Painting Outside the Canvas

Last month I was invited to paint a fiberglass fire hydrant for a

 Microsoft fund raiser that would benefit Summit Assistance Dogs. 

Being the adverturesome sort and a HUGE dog lover I immediately signed up.

They requested the hydrant be painted in bright colors with a dog theme.

Since I have painted dogs for what seems like forever 

and I love bold colors it was a no-brainer!

 

While still working on it I brought it with me on our family vacation to 

Whidbey Island in August and had a bit of fun photographing it in different locations. 

 

Buddy lives on a nearby farm and didn't mind sharing his porch for a while.

 

The tide is rising on Mutiny Bay but the 

hydrant holds sentry on a waning sand bar.

Yes....'tis a thing of curiosity in a cow pasture!

 Homer and I hanging on the beach...I kept waiting to see if he

would lift his leg on it, but he wasn't interested.

 This little vignette next to a country garden in an 

island community couldn't be passed up.

Finishing up a hot day with a cool dip in the pool!

Closeups of the art on the hydrant:

I have named the hydrant "Dawg Daze of Summer" and it will be displayed 

around the Microsoft campus the entire month of October. 

Microsoft employees will be able to log online to place bids.

WHAT A KICK THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN FOR ME ~

I HOPE IT BRINGS IN PLENTY OF CASH FOR SUMMIT DOGS!!!!!!

The killer instinct

 That's me (#11) playing on a club team 

in 1980 with my UW teammates

Growing up the only thing I wanted to be more than an artist was an athlete. Not just any athlete, an Olympic athlete. My childhood was spent dashing, jumping, swinging, leaping, swooshing and invariably hanging upside down for copious amounts of daylight hours. I personified the term "Tomboy" completely. While I did go on to play basketball and volleyball in college, the glory of this goal was way out of reach.

Volleyball became my mainstay and I spent over 30 years playing and coaching this fabulous game. It was where I met my husband 34 years ago and our social lives revolved around it for many, many years. I did come precipitously close to competing in this sport professionally. In 1980 I was invited to play in a co-ed league for the Seattle Smashers, but the 2 year old professional league fizzled that year and after just a couple practices my dreams were dashed.

Having a competitive spirit is an advantage in life that is hard to learn, so I am grateful I was born with it. At times me and my friends were overly-competitive and our coach/PE instructor in high school had to take us aside and give us the opposite of a pep talk. Seems insane right? But Title IX was fresh off the press and we were like ravenous bears set loose in a city where the trash had mounted due to a 2 week strike.

So watching the Olympics has become my recent sport and watching volleyball in particular. Dave and I have such a deep shared history with this sport. His language difficulties go by the wayside and we are transported to our active youth once again. Like everything in life, time polishes the hard edges and appeases the hunger so being relegated to "armchair athlete" suits me fine....especially during these glorious few weeks of  the XXX Summer Olympics. Yet a twinge of "killer instinct" lingers from long ago days....I just need to be careful it doesn't injure me!

Time really does heal all wounds

3 months ago I wrote the submission below but never posted it to my blog. Where does the time go???? Trying to stay on top of life, art and all the trappings is like holding down 3 full time jobs. I have been remiss but I am making attempts to stay connected and balanced but still moving forward. 

I find it curious to see how far I/we (my husband) have come in such short periods of time. Veils have been lifting from his wounded brain the past couple months and we are in a much stronger place. We can do this! Life is settling into a pattern much more similar to what I remember pre-stroke and my work has become very important again. So without any more to add, here is what I wrote in late April:

I have been naughty…at least towards keeping up on my blog. In 2010, when I first started blogging, I had intended it to be strictly a place to talk about and reveal my art.
A year later my husband suffered a severe stroke and I found the easiest way to keep everyone informed was to blog about it. For months my entries were only about Dave and his stroke recovery and nothing about my art.

When the dust settled and I was able to get back in front of my easel I tried to keep the focus again on art only. Time goes on and it becomes apparent that when one is an artist it is impossible to separate life from art. This morning I awoke to the realization that my attempts to compartmentalize the “artist me” from the “woman me” was stifling!

I have decided my only requirement in these blogs and life in general is to be authentic.

From this point forward you can count on my entries online to be completely forthcoming and honest about my life, my art and how they intersect (or not).

I spent so much time giving updates on how Dave was doing I neglected myself. One has only so much energy and there were plenty of times my seemingly inexhaustible reserves of energy nearly dried up. It was sink or swim time!

After going through what we have in our household it had left me feeling at times raw and wounded, fragile and exposed. Most of us spend the years between teen and midlife fortifying our emotional strength and knowledge of self into a foundation of confidence and faith. I felt like I could conquer the world and take on whatever task was at hand!

Then the wind was taken out of my sails, the rug pulled from beneath my feet and I spent months just focusing on building up my life partner and love, with little left to give myself. Sure I heard plenty of times, “Make sure and take time for yourself” and intellectually you know that, but the reality is not so easy.

So here we are….7 months post stroke and 5 months post foot surgery (for me) and the best I can do is take it a day at a time. There is so much I want to accomplish! I want so badly each day to feel the wheels of productivity pushing me forward as to fall in to bed at night exhausted from achievement instead of emotional fatigue. It will come! Slowly but surely we are recapturing what we can of our former lives. It will never be the same but we can build a good “new”. I just need to be patient and faithful and forgiving.