Every Exit Is...

Every Exit Is
taken on my trusty, go everywhere Casio Exilim.

I hope your weekend is going well. I myself am not having a holiday, but I find I don't mind, because rather than the once a year Memorial Day weekend of barbecues and fireworks, parades and lake houses, I've got a once in a lifetime (or perhaps a very great while) chance to start all over again.

We're moving today.

We have a lease on a new house, and today is the day.

We've been busy running around Michigan, exploring Ann Arbor, Chelsea and all the various thrift stores and yard sales in the environs. Packing up. Buying essentials. Organizing. Planning.

Yesterday we had Ice Cream and I would have had pictures of that, but I forgot to check my camera batteries. Ooops. Forgot to plan that.

Anyway, I don't have a lot of painting or sculpture or craft projects to show you because, well, I'm too busy. So most of my creativity is going into photography and imagining what I could do with those circus striped Ralph Lauren sheets from Value World. (In case you were wondering, curtains for the kids' bedroom!)

I also don't know when I will be getting full time access to the internet. We have an appointment for Friday, but who knows? Until then, I suppose I can visit the library down the street, or the various cafes with internet access. But I wanted to say I might be missing for a while. Do not fear if you can't find me... I will be setting up the new place.

As for the photo above...

"Every exit is an entrance somewhere."
-Tom Stoppard

I might have misquoted him, but the sentiment is correct. We're leaving our old set up, which has been pretty good for us, and moving on into the unknown... but perhaps a future that is closer to one of our own making.

I am certainly excited about the various plans I have, both for the new house, and for my creative empire (insert evil laugh). Now all I have to do is get internet in my house.



Diner, Surreptitious Shot

And this is where the exit of the first picture enters. A don't-fuck-with-me diner in Ann Arbor. Sorry I can't remember the name of it. But the bathroom was grungy, the waitress was surly, the sausage was greasy, but the omelet was a Greek delight, the checkerboard tile was endlessly fascinating, the silver exterior was swooningly delicious, and the Spring air made it all worth it as we sat at the sidewalk table and had brunch-- before diving into the Salvation Army down the street.

Now, I really should go pack up all my clothes because I've left it to the last minute.

Oh, but I can't go yet.

I do have a painting to show you!. I showed a sneak peek a while ago. For the finale, go to Magpie Girl and see my fabulous new circus girl!

See you around.

The Woods are Full of Wildflowers (and bugs)

The Woods are Filled with Wild Flowers

and they smell divine!

I only have a moment to post here. I know this is a holiday weekend and so many of you have delightful plans, exploring and enjoying, traveling and cozying. I wanted to wish you all a good weekend.

Maybe you can find a roadside wood filled with purple flowers, and finally, after saying, "I should stop and take pictures" a million times as you pass, actually put your boots on and tromp through the high grass. Stand in the shade, with the weeds waving around you in the breeze, breathe in the sweetness of the flowers, blink at the patches of bright sun. And really live right there in the moment.And if you brought with you a boy who wants to go explore the creek and find slugs and bugs and other creepy crawlies, and a girl who does not like having weeds taller than her head with spiders and other creepy crawlies and just wants to go home... well it's all part of the moment. To be lived, armful of flowers and whining three year old included.

Well I'm off to work three doubles this weekend. And then when I I'm not moving, move to a new apartment down the street.

I get the feeling this will not be a wildflower weekend for me. Although it will be full of adventure.

I guess it's all about living the adventure you're given.

Happy Holiday!

Flying Girl is Backwards, or Struggle and Process

Flying Girl Pendant, in progress.

Here's another paperclay experiment.

I don't know how I feel about it. I used the handmade stamp I carved to make the impression in the clay. But I forgot about the reversal. So she's flying backwards. Oh well. It was practice.

I have been seeing so many porcelain, sculpee, paperclay and paper mache things out there that make me swoon, but when it comes to making my own... I am left wondering what to do. Rather aimless and confused.

OH!

I forgot.

This is the creative process.

The beginning steps of any creative endeavor are almost always bumpy and confused. Well... maybe you are swept away in inspiration and flow and have no bumps at all. That is one way to go, but sooner or later, that inspiration ends and you get back to the bumpy.

But that's what I'm saying. Bumpy is the creative process. It's part of discovering new things and pushing your boundaries.

If I want to discover a sculpture form of my own that makes me swoon the way I swoon when I see other people's art, then I have to do the work.

The hard work. The not fun work. The struggle that goes on behind the scene to make the beautiful end point.

We all need this struggle, whether we are a beginning artist, a lifelong hobbyist or Kiki Smith.

And as in art, so in life.

Those dreams? They take quite a bit of bumpy road to reach. Quite a bit of hard work.

That, for me, is a comfort. If I have to struggle, it helps to know that there is a purpose to it. That I am not the only one. That so many things are hard, before you come to know them and get comfortable with them. It helps to know that this is the process. And all is right with the world.

Even if it's really hard sometimes.

Sun and Shadows, or Time Ticks On

Sun and Shadows, or Time Ticks On
Acrylic on paper, moleskine 5.5"x8"

A painting! It's been ages since I painted. But one day after my new job, while one child was still napping and the sun was deep in the sky, I had the uncontrollable urge to paint. I hauled my traveling studio out to the deck and started painting.

This isn't a true life depiction of what I saw, not really. It's more the impression of the backyard, sun and shadows. The deep kind that oak trees and heavy pine trees make. It's an experiment, because I haven't often achieved the look I want in strong sun.
But look. When I took my photo, I held the book up against the back yard (which I wasn't in when I was painting) and it kinda looks like it. Not entirely, I still would like some more lightness in the trees, but hey, this painting is about shadows, not trees, so it's not really that important.

But, like my little girl asked me, "what are those?" pointing at the hatches I've marked anywhere there is light.

What are they?

First off, the texture intrigues me. And my obsessive need to do something with my hands is appeased as I tick off little lines with my paintbrush. And then again, to me, those hatches show the passage of time. Little bit by little bit, reminding me to love what I have right now, while I have it. Plus, I'm a little bit enamored of her.

Because Summer ends. And I will move. And the kids will grow up. And I will go on to do other things. But right now is right now. And that's okay. Right now has it's beauties. So does later. But if I'm longing for the beauties of later, I will miss the beauties of right now. And vice versa.

Sometimes painting reminds me of the present. Sometimes it takes me back into the past. No it always does. I can look at a painting I did 20 years ago and remember the place, the time, the landscape, who I was at that time, who I loved, my worries. No matter how realistic or abstract the painting is, that painting holds time still, on paper. It holds that moment of me, and marks it down.

Open. Living Life Creatively

Breakfast in Ann Arbor

I have the hardest time being open. Open to life. I find that I'm a nester, a hunker-down-and-get-cozy kind of person. A make-do-and-be-satisfied type of person. I'm not very adventurous. I have to talk myself into being open to new experiences.

I get set in my ways. No. I crave being set in my ways. I like my routines, my little corners of the room. My prime time tv schedule and my regular dinner menus.

But that does not mean that there is no room for being open.

Being open to life, to ideas, to new experiences or new media, well, that is what it means to be an artist, I think. Creative thinking is open thinking. Taking chances creatively translates into living life creatively and being open to seeing the world through those creative eyes. Even this photograph I posted... I turned away from the pretty street scene, which would be the expected photograph, and tried to see the beauty of the sign in the window. I practiced thinking creatively, seeing things in a new way, through the lens of my camera. For me, it's kind of practice for life.

You know, I'm going through a lot of changes. Everyone goes through changes, although maybe there are periods of time when it seems like nothing changes and everything is set and comfy... that is an illusion. The very nature of life is transitory... which is why we should value what we have right now, even if it is not what we have set our minds on. And why we should take advantage of the opportunities that come our way, even if they are scary and strange and different from what we have known before.

Open.

Taking chances on life.

Open.

Having faith that we are strong enough to handle whatever comes our way. Whether it is living in a new town or selling our creative work, or trying something new with our paintbrush on that blank empty page.

Pink Barbie Typewriter and Staying Put

Pink Smith Corona, in the Grass

I went yard saling this weekend. And I got this pink manual typewriter.

Do I need it? Nope. Did I walk by it, gazing longingly at it as I passed again and again while on the search for house hold items? You bet I did.

I have lots of things to shop for, because we are setting up a new house, after our gypsy ways the last couple of years. I still have things in storage in different states, but for now, we're setting up all over again.

Here's the house we rented.

Look at that front porch! Perfect for rainstorm watching and for morning lattes. The house itself is just okay. But it was the porch, the back deck, the yard and the garage... which I have already commandeered for my studio (larger works! yay!) that sold me. This is actually the side view, because I wanted to show that porch. I think those hedges need to be trimmed.

And shall I get some hanging flower pots? I'd really like some wicker furniture, too. A rocking chair, maybe.

Well, here. Look at that. Look at how distracting it is. I'm already decorating and I haven't even moved in yet. Plus there's all the upheaval of moving and getting adjusted. And still my new job to be settled into. And I'm working on my etsy shop, too... getting ready to put prints back up for sale.

Yes. I have picked Chelsea Michigan to sit and stay for a while. I wasn't planning it. I kept meaning to get back to New York, somehow. But this is where we landed, and Gabriel is heading into kindergarten, and it's time to actually be content living where I am actually living.

And maybe that's why I got the pink Barbie typewriter.

It's a sign that I am committing to the things that matter for my future. And a sign that my future is right here, right now in the present. A concrete (or steel and enamel) manifestation of my dreams. One that is solid and heavy, although it does come in a handy dandy travel case.

The truth is, it's time to get back to writing.

It's time to write.

And the idea is scary. In a good way, but scary.

Learn To Fly

Little Nest, Little Family
paper clay. Itty bitty birds, eggs and nest. (all removable)

Is this how we grow? Sometimes?

Sometimes we don't have to be big and bold and daring. Sometimes we need the comfort of our families. The comfortable nest. The dependability of the sun coming up every morning over the same tree branches.

Sometimes we need someone to tell us, yes. Stay. This is your place. You can live here, and take sustenance, and learn to fly.

We always think that the only way to grow, to get bigger, to explore who we are is to jump right out and start taking huge leaps... but I can't help but think that if there isn't something stable and secure where we can start out, it's awful hard to learn to fly.

Sometimes we need our family to support us in our dreams.

Sometimes we need to support our own dreams, our own identities, and our own fragility.

Do you have someone supporting your dreams, encouraging you to be bigger than you are?

More importantly... do you support yourself-- not in the pursuit of your dreams but in your very existence? Are you kind to yourself for your flaws, your struggles, your failures? Do you love and respect where you are right now, right here... before your dreams come true, before you get bigger, while your wings are still too small to fly?

Botanical Specimens, by my son. Not by me. Because he is not me.

Botanical Specimen, Something to be Excited About, by Gabriel
My almost 5 year old son is afraid of drawing. Yes. That's right. He refuses to draw.

What does one do when one is an obsessive artist whose son refuses to draw?

One lets him alone, and looks at the problem, until one discovers the tack to take.

My son loves science. He loves nature of all types, animals, rocks, dinosaurs, nanobytes, plants, life cycles... whatever. Lately, he has decided that he wants to have a museum... one with real dinosaur bones.

Recently I saw a post where preschoolers drew flowers from life and all of a sudden I thought, oh my god, that is the answer.

I went out into the yard, grabbed a dandelion, and said, "Hey Gabriel, do you want to draw a botanical specimen?"

All of a sudden, he was excited. He sat down at the table where I taped the dandelion and a dandelion puff ball seed.
I asked him what color he needed. He said green. I showed him two greens and he picked the light colored one. I asked him what else he saw and he said the flower and he asked for a yellow crayon. We continued looking at the parts of the flower and drawing them. He even asked for white for the puff ball part, although I explained to him that white crayon wouldn't show up on white paper.

We continued to draw the parts of the flower until lunch got in the way. I set the picture aside and showed him a pine cone and a piece of amethyst geode he already had, and told him we could try those next, and they would be good specimens for his museum.

He never complained about not wanting to draw. He was interested. He thought about the shapes that he saw and how to represent them. He thought about what colors would be best for the different parts. It was an important project to him... not a drawing project dictated by my thoughts about what he should be doing. It wasn't about me. It was about him.


What happens when we follow our loves, our interests, our passions? What happens if we are given permission to be our own selves, and find our own way?

Dream. Work In Progress.

Dream Head. Work in progress.

I have been experimenting in Paperclay for a couple of weeks now.

I don't know what I am doing.

There is a place in not knowing that allows for deeper things to come through.

After practicing with the simpler shapes, the houses, the pears, the birdies, the hearts, I felt the urge to push myself. To try for something that I didn't know how to do. That I wasn't sure I was up to.

Last night I sat with a ball of paper clay and decided I wanted to try to make a doll head. It was hard. I worked on the features, the nose, the lips. I mashed them down and started again, feeling that it wasn't right, it wasn't the feeling I wanted, it didn't look the way I wanted it to. I pushed and pulled and smoothed and pinched and used my tiny tools (bobby pin, nail, push pin, x-acto knife, fingers) to bring it into a semblance of a face. Then I tried for the ears, and they were all wrong, messing up what I had done before. Gosh darn it, I realized the entire head was too small for the face, and I would have to add on hair or more clay or something to enlarge it so it didn't look like a pin head.

And then I realized.

Why do I have to do what is expected? Why do I have to create a doll head that looked like a regular doll head, or even a person at all. And then I realized... I don't really create what is in real life. I like to draw what I see, it's fun. It's journalistic, but more than journaling my life or reality, I love exploring the internal reality much more.

So my doll head became a dream head. Something not quite right, not quite real. Something that is reminiscent of reality, but also conjures up a dream, a fairy tale, the subconscious.

Yes. I went away from reality. I went away from the expected, the routine.

I took a chance on something meaningful, something that risks failure.

I found something important.

I don't know what it is yet... but it's coming.

Have you ever reached your edge of knowing?

Do you pull back and keep yourself safe?

Or do you jump and see what happens? (Gosh, that question is the exact description for my very first Flying Girl painting, which I did right before I graduated from college.)

Of Cocoons and Waves

Still Life with Painting and Coffee Jar Caterpillar Habitat (with unhatched and possibly dead moth cocoon)

Do you ever feel as if you are busy working on things, spinning them around in your head or futzing with little bits of this and that... and yet nothing really comes of it? I don't really have a final painting or sculpture or anything to show, just bits and pieces and sketches. My novel has been languishing, although I think I've stumbled upon a solution for the problem of the slow first chapter. And it's taking me forever to update all of the things in my etsy shop, still waiting for my printer to be delivered. There's never any time for anything to be finished sometimes. And I worry that none of it will ever get to where I want it to go.

I swear it was a coincidence that I chose this picture with the unhatched cocoon. The poor caterpillar that worked so hard, spun his cocoon and kind of, well, dried up inside of it. My laptop is out of batteries right now, and I don't have very many new pictures on my memory key. I always liked the way this photo turned out, with the rough green table and the red plastic top and the warm tint the light gives the painting, although I never intended to pick it today. And truthfully, I don't really feel like a dried up caterpillar, although my worries may make me anxious about results.

Life is full of coincidences and synchronicities, isn't it? Like yesterday, when I was sitting in a cafe, without children, having a coffee and reading Jane Austen, feeling all of a sudden anxious, as if I should be doing something, as if I had forgotten something. I looked up and right past my window drove a truck, with the words "Ride the Wave" splashed across the side.

I swear. Ride The Wave. I even have a label on my blog for that very phrase.

So here I am, in flux, as things change, jobs and houses, schedules and child care, budgets and activities, creativity and etsy shops, novels, correspondence, relationships. All of it. Constant activity but few final results.

What can I do but keep going? Little project by little project. Plans. Schedules.

I have to make sure, in the wildness, not to forget some of those things that have been put off to the side for a while. I have to make sure that I keep my eye on where I want to go in the motion of this wave. Just keep swimming, I guess.

I suppose in reality it is an illusion when we think things are settled. They are actually always in flux. We develop routines and expectations, but even within those things, there is always change.

I like to think that when things settle down, I will be able to build some time into my day to finish my novel and maintain my shop... but will things ever be perfect?

No more perfect than this very day, and this very moment.

The only moment there is.

What is there for you in this moment, right here right now? What gift have you to give? What gift have you to receive?