really Awful… SICK. It has caused a pause in my production of work. There is this niggling worry, of course, about the big C, CO I mean…VID. I don’t believe this is it, am hoping very strongly that this is not it. The headache is from a sinus infection that seems to always correspond to this changing season. So, I have been fighting, on this front, for about a week.
I rely so much on my little Kleo as a huggable, furry sounding board , having recently experienced the grief of losing her uncle Kiko last month. She became violently ill yesterday, and had to be rushed to the astronomically expensive emergency vet. Five hundred plus dollars and a day later she is stabilized, but I’m not sure I am. The running total on all my credit cards is the highest I’ve ever had, and the gallery I use has been virtual for months. Sales are nil for now, so I feel pressured to create a masterpiece . But I keep falling asleep with my paintbrush for my hand, and abstract ain’t my bag at the moment. Perhaps it should be. I could, in my stupor, lay a blank canvas on the floor by my couch and hold an open paint jar over it while I doze. Perhaps some nice swirly “pour”will result…( This is a JOKE. )
The day before my illness I painted a new canvas, and I feel very pleased with it, even though my freehand jug is rather “interesting”. I do have more works in progress , soon to come to fruition as Kleo Pup and I mend. Yay. I mean, “YAY!!”
Oh, the fun of a downward spiral…After a week or two of just mind blowing energy and creativity, comes the inevitable crash. This time it was about a week of doldrums, pain, negativity and actual physical illness, all of which I attribute to this illness called Bipolar Disorder.
The worst part of a depressive episode, besides dishes and dirty laundry accumulating , and unmade beds and unmopped floors, is this: Lack of Creativity . It cripples me. Makes me agonize about my ability, question my work, my path, my life course. I think of a million different ways I am a failure, and I become totally immobilized, sucked into my squishy pillow, and held captive by doubt. Even though I know what is happening , and know my thoughts are tangled for a time, I am still unable to make a move.
Portals to Peace
I can best liken it to being held hostage, until the cycle passes.
So-here I am today, a new day, a new cycle! We are on the upswing, baby!! Hold on tight, cause I am an artist extraordinaire, a churning swirling dervish holding 10 brushes in one hand while I work on 5 canvases at one time !!!WOO HOO!!!
Another Incredible Tiny Table ready for someones patio!!A little bit of Gallery Wrapped Joy ready for sale!
All in All, I’m just too hot to handle right now, and I’m painting like a human tornado!!! Ok, maybe just a little dust devil, but you get the idea!!! Let it Fly, say I!!!!wheeeee!
“Sleep to Dream a Dreamer’s Sleep…Let the Midnight Watchman Creep…”A step into a past full of Victorian Charm, all furniture and walls handpainted and restored…by me.
your home is your place to dream, to find peace and rest. A cocoon, a safe haven, an island in the storm… a place to create, to define, to highlight who you really are-in your own space. Welcome to mine…
I always lived with others, my family, my husband, friends… I expressed my own style in little flourishes, here and there. Once I got my own home, that I truly own, and no one else shares it with me….now I’ve been free to create my own space. Painting anything, be it wall, floor, furniture or canvas; at any time of day, in any colors, in any style!! There are days I sit here, depressed and immobilized. Then I remember to look around and be so, so grateful…
There are ideas percolating just beneath the surface of my consciousness. They are not fully fleshed out but the juices are flowing and I feel “on the verge” of a breakout work. What is a ‘breakout work’ you ask? Well, I’m asking too, and I believe there is a new direction coming.
ideas under construction…
I have been cleaning and gardening and remodeling while the first flickers have steadily growing in size, ready to flame up when the fully formed idea strikes. So I’m just stoking the fire now, setting my mind free to dream in big color…
my garden calls me , more and more…and I’ve been gathering beloved and beautiful finds and setting them behind the house while this “thing” fleshes out. And it will.
Out of the Gutter Art 
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