When I lived in San Francisco, I met a woman who had just come for a two week visit.
She was from New York and wanted to check out S.F. I never saw anyone go to town on learning all she could about a place in just two week. It was like a job. She worked at it and the result was she knew more about it than me in two weeks than I knew in Ten years.
There are two ways to live somewhere. One way is to just make yourself comfortable and do what is easy and the other is to get involved with people who live there and find out what you can do to be a part of what is going on.
I would say 90 percent of people just do their own life and that is that.
That is why 10 percent of the people control everything.
Everyone else lets them.
anyplace can be amazingly interesting if you leave your own life and connect the dots. Even little tiny places that seem of offer no attraction can become mind blowing wonders if you know a bunch of people.
Take Soap Lake for example. There is not too much going on in the way of a first glance. But if you know the people who live there a lot is going on. A lot that you can take part in.
A place is not great because of museums and stores and big business. New York can be a cold lonely place in the midst of that.
A place is only a collection of Precious People with incredibly interesting stories to tell.
You only have to leave yourself behind and open your mouth and start asking questions. Here is the best question to ask that my husband asks of almost every person he comes in contact with-“What are you doing?” And he really wants to know. And everyone without exception is glad to tell him.
That is why we love love love love everything single place we live!
When you are on a roll
Sometimes things go so great that you think– what is going on? why is everything so easy.
It is like you don’t want to say anything because you might make it stop somehow.
Sometimes things go the other way but when they are going a good way and the sun is shining on your back and the love is in your life then well then it is pretty great.
Rejoice and get a lot of work done. Who knows how long the window will be open and when it is you better take full advantage of it.
Two things can happen. you can sit back and enjoy the ride , which is what most people do or you can strike out and grow into more than you were before.
Blessings are not doled out for no reason. They are tools to plow the field with not tools to lay around for.
Almost nobody thinks about this till the blessing is passed and now we are in work mode again. Then we look back and say”I had so much opportunity just a few minutes ago and now I lost it.
Youth is like this. Money is like this. God is like this.
Good Lord Child = Don’t miss what is maybe right in front of you. Now!
art for everyone
People sometimes don’t think art is for them. They will put pictures of the family on the wall and other things but not art from a gallery.
I am so sad if that happens as it is a great experience to go pick out art from a gallery and put it up. Nowdays galleries have all kinds of payment programs that make it possible for everyone to have a piece or two.
Let me tell you what happens when you pick out a special piece. You get in touch with what your style is and that believe it or not will affect a lot of other aspects of your life. First of all you will begin to see that style all over( just like when you get a new car) You will identify with that as your style and own it. What I mean by that is you will subconsciously absorb it into what else you like. Then it will change your brain to seek out patterns that you relate to the first one. You will grow in your capacity to see better. Art has the power to make you think about things that you may have forgotten.
I think it would be a great idea to have an art lending library so anyone could at least have some for a time and get what they can out of it.
Some things are too good to keep just for a few people.
Babies
I completed the first baby painting I ever did yesterday. I was not sure how I was going to pull off baby in a modern style with a touch of whimsy. Painting Elizabeth was enthralling. I was studying her babyness and thinking of what kind of woman she would become and all the things she might do in the future, but mostly her life right now is baby and that time goes by so fast and is so sweet.
In just a few months she will lose that baby love chubbiness and grow into a girl but here it is right now in all its glory.
She is doing her job completely.
The Face you love
This new thing of doing portraits of specific people is have an affect on me. The response has been shocking. So many people want a refection of the face they love.
this is no small task. As I don’t personally know them I have to rely on photographs. A lot of photographs so I can get a total sense of what the person is like. Photographs are good at capturing the seconds that make the minutes and hours that that person has lived more seeable. I am looking for what their spark looks like and then I can paint them.
I have to study the photographs first for a while.
People have so much inside them that is perceptible on the outside if you look hard enough.
When I do the girl paintings I just look at the total body but this is way different.
You have to see the inside or the outside will be meaningless.
that is how amazing it is doing these.