There is something intangible about living in a small space. I do not know if it is cozy or having others in the house closer to you physically has an impact on your thinking or not but it seems to.
It just feels different.
It is like when you go into a restaurant and get a booth to sit in. Just because you are in a booth and not at an open table you feel sequestered away in your own space.
It is like being on an island.
That is what my little house feels like. At 600 feel it seems way way big enough.
That is for two of us. I have not had a big dinner party yet in the small space but plan to.
The bad thing about it is it is hard to leave. Friends that have come over tend to stay a lot longer than they did at the big house.
I plan on inviting a family of 7 over to eat. we will have to use two tables to get 9 bodies in here but that will be fun too.
My studio is warm and small and it is easy to spend all day working in there too.
I do watch Downton Abby and the rooms are so lovely and gracious and it does look like a wonderful place to visit but I would not want to live there.
My enviroment
We moved back to our small house on January first. So we went from a three thousand foot space to a 600 foot space. It is very fortunate for me that we build an art studio before we left last time so I would always have a place to work.
My studio is a wooping 200 square feet. The funny thing is it has affected my work in a way that is huge. It is quiet and light and bright and a calm space to be. The first 7 paintings to get born there are very different from my last show.
Naturally I started out with a clear idea of what the show would look like and then two paintings in everything was telling me to go another direction so I just went with it.
I feel kind of joyous so this is spilling into my work. Last year I was pretty moddy and sullen which is totally apparent in the work.
being a touchy feely kind of person it probably is a good idea to not be in distress when I am painting.
Anyway I love the show and I have a feeling others will too.
white girls
A friend of mine asked me why I don’t do black girls too. I think I should say here that I only paint faces that are saying what I need them to say. My girls are not portraits of someone or some specific race but just feminine in general. I do simple lines and what I need to say in in those lines. It is just what my voice is and so I do not want anyone to take it as some kind of declaration of who I think is paintable. I only paint what speaks to me so that way I am not trying to please some imaginary audience.
My lastest show is a little differant from the last in that it is more focused on the background than just leaving it negative space. the background is speaking to me right now and I have to listen so in this one show now that is how it is different. I am enjoying looking at this new perspective with the woman in the painting being secondary.
Plus I moved to a new studio that feels so enveloping that it is necessary to focus on everything surrounding me. Before I was pretty focused on one thing.
so white girls green girls red girls,, that is not the point right now. It is the ambiance I am going for / You have to walk into these paintings .
The genius of simplicity
I have been pondering the genius needed to reduce something, anything down to the most important elements.
In art and relationships and every aspect of life it is the reduction that makes communication possiible.
To communicate is our main function on earth.
And to communicate in a simple pure clean way is a gift.
things do not have to be complicated.
Learning how to reduce the noise of what you are looking at or being with and see the essential is really quite mind blowing.
Confusion and stress and convoluted discussions all lead to zero communicating.
This very morning I had a revelation about this through looking at an illustration. A japanese artist did this work and her name is Sato Kanae.
That is when it occured to me that noise is my biggest problem.
So in a flash the connection between all the ideas I have been having about painting sort of congealed into this one thought. It is a gift to be simple.
Go Be Fabulous
How does a person become fabulous? It has nothing to do with innate skill, or fame or money or anything like that. Being Fabulous is this.
Fabulous people are generous with their lives. They give whatever they have. They share.
Fabulous people dress in a way that gives joy to everyone who see them. You do not have to be a millionaire to do this you just have to be creative. A fabulous person might wear a hat just to be jaunty.
That makes everyone who sees them smile and that is a gift.
A fabulous person wears lots of jewelry. You don’t even have to be young and beautiful . You can be an old lady but you should always wear lots of jewelry so that anyone who looks at you will get a little sparkle in their eye.
If you are a fabulous man wear a vest or cufflinks or a scarf or a hat or something clever. Everybody loves that and it adds an air of importance to you just being alilve.
A fabulous person is not lazy
A fabulous person joins committees and h as lots of ideas and does them
A fabulous person does not get offended for any slight.
A fabulous person lets that go well, because they are so fabulous.
A fabulous person walks into a room full of people and looks for someone who needs some fabulous attention and gives it to them. A fabulous person does not care just about how comfortable they are but tries to make others comfortable.
When a fabulous peson falls down or has some other difficulity in their life well they look at said obstacle in the eye and says” Well then how can we be fabulous here?”
I know fabulous people and I have seen them be fabulous in all circumstances.
they know that being fabulous is a powerful and wonderful thing.
So I say to you dear reader. Go forth and be fabulous!