Toe Pleat

From Without a Map, a memoir by Meredith Hall:

My mother teaches me a lot … 

She tells me I make lovely hospital corners on the beds. But once, watching me change my brother's bed, she scolds me as I lay the top sheet out, smooth and tight. 

"Meredy, a man likes to have room for his feet. You always make a pleat for him like this." She draws the sheet into a ten-inch fold at the foot of the bed, then tucks it in tight. 

"See? You don't need to bother with this on your bed, but you need to learn how to make a man's bed."*

---

How has this lesson never been presented to me before now, me with my husband who kicks a rough tent space for his feet every night and complains every time I pull the covers taut??!

What else do I not know that is hiding in plain sight?

detail, work in progress;
maybe it needs a pleat?

*Damned if I can figure out or find helpful info online as to how to actually make such a pleat.

Do-Over

I notice that I am telling stories lately about not getting to my studio, not painting, not being able to get my bearings creatively, not this, not that. 

Anyone else noticing negativity in my self-talk? Resistance?

Yeah. 

Not great stories. 

I don't want to hear them, and I'm the one telling them!

Today I woke up, got myself outdoors for my predawn prayer walk, exhorted myself to loosen the story knot.

And I did. 

Oddly, I never once turned my attention to my painting stories. Instead, I asked my mom, dead six years now, if we could have a do-over of a conversation we first had in 1988 or 89. She was game. It went much better this time. My heart opened.

It has stayed open all day.

The Courage to Share Our Most Authentic Selves
1.75 x 6" bookmark
acrylic, ink, pastel, and collage on paper,
mounted on cardstock
abstract
2022

not for sale

Masks and Masking

Remember when masks were something you wore for Hallowe'en, and not something of which you had multiples in your possession so you'd always have one at hand for daily use in one setting or another?

The setting today was my studio. The masks were created from painter's tape.

detail, work in progress
36 x 36" canvas

A Bridge

I traversed a bridge of discomfort between languishing and behavioral activation just now. 

Well, no, that might not be it exactly. Maybe I used behavioral activation to cross a bridge of discomfort from languishing to … to what? That's the part I'm not quite sure about. I guess I crossed to a canvas that looks different from what it looked like earlier, different from what it's looked like for at least a couple of weeks.

No small accomplishment. 

The fact of the difference is what matters to me. The behavioral activation that brought it about. Not the actual content of the difference on the canvas.

But, that bridge! It's formidable! 

detail, work in progress
36 x 36"

February 14th

for—

suiting the purposes or needs of

ever—

at any time

at all times

always

The Deep Human Longing to Experience
the Extraordinary in the Ordinary
3.5 x 5"; acrylic and collage on card stock
abstract
2022

Behind the Curtain

The Wizard of Oz told Dorothy to "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" in an effort to distract her and keep his true identity from being revealed but, hey, let's go behind the curtain anyway! 

I love me some art history.

Accordingly, I pull back the curtain to reveal the emerging identity of the painting I posted yesterday, exposing a few of the stages involved in getting to what it eventually became:

Wrangling with Ideas and Romping Through Possibilities

As I wrangled and romped with this painting I became my 5-year-old self—sneaking off the bed where I was supposed to be napping, losing myself in make-believe, playing on a highly textured colorful hand-hooked accent rug. Do you know the kind of rug I mean?

Making My Own Happy!

This little piece is unexpectedly happy-making! 

I sit in awe of what-all pours into and shines out of a painting, this one a slight 3.5 x 5 inches.

Ricocheting and pinging around here in one pocket-sized painting are the energies of a walk on West Beach, a card from a friend, computer frustrations, a book bursting with new perspectives, an inner restlessness, a fresh haircut, crocuses nosing up out of the ground beside patches of icy snow, belly laughs from playing a game with family, the tedium of routine household tasks, a new pair of earrings, and several earlier layers of ugly. 

Happy-making, I tell ya!

Wrangling With Ideas and Romping Through Possibilities
3.5 x 5" postcard; acrylic, collage, and oil pastel on card stock
abstract
2022