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One Important Change

May 11, 2016 //
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I sat down with a state employee yesterday, a requirement as I go through the various processes involved with shifting gears from ‘gainfully employed’ to ‘not so much’ for the time being. It was inevitable, and as indicated, required. It was a pleasant enough experience, like a jingle or a pop song, purposeful and fairly cheery… with one wrong note. Discussing skills and experience, she dismissed both my painting and my writing as ‘hobbies’ and told me in a frank and practical tone that those “don’t count” and I “should stay focused on real work skills” when seeking employment. I laughed and playfully pointed out what a buzz kill that must be for graphic artists, and technical writers… she looked at me oddly and said she didn’t understand what I meant. Oh my. Say it with me, People, “art is real work, so is writing, so is acting, so is philosophy – yes, people can (and should) be paid to think, and paid to create.

Can we please just make one change in the way we view productivity? Can we please recognize the inherent value of creative works? 🙂 Hell, the most important work I have done as a human being has been artistic work; not a damned thing I’ve ever done for corporate America has been worthy of further consideration once the moment has passed. (This is likely quite true for most ‘gainfully employed’ human beings – most of the effort for which we are compensated lacks meaning, it is simply revenue generating for that employer, and therefore valued sufficiently for [required] compensation – and based on the brouhaha over increasing the minimum wage, they grudge workers even that.)

Again and again, I am struck by how reluctant we seem to be to pay artists. It’s a little weird, isn’t it? We pay the barista who makes our coffee, the cashier who rings up our groceries, the mechanic who services our vehicle, the firefighters who stand by ready to fight fires (and who get paid even when nothing is on fire), we pay CEO types who may do literally nothing besides attending meetings and answering emails (and we pay them very well), hell – we even pay athletes to play games they’d likely pay for free, to secure the reliable playing of the game at a venue large enough for paying crowds to attend. What’s with expecting artists – any kind of artists – to work for free? (By the way, working for ‘exposure’ is the identical same thing as working for free!) How is painting not work? How is writing not work? How is acting not work? I mean, seriously folks… if you allow the average CEO, or executive manager, or pro athlete to identify their compensated activities as ‘work’, then how is a painter not working? How is a novelist not working? How is a poet not working? Seriously? Don’t be dicks. It may not be easy to place a painter in a paid position as a painter – but for fuck’s sake is it necessary to denigrate that meaningful work, by saying it isn’t ‘real work’? I’ll admit to being more than a little irked that the government will subsidize farmers, but not artists. It’s easy to see that filling the stomach of the nation is important… Is it so difficult to see that feeding our hearts, minds, and souls is important, too? Would we perhaps be better human beings if we more easily recognized artistic endeavors as valued work? I think it is worth thinking about. (End rant. 🙂 )

work

Not yet ready for ‘real work’, there is real work to be done to finish moving into my studio. 🙂

It is a lovely morning. I plan to spend the day [working] in the studio, aside from one pause for an interview call. The practical requirements of life must still be met, and I hope to find a position from which I can invest more time in artistic endeavors. I feel unhurried and well-prepared. My traveling partner shared a great quote with me yesterday that fuels and encourages me. “Chance favors the prepared mind.” (Louis Pasteur) I take additional steps to be that ‘prepared mind’ as I live my life and study life’s curriculum, extending my studies into new areas that have the potential to enhance my existing (monetarily valued) skills; I have enrolled in some coursework in analysis and economics. (I continue to be a big fan of continuing education, and it has served me well over the years.)

Today is a good day to be spent on practical matters and taking care of this fragile vessel. Today is a good day to invest in infrastructure (through educating myself, tidying up my studio, maintaining an organized living space, and practicing the practices that build emotional resilience and self-sufficiency). Yes, there are verbs involved. 🙂

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Categories Art, art and the artist, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Art, Music, Words

February 16, 2016 //
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This morning I am relaxed and alert after a good night’s sleep. I woke too early to a distant peculiar high-pitched whine; the train in the distance crawling slowly through the night, sometimes loud, sometimes noisy, doesn’t often wake me but in the wee hours this morning it did. It wasn’t relevant to the overall quality of my sleep, or this lovely quiet morning over coffee.

I enjoyed quite a nice weekend, and although I started it having to deal with my challenges it was skillfully done, generally, productive, emotionally nourishing, fun, relaxing, and fairly entertaining. I spent much of it at home in this beautiful space I am creating for myself, and a lot of it painting. I’ve been needing this so much – over the years of adult creative lifetime I have yearned for adequate space to paint. I’ve done some amazing work perched on the edge of couches, crouched on the floor in a corner, spread out across kitchen counters, dining tables, or on an easel of good quality and sturdiness wedged into a corner of one room or another, cautious about paint being flung thoughtlessly here or there… attentive to immediately clean up, every day, every time… I’ve gotten close to have real studio space once or twice, only to see it jerked out of reach at the last minute. I was well into my 40’s – almost 50 – when I understood how much I yearned for dedicated creative space to work. I put it aside as a fantasy. I put it aside as unreachable – so many times. (If this isn’t obvious; it was often my own choices that put fulfillment of this desire out of my reach.)

Most of my partners and lovers have respected my artistic side, some of have truly loved my work; I feel certain that had it been commonly understood how badly I needed more room to work – understood by me, myself, too – I’d have been ‘here’ sooner. One of life’s many missed details – handled. I smile thinking about how many conversations with my traveling partner over the years have come back to making a viable solution to the need for room to paint become a reality for me – even our very first conversations as friends often wound around back to quality of life matters being needfully inclusive of this thing I did not have at that time; he recognized it as a ‘need’ when I still thought of it as a daydream without substance, forever out of reach. Over the course of our 5 years together, he has regularly pointed out potential solutions – and when it was clear that there was profound value for me (and us) in my living quite separately day-to-day, it was the artistic space that sold the idea first, healing was a bit of an afterthought (for me). I’ve been well-supported in this partnership – as an artist, as a woman, as a human being, and as a friend. How the hell do I say ‘thank you’ for all that?? Well… by painting, I guess, and making the choice to live alone have value beyond the separateness of it. 🙂

One of the faces of Love, and another way to take care of me.

One of the faces of love, and another way to take care of me.

I spent the weekend in my studio. I love the way that sounds. I spent it getting it set up, and using that time of making order out of chaos to ‘get my head right’ on Saturday morning (Friday afternoon and evening I wasn’t really good for much, dealing with a flare up of my PTSD and focused on very basic self-care). By midday Saturday I was painting. Sunday I was painting. Monday I was painting. Somewhere in the midst of all that, I found time to read, to eat, to shower, to love – the love matters most, perhaps, but without all that other stuff, who is here to be loved? I enjoyed the time I spent with my traveling partner Sunday – and there was no awkwardness in his departure. “What would you be doing if I left now?” he asked pleasantly after hanging out a while. I smiled and gave it some thought, the answer was an easy one, “I’d be in the studio, sitting with the new colors and the canvases I am working on, thinking about that”. He smiled back at me and observed that the timing seemed good. No stress, no emotional weirdness – an easy (for both of us) comfortable (for both of us) departure, freeing us (both) to move on with the day quite naturally. It was quite lovely, both the time together, and the time apart. What more could I ask of love?

There are now four canvases in various stages of completion in my studio, and they are not a frenzy of similarly themed work using a similar palette for economy. They are not being rushed through to avoid inconveniencing a household starting a new work week. Each is an entirely unique experience with color, texture, subject; I am able to slow my pace to a moment by moment approach that feels completely different – and worth exploring. Mindful painting? Is this a thing? The path veers in a new direction…

…I walk on, enjoying the view as I begin again. Today is a good day for art, for music, for words – a good day to feed my heart and my soul, not just this fragile vessel. 🙂

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Categories Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

A Lesson from Love

September 24, 2015 //
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I woke very early this morning, minutes after 4:00 am. It’s a work morning, so making any effort to sleep longer isn’t likely to be very satisfying. I get up, and linger in the shower, while I take the chill off the apartment by pre-heating the oven. I’m up early enough for a proper breakfast. No idea what I’ll make, or whether it will actually require the oven. It’s definitely autumn, now; I am no longer making any effort to cool off the apartment. I have been here in my wee place long enough for the seasons to change. 🙂

Enough.

Enough.

There is very little drama in this experience. I sip my coffee and let myself wonder what ever kept me in any abusive relationship, ever, in the first place? Love? No – because that sort of treatment doesn’t qualify as being loved, and doesn’t tend to produce love as a reaction. I learned that the hard way. Fear of being solo, of being unqualified to adult all alone? Could be, at least the first time. I was very young when I married my first husband, and mostly did so because I earnestly wanted to move out of the barracks and ‘didn’t know how’ otherwise…and… it seemed expected, culturally, that I would marry. Now that, right there? That’s a shitty reason to get married, or be in a relationship of any other sort. Loneliness? I suppose loneliness is an important reason people may stay in an abusive relationship – loneliness sucks that much, sometimes – so much that self-care and good decision-making are undermined in favor of the mere idea of love.

Be love.

Be love.

Living alone? Not so scary, honestly. By far better than living with chronic mistreatment, neglect, disrespect, deceit, evasion, misdirection, or physical, emotional, or financial abuse. Do I get lonely? Sure. I’m human, and I miss touch, and the everyday intimacy and connection of living with someone I love dearly – but I’ve got to be honest, I’ve only approximated that experience in most relationships, generally very short-lived during the newest weeks of the relationship, and with only the most superficial level of connection, and very little real intimacy – because I didn’t have well-developed skills, practices, or understanding of what relationships take to build and maintain in the first place. My own ignorance and lack of personal development definitely limited my ability to forge the bonds I didn’t know I was looking for in the first place. Now I have the skills, the desire, the partnership – but we are separated, day-to-day, by 14 miles that sometimes feel infinite. Now… I am also learning that however common love can be, when we live from a loving place, a love like the one I share with my traveling partner is on another order of magnitude entirely, and it is not affected by the distance between us, even in lonely moments, when I yearn to be near him.

"You Always Have My Heart"

“You Always Have My Heart”

I sip my coffee and think about love, and loving. Is there some magic, mystical secret to this powerful love we share? I suspect not. It’s quite probably part chemistry, but I feel fairly certain that the larger portion of it is simply that we treat each other truly well. The Big 5 are pretty consistently in play (respect, consideration, reciprocity, openness, and compassion). We’re human, there are moments that challenge us now and then, but day-to-day, moment-to-moment, I can count on my traveling partner to treat me well, to support my growth, to encourage me, to listen deeply, and to be connected and really with me when we are together, and he can count on those things from me. It’s quite lovely, and it’s all in spite of being quite human (the both of us), with our own baggage, our own chaos and damage, and our own view of the world.

"Cherry Blossoms" 12" x 16" acrylic on canvas 2011

“Cherry Blossoms” 12″ x 16″ acrylic on canvas 2011

There are other reasons to build a relationship than for love, even marriage is not always built on love. Even the most practical, logistical, or political basis for a long-term relationship benefits from The Big 5, and suffers without them. I think so, anyway. I think a lot about treating people well, and what that means, and how I get there. How we treat people changes us. What we endure in our relationships, and the treatment we receive at the hands of loved ones, changes us. We become what we practice. When we treat someone poorly, however valued we may say they are to us, we change them over time; the damage piles up and changes how we are treated in return. Living alone, I have only one person to count on to treat me well day-to-day – and I’m still learning a lot about taking care of me, and treating myself truly well…but I’ve got a lot less drama while I do, and I’m not having to expend precious resources, or waste valuable time, healing fresh wounds.

"Communion" 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2011

“Communion” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2011

I know you want to be treated well. I think everyone probably does (in the way they define that, themselves). This morning, I’m not thinking as much about how I want to be treated – I’m thinking about how I treat others. How about you? Are you treating your loved ones truly well day-to-day, or do you let your temper get the better of you and say vile things you regret later, then expect people around you to ‘stop taking things so personally’ or ‘grow a thicker skin’? Maybe you justify the terrible hurts you deliver with your words by rationalizing the truth of them, or the necessity of hearing them said, or because you are ‘right’? Do you excuse your own bad behavior by saying it’s your hormones, or you had a rough day, or you hurt or don’t feel well? Are you aware you are still causing someone you love pain, and maybe even tearing down something you built that was once beautiful? Treating someone you love poorly is like spraying political graffiti on a precious work of art, or painting over a mural, or… well… it’s actually just not okay, and is entirely unpleasant, and doesn’t show any hint of love. Just saying. Even a heartfelt apology does not make the words unsaid, or take away the experience of being hurt – and no one forgets those things, not really. In a good relationship, it’s simply that the good moments outweigh the difficult ones a lot.

"Contemplation" 11" x 14" acrylic on canvas 2012

“Contemplation” 11″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas 2012

I am humbled by the wonder in the realization that I am good at love. (I wasn’t always, I’ve worked to get to this place.) This is a powerful place to be in life. Practice matters, even on this, and it isn’t the bit about being loved that needs the practice, generally. Loving isn’t just a word – it’s a verb, and one that requires quite a lot of things, like kindness, and deep listening, and attentiveness, and authenticity, and vulnerability, and compassion, and patience, and surrender, and tenderness, and being comfortably wrong as easily as being right, and laughing, and touching, and sharing experiences, and eye contact. I enjoy how many verbs there are from which to choose to show love. Practicing them is both entirely necessary, and highly rewarding… I mean… If you want to love, and be loved in return. Some people only want to be loved (or maybe just worshiped, adored, or served); it’s much less work, but eventually love dies when it isn’t nurtured.

p.s. I love you.

p.s. I love you.

Today is a good day to love well, and to deliver on the promises made by love. Today is a good day to treat every heart well, not just my own. Today is a good day to make eye contact, to be kind, and to really listen when someone is talking. Today is a good day to practicing loving. The world could use a little more love, and we become what we practice.

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Categories Art, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Small Disruptions

September 23, 2015 //
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I am sipping my coffee and feeling fairly comfortable with change, although somewhat uneasy. I got a call yesterday, late in the afternoon, that the A/C needs to come out of my window right away so that contractors can replace my front window – something I expected would be done in the spring. Caught by surprise during a busy work day, I felt overwhelmed, and I’ll admit it, frightened. No real reason. Generally, beyond the tantrums and the freak outs, I’ve got this. I am very adaptable, but I also find changes to my ‘safe space’, my  personal environment, my haven from chaos and damage, to be incredibly disruptive. It’s not so bad this time. I emailed my traveling partner, uncertain whether I would need his help, but knowing his counsel would be valuable regardless, and then gave the matter further thought.

In minutes, and with the help of a couple of deep breaths, and a perspective-providing reminder in the form of an exceedingly complicated spreadsheet I was contentedly in the midst of updating, I realized, again, “I’ve got this.” The panic itself is the bigger issue sometimes. Many times. (All of the times?) This morning I am calmly sipping coffee, and content that things are handled…and more than a little curious about the new window. Will it be much better at keeping out spiders than the previous window? Bonus! In the meantime, I have arranged to have the landlord remove the A/C, which needs to come out for the year, anyway.  (Now I just have to figure out where the hell to store it over the winter – space is limited here.)

Still, the whole ‘replacing the windows’ thing pushes my issues with having my safe space disturbed into the foreground. I think of it as only an issue with changes that are imposed upon me, rather than selected, but experience suggests otherwise, and the “consequences” are not always immediate, and sometimes linger for some days or weeks until I feel settled into whatever was changed. New windows and a new patio door may change the ambient sounds of the apartment, and if so, may tend to affect my sleep, or sense of safety, for example. I don’t predict or expect it these days, but I know the risk is there, and I observe as the experience unfolds.

Small things matter; it irritates me to see a stack of paintings now in a view of the room that generally includes the fireplace, but instead now shows off how many of my paintings are not hanging. lol I often just don’t look to the corner of the room where those paintings usually sit. I find myself irked with my own irritation; I could choose to deal with the surplus paintings quite differently. Should I be looking at my budget with an eye on climate controlled storage? Fuck life is expensive sometimes. “Less clutter would be good…” I think to myself with annoyance. Recalling that the ‘clutter’ is art, paintings that I don’t have room to hang, grates on my nerves. For a prolific artist, there is no living arrangement with enough wall space to hang everything. I take a moment to sooth myself with the recollection of past delight with being able to rotate my displayed art with the changing seasons, or rearrange it for holidays, and how lovely it is to be able to hang work that reflects my mood, or changes in life, and how much I love it when I sell a piece that was hanging – and can easily fit something different into that place on the wall. I’m okay. I’m just having my windows replaced. 🙂

Today I'm not making this complicated.

Today I’m not making this complicated.

Change? I got this. Today that’s enough. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5

The Ratio

September 22, 2015 //
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I take pictures. I take a lot of pictures. My camera goes everywhere with me, although to be fair that’s not a challenge; I use my camera phone as my primary camera. Sometimes that’s obvious, since as cameras go, it’s still a phone. I don’t consider myself, creatively, a photographic artist first; I am humbled daily by the images shot by any number of other photographers – including my 16-year-old niece, who recently took up photography, and has since shot any number of outstanding images of insect wildlife, dog facial expressions, and life*.

I take pictures of squirrels.

I take pictures of squirrels.

I take a lot of pictures without worrying much about whether or not I am ‘good enough’ to be ‘a photographer’. By definition, a photographer is one who shoots photographs. I’m that. I’m a lot of other things too. What sets me apart from any professional photographer (who earns a living taking photographs with a level of technical ability worth paying them for), or an artist who works in photography as their medium (who, whether they earn a living or not, takes wonderful photographs, images that capture something about life and the world, that people want to see), is The Ratio [of great shots to wasted ones]. I am a student, an amateur, a woman with a camera phone; I take uncounted pictures to get one great shot [maybe] – and am quite willing to make use of pictures that communicate something to me, personally, but which are not particularly skillful or extraordinary pictures. A professional would take potentially many pictures, and get many that were precisely what they were looking for, and a professional would be unlikely to make use of poor quality images. An artist might take more pictures – or not – but would likely have many more shots that capture something quite extraordinary. The ratio of great shots to ‘why did you bother’ shots is very different for someone just snapping pictures along life’s journey, and someone who is skilled, studious, gifted, or driven by artistic purpose – or all of those things at once.

A favorite floral shot; some pictures capture something that lasts.

A favorite floral shot; some pictures capture something that lasts.

One lovely thing about life is that practice is a thing; I could become a more skilled photographer with study and practice. (My photography has improved quite a lot over the past couple years.) I could become a captivating artist with a camera, with more study and practice. (I occasionally take some amazing shots even now.)  There are all those verbs involved, and results that vary based on choices and opportunities – and inspiration. With practice, the ratio of great shots to wasted shots would change in favor of great shots – because we become what we practice. Yep. Some things are exactly just that simple. I can’t actually see any particularly obvious dividing line between ‘dinking around with my camera phone’ and ‘I’m a photographer’ – Only a ratio of great shots to crap shots, a ratio of meaningful images to trite images, and a ratio of great pictures taken to all the pictures taken.

Sometimes I don't quite capture what I was going for.

Sometimes I don’t quite capture what I was going for.

Having said all of that, I’ll add that I’m not certain the ratio has ‘real meaning’ or value beyond words; I love taking pictures and don’t care much whether I am ‘a successful photographer’ by any definition but my own. I enjoy taking the pictures, and in some cases even those that ‘didn’t turn out’ capture something of value, or are meaningful to me in some way. I could definitely grab hold of the ratio as an idea and beat myself down for not being ‘good enough’, or not growing fast enough – instead, this morning, I just observe that it’s there, as a thing – maybe – and that there are differences among us. My young niece has far more talent and aptitude with a camera than I do; it shows in the pictures. Happily, life is not a competition; I am free to enjoy her photographs alongside my own.

It's a journey. Each step I take is my own.

It’s a journey. Each step I take is my own.

Today is a good day to see the world with new eyes. Today is a good day to enjoy beauty and wonder. Today is a good day to be who we choose to become – by practicing. There is so much freedom to choose who we are, and who we want most to be. The labels are less important than the verbs. There is a whole world to explore on this journey.

*I am choosing not to use any of my nieces images in this post, although I am thinking about her work, and have it open on another tab of my browser, where I can look at it while I write. My choice to use only my own work in this post is based on my Big 5 relationship values; I have not been given explicit permission by the artist (my niece) to use her photography in my blog. It’s irrelevant that she is 16, or that she is my niece; she is the artist, and her images are her own work, owned by her, and using them without her permission is a theft of intellectual property. Yes, I’m serious. Please be considerate of the work of artists, get permission, give credit, and don’t seek to profit financially from their work without authorization – in advance. It’s just common courtesy.

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Categories Art, art and the artist, autumn, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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