The Light I Used to Live In

 

This painting has lived on my dining room wall since 2018.

I worked on it in small bursts, ten minutes, sometimes less.
A strip of paper. A wash of teal. A bird, then another.

Sometimes I added color because I needed to regulate.
Sometimes because I was restless.
Sometimes because I wanted to feel something move.

Sometimes because I needed to dip my finger in color and fingerpaint like I was five.

It has been many paintings.

There was a version with a partial Steinbeck quote:
“look from the tide pool to the stars.” 
Those words are still there.
Buried, but not gone.

I painted over things I loved.
I softened what felt too sharp.
I let birds and metaphors and diamonds arrive without asking why.

The eye has watched the whole time.

The light has changed shape more than once.

Over the years it absorbed seasons, dinners, conversations, silence, me sitting in the dark staring at it during one particularly severe bout of insomnia.
It held steady when I didn’t.
It opened up when I did.

The Light I Used to Live In
is not about losing brightness.

It’s about recognizing it in all its versions.

The tide pool.The stars.The rainbows.

And the spaces in between.

art lately

loves, it's been a super hot and humid summer.  and while i miss all the hiking and hammock lollygagging and other outside frolicking that this prevents for me, i'm loving all the indoor painting time.   i've been busy splashing some color on canvas in between dayjobwork and organizing the studio and all the other bits and pieces of life.

the piece above is a reworking of a practice canvas (the surface on which i try out colors and marks and techniques).  it's always funny to me how they end up being some of my favorites; probably because i'm not thinking too hard about what it needs to be.  the stage above is the hardest part of the mixed-media process for me:  when i am in absolute love with the way it looks, but i know it still needs some evolving.  i don't want to let go of any of it.

that sounds a lot like life.

i finally made the decision about which parts would show.  what i love about this process is that all of the beauty and mistakes are still there inside and the piece wouldn't be or look the same without them.  this one is still in process, resting, waiting for more inspiration.

i finally got a proper mixed media journal.  and above is my first spread.  i love that the background is completely comprised of leftover paint and paper from other works.

i am completely in love with the stage of this work.  it's the biggest canvas i've worked on, a commissioned piece.  i'm stuck here and completely in love with the colors.  it keeps telling me it wants to be something other than what i intended.

summer mornings on gypsy hill are the best.  there is this moment when the sun just peeks over the treeline and rainbow rays beam through the forest.  they are soft and intense at the same time.  i love love love to paint outside.

a few months ago, i wrote a spontaneous poem where i'm from (you can read it here).  i love it so much i've decided to capture a few lines of it in a series of smaller art pieces.  the work above was a piece a did a few years ago which i wasn't very happy with.  i reworked it a bit and now i love it.

the piece below is inspired by the lines, i am from strong women who are not afraid of dirt or silence.  it features my paternal grandma, great-grandma and great-great-grandma before they made the journey west to california during the dust bowl.

saving me right now

greenhouse ranunculus.

rose tea.

hydrangeas and poetry.

easter egg radishes.

the wintry forest.

the romping simon.

the frolicking luca.

these jasmine and their promise of spring.

using all the colours.

tiny memoir: the littlest birds

i was a girl who believed that hundreds of little birds flocked to the mission on the same day each year.   by magic.

it was a miracle i saw with my own eyes.

the mission bells heralded their arrival with deafening discordant clangs.  i stood there holding on to my dad's belt loop with one hand, covering one ear with the other. i wished for a third to shield my eyes from the blinding white california sun as we watched the birds swarm in. one after another, they floated through the arches and settled in tiny mud nests under the eaves.  the friar said a blessing.  we bought tacos from the little mexican push-cart whose tiny brass bells were kinder with their song.

the art of attention

i experience a lot of resistance.  it's that complex but often oversimplified phenomena that looks something like this: i want/need to ______; but i'm going to do everything else that is possible to do on this good green earth of ours and in this good green head of mine to avoid ______.  resistance pops up for me on a pretty regular basis.  i have resistance to doing my work.  i have resistance to exercising and eating nourishing food.  i have resistance to personal accounting and records-keeping. i have resistance to housekeeping.  sometimes i have resistance to taking a shower.

i even experience resistance with activities i love:  yoga, creating, writing, walking with my dogs, cooking, gardening, spending time with friends.  some days it feels like i am resistant to life.  

i have done a good deal of work in the past year becoming more aware of when i am experiencing resistance.  more work is needed to increase my understanding and to start breaking through it in meaningful ways.  this year my friend and master yoga teacher cyndi lee will be helping me address my resistance to yoga through discussions that we will publish in a collaborative series of blog posts.  

i wanted my word for 2015 to reflect my movement through resistance, to be a little anchor for me during this year. what is the opposite of resistance?  how would the antidote to resistance be described in one word?  i went through discipline (too rigid), practice (all i could hear was my mom nagging me to sit down at the piano and do my scales), action (made me want to take a nap), focus (feels like a work word), many renditions of "go with the flow" like fluidity, water, river (these began feeling way too loose than what i'm looking for).  by the way, if you are interested in a peek into my own special brand of resistance, the one i employ hundreds of time throughout the day, reread this paragraph.  it just happens to be overthinking.

sunday at 2:30am, i lay awake with an unusual touch of insomnia.  i wanted to read but didn't want to turn the light on and really didn't want to leave the warm bed.  so i grabbed my kindle. you guys, i even have resistance to my kindle.  good books that are stored on there have been neglected.  i've since abandoned my trial period of electronic reading and returned to the paper book, but i admit that it comes in handy at times like this.  

i turned on my device and navigated my way to the last bookmark i placed back in april:  chapter sixteen of karen maezen miller's hand wash cold.  chapter sixteen is about consistently showing up every day to do the work of our lives, attending to the details and maintenance of our ordinary lives.  

it is about attention.

hello word.

hello 2015.

"attention is the most concrete expression of love.

what we pay attention to thrives.

what we do not pay attention to withers and dies.

what will you pay attention to today?"

-karen maezen miller, hand wash cold: care instructions for an ordinary life

serendipity {№3}

last week i spent a few days on the beautiful outer banks of north carolina and attended my third art retreat there. this was a year i expected to go without the space and grace of a creative kindred gathering, but the stars aligned and a few of my work classes were cancelled during the week of serendipity.  i couldn't attend the full time of the retreat, but i fully lived two days of love and creativity and stayed offsite in a lovely and peaceful home.*

i spent one day writing in a circle led by two remarkable women, amy and maya, the founders of food for the soul train.  the writing exercises were powerful and we all brought our courage and love when it was time to share our words.  i loved that the deep intensity of the writing was lightened by humor woven throughout, an egg-in-spoon relay race on the lawn, writing in the sand and making tiny books, maya-and-amy-style.

my second day was spent soaking up the goodness of artist alena hennessy.  the way alena welcomed us and created a warm and gentle space was so lovely and inspiring.  when i attended my very first art retreat in 2009, the painting class i signed up for was the scariest thing on my schedule.  five years later, thanks to many talented and gracious teachers, painting is where i feel most myself.

as always, words seem a bit hollow when trying to describe retreat time.  so i will let photographs tell the story.

some serendipity loveliness:

amy and maya.

my wind-whipped dress finishing my sand sentence for me.

letting the ocean take the words.

making tiny books.

brilliant songbird chelsea making her tiny book.

a prayer.

these words, spoken by maya.

these colors.

beautiful, soulful alena at work.

one of my paintings (photo by alena).

little miracles.

tiny b, serendipitied.

nags head being perfect in october.

a morning mandala meditation that turned into the sacred blue heart of seaglass mary, created with bits from dawn's collection, with the help of a purring muse.

at serendipity if you wander too long on the beach at sunset and the colorful houses start to look the same in the dimming light, you can always find your way back.

listen for the laughter.
look for the twinkle lights.

other moments (of so many) i want to remember:

• creating with lavi, sharing space with her in both classes.
• the time in painting class when we were all absorbed in our own work, the ocean roaring outside the doors, and we spontaneously began singing along to mumford and son.
• holly's radiant face beneath her woodland crown.  
• chelsea's song about her parents' marriage.
• the vibrant orange butterfly that just appeared over stevie's head while she was talking about transformation.
• jen lee and tim manley and the art of friendship.
• the relatively sedate atlantic ocean, behaving like my wild pacific.
• jessica.  we connected briefly at serendipity 2011, had a facebook friendship for three years and it was like we completely knew each other, like we've been friends for years.  i love it when that happens.
• that this is what happens in this far flung community of kindreds:  we share physical space for brief moments, each year if we are lucky, but once connected, we share heart space forever.

previous outer banks art retreat love here, here, here and here (last two are squam-by-the-sea).



*this was the first time i stayed offsite during a retreat (almost always a registration option) and i noticed how this supported my introverted self even if i still missed some of the togetherness and new-friend-making that comes from staying in the retreat houses.  i'm pulling together a future blog post with some observations and tips for introverts while art retreating.  i know the large-groupness of it all can be a challenge and that some introverts might avoid the experience altogether, which is truly a loss for all of us.