Sharika Roland

I used to read Gertrude Stein Books. I love how written is written. She must have been the original stream of consciousness writer. The title of this blog is from one of her books.

I love how she mixes up the words and repeats them and doesn’t make sense sometimes in the literal understanding but her writing spoke to me on another level. She was a painter brain who used words to paint with.

What we respond to in this life is the only way we know what to do with out our time. A dentist is a dentist because he loves teeth and little tiny movements. A writer loves to look at words and make them grow into stories, A builder loves to watch skylines evolve.

We all respond to something and it feels good and we pick it and it becomes our life and our identity and our destiny forever,

Everybody picks something.

We pick  something then we give it away to anyone who will take it. We need someone to take it, see it , read  it buy it need it. We need someone to need us to be alive.

 

I think when you know what you have is not about keeping but about giving it makes it easier to  pick the right thing,

Sometimes it is easy to get frustrated with the quality of work you are doing and feel like you have done this same painting too many times and your begin to not see it anymore. Numbness sets in and you cannot hear what to do next.

That is a perfect time to do something completely different to wake up your brain and relax it at the same time,

When you depend on a constant source of ideas to keep streaming because that is your job in life, and those ideas seem to choke… you have to have a plan, a habit. a go to place where you can get going again. Freaking out and getting depressed and afraid that you have lost your mojo is a normal reaction. Even when you know this fact, I think you can still slip into the panic stage . It is sort of like a car wreck. It catches you by surprise and you are dazed for a little while.

So that was happening to me this month. This is the pattern. First the chocking, then the self talk about what a scary thing it is to choke then the self talk about why are you even calling yourself an artist then the depression then the withdrawal and more depression then the deep sadness then the anger then the more freaking out then the starving then the panic. Oh it goes on but you get the idea.

Even though I know all these tricks to keep going there was one missing element. i needed someone to remind me that I have been here before.

That is why creativity groups are invaluable . They can keep you from drowning.

I went to visit an artist friend of mine yesterday. She closed her store and had some inventory of children’s clothes that she was going to  send off to a tag sale person and she wanted to trade  some clothes for a painting.

Entering her studio, it felt so sad. She had worked so hard and spent so much time on this dream of making wonderful designer natural clothes for children available. In a world of mostly polyester clothes these cotton, silk and natural fabric clothes were an oasis. Her store was beautiful with carefully picked out colors for the display pieces and the website she had created was magical. But alas she could not make it work so that it made sense to stay open.

Our town lost something special when she closed.

She is not dwelling not this and has a new plan already underway and that is how artists are. they move one.

But it got me thinking about paintings I have painted over when they did not sell right away.

Just because someone else does not see the beauty in them, does that make them less important.

Only she could have made that store. It looked was her style which was unique and charming. Now nobody will see it or experience it.

It is the same for the paintings I have let go. I have a photo of them but they are impossible to duplicate . so they are gone forever..

I sort of want to have a little mourning ceremony for the store and for the paintings I painted over. and for all the

art and life that gets stashed away in closets.

When she gave me the bag of clothing that was beautiful and I give her a painting then we will have traded a little bit of ourselves I will remember the wonderful store and have proof that it once was there and maybe she will look at my painting and she will remember our visit and the sharing of our lives, Maybe that can be the ceremony.

My friend Susan Cowan took the shots of Bailey. Without her I got nothing. Without Bailey I got nothing. And nothing is what would be created to reflect Kauai. But I was fortunate to get everything immediately. Everything from finding her in the first place to taking the great shots to her coming with three outfits, to her being a dancer and just flowing with every move, to the rain that stopped pouring down about 30 minutes before she came and then started after she left again. and the sun that came out and shone on her face and the plants that glistened from the rain . And the fact that we were staying in a super luxurious resort with about 10 different locations to shoot from without going anywhere. So everything just happened as though it was meant to be. That is why I stared at the photos for one month, I could not believe it all happened the way it did. Can you believe it.

And something else, I have to support my family on art for six months which my husband goes to school. I needed this to get a whole body of work to make it work. But something tells me it will be ok.

I went to Hawaii to find a new way to depict the Islands. My gallery in Seattle is opening one in Maui and I needed to actually go there to find a muse.

Even though I was at an artworkshop I could not really paint anything but what I came for and I did not know what it would be.

I did not even know where to focus because it might be a color or a line or something I could only sense.

So basically I was walking around looking and breathing in what I saw and looking for it . I had to find it . The thing that would tell me what I would do. I am so grateful that another person at the workshop was not painting and she and I went for a drive to find something.

Well I did find something maybe 20 minutes into looking. A woman was working at an antique store and her face was what I was looking for. She was the feeling that matched Kauai. Lush Beautiful Romantic Dewy and super feminine.

So I asked her 10 seconds after looking at her if I could hire her to pose for me to paint my show.

She said yes and it turned out she was a professional model. Well she also is a dancer so that was a major plus.

Bailey came out to our resort and posed for one hour while my darling National Geographic Photographer Quality photographer dear friend took 1200 shots. Basically everything Bailey did every second she was with us was gorgeous. She moved with such grace that it was pretty exciting.

so I came home and looked at those pictures for one month till I absorbed what  I needed. And here is the first one.

what a gift to have found this unbelievably  beautiful woman where I did.