My Lollipop Girls & Memory Lane

I’m trying to gather myself after last night’s Art Show. It was the culmination of weeks and months of preparation and planning, of vision and hard work.  Though it was an amazing evening, which I’ll share with you someday soon, it is always a bit de-centering.  I do still have much left to do to close out the Art Show chapter, but I waken feeling a bit lost: “what next?”, what was I into creatively before the last month of full-on Art Show prep began?, where would I like to turn my energies now? etc.  Today, my plan is to clean my house which has suffered neglect for quite a while.  It will feel so good to slowly, methodically move through each room to clean and tidy up.

The night before our school’s Art Show, I had taught all day.  Exhausted from that, and from the thought of the mountain to climb on Thursday, I sat at my drawing table to draw from a photo of Maddie I had just snapped at dinner time.  She bought a yellow lips lollipop at school that day and was showing me her “lips”.  It was a good and restorative thing to sit there, after she had been tucked in, slowly drawing my sweet daughter.  Then a memory of another daughter and a lollipop came to mind.

This is my oldest child, Catherine. You can see the date of this pencil sketch. She was 5 years old.  As I drew Maddie, I remembered drawing Catherine from life…she sat so still and long enough for me to draw this, probably due to having a yummy red lollipop to lick while I drew. I had to go digging to find this sketchbook.  There’s a bin of sketchbooks I’ve filled over the years sitting out in the garage.  There are more stashed in a closet upstairs. And still more here in my studio. I remembered the dark green, hardbound, wire bound sketchbook with the star sticker on the cover to denote the “front” of the sketchbook.

I remembered sitting on the park bench while my older two kids played.

I remembered drawing their favorite slide there at Ardmore Methodist Church.

I remembered Catie and William playing together on the “fire truck”.

I remembered that my boy was the cutest thing I had ever laid eyes on.

I remembered Catie liking to draw in my sketchbook. A sweet picture of her with her brother on his first “skateboard”.

I remembered Catie riding her bike with training wheels.

I remembered how hard it was to draw William as he rarely stopped for long on his bike.

And then this.

The birth of  my third precious child. Maddie. This would have been the day after she was born. I remember it. I remember thinking how can you draw such exquisiteness? I remember thinking that the pencil lines needed to be as soft as possible to adequately depict the softness of a newborn. I remember thinking that this sketch didn’t come anywhere close to showing her beauty.

But I am glad that I drew it. So glad I drew all of this and all the thousands of other sketches and drawings I have sitting in that tupperware box and stashed in so many other places.  They are more precious to me than photos, though I love them too.

I’m not sure this has helped me gather myself and move on today.  But it has served to answer the What’s Next question…to continue drawcumenting this beautiful life I’ve been given. It is indeed FULL, art shows and all! Cleaning will be good to do today, since seeing through teary eyes is not a huge hindrance to that kind of work.

Eclection Perfection

Chris Federico, the owner of Eclection in downtown Kernersville, has opened the arms of her shop to the faithful few who love to come out and draw. We are really grateful for such a beautiful spot to be indoors for the cold weather, to have so many wonderful things to draw, to sip  delicious tea, and even shop the unique, eclectic creations there if we want to!

Even though there are only one or two others who draw with me, I love having this regular spot in my week to get out in the world and draw.  This is just one of the many drawings I’ve made this winter while sitting in the lovely “living room”.  Each week it is arranged and decorated differently, using some of the unique creations from the shop.  One time Chris even set up a still life for us to draw, gathering this and that off the “floor”.  Now THAT’s rolling out the red carpet!

I won’t be able to be there this Friday, due to the Art Show happening the night before and needing to either recuperate from that or go in and do some tidying up from the show. But I look forward to next Friday, and the next.  If you’re in the area on a Friday morning…come draw with us! Chris would love to have you!

A Side Blog

This post feels a bit scary. I’m going out on a limb and starting a side blog, another blog for a specific purpose and period of time. It is called Letters To An Artist with the tagline being “365 Imagined Letters from the Father to His Artist Child”.  Today will be the only time I reference this blog to you, my dear readers on Drawn2Life. I will NOT be posting daily post alerts on Facebook or Twitter or EDM Yahoo. The blog is there for you if you have interest in it. It offers share buttons at the end of each post, because it’s the kind of thing you may want to share with a specific friend or friends. But if you want/need alerts about the daily postings, you’ll have to subscribe to the blog, since I will not post alerts like I do for Drawn2Life and my other blogs.

I know, I know…I’m crazy to do this. With only a few days away from the busiest time of my year, the Art Show at the school where I teach, here I am starting something that requires I tend to it each and every day. The only thing I can say to you is that I am compelled to start this project both for myself, and for any readers who may be encouraged by it. Many things have been brewing lately in my heart and mind ever since last weekend when Maddie was sick with strep throat. (If I ever needed proof that interruptions in life are actually seedbeds for new or renewed creativity, it’s been this week!)  I won’t go into all that. But I’ll tell you a bit about the blog’s reason and  purpose.

I’m pretty sure I’ve shared with you here in Drawn2Life some of the struggles of being an artist alongside being a wife, mother, teacher. What I do not tend to share with you outright is that I daily take these struggles to God, my Creator, and I write it all out in journals. I’ve done this for years and years. A few days ago, I began to switch the direction of the writings. Instead of me pouring out these struggles I deal with day in and day out, year in and year out, as if I’m talking to Him; I thought I’d see what it would be like to write, imagining that God was writing to me. I have received such good direction from my Maker for many years, through many sources.  Sometimes the direction has been hard or difficult, yet always needed. Ofttimes it’s exhilarating and renewing.

When I wrote the first one, the second one then flew off my pen, and I haven’t been able to stop writing since. But you may have no interest in this, and that is your prerogative! This “side blog” DOES include artwork. It is purposefully set small in size compared to the “letter”. But you can always click on the image to get a better view of it. I toyed with the idea of creating new artwork for this blog. But quickly realized I need to be realistic and cull from the trove of artwork I have already.

Rest assured, business as usual will go on here on Drawn2Life!! Keep tuning in here, whether or not you decide to follow on the “side blog”. And some of you are so kindly checking in on me at Drawn2Knit and Drawn2Be. It must be dizzying for you. But I do appreciate each and every one of your visits, and as always love reading and responding back to your comments.

I’ve kept the blog on a private setting for a couple of days, giving it a dry run, so-to-speak.  The scary aspect of this is the 365 thing. The commitment to do this for an entire year. I really don’t know whether I can do it or not. But I’m up for trying and I know it will be enriching for me to put my mind to this. Perhaps it will be for you…I’d love to think so.

Click here if you’d like to check out this “side blog” of mine. May your day be a drawing day, a painting day, a make something day!

Sustainable Art

Last weekend, when Maddie was sick, it made me remember a wonderful morning just a couple of days before with two visiting artist friends from Reidsville. After combing the creations in Eclection, Vintage Jane, and Renew, we sat talking away at Amalfi’s about how to be artists in and around our lives as mothers. It’s a subject near and dear to my heart, as I have tried to work this thing out for nearly 16 years now…pursuing art and all that it encompasses from learning to creating, to exhibiting. Motherhood is perhaps one of the most interruptive jobs one could have. No two days are alike. Just when you get them into the school years, so many other things arise, visits to the doctor, dentist, orthodontist, sports. And of course, sick days halt whatever artistic goal or path you had hoped to pursue that day.

Suffice it to say that I’ve been, for many years, on a quest to find a sustainable art, though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it that way. A couple of summers ago, on our trip to Michigan, we met up with old friends there. The wife’s job was to work with companies to make what they do more “sustainable”. As I listened to her describe what this meant, I gathered that her job was to help companies do what they want to do in a more humane and gentle way both for their employees as well as for their clients and to the environment. Over the long haul, these new or improved ways of doing things would allow for resources to not be used up, for employee satisfaction and less burn-out, and clients who feel served over a long period of time.  Something about what she was saying made me think that this was what I had been trying to figure out in my artistic life. At the time, I felt I was actually finding the answer.

When I began to paint and draw in earnest at the age of 32, I did so in and around the busy life of a mom of little ones. I grabbed whatever time I could when my children were napping or asleep at night to paint and draw things that would hopefully be purchased in an art show or gallery. Several years into this, it began to feel very difficult to keep up this pace. I was schlepping paintings hither and yon to broaden the exposure of my artwork, while soccer games, gymnastics, church activities, etc. vied for the same slots as the openings for these shows. It was getting increasingly harder to justify the expense of framing all the works on paper (my preferred medium), to buy the tubes of paint, etc. It was also getting harder to find space in our small house to store these paintings if and when they didn’t sell in the exhibit or gallery. It felt incredibly hard to work as an artist of this kind, trying to keep it up. I got to a point where if I only had 30 minutes to paint, well that just wasn’t enough time to really do anything so I just didn’t do any “art” that day. Several of these days strung together and became a year, then two, where I didn’t do any drawing or painting.

Fast forward to this post here, when I discovered Peter Reynolds book, Ish and Danny Gregory’s book, The Creative License. I began to work (play) in a sketchbook, getting down all the “paintings” in my head, using any and every medium I enjoyed, in any and every method I wanted to. Total freedom. Easy on the pocketbook. Much easier to store. Portable. Do-able in and around a busy, chopped up, life of a mom.

What has been most lovely for me is to find working in a sketchbook to be a sustainable art that I can participate in no matter the circumstances of my life. Though I can still draw and paint for an art show when I want to, I am no longer limited to that. I can draw and paint anytime, anywhere: when my kids are sick, or at the orthodontist, or at a college orientation day, or on trips, or at the hospital, or ANYWHERE!

This may not be important to some artists, finding a sustainable art, but it has been to me. And one must find the artistic expression that is authentic to them!  This is also why I love knitting and crocheting…a portable art form that can be sustained in and around a busy life as wife, mother, and teacher.

**Note: The above sketch was made along with My Balloon Tree post. Again, one of those times where the meaning of it is unclear while making it. I see it now with me standing outside my home, Balloon Tree in the backyard with an endless stream of lovely balloons of creativity flowing from it.

Mystery Man

So the point of this rather odd little sketch made completely out of my head, is to ask a question: Who is he?

There’s this man, who stands on the side of Sedge Garden Rd. near the intersection with Kernersville Rd. He’s there every morning when I take Maddie to school. He’s there every afternoon when she needs to be picked up from after school activities. I began to notice him last Spring. And I’ve seen him there ever since.

He is always holding something up to his mouth or ear that looks like an old cell phone. He’s often talking into it. Sometimes, he has a pipe also. My sketch, all wonky and out of scale, seems to show him looming on the sideline. He actually blends into the wintry surroundings with his woodsy coat and hat. I wonder if others notice him at all.

My imagination takes hold of me…is he an undercover agent recording the comings and goings of a particular person? Is he a granddad who watches his grandkids walk to school and back while talking on the phone with a friend? Is he a writer recording the daily events of cars and passersby at a single intersection? Will my white Mazda 5 wind up in a short story or novel someday? Is he, as my husband suggests, simply listening to a CB radio? Does he live in the side-of-the-road trailers and this is his “front porch”? Does he need to come outside in order for his cell phone to have any reception?

No matter the season, no matter the weather, this guy is there. There’s a part of me that wants to stop and ask him kindly someday what he’s up to. To know his story. To discover the character behind the mystery. But then again, part of me doesn’t. The wondering about it all is just too fun!

Do you have mystery people like this in your neighborhood or town? Kernersville seems to have quite a few. I wrote about (and drew) this guy several years ago. I did actually stop and ask him if I could take his photograph, to which he replied, “Five dollah, five dollah!” So I paid him the $5 and got a few good reference pics for the drawings. There’s also a dancing man at the corner of one of our major intersections. He isn’t so much a mystery (since he’s gotten a good bit of press:) but he’s certainly a character we consider to be Kernersville’s own. All these folks make small town living interesting and delightful.

The Pastor Prepares

 

He rises quietly at 4:30 am every Sunday. He sits in the Big Chair with laptop, Bible, and commentaries. All week long he’s been studying for this. And now comes the moment of truth.

It is much like the chef. The chef who has gathered, assembled, prepared all the items for the exquisite meal. Who now stands in the kitchen ready to put it all together. Will it be good? Will it come together on time?

It is much like the cyclist. The cyclist who has put in the miles and miles of road. Who now faces the mountain climb. Has he prepared enough? Will he make it to the top without crashing and burning?

It is much like the artist. The artist who has sketched the preliminary drawings. Who has created the thumbnails of compositions and color combinations. Who now stands at the easel in hopes that it will come together in a pleasing whole, a final work that will delight the recipient with Beauty.

It is the same for a Pastor. A Pastor who longs to feed his flock rich, substantive food. A Pastor who desires his people to remain faithful as they climb the mountain. Who wants them to be able to see their lives from heaven’s viewpoint. A Pastor who earnestly wishes his hearers to be captivated by the Beauty of Christ and to take that Beauty with them out into their daily lives.

The Pastor does this week in and week out. It can be exhausting and frustrating. But it is his calling, his art, his work. I look forward to it every week and today I will not be able to hear it in person. But I shall listen later this week when it gets posted to the website. If you have any interest in hearing good words for your soul, click here to listen to the Pastor, my pastor, my husband. xxxooo

*I thought I said I’d be scarce around blogland….??? I’ve been granted time this weekend as I care for my sick child. I am grateful.

**Here’s a pic of my early morning workspace. Thought you might like to see the glorious mess of it all!:)

Sick Day :(

A poor image this…lingering gray skies do not allow for well-lit photos.

But this is where we are today: inside with a sick little one.

Time for drawing.

Time for playing Uno.

Time for movies.

Time for soup and crackers.

Time for knitting.

Time for episodes of Suite Life on Deck.

Time for naps.

Time for reading.

It would be the perfect day…

if she didn’t feel so miserable.