A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person. ~Frank Barron

I have been thinking about the time I actually worked at a boni-fide art museum. The museum was on the campus of Amarillo College in Amarillo TX where I was going to school. I got a job there through the college, and worked there 2 years. In addition to a permanent exhibit, the shows in some galleries changed every 6 weeks. Some of the works were awesome like the ones by Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922) a Texas artist who painted the Texas bluebonnets. I was privileged to unpack these paintings, and get them ready to hang. I also saw works by Georgia O'Keefe, and Claude Monet and other impressionists. Some artists were highly unique, like Jack Boyton, and the Native American, Amado Peña. I even got to go into the vault where I was allowed to handle artifacts from ancient Egypt. Some the exhibits were down right weird or obscene, though. Patrons of the arts are usually wealthy and I saw some of the most prominent citizens of Amarillo hob-nobbing with beatnik types--whom the elite would ignore on the street--just because they create art. The art show openings were a big event. The gentile would mill about sipping wine, admiring the art, even the weird stuff-- except for an occasional Texas millionaire in slouchy clothes drinking a Coors. I often wondered what did really have to do with art? But the experience was one not too many artists get.

The painting is Island Morning; the lighthouse, Admiralty Head is on Whidbey Island WA. The picture I used for reference was one my dad took. The pictures I took were in the fog. Since it is no longer active, the trees have grown up so you can't see the water behind the light. I found a very old Coast Guard photo online of the light house when there were no trees to get an idea what the Sound looked like behind the building.

CWCW: I started cleaning the living room, kitchen floor and got out the Easter decorations, and got some paperwork filled out--I hate paperwork. I also exercised.

Imagination

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. ~Michelangelo

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~Dr. Seuss

I used to think that I had no imagination. I could paint and draw, but only what I could see. I believed myself to be a copiest rather than a creator. Of course I know I have a vivid imagination in my head and I think a lot, which can cause me a great of difficulty, and I can write. (A gift from the Giver of All Things.) I love blogging and can't stay away from it; I love it when thoughts becomes words--amazing how that works. Maybe someday I'll published something. Whadya think, oh you-who-leaves no comment?

Anyway, putting together my portfolio of a lifetime of work has given me perspective on my imagination. I went through a lighthouse painting phase because my late sister loved lights. She had posters and prints and miniatures and models of lighthouses--even some originals by me. After she died, I went on an excursion around the Puget Sound (WA) to photograph lighthouses to paint. This one, Point Wilson is still an active light operated by the Coast Guard near Port Townsend where my sister loved to camp. On this trip, it was an overcast day and I found every lighthouse socked in by fog where I couldn't even see the water. So I had to use my imagination. This painting is Puget Dawn. I had to make up the sunrise, which is not easy since, being a night owl, I see very few of them. I do remember reading that sunrises are cooler in color than sunsets. Then I had to think about the effect of the sky on the water and landscape and about how the sky is reflected on the dark side of the buildings and on the windows. Where the sunrise is hitting the building the light is warm with yellows in it and on the shadow side the colors are in the blue range. I have learned that paintings don't have to be true to life, only believable. This is a very exciting painting. Now if I can channel all my imagination thus.

In Good Company?

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for. ~Georgia O'Keeffe

For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh. ~Georges Rouault

Yesterday I was excited about creating a picture, feeling like I am taking steps in getting back to normal. But I got to thinking today, that artists are crazy!! Trust me, I worked in an art museum while I was in college--and I met some weirdos. We all heard the stories of how van Gogh cut off his ear and mailed to the girlfriend who dumped him. He was a very frustrated man, who only sold one piece of art in his lifetime. To me his work that the world is so in love with today, reveals a bit of his insanity. Of the French impressionists a couple died of STDs; most drank and kept mistresses; one died of pneumonia because he didn't have enough sense to quit painting and go home when it started raining. Even those who were morally sound were considered a little weird. The most well known, Monet lived a long time with a married woman, finally marrying her when her husband died. He spent his later years painting nothing but lily pads. Lily pads! Not a frog one. And Picasso's paintings are downright demented, IMHO. Georgia O'Keefe, a loner, never married and had a nervous breakdown. I read a book that featured American women artists; they were all divorced because they'd forget to do important things like fixing dinner, they couldn't reconcile domesticity with art.

People who have dominant left brains are the logical ones; the ones good with numbers, where as the artistic tendencies lies in the right side of the brain. Numbers frazzle my mind which makes balancing the checkbook a challenge. If you give me an address to drive to, I have to keep it in my hand referring to it often, while I drive. I do better with directions like, "Get off at the Park exit, drive past the red barn, turn right at the blue house and left where the three mules live." I am definitely right brained. Maybe I am a little crazy. Hopefully my ear is not in any danger. Don't open any damp packages from me.

The picture is Cheryl's Butterfly. My friend, Cheryl, took a picture of the Monarch in her garden and sent it to me which I used for this painting, and I gave her the work for Christmas. Hummm... there is not a frog in this one either.

Today's Art

"It takes courage to participate in life. Today I can applaud myself for trying. I'm doing a terrific job".

I think it is time to take a look at how well I have done. I have managed my life --or God has-- pretty well since James' death-- it will be 9 months on Tuesday. While I have been blindsided by circumstances and emotions, it I have succeeded in some areas--decisions regarding the house, taking care of business, and doing what is necessary to take care of myself-mostly stepping up contact with others and participating in the Fellowship. I need people now more than I have ever have in my life. I just do the best I can.

Blue Bird-- I drew it today! I just made up my mind I was going to do it and I did. I was so pleased with it I took a picture of it with my phone and tried to send it to all my friends, but the phone didn't co-operate, so I can only show it here. I applaud myself for trying.

CWCW: I cleaned the bathroom and of course drew a blue bird. I also went out with a friend to a fundraising Gala. Free dinner and entertainment and we shared some of our hearts with each other. No one asked me to dance, though. One day I will dance-- just hide and watch.

Poetry

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen. ~Leonardo da Vinci

I have never been a poet--I have trouble finding words that rhyme for limericks. I even have trouble reading it--I have to slow my mind down and concentrate, which I often do for the exercise of it. When I make the effort, I am rewarded with the insight or comfort the poet has to offer. I like da Vinci's statement that painting is poetry. I wonder if he would like my paintings and what I could learn from him if he were here to teach me.

This painting, Cuttings, is of very ordinary things. One day I set cuttings from house plants in front of the window that had glass bottles on the sill and a spider plant hanging from above. I am fond of bottles and I enjoy drawing and painting them; they are works of art in themselves. Later I walked through the kitchen and the light outside was rare--one of those foggy days where the sun is about to burn through. I took some pictures; in the painting I rearranged the bottles and added the gauzy curtains. Except for the pop of red in the angel wing plant it is almost monochromatic, making it soothing. The picture won a ribbon at the fair and I think it is the last still life I have painted. It is poetry.

CWCW: I mopped the kitchen, started this week's laundry and went to physical therapy at the pool.

Don't forget to feed the fish (click them); you can't over feed them as they are not real. Three are the primary colors of art--red, yellow blue--that is not an accident.

Grieving

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. ~Pablo Picasso. Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. ~Stella Adler
I quit smoking 13 years ago and for a couple of years afterwards, I would find myself rummaging through the refrigerator, craving something, not knowing really what. I didn't think of smoking and didn't associate the cravings with wanting a cigarette, but I think that the cravings did have something to do with a important part of my life being gone. I think the same is true with grieving. When I feel blue, I don't think "I miss him, boo-hoo," but grief must be the root of my feelings. After a wonderful lunch with friends today, I spent the afternoon crying. I have ceased trying to explain it; I only accept its the way it is.

Onto Picasso's quote--art as a diary. There are stories behind every painting I do. This one is The Superstitions. I started painting it the first winter we stayed in Apache Junction, AZ. A man named Nelson owned a auto salvage yard at the foot of these mountains and he wanted a large painting of it. I let my husband talk me into doing it in exchange for a Dodge van, which we desperately needed since my Toyota died. As my brother-in-law, Bobby used to say, we were "financially embarrassed." I never attempted a painting that size --2 by 4 feet--in fact, I had very little skill in painting-- and it took me almost a year. I carried it back to Oklahoma and worked all summer on it and the when we returned to AZ the following winter, we gave it to Nelson. He had never expected to see the painting, or the van again. By they time I was done with it, I was sick of it--I like it now, though. So this magnificent painting hung in the living room of an old mobile home in the middle of a junk yard. I don't know where it is now.