I experienced another manic-depressive art day on Saturday. Hours of work that accomplished zero moving forward in the work. So the spiral began with the devil’s whisper, "You know nothing about color harmony or about color theory. Look at it! It isn’t working." It was just like the cartoon with the little red devil sitting on the shoulder.

That night I came across a documentary on PBS called "The Devil’s Miner". Please have a look and catch the film if you can. It will give you some perspective that Americans in particular need desperately.
………."OOOHHH, my life is so bad!!! I can’t get the color right on my painting!!!!!"""…..blah, blah, blah……….

Soup cans and lilly pads

There is a very interesting documentary on Andy Warhol airing on PBS stations at the moment. Though I have never connected with his work on any level, the film is well made and did help me to empathize with and understand him better. Catch it if you can. Like his work or not he is a significant figure in the landscape of the ninteen century and did indeed change the way people think about art.

Back to "Jeff". I spent several hours painting in an idea only to hate it the next day. On to the next idea which seems to be working. I haven’t looked today, haven’t even been in the room with the work today. I am afraid to look. I overthink everything. It seems my left brain is trying to take up more and more of the couch squeezing my right brain onto the floor or even out of the room.

I think I am mastering what Eric Maisel, creativity coach extraordinare, calls "the most important short walk of your life." The walk to the work. I can choose to walk anywhere, to a miriad of seemingly important tasks or amusings, but to choose to turn toward and walk to the work is difficult. It is at the easel I encounter myself. God has used my art consistently to show me things about myself, to dig up, to cut off and to plant, as well. Hence, the difficulty in moving toward the work. What will I find out about myself? Usually it isn’t something I want to look at. Control, impatience, selfishness…. I could go on.

On a lighter note, I had the opportunity to ride last weekend. Yee-haw.

Qbix opening

So, up to Philadelphia we traveled in the wake of Ernesto for the gallery opening at Qbix to showcase new work and volume two of Qbix magazine. It rained the entire drive and by the time we arrived at the hotel, the wind was really picking up. I don’t need to tell you I thought the thing would be a wash out. Most of you that know me are aware that I struggle with a natural negative bent, so it took a lot of faith and discipline to believe God for the best and let it go.

After a delivery pizza and a shower we headed out and up the two blocks to the gallery. Windy, rainy yet the gallery was packed and continued to be full of folks though the night. Apparently, the weather has little effect on the plans of the people of Philadelphia. A few of the other artists, Kenny Brown and Barbara Poole came to the event as well.

The encouraging thing for me was to hear from folks how much my painting impacted them. For most artists, and especially for me, the work making some sort of connection, some sort if puncture is really important. I was happy to have the painting make some marks on people and for them to go away with those marks.

Confirmation about your chosen path is always a wonderful thing. I was confirmed in my call and confirmed in the direction I need to go. See "Craig’s confession" above. The gallery owners chose to hang an older painting of a more surreal nature. So, Craig’s bravery in telling me his gut feeling and the choice of paintings by the gallery solidified the direction.

Today, I feel more confident in the path to choose. And today starting again wasn’t so hard. An artist, whatever their craft, has to learn how to start and how to start over and over. They have to ask themselves what they must give up in order to start whether it is some other task that needs doing or some idea that needs to be released. It is the starting that is the devil. Today I started.

Me with Sharon and Sharon of Qbix (Two of the loveliest people one would ever hope to meet and work with. Many thanks to you both.)

Craig's confession

So, "Jeff" is still staring. Today I did a little mind mapping to unearth some ideas about where to take this painting. I think I have a few……

Up in West Virginia, Craig confessed to me that he felt my work was not going in the direction that it should go. I was a little hard to hear but I know he is right. I have always been very attracted to the surreal and to work of the mind over what I can literally see with the eye or copy. That has always been my strong point and my joy to work in this way. His reference was the "Vincent" painting which to him does not look like one of my paintings, but like someone else’s. It looks unfinished, almost like it is waiting for something. I agree.

For some reason I have moved in a realist sort of direction even though it is a direction that bores me. Maybe it is residue from the art school indoctrination I received. I had to prove I can do it if I want to. Consequently, I haven’t really been honing those imagination skills for some time. I am quite rusty, as I am discovering with "Jeff." I am a not as right brained as a lot of artists are either (therefore I am not flaky, like ALOT of artists….sorry, admit it brothers and sisters.) But because of that I tend to censor myself more…I am reasonable. I like to be on time and like to know what is going on before I go, don’t like surprises and don’t like changes in the schedule. Think that hinders my artistic side a bit?..
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Traveling

OK, so a month since I have posted. Sometimes you just live and don’t have any commentary along the way.

I met my mom at my sister’s in Atlanta a few weeks ago, about the time those guys were attempting to mix explosives in airplane lavatories. I did make it home and left two days later for West Virginia (please hold the regional jokes.) It was the first real vacation Craig and I have had since our honeymoon seven years ago. Our very generous friends offered their mountain home as accommodations.

West Virginia is an odd mix of Appalachian and hippie cultures. It is beautiful up there with plenty of miles of hiking for enthusiasts, like us. We did an eight mile hike one day. Why you say? Well, after the third hour I was asking that myself. Being deep in the wilderness breathing the air, suddenly noticing the lack of engine noise is a wonderful experience, sore feet and all. We even had the rare opportunity to see a black bear. Sort of a "Wow!" moment that turns to an "Oh, S—!" moment pretty quickly as one realizes one is in the presence of a BEAR. We immediately began looking for stuff to throw and trees to climb just in case.
We paid many visits to The Purple Fiddle , the local cafe famous for its showcase of bluegrass bands. I have a new appreciation for the genre after seeing Greensky Bluegrass there one Friday night (Yes, I know. Not very punk rock.) Bluegrass has to be observed, not just heard. Then you get it.

So, back home and headed up to Philadelphia on Friday for the opening. I have done no artwork in weeks save one portrait, so struggling a bit with finding meaning in walking dogs alone. "Jeff" has been beckoning, just staring at me from the easel…….I am still stuck. I still feel it a painting worth finishing.

Gifts and wrestlings

So, I have one week to finish the final painting for the show in September. I have wondered lately about the link between a gift and the struggle to bring to fruition that gift. One would think that a gift would be easily brought into exercise….easily approached and executed. Why is then, kids, that I struggle so much with the working out of my particular gift yet continue to pursue it? On the average moving toward it, getting in there and bringing forth the manifestation of the thing is a painful experience.

Jeff Buckley, my dear, dear artistic brother, said that the nature of making an album is, "excrutiating…or it’s obsessive because you are dealing with ultimate things. It’s like painting……sound painting." I can so relate to that insight. Once it is over, it’s over. How could it have been created differently, or better….with more impact? These are the places one goes even upon the very last application of color. Or before.

But this trip has been good. I started out with confidence that it wouldn’t work, but I did it ANYWAY. And I have experienced the rare place of joy and peace that comes with knowing what I was created to do. We are all created for a specific purpose but I don’t think many people know what that is. I am tremendously grateful to God to have that knowledge. But I understand that it takes a lot of struggling to work that out in day to day life. When I can get to that center, that place of knowing….man, all the struggle is forth it. Do not be decieved. Your call is not always what comes easily to you. It is often what challenges you the most.

I had a most unsavory experience last Sunday in my own church. I love my church and the people who make it up are a great bunch of folks, but I have a problem when Christians use a worship setting to express their patriotism.

In our worship time Sunday the song God Bless America was sung during the offertory. I understand that the majority of the people in our church are baby boomers and that song has and had great meaning not only to them but also to their parents. Written in 1938, or at least the version we now sing, it held tremendous value under the threat of impending war in Europe. These are also the people who believe that America used to be a christian nation. Anyone who has read anything about the founding fathers knows this isn’t exactly true. (Too bad for you D. James Kennedy.)

I believe it is a fine song to be sung in the right arena, but the connotation to me as a thirty eight year old woman who has grown up watching the gross commercialism, materialism and the downright self-centeredness of American people, I hear “God, bless us because we are so great. We are the best so You must bless us.” Sunday worship is for the worship of God, not the worship of America. A few things were even said about the war in Iraq from the pulpit. Well, it was an obvious implication anyway if not a direct statement.

Speaking of politics (and the war IS about politics), there is also the false belief that all Christians are conservative. I had a friend in our church in Atlanta who was a hardcore democrat who was told that one cannot under any circumstances be a democrat AND be a christian. A lot of Christians are totally against the war in Iraq. The assumption that we all think alike and feel alike about all things is offensive and ignorant. I myself, a sincere follower of Christ, have serious concerns and doubts about the war.

So, back to Sunday morning. I excused myself to the bathroom to get my attitude adjusted after the offertory. Upon returning to my seat I noticed that the final song would be “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” A war song written at a Civil War camp. The original song is called “The John Brown Song” some say about the abolitionist, some say about a Scottish Union soldier. I excused myself again………what a bizarre experience.