GRATITUDE

Inside this beautiful new home I have studio space.
Thanks to my brother John whose home this is!

November is the month that we celebrate gratitude, our thankfulness for the bounties in our lives. This particular November I have more to celebrate that usual. I have a new art studio and next week I will be having a Grand Opening. This event will be a way of showing appreciation for all my blessings...my friends, my collectors, my God-given talent but mostly my gratitude for my family. In particular my brother John.

I am one of 5 of siblings and we grew up relentlessly competitive, both physically and intellectually, learning early on to hold our own in a verbal war. A word could sting but a sentence could slay. Yet love and loyalty cushioned the blows and we didn't harbor any hard feelings...it was just all part of the game. It was good training for life in general...but that may be easy for me to say...I was the 2nd oldest so I probably dished out more than I took. This rivalry didn't extend beyond childhood. Today my 2 brothers and 2 sisters are my dearest friends on the planet.

John, being the oldest, was afforded special status by our Father so our response was to tag him with the nickname "Golden Boy". It was apt, and still is. John was given more responsibilities and he never took them lightly. We are all type A...John is AAA, but not at all uptight, quite the opposite.  He graduated high school and college at the top of his class, navigated the business world with aplomb and success and was able to retire early due to his sacrifices, brilliance and nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic. We come from humble and he rose to the top, yet never does he adopt an arrogance that often comes with the territory.

When he was designing his new home...his forever home I have come to call it...he came to me with an offer. It would be larger then he would personally need and he felt guilty about the extra space. Could I use studio space? He would be happy to give me some along with gallery space with room to hold events. Who would say no to that? That was nearly 2 years ago and even though he moved in 6 months ago I have finally set up my studio and begun to paint there.  Now it is time to celebrate! I want to share this with people, this new beginning, this fresh start. After coming out of the ashes it really does feel like the promise of great things to come.

Let the festivities begin!!

Windows to the Soul

I recently lost one of my adopted furry friends (I "adopt" them when I paint them).  It is a hazard of my trade and one I never adjust to. Painting pet portraits has many rewards. As an avid animal lover I get to interact with a myriad of dogs and cats. I feel privileged to inhale their canine perfume and stroke the soft down of their feline fur. I am blessed to be able to enjoy their quirks of personality. But most of all I get to gaze deep into their trusting eyes and study the marvel of the light and color that swirls inside their miraculous and revealing orbs. 

The eyes are both the most important and my favorite feature to paint. We have all heard that the soul resides here and I will not counter that. Yet it is beyond even the soul...the life...the personality...the emotions of the moment...the compassion from within...the fire that lights us. Well maybe that is the definition of soul. All I know is the eyes are everything. 

During the painting process I spend a great deal of intimate time examining, decoding, admiring, and portraying their many attributes. I study and look closely. I respond emotionally to the color of the paint, the action of my brush, the value of the light or the rhythm of the stroke. At the risk of sounding too esoteric, I find myself communing with the creature on a level that is unique and difficult to describe. I have a wordless conversation with them.

Because the act of painting is so intimate, for me there is an unusual bond formed during the process. This happens not only with pets, but people as well. Several years back I offered to paint a portrait of a friend's husband. She had recently and all too suddenly lost him to cancer at the same time I was also losing my father to leukemia. You can imagine the emotions. 

Nearing the end of the process I still had work to do with the eyes. Because the eyes are fluid they are reflective. Because they are round and hooded the shadows and strokes must show form. The eyes are where it all comes together.  I was "pushing the paint around", as I sometimes say to myself, and all of a sudden I felt the glimmer of him coming through. I focused more intently...every little dab or stroke in this small area has great impact. Then the moment arrived! Quite suddenly there was Brad looking straight me with his famous sense of humor brimming forth. An emotional force hit me that took me down to the ground. I found myself sitting against the wall sobbing, feeling the injustice of a life cut too short, of the people left to mourn, the things left undone. I figured at this point I must have gotten his eyes right.

Several times in the nearly 20 years I have been painting pets the animal has passed while the canvas of them is still wet upon my easel. And because their lifespans are not like ours I have also lost many after their portraits have hung on their owner's walls. In fact I have return clients contacting me with portrait requests of their newest generation of furry friend. As I mentioned before…it is a hazard of the trade, difficult yes, but one I would not trade for the world. It is a privilege and an honor to memorialize this bond of love and devotion between pets and their people. And I continue to work on the eyes...there is always room for improvement!

Re-Invention

I cannot help myself these days….I keep pulling former paintings out of their frames, stripping the varnish and repainting them. These paintings do not measure up to my standards and it kills me to let them linger in this state of not hitting the mark. I look back at the period in my life these misfits originated from and they mostly stem from what I refer to as “The Summer from H-E-Double Hockey Sticks”…specifically the summer of 2011.

It was a season of upheaval in mine and my husband’s lives. It was the months preceding his massive stroke and the stress levels we lived with were off the charts. We had invited a young woman who we considered a daughter, along with her 3 year old child (with whom we are still active as grandparents) to live with us. It was our house or a homeless shelter and how does one send a child that one has cradled and cared for since birth toward that environment? So we sucked it up and provided them aid.

What we did not know right away was she had become a heroin addict and her child was reacting with angry and confused behavior. I literally moved my art studio out of my home into my mother’s home so I could have some degree of refuge to paint during those months. My retired husband had no such haven and bore the brunt of the drama from a lying, lazy and addiction-protecting woman who left her child unattended and wildly out of bounds; creating a chaotic atmosphere in what should be a sanctuary. Even though his specialists tell me that his stroke was just bad luck….I still harbor resentment that it was the ordeal of living with an addict who stole from us, lied, betrayed and broke our hearts that created the straw that broke the camel’s back.

So I may have had the luxury of driving away each day but the emotions followed like a contrail. It is no wonder the colors I mixed on my palette resonated as garish and high key. The stroke of the brush cut sharp and jagged, the drawing was almost there but had an edge of oddness. I felt like I was living in a Bazaaro world. Which is very apt if you know how much my husband is a fan of Superman!

But painting is not sculpture…it is not carved in stone and it can be rebuilt. Just like we can be….

2 years have passed and so much has changed. One does not go through major events like we have without feeling a sense of re-invention. My conviction has always been strong but it has been re-forged. I will still paint mistakes at times but I feel more confident I can catch them before I release them.

I just looked at the calendar and realized why today, of all days, these thoughts emerged so suddenly. It took 2 years, but the young woman we sheltered, loved, supported and believed in is being sentenced today. The charges are felony of Theft in The First Degree, and Trafficking In Stolen Property In The Second Degree. She was 11 years old when she burst into our lives as a bright spark….15 years later she leaves it with a fizzle. It is not only my chance to re-invent. Her life is in her hands now…I am looking out for my own. 

Photo of a rock outside a woodcarver's home

Puppy Love

THE HAPPY ACCIDENT OF 

HOW MR. HERSHEY NUGGET CAME INTO MY LIFE

Me and Nugget on the beach one week after meeting

This past August we were driving home from an overnight event at Wolf Haven when Dave, my husband, took a spontaneous pit stop at Cabela's. As we drove up to the parking lot there were signs proclaiming "PUPPIES!" at which point my 9 year old niece squealed in delight, "Can we go see the puppies...please please!?!?" Upon exiting the car my sister, my mother and I along with my niece took a right turn toward the signs while my husband took a left to Cabela's.

We enjoyed snuggling the lab puppies and cuddling the pugs but when our fix was satisfied we started back to find Dave. This is the moment my sis discovered a truck parked almost out of sight around the corner and said, "I wonder what is down there....let's go see!" As we came around the corner there was a placard with the words "Boykin Spaniel" written in bold letters. I know plenty of dog breeds but this one was new to me. Turns out that Boykin Spaniels are well known back east and are even the state dog of South Carolina (only 11 states have such a category!). There is even a Boykin Spaniel Society.

Growing up I had a number of Springer Spaniels and one in particular, Sprig, was my favorite...the one I always look back upon as THE DOG. Lately I had been visualizing the next dog I wanted to have in my life. It pretty much encompassed all the attributes that Sprig had: gently loving, easy-going, not distracted by other dogs, easy to take places, incredibly happy greeter (he would even smile when we got home from school) and great with people from babies to the elderly. On this particular day Fate lined me up with the dog I had been dreaming of.

On the open tailgate of the pick-up were two wiggly, curly-haired, impossibly adorable, dark chocolate colored dogs. The 6 month old pup that was alongside his sire had the most compellingly yellow green eyes I have ever looking into. I was mesmerized. Looking back I can see it was love at first sight! People would think that because I am a huge dog lover that this would happen often, but it doesn't. In general I love my dogs but it is rare to be so quickly and overwhelmingly smitten as I was with Nugget. I asked so many questions that day all the while loving up those two gorgeous beasts!

The owner was there with the purpose of finding a loving home for Nugget and apparently I fit the bill..he had passed on several offers that day for which I will be eternally grateful! I suspect that he was a washout as a bird dog. I have yet to see him take to water and his fetching skills are fine for the first 4 or 5 throws, but he quickly loses interest after that. But he has love spilling out of his pores! He could spend the day looking adoringly into your eyes as long as he is right up next to you. I could tell that the man was very attached and when it was time to say his goodbyes he got choked up, kissed Nugget on the forehead and exited quickly.

Until Nugget entered my life he had never been indoors and that first night he cowered at the back door, uncertain and scared. By the second day he had crawled in 10 feet and by the third he was reveling in this thing called "the couch"!  He was kenneled at night the first week and by the end of the second week I couldn't keep him off my bed!

We are now a 2 dog family with Homer, "The Weiner-a-tor" being the Alpha and Nugget the Omega. They get along famously and are forming their own special bond! I am amazed when I think of the happenstance of it all. This furry gift that was bestowed upon me is phenomenal and I am so incredibly grateful!!!!

Sprig circa 1970's

Purpose

Not long ago I woke up one day and started to question my purpose. "What does all this mean?" "Why am I creating art while people are suffering pain, illness, hunger and children are being massacred in their classrooms?" "Is there anything of value that I am giving to the world?" Maybe it was my own experience of going through the fire after my husband's stroke 18 months ago that lent my outlook this sharp edge. While we are very blessed and lucky that he has overcome so much, he will always be impaired and life has changed dramatically.

When I sat down to my computer this morning I had no idea what to write...in fact I had no idea I was going to write. It has been after all and entire year since I blogged for my written words have dried up. All my energy has gone into keeping out house running, being present for my husband's needs, getting myself to the gym and painting. As for why I am writing this morning I blame the newspaper delivery guy. He broke my up routine. My morning ritual of eating breakfast my while reading the newspaper is my favorite time of the day. For years I have eaten the same food, cheerios with sliced bananas and frozen blueberries, and for a person who loves variety in life it is strange indeed! I love this time of day when the hours ahead are fresh with possibility. I also love the quiet solitude before the demands and responsibilities kick in and I am needed, so necessary to the function of our little world. So the newspaper was not on my porch this morning. Instead I sat down with my bowl of cheerios at the computer and here I am. I am breaking fast while breaking a longer fast of writing.

Art and aphasia...how do they connect? How do I say something on canvas that I am unable to express out loud?

When I was writing about my husband's stroke in the days and months immediately after I was defiant about his recovery. In my naivete I refused to believe that he would not recover 100%. I would still chose this attitude because it helped us get through those early difficult times. People would tell us that we need to adapt to a "New Normal" as if it were a frock one should slip over one's head. Recently a friend who is going through her own challenges with her husband used the term "New Reality". I like this better...for believe me, there is nothing normal about life when your husband cannot read books, has difficulty holding conversation and writing is out of the question. All this while being the EXACT same person he was prior to his stroke. Can you imagine? I can't!

So I am adopting the term "New Reality"and will forge ahead with promise mustered in my heart. Art can heal all in my world. And if my soul is calmed, in turn I can help heal my husband's world.