Category: life

Art is About Life

I came across something online yesterday that caught my attention. It was an essay about blogging and the idea behind why people blog, what to blog about, and the blog’s main idea or focus. What story are we trying to tell with a blog? Are our ideas all over the place, or is the blog about one topic and only that topic?

Some blogs seem like an open page of a person’s diary. Other blogs are like another person’s photograph album. One blogger likes to ramble about not much of anything in particular while another writes very technical information with tedious accuracy.

This article stated that an art blog should be about art. If that’s the case then what about the life of the art and artist?

While I was pondering this essay in my Morning Pages I found myself writing that there really is no art without life. If that is true, then there is no life without art. The beauty of art and art making is synonymous with life and all it’s beauty. The two are totally entwined.

When I started writing this blog I knew there was no way I could only discuss my art journey or the process. Life would sprout up between the posts of painting and not painting. Nor did I want my whole life to be an open book to put up to scrutiny. A little life story here, a rant about my latest painting there, and there you have it.

I was watching a television show where celebrities were making art for charity in one episode. None of the stars were artistically talented. Creative, yes, but not in the painterly sense. They arranged their work in a gallery for the public to purchase and donate money.

What struck me was a patron made their decision to purchase one work only after hearing what the celebrity artist had to say about his feelings while painting it. The painting itself was really not great, but the thoughts of the artist were intriguing enough to make the decision to buy. How interesting is that?

The daydreams and ramblings of the artist are the things that make life interesting. And life is more interesting because the artist has a different view of it. Does a painting posted each day make the art blog a good one to follow? Maybe not, because art isn’t all about art.

Time Just Flies

Do you see what happens when you’re having fun?  Time just flies right by!  Oh gee, when was the last time I posted here?  I have to take a look to remember what day it was.  One day just flows right into the next and before I know it the week is gone and another begins.  If you’re not watching, life turns into one long cup of coffee, my analogy anyway.

I was writing in my Morning Pages just this same thing yesterday.  I can remember adults saying that life goes by in the blink of an eye, and it is just so, so true.  I thought of it while writing at 7A.M. that every day I see my granddaughter she is different.  Literally different.  I am trying to slow down life so I can really see her changing.  Most times when she is delivered to my house she is asleep.  I stop whatever I am doing to look at her sleeping face until she opens those big, brown, beautiful eyes of hers.  I straighten up the house and myself, before she gets here so I can be comfortable in the present moment.

Being present has to be one of the hardest things to do.  To stop and smell the roses, as they used to say, is a difficult thing when life is so demanding.  There is so much to do, lists to cross off, errands, painting, beating myself up for not painting, cooking and cleaning, and on and on.  I have had a good talk with my brain and told it that it must shut up and stop bothering me for the time being.  I am going to sit here and look at this baby for now.  Granted, my off days will be hectic.  Even so, I will try to be present, aware, and awake.

When Son#1 got engaged I jumped up when I remembered I hadn’t put his 3 month baby photo in a frame yet!  What an idiot I am!  I can’t believe I let that much time go by without doing some of those things.  Don’t get my wrong, I do have pictures in albums.  But then again, there’s a slew of them in boxes and that’s just not right.

So I have made up my mind to slow down, breathe, remember what day it is, where I am, what I am doing, and keep my eyes open.  If I don’t, this baby will be 10 years old and I’ll be wondering what happened.

OK, gotta go, the baby just woke up!

Why Argue With Life? He Ain’t Listening

Did you ever get one of those days where everything you wanted to get done just doesn’t?  How about a couple of weeks of those kinds of days, all strung together?  Welcome to my world.  Somehow, every day that I’ve planned to do my thing, something else comes up to squash that lovely plan.  Every day!  It’s very annoying.  Bad enough I have my daily fist fight with resistance, now I have to wade through life to get to the other side.

Yes, Life has a way of getting in my way.  Remember that to-do list I had?  Well it’s still full of things I want to do.  The universe decided every day, for the last couple weeks, that it’s not my day for anything I want to work on.  Nope! 

“Forget that silly list”, Life said.  “Today your lower back is going to go out!  There will be no time for painting when you need to find a chiropractor!  Forget about it!  And that little trip to IKEA you keep wanting to take?  Not today!  Today you will spend 2 hours in that chiropractor’s dark, warm, noisy waiting room with a million other yapping people who are also waiting.  Isn’t that better than painting in that no-light studio of yours or trying to organize it?  Why, the time you would spend trying to decide what to paint will be put to better use in that doctor’s office, right?  Of course it would, now go.”

I could blow my whole day doing some thing I didn’t plan on because Life said so.  Who could argue with Life?  When Life tells me to do this because that just isn’t happening, I just go along with it because I’m like that.  Why fight it? 

Resistance is alot like Life, but I’m doing my best to spar with that creep by keeping a window of creativity open, however teeny weeny.  But big shot that Life is, there’s no messing with that guy.  Life is bigger than all of us put together.  When he talks, people listen!  So, okay, I do what he says, when he says it, and how he says to do it, whatever it is.  Find a chiropractor!  Yes, sir.  Attend that event!  Done.  Go to this wake today, and that wake tomorrow!  Yup.  After you do that other silly little thing you want to do for two minutes, run that big errand, now!  Aye aye sir! 

Can anyone tell Life “You’re not the boss of me”?  Life gives a holler and the blog is posted later than I want, too!

What is Your Joy?

I had a totally different blogpost planned for today.  Last night, before I closed up “shop” (the computer) for the night, I noticed a direct tweet from Mark, a fellow twitter/artist/friend living in Canada, (check out his blog/bio/links).  We were throwing comments back and forth during the evening, along with other twitter people.  The last tweet I saw from Mark was asking to see what I look like in person since my avatar is an Andy Warhol type of abstract, multi-color photo of me and a painting in the background. 

Now, the thing is this: Do people on social networking sites want to be anonymous or right out there in detailed real life?  I’ve got nothing to hide, but still, who are the people out there?  As an artist, I do want to have a network of like-minded artists sharing a virtual art world on the net.  With all the identity theft of late, it could be a scary world out in cyberspace.

Actually I believe artists are pretty benign bunch.  Okay, we have a different sensibility about things.  So I don’t find it odd that Mark, and I’m sure other cyber-friends want to see who we’re communicating with.  Hey, some people don’t add their real name! And it’s a human nature thing, too.  We want to connect with other human beings on a more personal level.  This computer stuff is not the same as eye to eye contact.  

Well, I offered a recent photo of my real self taken last fall when I visited the Nassau County Museum of Art for the Norman Rockwell exhibition.  I didn’t add the photo to my blogpost, but it was a less unflattering photo than some others I had, you know, you want to look semi-decent, not like a hag.  I was so happy on that Artist’s Date, my first.  The weather was beautiful, I had a great time by myself and the art, I found hiking trails on the grounds of the old estate and took a quiet walk.  A wonderful day and I felt happy and light. 

This morning I saw Mark’s tweet: “You have the gaze of a joyfully expectant seeker…. what are you looking for? What is your joy?”

So the big question is:  What is your joy?

I was stunned by such a thought provoking question at the start of my morning.  My twitter answer: “Well, I seek to find the who I was when..free, serene, w/turps as my perfume..” 

As a kid I considered myself an artist.  Of course, as a young person you have no responsibilities except to schoolwork, family, my art.  Once we grow up, marry, have a family, there are some things the person who stays home gives up.  As I’ve said before, I tried to stay in the creative world by doing creative things on the sneak, so to speak.

Snatching little bits of time to draw, pastel, knit, anything art/color related before kids come home from school, time to prepare dinner, in between loads of laundry.  I remembered my favorite college fine art professor who told me that women artists don’t make it because they end up focusing on the family instead of their art. 

Well, the day I took the photograph of myself in the woods was the day I felt I was re-introduced to “myself” of a long time ago.  With less to do since my sons are now adults I’m able to take my inner-artist out to explore, to spend time re-discovering my artist voice and create, play, and just be me. 

Thanks, Mark.