I woke gently a bit later than I might generally. Hardly enough to call it “sleeping in”, though it was lovely to wake quite slowly, making the transition from sleeping to waking so gradually, I wondered for what seemed like a long while whether I was asleep or awake, as I listened to the sounds of the sea through the patio door left cracked open to enjoy the breeze.
[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]
I yawned and stretched as I rose from the less-than-ideally-comfortable hotel bed. I’m still just a little astonished to have whipped together the ingredients of this brief getaway so quickly. I could not have made it happen without my Traveling Partner’s suggestion, and resolve to see it through. He recognizes a need for self-care when he sees it. (He is a man of great discernment, and loves me deeply.) So, here I am, sipping acceptably ordinary (thoroughly average) coffee, and watching the dark night become the gloom of twilight as daybreak pushes forward through the fog. The tide is coming in – high tide in just a few minutes, actually, but irrelevant to my activities.
I get up between thoughts to layout my easel, my pastels, and bits of things I use when I paint (artist’s tape, wee spongy smudgers of various sizes, finger cots to protect my skin from some of the less safe pigments). Real cadmium, cobalt, mercury, nickel, manganese, arsenic, antimony, and (less commonly these days) lead pigments come at a cost – and it’s not included in the price tag on the box. To one degree or another, quite a few of the beautiful colors in an artists paint box may be poisonous or toxic to some degree, and insidious because those effects are cumulative over time. Maybe Van Gogh’s suffering was due to lead poisoning? We may never know – but for fucks’ sake don’t lick your g’damn paint brushes, and use appropriate safety gear! Wash your hands well after you clean up. Keep a tidy studio (and don’t let children randomly wander there alone). Dust and vacuum!
…I’m not telling you what to do; those reminders are for me.
I sip my coffee listening to the gulls beyond the balcony. I find myself wondering, and not for the first time, how much of my own disturbed inner life is a byproduct of being an artist? Oh surely not the head trauma; that’s got an obvious cause, and it isn’t cadmium. Same with the PTSD; I know where that came from. I know better than to lick a paint brush to moisten and narrow the point… but when I first started in watercolors, I sometimes did do that. I know to mask up for work with any sort of paint that is volatile, and have rarely ever used such things, but rather carelessly when I was much younger and struggling to afford paints, and working in oils, I’d sometimes buy left-behind art supplies at estate sales and flea markets. (This can go very wrong, and at no time in art history have lead white, Scheele’s green, or Naples yellow ever been actually safe to use.) To this day, my favorite deep reds and bright orange hues are cadmium pigments. Working in acrylic, most of this just isn’t a bother; the pigment is safely coated by the medium, which is basically plastic. Working in pastels, however, I am touching raw pigment, pressed into shapes, and used directly, every time I paint. I wear finger cots. I wash my hands. I’m careful with dust and work in a well-ventilated area. I still wonder.
…I also still paint.
I watch day brighten the bay. Shades of gray, almost as if in black and white. Subtle. A bit gloomy, perhaps. The plaintive cries of the gulls hints at the obvious; there is no one on the beach this morning. Not nearby, anyway. Far down the beach, where the bay meets the oceans, there are a handful of dedicated fisherman. No one else. No one walking. No dogs. Just the sea, and the gray of the sky above and the bay below. Seems suited to spending the day on self-reflection, self-care, and painting. Call it “art therapy” and leave me to get on with it, eh? lol
I sigh to myself contentedly. First things first; a better cup of coffee and a bagel. Then… painting. I’ll say something obvious before I wrap this up. I am here, now, doing this thing because I came here. Start where you are (you don’t really have a choice). Don’t like where you are? Go somewhere else, and start there. Taking the future in hand, living my own life has reliably meant doing the verbs. Doing them myself. Making real choices. Some with deep prolonged contemplation – but others, now and then, quite spontaneously. One thing remains reliably true; I can only start where I happen to be, presently. I can begin again any time.
I finish my cup of weak-ass hotel coffee and check the time. Yep. Definitely time to begin again.
