the scent of water

Stoned

I painted stones with gesso and then I wrote on them. Now they will transfer their magical properties straight to my psyche. 

Also, I am someone who owns gesso. Thank you very much.

I'm in a bit of a Mary Oliver phase.

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.

` Mary Oliver, from the poem Dogfish

Case rested.

Just in case my children ever accuse me of being a bad mother. I will nod my head gravely and I will say, Yes. This is probably true.  But look! I made cupcakes!

 

Did I mention disorganised?

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. – Rumi

If the things I keep around me really do reflect my deep dark self, you would have to say I was random, messy, and often in need of repair.

If you squint hard enough, use enough imagination, and focus only on a few small corners, there are happy splashes of colour strewn (randomly, messily) about the place as well.

I guess we see what we want to see.

I'm giving myself another semester off study, and whether I will return, and to do what, I don't know. I am good at psychology (who knew this English major could kick butt at statistics?), it's being any kind of psychologist I have grave doubts about. It takes someone a great deal more sure of themselves than I think I could ever be. I used to be ashamed of that, but now I think there are interesting stories in the messy, the random, the broken. And it's always been about the stories.

Amen to that.

People are frightened of themselves. It’s like Freud saying that the best thing is to have no sensation at all, as if we’re supposed to live painlessly and unconsciously in the world. I have a much different view. The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege.

~ Marilyn Robinson, Paris Review's The Art of Fiction

I was going to hang the washing out but now the dark clouds have returned.

If you saw the pile of dirty laundry on my kitchen floor, you would understand my pain. It's been there so long I am thinking of painting a layer of shellac over it and calling it an art installation.

What the hell. I'm going to hang it out on the line anyway. Because sometimes in order to get anything done you have to believe  that those dark clouds are just passing through.

Morning

In between the heavy rain, a bright sun. Winter is like that here, unsure of itself, ambivalent. I pull out a sketch book and practice my drawing. I have three paintings that I would like to try but my childish scribbling leaves me frustrated. I stop before I collapse in on myself. I have to believe I can improve.

I want to put the bird painting in the fire, rub out any evidence I have that I ever tried. I tell Warren that I'm embarrassed, that it's all very silly.  I don't think so, he replies. I think it's the stuff of life.

Where angels live.

Thank you. Your overwhelming support of my little painting was so encouraging. The kind of pictures I have in my head I am not yet skilled enough to execute, but all that means is the sooner I get practising, the sooner I will be able to execute them.  More likely, I will never be able to execute exactly what is in my head - who can? - but that doesn't matter either. 

Art is so many different things to different people, but what I feel when I paint, when I take pictures, is a shift towards my better self. If we all have our metaphorical demons, then perhaps there are also places where our angels live. I don't know where that place is for you,  but I hope you visit there as often as you are able. Oftener. Me, being able to define what is beautiful for my own self and then doing what I can to make that visible to others, that's when I hear the hallelujahs.

In their book, Art & Fear (from which I unashamedly stole the angel metaphor), authors David Bayles and Ted Orland say this:

To make art is to sing with the human voice. To do this you must first learn that the only voice you need is the voice you already have.

I'm a little old to be learning it, but putting your faith in that voice changes everything.

Painting

The family brought me a small set containing some brushes, a half dozen acrylic paints and a canvas board for Mother's Day. I have a few books from the library that have been inspiring me to just pick up a brush and start painting*, and as daunting as it was, that is what I did. I've never painted before, at least not since kindergarten.

It was a lot harder work than I was expecting. I kind of felt sick most of the way through with the fear I would be awful. Somehow it really mattered.  It's not the world's most amazing painting, I know, and heavily derivative, but there is something about that bird (of indeterminate species) that makes me think I could maybe be good at this if I keep going. Good enough, at least.

And I do plan to keep going. As anxious as I was about the outcome, and as hard work as I found it, I was also fully engaged in the process. My bills, my health, my chores, my family, my study; for a few hours my mind was absorbed enough to let it all go. It was a satisfying place to be.

 

*Art Saves, Jenny Doh; Art at the Speed of Life, Pam Carriker; and my favourite, Unfurling, Misty Mawn.

 

Happy Mother's Day

To those who celebrate it today. xx