Where does the time go???

When I was pregnant, older women were always telling me how fast babies grow up. “Oh enjoy every minute, it goes so fast!” I heard it so often that by the 9th month I would smile and nod and think to myself, “yeah, yeah I know.” Grumpy third trimester thoughts, we’re all over getting advice by then right? ☺

Well, here I am, five years later asking myself, “where the hell has the time gone?” My son is now five years old and last night he lost his first tooth. Didn’t he just get teeth???
I told my husband I felt like we were going to wake up tomorrow and be 50.

It was so cute and comical how proud he was of his lost tooth. He was hopping around, unable to sit still, calling his grandparents and announcing his accomplishment. It is so funny to me that he sails right through the milestones he works to achieve, as if it was no big deal, but the tooth falling out…well that is a right of passage that simply must be celebrated.



Celebrate we did, the tooth-fairy came, he got pizza for dinner and we all talked about how great it is that he is getting so big. I must confess, I would be just as happy if he slowed down a bit. Stayed little a bit longer. Ah, they grow up so fast….wait am I saying that now?? YES!!!

I took him to visit my mom recently. She lives on a wonderful island up here in the Northwest and it is a pretty tight community. The shopkeepers on Main Street have seen my son over the years on our many visits. On our last trip, we were shopping and went into one of my favorite shops. They had signs hung all over the walls and my son stood under them, reading them all aloud. He was just entertaining himself while I browsed. I am used to him reading everything in sight, he’s been doing it since he was 3!! The shopkeeper turned to me and said, “you only got to have a baby for a minute didn’t you?” Lump in throat I said, “yes, it really feels that way to me.”

He is really ahead of the curve and that has made him feel more adult to me at an earlier age. Because he is advanced, it feels like he grew up so much quicker, like he was a little man at 3. We were living in London for part of his third year and we would spend each day out and about exploring the city. I felt like I was hanging out with my friend not very small child. He knew his way around every bit as well as I did and had the underground system memorized. One night I was in our flat making dinner and he walked in and asked me, “is the Indian Ocean warm or cold I need to know because I am trying to figure out what kind of whales live there?”...huh? Now, he is reading the first Harry Potter on his own in bed and does algebra in his head. GULP.
I know having a gifted child seems like it is just a straight out blessing but in truth it is more complicated than that. Do I really let him take his SAT’s in 6th grade and go to University at 12? Where did my baby go? I am trying to take it all as it comes and just love every minute of the journey that is parenting…even if they journey is taking my places I never thought I’d go.

Self portrait Tuesday

Here are a few more of the paintings I am working on for my upcoming show, I hope I am not boring you all with these! Again all the little ones are a part of one large piece. The other piece is a large painting that will show on another wall, it’s big, about 6 feet by 4 ½ feet. Again…THEY’RE NOT DONE. It is so hard to let go and just put them up in their various stages of the painting process. I am hoping you all will go easy on me ☺ You will see how different they look when they’re done.


I am having an especially hard time today posting them today. I am battling those old self-doubting, criticizing voices in my head. I am being terribly mean to myself and I don’t seem to be able to give it a rest. I know we all have those days where we doubt ourselves, are uncertain of our choices, and feel insecure about careers.

Today is my day for it and since I can’t seem to let it go on my own, I am writing it down to get it out of my mind and heart. I am worried that I suck, that I will never have the kind of career that I hope to have. I am fearful that with all this moving around I have to let certain dreams go and that feels painful today. I feel like here aren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done. I am having trouble balancing commissions, murals, my sons activities, house work etc with my own work and I am afraid it will be the thing that gets sacrificed…..what is it they say about a woman’s work???

Phew, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I wish I had an inspirational, motivating and uplifting post for you all to read but this is where I am today. I am hopeful that after a day of painting I will be able to put the voices to rest. Here is a pic of the sketch on canvas I am going to go work on...

Swimming with the dolphins was an amazing experience and well worth the years of waiting!! I have loved dolphins for as long as I can remember. Years ago, a friend recommended a book to me, The Call of the Dolphin. It is about people who feel a connection to these amazing animals and the various experiences they have with them all over the world. It also talks about their spiritual role in the world, which was really interesting to me. It’s a great read if you are one of those people too.

They are so beautiful and joyful. You could feel how powerful they were when you touched them, just solid muscle!! It was easy to see that were really happy there, they were so playful and generous with their affections.

I was with a group of five other people (they were actually pretty awful company, frat boys and their girl friends. They were making horrible tuna jokes and just didn’t seem to have much reverence or respect) and we all spread ourselves out in the water. The dolphins swam between us, letting us stroke them and play with them. There were two swimming in our section and several others in a different part of the water having a day off and another two swimming with the little kids. My son loved it!

It seemed like they really liked being stroked on their bellies, they would linger a little while longer if you rubbed their tummies...so cute!! I got to swim tummy to tummy with them, holding their fins and they towed me around the pool. It was exhilarating; I could have done it for hours!! There was another fun move they have you do where you lay flat and keep your legs really straight, a dolphin puts its nose on each foot, one per foot, and they push you through the water, fast. It feels like water-skiing a bit, very fun. It is crazy how fast you go!!

I had gone into the experience with some knowledge of dolphins and a lot of reverence for them and their joyful loving energy. I left feeling so grateful for the time I was able to spend with them. I feel so fortunate to have had a personal experience with them, I hope to have more.

Leaving on a jet plane

I am heading out and away from the gray North West skies for a little R&R in Mexico!! I am bringing no make-up, tons o' sunscreen, books, flip flops and hats, my sketch book and colored pencils. It has been a while since I just relaxed....I don't do that nearly enough. Do any of us? Just give ourselves permission to take a day and just be. Need to do that more when I get back.

On this trip I get to realize a life-long dream, to swim with dolphins! I have loved dolphins and felt a connection to them my whole life and have always wished to interact with them. They have visited me in my dreams from time to time and even that has been magic! This will be great. We are going too a group that studies them and the dolphins are all volunteers!! They keep coming back to participate. This makes me all the more excited as it doesn't feel touristy and like we are exploiting them. My son is having a day long class on conservation, dolphins and their habitat etc and then get to swim with them too.

I wish you could all come with me! It has been such a joy and pleasure meeting and connecting with you all! Megg, M, La vie en rose, Liz, Thea, Sarah, and of course my beautiful Bohemian girl to name but a few! I really appreciate you all embracing me so warmly and making me feel welcome in this community of dynamic and beautiful spirits! Have a wonderful week girlies and I look forward to catching up when I get back!

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of a little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises towards her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Sylvia Plath~ 23 October 1961


My good friend Jennifer gave me the book The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath for Christmas my senior year of high school. I had never read her work before and didn't know anything about her. So, I made a cup of tea, sat down to read, and fell in love. I have been in love with her writing, her energy and returned to read her frequently ever since. I have read interviews she gave and many of her works, so much of what she says really resonates with me. I feel a connection to her, a relation to some of her life experiences, a kinship of sorts. Mildly concerning as she committed suicide at 30. :)

I am sure many of you are familiar with her work all ready, especially after the movie made about her relationship with Ted Hughes, but if not this may encourage you to find a wonderful poet and an extraordinary woman.

Another leap of faith

At the start of any journey there are those little fears and anxieties that pop into ones mind. Fear of the dark I like to call it. We can't see the reality around us or instore for us so we imagine worse things for ourselves than could possibly be there in reality.

I am starting...again..and I am afraid of the dark.

I am adding a boutique to my website and including clothes I have designed and made. Putting myself and my art out there again GLUP! I was reading many of your posts last night and felt heartened by seeing I was not alone in feeling the waves of self criticism, doubting and comparing myself to others. Man that is one dangerous and destructive cycle I would love to break.

I can not imagine doing anything else but being an artist, but it is not an easy road is it? Contrary to popular opinion, we don't just play with our crayon boxes all day long feeling like happy go lucky little kids. Some of my friends with "real" jobs make the occasional comment about my not having a "real" job. I know these comments are not meant to sting, be hurtful or attack my choice but are born of a lack of understand the hurdles of an artists day to day.

I would challenge any working girl to lay her heart, soul and efforts out to the world to be judged, accepted etc...no easy thing.

In keeping my commitment to be present, playful and trusting, like the little boy and his sandcastles, I thought I would share some pics here. A preview of coming attractions. I hope you enjoy them. I hope you all are playing, embracing your fears and letting them go! I hope you are creating beautiful things and putting them out there for the world to enjoy!!!

I am glad that the theme this month is time...so I share unfinished work. These are part of the piece that I explained last Tuesday. They will hang with the last group as part of a larger work. They too are unfinished. I work in layers, these and the last post are of paintings at the first layerstage, the very beginning. I do a first layer on the whole piece (sometime whole shhow or series) and then go back over it at least once, sometimes many more times. It helps maintain a continuity amoung the works. So, again, time is a good theme here as these paintings take a lot of it!!

Sand castles

One of my oldest and dearest friends came for a visit this weekend to introduce her new baby to our family. It is wonderful to spend time with someone who knows, loves, accepts and understands you. To have the benefit of years of history in a friendship is a beautiful thing. It is always so fascinating to me to watch little kids together. Babies just connect to kids in a whole different way and little guys are just as enamored with them. I wonder if they recognize a little of themselves in each other. It was so fun to watch my son with this new little baby and see them connecting. Beautiful!!

My friend and her husband went to meet some friends for lunch so we decided to meet back up at the beach later. I was a little early and sat down on a log to watch the sail boats going by, the families playing, and enjoy some rare Pacific Northwest sunshine. It was beautiful and though the sun was out, it was still quite cold. I began watching a little boy playing in the sand. He was making sand castles and running into the water to get wet sand. He was having a fantastic time. He worked on his sand castle compound for what seemed like hours. He never noticed the temperature of the water and didn't seem to be bothered by the cold.


It got me thinking...

Kinds have so many things right! Remember when you were having so much fun outside it didn't matter that you were so cold your nose was running down your face? Or you forgot your gloves but had snow ball fights anyway until your hands turned blue. When playing was so fun you wouldn't stop to eat for hours (until you mom made you!)?

It made me want to reconnect to that spirit of play and also of being present in the moment. That little boy was so present with his sand castle that he didn't notice his feet were numb (which I am sure they were) or wonder what observers were thinking. Nothing mattered outside of the world he was creating.

I am going to try to be present, to be open and playful and free. I am going to try to hold that image close to my heart this week and see where it takes me.

Some things are always good

Some things are always good.

Buying yourself flowers to brighten up a cold, wet and windy day.

Aroma therapy, especially my favorite mix of lavender, orange, and geranium.

Lighting candles all over the house just because they're beautiful.

English breakfast tea with soy milk. (because you can't find pg tips here unless your willing to pay $9 at an import shop!)

A visit from a old friend.

A long indulgent milk bath with candles and your favorite music.

A great book.

Feeling understood, supported and loved.

Hugs.

Helping out a friend.

Knowing you are blessed to do what you love for a living.

Having a tribe you love and are constantly amazed by. The bond between women is really extraordinary!

Knowing you are happy and lucky.


Pale pink tulips in a vintage vase (from my mom who also knows what is always good)

Balance

My husband and I took a trip to Sedona Arizona last April for some much needed R&R. We spent a glorious week working out every morning, swimming, hiking, spa treatments for me and golf for him, romantic dinners and catching up on our reading. It was blissful and it feels like a decade ago!

One of the hikes we took was through an amazing canyon. It is located on one of the Earth’s vortexes. It is an area that has a strong spiritual pull and many people go there as a part of their spiritual journey. Along the hike we kept coming across these rock pillars. People had made them everywhere. I assume they were meant to channel the powerful energies coming from the Earth at it’s vortex. They were so beautiful. They seemed to be delicate and strong at the same time.




This one amazed me…two different rock pillars merging into one. It reminded me of marriage. The balancing act that ensues when two separate lives join and become one. Even in the best of marriages, there is a balancing act that occurs in order to meet the needs of both partners.

Inspired by Pixie via Denise to share some fears…in the spirit of getting them out to take their power away and diffuse them…here goes!

My husband and I are both deeply in love with each other and our individual careers. For each of us, what we do is a part of who we are. He is a doctor specializing in international medicine and I am an artist. Here comes the balancing act and the give and take that is a marriage.

His career requires us to move, a lot. We have moved 3 times in 7 years and there is no sign of it stopping. In fact the moves are becoming more dramatic, in the fall of ’07 we will be heading to Uganda Africa. My husband is setting up medical and research clinics and will he traveling around the country visiting and helping out at refugee camps. There are many camps in the North of the country; the majority of the people are from Sudan seeking peace and assistance. This is a very dangerous part of the country and I worry for him.

While I am supportive and in fact a little in awe of my husband and his contributions I am a little nervous about how it will affect my ability to maintain a career of my own, an identity of my own. Can you get oil paint in Uganda? So much of the art world is who you know and relationships. It is difficult to maintain and foster relationships from half a world away. I know there are many exciting adventures ahead, wonderful opportunities for me to help out the people I come into contact with etc….but I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit to a little fear of the dark. There are so many things, questions that will remain un-answered until I get there. Will we be safe, will my son be happy, will I be happy, will our marriage survive if only my husband is fulfilled, how will I see my friends and family….and so on. I don't want to soound selfish, or like I am onlyy woorried about me....just trying to let the fears out so I can let them go.

Self portrait Tuesday

If you expect someone to give you a degree in fine art (especially with a focus in painting and drawing), somewhere along the way they will expect you to do a self -portrait. It is a required part of your training. I was horrified by this idea and assignment in all its forms. Always painful for me and they were never any good! Who really wants to be forced to look at and analyze yourself for hours during the painting process and then be forced to discuss it for hours during critique?

Consequently, I have not done a self -portrait since I was FORCED to, until now.

As I mentioned in my first posting, this has been a rough year. When you go through something as major as the loss of a parent, it shatters you. Well, that is how it has been for me at any rate. I felt ripped into pieces and hyper aware of the fragmentation. I began to really look at all the separate pieces of my life and self. It was time to think about what was and is working, what isn't, what needs to be let go and what needs developing. I, in short, had to put myself back together.

These paintings are a part of that healing process and an expression of it. I am preparing for a show in August and it is entirely comprised of self-portraits. Gulp. As they are a physical manifestation of my own emotional and spiritual journey, I felt I HAD to be the model. Another lesson to embrace, self-acceptance.

These three paintings are part of a larger piece that will be made up of 13 canvases hung together on a wall. I thought that they would be a good piece to use for the "time" SPT. The sizes of the canvases are all based on the Fibonacci sequence, otherwise referred to as the Golden Mean or the Divine Proportion. I felt that was an appropriate infrastructure for the concept of these works. They will be hung in a spiral pattern on a large wall. I hope you enjoy them.

A place to start

The beginning has always been the most difficult part of any process for me. The first sentence of a paper, the opening lines of a story, and introductions to new people all set my brain spinning and my inner critic to ranting. Starting a painting is the same way. In the idea phase I am full of inspiration and motivation. I can’t wait to finish building, stretching, and priming the frame so I can get painting. Then I stare at the big white canvas, feel the tension begin to rise and…gulp…start.

Of all my many beginnings, this is amongst the scariest. That is just insane I know. I try to tell myself that no lives will be lost if I post something insane or poorly written. Yet my fears run away with me and my inner critic taunts me. I doubt that anyone will want to read what I have to say, fear that people will think that I am full of myself for writing and feel the insecurities about the way I write.

Thank GAWD for friends. When you are down, the tribe gathers and reminds you they are there. The beautiful and talented Denise of Bohemian Girl Designs has been my friend for years (since 5th grade science camp to be precise). She has always inspired me with her wit and wisdom oh and that beauty. She has been encouraging me to start a blog for a long time.

This year has been one of transitions for me and the next year and a half are looking to be full of more beginnings and changes (including a move to Africa, more on that later I’m sure). In the last year we/I have: tried to process the loss of my father, moved from Denver back to Seattle, had to restart my career in a new city (tricky for an oil painter), make new friends, find my son a school and all the many things one does with a major move and a family (while knowing I have an even bigger move in my near future). I am tired! Like most of us, when I am feeling tired and emotionally raw, I also feel really vulnerable. It has been a scary thought to begin something else.

Yet, I have missed my art community, a great tribe that shares fears, rejections, victories, ideas, encouragement and support. Denise has shared so much about how she has found that here and encouraged me to do the same.

So,
at last,
I am starting