Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Good Life


Ok, Nasties are over. the sun is shining and life is good. I have been scribbling madly with my Inktense pencils and loving them dearly. I excavated my good art journal with the decent paper in it and began with a sketch of a lovely cranberry tart. I also have a watercolor going of some pistachio cupcakes. do we see a pattern here ? I've lost seven pounds in six weeks, so if I can't eat the darn things, I'll draw them, paint them, eat them with my eyes and devour them with color. It actually works. then I'll have a pretty stack to do the kitchen with !!!!

I do get to feeling sorry for myself and perhaps I had few good reasons, but it's time to get up and do something. I volunteered at the church for a mission to work with the local safe house for abused women. Christmas always depresses me because DH never wants to do anything special. WE do up Hannukah, but ignore my christmas..well, he tried last year, but we wound up eating pizza on Christmas Day. well, this year I'll be serving up a Christmas dinner at the safe house. Also be teaching a few Art classes. so I am off and running again. It would be nice to get some $$$ somewhere along the line and I am sure I will. these dessert paintings should make someone drool.

nonfat desserts.

Ok, I'll photo them over the week-end. I'll need to pick up a few models, too. The fun part will be letting DH eat them when I am done. I guess I'll have to work a little bit faster. Maybe pick them up on thursday and sketch on Thursday night, start painting on Friday and finish up on Saturday. DH gets a fine dessert on Sunday. this could work.
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Friday, October 24, 2008

Temporarily Out of circulation


Ok, I still can't get into the Romance of Autumn everyone else in Blogland is waxing poetic about. I am not disparaging that approach one bit. I wish I could put that cap upon my pointy head. It just doesn't fit.

I sat at the window this morning, quietly sipping my Autumn spice coffee while burning a Yankee Candle Candy corn candle. I am working it, folks. I am working it. Handmade quilt tucked around my feet. I had just changed out all the table dressings last night from flower fairy houses to gilded pumpkins.

Piffle.

It's cold and damp. My DH has pumped up the heat so high my sinuses are blasted far worse than any desert wind ever dared. I either dehydrate or shiver and nothing in between.

Oh, I am whining a good one, am I not.

The painting, then. At one point , I had decided I would never, ever paint flowers because every watercolorist under the sun did flowers thereby creating the very definition of trite.

The problem is, Watercolor is perfect for flowers...and I LOVE flowers. So I batted it around my pointy little head and came up with these taped down beauties. No vase. Flowers in bondage. A bit dark, so I used soft colors. I like it. I want to do more along this line, maybe throw in some gold leaf and collage. Maybe let it get darker still and be what it is. though I am still kind of stuck on these orangey, pinkie reds. Can you see Mums taped down to some crumpled tissue, maybe a bent a twisted tag sadly blowing in the breeze ?Some misty painted daisies, alittle bent, a little bedraggled pasted to some corrugated cardboard.

I just realized where this is coming from. When I was in High School, I was always out of school with some weird thing..anemia for the most part. It still bothers me. My DH finds it tedious. Anyway. I was taking an art class, which I just plain adored. It was an entire hour of blessed heaven. The teacher had to kick me out at the end of each class. We began a still life of daffodills in a bucket and we were working in watercolor, so you know I was one happy camper, but I somehow missed a class and when I got back, the daffodils were pretty much done, very wilted and turning brown. Pretty darn sad looking. Poor things. They looked like I felt. the rest of the class was finishing up their work or starting another project, but I sat down with the dead and dying and painted away. In fact, I came back on my lunch hour and after school. The teacher must have been in a patient mood because she let me. I finished my painting and handed it in.

A few weeks later there was an open house for the parents. Part of the program was an art show. Yeah, the art teacher framed and hung my daffodils. I remember they looked pretty great. I also remember bringing them home and no one wanting to hang them up because they were dead daffodils.

You would think I would have learned something.

Must be the pointy head thing. Stuff tends to just run off.
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Oh Yeah


This is about how I have been feeling recently. I would really like to wax poetic about Autumn leaves and moonlit nights but that just isn't the vibe of late. It's more like this wild jungle goddess with her Eagle familiar ready to do battle and just pulverize anything that gets too darn close.

What's all that about?

I know it has something to do with all of the physical challenges I've been dealing with and fighting my way back from all of that. I know it has an emotional aspect to it, too.

There is a new sign on my desk that says :

"Practice Positive habits Gently"

And I want Jane the Jungle Queen to bat someone upside the head.

Not Gently.

I think I had one too many ego bruises last week. It seems they came pretty regularly from almost every direction. Nothing seemed safe. Nowhere seemed safe. By Friday evening, my husband delivered what to him was probably an innocuous statement and to me was the bombshell to break the wall. It crumbled. Completely. I wanted to crawl under something. I wanted to go into a darkness that would not ever become light. I wanted to deny myself breath. But something else came up out of the tears and pain. The utter futility of life at that moment evolved into an image, a thing separate, yet within me.Not what I expected. She looked a lot like Nikki's goddess. Probably not as round. A lot sharper, a lot meaner. More claws and nasty edges. You wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley. She settled in and just about dared anyone to mess with her. She scared even me. Then I realized she was there to protect me. She tucked me into bed and told me to rest...and I did. Slept pretty darn good. She is now my favorite bedtime story.

She's been hanging around ever since.

Now don't tell me I'm losing it. Obviously Nikki knew who she was. Look at the sculpture. It's the same gal. I'm sure mine has that Eagle thing around somewhere. Maybe this dark One comes to bruised art girls to glue us back together when we get too banged up. Maybe she is a soul shield to keep that part of us safe from those world bruises.

There is a legend thousands of years old of a Black Madonna, always a dark One shielding a small soul. Guarding. Protecting. Fiercely holding off those who would bruise and tear and take down those who try to look up. There were temples built to her, then churches built over her temples because the ground was considered so sacred. Chartres Cathedral is one such site. There is another in Poland. On and on. Think of Kali. Same gal, I think. All those skulls are a real give away.

I need her right now.

I don't know how I got so fragile. I always thought of myself as a sort of tough gal, but I know I need that dark One and her protection.

I hope the Eagle comes, too.
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Nikki and company

Doesn't this guy look like a fine Halloween treat ? He's been sitting in the Missouri Botanical Gardens all summer long. His head is filled with summer blue and has a wonderful bench to sit on and dream fine dreams. You can peek out at the blossoms through his teeth. He has to be the lovliest skull I have ever seen. all that color is fine glass mosaic. there were so many lovely sculptures there this summer. I think they go away next month, but I did get some lovely photos to share and inspire and dream with. I actually liked the Nikki sculptures better than the Chilhuly glass. the glass competed too much with the flowers and I think they got jealous. Nikki's work made the garden feel like a giant playground and I just loved it.
Of course, Chilhuly is a master. don't you love the way the light bounced off this elegant creature ? I can't decide if its a bird or a flower. Maybe both. I love glass and I do love Chilhuly's work. When I lived in Vegas, one of my favorite haunts was the entryway of the Bellagio. He had done the entire ceiling with his flower shapes. I don't know if any of the Vegas denizens ever looked up to enjoy them, but I would throw myself into one of the lounge chairs and just stare happily at all that eye candy. Vegas had a lot of stuff, but not a lot of real art. The Bellagio was the first exception to that. Just beyond that lounge was a wonderful garden room that changed with each season. they flew in Martha Stewart every christmas to do the Christmas tree.

OK, so I am back and hope to post a little more regularly. I have been teaching a fun art class, making jewlery, trying my hand at stenciling with multiple registration stencils and all sorts of fun stuff. My newest promise to self is to attach this little camera to myself and share some of those treats with you. So hang in there !!!!
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