I have always loved my mother though admitting it wasn't always easy for me. We have a history, my mother and I, though I suspect most mothers and first daughters do. Our history is like a long, dusty road filled with twists and turns and valleys that can never be mapped, making navigation a guessing game. Wrong turns were made; we found ourselves in an uncharted swamp of things happened that no one would have guessed or even dreamed could happen in childhood back then and we found our way as best we could.
My mother was always the strong parent, the heavy. When it came to the tough decisions and getting things done, my father was a weenus so it fell to my mother to make the family decisions and get things done as I was growing
up. There were times during and after my troubled childhood and checkered adolescence that she seemed as formidable and impenetrable as Alcatraz. For years one of the main goals I had in life was to be exactly where she wasn't. Only under extreme duress was I halfway amenable to living with her or nearby.
This seemed to come easy to her- this stoic, get it done attitude she had about her. As a child I didn't understand it; I didn't understand what was wrong with me that made her mad all the time. As a teenager, I resented it and knew she hated me. I didn't understand, I couldn't have understood that she was only doing what she knew how to do. It was how she was raised. It was how she learned to survive adapt and get by.
My mother became a single mother long before it was fashionable or even "normal" and moved herself and her 3 year-old daughter to California because that is where she wanted to live. She left her family and my father in Utah to follow her dream because somehow she knew there was better out there for her and her young daughter. She rented an apartment and found a job, knowing no one. No small feat for a 23 year old woman with a small child in 1966.
In a conversation I had recently with her I mentioned that I don't ever remember being scared as a child.
I was not afraid of "getting in trouble" or getting yelled at or even spankings. In reply my mother simply said, "I was scared all the time".
There are stories in our family of my grandfather beating a waffle iron to pieces with a sledgehammer because the waffles stuck or "whipping school" with my uncles in the garage after a bad day at work. He once took all of my mother's belongings to the dump because at 19, my mother went out for an afternoon against his wishes. And my grandmother? She always wanted to know why the children couldn't behave so they wouldn't anger their father.
While my grandparents may have mellowed in their old age, my grandmother remained cold and remote, sending gifts for holidays and birthdays out of obligation and duty and not one of the dozen grandchildren are without the memory of being witness to my grandfather's rages. My mother and I both remember feeling relief when my grandfather died and I felt very sad for my grandmother when she went to sleep one night and never awoke. Neither of them lived the lives they had meant to live.
For my birthday this year, I visited with my mother and sister and it was good, though it is always a learning experience for me. My mother has not been well for the last several years and is just now beginning to come out of it, slowly but certainly for sure. It was good to see her up and around but hard to watch how much it took out of her to do it.
Now, I see many of the things we aren't able to see about our parents when we are younger. I can see why my mother was was so tough, how shefelt she had to be. I can see we butted heads because we were so alike in so many ways. I can see how scared she was and still is sometimes; I can see; softness in her, some vulnerability that never seemed to be there before.
For my birthday this year, I visited with my mother and sister and it was good, though it is always a learning experience for me. My mother has not been well for the last several years and is just now beginning to come
out of it, slowly but certainly for sure. It was good to see her up and around but hard to watch how much it took out of her to do it.
We did simple everyday things; a doctor's appointment; getting our hair done together. We spent a good deal of time setting up her sewing studio, cleaning and organizing things, watching an old movie or two or cheesy reality TV; just spending a good deal of time together. Where there was once awkward tension there is now laughter and jokes. Hugging her is becoming easier and I am more myself around her than I have been since I was a child. I am beginning to cherish the time I spend with her without waiting for the other shoe to drop- most of the time. Though I moan and groan
and become impatient with my mother's eccentricities, I now see her for who she is...
not for who I wanted her to be all those years ago.
Much has happened since I last checked in with you. Or it at least seems that way.
I am preparing for another show opening next month.
Sort of.
I've had another birthday.
I took a 7-day jaunt to California to see my mother and my sister for the aforementioned event.
See yesterday's post.
I've had my locks cut and coiffed and colored, California style. I've got an Electra thing going on.
See yesterday's post.
Our last ferret died, an hour before my flight touched down the day I arrived home.
She was over 7 years old and had cancer. Still tough.Still sucks.
I often don't blog about the mundane day to day crap in my life because I am certain if it bores me, it will surely bore the shit out of you. However, as a friend points out, many people enjoy reading themundane, everyday events of some else's life because it can remind themthey are not alone and what I consider to be mundane and boring may
indeed entertain, inspire and invigorate someone else.
Take today, for instance. I got up, got ready to go to the gallery.Waited for the sCARE van to collect me and carry me to the gallery. Onthe van, I was duly grunted at by the driver as I handed over my ticket and eyed carefully as I dug around in my bag for my MP3 playerso I could listen to my daily dose of KATG.
Once at the gallery, I fired up my laptop, turned on lights, got mydaily fix of Diet Coke and checked e-mail, fixed a few blurps on thegallery blog and website, researched blog stores and eCommerce throughblogging (John Unger's got a terrific eCommerce Guide over on his Typepad Hacks site. It's chockfull of eCommerce information that is useful for anyone who blogs.) I did some online marketing and promotion for the gallery siteand blog . I am now writing the post you are now reading and once done with that I will peruse Popscribe and the KATG Forums or maybe read my feeds for the remaining 30 or so minutes until closing and then wait for sCARE to again collect me and carry me back home.
Once home, we might go out and grab a bite or I might toss someleftovers in microwave and call it dinner before I settle in for anevening of TV and stitching or maybe a little artmaking on the offchance I feel inspired.
My life is so exciting and glamorous. Can you stand it?
Actually there is probably some truth to the whole what's boring to me might not be boring to someone else. I keep up
with many of my favorite blogs daily because I care about what is happening to their owners, boring or not. We all have our off periods. It's the loyal friends and readers who get through with you that are so endearing.
myself in a fit of geekiness.
I am afterall, despite outward appearances, rather anti-social and reclusive with a healthy pinch of misanthrope
thrown in for a pinch of spice.
I find myself once more slipping on my posts to this journal, which I've admitted I can't let go of. I really enjoy reading my neighborhood about once a week, but I'm finding that I'm crossposting between here and my REAL personal blog quite a bit, so I'm just going to bite the bullet and say, if you really want to follow me, you will have to go over there.
TTFN!!!
We often believe one of the biggest challenges to creating is time. Often I still hear that voice in my head say, "There's no time for THAT because you must do THIS". Even more often, I still listen to it and do what it says thus losing another inspired moment to create. I convince myself there is not time for all the things in my life that are important, that the email won't wait, that the answering machine can't pick up my phone calls, that I don't have enough time. Oddly enough though, of all the things in life we may not have, time is not one of them. We always have time. In fact, it's all we really have but we convince ourselves that we have too little of it to do what we love, to create, to inspire, to live.
For many years, I held my writing close and hid both my interest and my art from others. I was certain I didn't have the time to be "good enough" and even if I had the time to devote to it, no one would enjoy what I created. I complained of having no time, yet spent what time I did have doing things I really didn't want to be doing with people I didn't really want to be with. I remained so weighed down and stressed about relatively unimportant events, creating rarely entered my mind. The voice, the pull, the calling was almost always drowned out by the din of day-to-day life. When it came to making time for creativity, whether it was writing or making art, that stuff that was fun, imaginative, healing, life-affirming, nourishing and mood- lifting, I was usually hard pressed to make the time and justified my choices with a myriad of excuses. Sometimes, I wonder if I would forgotten the call completely had I not been injured and forced to change my life.
When I see the world outside myself, outside the little artistic microcosm I have created for myself, time is a synonym for money and it's use is measured by profitability. People often spend years in school getting degrees and diplomas, not to learn but just so they can make more money. The world sees art, our work the same way. If it makes money, it's considered time well spent. If it fails to make money, it is wasted time. Many define themselves by what they do to pay the bills when what we do rarely has anything to do with who we are until we are listening to calling in our hearts, the hugging on the heart, or in the work that has little to do with money.
My concept of time has evolved and changed over the last few years as a result having a spinal cord injury and being forced to change my life. I've learned that whatever time it takes to create, is never, can never be a waste. When we arrive at our work with the intention and knowledge of creating something that only we can make, something that reflects who we are and what we have experienced, then we are participating in creative activity that is worthy and deserving of whatever time it takes.
Making time for our writing, our art, our creative time, regardless of our medium, is often like making time for meditation or prayer. For some it is meditation and prayer. Creating is a holistic act that involves all parts of us as well as the known and the unknown, the seen and unseen. Creating can be healing as we build something whole out of the pieces of our lives, seeing how each piece matters, understanding where they fit, and seeing them more clearly. Making time for creativity can be a break from the confusion of the surface to the stillness of the center.
We don't need to have our art installed in museums or galleries or posses the praise of critics and the world to be successful artists. It's not imperative that we earn a living from our art, that we are published or even that the famous own one of our works to be successful artists. To be successful artists, to live creatively, we need only to breathe deeply, taste the colors of the mountains and the sky, to know the wind, feel the bark of an old oak, the smell of a storm, the sound of swamp grass bent in the breeze. To be successful artists, we need only live with our eyes wide open, to take in every detail, rub life all over and jump when we reach the edge of a plateau. To be a successful artist is to notice gorgeous moment, bear witness to the small miracles and messy mishaps, to feel freely and collect these events, shaping them into forms and images and words others can share.
Living creatively is being productive and alive with every moment instead of whining about not having the time. Our creativity isn't about waiting for others to define who we are, but defining ourselves, claiming our own lives and creating for ourselves, for love, not money. Being an artist is about becoming familiar with creativity's mojo and how it works: we hear a voice, feel a pull and begin the work.
We create, often not knowing where it will lead us. Clues arrive and then they don't and still we continue until one day the piece, the article, the novel is complete and we know it is ours alone. So we bow our heads or lift our faces to the sky and give thanks. This is what it is to be a successful artist, a creative spirit.
Towns and cities are stuffed full sculptors, painters, composers and writers who wait tables, check groceries, answer phones, and drive taxicabs to pay the bills. Very few of us are paid much for our creative work and passions, so it gets squeezed into the in-between hours. Our books get written in between loads of loads of laundry, soccer practices and homework. Our short stories are written in waiting rooms, parking lots and at bus stops. We paint in our studios through the night and work in our darkrooms in the wee hours of the morning. It's hard to think of ourselves as artists under these circumstances, but we are. It is our creative work that carries us to life, feeds our spirits, nourishes our souls and sees us through the darkness. We often feel alone but we are not alone. There are literally hundreds upon thousands of us trading stolen moments and sleep for the serenity of creating.
There are many things we may not have in life, but time is not one of them. It is really the only thing we do have. We have this lifetime to produce a catalog of art, a collection of articles, a book- a body of work that says, "This is how I see the world around me". Indeed, our art, our creativity, is worthy of whatever time it takes.
Just got back from Escapade Tuesday and it is amazing what four days on the beach in the sun will do for your atittude. I love my girls' weekend in Cali every year and when I missed it last year, I could really FEEL it. Nothing like talking smack about guys, computers, writing and slashy goodness. Also, got to visit my friend Dail who gave me Vala way back in 2000. She still has two harlequins and they're both so much smaller than mine. I'm wondering why the big difference. It can't simply be the food difference.
I did a bit of on-line shopping before I left and most of it was waiting for me at home when I returned. The results of my Retail Therapy (I got the jacket in shades of brown):
I also got a stone colored linen long skirt but I can't find a picture of it now to save my neck.
Anway, new clothes!! :)
See, about a month ago I challenged my good, friend and fellow artist, Morgaine, to make art everyday and then I promptly got sick so I am behind. She however, has been quite prolific and I urge you to go check out her terrific art!
But I got back in the saddle and have been working as close to
everyday as I can. These are the first 8 in a new series called Small
Works. These are original cabinet cards of altered with painted, stamps
and embellishments, accented by fun and whimsical words. They've been a
lot of fun to do. As usual, click on the images for a larger version.
What do you think?
WTF?!
Whatever
See more here.
A furnished rental apartment and B&B? I think that's what we have.
We're putting the finishing touches on the basement apartment, writing up the ad to post on Craigslist for a regular apartment for rent. Then we started thinking...and planning...and well, that never ends well. Because I really really really want to do this other project, that requires we have the basement space at least a few times a year, we're going to just make the apartment a temp/short-term rental. BUT, it will be fully furnished, complete with linens, kitchen accoutrements, TV, stereo...you name it.
There actually seems to be a pretty good market for such accomodations in the Denver area, so this just might work out (unlike many of our other hair-brained schemes). Traveling nurses, law students, people moving away from Denver but their homes are already sold, and so on. I'm actually in communication with a couple who work up in Antarctica and they're looking for a place to summer in Denver! How cool would that be?
So, I put that ad in Craigslist today because I know if I don't have it posted to the universe that this place will be available April 1, we'll still be needing to hang doors and lay carpet come that date. You take your motivation where you can get it, right?
My life, it is so interesting.
ANIMALS!!!
So, Denver peeps (or anyone, I guess), listen up and do something good today!!
Animal lover website zootoo.com is having a national contest to give a pet shelter a $1,000,000 makeover! (As featured on Ellen!) Denver's very own Maxfund shelter is ranked #3, but it has to become #1 in the next 34 days to win the big prize. A shelter's rating in the contest is based on how many people sign up for membership to the site, which is dedicated exclusively to animal & pet lovers. When you start your membership (link), the site will ask you for a shelter name and ZIP code. Under tab #3: Zootoo House, if you select ZIP code "80204" and then "Maxfund No-Kill Animal Adoption Center" as the shelter, then 100 points will go towards Maxfund's contest standing. You can raise more points for Maxfund by posting pictures of your pets, participating in discussions, etc. I know there are a few animal freaks reading this that would love to do that.
p.s. When you invite your friends through the zootoo.com website, every friend who signs up puts 100 pts. towards the shelter's standing, and you get a bonus 100 pts. for referring them.
This is an easy way to give Maxfund a much-needed makeover- it's free and doesn't take much time. We can do it if we can get everybody involved!
Denver Restaurant Week is a seven-day celebration of the culinary scene in Denver. For the week of Feb. 23-29, 2008, participating restaurants will offer a multi-course dinner for the fixed price of $52.80 for two, or $26.40 for one (not including tax or gratuity).
Denver Restaurant Week starts this Saturday!! I got a late start and only was able to get ONE reservation I wanted, but hey, it'll still be great.
Denver Restaurant Week is a seven-day celebration of the culinary scene in Denver. For the week of Feb. 23-29, 2008, participating restaurants will offer a multi-course dinner for the fixed price of $52.80 for two, or $26.40 for one (not including tax or gratuity).
