dang!

.


all is right in the world today:

waking to a letter of appreciation and love of one of my paintings that made me get all misty-eyed and overwhelmed with gladness, then a gift at the door from a friend of mine way off on the other side of the country. he even stuffed one of his favorite t-shirts in the box which i am happily wearing right this minute because it smells like him and i love him. i haven't seen him in the flesh almost 8 years and that makes my heart hurt like a motherfucker. but today we promised each other we'd run away like little girls together one day. ha! holding hands and whispering secrets in each others ears and wearing matching converse high tops. i sure do love you, jose. <3 and i miss you like crazy.

how did i get so lucky all of a sudden? what lost star finally found its way home to my orbit? i am left breathless and smiling.



((((BIG HUG))))

ahhh...

feeling a bit better, ladies and gentlemen. my head no longer feels like it is going to crack in half and i can breathe through my nose again. :) and we had a pretty good thanksgiving. we have no family anywhere around us, in drivable distance anyway, a fact that we luxuriate in routinely. no obligatory dinners to skip off to or devise escape plans from. no distant relatives to hold painfully awkward conversations with. no horrible gossip and saying grace in the same breath. no saying "i love you" to people who are pretty much strangers in spite of their biologic link to you. these are things that i do not miss and am not envious of. please trust me when i say that the whole "oh but it's family!" sentiment does not apply here. we simply don't have that kind of background. but after all we've been through together, we've become a very sweet little family of our own. unconventional but good and warm and full of the best love. i am extremely thankful i met this man. he is a wonder to me. i am a lucky lucky girl. :)

i realized just now that i don't need to be afraid of anything.

i have a good life. tubes of silver and gold at my disposal. availability and opportunity and such a shimmering, such a great glittering storm. and i can look at my own life and self and say 'i approve!" this is a good feeling. and so much happy wonder. my friends are doing well. they are happy and on fire inside their work. they are making things and loving things and this builds up such a fiery appreciation in me, such a deep inspiration and gladness. people are making art and people are making their way and i just feel so lucky to be here, now, watching the whole big beauty of it unfold. i have a good life.

WARNING: BIG TIME SENTIMENTALIT-TEE-HEE!

dog sleeping, sky beginning to pale, me and my coffee alone together in the quiet. these mornings are a luxury. i won't always have such freedoms. but for now, i can work to enjoy them and appreciate them as much as i possibly can, to use them with honor and diligence and wide-open gratitude... to pay attention to the sweet nudges i receive, the support and encouragement that come my way to reassure me that i've done even a small amount of good.

yesterday i shipped a drawing to a woman who buys art instead of toys for her two boys. 2 and 4 and already endowed with definite tastes! ha! and i can't tell you how much love spilled in to my heart when i learned of this sweet family. so much love it is still spilling out, overflowing in to the rest of the day, the sphere, the small walls that contain my life. art and stockings. that's the christmas tradition. and her children are on fire with excitement and happiness for these things. these beautiful and heart-felt things. what an awesome wonder. what a gentle reminder than art matters and flourishes and that there are people who know its value, who except beauty in to their lives, who bring it home with them and cherish it and allow it to work its magic. and the last Lineage canvas at the gallery is gone. off to a new and good home. and every now and then i get to hear the stories why people buy the art they buy and most of the time it has nothing to do with whether or not it matches the couch. i am touched and humbled and full of appreciation. a woman whom i've never met took a painting home with her because it touched her heart, it "represents the under-represented" and hit very close to home, and i can't tell you how i cried to know that someone got it, saw it, knew it! that someone feels the same way, sees the same need in the world, cares for them and knows that struggle. oh, i am overflowing! i am shaken. to the red center of my heart, i shake! blessings coming in from all sides these days! everywhere! everything!

and my conversation with rebecca, full of laughter and giggling and genuine love for art and knowledge and words and connection. such an amazing gift! an amazing friend! an amazing woman who cajoles words in to music, makes them dance and cry and quake. and my heart quakes along with them. shuddering and trembling and becoming devout. poetry. and through her, her work, her generosity of spirit, her unwavering belief in the importance of words, of art, i get better. i learn and become more sensitive, more courageous, more in tune. what a gift! what a pleasure! what an undeserved, unearned miracle.

and with this comes along a little network of amazing writers. good people who are kind and humble and hard-working. good writers who spill their hearts and the pools they leave for me to fall in to are gorgeous and heart-breaking. i am, day by day, amazing by the connections that have come about by simply maintaining this blog. the unique, beautiful web of people and art that is being spun, that is growing, that gets deeper each day, more and more solid, more and more stunning, more and more important and lovely. blessings coming in from all sides, indeed!

and another rebecca got married. got a solo show. got a whole new adventure for herself lined up. i'm heading out to the city today for a slumber party/ painting session. talking and talking and talking the whole time, we two funny shut-ins. ha! and maybe we'll leave the house for a minute for food but maybe not. we'll rest in our friendship and silliness and enjoy this day together and all the wonderful moments it contains. in school, i'd always lug my paintings over to her studio so we could work together. we'll make our own little deja vu, our own cute little flash-back, blast to the past.

this year is ending on such a high note. so high, in fact, it makes me appreciate the trials that preceded it. the silver-lining is sparkling so brightly it's impossible not to gaze at it. it's impossible not to stare in to the bright core of it til my eyes well up and all i see is the tremendous wealth of things i have to be endlessly grateful for and entirely surprised by.

love, love, love

yes. a couple highlights here and there, softly, softly, yes, and then the below painting will done. sometimes i need to see it photographed, see it smaller, to know what it needs, what it's missing, what it's thirsty for.

the rain is here and it is dark. but today i'm thankful for it and not anxious for the clouds to move off. the bad weather brings a great many blessings sometimes- unforeseen. entirely unexpected.

today i'll stretch more canvas and line all those sweet virgins up in a row. i'm so drawn to large-scale painting right now. completely. anything smaller than 44" x 38" feels too small. not enough land. i need a large expanse of white to spill my oil on and slide and smear around, wrestle inside of, ache and moan and yell and beg.

i've had such a heavy influx of ideas lately. excited and fast and steady. it feels beautiful and i am grateful. the fertile land of fairy-tales, Alice in Wonderland, Cadaver Dogs, The Bloody Chamber, and my very own notebook have been good ground for me to stand on. i am surging. and these short days don't supply me with enough good light to cater to all my ideas and leanings and cravings, but it gives me time to sit and read and write and play inside my own imagination. and that play is where all these wonderful wants and concepts have sprung from. it makes me re-think my new year's resolution... maybe instead of a drawing a day, i'll read everyday. something new, something i've always wanted to read but didn't or couldn't. it's just such a deep, beautiful well and has always broke my mind wide open: reading.

writers have always made my life so much better, fuller, deeper, more sincere, more thoughtful, more beautiful, more.... MORE! i'm thankful for you- all your hard work and struggle and the resistance you display to the dumbing-down, fizzling out, cynical onslaught of cultural laziness and lethargy. i am indebted. quite. and so i do my best work for you in return. beyond era or circumstance or recognition, i do my best work for those who inspire it and for those whom might be inspired in kind.

HEY ALANNA!

remember that night up at mary's house, all drunk and dumb and fun and me and tom and kara ganged up on you to tell you how beautiful you are? remember? :) something in me suddenly crashed around just now and i thought that today, as the wind and rain pour in to portland, that it may in fact be a day where a reminder of that night would be nice. or maybe just a sentimentality in me to let you know that i remember it and that it holds true today, right now, this very second. absolutely beautiful, dear friend. absolutely. so here it is- a very public reminder. ha! i miss you dear friend and am so glad for your happiness.

love
angela

thank you.

most people wouldn't know it (at least i hope they don't) but, the truth is, i have a tendency toward sadness that is life-long. it's been a struggle of mine for as long as i can remember. even as a child, i felt sad on a pretty regular basis. things were chaotic and, in the midst of that chaos, all i ever wanted to be was pleasing.

when i was in college, i thought that the majority of that chaos had been layed to rest a long, long time ago. i was wrong. and to be perfectly honest, i've only recently gotten out from under the weight of a pretty massive and painful 2 year long depression. 2 years. that's a long time to feel bad about yourself, your life, everything. and if not for the bravery of my mother and the kind patience of my sweetheart, i'd probably still be in that horrible place of self-hate. i could not shake myself loose from it... and i can only imagine how painful it was for the people in my life who love me to watch me become so frail, so scared, so fed-up with my self... so opposite who they know me to be.

my practice slowed to a crawl. it took months to finish a painting that should've only taken a few weeks. and when i noticed this, i felt even worse. all i could see was failure. failure everywhere. not good enough, not smart enough, not refined or beautiful or important.

now, i'm amazed i got any work done at all during that time. absolutely amazed. while i was going through it, i kept reminding myself 'the work will save you. the work will save you. it's saved you so many times'. i made a point to at least try to trust it... especially when i felt there was nothing else i could trust. and there were moments all along the way where i achieved that trust but, looking back, it is glaringly apparent that i started building enormous hurdles, contingencies, expectations, and stringent rules about art, my practice, what qualifies and what doesn't, definitions for success... all which hurt my life's work... hurt me.

this blog has cataloged a lot of this in spite of my attempts to keep it quiet. it's all here. the strange struggle that i think is normal for artists. our identity is wrapped up in the work. it's impossible for the work not to suffer when we are suffering. and this isn't a bad thing so maybe i should've been more open about it at the time... it might've helped someone else. it might've helped me. but those damned contingencies were in the way and i just couldn't allow myself to share something i thought was shameful. that child's desire, the "i only ever wanted to be pleasing" was too active. i was not strong enough to expose the reality i lived in. i was afraid of getting THE LOOK. i was afraid of compromising my career, people's opinions of me, not meeting their expectations, not meeting my own.

but what about the saying 'many hands make light work'.

i take comfort in it. newly.

a comfort i historically deny myself.

it takes honesty. honesty is not any easy thing. it's hard to know, in times of deep sadness, what the truth even is, let alone speak it. but one thing is certain- my practice did save me when i let it. when i was honest, it fueled me and lifted me up. it gave me such a tremendous hope. a hope worth focusing on, keeping in front of my eyes, not blinking away.

and this space. this undefinable world, built in text and light, has become such a wonder, such a privilege... a document of hope.

uh oh...

i just checked my calender. there are only 6 weeks left in the year. and being that i am quite fond of rituals, markers of time, beginnings and endings, honoring the process of things, keeping traditions and making new ones, it is time to start thinking about resolutions. yep. yikes.

there are two large paintings that need to be finished and poems i'd like to get a bit deeper in during the next month and half. care-packages to make and little christmas gifts. after that, there will be new additions to my morning rituals to get used to. i'm happy that my morning writing practice is safe and solid. i'm happy that The Almighty Jog is working its' magic in my life and has become a prized part of my daily living as well. and, of course, this blog. i can't believe it's been just about an entire year since i made the resolution to be diligent about this thing. i've done pretty good, somehow managing to get a post up just about every day and letting the practice enrich my life. it has been such a blessing, this little space. this strange land of text and desire. it has brought such wonderful, talented, courageous, beautiful people to me. i am honored and so full of thankfulness. so full! and warm and ready to be brave... to go on being brave, to get more brave with my work, my writing, the paintings, my relationships. and i think that's what the majority of my resolutions this year will pertain to.

big on the list is getting a solo show together which means DOING THE WORK! it means having the bravery to let my practice wander around and do what it wants and just trust the effing thing. :) let it humble me, let it take the reigns and run. just work. let the work be what it wants to be. and my job is to be diligent in my respect for that. the process itself is a magical thing. my stamina seems to be back and my wide-open definition of what art is, what it can do, be, what it's good for seems to be back too. this is a very happy thing and i've missed it.

and the work has brought people to me that i feel so lucky to know. people i admire. people who are good and kind and hard-working. this blog even. it's become a strange little labor of love, an art project in it's own right. why not? and a string that connects me to you in such an artful, gentle, encouraging way. i can't tell you how wonderfully it has strengthened my faith... this little line of us that write and buzz and go on trying for a better way of living. it is so encouraging and gracious and just down right beautiful! and my poet goes on twisting up a net of words, building a nest for us to crawl in to, be safe, be shattered, be alive inside.

the trip down to southern california had a great big silver lining to it. for as grateful as i was about my life, it made me even more so. i saw so clearly all the things and people i love, the things i need to protect and nourish and never ever take for granted. i am so lucky and i want to honor that as best as i can.

following the work and not making demands on it is the best thing i can do. the work makes me a better, happier, healthier person. it makes me good. and that goodness can't help but spill out and slide around in the other areas of my life. my friendships and loves. the work is graceful and patient. i want to be graceful and patient too. the work can teach me this. i just have to listen. i just have to guard it. i just have to work.

and for the next 6 weeks that's all i plan on doing. i won't get lost in scrutinising the paintings or poems, i'll get lost in the process instead. i'll see where i go. for the next 6 weeks i won't make any assumptions about anything and just work work work. january 1st i'll take a look and see what i've done and see where i need to go. for the next 6 weeks i plan to just enjoy each day. that's it. simple, yes, but amazingly hard for a person like me. i've developed a nasty habit of being way too concerned with the future and not enough about the Here and Now. the Here and Now are things, i'm learning, that need to be honored as well. i'm going to have to come up with a few resolutions that will help me do that.

what about you? any new year's resolutions in the works?

ahhhhh...

we left at 8pm last night. i didn't want to wake up anywhere other than my own home. i didn't want to wake up to anything other than my beloved vineyard. i didn't want to fall asleep anywhere other than my own big, warm, ridiculously soft bed. and my sweetie seconded that emotion so off we went, in the dark dark dark, twisting up to the straight arrow of the 5 freeway. i dumped a whole bunch of horrible gas-station coffee in my stomach, thick from cooking on the burner all day, but it had the taste of salvation in it- the taste of leaving, forever, one's home-town. i don't think i'll ever go back. that was the last one. there won't be any more reasons. none. and that is a good and welcome cause for celebration and gratitude. the charm that once existed there is gone. bulldozed down just like the endless orange groves. it has been engulfed by the never ending strip mall that is southern california. brown, grey, trash, peeling paint, billboards for strip clubs, and not one single smiling face. we got stared at a lot. my mom said it was because of our smiling. no one smiles in southern california. i noticed that when i lived there before i'd ever even been anywhere else. no one smiles. no one but me and mine. and so the word of the day was "out". get out as fast as you can. and so off we went and rolled up to our front door at 4:30 this morning. 32 degrees but the warmest, most welcoming sight- our little cottage, the vineyard leaves, still and green and shining, and our enormous bed waiting. my mama got on a plane back to her mountain home this morning. back to her green, her deer, her roses, her man. she is smiling, always smiling. and me too. this is a great comfort. everything will be okay, whatever "everything" is.

this night...

the moon is enormous tonight. enormous and bright. a thin blue cast coming down. and still early enough to not be quite silent outside. not yet.
there is the traffic of people heading home. lights on the road. joggers and walkers and even a girl with a stroller. all lit up by the great big buttery moon. hurrying home and it makes me appreciate their movements, these strangers- knowing they have something to love. every single one. a reason to get going wherever they're going.

i painted today and i drew and crocheted and jogged and laughed. i ran the gamut and felt no rush rush rush. i felt no need to slap down labels, look for titles, justifications. i played. and now the big ol' moon that jumped up over the mountains and a person who hurried on home to me too.

hello november!

yesterday for halloween we actually went and looked at a house. yep. no realtor, just us, trespassing. it's a red log cabin tucked up against a mountain by the russian river. we drove over a huge old steel bridge to get to it and vineyards all around. the house has a black pot-belly wood-burning stove. we could make fires if we lived there. we could chop wood and go shopping for axes if we lived there. and the roof was pitched and beautiful. all the wood on the interior had been painted white and there were all those cute and cozy little built-in things- nooks! i love nooks! and in the tiny rear courtyard there was a claw foot bathtub - outside! - which was plumbed in! this is actually the major selling point with my sweetie- an excuse for outdoor nudity. ha! and being butted up against the mountains like that means no one would be the wiser anyway and my virtue would stay intact. :) we looked and looked and re-looked in all the windows, going around and around and around the house, peering and poking and tip-toeing just like little kids, just like the trespassers we are. we left our nose prints on every single window. we were there so long that i had to go around to the side of the house and pee. and we daydreamed the whole time we were there and for the rest of the day too. when i woke up this morning, my sweetie was looking at it online. :) very cute and so much fun to think about. i couldn't fall asleep to save my life last night. i was having way too much fun fantasizing about interior design and all that stuff. nesting, nesting, nesting. ha! i called the realtor and set up an appointment to view the home later this coming week. as long as the roof and foundation are sound and there's been no crazy pest damage, we're gonna put a bid in on it. first time buyers. our first real home. if we get it. but even if we don't, it makes my heart well up with love just dreaming of it. love for my sweetie, love for my life, for the life we're chasing, for inga, for her bouncing prancing self, our little kookie family and the drive to keep it happy, keep it safe, and to honor it with everything i've got.

just thinking about it, dreaming this way, makes me zone in on the fact that i am truly in love with a great many things. a pretty good little halloween.

lucky documents...

i've been taking a little time out here and there to cruise through my old notebooks. there's only so much i can take at a time with those things but there is a definite benefit in returning to them, seeing who you were on a particular day a year ago, 2 years ago, longer, and what your dreams were...


this is an excerpt from a journal of mine that i wrote about 2 years ago-



sometimes
i dream about living far out in the countryside in an old, white, wooden house with a porch and a porch swing and old creaking wooden doors and an old creaking wooden floor.

the house would be at the very end of a long dirt road. the road would go through oak trees and blue belles and daffodils. the house would have an old staircase to swing from and slide down if i wanted. it would have an attic. the attic would have a window. and from way up there i would look down the long dirt road and know that i could see everything but nothing could see me.

in that old house i'd make white dresses for myself. i'd wear them every day. i'd wake up in a big white bed under a big white quilt every big white morning and i'd sip coffee off and on all day.

i'd make paintings and strange sculptures, some little, some big, to put up all around the old house and out in the yard too. i'd make myself a red quilt and lay in the yard. i'd go walking through the oaks and out in to golden wheat fields and i'd collect little scraps i'd find on the ground and pine cones and stones and flowers to press between book pages just like mama would. i'd bring an old crazy camera and i'd take pictures of irrelevant things. i'd paint in the yellow afternoon and write little poems in the evening. i'd hang them all up together in the drawing room on the old, creaking wooden walls.
i'd read and i'd draw in the drawing room and i'd crochet myself little flowers and big sweaters and i'd sew myself a basket of apples and a basket of birds to match. i'd make a book for my irrelevant photographs. i'd sing in the bright morning and hum in the yellow afternoon. i'd be happy and i'd be beautiful too.



this passage made me smile and want to cry and slap myself in the face. my life today is very close to what is written there. very close. i don't have an attic and so no attic window. i live in a cottage not a house but the size of my dwelling has not stopped me from carrying out the lifestyle expressed in that passage. i do wake up in a big white bed under a big white quilt. i do sip coffee off and on all day. i jog through the most gorgeous vineyard there is every morning and i find things on the ground sometimes that i feel certain i should give a home to. i don't take many pictures but i buy the discarded, forgotten, lost ones. i have crocheted myself flowers. an entire wall of them, actually. i haven't made myself a white dress yet but i made myself a plum colored one and i plan to make a white dress in spring.

maybe this is the winter where i'll make the big red quilt?

all this to say is i wanted to slap myself in the face because i'd forgotten all about this particular dream and then found myself living it and being completely oblivious to it... even unappreciative of it at times... and that made me feel hugely ridiculous. enormously so.

and right now, right outside my big window, the light on the necks of the trees is bright yellow. they glow.

they are glowing.


good morning. :)

honor...

my heart is so big and bursting today! so thankful for so many things and for the many astounding and thoughtful opportunities that exist all around me.

i've been invited to donate a painting to Visual Aid for this years Big Deal art sale and fundraiser. The auction is in its 16th year and it's very important. Visual Aid is a foundation that works to encourage artists with life-threatening illnesses to continue working. the money this foundation raises is used to buy supplies, offer the artists they serve with the opportunity to take classes and workshops, and do whatever they can to make it possible for these great artists to continue to thrive and grow. i am absolutely honored to have such a wonderful opportunity to help the community i am a part of and love so very much. i am humbled and made tearful by this opportunity and i hope that if you're in the san francisco area that you can make it down to the event. it will be held the afternoon and evening of november 14th from 4-9:30 pm at SomArts in san francisco. that's only about 3 weeks from now. mark your calenders, i'd love to see you there and will be an attendance the entire night. here's the piece that will be up for grabs-


Lineage 3
44" x 38"
oil on canvas
2009


if you are far away, i sincerely encourage you to take a look at Visual Aid's website and learn about the opportunities you may have to help such a noble and worthwhile cause. giving back to the community that supports us is one of the best things we can do for each other. i am so grateful.

thank you...

at times my faith has wavered. at times my trust has slid away from me and i get get angry. i feel lost. i feel alone...

my faith in art, as a daily practice and way of living, has saved me over and over again. and even in those moments when my faith has become low and weak, art has persisted. art itself. and has carried me back to a place of humility and trust. i know that as long as i paint and write and breathe everything will be okay. i'll end up exactly where i am meant to be. i've always known this. and i credit my faith in this way of being to art. to the work. to practice. and lately, the odd mix of maids and elsie and poems has renewed me in such wonderful ways. i feel brave again... brave enough to trust that, so long as my brush and pen are moving, life is good, and will be good, in spite of the hardships that come along.

the maid portraits have taught me patience. they teach me that lesson over and over again. and how to hear a whisper... to value a whisper. and these lessons, i suppose, are what has made me able to work on elsie's portraits. she's a funny one... and i don't know if this work will matter to others, if people will even care about a little girl that was killed a hundred years ago. there's one person to whom i know it matters (aside from myself) and that one other person gives me endless, endless strength. her belief in the importance of this project helps me sustain my own. this is what friendship is. and i am thankful. truly, massively thankful.

yesterday, we discussed elsie and how important it is that she be brought out from behind her current status of 'side-note' to someone else's history... that she be given a place of her own to stand... that she be honored, somehow, in even the smallest of ways, and respected.

it is hard work. learning how to be respectful of anothers' history is a delicate thing. but it is important, and so worthwhile, to at least make the attempt. i can see that a lot of the work i've done in the past year or so has led to this place, has made me capable of this attempt... it has at least increased my stamina and made me feel strong enough to heft this, to wrestle with it, to let it call on me for whatever it needs. and the fact i have a friend to speak with about her, about this work, who understands that i can't physically shoulder the weight of her portraits every day and must wait for her call, is a great comfort. it reminds me that this is a life's work and that i am allowed to take time carefully and proceed with at least a fraction of grace.

so, dear friend... thank you. :)

THANK YOU!!!!!!!

out of nowhere, there's been a lot of movement over at my etsy shop of late... comparatively anyway. ha! and it's put a pretty nice bounce in my step! :) thank you to all the lovely people who have taken time out of their day to write me letters letting me know that my work touches their heart, and a jumbo thank you to all my collectors- your support is so amazing and i'm so grateful to have it. i'm so appreciative that you've given my work a new and loving home. i can't tell you how deeply it touches me that a person actually likes my work enough to buy it. it's such a massive compliment and i blush every single time. thank you, thank you, thank you! whether you found me through my gallery or online, i'm just so blessed that we've crossed paths. i really am. really, really, really, really! thank you! :)

and the secret finally comes out...

so about three months ago i started dropping hints that something really wonderful had happened. that's when all the chardonnay drinking started. ha! well, i finally got clearance from my gallery today that i can let the cat out of the bag and stick this new info on my resume:

a painting by yours truly is one of the most recent acquisitions of the Microsoft Art Collection.

OHHHH MYYYYY GODDDDDD! YAAAAAYYYYY!

i was completely flabbergasted when i first got the call that this was about to happen. completely awe-struck and dumb-founded and speechless. i was wearing a cheesy grin for an effing month! i mean, what did i do to deserve such an amazing honor? i was beside myself. completely. and i still kind of am. it seems completely unreal to me. entirely mysterious and graceful and humbling. i still don't really know how to talk about it or what to think. all i know is that i am intensely thankful. so so so completely full of gratitude and appreciation. it is an amazing act of support and a huge dose of self-confidence to my path and practice (and self).

so without further ado, this is the piece... courtesy of the Microsoft Art Collection (hee hee hee - it feels really good to say that!).


Anonymous Girl 2
oil on canvas (9 panels)
12" x 89"
angela simione, 2008

relief and gratitude...

man o man,i must've stressed myself out more than i realized yesterday. i slept for a full 12 hours last night and didn't manage to drag myself out of bed until 9:30 this morning- a good 4 hours behind schedule. oops. but obviously i needed the zzzs. i had all sorts of strange and vivid dreams. even my very first apocalypse dream which really wasn't all that scary since no zombies ever showed up but i spent the entire dream worried that i wouldn't get to have sex one last time before the world ended. ha! priorities!

anyway, the interview couldn't have went better. before i knew it, an hour had passed and i was still there giggling with the VP who was such a wonderful, warm, wholesome woman. there were never any of those awkward lulls in the conversation and we seemed to establish an amazingly comfortable re pore right from the start. i'll definitely take The Storialist's advice and send a thank you note to her today. a real thank you note, snail mail style. :)

so now the waiting game begins. there's a second round next week but after having such a perfect first meeting i don't think i'll lose another day to feeling inadequate, reading and re-reading my favorite blogs 20 times over, checking and re-checking the fridge all day, attempting to find small avenues of distraction. i'm feeling hopeful and confident again. the experience was actually pleasant. dare i say fun. how cool is that!

thank you all so much for sending positive thoughts my way. i definitely needed the vote of confidence and a shot of faith. i appreciate your warm wishes so much! kind words go so far.

the blog-space is a strange space, for sure. when i first started this thing, i didn't take it very seriously at all and didn't enforce any type of regularity on it whatsoever. when i finished a painting, i'd post a picture of it but that'd be it. since deciding to try to make the blog live up to it's name, i've really started valuing having a place to write my thoughts and ambivilances, and i no longer feel like i'm just sending words out in to the dark. i know that we're all strangers but i'm glad we've bumped in to one another, no matter how mediated that bump may in fact be.

morning love letter...

lately, i've been impressed with men. one man in particular-

he wakes up every morning at 5:15 and kisses my face and rubs me gently til i wake up too. he hops in the shower while i make the coffee and we talk about what dreams we had or the trash television of the night before. we use the same toothbrush, neither one of us seeing the point in owning two. i watch him get dressed and pack himself a lunch. i tell him which painting i plan to work on first.

a half hour later, he heads off to work. everyday, i watch the tail lights disappear out the driveway and feel sad. no matter how long we've been together, no matter how many times it happens, watching him leave, even just to go to work, is the hardest part of the day.

when he gets home he asks me how my day was and comes to look at the paintings. he hugs me and we plan dinner. he never complains about the mess in the kitchen. he never points out the laundry that i still haven't done. "just paint", he says. and he says it everyday.

and when i find myself in that horrible place of doubt and loneliness and confusion, and i give myself over to being neurotic and sad and defeated, he holds me and lets me cry for as long as it takes. he doesn't turn his back, he comes closer. he says he knows it's hard and unfair and unfamiliar. he recounts my accomplishments for me and holds them up like trophies and says "and no one thought you could do this but you did! so keep going".

he keeps his arms around me until i'm calm and my cheeks are dry.

sometimes it seems that he believes in me more than i do... that his faith in art is bigger than mine and that his belief in my abilities are seamless and complete and humongous. he extends his belief in me daily. he tells me that his responsibility in life is to make sure i've always got plenty of canvas and that everything will always be okay as long as that's the case. he reads my art magazines and learns the lingo. he goes with me to the openings. he laughs easily.

my appreciation of his goodness is too large to give name to. he inspires me to be better than i am... to toughen up, to be thankful, to slow down, to enjoy the world, to find a stillness that isn't lonely, to be in love as often as possible and then some; to work and struggle and believe. every morning while he kisses my face and rubs me gently, i know i have more luck than i deserve.

i love you endlessly, jared.

old loves and new thanks...

hi everybody! first off, i just want to send out a big ol' THANK YOU to everyone who's been reading the blog lately and commenting on the work. i really, really appreciate the fact that you've taken time out of your day to let me know what your thoughts are. it's extremely helpful to know what people respond to, what turns them off, and what might just make them smile. i am grateful and smiling and totally giddy. thank you so much!

so today i've been working on some small pieces, just sorta playing around and seeing what happens. sometimes it's a wonderful thing to just work as fast as you can and without a lot of thought - it short-circuits the self-censoring mechanism and you end up doing things you normally wouldn't, acting upon ideas you'd talk yourself out of, and the resulting images are evidence of learning in action. it's great! here's some small pieces from my art adventure:




Blackland #4
7" x 7"
mixed media collage on paper
2008



untitled personal indictment
6 3/4" x 5 1/4"
mixed media collage on paper
2008


obviously, my default aesthetics kicked in on these (my beloved black and white!), but i also picked up my old love of texture and disparate materials and just rolled with it: black masking tape, film negative (that's what makes them shiny), scraps of paper and a love of abstraction. it was fun and i really enjoy seeing that, though i was working quickly and not really concerned with what the results were, the primary ideas i've been dealing with are in this work as well. pretty ingrained, i guess! :) and that's a good thing!

keeping busy and getting sentimental...

between painting, the drawing rampage, dropping off work to the gallery, doing art trades, and setting up my etsy shop, this month went by so incredibly fast. i woke up today realizing that halloween and the holidays are just around the corner. the evenings have cooled down and i've been making scarves again. i've been spending alot of time putting together care-packages for family members and trying to come up with sweet, sentimental gift ideas.

lately, i've been completely consumed by the desire to do nice things for other people... ever since i finally sat down and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (thanks rebecca!) :) following through on the impulse to do thoughtful things for others has really brightened my days and made me a much happier and positive person all the way around. i'm thankful for the opportunity to do nice things and to be surrounded by so many people who appreciate the action. maintaining a positive outlook really does take a person a long, long way. some days it's hard. i can get in a funk pretty easily sometimes, but i'm getting better at reminding myself to see the good in my life and to count my blessings. i've got a lot to be thankful for. just being able to live as an artist is the best thing that could've happened to me. for as much struggle as there sometimes is, it is still such a joy to be able to wake up and paint. the truth is, at the end of the day, i spent it doing the thing i love most. i am a very lucky girl.

i spent some time going through the etsy forums last night. reading all the encouraging posts from one artist to another really warmed my heart. the art community is great at being supportive and i'm so proud to be a part of it. being in a community of artists was the big reason behind my desire to attend a private art college. it's important to be surrounded by people who appreciate what you do and understand that it is work. being in a place where art is respected, valued, and validated is priceless.

anyway, i'm getting sappy. ha!

here's a sweet little drawing of a nest i did the other night in bed as i was winding down for sleep. it's in the shop so swing by and check out the space when you get a chance. comments, criticisms, and suggestions are completely welcome. i'd be glad to know what you all think. thanks! angela



5 1/2" x 7 1/2"
ink on paper
2008