This Blogger has had the blahs!

I'm realizing that if I keep waiting for the perfect time to blog (when I feel good, when I have news, when I've finished a painting, when the house is quiet, etc), I won't blog.  So now I have to catch up on what's been goin' on!

Both of my paintings were jurored in to the South Carolina State Fair.  Yea Rah!!  Dear Husband and I attended the premier reception and I was blown away by both the amateur (me) and professional art, especially the watercolor paintings, which, even in the amateur division, were terrific.  

To top off my experience, I received an email the other day from a fair attendee who liked my painting of the copper pot and lemons, googled my name and tracked me down requesting a commission of a similar painting.  We chatted for over 45 minutes on the phone.  It was wonderful to have been sought out like that.  I'll find out if anyone else had an interest in my fall scene or not when I pick up the paintings on Monday.  

The painting I started on Painting For Peace Day is finished, approved and mailed off.  With any luck it will arrive today in time for it to be presented as a gift.  Then I can share it.  It was quite a challenge, but then, it seems everything I do is a challenge.  I'm beginning to understaynd that's the way it works.  Every subject matter is different and, because water never flows the same way and, when mixing colors, they never look or work the same way twice, the challenge is to constantly adjust to what happens, learn to work with it and try to make it both meaningful and beautiful. 

Tuesday a week ago I attended my wonderful Gentle Yoga Class at City Yoga.  Our instructor had us turn on our mats to face the wall and I realized my painting of the building had been framed and hung on the wall.  

After class it was an opportune time to let the other yoga devotees know that I have prints available. Happily a couple who is moving from the Columbia area jumped at the chance to purchase something to remind them of one of their favorite places in the city.  

Tuesday night I camed down with the doozy of all colds - head and chest and fever.  UGH!  Fortunately I could just go to bed with it and let Dear Husband tend to me, the dogs and the house.  He made me a big pot of his chili and I must admit that, besides being a work of art, it's right up there with chicken soup when it comes to dealing with a cold.  Not wanting to spread my germs I didn't join my Wednesday group but did start another commission.  Yesterday I finished that panting and today it was approved of and complimeted so I'm happy.  Waiting for a commission to be approved of and liked is like being back in high school and waiting by the phone for a boy to call ... except at least I can leave the house now thanks to cell phones and email.  I think it's safe to share this painting because, although it's a surprise gift, I doubt that the receiver follows this blog. 

Painting a commission from a photo you don't take yourself can sometimes require a lot of communication with the photographer in order to paint something that is also artistic / painterly.  In this case I needed to bring light into the painting, especially on the front porch, which was very dark in the photo but also where so much sweetness was due to the rockers and wreath.  I added some yellow and fall colors to the trees in the background to bring in some warmth.  I also up rooted the tree on the right and transplanted it over about 3" so it wouldn't block the smaller tree.  I'm learnig that I can make the sun shine where I want it to when I paint!

I'll close with a quote I read this morning when I was pondering what I'd be painting if I didn't have another commission to do first.  (sorry for the small type - it's a cut and paste).  I think I'd like to try some abstract painting!

Artists who work in a representational style can benefit from a set-of-abstracts experiment. Whether you're hostile to the idea of abandoning reality or have long craved the idea of flying without a net, building a series using only aesthetic intuition will test your design chops and could have a positive influence on your more conventional compositions. "When you see a fish you don't think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water. If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirit." (Constantin Brancusi)

Vincent

This was so beautiful to read this morning that I wanted share it with you. 

“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. People are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in I don’t know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage.  Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.

If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.

What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum… Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it. I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.

That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such — be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, there is something mysterious in that. Now call that God, or human nature or whatever you like, but there is something which I cannot define systematically, though it is very much alive and very real, and see, that is God, or as good as God.

To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one… When I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”

~Vincent van Gogh ~

Painting for Peace Today

Today is a day for unity around the world.  People will be uniting in prayer, in marches, in silent gatherings, in planning .... and, hopefully, we artists in some mindful painting ... individuals with common goals for the good of mankind and the environment of which we are all a part.  I personally will be saying frequently, "let it begin with me," because my mind has beein increasingly restless with fearful and negative thoughts,  and, all too often, my heart has been taking on grief that is not mine to bare.  If my wish is for a more peaceful world, my part in bringing that about is to let it begin with me.  

I started a commissioned painting yesterday and will continue work on that.  It's of a very sweet subject matter but challenging for me as, while the focus is on just one couple, there are many other people in the background.  It's symbolic of today as all the subjects are gathered in celebration and love.  

Another Painting Finished

Am hoping this one is good enough to be considered for acceptance into the State Fair.  It's the first one I've painted freehand as I've gone along, although it was inspired by part of a photo.  I'm pleased with a number of things I did, but also unsatisfied with other things.  Don't know if there's time for me to get another one painted.  Tuesday is the last day we can submit paintings. 

Well, what do you think? I had a difficult time getting a really good photo of it  I think it's better in person.   It needs a title to.  Suggestions?  

The Latest Recital Poster

Procrastination and incubation

I read another artist's blog this morning and she had me laughing out loud. She's working so hard on trying to understand and end a habit of procrastinating when it comes to painting which is now her occupation and source of income.  Her observations as she works through all this sound so familiar and ring so true. I woke this morning intending to paint up a storm but have yet to lift a brush. On the other hand I've gotten side tracked over and over, starting projects and letting each one distract me further as I discovered something else that needed tending to as I worked.  Fortunately I'm not trying to earn my living with my paintings.  I'm retired and can mostly pick and choose what I want to do each day.  I also have an understanding husband who usually does the grocery shopping in addition to most of the cooking, so I'm only under self imposed pressure and or disappointment when I don't make time for the thing that really makes me happy, painting.  

Updating my blog may be the closest I come to working with my art today, but I am determined to share my last two paintings.  I've already shared them on my Facebook page.  As I searched for a title for this posting it dawned on me that much of the time I'm procrastinating I actually have ideas about paintings underway, or paintings I want to do, that are incubating.  I may be thinking about colors or compositon or lighting while I'm occupied with something else.  I also spend a lot of fun time on the internet educating myself about techniques and different styles of painting.   It all goes into the incubation folder in my brain.  I bet my very talented artist friend has something similar going on while she's procrastinating or tending to things that need doing, as I prefer to call it.   

Boardwalk Morning and The Sleepers were both inspired by photographs shared on the website Paint My Photo, where photographers upload their photographic art with the idea of allowing artists to paint it.  The only request is that the artists post their paintings there and credit the photographer.  It's a wonderful website for artists who don't have the opportunity to travel about and take pictures and there are no copyright issues to worry about.  As far as I'm concerned, the 2 pictures I chose for inspiration begged for me to paint them as soon as I saw them.  The boardwalk scene gave me an opportunity to imagine a beautiful sky and work with shadows on the beach.  I loved the humor of the sleeping tourists.  I exchanged messages with the photographer and was told she took the picture in Florence Italy, and I recalled feeling similarly sleepy and exhausted when we visted Florence in May of '98. I wanted to work with different colors than the photo showed so light would lead your eye to the white blouse and think I accomplished that.  Some of those ideas in incubation are taking hold.

First Thursdays On Main / Onomatopoetic - Art Inspiring Art: Music Made Visible

Oh the excitement of our very first First Thursdays On Main in downtown Columbia SC.  Finding a parking place wasn't easy so Johnny let me off at CertusBank where there was music being performed outside and an artist painting.  The lobby area is wonderful with windows all across the front and a HUGE media screen about 8' x 14' that's visible from the outside.  They had beautiful pictures of each of our paintings running on a slide show.  Let me tell you, it's mind blowing to stand there with something you've painted giant size behind you.  There was a lovely spread of finger foods and wine - couldn't have been nicer.

And the art!!  35 in total on display.  We'd been asked to provide any stories related to our work or what our thoughts were as we painted.  This was what I shared: Here are the thoughts I wrote down as I listened to In Dulcet Tones: melodic arpeggios; energy; a jouney; something enters and agitates; quiet comes but questions remain; richness as questions are examined; answers presented in brief aria; playful agitation; pushing; melodrama followed by maturity; resolution followed by fluttering release.  

As we waited for the announcements of the awards I spoke with Dr. Jesse Jones, the composer, telling him how much I enjoyed participating in this event and painting to his music.  He asked me to take him to my painting, which I did.  We then proceeded to have a terrific conversation with Jesse telling me how much he loved what I'd done and asking me if I'd had ice in mind when I painted the background and why her eyes were downcast rather than looking up. I wish I could remember all he had to say because it was really wonderful to hear that he had been so deeply engaged with what I'd done.

There are so many pictures of the paintings up on Facebook, but of course you need to join the site to see them.  I'll include 3 of my favorite ones.  Dr. Jones handed out 9 awards in equal value at this time - all red ribbons.  My name was the 6th one called!!

  Giant art 

I couldn't be more thrilled!!