pomegranatesandpaper

We Were Supposed to Let That Ship Sail (without us)

Sometimes the dithering between couples, the lack of decision, the refusal to take the helm, is for a reason. I have learned to listen to that nagging feeling of dread. Sometimes. Cause I almost always have a nagging feeling of dread and one of these days I may go get a prescription for it.

But back to the point: we didn't go away and the following reasons proved us right:

• heavy rain followed by heavy wind even through last night;
• Mr. Pom got a major flat, which would have been a blow out on the highway; and 
• our 25 year old furnace bit the dust, causing a racket, alarm, and expensive overtime Sunday morning visit .

And if all those things are destined to happen, I'd rather deal with it from home than from 240 miles away.

The bad news is that we have to decide about buying a new furnace for a 100 year old house that will cost almost 5 figures; or spend a low 4 figures just to replace the motor on a 25 year old furnace; or spend just over 5 figures and get a 97% efficient furnace AND CENTRAL AIR.

For once, I was the one saying: Are you out of your mind? Just replace the motor! We have a wedding to pay for!

Then The Son The Engineer (a/k/a Mystery Man) phoned and said, "Mother (oh he's so grown up now!), Dad's right: it is an investment in the capital of the house. You're not going to live there another 25 years and it will make it more saleable." Yeah, whatever. We still don't have the money.

And then he said The Magic Words: "You won't have to hassle with those stupid window a/c units anymore".

Be still my heart! No more being locked in the bedrooms, the only cool places in the hot summer? No more yanking the units in and out and dragging them one flight up to the attic or two flights down to the basement? No more sweating to death trying to fry a burger in the kitchen because there's no a/c in there? No more having guests feel like they are eating next to a jet engine when the monstrous downstairs window unit is on?

OH well, what's a retirement fund anyway? I could get hit by a bus tomorrow!

If you need me, I am under the covers, sitting atop our heated mattress pad. I have a pot roast in the oven just to have it turned on; Mr. Pom has claimed the chair next to the fireplace; The Princess has an electric radiator heater; the dogs will lay on top of me, double the warmth; and we will keep the hot water running after we get out of the shower tomorrow so we can get dresed for work without turning into popsicles.

Of course, a few more 62 degrees would solve all, but it's 31 right now and last night while it was snowing, we noticed that our neighbor's cherry tree had flowered. The magenta blossoms looked pretty with snowflakes on them. 

The winter when no one knew whether they were coming or going.

 

Love & Marriage

What passes for decision-making in the Pom Household, or The Cape Cod Two-Step:

Tuesday, sunny and clear:

Mrs. Pom:  I am so jonesing for the Cape! I need to be at Nauset!

Mr. Pom:    It would be nice....

Wednesday night:

Mr. Pom: We are so going to the Cape! We are getting on the road, baby!

Thursday night:

Mrs. Pom: Can you believe what a glorious day it was? It was 62 - I can't wait to leave for the Cape!

Mr. Pom: I know!

Mrs. Pom: I know, too - I could leave right after court! How early can you leave?

Mr. Pom:  I can't leave early, you know that.

Mrs. Pom: For pity's sake - can't you have a dentist appointment?

Mr. Pom: No - I actually have one next week. Fridays are bad, I can't leave early. Don't start a big thing.

Mrs. Pom: Then let's take Monday off.

Mr. Pom: Mondays are bad. I can't take Mondays. Don't start.

Mrs. Pom: I'm exhausted. It's too much to run up there Friday night and back on Sunday. And Cucciolo never sleeps when we are there. Can we kennel him?

Mr. Pom: Are you crazy? We kenneled him two weekends ago, it's a fortune!

Mrs. Pom: We always get there at 11:00 p.m. and the dog is now wide awake and then we make him go in his crate, and he wakes up at 6:00, and we're grouchy and exhausted all weekend.

Mr. Pom: All right, let's just stay home. It's too much pressure.

Mrs. Pom: Hmmmpf!

Friday morning:

Mr. Pom: I just walked the dogs, it's 30 degrees and raining like crazy.

Mrs. Pom: Do you still want to go?

Mr. Pom: I dunno; I guess.

Mrs. Pom: I'll call you when court is done.

Later:

Mrs. Pom: I'm done. If we leave now, we'll miss the heavy rain.

Mr. Pom: I don't know, it's horrible out, I'm tired, my back is killing me.

Mrs. Pom: Let me call you after lunch.

Later still:

Mrs. Pom checks email from Mr. Pom:

"We have to go whether it's fun or not because we have to make sure the house is okay."

Mrs. Pom calls Mr. Pom: So we're going.

Mr. Pom: I'm not sure, what do you think?

Mrs. Pom: I can barely keep my eyes open.

Mr. Pom: We need to go, but I can't leave early and you have to drive part of the way because of my back.

Mrs. Pom: What?? I don't feel well. Then we have to leave early because I can't drive for 4 hours in the dark and rain. Let's go Satuday morning.

Mr. Pom: I hate that! Drive up one day and back the next? Only if we leave at 4:00 a.m. so we can be there by 8:00.

Mrs. Pom: 4 a.m.! Are you out of your mind? 6:00!

Mr. Pom: Then we won't get on the road until 8:00! We should go today.

Mrs. Pom. I work to do , this is getting nowhere, I'll see you at home.

Later still:

Mrs. Pom: Hey - I left work, I took the dog for her check up, and now I'm home, let's go.

Mr. Pom Go where??

Mrs. Pom: To the Cape!

Mr. Pom: What? We agreed to go tomorrow, you were too tired.

Mrs. Pom: Well, now I'm home and packed and if you leave we could hit the road.

Mr. Pom: Are you kidding me? This is nuts. Now I don't know what to do.....

Mrs. Pom: (clenched teeth) Decide!

Mr. Pom: You convinced me to go tomorrow.

Mrs. Pom: Then you have to pick up the other dog because I'm already home.

Mr. Pom: What?? If I have to drive all the way up there then we might as well leave now.

Mrs. Pom: NO, I need to take a nap, I feel awful.

Mr. Pom: Oh my lord. I'm hanging up.

Mrs. Pom: Hmmpf.

 

30 years, friends, and yet, it never gets old. Love you, Mr. Pom!

Journaling Back to Myself

 

 

Sunday night I was dog tired. A wonderfully busy weekend filled with all good things, but as usual - little in the way of art or writing.

Too tired to do any serious work on a Sunday night. Besides, I am trying to turn off the compunction to be "doing" all weekend long. I decided I deserved a nice cup of tea and and a little linger on the laptop.

I didn't start out meaning to do it, but I found myself deep into Pinterest and art journals and sketchbook blogs. I found myself starting that syndrome of clicking through on link after link, intrigued and attracted by amazing painters, sketchers, and mixed media journal pages. Then I began clicking on paints and watercolor and gouaches and filling out order forms I could never fulfill without going bankrupt.

Then I saw someone's  journal that stopped me cold. I'm sure you all know Pikland, which is an amazing illustration blog. I traced a pin of a pin of a pin and ended up on her blog and ran across this fantastic and completely simple idea: Quoteskine. I know that commonplace books have been around since the beginning of the written word, but I whenever I thought of keeping one, it seemed so detail oriented that I was turned off.

Now, I see Lee Crutchely's  marvelous book and it combines my current passion for lettering (I'm having so much fun addressing the wedding invitations with a calligraphy pen and rich blue ink) and my new somewhat silly fascination with amazing song lyrics that I hear. (One day I will write a post about rediscovering indie music in my 50's and how going to concerts is like rediscovering my twenty-year old self. Soon as I figure out how to do it without embarassing my children.)

 

 

 

 

 

The cool part is the lettering and illustration. I find lettering to be very meditative and having to make only the simplest of decisions such as serif or sans serif is exactly the type of art experience I can handle after a long day at a computer or in court.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can purchase his Quoteskine (I am!) at his shop.

Anyhow, I have started my own Quoteskine, called Words I Live For, which is pretty mundane, but I'm working on a better title.

Over the years, I've tried to keep multiple journals and I have to say that eventually, I don't keep one up and then another and before long, I not keeping a sketchbook or journal at all. I'm not proud to admit that, but my track record ends up with many, many incomplete journals.  I do much better with just one journal that everything goes into.

But I've been thinking about how scattered I feel lately. I can't seem to get any one thing to take hold of me and ground me for a length of time. Maybe I should reconsider keeping multiple journals, if I can figure out how to define them so their categorization leads to a synthesis of work and not a refraction.

Something simple like a  quote journal, but one that allows me to be outrageous with lettering is such a sweet idea for me. When I think of it I just smile! It will be pure play.

Then how about my other preocupation of developing an illustration style? I've been gathering illustration books and bookmarking illustrators whose work I admire and copying their style as a way of training my own hand and eye to develop a style. So instead of  random sketch pages all over the house, why not have a journal that is just for illustration techniques?

A steadfast love of mine is painting, watercolors in particular. I miss it so much as I haven't done any since the fall. I have a gigantic moleskine that I bought on sale and started filling up over the summer, but then it turned into a sketchpad, notepad, and soon it just looked like every other journal I've done - without a point of view.

So why not keep it just for painting, lush, vibrant dreamy paintings? But not just any paintings - for my story paintings. For those characters and stories that flit in and out of my  head, fill mynights with dreams, and get me spinning yarns that might never see the light of day except to me - in my journal.Th journal that would be the most personal, the one that best reflects my dual identity as artist and writer.

It would be - that's right - The Golden Notebook!

Seriously, I can really before I get all Doris Lessing on you and end up overthinking, overintellectualizing, and over analyzing my own creativity, which is what I do and why I fail, let's just try to keep this "playful".

As I always say to myself, I have a career; I have an income; I have a lot of responsibility in my life. Do I want art to be the same or do I want art to be the source of joy and passion in my life?

I just find it very satisfying to think of having 3 journals on my night table to turn to each evening:

• the lettering journal
• the illustration journal - a workspace for learning, for notetaking, experimenting, and keeping track of ideas
• the story journal -  my dreams, my inspiration, my half-told ideas spun out.

Surely if they are on the night table, along with my pens, my watercolor palette, some brushes, and pencils, I will not only have it right by my side to encourage me to work, but I hope that working in each will help me clarify my creative aspirations each day and help me organize my thoughts.

The quotes and phrases that I enter into the lettering journal will feed the illustration journal with ideas, which in turn will feed the story journal with stories.

That should work, right??

Why do I see the Leaning Tower of Pisa Journals teetering and toppling onto my head in the middle of the night?

Perhaps it's time to rethink this.

 

99 Bottles of . . .

Can you believe that TW* is 3 months away? Those 2 years flew by and when The Bride was hollerin' at me to get certain stuff done and I was all, hey, we have TWO years, yeah, I should have listened.

So this weekend was designated Wedding Prep weekend and The Bride invited her Wedding Party Plus** for lunch at our house followed by Afternoon O' Crafts.

As the MOB, I was The Designated Martha Stewart for all crafty issues; Emily Post for Envelope Address Issues; and the Ina Garten of refreshments.

I served this for lunch:

 

 

PEOPLE: I am worried about y'all! I'm afraid y'all are the ones who are opening up those emails that say you won a MILLION dollars and the contents of your laptop disappear!

When do you think I would have time to learn how to paint with variously colored Balsamic vinegars? I served a 3 foot wedge*** of turkey and roast beef that Mr. Pom delivered from the Italian Deli, a green salad, and a fruit salad****. C'mon, don't be fooled by Internet scams!

The lovely lunch in the picture was served at a charming wine bar in Havre de Grace, Maryland. We stopped in there last weekend on the way to visit the youngest. More to come about that. Someday.

Instead of painting with Balsamic vinegars, on Friday night whilst waiting for Peapod groceries,  I decided the kitchen chalkboard needed this:

 

 

Very therapeutic. I recommend colored chalk and clean slate to anyone for a Friday night activity. So Zen. *****

 

Now, I'd love to show you photographs of all the cute stunning crafty things we did, but The Bride's bedroom is right above mine and when she sees I posted pics of this stuff so all the guests will see it in advance of the wedding, she will creep down and smother me in the middle of the night. And then who's going to referee on how to address the wedding invitation to Our Uncle the Judge and His Wife??

I'll just show you this and whoever guesses first what they are wins a prize!

 

 

PEOPLE! You did it again! There's NO prize! Just how many dollars have y'all sent to those people in Nigeria??  Do you think I have time to figure out a prize, figure out a box, figure out where the packing tape is, address it and remember to get it out from the hatch of The Mini when there is TW in 3 months? You know how I posted about limiting Internet activity and involvement last week? Well, nothing stresses me out more than having to mail stuff to people in connection with stupid extraneous internet stuff I agreed to do.

But I will mention you by name if you guess! :>)

 

Here's another sneak peek. All I can tell you is that if you need me after work for the next week, I'll be behind a pile o' these.

 

This is  the only uncropped photo I can show you:

 

 

Satin and grosgrain ribbons. What wedding doesn't involve satin and grosgrain ribbons? Charming.

 

The young people stayed all day. We bribed them with macarons and raspberry melt-away cake. Towards the end, Mr. Pom came home. ****** He opened up various bottles of wine and The Bride granted a Special Dispensation in honor of our archbishop being elevated to Cardinal in Rome yesterday, and allowed us to partake of a beverage whilst at the table that held our projects.

After partaking of the water turned to wine, things got a little loosey goosey and hence, the blurry photo above and lord knows what. I'd best check those envelopes before mailing them out....Ssh! Don't tell The Bride.

So the only things left to do are Really Special Projects that involve me watercoloring, or the youngest graphic designing, or those that involve (sssshh) The Shower for which I have no Gang of Seven just me cause the youngest insists on going to classes this semester! Really, the nerve!

Gotta go find more of that wine.

 

 

``````````````````````````````````````

*The Wedding - had to abbreviate it, actually made a macro stroke (remember those?). I can't imagine how many times I am going to type those words in the next 3 months.

**All the people she has in her wedding party, asked to be in her wedding party and couldn't, would have asked but knew they'd prefer not to but were glad to help anyway. 2 of these delightful girls have the same first name as The Bride, so we pretend we are doing roll call and address everyone by first and last names all the time. (Did I mention that the wedding coordinator and the hair and make up person for the day of the wedding also have the same first name? Obviously none of us parents win the prize for Original Names of the 80's.

***Wedge: Westchester County terminology for hero, hoagie, submarine, grinder, i.e. long sandwich on a roll. Also known as The Standby in our house.

****(Why did I start with these freaking stars?) The fruit salad I made was strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. As I was eating it, I sort of remembered that I had some blackberries last week and my mouth felt vaguely irritated afterwards. So now half of my bottom lip looks like Daffy Duck, which could have given me that sexy pouty look except that it is bright red and only HALF of the lower lip.  Otherwise, it's a reaction to the novacaine I had earlier in the morning at the dentist. Or a combo of the two. Whatever. It hurts and I couldn't eat anything at dinner and just sat there sucking the ice from the water glass. Charming company was I.

*****No, I have no idea how I am going to remember to change it everyday nor how I am going to do it without taking it down off the wall and smearing the rest of it. See my comment about mailing above and you can be pretty sure it will still say "99 days" until their first kid is in kindergarten.

******The Mister needed some play time and since he only goes to a racetrack every 5 years, I didn't play the guilt card about how he was leaving me home alone with 7 young people and 2 glue guns, especially since he came back with more money than he had when he left and took me out to dinner. 

*******I wrote this entire blog post last night at 11:00 p.m. and my hand slipped as I was trying to move a paragraph and the whole thing disappeared. Like forever.  I had to rewrite and upload all this crap again. See, I do love you even if I don't do prizes.

*******************Never do footnotes with stars.

************************Never do footnotes. It's a blog post not a law review article.

My Funny Valentine

 

 

 

This little wall hanging was starting at Tracy Stillwell's art retreat.

Last year.

Not this year.

It is meant to be a self portrait of myself smack in the middle of middle age. It's busy, colorful, scattered, and a little... intense.

Like me.

Over the last ten years, I fell out of favor with fabric. My love for drawing and painting seemed to sweep aside the fussiness of fabric. Who has time to measure, trace, cut, take out the machine, match up seams, sew, press, and do it all over and over again?

A creamy white sheet of watercolor paper, a pencil, brush, some paints, et voila: art.

So, it was with great shock that I found myself buying fabric again, and wandering through the aisles of an AC Moore with cohort in crime, Kathy Nesi, buying embroidery floss, needles, and a little white box to keep it all in.

Especially since I once had plenty of embroidery floss, needles, and a little white box, the whereabouts of any of it, I know not.

I seem to have recaught the handwork bug. I am happily pulling a needle through slubby linen, squinting my eyes and looking under my reading glasses to thread the needle, and massaging my hands at night when the arthritis makes itself heard. I am collecting colors of embroidery floss like pieces of hard candy and pulling fabrics like daffodils from a spring garden.

It's fun again.

So have no fear that my self portrait has been languishing. I think I've been languishing along with it. It's been a tough year. I've sealed myself off from most of my artwork in little accretions of sadness, disinterest, and frustration. It was a slow freeze out, unintentional and thoughtless.

Fabric and thread are accumulating in little piles around my house and with it a recollection of how I got into this artful mess in the first place. The young wife who wanted nothing more than a bunch of kids at her knees and lapful of quilt to sew; the young woman whose pulse quickened when she walked into a fabric store and thought nothing of making a wedding ring quilt for her sister's wedding in between caring for two toddlers and practicing law.

It's nice to be connected to what is for me the most feminine of pursuits. It slows me down, makes me smile, forces me to focus, and allows me the excuse to buy silly rick rack trim and chenille fringe and beautiful beads to thread on a needle and lay down on a piece of cut pile velvet in a line that curves from my hand straight into my heart.  

 

The Hunger Moon

 

 

The full moon at this time of year is referred to as the Hunger Moon. The Native Americans also referred to it as "Little Famine Moon" and "Storm Moon".  Our ability to feed ourselves in the United States at least no longer waxes and wanes according to the seasons. Would that it did; we'd all weigh a lot less. Be that as it may, I think most of us would agree that January and February is still ruled by The Hunger Moon.

As most know, I live for summer. I enjoy every aspect of summer's heat and lushness.  Even so, I find many things attractive about  deep winter. The bracing cold days that call for big sweaters and thick socks;  the early evenings with lights lit and curtains drawn against the winds that toss leaves against the foundations of the house, rattling the windows, rattling our bones with remnants of primordial fears of things that go bump in the night. 

This year we have not had deep winter as we know it in the northeast. The days have been mild and dry. The daffodils on the corner are four inches above ground. The grass in sunny spots is greening. A few violets are showing their inky purple petals by the front door. I do not complain about it. Navigating around walls of ice and snow for months last year was a Siberian experience that I have no desire to repeat.

But something is off.

This mild, sunny winter is playing havoc with my internal clock.  I find myself  disoriented when I begin to write "April" on a check and realize it is only early February. My head  tilts to one side like my dog does when he begins to bark at a stuffed animal and slinks off embarassed at being fooled. We are living under The Hunger Moon but thinking it is the Awakening Moon.

I think of all this while I read and reread the comments over the past few days. I hear a profound sadness in people, deep dissatisfaction, befuddlement, and confusion at how they are to relate in the world as artists in 2012. Again and again we complain about the intrusion into our lives, the great time waster of the Internet and social media, the weariness at needing to reinvent ourselves over and over and over again.

We are like the daffodils on the corner,  forced to bloom in February. It is not natural to live our artistic lives so on view. We didn't begin keeping art journals in order to post a page a day nor do we understand why we need to.Who has time to check or blogroll and FB each day and actually get our own work done?

So why don't we walk away? Why don't we just power down and go back to work? Time and time again, we confess to falling into the lure of endless pages of bright and pretty things to stare at. Bright and pretty things made by others instead of by us. It is an insidious conundrum for what I'm hearing about is not just that the bright and pretty things lure us away from our own work. It is that they also erode our self confidence, undermine our ability to come up with new ideas, and trash our creative joie de vivre. 

So why not just stay away?

Simply put, if you don't have it on a website, then it doesn't count.  If you don't have "x" number of FB friends, then you aren't popular. If you don't have a "fan page" then you aren't a professional artist. If you make something, but don't sell it on etsy, then you are not successful. If you don't  have "x" number of hits on your blog, then advertisers won't place their ads, big money-making blogs won't link to you, blogging conferences won't ask you to speak or teach, publishers won't publish your book,  and you are not considered a professional writer.

The Internet has created a world that is not objective but is objective. A world that does not exist but that rules how we perceive existence. The Internet has created a false culture of creativity that is in fact becoming the real culture of creativity.

We were living our lives as artists with a small "a". Now that the Internet has defined what a successful artist is (see above), our lives as "artists" are not enough; now we strive to be  Artists.  Aristotle defined the essence of identity as  "being qua being": to exist is to be, to be is to be something. With the metafilter of the Internet turned on all the time, it is not enough just to be. We have to be something that we constantly promote, advertise, market, and brand. We have to show others how to live like us, how to make art likes us, and simply, how to be us. 

Now how can that be? Does the picture I paint mean any less to me if I don't link it on social media and count the number of likes it gets? Is my writing any less successful than someone else's if she gets a hundreds hits for my every two? Does my new technique have less validity than someone who has sold out her online course on the similar technique? Do my journal pages resonate more strongly with me if someone pins it on Pinterest?

My head cries, no! My hearts sighs,yes.

I am no more or no less subject to this tyranny than you are. I reject the Internet and then come back grovelling to it for more. I turn up my nose at all those who are trawling their wares all over the social media, and then I berate myself when my own classes don't fill. I roll my eyes at yet another mixed media book being published, and I scribble titles for mine in the margins of my briefs at work.

I do not have a solution or a remedy. I am not the Ayn Rand of social media. I am merely an artist who finds herself making art less and less and looking at others making art, seemingly more and more. 

Humbly, I Adore Thee

Paper Clay faces from Art Girlz Retreat

 

Sunday evening after a very busy two days. I am in the bed, listening to Mr. Pom and The Fiancé shouting at The TV while The Superbowl plays. Every time they do, a smile crosses my face because it remind me of when my father used to do the same thing - shout at the TV, "Go - go - go!". And at The Giants.

I wish I could tell you that I spent part of the weekend making art or writing, but I did not. Still, I got lots of house and family obligations accomplished, and when that is all out of whack it only makes me feel worse and not better. I will remain optimistic and also cut myself a few breaks about what I can really hope to accomplish in the few short months until the wedding is over.

 I've gotten some parts of my life back in balance in small ways. The house is vacuumed and dusted. My bedroom is picked up and clean, clothes put away, scarves hung, jewelry back into drawers, shoes in the shoe rack. On Friday I made a chili for today out of ground turkey, two tablespoons of olive oil, 3 kinds of beans, chili powder, minced garlic, diced tomatoes, and tomato puree so we can balance out some of the  Super Bowl Indulgences.

Saturday, The Bride f/k/a The Princess and I went to the city where she got a rehearsal dinner dress and I tried on...gowns. Gulp. Gosh, wish I hadn't eaten all those wonderful goodies over Christmas....but now I've ordered a few online and I think I'll end up with something to wear to the wedding.

We went to Tinsel Trading and bought some glittered goodies and dusty rose silk ribbons for various wedding projects. Then we bought cardstock in her colors for table numbers,  escort cards, menus, and programs. She wants me just to watercolor them simply. A huge box filled with the invitations came in the mail and we will have an assembly line in two weeks to collate all the inserts, and hand address the envelopes.

Today, The Empress and Mar came for dinner and I made an old-fashioned Sunday dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, gingered carrots, and grilled asparagus. I set the table with a vintage shabby chic lace cloth, my grandmother's pink transferware, and deep red votive candles for Valentine's day.

And now I have spent over an hour trawling through wedding inspiration sites as The Bride and I become very excited over her "vintage beach" theme and start running around the house and grabbing stuff for "props". I'm afraid Mr. Pom is going to freak out when he realizes that we may have to rent a small U-Haul to get all this stuff up there, so I think we may have to start bringing up our vintage thrift props from now.

Next weekend is Parents' Weekend for Micalangela. We usually drive down there on Saturday morning, and leave early Sunday afternoon. We're always tired and Mr. Pom's back hurts and we collapse at night and poor Micalangela wonders why we even came down. So in the interest of cutting this ridiculous pattern of hectic stress that is our lives, I am insisting that he takes Friday off and allow us a two-night, more leisurely visit.

So my state of mind tonight is much better than it was a few days ago when I posted, but the essential truth of what I wrote has not changed: I need to stop watching, read, and surfing, and start going back to "doing". I need to recapture that amazing feeling of "wow, I made this!" and relearn how to write a full paragraph that Does Not Have Capital Letters for each word and does not consist of short, clipped slangy sentences followed by too many exclamation points!!!!

Your words, oh, your words, were like hands coming through the screen in support, empathy, tears, and laughter. I immediately thought - hey, we should start our own blog ring: Artists Who Hate Social Networking/Over-Blogging/and Excessive Marketing".

But then I remembered that the goal is to get OFF the internet, not to spend more time, so I stayed focus.

 

So, I have read each and everyone of your comments. Each one rang true for me: the overwhelming feeling of watching better, more prolific,  more inventive, more talented, more ambitious artists, and more, more, more expected of us to stay with the program, whatever your creative dreams are.

I clarified almost immediately in the comments and I will do the same again, that this is not a whiney poor me no comments please leave one post. I know why my page views are down, and it simple math: fewer posts, less frequent posts, irregular posts = fewer readers.And I am okay with that.

 

As I wrote in reply to a comment:

 

Just to clarify for all - this is not about the blog, lack of readership, or lack of comments. It's is a general feeling that my life is scattered in as many fragments as a kaleidescope and about once every few months can I view it through the lens and see something beautiful. The years pass; I am not further along on my creative path but farther away. Sometime I think the worst thing that ever happened to my creativity is buying a laptop.

And that is fine because while I am going through this transition and struggling to find my way in a new world, I have lost my spark - no it's become buried and I am trying to excavate it.

I want to respond to each of you, but I am giving myself a break, which I know you will allow me so I am not writing this post for two days. Every single comment was a hand held through cyberspace and I envision a huge circle of us saying, "We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore." (From Network, which you should watch if you were born after 1976.)

If you  haven't, please read the comments. They are a wonderful cross-section of viewpoints that coalesce into this essential point by "ClaraC":

Who has time to "do art" and "show art." Create for sale - impossible. Create for joy, for bliss, for knowing ourselves better.

For a very succinct, masterly view of what I so clumsily expressed,  read the comment left by  Laura Tringalli Holmes. She expressed  what goes on in the mixed media world so well!

Beth said,

I think the worst thing hasn't been having a laptop, it's been social networking, Twitter, and all the associated hype and frantic activity and fragmentation of our precious time and concentration. So much of it is an illusion, but like parched souls in a desert, it's easy to understand why creative people run toward what seems like an oasis.

Dana said,

I love the internet and use it constantly as reference sources for paintings and ideas for what to paint. I really appreciate so many blogs, especially in this recessionary time when so many print mags have gone under.

That said I am feeling old and cranky in the midst of a society that is more plugged in than tuned in. I am tired of holding elevators for sweet young things who are so busy texting that they can't be bothered to get on in a timely fashion.

(Dana, you always make me laugh out loud!)

Nina said,

That's me there beside you, tap dancing while we look around to see if anyone else is joining us. or, if anyone is out there behind the lights...i'm feeling the very same way, as well. it's scary, it's confusing, it's frustrating. i don't want to constantly promote myself. i don't want to license my wares so that they show up on every coffee mug, notebook, postcard, lampshade (wait. i'm a jewelry designer...)

Art8ldy said,

I've had it with blogs that just promote classes and every little mark or stitch becomes a tutorial! "Be true to who you are and have fun!" ~ thats my motto!

 

Another Beth must have a camera under my bed as she described my weeknights to a "t",

I think this is a common struggle, no matter your medium. My 'art' of choice is knitting. While at work each day, I look forward to coming home and spending some time with my needles and fiber. Though after dinner, I find myself checking email and then one blog and then another and before long, I've spent more time looking at other people's projects than working on my own. Didn't I crave for that time while I was working during the day? Why did I let it slip away? Visiting all the sites can be inspiring but I promised myself more 'doing' this year. I'm getting there, in baby steps. I can't get rid of the computer. It's a lifeline to folks far away, to news, to resources, to inspiration.

Mim, who has an amazing blog with lots of readers, said,

It seems you have hit a nerve! I love this post, it's what we all feel and are "afraid" to say. (remembering "prodigy" made me giggle!). I am trying to be more "me" this year on my blog and there is NO way I can keep up with FB, Tweet, Tumblr, whatever!

Paula said,

I also love online eye candy and inspiration, but I have had to make myself limit my time, because, yes, yes, yes, I get lost in the eye candy, don't make my own art, and begin to doubt my own art.

Another Barbara said,

I've gotten back to artmaking late in life (78yrs)because I didn't want to even try to balance everything as many of you do. I focused on family and on and off teaching, sublimating my creative urges with sewing, flower arranging,home decorating, etc. A few years ago, I realized, if not now,when? and jumped with both feet into mixed media artmaking.

BARBARA - I CAN'T WAIT TO BE 78!!!!

 

Gil said,

I wonder if you too sigh as you read of the latest "discovery" in the world of creative arts - usually something we've been doing for years but have considered old hat! Thank you for voicing so much of how I see the world these days, too.

Jean wrote about what it "means" to be a an "Internet presence" in the art world these days,

All the accoutrements of a successful artist/internet presence these days: the website, blog, etsy shop, book, teaching, gallery show, artists co-op.

And my own sister wrote about how Renaissance artists had a staff at their beck and call. And they also had patrons, who paid for the staff!

Those of you that I did not quote was because you wrote such nice things about me and my blog that I would blush to repost them here. Most of you are just names on a white screen to me, but somehow you understand me better than my own family members  and friends.

And that really is the true gift of the Internet. The coming together of like souls in appreciation of common interests.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have preached and rambled and taken up enough of your creative time.  Go watch Downton Abbey, have a cup of PJ Tips, or sit with Big Blue and cheer them on with a plate of chicken wings.

I am reaching for this book, which fills me with unbelievable envy at the imagination that invented this story, at the artwork that illustrates it, and newfound hope for manking if their are souls who still want to write and illustrate books that read as though they were written in Edwardian times.  (Colin Meloy, lead singer and writer for The Decemberists and his wife, Carson Ellis, is the illustrator. Wouldn't you like to be their kid?) 

 

I hope my novel someday will be illustrated by her and that he will write a blurb for me, and that my own book will have the same heft and creamy thick pages as this one. It's so lovely that I had to wrest it out of The Bride's hands as she tried to steal it last night to read before I did.

Look at her work in progress on a new cover for the British edition:

Notice her workspace: a piece of paper, palette, brush, inky awter, a crumpled tissue. This is why I love painting. So little turns into so much.

The Roar of the Greasepaint; the Silence of the Crowd

Here's the question for today:

If I have 1,085 "friends", why do most of my posts get 5 comments and my stats show 25 page views a day?

I have fallen into the Internet hole, friends.

I believed and it swallowed me whole.

I cannot keep up; I cannot compete: I don't want to.

I don't have it in me to brand myself; write and pitch a book; put up online courses; publicize my classes; post a piece of artwork a day; and participate in the hundreds  of charity art groups, auctions, etc that are sent to me by my "friends".

I don't read books; I buy them after I read about them on other people's blogs.

I don't read the magazines sitting on my night table; I look at the photos from online ones.

I don't make art; I look at the blogs of other artists.

I don't hang out with my friends; I "like" their statuses.

I am the wrong generation for today's in crowd.

_________________________

I just spent the weekend with a lot of "older" artists. We were around when the Internet was Prodigy and email lists where we wrote passionate posts about art and creativity and writing. I've known some of these women since the mid-90's.

We're all tired. We don't want to do class samples because no one signs up for our classes. We don't want to be told that we need to write a book or we'll get bumped for a teacher who has one. We don't want to travel the country and appear at the trade shows and come up with a line of product.

We want to make art, to write, to craft. We want to plunge into our work for our work. We want to unplug and go back to the old days.

But we're not crazy. We know there's no such thing as going back. Life is what it is. The choice is whether we want to do it anymore.

And by do it I mean remain current, topical, viable, known.

Or do we just want to fall into our work and soak it all up and lift our head in a few years and have people say, Loretta who?

 

I've got to get the monkey off my back. I've lost my goals, my personal enthusiasm for what I make and write and read. I will never get it back unless I unplug this laptop and hide it away. I feel like my brain has become rewired and I can't fix it.

 

So I am pushing "publish" and not even uploading a photo to make my post attractive for the social networks.

It's just me.

Read it or not. Leave a comment or not. This is what I have to give.

Tuesdays But Not Belgium

 

 

 

Waiting for Peapod to deliver the groceries. Not what you want to be doing at 8:20 on a Tuesday, but all in all, not much else to do since it is a Tuesday. Making dinner would have been nice, but no food, so we are eating grocery store square pizza slices. You know, the kind that tastes like cardboard topped with sugary tomatoes and glue.

The dogs, ah, the dogs. We are trying to keep them home more and at the expensive daycare less. We have a dogwalker that is half the price of daycare, but on a price per hour, about ten times the cost of daycare. Bella Sera is cool with it. She's all like, I don't need no stinkin' day care, I'm a big girl. She prefers not to be surrounded by even more loud dogs. Cucciolo? Let's just say if you called mefrom 7:30 and 8:00 and I did not answer, it would be because he was barking so loudly the windows were shaking. Seriously.

Mr. Pom's been working 7 days a week and then took a trip to the Cape by himself. So, the back of Mr. Pom, it is hurting and he is walking stooped over and like Tim Conway's 100 year old man. (Don't make me link to it; you know how to google and I'm too tired.)

Meanswhile, my office has decided that we need to cover eveyr case in every court that ever is or will be filed in the State of New York. Or so it seems. So when I am sitting here waiting for Peapod, I should be writing reports. But come on, I'm t-i-r-e-d.

In between, Micalengela doesn't feel well, so I spent the first half of the evening with an eye on the clock in case I needed to catch an Amtrak at 9:30. Thankfully, she's feeling better and is texting me from the college cafe to approve what she is ordering for a late dinner so as not to order anything that will make her feel ill again.

The Princess came in and mumbled something about whether there's any dinner, and then headed upstairs to collapse in her room after her grad school class and all day with four year olds.

So, all in all, that's a long way of saying that the weekend was way too short and we are lobbying Tracy to allow us weeklong retreats. Preferably with 3 meals a day, of course, of delicious soups and salads, bread, and homemade desserts.For the rest of the year. Please.

I made a mermaid, or a start of a mermaid. You know I'm writing about mermaids, but not about any mermaids you've ever read about. Consequently my choice of mermaid ...er, apparel, was met with some skepticism. But it will all make sense once the book is published, finished, written.

Wednesday night will be better. We will have food to cook so there will be dinner. The dogs will be exhausted from being with 15 other dogs in a big gym all day. Mr. Pom's back will probably be better. Micalengela will be on her feet and about to get the care package I sent.

I will do some embroidery on my mermaid's head and maybe by the weekend it will be done and I will show you.

See how interesting my life is? This blog writing is tough stuff. It's not all branding and ads and - well, at least not on my blog, much to my chagrin. But really, who needs the pressure??

 

 

Thursday on Saturday

I am getting ready to go to Tracy Stilwell's and Linda Willis's art retreat in Rhode Island. We went last winter and had the most marvelous time. It may have been the best art retreat I ever went on.

 

I don't do well in crowds. Even as a teacher, I feel overwhelmed by a large art gathering and often lose myself in the crowd. I am more comfortable being invisible, taking a class quietly, eating by myself, and sitting somewhere and sketching before going to bed in my hotel room early.

But since I met this wonderful group of women through Art Is, i admit tht I look forward to Art Is all year and can be found going out to dinner, mingling in the vendor room, and meeting and greeting all weekend.

The Rhode Island art retreat is very different. It's just about a dozen women, held in Tracy's gorgeous home that she shares with her partner, Sue, and Tracy and Linda, The Fabric Goddess, cook for us. Can you imagine?

 

Last year, I went on my birthday weekend and the ladies made me blush with all the fuss when they made me gifts and bought me a beautiful birthday cake. So I wanted to go all out in bringing little gifties for them. You know that is a large part of any art retreat - swaps, or gifts if the groups is small enough.

Work is rather intense right now, so I knew I wouldn't have time to do anything too intensive. Micalenagela and I had just been involved in a project that involved a lot of typography and I have found myself more and more intrigued with hand-lettering. So I decided to make some Valentines.

 

Like any project, I always underestimate the time to do it in, so it became a rather drawn out affair, all puns intended. I had to take Thursday off just to get it all done (as well as catch up on the laundry, the bills, medical insurance issues, and all those boring things that are necessary but eat up all your time.

I liked doing these Valentines so much! I really enjoyed doing hand lettering and inventing alphabets for each one. It was a really good exercise in a new area of art and one that I am sure to become more involved in. I can't wait to take Joanne Sharpe's class, which begins in February. She is the master of hand lettering. I've seen her work in person and it is just bursting with color and her lettering is juicy, artful, and exuberant!

 

I apologize for the ridiculous quality of these photographs. In mid January, it's hard to photograph work during the week when you get home after dark. So I decided I would take the artwork with me to work and photograph it at lunch. Unfortunately, it was still not that bright yesterday. I couldn't find a level surface to photograph on as all the benches around the office are to close to the entrance. I didn't want a million people watching me and coming over to ask me what I was doing.

I got in my car and drove to a few parking lots over. I parked out of the sun but not in the shade. I put the artwork on the hood of my car. (A Mini doesn't really have a flat surface, I found out.) Due to the slant of the hood, I had to put it up by the windshield. Which meant I had to lean really far over. Then the wind picked up and I had to photograph with one hand and keep a finger on a corner just until I was ready to snap. Which, of course, was just when the wind picked up.

 

Did you hear me swearing as I ran across the parking lot, screaming at my cards not to go into the water as the wind whipped them across the pavement. You could have! I am sure several people in that hotel were hanging out the window looking at the crazy woman photographing the hood of her car and then running around the parking space looking for pieces of artwork.

Sigh.

 

My next big accomplishment: building a photography booth. Time to invest in a place to treat my artwork seriously. And stop entertaining the neighboring office parks!