Here you will find a few words, alongside the works.
Even Artists Have Seasons
I am incredibly grateful for a recent artist talk by the remarkable Alice Ballard. It was a reminder to me that there are seasons. I painted a LOT in the past two years, yet I still have so many ideas to put on paper.
Studio guilt.
It’s a real condition. The inner critic is so loud sometimes. And mine even speaks in two languages!
Why aren’t you in there in the mornings before work or at least a few minutes after work? Was ist denn los mit dir???
Alice reminded me that even if one isn’t producing, an artist is mentally always creating and processing new ideas, thoughts and work through their daily encounters. (All the emoji praise hands!) She spoke to exactly where I am ... and extended the grace I needed to hear. That these seasons provide the material for the works ahead.
And I love that.
I’ve discovered that my studio rhythm includes painting more through the months of April-December, while January-March tend to be times for where I am more in tune to the bookkeeping, reading and studying type of work. And so that is what I have been doing.
My Spring Shop is now open online. It will be open through May. I hope to add to it a bit in the weeks ahead. Putting all the works together helped me realize how productive the last two years truly have been.
Take that, Studio Guilt.
Silvester and Art Goals
Silvester is another name for New’s Year Eve in Germany (owing to St. Sylvester’s feast day on Dec. 31). The Germans will also wish you a guten Rutsch or a good slide into the New Year.
I hope you’ve had a good “slide” into the New Year. I happen to love this time of year, because I tend to be a reflective person. And I enjoy making plans and goal setting as I look back.
This past Spring I studied eggs and the nest structures of the backyard birds.
I watched all these backyard birds. The nest building, the feeding, the nest cleaning, and more feeding. Toil, yet with birdsong in between.
And that sums up my hope for 2019. More birdsong in between.
To be occupied with a gladness of heart in the midst of the day to day.
Birdsong.
For those of who who might be wired a bit like me, here are a few questions I ask myself at the beginning of each year as I set a few creative goals. They help me set my day to day. Some are from a great workshop I attended two years ago. Others are from books I’ve read.
What makes me feel successful as an artist?
What are my roles and my goals? Is my time and are my commitments directed towards them?
Why do I make art and to what end?
Is my work career driven or mission driven? Is it about recognition or impact? Ego driven or vision driven?
What do I want to create this year? Why?
What do I want to learn this year? Why? How?
I’m still working through my answers to a few of them. For more information on the workshop visit Artist U. It’s a good one for those exploring creative careers.
Happy 2019!
Picture of an Educator
Six years ago, I left the classroom. A year and a half ago I returned. It is a profession which keeps me connected to people, yet also allows me the luxury of time for family.
But it is not easy work
Recently, I read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. In the novel, the portrait takes on the aging and sins of the man. And I thought about the strength that educators show in the midst of stress. Not only theirs but also that of the students. Does the outside depict the reality?
To me, the American Robin symbolizes spring, new beginnings, children playing and hope. This image to me captures a great unsettling I feel at the moment. School shootings are becoming normal, low pay is an insult to the profession and the hours are long. In what profession does one begin their day manning a metal detector shortly before entering a classroom to shape hearts and educate minds?
So I painted all the words I feel but cannot say. Recognizing that bleeding heart conversations are damask political curtains we hang.
Keeping up with the Joneses
I love an idiom. And the culture it can capture.
"Keeping Up With the Joneses" is spot on American. To me it describes what happens when the American Dream becomes grotesque. When the pursuit of happiness and freedom leads to a warped and twisted captivity.
Keeping Up With the Joneses, Watercolor, 22" x 30"
The idiom finds its origins in a 1913 comic strip by the same title. Arthur R. Momand was the creator and the term made its way into a few silent animations.
Keeping Up With the Joneses, Watercolor, 22" x 30"
Ranging from the accumulation of stuff that quickly loses its luster, sick social graces, self-glorifying chatter, and debt beyond measure - it is a pattern of behavior to appear on equal social-economic footing or ground.
Appearances were significant in my childhood home. I wonder if it was simply my mother's German perfectionism or her attempt to never appear "less than" our fully American counterparts?
Most recently I saw this pull within myself as my children wrestled with their college choices. Was I (or my family) "less than" because they made one choice over another? Did my children feel that way?
“But these were essentially the accoutrements that appeal to all people who are not actually rich but who want to look rich, though all they manage to do is look like each other: damasks, ebony, plants, rugs and bronzes, anything dark and gleaming-everything that all people of a certain class affect so as to be like all other people of a certain class. And his arrangements looked so much like everyone else’s that they were unremarkable, though he saw them as something truly distinctive.”