Sharika Roland

Now it has been a month since boarding the plane home.
The red eye we caught was full of people leaving Paradise.
I was imagining what they were feeling sitting in the waiting room to take them to their other lives. the lives that happened before.
My brother was texting me advice to not get on the plane. He said just run away from the plane that takes you away from the beautiful.
He was right.
Everyone at the gate was sitting there with this dazed look on their face. It was as though they had just come from the beach 10 seconds before finding their bodies suddenly sitting in an airport gate. . They had sand in their hair. Everyone was brown and rosy and full of the sun. and the moon. and the stars.

Now I am painting a show to bring all that experience to people that might not have been or who are waiting patiently to go back.
The warm breeze filled with flower ripe mangosteens and salty sun takes your mind to another space.
How do I convey that. on canvas with ink that has been my friend for a long time.
I need the ink to flow under and around the warm air. I want to feel it again.

So the show is Thursday and I am all ready. I usually get all nervous about it and even get sick to my stomach.

You would think that after 13 years of doing a show I would be a pro but I guess I not. What is it that is nerve racking about the actual show ??

It is not what you would think. I hope a make a lot of sales and what if nobody buys any. NO that is not it.

and it is not that I am shy. Lord knows that is not the case.

Its the small talk. Just once i wish someone would come up to me and say. “Your work speaks to me.” that is the best thing to hear. That is why I am doing it. And if someone is drawn to it I want to hear why. That is infinitely interesting to me. Sometimes it is hard to talk about why you are drawn to something because sometimes you don’t know. I would like to hear” I love how the paintings leaves room for me to fill in my own story, or I miss the image when I look away. ” something real. That would make me love openings because I am really interested in you and would love to know you too. Art is all about communication and it is not just one person talking. It is not about me it is about me and you. And I bet you that every artist in the universe is thinking the same thing.

You can get clarity all at once without even trying. It will just occur to you when you are not even thinking about anything in particular.

they say the four steps to figuring out a creative problem are

One . Look at the problem and examine it from all sides

Two. Try wild brainstorming ideas as possible solutions. Nothing is too weird.

Three. do something else like paint your house a new color or wash the clothes and fold them and put them away. Clean out dust bunnies from under your bed. Do something that is nice and linear.

Four. Look at the problem again and the solution should come to you 99 percent of the time.

If it does not then do step one two and three again. Your brain will figure it out for you. all the paths created in your brain will fire up and voila solution!

My husband and I have a  couple of houses. We one is a duplex so it has two places to live in. It has been our habit to move into each of the places multiple times. Which makes us look crazy to everyone else.

But we have something that we accomplish every time. This last move a year ago we moved back into the cottage and fixed it up and make it ultra darling for us.

That was good because we never would have painted it pink for a rental. But now we are renting that and going  back to the big house. It took two seconds to rent the pink house and the reason they liked it so much was its color. How many rentals are pink. zero.

But now we are moving back to the big house. I am going to use the 1000 foot basement as a big studio. I have going to spread out the paintings and make even bigger ones.

PLus I am going to paint the walls french blue instead of ochre . A nice warm blue with gold. all the furniture there is ochre and it will look nice with the blue. That is all I  know now. The house will tell me what else it wants when I get there. I do love redecorating .