Spring Cleaning for the Soul

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

-Pablo Picasso

It’s hard to imagine “art” and “washing” in the same sentence, unless of course we’re talking about washing a paintbrush or a work station.  Art is messy, it can be chaotic, and sometimes it’s even bizarre.  But Picasso is right… art is cleansing for the soul.  Most of us have a daily routine, and for some, it can be quite challenging to stray from that routine.  But art is everywhere.  Whether it’s listening to your favorite song in the car, doodling in the margins of your notebook during you morning conference call, or taking a few seconds to study that colorful painting in your doctor’s waiting room, art can brush away the dust and cobwebs that our everyday schedules leave behind.

For me, art is a part of my daily schedule.  It has to be.  In fact, I have had so much fun “washing dust” in my studio over the past few months that almost a year has gone by since my last post!  Whoops!  Well, I can assure you that I will find time in my schedule to post on my blog more often.

With that being said, I wanted to mention some upcoming exhibits, so please mark your calendars.  Linda Damasco Weber, Turkan Ilkdemirci and I will have a booth at Art in the Park in Elmhurst, IL on Saturday, May 4^th and Sunday, May 5^th from 10 AM till 5 PM. Also, I will be part of the Midwest Collage Society Exhibit, beginning May 17^th, at the Zhou. B  Art Center in Bridgeport, IL.  I will provide more details about this exhibit in the coming days.

In addition, I am teaching a variety of classes at Painted Rubbish, 22 Calendar Court in LaGrange, IL.  Check out their website and plan a visit to this amazing store!  And as always, I continue to teach card making classes throughout the year, so please check back often if you are interested in signing up for a class.

Don’t be afraid to do a little “dusting” of your own today.  If you need some inspiration, here’s a piece that I have been working on presently titled “Finding Clarity”.

Time to Listen

It has been such a long time since I lasted posted.  Each day I think that I must write but again and again I choose other activities.  A wise friend once said to me that people do what they really want to do and she is absolutely right.  So today, I really feel the need to write.  It is what I really want to do.

These past months have been a blur, filled with to do lists & obligations.  Often life sends an event that stops you in your tracks and asks, if you are willing to listen, is this how you want to be.  Last week such an event happened.  So, I decided to let go of the lists, put the obligations on hold and really, really take the time to hear what I needed to hear, just for twenty minutes.

I could fill this post with all sorts of aha moments that I had, but those came later.  When I sat in silence, I heard the woodpecker with his staccato rhythm moving somewhere outside my window.  As I began to filter out the ”must get done” voice that insisted on being heard, it was the horn of the freight train moving down the tracks near my home that took up the space.  All very common, very boring and certainly not very productive.  Maybe.  When I slowed down, so did my heart and my breathing and especially my mind.  For a short time, I was like a kid again, sitting in my back yard just enjoying the sights and sounds around me.  It felt so natural.  So, I decided to bottle up that feeling, take it with me, and pour a little out each time I felt myself contracting, worrying, or “must be staying busying”.   What an elixir!

Today I have things that just have to be accomplished.  It is the life that I have chosen to live.  But I am making the time to just listen, if only for a little while.  I have a feeling that it will soon become something that I really want to do every day.

A piece done in my new favorite medium – oil and cold wax :

My Chaos Theory

For the past few weeks, I have been moving through my days at frantic pace trying to meet those self-imposed and life-imposed deadlines, as we all try to do.  For a few minutes every day I could feel the panic rising up inside of me, but as usual, I pushed it down, assuring myself that if I could just get through this week, I would have time to do that which is very important to me – create art.  Then two things came together yesterday – an entry in a book from the library that I have started reading and the state of my studio (sort of my big bang moment). 

My studio is in such a state of chaos, I cannot even find the space to work, so I have not.  Yesterday morning before I attempted to actually clean it, I sat down to read the entry in The Book of Awakening for November 1st, the title being “The Next Moment of Love”.  As Mark Nepo so eloquently writes, “In a deep and subtle way, the want to do it all is a want to be it all, and though it comes from a desire to do good, it often becomes frenzied because our egos seized our goodness as a way to be revered.”  Wow!  That hit home.  I thought about all the times I have said yes to requests to help when I wanted to say no or jumped in to fix someone’s problem when not even asked.  I wanted to look compassionate.  I wanted to be a nice person.  And usually at some point I became resentful and angry at the other person or situation (instead of myself).  Not a fun person to be around and certainly not someone who is compassionate or kind. 

As always, yesterday was a gift.  I made a vow to myself to begin letting go of chaos.  The first step is to clean my studio, to make space to create.  I am sure life will challenge me and those requests to help will pop up.  The question becomes how to respond.  So I will end with two things, both which I need to remember – another quote from Mark Nepo and a picture of my soon to be transformed chaos-filled studio.  “Do one thing at a time and do it entirely, and it will lead you to the next moment of love.”

Getting Out Of My Head

MOTHER EARTH - Plaster, acrylic paints, paper, pastels and charcoal on gessobord

The past few months have been creatively empty for me.  I felt I needed to do something different but nothing was apparent.   I kept thinking, reading, analyzing, but to no avail.  In addition, I was scheduled to teach my Faux Techniques for the Canvas class at the La Grange Art League in September and I wanted a new direction.  Why couldn’t my head just figure it out?

During this time, I attended a Process Painting workshop at Creative Changes in Oak Park.  No techniques, per se, were taught.  It was painting from emotion, allowing intuition and the brush to lead the way.  In addition, no comments were allowed, either positive or negative.  Interesting.  It was an enjoyable afternoon and I left it at that.

After that class, I decided to start my studio time using that process and I slowly noticed a shift.  I found myself working more by instinct and less by formal technique.  I was drawn to colors I would have never used before.  Materials that were so much a part of my decorative painting days were unearthed from the basement and found their way to my canvas.  Then it hit me.  My problem wasn’t a lack of creativity but my insistence on letting my head lead the way.  One of my favorite quotes by Einstein is: ” The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”  I think that is why I am drawn to mixed media.  Starting with a blank canvas, not knowing what the finished product will be, gives me the opportunity to access that sacred gift.  It’s what keeps me grounded and joyful in these crazy times.  It is something I need to remember.

Back From Hiatus

Wow.  It’s hard to believe that the last time I posted was April 15th!  I wish I had a very good reason such as I went into the witness protection program or broke both my hands and couldn’t type.  But no, I just didn’t blog.  I had good intentions and even wrote a few paragraphs in my mind, but I never put fingers to keypad.  So I asked myself why.  True, I was very busy teaching a paper creating class and doing a rocking chair with my friend and fellow artist, Janet Lewandowski, for the La Grange Summer Event.  But 24/7, no.  I could have found the time.  My friend Arlene Butler says that people do what they really want to do no matter what they say.  And it’s true.  I wanted to - not post.  And the reason is that writing has never been a form of expression that I felt comfortable doing.  Thank you notes stress me out. ( Am I saying the right things?  Do I sound intelligent and witty or childish and boring?)  It took me two days to write three paragraphs for my artist statement.  And when posting on Facebook, I hate to comment because I think I sound lame. (Love the like button!)

So why am I posting today?  Well, my friend and blogger extraordinaire, Karen Hanrahan of Best of Mother Earth blog fame, emailed me and said she missed my blogs (Thank you, Karen).  And during these past two months, I came to the realization that what I write doesn’t have to win a Pulitzer.  All I need to do is just speak from the heart and share what I love to do – create art.  That’s all that’s needed.

Just so you know that my rocking chair excuse is not a fib, below are two pictures of the finished piece created for Meadowbrook Manor, a nursing facility in La Grange, Illinois.  Their building is celebrating its centennial this year.  Janet and I collaged using numerous articles from the La Grange Historical Society and pictures from when the building was the Illinois Masonic Orphans Home until recently.  Finally, I painted a plumeria flower, their logo, on the seat.  If you live in the Chicagoland area, stop by downtown La Grange, check out all the amazing chairs and rock out!

Making Changes One Risklet At A Time

A few weeks ago, I blogged about changing my beliefs, fully believing that once I started down a new path, so to speak, there would be no backtracking to old habits.  Again, I was delusional.  This past week, I found myself reverting back to my old need-to-control- everything self.  I sunk so low, I found myself leaning over my completely competent husband, as he sat dumbfounded at the computer, and typing in what I thought he should be typing to get the information needed.  Thankfully, he did not call in the family for an intervention, but kindly pointed out my crazed behavior.  After much contemplation, I realized that my action was driven by the need for some security during a period of time when I felt none.  I now had the opportunity to really change one of my go-to behaviors.   But how? 

As I was searching the internet for some non-related info, I came across an interesting article regarding taking risks.  The author talked about her need for security and her unwillingness to change routines.  It struck a chord.  And it led to my decision to take a “risklet” a day.  I would like to think that I would go out there and actually learn to skydive or sign up to run a marathon, but those would just be plans not followed through.  Way too ambitious.  If I really wanted to change and make it stick, I had to do it slowly and completely my way. 

So, starting today, I will do one small action that I normally do not do.  I will shake up my routine.  It could be brushing my teeth with my left hand or sitting on the loveseat instead of my usual couch or even letting my husband figure out his own computer challenges instead of rushing in to fix things.  The point is to take a leap, even if it seems like only a hop.  I am planning on keeping track of my daily risklets for the next month and using them to inspire my art. 

So, there is no photo of any artwork.  Not even a sketch or an inspirational quote.  Just picture a blank canvas, because today, that is where I start.

Framework 2

As I sit at my computer typing this post, I am amazed at the speed at which life moves.  It has been over two weeks and I finally have found a chance to share my completed piece.  During this time, life has presented many challenges - getting ready to teach a three-week class at my local art league, my husband at home working hard at finding a new job and a heart breaking tragedy that affected my daughter, son-in-law and his family.  But there have been simple joys, too, which thankfully have outnumbered the challenges.  And through all of it, I have had daily opportunities to remember that I don’t need to be perfect, people are genuinely wonderful and I will never have all the answers, though I would really like to come close as possible. 

So here it is – Framework 2.  I was tempted to explain the meaning of each layer, but I think I will let you draw your own conclusions.  If you happen to live in the western suburbs of Chicago and would like to see this work in person, as well as 55 other mixed media pieces from a group of amazing artists, stop by the Downers Grove Library and check out the exhibit from the Midwest Collage Society titled “Construction/Deconstruction.”  It’s worth the trip.