Sometimes Running Naked Helps Bare The Truth Which Paves The Way to Honesty

 

Painting in Progress (detail)



Why do artists criticize and beat themselves up so much?  Do people in other professions do this to themselves?  Is it our inner critic?  Are we really trying to produce our best work, or sabotaging our processes by over analyzing every stroke?  I think what I am wondering is...When is it appropriate to ignore that voice?  When do we just strip down and run naked through the streets?



Painting in Progress (detail)



Where is all this coming from?  Well, last week, I ran into a childhood friend whom I see from time to time.  She says to me, "Hey, my Mom is opening a gallery this Fall.  I would love to see your work for consideration."  Immediate steam rises in my brain! My reaction (hidden from sight in my inner psyche) is "Holy Toledo, Why on earth have I not been producing work?!" I run around in my life openly calling myself an artist. Yet I have spent very little focused time producing work. I realize that many artists have slowed down in the last two years and I have allowed this mantra to stop my progress.  Now....I am mad at myself.  It's just stupid that I have allowed other things to get in the way.  Just one big "DUH."



Good news? I'm back in the studio painting.  I have several pieces in progress and I am just letting it happen.  I am a long way from having work that I want to promote, but it is a start.  Regardless, there is that darn voice, that critic there....that's right, it's right THERE.  See it?!!   No??  Well, I do.  The funny, no hilarious, thing is that I was seriously beating myself up on one particular painting.  I had thrown so much of myself into it and I just thought it was horrible. I was wondering if it was time to throw in the towel and cover the painting with gesso.  Enter....stage left, my sister. 

My sister and I are super close.  We talk zabillion times a week, never missing a day.  She lives in my same area. But her home is just far enough away that she just doesn't walk into my house that often.   Strange, but true.  This past weekend, in she walks. Wow!  What?  Neat.  I mention the painting and she heads to my studio.  Now, I should stop and let you know that she is supportive of my career, but has never been a huge fan of my art.  She walks in and takes a look at my unfinished painting and declares that it is her favorite thing I have ever painted and claims it for her own.  Within seconds, she has mentally hung it on the wall of her dining room.   

What a HUGE boost to my morale.  It made me stop and remind myself that people just see things differently.  Eyes of the beholder, one man's trash and all that stuff....  So I am pressing forward on this particular painting and I have started some little 5 inch by 5 inch paintings.  Who knows, maybe I will start an Etsy Shop and start trying to sell my work.  Who knows.  Maybe I might even contact that childhood friend of mine and show her what I am up to..... 

(In case you were wondering...I wrote this because sometimes it is just better to run naked through the streets and survive the embarrassment of it all before you can get on with it. Now let me go put my clothes back on.)  Carry on.

-The End-

Harvest Apples On My Dining Table And A Little Robert Frost

After completing the Sunflower Chandy this past week, I started putting together something new for my pine farmhouse table that sits below the chandy.  I found this Robert Frost poem a few weeks back and wanted to share it as well.  Hope you enjoy the images and I think the poem is brilliant.

After Apple Picking

by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still.

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.

I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and reappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin

That rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking; I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

  

-The End-
Linking to:

Something Is Fowl in My City: How I Get Out Of Trying To Be Like Martha

You can't have chickens in my city.  They just don't allow them. Plain and simple.  I actually looked this up after seeing this amazing chicken coop over at my friend Korrie's blog,  Red Hen Home.  Isn't it adorable?  She made the sign on the front for the person who owns the coop.

I can't have anything else either, just dogs and cats and domesticated birds and they must live inside the house.  No caged pet outside.  Never really put much thought to this.  I mean, it's not like I ever really wanted a chicken coop.  But there are all these totally cool people out there, especially in that super cool state of California raising their own chickens and eating their amazing fresh eggs everyday.  I keep seeing this as I read blogs written by totally hip west coast bloggers.  Seems to be the next great craze.

Guess I am stuck with frying up my own eggs from the grocery or going to the McDonald's just three blocks away for one of their famous Egg McMuffins.  Guess the city muckety mucks weren't too concerned about 'public health' when they aloud Micky Ds to set up shop in our city.  The good news is that I will never aspire to be like Martha Stewart.  Without chickens, I'm just not up to her speed, right?!  Phew! Off the hook!

Well....for today, I will just stick with my three wonderful doggies and 7 finches.  They might not provide me with anything edible, but they do supply me with lots of kisses and song.  What more could I ever want?

I have been working on some autumn tablescapes and will be showing you some of the results soon.
Here is a sneak peek....

-The End-