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.

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.

So here I am in my next chapter, the one that is earmarked retirement, and I find myself full of expectation. I am also a little embarrassed at how selfish my prayers sometimes feel. I find myself behaving like a child by asking for selfish things that my earthly father used to call ‘bicycle prayers’. My focus recently has tended to be all over the board and includes typical things like financial comfort, a little travel, the ability to paint and sell some of my work, as well as little material toys and gadgets and comforts. You get the idea.

Some of these come from increased hope for this newest chapter in my life and some, I suppose, from rationalizing expected rewards for diligently staying the course for decades, despite hardships. My logic mind knows that’s not how this works. My faith mind knows the reward comes later. My child mind, of course, is all about wanting a reward now and is perhaps exacerbated by seeing those appearing to be rolling in good fortune despite long histories of bad behavior.

I know it is absolutely destructive to start comparative thinking, especially knowing the foundation of the appearance of rewards rest on smoke and mirrors perceptions, so I find myself in the ongoing internal dialogue of a mature woman settling her impatient child. I tell myself I must be patient and have faith in what I know to be truth.

I have always believed in hope. I have hoped for good weather, and good jobs, and good friends, and . . . well, any number of things, just as we all do. I also tend to believe that hope is synonymous to faith – the optimistic belief that God will provide those things that you hope for, or pray for.

My entire life God has answered and provided good things in answer to my prayer, both for myself and for others. And like any good father He has given me what I need when I needed it, even if it’s not exactly what I prayed for, or when I expected it.

It was always better.

These last few weeks have been a reminder that I am blessed, and protected, and loved, and very much the child in this relationship. While I hoped for toys like a child my Father protected me, my husband, and our home from great harm done by spring storms.

So now I take a quiet moment to stop and smile. I remember to count all of the blessings God has given me. I stop seeing the illusions and see the truths; resume hearing the subtlety over the noise; and remember that things are just exactly as they should be.

We all have so much to be thankful for. I know that each one of us could list things that we are thankful for and find worthy of celebrating. For some it may include the people in our lives; for others it may be prized possessions, or food, or a home, or warmth, or employment, or health. All are worthy blessings, to be sure. Sometimes, however, we get lost in a process of ranking them in an order from what we consider the most splendid to the most mundane, using criteria rooted in guilt, or monetary value, or social status.

When we gather with others we may start recounting the recent vacations, or big work accomplishments, or valuable material items we acquired recently. We proudly add home and family to the list. Does our car measure up? Is this party impressive? Did we feel the need to one-up someone in conversation?

Did I lift up what I know are my real blessings when I was asked?

It is harder and yet so very important to look at something that doesn’t make the top 5 grandious cut and realize it is that small and subtle and seemingly insignificant thing that is the real object worthy of thanksgiving.

The things that are truly important are often the intangible and simple ones like love and peace and joy. Finding these things in our surroundings regardless of how humble, and in the people around us no matter how quiet, are the real blessings in our lives.

As we drove home on Thanksgiving Day after a truly wonderful meal with warm and loving family, I found myself looking over at my husband and the tranquil landscape through the window beside him. The sun was already below the horizon line and the light was peaceful and subtle. It was not a glamorous sunset. There were no fancy fields or lovely farmsteads right there. I saw no dramatic silhouetted trees against the fading light. What I saw was the simplicity of the day’s end and the whispered, peaceful prayer of Thanksgiving for the day. What I was seeing was overwhelmingly beautiful.

I’ve tried to capture that image for you on this 16″ x 20″ oil on canvas. I am not ashamed to say that I have fallen quite short of that goal but I feel better for having tried. I had planned to have fancy sales for black Friday or small business Saturday but for this moment I’m OK with my choice to sit at the easel for both days. I hope you did have some fun and added to your list of blessings through these holidays, and that maybe you even supported a small business.

I pray peace to you all and may your blessings be plentiful and ranked first by the joy they bring your heart.

Thresholds come periodically in all of our lives and always prompt a blend of excited anticipation, subtle terror, and steeled resolve. The next threshold has been stepped over and it is time to act.

I must now reconsider and make adjustments to all of the things that impact my personal life directly or indirectly. It may be an action that impacts someone I care about deeply, or someone I may never know. It may involve my material wealth or my moral currency or my physical wellbeing. It will likely involve these, and more.

So knowing that time is upon me, I will sit quietly, and think deeply. I will consider carefully, and make my choices. Choices for myself. Choices for my family. Choices for my community. Choices for my country. I am ready. I am strong. It is time to be fearless.

Today’s painting is a 5″ x 7″ oil on canvas board entitled “Contemplation with a Cordial Sunset.”

Retirement – what a wonderful new adventure. After years, or perhaps even decades of living a very prescribed life with all of its security and predictability, I have launched into a new adventure that feels more dependent on the fluidity of a moment. It sounds exciting, but I have decades of habits in place and it can be pretty unnerving to feel so little control over the path ahead when derailment can lurk at each turn.

I have always enjoyed the notion of the phrase, “all who wander are not lost” but maybe it was the militant declaration I actually loved. Suddenly, I find myself asking what that actually means? If I don’t have a map I feel lost. I plan and list and run scenarios and make contingency plans and habitually over-think. It is exhausting.

These last couple of months, however, I am also beginning to understand the benefit of letting go. I wasn’t always so plan heavy and can vaguely remember my early 20s when I was driven by discovery and celebrated the surprise benefits of living in the moment. I wasn’t afraid to turn on a dime and head a new direction knowing that all of the possibilities had the potential to be wonderful. It was exhilarating and imbued with hope. That is the wander!

I can feel change happening. I can feel it in my day to day structure as I determine when or IF a plan is needed and I can feel it in my work. It is true that planning is necessary for budgets, for meal planning, for scheduling social events, and more. On the other hand, planning for potential negative scenarios with their probability ranking too low to give any credibility to, is self sabotaging. It will take me a little time to break some seriously bad habits but thankfully the change is already happening.

I have been gifted the opportunity to wander several times these last two months and gratefully, have a husband who is helping me keep the planning more fluid. We are allowing ourselves the flexibility to talk about wants and needs and change our minds as much as we want. We didn’t build in excessive plans and commitments and we enjoyed the simplicity. We found ourselves remembering what we liked and didn’t like about historical reenactments and reaffirm why we continue to do them. It is a gift to be able to look at all kinds of behavior in my life and decide, like I would a poker hand, what should stay and go. Once a person allows themselves the grace to change after objective introspection it begins to pick up speed, and feeds peace.

Throughout this process I have no doubt that it will directly impact my work and I daresay it can only be positive. Last week I began a 16 x 20 oil on canvas of a photo taken of me several years ago. I started to feel uncomfortable with it and realized that I wasn’t fond of the size or layout. I found myself staring at a half done canvas and realized I couldn’t go on. That isn’t unique. What happened next was. I decided that I could choose to change it. Paintings, while in process, aren’t precious! They are merely insight of what is going on in me as I synthesize what I see and should not ever have the power to dictate my actions. This is a breakthrough for me. I decided to take it off the stretcher bars, find an oddball size frame in the basement (I have too many to admit to), and crop this silly thing to see if it’s redeemable. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t but I get to choose.

In the weeks and months ahead I will no doubt continue to evolve and grow and become. I like that idea. We have an art show in Freeport, Illinois next Sunday and several historical events coming later in September as well. It will be good to go into the fall with an open perspective, and even though I don’t know what the future holds for us I am celebrating the growing happiness I feel. I will pop back in here and show you how this painting turned out – actually, it is my intent to be more active here overall.