Empty Nester

Many people have visited our house over the last year, and it's hard for any visitor to avoid the stacks of paintings that have accumulated. Only people who like my work ask questions along these lines: "How does it feel to know your paintings are just going out there?"; "But won't you miss them?" or "Do you ever just want to keep them at home?" I take it as a compliment, that so much do these people value what I make, that they start talking about my paintings as if they were children. And I do know what they mean. I've had those nervous-mom type thoughts that usually sound like this: "If I keep this at home it can't embarrass me in public". 

But, then I also return the question back to my admirers: Would you really want your kids living with you forever? What about your patients, do they stay in your treatment rooms? Would you stack up in your garage all the devices that you ever engineered? Would you let hum in your cupboards all the systems you organized, all the relationships you smoothed? What about the tests you were able to label with an "A+, Great work", would you keep them in a giant file as evidence that you're a successful teacher? Do you shut all the doors and windows when you play your song?  Only if you live in fear. 

CR101A, Crows,  detail.

If I think that maybe THIS work?! Oh, THIS might not actually be good, or THIS may not mean anything, or THIS piece might be my last, then my fists do start clenching; I don't want to share what is weak and limited about myself, and the small amount that I might create with my life.  

If I think rather, that THIS work has a speck of meaning, but I have more to uncover, or THIS contains a piece of myself, but I am growing and will have more to offer tomorrow, or THIS has meaning to me and maybe it can connect with someone else too, then I am able to share.  When I keep focused on that sense of abundance and grace I have confidence that what I make, and will continue to make, has value in the world.

Our lives are indeed short, but within them our abilities to explore love and other experiences is infinite.  That is where my work comes from: from journeying on these endless paths during my very short days.  Besides, my garage is very small. If I don't get the paintings out, there's no room for the bikes. And if I let fear be a bedmate, there's no room for the dog and the snuggling children. 

Me n' Rocky B.

Lest you think I've got a six-pack of core strength or an inner reserve of confidence sloshing around like a a city's emergency water tank, let me correct you.  Approaching the easel for me is a little like a Rocky scene:

And in fact, yes, like Rocky II, children are chasing me, cheering me on.

There's no Mickey however, swearing at me,

You're gonna eat lightnin' and you're gonna crap thunder!

Sigh. Too bad. 

Cheerleaders, coach or no, painting is very much a physical effort for me. That is my tendency in all things however. When I am most involved in life- learning the most, expressing the most- it is a whole-body experience. So, when I get ready to do what I love and yet fear- there is a great deal of "psyching-up" that I do.  This actually does include jumping jacks or a hard run,  a few key mantras, and even some aggressive, loud music.  Sure, I've painted a few paintings already, but I do actually have to tell myself I can do this.... each... and every... time.

Coming to my artwork is not just about following the muse, having my brushes lifted by the spirit of inspiration. I was reminded through one of my kid's "Magic Tree House Mystery" books about a quote from Thomas Edison: 

What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.  

And I am really a sweaty person. Or I am Ms. Avis over here yelling, "I try harder"! Moreover, the painting process requires continually showing up, even when the mantras sound hollow in my own ears and the laundry needs doing or someone mentions that power lines aren't actually beautiful.  That's when I whip out this self-improvement ditty (another Rocky quote, in case you don't recognize it): 

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that.  

To that, I can only add a loud Amen!  I definitely am standing in the pews, waving my hands up in the air with an Allelujah at the ideas of not being a coward, not pointing fingers, getting up off our knees, moving forward.  But with all that up, up, up energy, another notion this year that I've had to face is that of being steady.  

Part of my learning process this year has involved how to keep an even level of energy through a painting. I've found that if I can have a theme-song through a piece, that it really helps keep me in a particular mood. If I come to the easel amped up when the painting is actually rather quiet one, then I need to be able to enter that. If my painting is bold, but I'm feeling nervous and shy that morning then to allow that to break into my painting style may lead to some awkward juxtapositions, a lack of visual flow. This means there are several songs burned into memory, but none to make me an excellent addition to your Karaoke party.

Additionally, music helps me breathe. I find that I tend to hold my breath with concentration but music introduces a rhythm for breathing and the breaks between songs provide natural pauses for deep breaths and stretching.

Meanwhile the Rocky theme plays on!  Trying hard now.... Getting strong now... Gonna fly now...

Marching On!

Honestly, late winter tends to be a hard, dark time for me. After a long dash through the festivities of the fall and then Christmas, I'm totally winded. Add to that any measure of soul-searching or world catastrophe, and it can really bring me down, dude. I mean, I can understand what they were trying to do when they threw Valentine's Day in there. But really?! Not the best time to catch me in the mood (and, um, I mean for anything)!  

I completed this painting in March, during the last days of winter, as a call to spring.  My title for it is Riotous Banners of Joy - because some days, under the weight of the world's sorrows and competing expectations, just picking up my head and celebrating feels like a a revolution.

Towers, Yellows, in progress.

Love in the Time of Drought

Those white plastic things surrounding a baby tree? A "Grow tube", tree protector, and/or tree shelter. Put a thousand in a field and it looks like a lot of hope. What else, if not a type of love, would support such a hopeful/wishful/romantic act of planting an orchard when there is absolutely no rain before or behind you?  I call this piece Love in the Time of Drought. 

Russel Blvd, Westward, in progress.

Obergefell v. Hodges

On the heels of the Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage in June of this year, I worked on this small piece called Second Street, Westward. It depicts several box cars along the tracks just east of the Davis train station.  Whether the object of my subconscious or not, I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I saw a very distinct rainbow show up in the sides of the cars. While a bit muted in the final piece, you'll see the colors still if you look close.  So, I raise a toast to everyone working on the Railroad of Love: here's to Coupling, Uncoupling (my unofficial title for this work)!

Second Street, Westward, detail in progress.

Second Street, Westward. 2015. Oil on panel. 18 x 24 inches. 

Frosted

CR27 at 113, detail.

Believe it or not, this piece reminds me of cake: the sloping lines, as if scallops of piped frosting; the soft pastels, as if food for a baby shower, bridal shower, ladies' luncheon, or any time a petit four might enter the room. Not that anyone else might have a thought of "cake" and follow up that with "Thiebaud", but this work I offer up as a humble nod toward the work of Wayne. For this reason, I call this piece "That Just Frosts My Cake"; more fun than CR27 at 113, don't you think?!

Thiebaud, Wayne. Beach Shop. 1960. Oil on canvas. 18 x 36 inches.

Smashed

"This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance." 
- Philip Dyck

Hidden Actions

I was almost sad to continue working atop the underpainting for Old Mill Road. See all the movement there in the strokes? The eye is drawn up and in, then scattered right and left through the middle. 

The final piece is so calm and still, but I like to remember all the liveliness underneath.  My mom would call this my "Duck" work:  "still on the surface, but paddling like hell underneath". 

Old Mill Road, in progress.

Old Mill Road, detail. 2015. Oil on panel. 36 x 23.5 inches.

Corset

Below are a few shots of the development of Tower, Sunrise. 2015. Oil on panel. 30 x 48 inches.

I have privately referred to it as "Corset" because the colors of the sunrise remind me of flesh, bruised and pinched. 

Initial drawing

Underpainting; lots of blues under there!

Pretty much done. Here you can see the heavier "drips" along some of the lines. Also see a peek of Hwy 20, Westward Before 5, behind on the left? That piece used to be SO yellow. And I feel a little bad about taming that boldness. 

Tower, Sunrise, detail. 

Start Where You Are

Walnut Bayou Lane was a joy to work on, from start to finish. Inspired one morning in a nearby orchard, I was filled with the sense that THIS painting was going to be fun! The colors of the sunrise in the center is a near exact match to the yellows on the cover of Start Where You Are, a book I was reading at the time; I can't help but think my predilections of hope and color were influenced by Pema Chodron's own work, so I'll leave you with some of her words: 

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.

after about 3 hours of work

after about 6 hours of work

after about 11 hours work

Walnut Bayou Lane. 2015. Oil on panel. 60 x 48 inches.

Fall

Two years ago, on the way to the funeral of a dear friend, I stopped to spend a quiet moment on one of my favorite trails in Prairie Creek Redwoods Park.  While I got out of the car feeling a little fragile about impermanence, I found myself physically responding to the wood's colors and falling leaves with a leaping heart.  I wrote the following poem as I walked on the trail there, but the experience itself and the poem rushed back to mind as I painted this orchard's yellows and tried to capture the idea of the ephemeral tracks between its rows, the blur of branches as one drives so quickly by. 

Women's Work, Part I

Last spring, I was invited to participate in the 14th Annual California Landscape Painter's Exhibit at the Natsoulas Gallery, downtown Davis.  At the time of the invitation I'd only dusted off my paints once in six years for a single morning of work, so the idea of preparing several paintings for a show made my eyes spin: How could I fit that into my life as a full-time mother? What would the kids be doing while I painted? Where would I set up my easel? What easel? What would I do about the fumes? What.... what.... was I going to paint? Could ....I.... even ....paint?

So, to answer the first two questions, I gifted myself with ten days of painting in late June, early July. That means I paid a babysitter to be with the kids for four hours each day; I wasn't thinking that this was my "Lean In" battle cry. I thought of this as a treat, a little stay-cation for Mommy; my version of a Ladies' trip to Las Vegas. 

The third question was answered through a gift from something greater, through an unspoken prayer, a touch of an angel, or reverbs of good energy. However I put it, I felt like the universe was encouraging me. Just the week before I was to embark on my little lark, I came across a huge easel at the thrift store: for $15 a behemoth sort that someone had obviously banged together in their garage; probably used by some artist who was real, and committed, and known, and now had enough money to buy a real easel, the kind that adjusted with nice brass hardware. How thrilled I was to have the cast off of this successful, renown, self-fulfilled artist! It would save me from propping my work on the bedroom floor! It would hold a panel bigger than any I'd ever before attempted! For fear of breaking the magic, or like a kid being handed cake, my wide grin was plastic across my face and I didn't blink as I handed over the money, strapped it on my bike at an absurd angle, and beat feet home. I remember having the internal glee, a victory cry: I've got my cake! I'm going to eat it too! I don't know how or why, but here it is! 

I took down my desk in our bedroom, draped and taped plastic all around, strategized with the box and ceiling fan, took some photos one evening at sunset: rudimentary readying. All this was so foreign to the kids. "What are you doing, Mommy?" "What are you painting a picture of?" "Why?" I didn't really have good answers, but that was also part of my preparation for painting. What indeed was I doing?! What would be the point? Was it really just a fun trip down memory lane? Like going back to the old drive-in movie theater to see a grainy '80's movie, only to think, "I thought THIS was funny?"

Our patient babysitter had her work cut out for her as I kissed the kids on their foreheads announcing: "Mommy's going to work now. See you after lunch." I then commuted upstairs to the bedroom; in the second hour I locked the door after learning the kids thought it would definitely be a "Take your kids to work day" situation.  I also developed an appreciation for loud contemporary pop music, as I learned that being swallowed up by the youthful cries for love and longing allowed me to pretend I wasn't the middle aged woman in the house ultimately responsible for the bangs and shouts emanating up the stairs. 

This was my slippery slope into treating painting like a real job. 

On the first day of work, my dentist told me I needed a root canal. On the second day of work I received that root canal. By the third day, the novelty of our little game had worn thin with the kids. So much for "diving in", more like a novacaned slump! 

Nevertheless, when I reached the end of day 10, finding myself standing in our lawn at 9pm, twenty feet back from painting that was too big to work on in our bedroom, it sure did feel like Vegas, baby! My little lark left me wide-eyed on the slot machine stool facing the flashing lights and clanging bells of a winning slot machine. I was hooked, and there would be no "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." I was going to have to make this a regular gig. 

Pool, detail. 2014. Oil on Panel. 15.75 x 30 inches. sold.

Women's Work, Part II

I completed four paintings over those ten days of work/dental visits.  I like to think the pieces sold like hot cakes. In fact, they did sell fast and generated enough interest that John Natsoulas asked what other rabbits I could pull out of my hat.  After the sale of a few more of my bunnies, he offered me a solo show. I said, "YES, I'll have me another piece of THAT there cake!" and got on the books for November 2015.  

I would have nine months to produce twenty pieces for this show, painting sometime between delivering children to their morning school programs, but staying home with them while they were sick of course, enriching their ed-jumakations with swimming and ballet and clay and soccer, providing 3 meals and 2 snacks and laundry and... and... so, sure, I was never overwhelmed by these prospects.

Just as I was getting ready to lean deeply into this, I was given a copy of Natalie Goldberg's book Living Color: Painting, Writing, and the Bones of Seeing.  I sort of snorted and snuffed my way through many of its passages; like when she waxed eloquent about how inspirational it was for her to stop to appreciate the design of the spoon she used to stir her just-right cafe, while chewing the oh-so-perfect bite of croissant, in the oo-la-la French countryside; like when she spent hours analyzing the color of blue on her palette, before even painting a drop!  I don't have TIME for this lady. 

Apparently I was patient enough to stumble into some pages where Goldberg could really speak to a few of my lingering questions: Why was I painting? What purpose was it really to serve?  What was I hoping to get out of it? How would it change my life? How would my work effect others?

Just then the phone rang. It was my friend Kate O'Neill. 

I blurted out to her, "Tell me, why is it women artists are still unknown? Why have women writers gone so far ahead of them in the world?" She was working on her doctoral dissertation in feminist psychology.

There was a long pause. "Well, I called to see if you want to go to the movies. There's finally a good one playing in Taos." She paused again. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes," I said. 

And she reeled this off: 1. More women are writers because it is something you can do in secret or private. It is much more threatening to create visual art because there is much more exposure; a painting or sculpture is out for anyone to see right from the beginning, and women haven't had much public support. 2. Anyone can afford paper and pencil, but to paint you need money and you have to take up physical space. 3. Many renowned women painters had a man behind them. O' Keefe had Stieglitz, Frida Kahlo had Diego Rivera, Elaine de Kooning was with Willem de Kooning. [Note 1] 4. Women can support women writers. A book is affordable. Paintings often aren't. Men, usually the holders of money, buy male artists' work. [Note 2]

Excerpt from Natalie Goldberg, Natalie. "Writer Meets Painter." Living Color: Painting, Writing, and the Bones of Seeing. New York: Abrams, 2014. 113-115. Print.

Note 1:  I am financed by Terry Smiley!

Note 2:  If she wasn't too worried about getting to that movie on time, I like to think that Kate would've stayed on the line to expand on her point 4: men's purchases of art is only a part of a vicious cycle. If men have more resources to make artwork than women, then more art by men will be available to promote and more of it to purchase, by the other men who have the purchasing power.   

Blue Ridge Mountains. 2014. Oil on panel. 24 x 48 inches. sold.

Women's Work, Part III

..... Her analysis was so deliberate. The idea that stunned me the most was the one about taking up space. I'd made a religion of writing in cafes- not having my own studio, making it egalitarian, nothing special, everyone can do it. I lugged my work from restaurant to library to coffee shop. Was I afraid of occupying my own dimensions, of actually pushing out walls for myself?

.... I was impressed that Barbara had built her own big studio, that she wasn't trying to paint in her kitchen between the dishwasher and cutting board or in the back room she used as guest quarters. [Note 3]

"You know what else about that list?" Barbara went on. "Painting is technical. There's all kinds of things to learn that aren't taught in public school. Everyone, at least in this country, has the opportunity to learn to read and write. The technical skills for a writer are built in from first grade." [Note 4]

"Well, where'd you learn the technical stuff for painting?"

"I studied art at a university and although I was recognized for my talent, there was an unspoken snag: I was female and was 'probably just going to get married.'" [Note 5]

When this passage and my own crossed, I took a deep breath. I realized why my questions felt so big.  How could I fit painting into my life as a full-time mother? What would the kids be doing while I painted? Where would I set up my easel? What easel? What would I do about the fumes? What.... what.... was I going to paint? Could ....I.... even ....paint?

My questions were all about taking up more space in, particularly space within my family, than I'd previously claimed. This "space" included not only square footage in our house, but time and proximity to my children. As with most new adventures, there was an element of fear in this change, but with the added wondering of "to be a 'good painter' will I become a 'bad mother'?" 

Of I stared hard at that phrase, the possibility of it:  "to be a good painter", looking at all the assumptions it prompted:  would I have become an art teacher/gotten married in the first place if I really had artistic talent/what it takes to be a real artist?; what about the skills I lacked and all the goof-ups and lousy painting I was going to have to suffer through, make public before hitting one or two that were right?; was I willing to let my mistakes and learning also take up space in my life? 

Here I am, with a solid year of doing this work under my belt.  Most of the questions linger, answers forming over a lifetime, but there are some preliminary results: painting fits in!

There are costs for us as a family, for our home, some great, some small. There's not enough space; I've gotten paint places it shouldn't be (like on this computer); I swear at the lack of lighting/fresh air/distance a lot in my "studio spaces". There's never enough time, but what needs to be done can be balanced through a day/week/season by paying out here, saving there, splurging now, pinching then. This looks like me not progressing on pieces because the kids are sick or on vacation, or me not scrubbing a dirty toilet or not having a fresh piece of fruit for our lunches because I didn't make it to the grocery store, just for a few more moments to paint. So there is a cost to everyone in the family. But the painting is just one currency. I realize that if it wasn't with panels and oils, then I would be paying some other way for life. 

Excerpt from Natalie Goldberg, Natalie. "Writer Meets Painter." Living Color: Painting, Writing, and the Bones of Seeing. New York: Abrams, 2014. 113-115. Print

Note 3: I was trying to paint in the garage, between the water heaters and the cat litter box.

Note 4: I was lucky enough to start gaining technical skills in the 13th grade.

Note 5: This was certainly the culture at my undergraduate school.  There was an understanding that some of my peers were there to earn their MRS degrees. Equally clear to everyone there, I wasn't obtaining that one any time soon. And by the time I did, I had plenty of other excuses for why my talent would never be enough reason for me to really make art as a profession. 

County Road. 2014, Oil on Panel, 48 x 72 inches. sold.

Dear Dad

This one goes out to Dad (Dad, are you reading?): 

Dad, you primed my life by being such a wonderful father. I'll never be board of you. With love, your daughter

A Light in the Attic

I painted here in the garage of my childhood home all of July 2015. Glorious sunshine and coastline spread before me, but the real reason I could work was that my children were cared for so greatly below by my parents.

Case in point:

Doting grandmother; mellow dog; personalized play forts (one built for each kid!); huge back yard. Put me into this situation a few times: http://www.thecomicstrips.com/store/add.php?iid=130702 

Where it all Starts

First I invaded a corner of the bedroom, then took over half the garage, then leapt over to a ranch porch for a few weeks, then to an expansive attic for a month. But all the paintings initiate in the backyard. 

Cages v. Lines

When I first conceived of this series, the title that hung in my mind was "Sky Cages". The more I painted however, the less I felt contained. "SkyLines" became my compromise, a nod to my more accepting relationship with the landscape before me.  Beauty can be seen, joy found around the interruptions and intrusions. The road we're on, on both emotional and physical planes, can be safely navigated.

A Winter's Still

This poem was written on the heels of finishing "Hwy 20, Fall Orchard", sometime when words finally came for this particular work:

A Winter Still

It is a winter still

the glare, the white of grief

caught in a shuddering squint.

Everyday the tight words                           are the same

punctuated loneliness. 

a terseness bracketed by

lifted bare branches, 

silent watchers at our wake.

No movement 

unless you count the merry-go-round

revolving the solitary figure,

his steam ringing above.

Like a toy train

going, coming, going;

if coming is bookended by going                there is no coming,

just a cycle of leaving

and a haloing breath.

A quiet tick

a distant station clock

a tock

indicating the unmentionable.

Hope, that's all it will take

a slight shifting wind and

the ring will break

down, dawning in blossoms

the petals

drifting here and there                                   in spirited wind

and green will roar 

smearing all across

and oh, the words, so many words will tumble forth

as unstoppable as the weeds and the vines and grasses in a year of rain.

No pattern

unless you can trace the recklessness of 

our careening, our inhalations coming raggedly

and sharp with the joy

of spring's arrival

and this winter will be still. 

Adam's Ranch

In late winter, early spring, I had the honor of hours at this spot. I am so truly thankful to have been welcomed, to have been present for so many sounds (thundering hooves down the field, acorns trickling down tin roofs, mail truck swerving slowly down a long county road from one side to another in its delivery route), the aromas of citrus blossoms and fresh cut grasses, the brilliance of canola blossoms and the flash of a Western Bluebird.