my favorite

Took a nap this afternoon, and I awoke to my husband smiling on the couch, and the whole house kitchen cleaned.
Thank you Niel, my sweetness.

not November

So the show at the Bistro was a success. It was so good to see my friends and colleagues come out to support the arts effort in Ruston. Just before the show went up, the Manager of the venue pulled the plug on the one large piece I had planned on including. No hard feelings. He said it wasn't close enough to Christmastime to put it up, which at first I thought was funny. He said, "Talk to me again in November." I never considered these two massive Christmas ornaments as Christmas decor. They had become to me nothing more than interesting subject matter. When I stepped back and took a more objective approach, I could see why he thought hanging the painting in August was inappropriate. I am not sure I had ever had such an experience with disassociation before. Interesting.

At any rate, Merry Christmas to you all. And if you are on my card list, don't be too surprised or disappointed to see the image again in your mailbox come December.

fear and ease

Painting, or any thing else for that matter, is not always easy. In fact, the thing that we love and are ultimately committed to doing is ofttimes the thing that fills us with fear. I realized during a conversation with a long-time friend last week, that every time I start to paint I have to push past fear. Fear of the ugly line. Fear of failure. Fear of so many more things. I was reading through Art in America this evening and I came across and article about Rirkrit Tiravanija. Featured in this article was an "original" tear out of his art created expressly for the issue. It prompted  my post.

The art was text.
It read: FEAR EATS THE SOUL


I believe that. Fear does eat the soul and I have experienced a little soul eating in my time.

Lately the fear has been about content, and context. I read not too long ago something that sculptor Horatio Dowbley said, "Art is language, and in language, a person says things." That haunts me a little. I understood my work better after having read his remark. I understood that for the most part it says nothing.They are mere studies in disguise, something pretty to hang above the couch...end table...chair...

Now, there is the fear of what to say. (And the fear of painting mere decorative art- but that is a discussion for another time.)  I am not alone. We have all been there, maybe not in the context of creating art, but the fear of "saying things" I think is universal:
Picture the social situation where you are invited but not known. You are welcomed but not sure. Where and when do you feel at liberty to be yourself? Do you safely stick to small talk? Do you drink the pretty drinks and be seen and not heard, to leave feeling lonely? Or do you jump in and spill the beans on your latest guffaw? Do you open your mouth and risk sideways glances and the mingly groups parting like the red sea?

While I do not believe I will ever naturally be able to rid myself of fear, I choose to acknowledge it and respectfully not feed it. The thing to do then, I suppose, is to keep painting what I love. While I want dearly for my work to say more than, "I look good in your foyer, don't I?", I cannot ever let the language be that of didacticism or blatancy. If I love what I am doing and I forge ahead, sans fear, it will have to say something, and what it says may end up surprising me.