Life Got Busy

I feel like I am in the final stretch of... something. I haven't done much in my studio but these:

"Twinkle" 8x10, acrylic, Available

"Sky 1", 6x6 acrylic, Available 

"Halo" 6x6, acrylic, SOLD

I find that I am disappointed in myself for not having accomplished more. I have started a few pieces, but in truth I've just been completely buried in my life. We have been remodeling, and it's getting to a desperate point since we have my parents and my son's girlfriend coming out for his high school graduation shortly (to see some remodeling pictures and such, you can pop over to my other more life oriented blog here) I've been painting walls instead of canvas!

My son is graduating high school in two weeks, company is coming (so we have to finish our master bedroom at the very least, so the guest room is open for guests again), my daughter is turning 21 and also moving back to North Carolina... AND we adopted my daughter's roommate's kitten that the roommate wasn't taking care of. Meet Cleopatra (Cleo for short, because it's super embarrassing to say that in person at the veterinarian - even though after meeting her the doctor agreed the name totally fits her!)

I just couldn't let her go to a shelter (even though they're all no-kill here in Vermont.) She's the sweetest, cutest, tiny little thing with six toes on each paw so she's a polydactyl, and suspected Maine Coon, but we shall see. My old boy, Socrates (also a Maine Coon, and about 16 years old) is a little huffy about having THREE extra cats after being the only one for so long. However, he's a gentle giant and just moping rather than acting out. I'm trying to snuggle him when I can. He's still my boy (even though Cleo sleeps every night curled into my neck or on my chest at the moment. Cuteness overload, people!)

But I miss my studio. I miss feeling like I have done something with my time that was for ME but also productive in a way that I have something to show for myself. I want to become someone who is producing something almost every day (or at least making great headway!) I have found my self-worth is tied heavily to my art, and I feel a bit of pain not having anything to show for months having passed. Maybe that's silly, given so much is going on, but it's my truth. I NEED to paint.

We all have things that are tied to our self-worth, what are yours?

Life will be crazy for the month of June, which also includes actual contractors showing up and ripping out our kitchen (the only project that's just too much for us to do it ourselves) in addition to company, graduation, birthday parties, and my daughter moving away. I'm hoping that July brings an opening into my being able to work again. If my son successfully attends college in September, and the remodeling is done by then as well, and nothing else bad happens (as has been for the past couple of years) I will finally have the house and my LIFE back to myself for the first time in over two decades. I'm really looking forward to what that will bring, and hoping to take advantage of it!

Taking the Time

I've been doing a lot of thinking. I'm often caught up in my thoughts, but something in particular really hit me the other day. I was listening to the radio and they were discussing the possibility of certain stolen famous paintings being returned. The guest mentioned that if they could recover a Vermeer, they'd be especially grateful as only 35 paintings of his exist.

I actually love Vermeer. I know I paint often wild and fantastical things, and I tend to lean towards a more impressionistic style at times, but I really love Baroque painting. In particular, it's these artists' use of light that makes me want to just sit and look at the painting for hours.

Anyway, what struck me is that only 35 paintings... 35!!! A master of his work, arguably poor (he died in debt), but only 35 paintings. He worked slowly, maybe three a year or so, but he left a beautiful collection as his legacy. There seems to be some sort of balance in this modern age between quality and quantity, and being a prolific painter seems to be important to success. But then, I suppose it's how you define success that matters. Vermeer wasn't wildly successful, but his 35 paintings he has left are arguably a big success as they are simply amazing.

I've mentioned it before, but when it comes to painting I am actually a slow painter. I can do some smaller faster ones, but anything bigger and detailed like my white rabbit (below) takes months. MONTHS! Months and months.

"Tea Time" 16x20, acrylic on stretched canvas

It's not the actual physical time of painting, either - although that takes a while too (if you've seen the video of me painting this, you see how much I spend on certain elements where other artists probably layer quickly and move on. I am not satisfied with that, and I really push the paint and my brushes hard.)

It's the thinking that goes on. When I paint, I don't have it all worked out exactly how I want it to look. I feel like the painting kind of grows on its own. I know how I want certain elements to look, certainly, but there are many aspects where I feel like I'm open to negotiation and let the paint take me where it wants to. That takes time. Sometimes it's sitting there staring at it. Other times it's thinking about it while doing something else. But no matter where that time is taken up, it still IS.

I've finished these recently:

"Bert & Emmy" 9x12 watercolor and acrylic on 140lbs hot-pressed 100% cotton paper.
Currently up for open auction on facebook.

"Timmy" 6x6 oil on a professional ampersand wooden panel.

I also created a special page for my monsters, Whimsical Misfits.

This is part of the Traveling Journal, where this book is going all over the place to different artists and we each get two pages to fill however we'd like. This is my contribution.

Those three paintings did not take as long, obviously, but they probably still took more time than most artists. They're also simple pieces without detailed backgrounds or surroundings.

My Queen of Hearts is taking a long time:

Just snapped this quickly with my phone, bad lighting, sorry

But I realize it's because I want to get it right. I want to make another really good painting that feels like you could walk into it. A window to another world. THAT is what I want to leave behind as my painting legacy.

A window to another world. And for me, those windows take time. I feel such guilt and pressure because I am so slow. I feel that if I was better at this, I would be painting faster. Because of that, I find little things I can paint to distract myself and feel like I have accomplished something, but it's a false sense. I feel accomplished when I finish these deeper paintings, and I'm starting to realize that's important.

Even if I only paint 30 really spectacular paintings in my lifetime, I would be prouder of that than 2,000 fast ones that lack what I want to put into them.

I'm not sure exactly where I am going with this, because I'm not going to let certain things go (like the misfit monsters, or my fairytale I'm going to make via a series of paintings), because I like them. But I realize that I need to allow myself to take the time to feel accomplished, and that perhaps being slow is just something I need to accept rather than run away from or feel bad about.