I had to stop watching the news for a few days to find my focus. The newspaper I feel has more heart to it. Being able to put it to words has a strength to it, a passion. I remember being a kiddo and finding these “choose your adventure books” in the 80’s. After I would finish them, I would feel superpowered with creativity. I would draw all the things I had imagined, most had nothing to do with what I was reading. It’s funny to read a dictionary and imagine a new comic book. To see a new world inside and to be able to make it a real thing.
Deep in the depths of the art dungeon. The brushes are my vices. We sit and watch movies together at times.
My coffee cup doesn’t know why I’m awake this early.
The paint called out to me. My cat thinks I should always be awake to hang out with her. We are sleepless soulmates. I can’t tell sometimes if she thinks I am her sidekick against the night sky.
There are these moments when sitting on the floor looking out the glass door to our balcony I thinking she is waxing about the moon. She has this distant contemplative look about her. The good money says she is tracking a leaf blowing on the ground but one can dream, ya?
So busy making and doing. The show is almost here and I have sold a lot of paintings this week somehow. It is beautiful and bewildering.
There are these moments when the art overtakes me. It lives in the places my sleep should go and my mind wonders into the place of maybes and color wheels. This zone kind of works as a blessing and a curse. A blessing for creativity but a curse for letting my mind rest. Maybe I was made for a different time in art. When painters lived in studios and slept in sleeping bags on cold floors. I don’t think I would enjoy that now but I remember trying to live that way for a little while in my mid 20’s. Now I feel like my dog the first time I let her sleep on the bed. She is glued to the bed now….no going back. Heat in the Winter is a absolute now. Living like that gave me a lot of time to think about how I wanted to live and I feel like I’m mostly there now. Life is really being kind to me with Alec. She love sand wants me to be happy. I never imagined before this past the canvas. Life will make you be a part of it and if you let it you can enjoy it. When you enjoy it you will find a new way to be creative.
We all just want to make good work and make a living at it. A forest of paper and canvas with skies full of clouds of inspiration and rivers of coffee and tea. The spirit animals of many a mind are in the nail bed tapping on the walls as silence is madness.
I loved this so much. It is the big new piece I made before this show in January. I have so much work always but it never feels like enough. I imagine that is normal.
I’m a little late with this one but still important bits of shinny muchness to put on plates for you and yours.
This week’s Painter Files is about Insomnia. All most all creative art type people have it in some way and in that I do too. I have had it off and on like we do for around 30 years maybe. Maybe a little less than 30.
I wash in the middle of thinking about this day and I got sidelined. That happens some times. I get in the groove and then something reminds me of my Marley and I’m taken back. I don’t know that I’m ever going to be … great. I don’t know that I really want to be. Alec is so wonderful and she sees me drift and helps me when I come back. I have this way with me that wants to be here but is traveling through my timeline. That pain is my own personal magnet. It is a planet and I am a space rock. I’m working on living better in the now than being lost in my time.
I’m proud of this one. I feel like I’m getting so much better each time. Also all most at 100 subs. Please subscribe if you enjoy my videos. When I reach 100 I get my own personal web address rather than that long generic one they give.
I never saw that finish line. I was the kid who walked the mile. It just seemed pointless to run to get to the starting point of a circle. The goal had no prize. Filling up a book with a pencil was like making my own trophy. And sadly, most people when I showed them as a kid felt the same way about a book of sketches as I did about running in circles. I guess I’m that type of artists. The one who saw kids playing and thought; this would be cooler with a dragon in the corner.
Anyways; it’s Dia De Los Muertos today and I’m thinking about my Avos and my Avas. I miss them. We didn’t really know each other deeply but they helped shape my life in ways. They taught me kindness, food, sometimes anger, bravery and lots of laughter. I have photos of them and a video of one of the last moments in the last month of mone’s life. The other I never met at all but his children shined thru him. And then there is my Marley. She only lived the tiniest of times but means so much to my heart. Parents are not meant to outlive their kids but it happens and you live in that truth. This day is special for me because it is a celebration are their greatness. How much love they had and how much love I gave. And my heart; she is exploding with love. She beats out the sadness with songs and joy and creativity.
I got into a show today. If you are in the area please come.
jaws_blake 