My Art Experiment

Day One "What am I Thinking?"

 It's eleven a.m. on Monday.  I'm sitting in front of my computer, jobless like many people, my home in foreclosure also like thousands of others and thousands in debt like just about every American.  For eight years I have struggled with Crohns Disease, managed to survive twenty-one surgeries, a divorce, loss of my business, five boyfriends (not at the same time) one ex-finance, three dogs and one sixteen-year-old daughter.  For the first time I have no surgeries scheduled at Mayo Clinic and feeling no pain.  With a few less body parts, I now face the challenge of putting my life back together.  How do I begin to tackle getting myself financially secure now that I have my health back?  I almost rather face another part of my body being cut out and sewn shut.

One thing that kept me going was painting.  Even when I felt like dying, creating art got me through.  At sixteen I took lessons at the Portland School of Art and remember it was one of the most enjoyable things I ever did.  Creating art, expressing myself, I feel like I'm alive.  Really alive and not just existing in this world and that I actually have something to offer. 

I never have thought much of my paintings.  Even though my family and friends say nice things about my work, you can never really tell because after all, nobody wants to hurt your feelings. Ten years ago my friend, Rusty, suggested I try something new called ebay and put some of my pieces on it.  To my surprise, my art actually sold.  I sold over twenty pieces before life got in the way and I was too sick to continue. 

Ten years later, this is a new day, a new  beginning for me.  I must be crazy to think I can help my financial situation by trying to sell my art again, especially when the economy has gone to hell.  Art is not a high priority these days.  I want to believe something I always tell my daughter...If you want it bad enough -- you can find a way to get it.  So here's my challenge:

I'm going to create 365 pieces of art and try to sell each any way I can through ebay, friends, art shows.  If I can get an average profit of $100.00, that's $36,500.00.  Its not enough to put me in the high income bracket, but it's a start.  Today, December 14th 2009, I'm listing two paintings on ebay under pieceofmeart.  Wish me luck.

Haiti

My heart goes out to the people suffering in Haiti.  I've been fortunate to never experience an earthquake and deal with such devastation.  I've heard so many Americans say these people suffer enough with poverty and then to be punished even more with a natural disaster such as this is unthinkable.

I was watching a scene of Haitians being treated on the front lawn of a hospital, overwhelmed with patients.  So many in fact the seventeen doctors had no idea how many they were treating.  The newscast showed one mother holding her son while nurses stitched up his leg without any anesthetic.  I can't image the agony he and his mother felt.  At least with all my medical procedures I had the luxury of pain medicine to deal with it. After, the mother was interviewed and she being fortunate all three of her children survived said, "I know God loves me."

That struck me.  How awful to think if someone from your family died from this horrific tragedy, you would believe God didn't love you.  Having lost a son myself, I can totally understand how people would believe God doesn't care about you.  Or God is punishing you.  What good is God, if he does such awful things?  It's taken me a long time to come to terms with my belief and relationship with my higher power.  And I still can't stand it when people say, "It was God's will," in an effort to comfort you.  Bullshit.  I don't believe God is pointing his finger and saying this person should die and this person should live.  What kind of God would allow serial killers to live while innocent children die? I believe we all have free will and whoever or whatever you believe as your "God," is there to care for us after we leave this planet.  I hope that offers some comfort to anyone who has lost someone they love.  My God loves everyone.

Running in All Directions

This is a custom painting I did for a friend.  Her new home is done in blues and browns and she told me it looks amazing above her chocolate suede couch.  I call it "Liquid Blue." It resembles how I feel most of the time. Like I'm going in several different directions and as I finally head down one path, something is thrown in front of me and I have to turn a different way.  I guess life would be boring if my path remained the same everyday. 

This morning as I was getting dressed, I heard on the news people are more depressed during this "recession" then they were during the "Great Depression." They attribute it to higher social status and physical beauty demands we have today. Because we are constantly bombarded by media to look beautiful, live in luxurious homes, travel to exotic locations, drive expensive cars and buy millions of products we need to make our lives better, we feel even worse when we can't obtain these things.  It's true I often think about the stuff I don't have rather than what I do.  How often are we thinking about the three hundred dollar Coach handbag to impress our girlfriends or the convertible Mercedes to look good as we pull in the company parking lot?  Isn't it ironic that after a while carrying that purse or driving that car doesn't give us the same high it did when we first got it.  The new smell wears off and it's not much better than the twenty dollar leather bag from the consignment shop and certainly not better than the GM car we had when it costs twice as much for a tune up. 

At this moment, I'm grateful I have this house to keep me and my daughter warm from the insane thirty degree weather we're having this week in Florida.  I'm grateful there is plenty of food in my pantry, clothes in my closet and a working car in the garage.  This weekend I tried to call a friend and her phone had been shut off.  I've been there and while I feel bad for her, I'm thankful today I'm not worrying about that. 

 
 
I'm also very grateful it's my daughter's seventeenth birthday today.  I know how devastating it is to have a child that no longer has birthdays.  She is healthy, bright, beautiful (people say she looks like me ;) and very kind and sweet.  Many parents tell me what a lovely, respectful young woman she is and I'm very proud.  Bringing up a kind polite child these days isn't easy. 

So, from now on when I feel depressed or like my world is spinning in a million directions, I'm going to take a deep breath and concentrate on all the wonderful things in my life. 

Looking Back

Ten minutes until I turn forty-one and I'm hanging onto every second.  Hard to believe the year turned 2010 only a few days ago.  As a teenager I remember thinking how different the world would be now.  2010 seemed so futuristic. I thought I would be flying around in cars, using robots to clean my room and eating pills instead of food.  Actually, I do eat a lot of pills but it would never replace chewing a good piece of T-Bone steak.  Although cars haven't evolved as I expected, I never would have guessed phones would have turned into mini computers and my life being so controlled by a little piece of plastic.  How many of us panic when we forget our cell phone at home or drop it in the toilet.  That happened to me twice...so far.

With the holidays taking over my free time, I haven't painted.  The first painting I show here is something I created when I was fourteen.  Not bad for a teenager.  I've always appreciated Asian art and tried to emulate it as a kid.  The Koi painting I created this September as a birthday gift for my mother.  I started it a couple weeks before my double surgery and remember feeling like hell and forcing myself to finish it before the 14th.  I'm so grateful I don't have that intense pain anymore and yet, I haven't even picked up a brush in two weeks.  Amazing what a person can accomplish with the right motivation.

This afternoon, I had this young attractive guy today fixing one my bathroom showers and I got to know him a little bit as he worked.  I couldn't help overhearing his phone conversations with his wife, the stress and tension of family issues.  Basically his wife was upset because she needed the car to bring her daughter, who was crying, over to her friends house so the girl could spend the night.  Nick, I'll call him that, married a woman ten years older than him with two teenagers who are resentful towards him and yet, adore their biological father who hardly sees them and for Christmas gives them gift cards that don't have any money on them.  He told me he tries to spend time with the kids and be a good Dad because he grew up with a father like their biological father and knows how damaging that can be to a child.  I know he's sincere because when he talked about them, he said "my daughter, my son" and I thought how lucky his wife is that this young man has devoted himself to her children for over seven years.  I wonder why I haven't found a man to accept me like Nick has accepted his wife's baggage. 

My friend, Samantha, (I'll call her that) has two guys in her life that she can't decide which she is meant to be with. One, I'll call him Jack, is very intelligent, Witty, successful with great connections and treats her like a princess.  Buys her beautiful clothes, takes her to the best restaurants and does whatever he can to make her happy.  Problem is she doesn't feel the passion, the intense physical chemistry she usually gets with a lover. Jack also has the reputation of being a player so she can't fully trust him.

But with Dominic she experiences that amazing chemistry.  Her heart beats faster every time she sees him.  She can't stand being apart from Dominic and every time they are together they laugh, share deep intimacy and have this terrific physical connection.  While Dominic is financially stable, he could never give her the life of luxury that Jack could.   The biggest problem is Dominic has a fear of commitment and doesn't want to give up the bachelor lifestyle.  While he would never cheat on her with another woman, Dominic loves his freedom and given the ultimatum would pick that over her.

I'm not sure how to help her.  I hope somebody out there will share their thoughts on this.  What's better in the long run?  Stability or Passion?  Love or Money?  I remember in college I had this guy who wanted a serious relationship with me.  He was gonna be a commercial pilot, came from a good family, very sweet but I wasn't attracted to him unless I had a few drinks.  I ended up going for a hot baseball player who had a shot at the major league and he even played for the White Sox's for a while.  That romance was hot and seductive while it lasted which wasn't long.  Is that how all steamy romances end up?  In the dugout because there's always a younger hotter cheerleader that comes along.  I would love to hear someone else's experience with this! Because I don't know how to give my friend good advice on the subject.  

 

Day 3

Up till two a.m. last night finishing this piece.  At least I'm much happier about how this painting came out.  Its inspired from a picture I took at the Mandarin Dock by the St. Johns River.  The park is beautiful typical Southern woods with palmettos, spanish moss dripping down and crooked oaks shading the path.  The sun was just beginning to set upon the water and it cast these brilliant red shadows along the trees. 

The bridge is symbolic of walking the path to happiness.  Sometimes it's so hard to see the beauty around you as you take that journey unless you step back for a moment and look around.  I so want to get there.  I want to find the light at the end of the tunnel, financial security, peace, success and good God perhaps a man who wants to be there with me.

Maybe that's the problem.  I'm always looking so far ahead, its hard for me to see the good things around me.  Am I alone in this?  Or is it common for us to always think about the things we don't have and not what we already do.
  
 
 

First Piece

 
My first piece for my art experiment, entitled "World on My Shoulders" a tribute to Picasso.  I was up till one a.m. finishing it and I'm extremely nervous if this is an indication of my project.  I need to go back to art school.  It's juvenile, primitive and amateur.  But I'm sure Picasso, Matisse, Monet or any of the greats didn't create masterpieces with their first painting.  Worst part of being an artist is -- usually you're not appreciated until you die.   I came close a couple times.

I totally feel like the woman in this picture.  Thinking about my responsibilities, my present, past and future I just want to lay my head down and not think because it can be so overwhelming at times.  How am I going to keep this house over my head, how am I going to fix the leak in my bedroom ceiling, what can I possibly do to earn enough money to keep paying for food, electricity and a car and God forbid I have to go back into the hospital.  How did the world get so complicated?  Have we really improved our lives with all our modern technology?  Look how sick we are as a society.  Depression, alcoholism, stomach ulcers, cancer, heart attacks.  Are we really better off? The Indians didn't suffer from these conditions until we invaded their world.

Sometimes, I wish I could live on a desolate tropical island, lay on the beach all day soaking in the sun and salty air.  Fish and pick bananas when I got hungry and sleep in a bamboo hut.  No cell phones, no traffic, no bills just existing.  Perhaps that would get boring after a while although I'd like to try it. Anyone like to come?