A Bee's Hero

I'm at my studio.  For the first time in 2 weeks.  I was in boston for 6 days, new york for 2, and taos for another 2....so that's a good excuse for absenteeism.
But I am not painting.   Not yet.

A few minutes ago I wandered out into the gallery next to my studio and I saw on the window ledge what I at first thought was an art installation.  A dozen dead bees.  Each one in a different dramatic death pose.  Some were in groups and pairs...and some died alone, but all were dead.

All but one.  


But his death was not far off.  The lone survivor of a the famine that took both his parents and all ten on his brothers and sisters, he buzzed and bumped along hopelessly yet desperately.  Desperately he fought the hunger and thirst that had taken his family.  He kept his bumble bee eyes set on the Albuquerque horizon outside the window.  The window so innocently installed so long ago.  I knew what I must do!  I must save this heroic bee!!

I used my human hands and my miraculous opposable thumb to twist open the locking mechanism on the window.  I used the brute strength of my soft, girly forearms to push open the top of the window, creating a gap in the window large enough for 10 bees to fly thru....all holding hands.

But alas there was just one bee.  And his story must be told!

I slammed shut the window apologizing to my helpless yet venomous friend, "Hang on little guy!  I gotta get this on tape!"

I ran to my studio as my legs would carry me (but not too fast because these floors are slippery and I didn't want to fall).  I grabbed my Flip.  "Out Of Batteries!" I moaned before dropping to my knees and staring up at the ceiling while shaking my fists at the fluorescent lights, "WHY!!?!?!?!"

BUT WAIT.  Didn't I just by batteries yesterday?!  Aren't they in that bag in the back seat of my car?
YES!
I ran down the hall, down the stairs, thru the other hall and nearly knocked over two hipsters in my haste to get out the door and run to the street, unlock my car, dive in the back seat and....YES! Batteries!

The video begins here.   But I won't spoil the ending.  But just know that TODAY....if i did nothing else (and it's certainly looking like that my be the case)... I saved the life of a heroic bee.  Which makes me...A Bee's Hero.

MIA

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In The Direction One Hopes To Go

I love having a studio.  It's the most splendid thing. 

Had the most Terrible pathetic day spend moaning and groveling on my living room floor.  

Tried to pick a fight w/God in the Hot Tub.

It wasn't working.  The hot tub that is.

It wasn't hot, kinda luke warm.  

It was like sitting in an enormous puddle of pee.  

Which is actually the perfect metaphor for my day.

I stayed in the hot tub a long time actually considering how unhot it was and how many bugs and feathers and unidenitified floated objects (UFOs) were floating about.

Each time the little grey feather with the ant and the string stuck to it floated by I internally tipped my hat,  "And a good day to you as well sir."

Fell a bit behind on my blogging.  my apologies to anyone who actually follows this thing: i love you.  

 But i did finish the painting.  this is the same canvas that stared at me blankly as i stared back in terror just last week...or was it the week before... anyhow, it's done now, finished last tuesday.  painted the edges on wednesday and installed hanging hooks and wire on the back for the show on friday.

   I painted the edges with a mess of grays but i painted the bottom edge fluorescent pink.  it reminds me of those fancy heels with the bright red flash of paint on the bottoms.  i've always wanted a pair of shoes like that.  

 Finishing a painting can be really great.  until you wake up the next day and you realize you have nothing to work on.  and you have to start all over again.  on thursday, i didn't go to the studio.  thursday was the worst day i've lived through in a long time. 

 

Friday was the open studios night at the harwood.  which was fun and exhausting and lovely and full of people.  i put my best game face on (which means lots of lip stick, fake lashes, and hairspray) and i tried to talk to as many people as possible.  and smile.  i really enjoy big extroverty people gatherings like that for a small chunk of time.  but i always leave wondering if i said something weird or uncomfortable to anyone, always sure i did but unsure of what it was.  this often causes me to lie in bed and wince repeatedly as I try to fall asleep.

my favorite moment was when one of my pre-schoolers (from the job i recently quit!) showed up with her family.  i talked to them for a long time, i bent down several times to talk to and hug the little girl, giving her cake and juice.  she's one of my favorite pre-schoolers ever, she's an amazing artist and i'm completely obsessed with her drawings.  i was so excited that she was there in my studio seeing all my paintings.

 After about 20 or 30 minutes in my studio her parents said goodbye and they started heading out.  I leaned down and gave the little girl a big hug and told her how happy I was that she had come to see me in my art studio.  She looked at me, squinting hard, and finally said "Are you Ms. Juliet?"

That's right folks.  Seeing teachers outside of school can be confusing for little ones.  All that time she had no idea why this strange woman was hugging her and being so nice to her...LOL!

Afterwards, I was supposed to meet up with some of the harwood's other artists at a nearby pub, a meet up I helped organize. (gulp) But I blew it off to hang out with a woman who's an amazing jewelry artist and one of the overall coolest people I've ever known.  We sat in her backyard and talk next to the fire until about 1 in the morning.  At which point she invited me in to see her taxidermy collection.  

The last 3 days I feel I've fallen off the bandwagon, the horse, the metaphorical thing which moves speedily in the direction one hopes to go.  I've not painted, played, danced, sang, or made anything.  I've crawled around my apartment leaving only to make appearances at a few obligations around town.  I've begun my plotting of my next painting.  I sometimes feel like I'm writing a horse backwards.  I'm going to my studio first thing tomorrow.  I'm hoping I can climb back on.

The Ghost of Painting Past

"When she came to the boxes of her father's painting supplies, the artist's daughter opened each box.  The smell of the paint reminded her of sitting in her daddy's workshop as a little girl, watching her daddy paint bright colorful abstracts.  She remembers how her daddy would make up a story for each one, just for her."

So....things are going BET TER.  ...In The Studio.   I have kept my promise to paint everyday....no matter what.  And my flu is getting better.  The above is a tiny itty bitty detail of the painting that I'm working on.  I dare not show you the full image before the painting's finished.  I can't even stand the idea of my studio mate seeing it.  Each night when I leave I tuck my easel in my closet, painting first.

About a year ago, I bought a box of oil paints at The Harwood yard sale.  Every year, the harwood has this huge yard sale and lots of people donate stuff.  Some of it is art supplies but mostly it's just a hodge podge of this and that.  So I bought a box of oil paints for $20.  It was a hell of a deal.  There were over 30 tubes of oil paints....the big ones, not the tiny ones.  Some of them were trash, they were cracked or all dried up or in some way unusable, but most of them were good.  (Stay with me, I'm getting somewhere with all this.)

Some of them still had price tags on them....with prices so low, they couldn't have been sold in the last 20-30 years.  And although they were the same brands I've used before, they packaging design was totally different.  And the tops were encrusted on.  I had to use a pair of pliers to unscrew the tops.  Occasionally I needed pliers AND man power (by which I mean "Honey can you get this? It's too hard for me!")

So as I was painted tonight, I was using said paints.  (I should mention here that oil paints never "go bad."  As long as they're not dried up, they're good forever.)  And as I was painting I was thinking about these tubes of paint.  I was imagining that an old artist had passed away in the 1970s, leaving all his paints and supplies behind.  He had been a serious painter and had experienced some commercial success but had always felt that he had yet to make his best painting.  His masterpiece lay ahead of him.  He felt this way about his work until the day he died.

His paints sat in a box in his attic for decades, until his wife passed away in 2009, at which point his daughter and son-in-law took it upon themselves to go through everything in the house.  They threw out many things, mailed things to relatives they knew would appreciate it, and donated the majority to charity.

When she came to the boxes of her father's painting supplies, the artist's daughter opened each box.  The smell of the paint reminded her of sitting in her daddy's workshop as a little girl, watching her daddy paint bright colorful abstracts.  She remembers how her daddy would make up a story for each one, just for her.


Slowly she squeezed the squishy metal tubes in her hands, one by one, and thought "I can't throw these away."  So she takes the paints and all his other supplies to a local community art center and donates them.  Hoping they'll find their way to someone who will use them.  But they sit on a shelf in the storage closet behind downstairs bathroom for a few months and then finally come out to join the yard sale one friday in April.

And this is how these paints came to me.

And tonight as I shuffled around my studio, grabbing tubes and squeezing tubes and mixing colors and dripping oil and slapping paint onto canvas,  I imagined that old artist sitting in the corner of my studio right below my light, cheering me on.  "Yes!  Just like that!  That's perfect!  Oh that's the PERFECT color!"  He's delighted that I'm using his paints!  And I'm delighted that he's delighted!  And he's so proud of me!

The Confrontation

I mentioned yesterday that I had a rough night at the studio. I took some pictures to document my....my struggle. Documenting something...to me....makes it less horrible. It's comforting. It takes it out of the realm of reality and puts it into the realm of art. Everything is better when it's in the realm of art.

It was still day when I got there. I wasn't feeling so good. I also mentioned yesterday that I have the flu. But I was determined not to let that stop me.

I haven't worked on a painting that wasn't a commissioned portrait in about 2 years! Until last night.

Trying to start a painting is always a bit trepidatious. But lately I've been having real issues with painting. Every time I looked at my big white canvas I thought I would pass out. Maybe that was just the flu though.

I was so scared to get started. There's a very specific feeling that I've had before: it's when I start a new painting....and an hour or so into it...i just know it's wrong....and i know it can't be saved.

And the fear of that feeling, is ....well ...it's scary. I want this to go WELL. I don't want to cry.

But it may not. That's a possibility I have to face. But right now, there's so much potential.

The minute my brush touches it....everything will be different. I feel like I could throw up. But that's probably just the flu.

I wonder when Brenden's gonna be here with my tacos.

How am I going to do this painting in a week? Have I ever done a painting in a week?

Okay I need some music. What the right song to begin a painting to?

Ok...Lykke Li...Melodies And Desires.....okay here i go BIG STROKE OF BLACK AHHH!!!

Chug Chug Chug Puff Puff Puff I think I can I think I can

so...i don't know how well tonight went.  i'm just so exhausted all the time it's hard to even sit up.  i had planned to do this painting in black and white and i started tonight.  i did start.  and then i took a break because brenden came and brought me tacos.  and as i sat there on the couch staring at my recently begun painting it just looked so chalky.  it made me think of chalk and then i thought of chalk in my mouth....like chalkboard chalk....and that made my teeth hurt.   and i mixed a whole palette full of grey paint....and now i don't even want to do it in black and white.  and the idea of going back into the studio tomorrow makes me want to turn into a puddle of mylanta.  so now i'm just in this impossible head space where i need to take more action desperately to get out of this head space but i can barely gather the strength to stand up.

The Fear Of Painting

I didn't go to Las Vegas.  I have the flu.  You know that one that people get the flu shot to avoid getting...that one.   I began falling ill Thursday night.  I've eaten enough ibuprofen in the last 5 days to kill a mule.  Nevertheless, I am TRYING to get to my studio today.  I have a painting that I need to make and it must be done by this saturday so that it can be dry and ready to hang by thursday in time for the Harwood's opening on Friday.

This afternoon as I lay in bed feeling helplessly stuck in a body that won't cooperate and I thought "Why?"  Why?  Why did you get the flu Juliet?  What was happening Thursday night that made you want to get the flu?  

Do you want to know what I was doing?  I was painting.  I was in my studio, lights off, high wattage clamp lights on, lighting up this little canvas where I was half-heartedly (1/9th heartedly, let's be honest) painting a dog.  It was a commission.  And I was miserable.  But I was strong.  I held my brush and my palette and put paint to canvas and did it again and again until the underpainting was done.  

And then I drove home.

Then then I got home.

And I felt like a creature made of a hard yet brittle substance.  Like some sort of bug that could be squashed under my black payless boots or be eaten by my cat.  And  don't I hate it when she crunches those things in front of me.  And I can hear her crunching.  I really hate that.

And I opened my laptop and opened pictures on my hard drive and plotted out my painting for the show at the Harwood.  

And all the while, from somewhere hidden, this voice said "Why do you bother? This is a waste of time.  What are you going to accomplish with paint?  You're gonna be miserable.  It won't come out the way you want it to.  Oh Lord, Here we go again?  Why can't you just quit painting and stick to it!"

I don't know who's voice that was.  Maybe it was a demon.  AN INCUBUS!!  (watch the movie ink if you haven't seen it yet!)

So, I realized today that I'm terrified to get back into my studio and paint.  This is what I wanted and I'm terrified.  So terrified I contracted the flu.  The best ever excuse not to go paint.

About an hour ago, I had a conversation with Painting.  Don't ask me what I mean by this.  

Ok fine!   I was sensing a being who was the representation of the art of painting.  It was a she?  And I sensed that she wanted me to paint.  So I decided to talk to her directly.  I asked her if she had something to say to me.  And then I wrote down her answer.

She said to give her a chance.  She said I had to go to my studio everyday and put on my gloves and open my tubes of paint.  She said I had to try.  And that I could doubt myself but not to doubt her, just show up everyday and try.

So it's 4:15 pm and I'm lying in bed wrapped in towels, doped up on flu medication, and feeling like I'm at the halfway point between dead and alive.  But I'm going to get dressed and I'm going to get in my car and I'm going to go to my studio and try.  Don't wish me luck.  There's no such thing.