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Why Roots Matter at All

Roots are the place you will make art  from. Even if you hate your background because it was hard, It IS the place you will paint from. Trying to run away from it or deny it will only make it worse. Embracing it will make it powerful.

“Embracing your dragons,” some have called it. I loathed my background when I was a young adult because it was so unsophisticated and normal and boring.

What a laugh that I had all this goodness poured out and I twisted it. Big Cities were more IMPORTANT than small towns in my book.

I could not see how you could ever be an artist or a poet in a town like mine.

Of course you never appreciate your roots when you are young. You have to have a perspective from down the road a bit.

Every kind of beginning can be used for something wonderful , but only if you embrace it and draw the gifts it has to offer. People who have survived hardship are stronger than me , That is a gift. Strength is a gift.

My gift was transparency and intuition . I got transparency from a safe and sound upbringing.   But I did not know it at the time.

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Roots

Did you ever wonder about where you came from. You could have been born anywhere but you were born to whom you were born to and grew up where you did for a reason. Those are your people. They formed you like it or not. I was pondering this after watching a documentary film on the people from  the Appalachian mountains.

They endured some really severe trials but had grit. You don’t get grit unless you endure something. Grit is good to have . Its better to have it than not.

So we have parents and a place that forms us specifically into who we will be. Run away all you want but you still will be from where you were born. I think it becomes something of a fingerprint.

We are infinitely lucky to have this fingerprint and I will tell you why  next blog.

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The greatest feeling in the world

I love to go into my studio to work. My little studio is just right for me. It has all the things I like to look at to feel good about working. Great light, a garden of roses to look at when gazing out the windows. A kitty or two to play with. Paints all lined up gleaming in the sun. brushes, canvases, Alexa, my lemon  tree, tea pot boiling, books and mags for color ideas, pens and pencils for writing. My chair that wheels all around. my sink, my tables. by boho thinking space that can be a sleeping place too. A fireplace , Yeah I have it pretty great as far a studios go. It was built just for me. from scratch. We put a drain in the floor so I could hose paintings off if I wanted to. I should talk about my technique some day.

We built it close to the house for easy walk to work.

I really am lucky to have all this glory. When it is going well in there and something is getting born that is past what I can do, then it becomes a chapel. Getting to that place is every artists goal. Artists make beauty  that can sooth the soul of somebody. that is quite an honor.

The sweet things of life are a place to call your own. no matter how small. it helps you get into alignment.

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The beautiful

I miss the beautiful. The Catholic church knows how to do beautiful . Protestants, not so much. Catholics are great at pomp and ceremony and incense,, The Protestants  seem to like no decoration .

This goes counter to my own taste . It seems to me that making the church beautiful is part of worship. We get dressed up for church.

And I wanted an art church to go to 10  minutes after I was converted. I will mention how that all went down in a later blog.

I think artists need to do some kind of sacred artwork to give back to the one who made them that way. Where do the ideas come from??  I sometimes look at a painting after its done and am pretty surprised  that I painted it, shocked even.

Once I got to do a mural for behind the alter. That was intimidating but also thrilling at the same time. Why they entrusted me with that job, who knows, but the elders and pastor did. I came up with a plan and they all approved it. But in the middle of execution of said plan, the Holy Spirit sort of took over and I ended up with a radically different painting. They paid me in advance and here I show up with a different thing. However I told them what happened and they all agreed it was better than the original idea. I wish I had a picture of that big old thing, but I don’t.

Lesson for the future. Always document your work because you never know when you will need it.

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Joy

This blog is not linear . It will go all over the place because that is how life is.

When I was a new Christian, I found a woman who became my mentor. I  met her from another friend but anyway she appeared in my life and we did become friends. She was the  maid of honor at my wedding.

I would call her and we would take for hours on the phone and she totally helped me navigate what was what. It was great that she bothered with me. I remember once she told me she had prayed for me when she just heard about me. She said she felt impressed to do this.

I think about this now 30 some years after that happened. I don’t know what I would have done without her. You cannot be alone and just float  through this. you need someone to come along side of you.

She was like an angel. Who knows, maybe anything I do now that is good is because she came into my life.

 

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