Studio Journal
I once described painting as a way to stop thinking, but as it turns out, I think A LOT while I am painting. I think about art, nature, stories, how stories influence us, seasons, celebrations, rituals, my family, my faith, life, death, and so on and so on! This blog is yet another way to get what goes on in my brain out into the world.
When Feelings Become Ideas
So much magic and mischief have been happening in the studio! Colors are mixing, paintings are being perfected and I can finally see everything all coming together. That’s the magical part, when the feelings become ideas, and the ideas become realities. As for the mischief - I have sat on my palette multiple times this week.
Describing The Mystery
Any creative act reveals something of its maker, which is what makes art so meaningful. Is your inner world full of wonder and color, reveling in the beauty of nature? Or is it strange and unknown, best revealed through abstraction? More often than not, our worlds are a blend of conscious and unconscious knowing.
Orienting Yourself
Want to know a secret? If I need to drive somewhere, I cannot read a map if my life depended on it. I try really, really hard, but inevitably if I need to turn right and head east, I will turn left and happily go west. Want to know another secret? My sense of direction depends on my feet and the sky.
They Are Perseverance.
Guess what I saw outside last week – flowers! Along the river shore trail, winter aconite and early crocuses adorned the landscape. Despite the lingering cold and snow, my snowdrops came up, unfurling faithfully as they have done for over two decades every February. I never planted them, so I think of my snowdrops as a gift from Mother Nature. They remind me that deep in the earth, in the darkness, there is a quickening that happens this time of year.
Listening To The Wind
All Hallows Eve is almost here! Halloween is my favorite holiday. Not as much for the spooky stuff – I live in a 130+ year old home that already makes strange noises in the night, so I don’t need any more supernatural experiences, thank you very much – but because of the season. I try to enjoy every day of October, because this month seems to go all in.
Why I Paint
Painting, for me, is deeply personal. Even though I paint abstracted, representational images, each color, every stroke, tells a story that is both an unraveling of my experiences and a reflection of my emotions. As the mother of a teen and a tween, there are a lot of big emotions in the house, so I often use my paintings as a way of processing my life.