Counted Blessings

You can bend with the wind or try to face it down. The cup is half empty or half full. Lemons or lemonade. It's all about what you choose to create. sometimes it's just about choosing.

I am polishing up my rose colored glasses. There are plenty of blessings in my life right now and I choose to focus on those blessings. Wonderful friends, a healed family relationship, more financial security than most...lots of warm fuzzies. I need to focus on these things and not complain about what could be perceived as lack in other areas. I am so blessed with the ability to paint, create and share those talents with others.

I attended a celebration this morning I had put a great deal of energy into. I was able to share my gifts with a group that was very dear to me and they were so very appreciative. I loved and was loved back. What more could be asked of life ? A gray day glowed with lovely life. A wonderful meal was shared. Gifts of love were shared. More blessings. I need to curl up with a cup of tea and nurse those images in my heart, feed the glow and let it be the Christmas glow it was meant to be.

It is a time of sharing...Yes ?..a time to open up and give. Sometimes that means doing things one doesn't particularly want to do...and do it without whining. That would be the hard part. Adding a surprise dinner to the schedule.....for someone one doesn't particularly like..someone noone particlualry likes. then I realize it is Christmas and so much generosity has come my way..it is..perhaps...my turn...to be generous to someone I do not like. Oh this is the very basis of Christmas....of being Christian..is it not?

So I will count my blessings as I drive home this evening..count the smiles of my dear friends and family...those who are so easy to love...and then I will say yes, any time is fine with me, I will prepare and serve a dinner for someone I do not like at all and I will smile and do my very best...and offer it as a gift.. a Chirstmas gift...as I count my own blessings.

Sanctuario

Right now it looks like a bomb went off, but generally this is what my studio looks like. There is a huge window looking out over a pretty big back yard with lots of trees. I can see some little bit of traffic on the road that runs by the side of the house. The bookcases are overflowing onto the floor right now and I have a funny little rocking chair that sits directly on the ground, This is my nest, my sanctuario. I am making some changes in there. I haven't been happy with the window treatment. I had a kind of three paneled triptych my SIL had made hanging up there, but I I really didn't like it or her, so I took it down. Bad energy. A dear lady gave some wonderful beaded curtains I want to play with in combination with some fairy lights and ribbons. I have contemplated painting the walls, but I really need them to be white so I can "see" colors in my paintings. I also need some sort of collapsible table top so I can have an extra surface to work on when I am doing larger projects.

I found the table on craigslist for $100. Seems a lot of companies that used to use drafting tables now use computers and this kind of thing is a fairly easy find. the fun part was getting it up the stairs and into this room. We had to literally tear it apart and then rebuild it. I should say the guy I bought it from tore it apart and then I had to rebuild it. DH bought me the chair, which is actually pretty as well as comfy. I like to take my second cup of coffee up here and sit and watch the sun come up and dream my dreams. DH bought the oriental rug, too. At first I thought it was a really bad idea to have a rug like that in a painting studio, but it gives a certain warmth to the room and really doesn't show the mess as much as you would think.

My holiday gift making is coming along quite nicely. I have been spending quite a lot of time in this room, gluing, cutting, folding, creating and enjoying the process. It is a very different experience than running to the mall and buying stuff. Much quieter. I pour a glass of wine, put on my apron and begin. This week-end I should be finishing, though there always seems to be a few more things I could put together. I cleared much of the makings away last night and rediscovered a sheet of watercolor paper with a waiting sketch, a primed canvas with a post it telling me what it wanted to be and a stack of thrifted canvases waiting for something to happen. Hmmm. My Christmassing will happen mostly on the 17th and the 21st. The Actual Christmas Eve service will be just that. no dinner, no gifts. Not much happening at all, which may be a better thing than I expect. It may be a gift of quiet time. Sanctuario. Contemplation. All of that has it's own magic.

This week-end is also a respite of sorts. Dh will be off hunting with his friends. I will have time and quiet. Funny how valuable that becomes. I was reading another blog where the writer contended that after a certain age we dreamed many dreams but seldom manifested much. She posited many reasons for that, focusing on a lack of energy as the main cause. I would say not a lack but a defusion of energies. Refocusing seems to be the main trick at this point in life. Constant refocusing, which means quite time and time to breath. This afternoon I will go off to lake and do my walk through the bird sanctuary..so nice that they share theirs with me. Then some grocery shopping for things to bake treats with. No, I won;t be eating them, they will go off to be sold at my church fundraiser. Then the evening will be spent in this quiet room , finishing a hand bound journal for our minister and maybe the pixie face in a rosebud that is sketched out on that watercolor paper.

Pointsettia !!!!

I signed up for a mystery holiday tour with a tour guide who has gained some reknown for excellent local tours. As I am still a stranger in a very strange land, I grab onto these things every once in awhile. This one started out with a fairyland of reds and pinks. MILES of reds and pinks. It was amazing. Every variation you could imagine and then some.

Some looked as if they had been splashed with enthusaiastic splatters of paint, some were artistically edged in contrasting colors. You could certainly play interior or exterior designer to your hearts content. My own heart was won by a tiny red lovely with whirled and and deeply folded hearts called "winter rose" that did look more like a rose than a pointsettia. The tale was told that these were Southern transplants from faraway Mexico. I remembered seeing them growing outdoors in huge bushes in South Texas and thinking how wonderful they were. Last winter I received a few as gifts and thought how sad they looked trapped in pots. Like me.

They appeared pretty darn impressive in the green houses. RED just seemed to go on forever. RED seemed to fill your eyes and heart. One of my most favorite scenes in a play was in a production I saw in Santa Fe in a play about my beloved Georgia O'Keefe. In the scene, she is hacking away at a huge canvas in her studio, working the paint. REALLY working it. Steiglitz comes in. She steps back and he wanders in front of the canvas. she collapses into a chair, wiping her hands on a rag. She looks at him, looking at her painting. He is silent. Finally she asks him what he thinks. He says "Well. it is very RED. Why is it so RED?". She stares at him like he just arrives from Mars, shakes her head, straightens her spine and head and answers (you know I LOVE this) " It is RED because I was feeling RED"Of course he looks astounded. She hardly painted at all when she was at his upstate NY home, she had to escape to New Mexico. I UNDERSTAND !!!!!!!!!!

So I escape when I can and paint when I can and these babies are calling for cadmium red, alizarin crimson and all the quinacridone colors on my palette. Bouncing all those reds off some yellow greens and deep rich blue greens. Ahh, good enough to eat. Well ,it will keep me from eating. Look at those creamy white ones. Yummmmm

Wild Woman with a brush

People always ask what I paint. I paint what I like. The day I painted these wonderful juicy trees, some dear friends invited me a sailing on there dream boat. It was a magically luminous day that glowed autumn colors. My camera clicked away. when I got home, I printed out the photos and arrnaged them across my work table. Then I squeezed out some paint and began to play. No, not one of those photos had an orange sky or turquoise trees, but my heart did and so the paper did. I gave the painting to my friends as slightly over sized thank you card. They seemed to like it. I want to paint another one like it and keep it for myself, I think.

Now this one is different, n'est pas ? I do enjoy still life..very much like landscapes, but tiny, tiny, tiny. I built this one on my work table. My husband wonders where things disappear to. the letters are part of a sign that says "Imagine". The bird is part of a collection of toys birds that live in my studio. the very lovely teacup I inherited from my Mother in Law. She collected them and the collection was divided between the siblings and this is one of the very lovliest of teacups. I have sketched and scribbled nearly all of them and now I am working on doing all of them in watercolor. some are becoming very abstract. This one remained very well behaved. I think the birdie kept everyone in line and well arranged.. I love the shadows in this one. Shadows are my new friends in still lifes. You can really dump a lot of color and composition in shadows. The gold trim was fun to do. I loved looking at gold things in Rennaisance paintings. they made things really look so golden without using any real gold. It's all about high and low lights.

From the detailed to the simple. In this one I wanted it to be all about what I left out. How simple could I be and still say all I needed to say. The little figure was pretty simple to begin with, but the shell was pretty complex. Colors needed to be simple. shapes needed to be simple. Light, simple. I studied Oriental painting in NYC for years. I loved Japanese scrolls, Sumi-e, the utter elegance of black ink painting. I literally scraped pennies together to pay for my lessons. I still love the elegance of those compostions. I can sit for hours in the scroll rooms at an art museum just soaking it in. I really like the concept of simple living and at times have aimed for it, but my love of books and art making and cooking and... and..... and....well, all that seems to come with stuff. The very nice thing about art is that on that wonderful pure sheet of paper you can create whatever world you want..a simple elegant haiku, a jazzy colorful song or a shadowed elegance. It is one of the many things I love. Lewis Carroll Knew well that Alice could find so many worlds down her rabbit hole. My rabbit hole has paint and paper and brushes and says "paint me".

Start here

Imagine. I love this sign. It is where I begin. Imagine what you want to happen then go for it. This is the place it happens. Right now it is a happy mess of paper, glue, sparkles and paint as Christmas gifties emerge from the stacks of pretty stuff. The gifts for my Sacred Space group will be the first things out of the gate as the party will be the third Wednesday of December. There is a very informal gift exchange and all gifts must be handmade. They range from bookmarks to wonderful boxes filled with the treasures of the Littlest Angel. Last year I was the newbie and came with no gifts. This year there will be journals crafted from dollar store composition books and the very best of my paper stash. I am having great fun making each more magical than the last. what fun.

My holidays are slowly evolving. Thanksgiving to be spent with my in-laws..unremarkable except for my own plans for some small kitchen renovations and Decorating. There will be a one day Christmas journey..a mystery tour I signed up with that promises some wonder. A Christmas feast for women in a safe house complete with gifts. Of course, the midnight mass with lit candles and familiar songs. I am toying with the idea of a Christmas coffee..nothing huge. Just coffee, cookies, sweet nibbles and Christmas tunes, a nice warm blaze in the fireplace. Invite all those folks that are friends as well as family. Ok, maybe a hot toddy and mulled wine.

Maybe I'll just hibernate with a good book, make a pizza and paint a Christmas cookie or three.

Down another two pounds this week. Up a drawing of a gingerbread man that found its way to friend's hospital room. she's still giggling over the fact that as I grow smaller, the pile of sweet drawings grows bigger.

Warm places

My own starry night to weave dream around and into. A lovely escape from all the gray cold already creeping into my cubbies and hiding places. A glance at the weather says snow flurries this week end. Oh did I really go sailing just two short weeks ago ? Can I sail away now into this starry starry night. Just a short escape from flourescent lights and emails and all that techno stuff.

Ah, that's better. I ran out to get a 2009 planner. The brightest I could find. Mary Englebreit has done a special one as a fund raiser for the local library. It's her library, too. She visits often I hear. I carefully marked off the first week in May. My escape to the shore, a few days of wild painting, a few days of wandering the beaches. A few blessed days to let my hair be wild beneath a pretty scarf and collect sand in my shoes and tote bag. A few days to be a sea creature. Oh yes. Oh yes. some, when they are Old Women shall purple. I will wear seashells and bright pink colors upon my toes. I will twirl in the very wildest of gypsy skirts and dance in the surf in the full of the moon. When I am an Old Women. ....Oh why should I wait. May shall come and I shall do as I please for seven long days.

And eat only the finest of things.

Breakfast companions

Pink elephants and blue pigs.

That's what happens when you get up at 5:00 AM. Obviously this was taken a little later, with a little more sunshine, but these guys do live in my kitchen. the elephant gives me the giggles everytime I focus on him. You see I have these pepto bismol pink vertical blinds hanging in the kitchen. DH says they stay. I actually contemplated spray painting them. then I thought if you get lemons, you make lemonade, if you get pink blinds you make a pink kitchen. A pink kitchen ? Me ? Only if it is a really different kind of pink kitchen. so the elephant came as a muse. The pig has been a muse for a long time. He is a leftover from a business I was involved in when I lived in Santa Fe...a lot of fun actually....a heartbreak to leave. The cup is one of my favorite coffeecups. I love cups with something INSIDE. I had a cup with a little boy at the bottom..a figure that popped up through your milk as you drank it...another one with a frog. Hard to find things like that. this one has a rose on the side. I have a porcelain mug with a butterfly on the inside.

So I won a giveaway on a blog called Tuttichic. Check her out. Very cool. One of the many wonderful things included a set of chargers with pink stripes and wonderful vintage fleurs. I think I am going to hang them in the kitchen, then hunt down some retro pink curtains..something with stripes..or pink elephants....maybe both. DH is going out of town this week-end. He may come back to something that goes with those pepto blinds....or he may be suddenly inspired to trade them in for the soft beige woven blinds I have circled in a conveniently placed catalog.

Oh, and I haven't been speaking to my blow dryer for two weeks. Not a major tiff, just not involved. this means my hair is a wild semi curly wavy wild woman on the loose kind of thing. I tease it and fluff it into shape every morning, but otherwise leave it alone. I've gotten complements from total strangers and even a flirt or two. DH just verbalized something this morning. "your hair looks crinkly".

"yes, it does" as I waltzed out the door. I wonder if I can find a bejeweled pink elephant clip for my hair ?????

"I am not eccentric. I am simply an electric Eel in a goldfish pond"...can't remember who said that...but I love the quote.

I am not eccentric. I am simply a pink elephant waddling around Saint Louis.

ARGH.