very low energy

I just can’t seem to find my blue sky today. Feeling dulled down, and like I can’t even work up a tear for it. I have hope, though, that this is just one of my days. I have a few excuses that might even be reasons, but they’re just too tired to tell.

Hope comes from knowing how often I absorb inspiration without even realizing it. I hope my brain and my heart are just taking a little sponge break.

Sick of drawing your little orange slice flowers, are you?

At times, but I find myself drawing them by the dozen. Sick of you too, SLB. Don’t even try to get me worked up today because it ain’t even happening.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve completed three 8x10 canvas panels, three small wood pieces, and three journal pages. This is incredibly productive for me.

I am currently trying to ignore SLB. She has a bucket of anxiety and wants to use it to shut me down. Sitting here writing this is taking more energy than I have.

I have a blank 16x20 stretched canvas propped up on the chair beside me, waiting for me to face my fear that I can’t make enough to cover large surfaces anymore. The fact that I am going to cover the shit out of that big white surface just made me grin a little bit.

I should run. Orange slice flowers refuse to draw themselves.

accidents...

Ever have something accidentally turn out better than you thought it would?

I didn't like working on these canvas panels at all at first... then it sort of just clicked.

And then I ran out of everything. Well, I ran out of everything besides pencils, so I'm okay.

influences and inspirations...

I’ve been thinking about my influences lately. Seems like the more art I make, the more obvious they become. It isn’t deliberate. I’ve been working intuitively lately, and I don’t usually notice it until I’m done with the page. I also don’t think my work looks a lot like the stuff I’m filtering.

Why are you having so much trouble with the words? Feeling a bit unoriginal?

Well, “original” is a pretty ridiculous concept when it comes to… pretty much anything.

I’ve just been sort of having this boom of stuff lately. I see my sister’s influence in it quite a lot. I love the sinuous quality of the lines in her work, and how provocative and strong it is. Her women are vibrant with energy and emotion. I want that, and though I don’t think my stuff will ever have that same sizzle, I feel that studying what she has done has pushed me to use color and longer, more expressive lines in my own way.

You mean you’ve tried to express something other than apathy or isolation?

You know, those are things that I deal with all of the time, and they’re going to be there whether I like it or not. I think what I’m figuring out is that they are not the only slices on the pie chart.

There’s a link to Elaina’s art blog in the sidebar. Just look for the beautiful painting of a woman in overalls… This be the button. Go and look. Scroll back. You will not regret it. Also, just to make it easier here are links to her art blog and her poetry blog.

I’ve been drawing, doodling, painting (mark making) for as long as I can remember. I have no formal training, and there are years long gaps where I didn’t even pick up a pencil for anything more elaborate than a shopping list, but I always come back to it. And I miss myself when I don’t do it.

Art therapy is an amazing thing.

A few years ago I started seeing artists on youtube. This has been very cathartic for me as well. How can anyone resist being inspired by folks like Tamara Laporte or Suzi Blu? They show up at the party. They are fabulous and talented and generous, as are women like Samantha Kira Harding and Effy Wild, just to name a couple.

So, how long is it going to take you to figure out how to link their pages? We both know how hopeless you are with that stuff.

I’ll figure it out.

Let’s hope so. You’re already late to your own self imposed blabfest here.

Anyway, I did take a couple of Suzi Blu’s online classes a couple of years ago when I had the means to do so. I also took Tamara Laporte’s free Art, Heart and Healing class. I found all of these helpful and inspiring and would recommend them to anyone.

But you’re really too flighty to be a very good class participant, aren’t you?

Well, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t get anything from them.

After I did this page I could see Tamara Laporte’s influence in it.

You might want to borrow a lasso to rope in that wandering eye before it escapes.

Maybe, but I like the way the color turned out.

Also, after I did this little painting I could see Suzi Blu’s influence in it.

What makes me happy about noticing the influences in my stuff is that I can see them, sure, but the work still feels like mine when it comes down to it.

You know, this post is getting a little wordy…

But I didn’t even mention any of the artists I’ve loved forever like Alphonse Mucha or Patrick Nagel or Frida Kahlo or Frank Frazetta or…

Yeah, too many to list. It’s good, though, having so much beauty to take in.

Not to mention music, books, and the flowers on the side of the road.

Erm, you just mentioned them.

Can it, SLB. I’m having a moment.

this blue

Alice

Have you ever had a great idea, made a little plan for it in your mind, and then just chewed it all to hell?

Poor Alice… You’ll have to forgive the navel gazing here (again) but it’s time. It’s time to let go of Alice. Now if I can only figure out how to do that…

Alice came from a dream I had several months ago. She came to me whole, with a back story and an immediate situation. I could see her, and as it sometimes happens with dreams, I could see through her eyes. I was so woven into this dream that when I woke up I felt lost.

I felt loss. Without going much further into the specifics of the dream, I will say that Alice was waiting for the ending. She knew it was coming, and wore a smile for it. Inside, she kicked at it and raged.

For several days after the dream, Alice’s story grew in my head. Maybe a short story, but no, more than that. A series of paintings. A series of small portraits. Alice at the window in her nightgown. Michael. Their companions in the house.

In my head I painted and wrote. I assembled shadowboxes full of hairbrushes and wristwatches. I imagined the sky that haunted Alice’s artist friends. I could see Alice’s ink bottle, and the stains on her hands.

There is more, but… I’m struggling with it.

What came of all of this? Not a lot.

I made one small painting. I sat this painting aside, picked it up now and again. I added things to it. I washed it over. I scribbled at it and scratched it. Nothing made it what I needed it to be.

Just last week, I decided that it was time to stop picking at this poor, overworked scrap of wood. So it hit me… It hit me very hard that this silly little painting represents a lot of things I’ve held on to, if only in the back of my mind, for most of my life.

See, Alice and I both know that it’s time to let go. Neither of us wants to, otherwise she would have been covered with gesso months ago. We have lived together for a lifetime. We stand at the window and look at the sky and know that the end has to come. We rage and cry, sitting quietly with a little smile on top of everything.

My first thought was to burn her, but I haven’t. I pick her up and run my hands over the wood and still wonder how to let her go.

Funny, the marks we make.  

srsly...

Odd week around here. I don’t know. For the past couple of days I just haven’t felt quite right. Yes, yes… nothing incredibly new about that.

SLB: See, sometimes I don’t even have to say anything.

I did make a new painting, and even entered said painting into a contest. This is a new thing for me. I feel good for having done it. I also feel pretty anxious about it.

Sometimes I forget how shy I am. Sometimes my shyness and SLB have crazy parties while I’m trying to sleep. This is how I explain away the fact that I’ve been just plain grumpy for a couple of days. My bits do conspire against me, especially when I decide to poke my head out from under the bed.

Anyway, here is the painting for the contest. It will probably get a varnish coat, and quite possibly a bit of tea staining, but I wanted to get a pic before all of the shiny went into it.

Here’s the contest…

I’ll post the  vid for voting when Val puts it up.

Have you recovered from your rapture eve activities yet?

mary