hello beautiful!

i love the way mornings look and feel out here this time of year. it'll be hot hot hot in a couple hours but, right now, it is cool and bright and beautiful. the heat of summer is arriving and so my day gets rearranged a little bit. The Almighty Jog must be obeyed much earlier if i want to bring inga with me. jogging in a thick black coat isn't fun for her, i'm sure. so we're out the door and off to the vineyard by 8am at the latest these days. it's actually really wonderful to get it done so early. the vineyard is completely empty, totally silent except the for the birds waking up, and i am cured of worry right at the beginning of the day. that alone is a good reason to go run as early as i can.

worry is my biggest saboteur. it stalls me almost entirely when i give in to it and that's LAME. worry doesn't fix anything, it does not provide solutions or resolve or happiness or motivation. in fact, it saps me of those things and obscures my ability to see my own life and goals with clarity and intelligence. worry is a horrible bastard. one i've lived with my entire life.

at the beginning of the year, i decided to try to shake myself lose of its grip and The Almighty Jog (which has now accelerated in to a fun blown run) has been the best antidote i could've hoped for. not only does my body feel good, the work feels good, and the ideas i'm working with get clearer and clear, more and more focused, whittled down to something more cohesive and less chaotic. this is a very good thing since my major resolution for this year is to get an entire body of work together for a solo show. cohesion is extra important.

so today, after a bit more coffee and our morning run, i'll lug a canvas outside and use this beautiful light to my advantage. nothing beats natural light for oil painting. nothing. i can see every color and shade and nuance as it truly is. warm and cool, light and dark, nebulous greys and milky vs. transparent white. the gorgeousness of oil becomes so readily apparent, so beautifully obvious that i can work for hours and not run out of steam. it's wonderful. and if i just focus on that, allow myself to be absorbed in the pleasure and search of the work, all my worries abate- fall away in to tiny piles of nothing. and that's when i can feel myself moving forward. :)



"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its strength."
- A.J. Cronin


the point is to be present, open, and engaged. a hard thing for a lot of artists (and doesn't that seem weird?) but worth the effort. i'm at my best when i stop feeling pressure over The Future and all the things that are entirely out of my control. it's a hamster wheel of bullshit.

good morning!

awake...

i painted hard this weekend. hard. black and black and sepia and more black. glaze and glaze and polish. and though i am quite pleased with the progress i made across all the canvasses and should feel content with the idea of relaxation, i can hardly sit still. maybe it was that pot of late afternoon coffee. i even took an evening jog to burn this energy down. i avoid my morning vineyard as if it were a hated ex-boyfriend during weekends (especially long weekends) because it isn't so secret and is pretty well known to tourists with rented bicycles. my peace is defiled. i go out with the mosquitoes and drowsy birds when everyone else is sitting down to dinner. the big quiet and my hard breath has become precious. too precious to share almost. for the first time in 4 years, i'm back in the silent, solitary joy of The Jog. i've returned and it feels wonderful. so completely wonderful. i've missed this so much. more than i can say.

getting out of bed tomorrow morning will be dreadful but i will do it. 5am will get here quick. tomorrow is a white paint day with early fog and a morning vineyard just for me.

sweet dreams.

the jog...

i am still snuggled up in my big ol' adult-sized fleece footie pajamas and i am not at all anxious to get myself out of them. i'm drinking coffee and i plan on drinking more coffee. there's fog this morning and a cool breeze coming through the open windows. inga's sleeping in my big red chair. there are small birds and squirrels chasing each other outside and i feel so content right now that even the thought of wrestling myself out of the house is painful. but the jog awaits.

THE JOG.

yesterday, i caught myself starting to compile a silly list of excuses for why it was okay to take the day off from running. when i noticed myself doing this, i put my shoes on and left the house and drove straight to the vineyard. we jogged and it felt wonderful. well, it feels wonderful at the start and then it feels wonderful again once it's done. the sense of accomplishment is amazing and it is quite the cure-all. jogging is wonderful for a person's body but also for their heart and mind. i feel clear, in all sorts of ways, when the jog is done. i feel lighter and calmer and more focused- not at all distracted or wound-up about whatever little thing that might give me trouble or heartache. it keeps me sane. that, in itself, is the best reason to keep going out to the vineyard- my own little field of dreams where the clarity i need finds me. i come home and i paint and the hours roll by easily and i don't worry so much about all the things that are out of my control. i breathe. i move oil. i watch inga bounce around and eat sticks. i watch her sleep. i write and i twist yarn and i feel good about myself and my practice.

i feel like i'm on a good road, an important road that could actually lead somewhere, for the first time in a long time.