Category: Reflections

Ephrata

Having lived all my life in cities, it is very life changing to move to the high desert , That’s what they call it here”High Desert”. It is like living in a dream scape . Ive tried to see to the end of the sky but there is more beyond what my eyes can absorb. But I can feel it go further. And I will tell you something else., my body is becoming part of the land. I can feel the grass blowing and the cows munching , The trees seem like a part of my arms scooping up the sky. So what that does to my mind is expanding to say the least.

A few years ago I read a book called “Dakota” It was about a New York City author moving to South Dakota the effect it had on her. It was like that book was calling to me and I loved it so much that every word was scrumptious. Now I am living it.

I haven’t painted since March when the lockdown started . I couldn’t. Now I have a huge studio and its just waiting.

This is necessary for me right now but hopefully I wont do a Harper Lee and never write again.

My husband and I found out there is a drink that is so incredibly delicious

that every single sip is like leaving earth and going into the celestial land

It just a London Fog but we use vanilla silk creamer instead of milk

And then it is a Foggy Dew

Grandchildren are like that

You can’t believe you get them

So spending anytime with them is like the biggest treat you ever received

Each delicious drop of their face is so beautiful that you can never get enough of

just looking at them.

Every word they say is beyond darling and precious

Because you know you only get one cup of them before you have to give them back.

I was rereading my artist statement after one day. Is it still true. Yes. I think I don’t know the outcome of my work but it is also another thing.

Art therapy is happens without you even knowing it. Everything in your experience comes out and will manifest one way or another. This gives everyone their own style .

I paint what I need to paint to deal with my thoughts. The result is different for every viewer according to their experience of course too. So maybe a certain look will either attract you or totally put you off depending on your immediate experience. So it is art therapy for both artist and viewer. It is healing for both.

I like to think my work can heal you. What else is art for if not that, I look at old paintings and think of what was happening to me then and how things turned out. Do they weather the storm with you too and do you find new things as your life changes.

Art is sort of a living thing that grows with you.

I have an orchid that blooms so much it is ridiculous. It blooms and is spectacular and the blossoms last for a couple of months which in itself is pretty fabulous. It quietly slips off those blossoms and bursts forth another outfit in a new arrangement of snow light. Doesn’t the orchid need a sleep stage like every other plant. Isn’t it tired after all that work?

Do I blossom like that?? I seem to need a few months in between working on work to just sleep and do nothing. Like this blog, sometimes I go a couple months before I write.

Its time to wake up now with a show on the horizon and not rest on my laurels. . Last night I got the entire show delivered to me in a dream so I am just going to go do it. This is the first dream show so you and I both will see how it unfolds.

What do I want to say? facts… too boring and totally not important here. You want to know the spirit and the secret place all this paint flew from. You want to know an invisible thing put into words. These words will have to do , but think of them as portals to a new place. The truth is the feelings don’t come out till after the painting is done. While I am doing it I have no feeling that I can say. So I don’t start with a feeling.

the only exception is the grief paintings when my Dad died but usually there is no feeling. there also is no idea.

I enter the painting process the same way you do. Discover it as it goes. I just take all the paint out that makes me sick and leave the rest. When it is done I know its done and no more can be done or it will be ruined. Thats when I stop. Art is knowing when to stop.

The images I do are not anything about women or tables or chairs or anything that you look at. I really can’t draw to save my life and that in itself makes my art the way it is.

My subjects though on the whole , are only the mannequin from which the real art hangs.