We all have those times in our lives when worlds collaborate about things and stress us out. In my case today’s one of those days. There are a lot of small things I’ve been juggling reasonably well but today more jumped on that full plate. I had really hoped to get into this particular art show (the second in as many weeks) and heard back today that I wasn’t selected. Disappointment is stressful. Compound that now with the stress building to the presidential election tomorrow and I was fidgety, pouty, and building up an argumentative head of steam. I am not one to direct that kind of stuff at someone near and dear to me so I turned to my primary cathartic recourse – paint.
I processed how I was feeling for several hours and then decided I really needed to get to my easel.
I chose a photograph from my phone that I took from an afternoon drive Ray and I took a couple weeks ago. We had stopped at a picnic table beside a lake in a park to eat the sandwiches I packed for lunch. It was a beautiful fall day and the light was inspiring so I took a couple of shots. Painting peaceful landscapes tend to pull my troubled spirit back into a calm rhythm that leads to the quiet joy I needed tonight. I am more centered now and things look much more manageable. That makes me back on track for feeling hopeful that everything will work out just fine.
I just need to take a deep breath and trust … have faith that the positive will prevail. I hope you enjoy this 11′ x 14″ oil on canvas … and if you haven’t yet, go vote tomorrow.
Autumn. We love it for the changing color in the leaves and the chill that comes with the forecast winter. We do those last minute chores like putting up our storm windows and putting down garden beds. And we start to think about chilly winter nights curled up with a book under a reading light, or in my case, time spent in the studio making art. I do love fall very much.
I have scurried in some of the plants from my patio and flower gardens that I want to overwinter. Some will live as they are and some will have a midwinter pruning and restart of cuttings in preparation for Spring. Either way it’s so uplifting to have all of the greenery and color inside the house.
My husband and I took a walk the other day and we started to see the little wooly caterpillars with wide center bands forecasting a long and snowy winter. Whatever you enjoy about winter, whether it’s books or art or napping or binging tv or getting together with friends for a little social nip, Autumn is the threshold to the next season and the next chapter of your life.
Do those activities that you know are important for your peace of spirit, your strength of mind, the health of your body and for the good of your people – those you love. Seek peace. Seek joy. Seek healing. Seek wisdom, and quietly express in whatever your preferred venue might be, what is important to be said. Share your grace. Your voice matters.
We tend to like making a plan and sticking to it. It’s vital when you’re making appointments, setting up dinner plans, scheduling a vacation, or even doing chores. We like to assure greater success by assessing variables like time or money or weather. A well made plan gives us a sense of security and larger positive return on our intent.
How do we schedule? How much time is needed and when to do it is based on proven parameters. We can look at the Weather Channel, recall the base speed of completion in the past, and the time we now have available. Then factor in our age, our physical ability, and variables like that and we feel pretty confident.
And then Murphy’s law kicks in.
As we get older and retire from our day jobs with our whiteboards and formal structure, we find ourselves relaxing the hard edges of scheduling. We sleep a little later, or decide we aren’t in the mood for today’s grocery run, and we shift. We relax. We get spoiled by less structure and rely on assist tools. It reminds me of how my Subaru beeps to tell me if I’m drifting over a line, or get too close when I back up, or slow my cruise control speed when I’m following too close on the highway. I resisted a little at first and then I kind of liked it, and eventually got just a little bit numb and dependent.
We get more comfortable with warning beeps and proudly step forward with a plan for a task – perhaps based on outdated parameters. Then we lift that pot that’s too heavy, hear a resounding pop, and our schedules are wiped off the whiteboard.
This picture of fall pumpkins looks like the reality I now need to embrace for my life. It is exciting … and pretty … and completely unpredictable. There is very little clear structure. There is a fabulous variety of color and the sky is reassuringly blue above, on most days. However, this new adventure into living with surprise asks us to pause and become a student again. We must learn to set aside our accepted parameters and hone our critical thinking skills again, because if you pick one pumpkin out of the new order, others could tumble. When that happens, and it will happen, it is important to remain calm and embrace where we are at that new moment with grace, agility and optimism. Like a new student, we need to take a deep breath and find joy in the learning process.
It can be awfully easy to feel defeated. We try to do something fruitful and it doesn’t turn out perfectly. We try to say something to someone and it’s misinterpreted. We buy lottery tickets and get back a $2 return if we’re lucky. We submit a piece of our creative work to a competition but never seemed to get juried in. It feels hard.
We may turn to friends or a spouse for validation and a pep talk telling us things are rosier than we feel. But then we don’t fully believe their optimism because they’re biased after all – they love us. The bottom line is we can’t let random scenarios make us feel bad. Odds are it’s not personal but just circumstantial. We shouldn’t always look to someone else to make us feel okay either. It isn’t fair to them.
Maybe we need to just have our down time. Feel it. Own it. Then find something just as random but positive to latch onto and get back up and begin again. It can be a small, positive image or moment. Here – borrow my fortune cookie from the other night. I choose to believe this message because cookies are unbiased and ALWAYS correct.
It’s funny, in a non funny kind of way, how every day has something wonderful and something mundane, something uplifting and something disappointing, something visually beautiful and something uncomfortably dissadent, and all of these mush together into this wonderful hodgepodge that our life is.
Today is a fair example. I heard that an artist I met this summer and admire was trying to reach me and it lifted my spirits. A prescription I was trying to get filled suddenly was. Then I had a creative notion about a new element for a painting I want to try and I got excited. Light came through the leaves of a tree in my yard and illuminated the berries there and dazzled them against the blue sky. I also heard back from a gallery where I had submitted some pieces for a show that they were putting together and all 5 submissions where declined. But the review with picture I wrote for an art box I bought on Amazon was accepted and put up. Isn’t it funny? What a wonderful day, really.
So I decided that instead of disappearing on this website for months at a time and popping in when I have a new painting and insight, maybe each week I’d make a post that was not profound but simply realistic.
Change is definitely difficult, and subtly more complex than expected… always. For the past two years I’ve been going through the typical retirement shift from an established lifestyle to the new ‘simpler’ one. The process is not unique to me, we all do it. We all need to find our own distinct way and learn our own personal lessons.
There are considerations of finance, health, age, and fear of change. I have to evaluate these considerations, tweak habits, and get starkly critical of myself. Identifying and working on shortcomings will help me to move forward in whatever next direction is waiting. Yes, definately difficult.
One of my shortcomings, I am realizing, is my pride. It feels embarrassing and surprising since we strive our whole life to feel good about our choices, actions and successes.
Pride is an odd and duplicital trait. It is a good thing to feel pride in what you can do, to feel pride as you succeed at something, and to feel pride in being good at something. It can make us more confident and adds strength to who we are.
But pride can also be a sign of insecurity. If the pride is springing from insecurity it can be reliant on diminishing someone else to elevate yourself. Pride can be a hollow flaw that takes away your empathetic response and rightly effects how people view you. No one appreciates arrogance and selfish pride will only erode. The true challenge is to have a healthy self-worth without arrogant pride.
Sadly, by the very circumstances of being a woman in the work environment, we are compelled to appear fearless, strong, self reliant, and self serving. Unfortunately, to instead appear empathetic, nurturing, or loving in the workplace is often cause for ridicule. Those traits are equated to showing weakness, so instead we must control the narrative and anything that could potentially knock us from a place of power where we can actually affect change and serve others.
Serving is foundational to my faith and a large part of who I am as an adult. I’ve always loved giving to other people. It brings me great joy. I have had to be subtle and intentionally careful, however, because people can feel uncomfortable receiving blessings. People often feel unworthy of receiving praise, rewards and gifts. I respect that. As I am getting older I am experiencing that firsthand and discovering a surprising level of deferred empathy. I realize one of my greatest shortcomings is the need to learn how to receive gifts.
As I reveal and face my shortcomings in this effort to become the next and better version of myself, I am feeling grateful for this process. I am becoming the truly spiritual and loving servant I was designed to be. I am understanding the complexities of true love of self and others. Real change and growth is uncomfortable and humbling and joyful and peaceful … and vital.
To truly serve I must learn to live in grace, humbly giving and receiving seamlessly and without hesitation. By relinquishing unnecessary control I can finally live at a level of harmony that will be evident in my artwork.
I process through my artwork. My artwork reveals insight to my spirit. I won’t even try to predict where this will all lead but I trust the process and trust is synonimous with faith. It’s all about life and the wonderment of all of the amazing pieces of who we are coming together to become the best gift we can give back to our maker. It’s about coming full circle.
This is a detail of a painting that is 24″ x 30″ oil on canvas and is yet to be named.
I tend to spend far too much time comparing my art to other artists and feeling inadequate. It is a self-defeating exercise since we are all unique. I am like no other artist… and yet I do not stand out from the crowd. Perhaps that is not a bad thing?
I see air, but do not see the air making the same colored swirl patterns that Van Gogh did. I see color but do not hear colors the same way Kandinsky did. I see fractured, geometric planes in the architecture of the land but do not see the world broken into blocks of color like Cezanne or the cubists did.
My style is my own, an aggregate of influences, life experiences, and growth, and I can only assume that it is the case for any other artist. I admire other artists and their methods and styles. I do not capture the light I see with the fast, gestural strokes of the impressionists who quickly reflect the fleeting light through color value. Instead, I have a blended style that starts with those fast paint methods and decrescendos down to fine detail. I see light like a flowing veil of translucent color with a sparkle of captured granulation that clings like dew or wraps around objects as if it were water vapor. I don’t glaze for that effect or opaquely build values, but sit somewhere between.
I’ve been told in classes, in conversations with established artists, and from gallery owners that I need to do things differently. I have been told I need to focus. Pick a style. Pick a subject. Settle in. I never could.
My subject matter is literally anything that strikes my fancy at any given moment and I rarely repeat any subject I have done. I just paint and move on. My style is consistent in so far as I never stop evolving. You can track my progress chronologically but you can also see the tectonic shifts continually jolting along under my work.
I’ve been thinking alot about the competitions that I have entered over the years, and with increased frequency since I retired. It is discouraging not to get in and I often find bits of my Ego showing when it appears that those who are succeeding aren’t necessarily better than I am. I ask myself what I’m doing wrong, of course. Sometimes it appears that it is the younger artist’s game. There is a freshness and a passion that is evident in the work and the jurors selected, often more seasoned artists, are drawn to them. There is a natural bias of nostalgia that is sometimes present and you might see a desire to open doors for younger artists knowing that we may not have had the opportunities in our early careers.
One show that I see come up every other year is geared for women painting representational figurative. I’ve noticed that the work selected is often that of the younger women who have passionate and edgy narratives clearly evident. I’ve been realizing recently that I spent my entire life being a warrior. I have been angry and outspoken about our environment, women’s rights, intellectual freedoms and truth. Now in my later years, I have stopped being as angry and my work is reflecting my growing peace. I know that there are still fights that need fighting and causes that need troubadours but I have changed and must pass that torch on to these new warriors.
Perhaps I waited too long to make it about me. If so, there’s no use dwelling on the what-ifs. I just need to do what makes me happy and celebrate my uniqueness for what it is now, and stop trying to compare myself, or change myself, to achieve acceptance. Simple… and hard.
Two nights ago I had been sitting on my back porch thinking of these things and watching a thunderstorm. At about 6:30 pm as it passed, I walked out in the yard and looked up at the departing storm. I saw the sky through the trees in my yard and realized what a stunningly beautiful sky it truly was.
This is a 16 x 20 oil on canvas of my perspective of the clouds in that night sky. Yes, perhaps I can be at peace just being my unique self… just being enough.
Unfinished projects. We all have them and they thrive under the protective love/hate umbrella. Their existence can feel reassuring because as long as we keep whittling on them we feel like we’re moving forward … that is, until we’re surrounded by unfinished things that can turn on a dime into an overwhelming mob. Add the hardwired rule that ‘you can’t play until your work is done’ or ‘no dessert until you’ve cleaned your plate’ and you can feel trapped. If we’re way behind, that can be a hard cycle to break.
I have been working on shuffling rooms in my home; moving my studio into what was a spare bedroom, and making my old studio into a music room. I thought that this nesting process could be done in a couple of months but I had underestimated how much clutter had accumulated and how many embedded projects were involved. It’s these embeds that fool you. The downsizing tasks alone that include selling or rehoming the excess can crush. Then, looming in my mind is the calendar and I realize that by this point in the month I should be farther along in my tax preparation, readying my work for a show next month, and basic winter housekeeping projects.
As I move things around I have begun to unearth unfinished paintings. Painting is my play and my dessert so it is especially hard to keep doing the less pleasant projects in leu of the fun. So I realized that I need to redefine balance. I am breaking up the overwhelming mountain into smaller portions – small plates – each followed by their own rewarding dessert. Today’s treat is finishing a painting of a boat I saw come into the bay in Grand Marais one evening in July. This more balanced approach has potential.
I can tell the adventure has begun and change is underway.
In my last writing I talked about being excited and open to anything but like I often do I launched into planning, listing, roadbuilding and scheduling – being completely oblivious to any plan other than my own.
I am a doer and my mind is never quiet – my inner vibration, rarely still. Usually pretty organized, I plow forward with my long range view in mind, appearing confident and perhaps even a bit arrogant. I don’t believe in passively waiting for blessings but run on the adage that God helps those who help themselves. This also feeds a personal assumption that I have some modicum of control and then find myself humbled and surprised when I am gently reigned in. Sheepishly, I then listen.
My plans had included several weeks of Christmas and holiday gatherings, events, light shows, and shopping. Then, following the first week in January my husband and I planned a road trip to Florida for the rest of the month to see sights, to spend precious time with friends, and to paint each day. Quietly and surprisingly the plan just dissolved. We got some kind of virus or flu (despite vaccinations and boosters) that put us in bed with weeks of slow recovery and coughing. The subtle cascade of events from there involved inclement weather, physical limitations, and disappointment.
Although I talk about stoically rolling with the cosmos, much to my embarrassment I chose a disgruntled response. Like a petulant child I pouted and whined that I didn’t get my way and made it clear I didn’t want to embrace this ‘mandatory adulting’. Logically I know that these events are just part of life but arrogance is a loud voice and makes it hard to hear reason. It’s not necessarily wrong to have a brief pity party as long as you don’t make it a lifestyle choice.
So the time came when I knew it was time to stop. Just stop. I began to take each element of the month long lesson and really look at it with a change in perspective. This exercise feels an awful lot like counting your blessings but is more humbling. I realized that I have been really blessed. My husband is a really fair and caring person; the days each of our illness started were perfectly timed and staggered just enough to be able to help each other through the worst part; we had simple foods in house to prepare when we needed it; we had a warm and secure home with laundry and disinfectants to get us back on track. Once I began the process of seeing events objectively the inertia made it more and more clear that things were as they were meant to be.
It was important for me to be reminded that for the wonderful adventures planned for us in the coming year to get any traction, I needed to stop trying to control everything. It was important for me to remember that there are a myriad of possibilities for each day and many of the resulting outcomes are more wonderful than I can anticipate with my limited scope. It was important for me to be reminded to trust God’s plan and know that it will be just right for us.
Now, 18 days into the new year I find myself finally sitting quietly and listening for insight on what I should do or expect next. I feel calm, well, and peaceful and took some time in my studio and painted. This is the first painting of this year and is a simple study of grapes in a vineyard that I was fortunate to be able to walk in one afternoon last summer. Now, I look forward to what the year ahead has to offer. Thanks for joining me today and in the upcoming year.
Kelly E. James 