Category: Creativity

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.

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.