Mindfulness: an imperative process.
So, I realized after my last post that I am moving forward again. I had told myself that part of the reason I’ve been grumpy is I couldn’t paint. I also realized that my art has come to a grinding halt this year, as have most of my creative outlets. That just can’t sustain. Somehow…
Biding time: a test in patience.
It’s not always easy to do what we want to do, and we get complacent when it is easy for a while. I need to remember that easiness is a gift and I dare not forget that. This last year has been especially challenging for me just because of the little bits that happen, often…
Earth Day Stewardship
Life moves in wonderful circles. Earth Day 2004 was the day my Mom passed. I brought home a 6″ snip of corkscrew Willow that was part of her funeral spray and stuck it in the ground in her honor. It grew. Every year after that on Earth Day I would go out and celebrate the…
Promises Kept
Sometimes we make a promise to ourselves, to a family member, to a friend, or to a new acquaintance with the very best of intentions. Then something gets in the way and we don’t fulfill that promise – at least in the timely manner that we intended. I am embarrassed to admit that happens more…
Solstice, Christmas, and the seasonal rebirth of light.
Snow this time of the year, be it a bit or a blizzard, melts and freezes in quickly cycling patterns making exotic light shows each morning with the tardy sun’s emergence. Bushes hold up the ice offerings and if we’re really lucky there is a variety of textures in twig and leaf. Frost adds an…
Winter Patron Appreciation Sale
Celebrating the cold and snowy season of early Winter, I have selected 5 original paintings for a special one week sale. From midnight December 8, 2024 until Midnight December 15, 2024 you will receive 20% off the shown price. If you had your eye on one of these, now is the time to adopt it.
Fancy a Sale? Let’s go!
I’ve been thinking about some of these new restructures and endeavors that I’ve been exploring in my work and my thinking and one of the things I’d like to experiment with is creating online sales in the store, or sales gallery. I have been using the product ‘Square’ for both in person and online sales…
Stress relief – choose wisely.
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…
Time for the seasonal shift.
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,…
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I encourage you to subscribe to getting these posts sent directly to your e-mail address. It is safe and convenient and as easy as clicking on the subscribe button at the bottom of any one of these pages. I have disconnected the distribution to my social media FB site and plan to continue to modify…
Best laid plans – aka: surprise!
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…
Its ok to feel down – just don’t camp there.
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…
Each day is uniquely wonderful.
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…
Quietly coming full circle.
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…
Being true to myself.
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…
Mountains – breaking them into smaller, manageable berms.
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…
Time for a reset.
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…
I can feel the next adventure stirring.
Today is the Winter Solstice. By its very nature, this is a time to look with nostalgia over our shoulder; a time of introspection as we consider where we are on the path towards our hopes, and dreams; and a time of excited anticipation for what is coming. It is a time of prayer and…
Self-discovery: the unplanned sabbatical.
When I was younger I discovered things on a day to day or even moment to moment basis, and absorbed quickly – rarely completely understanding what I learned until much later. Over time, I learned that regardless of initial speed, learning any lesson eventually takes internalizing, sorting, and assigning context and relevance to our life…
Trust that all is as it should be.
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’.…
Tranformative
Transformative is a word that implies a great shift brought on by incidents, occurrences or actions in one’s life. I sometimes also hear the word pivotal used interchangeably. I’ve been thinking about these words quite a bit lately, increasingly so over the last 6 months. I just got back from a month long vacation (and…
Simply Thankful.
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,…
Think deeply, consider carefully, and then act.
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…
Like a monarch on the late summer breeze.
I feel the air lifting me and see my perspective change. I can’t say it’s unsettling. On the contrary, muscle memory is taking over and apparently I have flown before … a long time ago. September sailed past and I have been remarkably busy. Events came and went and I was aware that somewhere during…
Walking Serendipitously.
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…
Letting go of the known, and seeing where the wind takes you.
This month has surprised me. As the date of my retirement approached (June 30th) I flurried to put work affairs in order; completed tasks, packed my office, and tried to be in as good a place as I could envision myself being. I didn’t get everything done but was assured by my co-worker that there…
The accumulation of incremental moments.
My parents always told me to strive to do my best, whatever the circumstance. Bosses told me to work equally hard at those things I didn’t like as those I did. Sunday school taught me to ‘do unto others as I would have them do unto me’. Experience taught me that retaliation is self injurious,…
Life is not still.
Remaining sufficiently disciplined to be consistently creative while being employed in a different field is a delicate balance that many of us understand. Owning and running a small fine arts business on the side is certainly challenging as well. Doing this while working full time in higher education as a faculty librarian and administrator (the…
Balance of motivations.
I know that sometimes I have to concentrate on painting strategically for the business, and that’s perfectly acceptable. Balance, however, dictates that I also need to paint for the fun of it. Case in point, I am getting ready for a historical trade fair in March. As a result, I am painting a few historical…
Choices and Perseverance – and listening for direction.
Every moment, every day, every month, we have thousands of choices that we must make. Some are small and seemingly inconsequential. Some are larger and can impact what tomorrow will bring. Still others can literally change the direction of our life. Knowing that these choices can carry such radical weight, we can try using our…
Prioritizing time to relax.
Having time off work between Christmas and New Year is an incredible blessing to me. To be able to regain the natural response in my painting, I need to have several days to adjust and calm my inter vibrations. My academic work, although fulfilling, does not draw from the same source as my artwork does.…
Slow the rapid flight of time.
I am embarrased to realize how much time has passed since I last wrote here, and even more so to realize how little I have painted in the last 3 months. I get busy with the obligations of employment and time races on with a creschendoing inertia that takes intentional steps for intervention to slow…
November 27th announcement!
For this last Saturday of November I am pleased to highlight several of my themed greeting cards. The first photo is a selection of landscape scenes that I have painted and made available for writing notes to friends and family. Be it a lover of winter or fall at the river’s edge, or even the…
Prints announcement! Fun! Playful! On the runway today!
It is the next Saturday in November and just as I promised, I have a new series of great gichlee prints available in my Sales Gallery. You might not have noticed my new series of original oil on canvas board images of animals that I have been painting and adding to the Original Paintings-Animal category…
Fall is a busy time of year.
I could tell that September was trying to set a new pace for fall but in my naivete I somehow thought it would settle into one that was a bit more realistic. Not so. October found me trying to triage tasks and events with hopes of getting everything done before weather changed. My task lists…
Moving forward
The last couple of months have gone by so incredibly fast. In mid August my website hit a couple of snags and this catalyst began a journey of introspection and change that I couldn’t have forecast, and don’t regret. What a domino effect it began. I went to Willow Folk Festival and began a sequence…
Greenwich Village Art Fair
This event is now days away and I am in the final stages of preparation. I have framed art, written tags, checked out the easy-up, loaded the pro panels, and created the sales gallery here in the website. Friday I go set up the housing and Saturday morning I hang the show. I think I…
Choosing your response to change.
Change is inevitable. Good or bad, it will occur. We rarely have the ability to deter the change but we may have the power to lessen the negative impact to some degree by our reaction to it. How it affects us longterm is most assuredly affected by choices we make. We can either be agile…
Are you OK? Yes, I believe I am.
That’s a question that I would never again answer flippantly. If I have learned nothing else from the past year and a half it would be that no one can predict what will happen next, and speaking thoughtfully and truthfully has value beyond measure. It has been incredibly hard, even debilitating and life changing for…
Plein-aire as a part of my summer outings.
It’s that time of year, after being inside for the Winter, we can start getting outdoors and taking vacations and exploring again. Covid restrictions are letting up as people are getting vaccinated and being out and about in parks and it feels pretty normal. As for my husband and I, the semester has come to…
The Captured Memory.
I can get wound up on Fridays because I know it’s the weekend and I can play in my yard and I can play at my easel and do various other fun things. I get excited. Yesterday, I also had a pretty unusual Friday at work with projects, visitors, conversations and work challenges that left…
Honoring those who we lose.
Mankind, by our very nature, has a tendency for various rituals and belief systems based on honoring those who have gone before. Over millennia, these have been based on our theology or cultural norms and personally, having been raised in a Christian based belief system that designates heaven as the hoped-for goal, I grew up…
What are the art rules, actually?
I have always had a tendency to follow the rules. I don’t say that with any embarrassment or boastfulness, it just happens to be my tendency. I believe that in order to be a fruitful member of society we all need to follow some rules. When I was little I knew that I was supposed…
Long range planning.
We often use the term, “long range planning” as a way to establish a series of actions – a plan so to speak – that allows us to organize a sequence of events over time to achieve a goal. Strategic plans and project planning and project management are all part of that action terminology. I’m…
Influences
No one, especially not an artist, can ever say that they have become who they are without the influence of everything and everyone around them. It is a continual evolution, and I have to say there are times when it’s more and less evident in my life, but it is always rewarding! You have walked…
Easing into Saturday morning.
This is just one of those lovely, early Spring mornings when I woke up without the alarm, had a great breakfast with someone I love, and got to spend some time at the easel while thinking about the drive last weekend. This time of the year the snow is melting off and you can see…
Growing Pains – the next step.
The conversation that I mentioned having had in the last post, challenged my comfort zone. That is a good thing. When I am challenged I do not view it as an attack but rather as a welcomed catalyst for change. My friend, an accomplished plein-aire painter himself, suggested that I choose one subject (such as…
Growing pains and fire hydrants.
Regardless what it is, it is always interesting to me when I reach another of life’s directional markers. I am always surprised. Even though subliminally I knew another tectonic shift was coming because I was paying attention and I knew it was about time, I am surprised. I don’t necessarily like change. Change equates to…
True Beauty is Ageless.
It’s sad what our society has deemed beautiful. It it has become synonymous with youth, or body type, or any number of other societal designations. I looked at our wedding pictures and even put one up in my social media page because it’s fun to see us on our wedding day. As I looked at…
Finding Happiness.
Sometimes that’s a really hard thing to do. It takes tremendous effort, actually, and it feels very selfish. It is also very important. We see a country in turmoil. We see a plague ravaging the world and reinventing itself to expand the threat. We see people turning against each other to assign blame in a…
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Kelly E. James 