In the days, weeks, months leading up to hospitalizaton, my relationship with food was changing. I have always loved to eat. I loved fresh salads as well as ice cream, steak and potatoes along with cake, roasted veggies as well as fresh breads. The only things I didn’t care for were beets and ocra.
When your digestive system is not working the way it should, and you’re landing in the bathroom within minutes of eating something, you begin to associate the food with the pain, diarrhea, and cramping. The problem is that it ISN’T the food causing you to be sick….it’s the disease, in my case, Ulcerative Colitis. Still, I had a one-to-one correlation in my head between food and discomfort, and therefore developed an aversion to food, certain smells of food cooking, etc.
Now that I can eat again without the pain or diarrhea, I still have to coax myself into eating sometimes. Some of this is normal post-surgery stuff and it will get better over time. Having an ileostomy, there are now certain foods I am to steer clear of, and others that I’m encouraged to eat. For instance, prior to having surgery, I tried to stay away from white pastas, potatoes, and breads. But now, these foods are actually encouraged! I used to love fresh veggies and fruits. These are now discouraged due to their difficulty of being digested. I now need to eat veggies that are cooked well, and fruits that are very ripe or mashed (like applesauce).
So it’s a bit of an adjustment. And add to that my need to gain back some of the weight I lost, I find myself thinking about food more than I’d like to. Perhaps this will be a temporary thing, and a new normal will develop to where I’m not having to think about it so much.
One food group that I have yet to get back is my love for coffee. Oh how I loved my morning cup of coffee!! But the smell, while I was sick, was more than I could handle. The smell isn’t bothering me anymore, but to drink coffee is still an unappetizing thing in my mind.
I’m wondering if drawings of coffee cups will disappear from my sketchbooks…prolly so.
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!
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.
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
A little pink bird sits in the Christmas tree in my studio sunroom. He looks out at me from the white branches (fake table-top tree:) as I sit every morning to sip guzzle coffee, to read and reflect. This is one of my newly acquired ornaments this year. I’ve spruced up this little tree, as it is “my tree”.
I announced to the family two years ago that I wanted to have, instead of a Frasier Fir tree, a white fake tree for the living room. I had seen this absolutely gorgeous tree in a friend’s photograph of a Paris store window and I wanted a bit of Parisien holiday in my house. But my family revolted! Gasped in horror. No way I could win. So, just like my dear grandmother, I decided I would have my own little table-top tree, white for me (hers was green) and decorate it however I like. It is in process…I hope to add a new decoration to it every year.
This year, along with the pink bird and a few other ornaments, I added a crocheted tree-skirt. I’ve typed up a little FREE pattern for it, so that any crocheters who’d like to can make it for their table top trees. My tree is nowhere near what I remember the Paris shop tree looking like…but I like this little tree so very much, with it’s pinks, lime greens, and blues, a very happy site in the studio!
*The second drawing I made December 2010, when I first got the tree. I remember now that it sat on a table very close to my drawing table and wound up with art supplies underneath it. Now it sits in one of the many windows in the room to be enjoyed by those driving or walking by on my neighborhood street. I’m prolly stretching it…but perhaps it’s a teensy bit of Paris for my Kernersville street.
If you followed a line from the angel on your tree
All the way down to where presents should be
Would you revisit memories of the years gone by
Curling ‘round ornaments with a twinkle in your eye?
Would you find yourself there when your babies were born?
When they made preschool ornaments, now shabby and torn?
Would you see faces of friends who made or gave one to you?
Would you relive your childhood, tracing baubles from then too?
And as your line meandered through santas and stars,
Penguins and trees, toy trains and cars…
Would you find ‘neath your tree more gifts than you could count?
Dazzled by the ache as your memories mount?
Your line would’ve found, from the angel to the earth
A trove of presents that fill you with mirth.
Though the tree will soon fill with wrapped boxes underneath
They can never surpass what I’ve already received.
-jpe
December 13, 2012
*I created the drawing in ONE LINE. Perhaps you can see the beginning of it up by the angel’s hair and follow it to the tree-skirt end. Sometimes I drew over and through things, sometimes I retraced my steps back to where I needed to go. But one line it is, and only a splash of color.
**If you’d like to read more of my poetry from around Christmastime, click here. This is page 2 of the Poetry Category that you can always access from the category section in the right hand margin. Just keep scrolling ’til you get to the section from last December.
***Also, I have a couple of poet friends who are marking their December days with a line of their own. If you enjoy poetry, find Alice’s here, and Kevin’s here.
Drawing with friends downtown Kernersville has been one of the highlights of my week since last Spring. We started out at the Factory and kept drawing through the summer there. then we moved to the Ciener Botanical Gardens in the fall and now we draw at Eclections, a wonderful artisan booth space with a cafe and seating area.
Sometimes we chat more than we draw…
Other times we’re quiet and concentrating on our sketches…
But most of the time we are chatting AND drawing, multi-tasking at its best!
It’s been a while since I’ve shown you the menagerie that lives on Maddie’s bed. The first drawings I made of the critters she houses were when she was in second grade, and then third grade, and fourth. Now, as a fifth grader with her double bed (we switched out rooms and furniture when our eldest went off to college:/) the arrangement is different. She is much taller now, so the end-of-the-bed assortment gets in the way as she sleeps.
The way she arranges everything on her bed is so festive! The old bed which belonged to my grandmother Catherine, looks positively inviting with it’s explosion of colorful pillows and plushies! There’s “Lips”, the beanie baby fish, “Snippy” the small sea turtle, “Squirt” the large sea turtle, “Rainbow” the bear beanie baby (whose birth date on the inside of the little card attached is her diabetes anniversary, which was yesterday, btw!), and then, last but not least, “Isabella” the unicorn, or the pig, or a pig-unicorn?? This last addition to the menagerie occurred at Halloween of this year as Maddie chose to be Agnes from our favorite movie Despicable Me. It’s a kid-size body pillow that she snuggles with all night! (I don’t think she would like me to write that bit…she is slowly growing into those “that’s not cool mom” years.
The following are my drawings of her menageries from years gone by. She asked me the other day, “Is it too babyish that I love stuffed animals on my bed?” My heartfelt response: “Not at all!! I hope you have stuffed animals with you for as long as you want them!” Thoughts of her college dorm single bed bursting with pillows and stuffed animals filled my vision! Oh why do our dear children have to grow up?
Our cat, Lucy, loves to join them for her daily siesta!
I didn’t see it until later…a week or so after I drew this. I was merely in the moment, reveling in my spot to draw at Tanglewood Park, perched with pen in hand on a little hill enjoying a pastoral view across the road.
But now I see how the image and the words I drew that day speak volumes.
That fence. That dark, right-across-the-middle-of-the-page structure, barring me from the pasture beyond. Horses grazed off to the left in the light dappled field. The fence represents a place I’m not allowed to cross over. Yet something reaches back to me from that beautiful field. The shadows from its glorious trees reach toward me, envelope me, touch me. I sit in those lovely shadows from beyond.
This is a picture of my life. I am not yet allowed beyond…to that place I call home, my real home. I do not/cannot go there yet. But as I draw…as I draw near to God…He draws near to me…and I see hints of that world here in my own. I may only be seeing the shadows of that lovely land to which I go. But they are beauty full! And the very shadows call to me to draw more and more of my sustenance from looking, from peering, from seeing beyond the veil. In doing so, my travels here are made more beautiful.
An exquisite pain of homesickness pierces me now as I see this drawing afresh. Draw near. Yes, I will today, this Thanksgiving Day. I will gaze into the faces of my family around the table and I will see the dappled light of the beyond dancing in their eyes. I will taste of the Feasts yet to come, in the opulence on our Thanksgiving table. I will hear the bells of glad tidings beyond, that reach my ears in the form of their laughter.
And I will give thanks.
In drawing, I am drawn. By drawing, He draws near to me. Through drawing, I see. And from drawing, I hear the music.
Once again, I am honored to have a piece of my artwork chosen (this one above) for this year’s Out of the Garden Project Honor Card!! Beginning very soon, folks will be able to receive a beautifully printed card with the above painting on it as a way of saying thank you for your donations throughout the Holiday Season. Click here for more information about this wonderful mission to provide meals for children and their families on the weekends throughout the school year. It is an EXTRAORDINARY work started by ordinary people.
Don and Kristy Milholin are ordinary people who, like myself, have a love for ordinary things. I suspect that they, like me, love to see Beauty happen in unexpected places…perhaps even in hopeless places. The above drawing, I created in my unassuming small town, in a place that is somewhat hidden from plain view. I did not travel to France to create this artwork. I did not go trekking in Nepal. Nor did I stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon. I sat down in little ole Kernersville, and put pen and paint to paper. Ordinary stuff.
I imagine Don and Kristy sitting down a few years ago on their back deck perhaps, and thinking they could provide some food for a few kids at a local school in Greensboro. A fairly ordinary thought: providing food for those who have difficulty getting it.
I think about Don and Kristy a lot. They don’t know this. But I thought about them in the spring, as my neighbors were planting their gardens. I thought about how a garden starts off with a good bit of enthusiasm, energy, and some resources. You have this plot of land, some seeds, a hose. You plow and dig, plant and stake. You water. And then…you wait. At first it seems like it doesn’t really take much, this gardening thing.
But along about mid-summer, your garden goes POOF! And all of a sudden there are more tomatoes and cucumbers than you know what to do with. The weeds are multiplying faster than you can deal with them. The ground can’t seem to get enough water. And you wonder how you’ll be able to bring in the harvest…there aren’t enough hands, resources, or time to do everything.
I’ve wondered if Don and Kristy feel this way when they look at how their ordinary desire to feed a few children and their families has mushroomed to cover over 40 schools in Guilford and Forsyth Counties, providing weekend meals for over 750 school children. Out of the Garden Project has surely POOFED. An extraordinary thing has happened in an ordinary place. Hope is brought to places where it is lacking. Food is provided for children whose families struggle to have this most basic of human needs.
The amazing thing about all of this, is that when ordinary people pool their ordinary resources, EXTRAORDINARY things can happen.
Your “ordinary resource” may be a bit of time to help sort food, bag it, deliver it. Maybe you have an ordinary talent or gift that can be given in some way. Or your “ordinary” may be $5, $10 or whatever. Don and Kristy want to thank you for your monetary donations by giving you an Honor Card for every $5.
Won’t you join me, in offering some of your ordinary resources, to accomplish something extraordinary this fall and throughout the holidays: Food and Hope for every child!
Oh how I loved my morning cup of coffee!! But the smell, while I was sick, was more than I could handle. The smell isn’t bothering me anymore, but to drink coffee is still an unappetizing thing in my mind.
