Gearing Up and Winding Down

Late Autumn and during the winter months my studio is a cozy refuge but when I am in the throws of the summer show season it tends to get particularly disheveled. There are but a few paintings on my gallery wall and several unfinished paintings littered about. Much as I try to continue painting in between shows it seems there's more of the "other stuff" to do. That is, putting together marketing materials, making sure my web sites are up to date and working well, making arrangements for travel, record keeping, framing and having prints done and anything else that "pops up". Last on the list, or even not on the list at all is tidying up the studio. So as I dash back in there before a show and pull out a few things to get to what I was looking for, they remain out of place until now. Now the Open Studio Tour is coming up and making my studio a showplace for my paintings is now at the top of the list.

But as Friedrich Nietzsche said, ‎"Out of chaos comes order." So it's my annual cleanathon to get ready. Mustering up the energy now, after doing six shows is a little trying, but I love it when things are in order, that may be shocking to hear from me, but it's true. Well. I guess I should qualify that with my kind of order, which I'm sure differs from someone else's or even anyone else's. Poor Tigger, even he had trouble navigating the place to find his bed.

In being brave - or foolish enough in showing these pictures I am reminded of an incident in college when I was far behind in my writing assignment for a final paper. When I started whining to a friend about how much writing I had to do, he was shocked and said "you'll never get that done!" Which was just the impetus I needed to do a fine job, and hand it in on time.

So I'm off to stuff more mailboxes with Art Tour maps, having walked several miles in the last few days to deliver a pile of them on Friday and Saturday. I'm hoping for a big turnout with the weather looking beautiful and the foliage starting to glow with yellows and reds and oranges. But really, I'd rather be painting.

Changes

Peonies

It seems a good time to reflect on changes as the summer fades into Autumn. It has been a year full of them, artistically and personally. For some, change is a scarey thing, but not for me, it excites me and makes me more curious about what could be.

Just about a year ago I began painting with a palette knife during a Lois Griffel workshop. I found it quite liberating. I had tried painting with larger brushes to get the same effect in attacking the large shapes in a painting, but it didn't work for me. A few times during the course of the year I tried to return to brushes and it was an almost painful experience, almost like having to move back in with your parents, yea you're safe, but that's not where you want to be. I was becoming convinced that palette knife was "my style".

A few months later, I was in Italy; Rome, Florence and Venice. With all the places I've traveled to, I have never been disappointed with any of the sights that are on the "must-see list".  Italy was no exception and in fact even more of an experience than I could have imagined. Seeing art, history and grandeur everywhere we turned was both overwhelming and invigorating.  Before we went, everyone I spoke with that had been there said I'd love it, even those that I didn't know very well. I thought, how would they know I'd love it? It seemed rather cliché. The truth is now I know, I can't imagine anyone not loving it. You don't have to know the person, you just have to have seen  the places we saw. But how did that trip change my paintings? People, that's how. The buildings were wonderful, but buildings and street scenes without people, well that just doesn't capture a city as alive as Rome. Couple that with the thousands of paintings and statues we saw, almost exclusively of people I felt the need to bring people into my paintings.

With new perspective and  excitement for painting I wanted to also create a more simple way to update my web pages. Knowing that then I could have more time to paint. I have new slide shows for my Watercolor and Oil painting sections. I will add more pictures in the future but it's a start. I posted a poll to see if people wanted to help me decide if this format works best for my paintings. Your input into the survey would be greatly appreciated before I add any more pictures to it. My  New Paintings page is no longer Paintings of Italy, those now have their own section. That being said there are new paintings posted there. I finally am finishing up paintings of flowers that were started when they began to bloom. I expect a few more florals will be completed soon.

More changes happened at home, one son moved to Miami and a new job for my husband. The new job brings with it an expectation of relocating. That is still in the future and such a move would bring us closer to Boston and the seacoast. The idea excites me and has me making more plans for the future. It is now the unknown which awaits us, but that's what makes life interesting. For now, I will just keep painting, kind of like Little Nemo - "just keep swimming, just keep swimming".