I am down to ONE week before I hang my show!
YIKES!
I won’t say I am freaking out.
But, well, I AM FREAKING OUT!!!!
Monday I had a creative crisis.
I had worked on a painting all weekend,
trashed it and even started it over
and finally I had to let it go.
It just was not happening.
What was so frustrating was that it was essentially a painting I have done before, but I just could not get it
to “FEEL” right. I think the pressure of doing it again got to me…
I would show it to you but when I finally decided
that it was NOT going to happen, I ceremoniously
painted over them both and then sent the to their rooms
(the upstairs room where I store my canvases.
…and yesterday…I took a DAY OFF!
It was so good for me.
It was kind of forced in a way, our Dog Muffin, the wheaten terrier needed a grooming in the worst way. It usually ends up like this.
I make an appointment, something happens…sick kid, it snows (true story!)
and finally when I get there I am bending over so far to apologize for how horrendous she looks, I practically fall down…
and I feel so bad for the person who has to extract all the matts and knots and probably bugs out of her hair, I end up giving them a $20 tip!
But despite the fact that in the end, Muffin’s hair appointment cost MORE than mine yesterday…She looks like a real show dog, and is a totally different color!
…and is ready to go back out and lay in the dirt in style!
So like I said, Muffin had a hair appt and so did I and I had
soccer car pool and the bank, and Cooper pick up and homework then
A
Target run followed by a J Crew Run for dessert…
But no painting…
I had a “day off”.
…and lo and behold I had a few epiphanies along the way.
See, it’s like this…when you have done something
and have done it well, which I have been told I have with my paintings…
It is wonderful and awful at the same time.
The pressure to STAY good, STAY interesting
and relevant and worth the price tag…
interferes with the WHOLE REASON the paintings were good to begin with…
which is that when I am painting…
I am joyful and at peace and I am certain my blood pressure comes down.
It took me many many years to figure out that the thing I do best…
the thing I LOVE MOST…is what I should be doing!
And, you can ask around…and you will find out…
I have done a LOT of things!
I think I always assumed that because painting and being artistic was so second nature to me, that it was not really what I would do “for work”
but more for “fun”.
Now I see that work can be fun and everything else is better.
Well, I did not intend to go off on that philosophical tangent
but
since I did it, let me ask you…
What makes you happiest? and can you make money at it?
Lastly, I opened my email today and got a post from the “other” Country farmhouse blog which I adore called of all things…
“A Country Farmhouse”
and this is all she had today.
BEAUTIFUL!!!
 |
| Baby Margaret |
If you have not read this blog…I highly recommend it!
I am so inspired by it’s beauty and simplicity and tenderness and restraint…
I love it.
and NOW I am
“IN LOVE” with it.
and when I tell you that there are not one, but two of these babies, because
baby Margaret has a twin brother named Graham!!!
Well, you have got to check it out.
So now, I go paint…
in pigtails!
