"Octopus"

I went to Chicago for a work conference.  Lectures, vendor meetings, fancy dinners (including an octopus appetizer)... but let's get the important part -- I saw a couple of my college buddies!!  Woo Hoo! YAY!!!

Chris, Alex, and I talked and laughed.  I am so glad to see them again after so many years and my heart is bursting with happiness to see them.  I would've liked to see more college friends in Chicago, but time was limited.  We are inspired by the 1981 class' reunion and blog site and want to do our own reunion.  We don't have photos from back in the day because we were too poor for luxuries like cameras and film, but if you were at Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) around the time of the graduating class of 1983 let us know if you're interested in a reunion and/or have photos. We're inclusive and would like to see everybody we knew and loved back then, including the 1981 folks.  I'll make a blog for photos if anyone sends them.

I got to see some of Chris (Koronich) Nye's recent work when I was in Chicago.  See her website here.

Chris' work is expressive and happy, and I'll admit I'm a bit jealous that she paints what she wants and has found a market for it.  She combines her other interests in interior design, faux finishes, and yoga instruction into a cohesive plan for survival and self-expression.  She does what she wants artistically and in every other way.

I roamed around her house and contemplated her paintings, which I suppose is the real beauty of them.  They are beautiful in themselves, but they're also contemplative like Japanese landscapes which are intended to be viewed during meditations.  I wandered around in Chris' yard and stroked the lavender to get the calming scent on my hands.  When I went back inside with my lavender hands and there were the paintings again with all the colors of the garden.  They're suggestive, calming, exciting, and inspiring.

When I worked with naturalists, they liked to tell me to do things in "natureful colors".  I'd tell them that all colors are in nature, but they really just wanted tans, browns, and greens.  Chris' paintings have hot yellow chartreuses, purples, reds... an explosion of truly "natureful" colors.

Sometimes I throw paint around.  It's a happy activity that I don't take very seriously when I do it myself.  Sometimes I'll even hang one of those paintings, but I want people to notice things I've labored over, not the things I just had fun doing.  Another of my friends has scolded me for my wrong-headed attitude.  She says people enjoy it when I have fun with paint and also that other people can't do it.  No matter the people who say their kid could do it.  Let your kid try then.  There's a lot to be said for an expensive college education that taught us about color and design, right?

This all made crystal clear sense to me when I looked at Chris' paintings.  Sometimes I can do something similar, but it isn't the same, and I'll be the first to say Chris' paintings are better.  She understands things about interior spaces that I don't.  Her color choices are wonderful.  She brings flowers to life through suggestion.  I've got a blank canvas.  I think I'll follow her inspiration and throw some paint around!

Standing in front of the Chicago "Bean"

The octopus is just a doodle.  I don't want to take away from the beauty of Chris' art this week.

"Silent"

“Silent” seems appropriate for my time of continued computer disaster. My friend John has rigged me up to the internet again, but it’s routed through my friend Korki’s old laptop. The laptop is not happy about the things I ask of it, so I’m keeping communications to the bare minimum with continued hopes that John will be able to rescue my hard drive and all those files I neglected to back up. He’s put in a lot of hours trying to help and I’m very grateful, and grateful to Korki for the loaner too. Forced inaction has led me to painting rocks, and there can’t be anything more silent than rocks. It’s an obsessive thing. Maybe I just want the stability they represent? In a way, rocks are a meditative subject for me. I don’t have to think very hard about what they look like. It reminds me of the beginning of one of my previous jobs…

I was assigned a quail illustration. I asked the art director where they kept reference photos of such things. They didn’t keep reference photos. Hm. Okay? ‘How am I supposed to draw it if I didn’t know what it looks like?” “You know what it looks like. ‘Real artists’ don’t need reference.” UH?!! What does a quail look like anyway? Grr… I did a search online, printed a very crappy reference photo, and growled through my painting. This was the first phase of the next couple of weeks where I said at least 30 or 40 times a day “I’m losing my f***ing mind!” It wasn’t a good start to a miserable job, but I was getting paid to paint, so I kept my swearing inside, to be vented in full steam to my friends on the phone when I got home.

Next assignment was a bow. I got a piece of ribbon, tied a bow, and sustained the almost continual criticism from the AD about how I was weak for needing reference. He stood over my shoulder and remarked about almost every color choice, every brush stroke. “Don’t you have your own work to do?” I smiled at him through clenched teeth. When I dropped my brush, he said it was because I held my paintbrush too lightly, and started to demonstrate the proper way for me to hold it. I picked up my brush, slammed it on my desk, and near tears, stormed into the big boss' office. “I can’t work this way!” By this time, I knew that the big boss and the AD screamed at each other at least 3 times a week, so I knew I had an ally. “Ignore him. Learn what you can from him, and ignore the rest.”

After taking a break outside for a silent primal scream, I went back to the office I shared with the AD, and resumed painting. He wanted birds painted without reference? Fine. Cardinals are red, right? Who cares about subtleties or accuracy? Here’s a red bird. Done. Next assignment. French horn? Sure, why not? I dimly remembered that they have 3 or maybe 4 places for fingers, a big bell at the end, and a whole bunch of tubing in between. Done. Who cares if that French horn would sound like a screaming cat if it actually existed? This was all the more ironic for me because in my previous job naturalists held me up arguing about the number of toes a salamander had on its front feet vs. its back feet. (5 and 4.)

In case you can’t tell, I’d rather deal with naturalists arguing over toes than fly blind over quail. Whenever possible, I did research at home before starting new projects in the morning. Eventually I reduced my mental F words to a mere 5 to 10 times a day. I got better, faster, stronger than I had ever been before. Now I feel annoyed when I actually need to take time out of my life to look up reference before starting something. It’s easy to get hooked on the instant gratification of picking up the paintbrush as soon as I have a new thought. Therefore, rocks. No research, and all the effort is in the color and form. It’s a silent meditation of stability.

"Asleep"

Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep. Who’d a thought a children’s movie would be pushing drugs? Maybe Oz was the result of L. Frank Baum taking opium before Sominex?

I have a love/hate relationship with sleep and dreaming. When all goes well, I get inspired. I see paintings before they happen. I have happy relationships with everyone. Passed relatives and friends come to visit. I’ve driven around with the Beatles, flown like a hawk, and had my best love affairs. But who knows what my subconscious is going to spit out at me? Body parts, rotting corpses, wars, blood, and fear can chase me through the night. It can be exhausting.

I’ve read a lot about “sleep hygiene”. Go to bed at the same time every night. Don’t eat before sleeping. Turn down the lights an hour or two before bedtime. I try. I fail. I stayed up last night rereading Harry Potter instead, and Wormtail cutting off his hand is obviously not the best way to prepare myself for peaceful dreams, especially since I already know Voldemort will rise again.

I had to resort to my fail-proof last resort – Bob Ross. I’m never getting that half hour back again. It’s not the first half hour he’s stolen from me with his soothing patter about “happy little trees” or the grateful squirrels he took in for rehab. Bob makes me nuts, and obviously, he is a guy to vent my frustrations upon, especially since he’s been dead since 1995 and was probably a really nice guy. I’m highly suspicious of someone who paints landscapes with house brushes, but his happy, soothing voice is the perfect lullaby.

I keep a dream journal for 2:13 dreams that wake me up. I don’t know why it’s always 2:13, but those are the dreams worth remembering. Okay, sometimes it 2:15, but maybe I’m just a little slow getting out of those. Do you think it’s because I was born at 2:13 in the morning? Born almost a month late too, and that seems to fit in perfectly too, because once asleep, just try waking me up again! When I was in college, the ceiling fell down in the night and I didn’t wake up even though everyone else in the building stood around laughing at the plaster dust on my face. I rolled over and ignored them.

I’ve heard about the people of some tropical culture who start every day discussing their dreams. Think of the intimacy and understanding that must foster amongst them. I watched my dog running in her sleep last night and wished she could talk about what she was seeing. I love hearing about other people’s dreams, especially children’s dreams before anyone tells them to quit telling stories or squashing their hopes and fears. I have dream-inspired drawings my brother drew when he was a kid. I can only wonder how he thought that stuff up.

Writing about sleeping is making me tired, and I feel like I’m just rambling today…

Dorothy and pals is an old piece, acrylics on illustration board. And yes, I know I forgot Toto! He must be running in his dreams or something :)

"Slither"

My first reaction to IF's word of the week was regret that I had already used my Medusa picture a couple of weeks ago. Unnecessarily too, because I put a second posting up that week just for fun. But the more I thought of it, this week will have a lot of snake contributions, and I like being different. So, here's a piece I did simply for the joy of it. I took buckets of old paint I had used for projects around the house, and experimented ala Jackson Pollock, throwing and dribbling paint in an exuberant trance state. I think the strands of paint look like they slither around on the canvas -- even more so in reality because the paint is rather thick and 3-D like snakes.

This was fun to do, and it's big. So big, I cut it up into smaller paintings and used the smallest pieces for greeting cards. This part is about 36" x 24". My dog walked through part of the painting and across the floor, so this painting created a permanent addition to my basement floor.

"Fearless"

The obvious answer to this week's IF challenge is Joan of Arc facing the Burgundians, but I started to think about fearless people I've known in real life. People who aren't here any more because just like Joan, they didn't have a healthy sense of fear. People who died too young. Jewish people put a stone on a grave a year after a funeral. It hasn't been quite a year, but it's time for me to put a stone on Andy's grave.

I don't remember meeting Andy. He was just always there, always a friend to my youngest brothers. He laughed, he smiled, he went for things with such full force that I just had to smile and laugh with him.

When he was older, he stopped by my house once in a while. If he was hungry, I fed him. If he was tired, he crashed on my porch swing. When I had a car I didn't know how to fix, I gave it to him. Sometimes he'd show me his sketchbook and ask for feedback. He had talent, and I wish I had one of his drawings to remember him by. He found comfort at my house when he needed it, and my heart was happy when he came.

In a way, I always knew we were alike, but I never bothered to find out why. When his obit was published, I found we shared the same birthday. Maybe that's why we could spend a quiet afternoon together without talking. Just being around each other was enough. We appreciated each other in a way we didn't want to talk about, but at the same time, we knew each other's hurts. We were a safe place for each other, and even if he didn't come over very often, my door was always open for him.

He died as a daredevil on an ATV at night. Somehow, it seems fitting that he died going all out, but I'm still dealing with the shock of losing him so young.

It hasn't been a year yet, and I'm not Jewish, but I'll borrow their tradition because I feel a need to put a stone on Andy's grave. He was buried in a beautiful place overlooking the river we both loved. Maybe everyone else will post pictures of heroes this week, but I'm lost in thoughts of "fearless", reckless, and loss.

The drawing is in pastels with some fiddling in PhotoShop. It's been a long time since I've used pastels, but chalk just seems appropriate for a life so quickly swept away.

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2009/06/28/obituaries/nh1095903.txt

"Dip"

I’ll admit it, I can procrastinate with the best of them sometimes. It was a holiday weekend, and I had other things to do than contributing to my blog. Besides, I’m putting far more energy into procrastinating about filing my taxes and paying bills. On top of that, “Dip” didn’t spark my creative urges to make something. Potato chips and dip, strawberries in chocolate, skinny dipping, Dippety Doo are all possibilities, but it seems that by the time I was tired of procrastinating, other people had already done things along these lines, and my best idea was for skinny dipping, and that just seemed like too much effort.

I might make the skinny dipping picture, just not today. I don’t feel like whipping out that idea just to meet Illustration Friday’s deadline. I want to take my time and savor the experience. To dip my paintbrush into… hey, wait! An easier idea!

This is a little illustration, about 2 ½” x 4”, in acrylic on wood. It’s part of a larger piece with similar little paintings which makes up a game board. Since it’s on a big piece of wood, it’s hard to get a good scan of it because the wood sits above the scanner bed by 1/8” or so. Somebody ought to tell HP to make it easier to scan rigid things. Ummm… maybe I’ll procrastinate about that too? Anyway, some fussing in PhotoShop, and here we are.

I know we can all face ennui and procrastination. The important thing is to figure out good coping techniques when we face it. Often, I’ll call Mary Lou (http://myjournal--thelandofwhimsy.blogspot.com/), and she’ll kick me into action or brainstorm with me a while. She’s sick this week though, and her kids are home on spring break, so I had to think in a vacuum.

That’s okay too. I am capable of scrounging around in my brain for ideas even when I just don’t feel like it. Doodling and word associations often get me going in the right direction. Looking through old files might remind me of something that I always intended to do, or sometimes doing something completely unrelated will free up my mind enough to let an idea pop in.

I’m interested in hearing about other people’s ideas for coping with procrastination too. We all need to let our creativity loose!