Flux
Cedar January 21st, 2008
I know I haven’t been keeping in touch the past couple of weeks–I’m just in a state of flux.
I’m thinking about maybe becoming a “daily painter.” There is a whole community of daily painters online–artists who complete a small painting each day and post a picture of it online for sale the same day. I don’t know if I could do this–I guess the idea isn’t so scary if I’m working on a small scale, so I might try it and see how it goes. It would be cool to have something new to show everyone every day. Right now it’s just an idea that I’m entertaining.
If I become a daily painter, I’ll have to make sure I still have time to simultaneously work on my larger paintings. Do you remember the 2 landscapes I did last month, on multiple panels? I’m continuing on that idea of multiple panels. I have lots of ideas but I need to work on actualizing the things floating around in my mind. I’m feeling generally challenged and frustrated, like I’m in a total rut. I’ve done this long enough to realize that my “rut” is probably a sign of artistic growth, and I need to push through to the other side, where my art will eventually be richer in meaning and more polished in execution.
We’re in the process of moving all our clothes, furniture, etc. out of the bedroom so we can paint the walls a steely blue, install new baseboards, outlets and switches. We’re considering knocking all the shelves out of our closets and replacing them with large wardrobes. I’m going to paint over the ceiling mural above our bed:
and maybe replace it with a cooler ceiling mural–I’m not sure yet.
We bought our house when I was 20–I was recently looking at pictures from the time when we had just moved in. It’s amazing how drastically our home has improved over the past 6 years. I’m glad we’re the type of people that take a hundred photographs of every mundane detail of our lives. It makes it really obvious how much progress happens through the simple passage of time. Sometimes I need that reminder that if I just keep working, good things will definitely happen.
For example, here is what my “studio” looked like in 2001. (I’m not kidding.)
And here is my studio today!
I’ve started my belly dancing classes and I’m kind of excited about it. I bought 2 jingly coin-belt hip scarves on eBay, one black and one crimson. They’re not here yet. I can’t say I’m anything close to graceful at this point, because we’ve only had one class and we’re just learning how to isolate certain muscle groups and control the movements of our ankles, knees, and hips. But even if I never get good at it, it’s still fun.
I’m making a list of galleries I want to check out as possibilities for new places to sell my work in the coming year.
We decided to take our dog to a holistic vet. He told us a lot of things that I already knew intuitively, but needed to hear from someone knowledgeable. Now I feel much more confident about taking good care of my dog. He advised us to change her diet, so now instead of dog food, she eats mostly free-range chicken, beans, rice and veggies. She eats better than a lot of people I know! We’ve only been doing this for a little more than a week. The vet says it will help her maintain a healthy weight, give her more energy and a shiny coat, improve her overall health and extend her life by years. She sure is happy at dinnertime these days.
