Here I Am, Day Four

About twenty-five years ago, when my kids were still in my nest, I said hello to neighborhood mom on an exceedingly hot September day, and I grumbled about the heat. No grumbles from her—she replied, "I LOVE a day like this—we have ice cream for dinner!"

Shook me right out of my curmudgeonliness!

We didn't follow suit that day but I pledged to myself and my kids that the following summer, on the first day when temps were 90 degrees or higher, ice cream for dinner.

The next year, there was not one single day when the temps rose that high.

Not one.

What the heck?!

This year, we've already had a heat wave, i.e. three consecutive days with temps higher than 90 degrees. During the third week of May!

Summer!

In spring!

I love painting on summer days, in part, I think, because my first season ever of painting was summer, three years ago. Last week, on the last day of our heat wave, I cut Here I Am, Day Three in half and kept playing.

work in progress, 4.5x6"
working title: here i am
day 4

Here I Am, Day 3

The left side of my brain "makes time" for things. Looks ahead at the day's to-do list, plans when and how long I might be able to paint, goes into the studio with ideas, keeps an eye on the clock, watches to make sure all balls are staying in the air.

The right side of my brain goes into the studio, makes a mark or a bunch of marks, responds with color or more marks, has no notion of clock time, paints until it stops painting.

The whole of me notices that I have been painting in snippets of time lately, but with a feeling of fullness and sufficiency.

I cut Here I Am, Day 2 in half, added to one half.

work in progress, 6x9"
working title: here i am
day 3

Unexpected Gifts

One of the unexpected gifts of paintings is that I now have artist friends around the globe, hailing from such locations as Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan, Oregon, Massachusetts, California, Washington, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Manitoba, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, Scotland, England, Denmark, Sweden, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, and Israel, to name a few.

On my birthday, Arizona artist Sheila Delgado, whose art and photo editing capabilities I've admired since September 2015, surprised me with the unexpected gift of a clean-up of the photo I posted last Friday—which was a photo of a photo of a photo from a decades-old album! She brightened the white borders, evened out the dark border, fixed the deckle edging on the top border, and got rid of the stain on the ceiling.

Awesome!

Thank you, Sheila!

Before and after:

   

Artist Carol Edan, who lives in Israel, and whose sketches first caught my eye in January of this year, surprised me with the unexpected gift of a card through the mail, a card that happened to arrive in timely fashion for my birthday, even though she had no idea of my birthday.

Awesome!

Thank you, Carol!

a Carol Edan original

Here I Am, Day 2

Today, again, a day filled with blessings and richness and activity and responsibilities and opportunities and tasks and undertakings beyond my ability to count.

Today, again, I pay attention to and seek the spaces in between, hold myself as open as I can to the stillness always available to me if I will but drop into it.

Today, again, I go to my studio.

Today, three new colors to play with—all house paint hand-picked by my granddaughters.

Outwardly, the scene is one of my hands and eyes working together, using foam rubber brushes to move some paint around on paper, on the start I created yesterday.

The inward experience? A wordless simultaneity of stillness and movement, of deep peaceful energy, of elemental flow.

work in progress
working title: here i am
day 2

Wherever You Go

I keep thinking I have soooo much to do, too much to do.

I pause first thing this afternoon to wonder why I tell myself that story.

My new story—I'm going to start a painting.

Materials: cheap drawing paper from Jane Davies class; torn paper collage from my college alumni mag and the packing paper that came in my birthday gift from the Peerys; PaperMate pencil; new Faber-Castell paint brush pen from the Peerys, Utrecht matte medium.

Wherever you go, there you are.

activated drawing paper

Salle de Bain Galerie

A 5x7" panel currently resides in my en suite bathroom where it acts as a periodic visual reminder throughout the day to drop my shoulders down from holding up my ears. I see it just often enough for it to serve its purpose.

I come back to my breath.

The panel looked like this in June 2015.

Jonesport Geometry

Never liked it.

Grabbed it a couple of weeks ago and started using it as a 'throw-away' board, a panel on which I off-load the last bits of paint from my brush rather than wash that valuable commodity down the drain. I have no game-plan currently other than to reactivate the panel for some future painting.

Until then, I'll keep off-loading residual paint and returning to my breath.

Birthdays!

Not only am I the baby who initiated my dad into fatherhood, but also I had the great good fortune to be born on my dad's birthday on May 13, 1950, when he was 24 years old.

Here's a photo of us a few months after that birthday.

We've made a serious number of revolutions around the sun since that May 13th, but we're hanging out together this May 13th also, with daughters #4 and #5 joining in the fun. 

Although my dad most likely won't be tossing me up in the air as part of the festivities, I'd say we still lift each other up in countless ways : )

Happy birthday to us, Futh!

I took this playboard from April 2,

    

and fiddled around with it till I had a birthday card.

Daddy Tosses Me up in the Air
2.75 x 4"; acrylic, ink, pencil, and collage on paper, mounted on cardstock
abstract
2017
[gifted]