Dad & Daughter

My husband and Maddie were sitting at the computer together and I just HAD to take their picture to create a portrait of their profiles!  My hands had been itching to get into charcoal again and this was the perfect opportunity!

I just hate it when my signature goes downhill! Grrrrrr….

P.S.  Some of you have been asking how Maddie is doing (SO sweet of you!):  she’s doing great! We will be celebrating her one year anniversary of being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on December 7th.  She is wanting to go visit at Brenner’s Children’s Hospital.  She wants to visit a child who has been diagnosed and is in Brenner’s for that reason.  She wants to make crafts with him/her (something she has fond memories of doing during her two day stay last year), and then go play in the fabulous playroom with the child.  I’m working on the particulars of being able to do this and hope it works out.  Thanks to all of you for all your encouragement this year!!

Broccoli Bushes

These sculpted bushes stand at the entrance to our neighborhood as a trio of sentinels, or a welcoming committee.  I’ve always loved them, longed to paint them.  Here’s version number one.  I have plans for lots of different approaches to painting these guys.  They are too fun, in a Dr. Seuss sort of way, not to try painting them in all kinds of ways!!

Stay tuned!

Where we go…

There seems to be, for each of us, a place we go to unwind, to refuel, to throttle down from the ever-churning to-do list of our days.  For some of us, it is to sit and draw.  Others read books.  Some knit or crochet.  There’s an endless list of where we go for solitude, solace, peace.

I hope you find this place somewhere in your busy day today!  May thankfulness and grace invade the hustle and bustle.

A Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

From Sketch to Finish

I suppose there are ideas that truly need to percolate a while.  Whether it’s out of necessity (life events) that one has to wait until he/she can actualize an idea into reality, or whether  it’s a host of artist blocks that lengthen the gestation period, I’ve certainly experienced this long term percolating, and there are benefits.  I sketched out several “knitter” inspired drawings two years ago, and wanted back then, to translate them into larger acrylics on canvas.  I even wrote about this idea all around the original sketch.  Not sure why I never tackled it then.  But I have brewed over them in my head, auditioned them (mentally) in various other media and styles, none of which “took” to me.  The subject matter has grown, as well as a more sure sense of purpose and need to create them.

My recent motivation for completing the commissions I had in backlog, was due precisely to this hounding sense that these paintings must “get out” of my head and onto canvas.   They are a new beginning in many ways.  I’m not sure what I’ll do with this series:  exhibit them? sell them? find a gallery for them?.  We’ll see…

Here’s the sketch, created almost two years ago:

Dare to stay where you are!

There are certainly very difficult, painful moments and seasons in one’s life for which we could understand a flight response to be totally reasonable.  But seriously, people, standing at a stove, stirring, sauteeing, whatevering can manifest that same flight response in me! Same with laundry, dishes, vacuuming, etc.

I am being encouraged by the writings of Henri Nouwen to stand wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, with an attitude of hope and expectancy.  To affirm that wherever I am standing (even in front of a stove, a sink, a washer or dryer), something is growing and evolving in me.  To be present to the moment, believing that this moment, whatever it contains, is THE moment and not just a get-through-it moment.  I’m realizing I’m not a patient person by nature.  I need supernatural help to stop expecting the REAL thing to happen somewhere else and to have assurance that something hidden will manifest itself RIGHT WHERE I AM.  To dare to stay where I am, not in a passive, throw-in-the-towel kind of way, but in a bold, grab-hold-of-the-moment kind of way, would mean a rich and full life indeed!  Even in the midst of cooking!:)

I hope you’ve enjoyed these snippets from this article in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas. There’s so much more in the article…you really should read the whole thing!  Here again is today’s snippet in case my scrawl is illegible:

“A waiting person is a patient person.  The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.  Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere.  The moment is empty.  But patient people dare to stay where they are.” (pg. 32)

THIS moment is THE moment

The kind of “waiting” I’m a pro at, is the hand-wringing kind. You know, the oh-golly-i-don’t-know-how-this-is-gonna-turn-out kind, or the i-gotta-do-somethin’-about-this kind, or the it-shouldn’t-be-this-way kind, or the i-gotta-hurry-up-and-get-through-this-so-I-can-get-to-the-REAL-stuff-of-life kind.  When I find myself in this state of “waiting” through life’s moments, I do try to stop it.  But I then typically fall into another kind of “waiting” which is the passive, well-I-can’t-do-anything-about-it kind and I throw my hands up in the air and say, “Oh well! Just grin and bear it.”

The type of “waiting” Henri Nouwen calls us to in his article, Waiting for God, is neither of the above.  Rather it’s a brand of waiting which is full of expectancy, and anticipation…like Mary, the mother of Jesus, who patiently waited for what would unfold in her life even though it all seemed confusing.  Nouwen says that her kind of “waiting” was a “I don’t know what this all means, but I trust that good things will happen” kind of waiting (pg. 33 Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas).

I wonder what it would be like to do loads of laundry, piles of dishes, cook meals, tend to diabetes, grocery shop, and shuttle kids with a “present to the moment” attitude.  To inhabit all those things as if THEY are the REAL moments of life, and not merely things to get through in order to get on with whatever it is I think is real living.   I think John Lennon rephrased this thought as:  “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  Certainly, I can still make plans, but I want to LIVE present in ALL the moments of my life…the menial as well as the stellar, the mundane as well as the exciting, the  insignificant as well as the significant.

Once again, if it’s difficult to read my chicken scratch, here’s today’s snippet from the Nouwen article, Waiting for God:

“Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.  A waiting person is someone who is present to the  moment, who believes that this moment is THE moment.” (pg. 31)

Waiting: Where Real Life Happens

Veteran’s Day found me at home, with all three kids home from school, doing loads of laundry, grocery shopping, baking for a baby shower, cooking dinner and the endless dish washing that ensues.  If I haven’t ever said it plainly here, let it be known this day:  THESE ARE NOT MY FAVORITE THINGS TO DO!!  I’ve been known to say to my friends that cooking and domesticity “makes me grumpy”.  It’s more than that even: it feels futile, unimportant, insignificant.  I’m often in this place of feeling like most of what I do really does not matter or “count” for anything.  Here, here, and here, you’ll read the same droan (shall we call it whining?) of wishing I could be doing SOMETHING ELSE! And not just anything else, but something of value, like painting or drawing.  Yet, even in my art, I can spiral into a place where even that feels unimportant and insignificant. Perhaps you have these places in your life too, where you just don’t see the purpose for it, the reason behind it all, or anything fruitful that comes from your efforts.

I’ve been reading a most lovely book in anticipation of advent.  Watching for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas is where I found the Sylvia Plath poem.  The day after Veteran’s Day I read a piece by Henri Nouwen titled, Waiting for God.  I’ve been so encouraged by his writing.  The above is an image from my written journal (albeit peppered with drawings).  The next few blog posts will be other snippets from this article.  You really should read the entire piece!  The way Nouwen speaks of what it means to wait, makes me realize that it is precisely in those mundane, insignificant moments where real life is happening…something is growing, God is at work.  Yes, and yes~I WILL rest in this.

In case it is difficult to read my scribble on the image above, here’s the snippet from Henri Nouwen’s article:

“…People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait.  They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow…Those who are waiting are waiting very actively.  They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing.  That’s the secret.  The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun.”  -Henri Nouwen

Co-mMission #2 Accomplished!

Another commission piece completed!  I’ve been working hard lately to catch up on some commissions that have been eluding me due to adjustments to the pump, school-year start-up, etc. etc.  Feeling a bit lighter with each one completed!

This one was especially enjoyable to paint:  the current owner of our previous house commissioned me to create this watercolor as a gift for her husband.  It was wonderful to revisit this grand ole house built in 1922.  Our family loved the six years we lived here.  My older two kids were just wee tiny tots.  Maddie only lived in this house for less than a year before we moved to Kernersville.  The craftsman-style bungalow has more charm and character in its 1100 square feet than our current suburbia-style home.  Each has its advantages though.  It was lovely to take a trip down memory lane as I painted.

Double Take

Tee Hee! These guys are so paintogenic!

Must…paint…cows…!!

Personaleetay!

Remember him? and him? Well, it’s all the same cow, really.  He’s just so full of personality, I keep painting him and his friends who were all quite curious of me snapping photos of them back in the spring up on Mr. Whicker’s land.  Well, it’s actually like a DISINTERESTED curiosity, if there is such a thing! If I could hear him talk, he might be saying, “Humph! We’re just mindin’ our own business here, lady…why don’t you mind yours!”