The Art Cure

Dreamed I was in a vast building full of chemicals. It was ostensibly a printing company and these were, I thought, for ink mixing BUT on closer inspection, I saw that they were all ceramic chemicals – clay and glaze ingredients.

My unconscious brain is giving me not terribly subtle hints.

You know that I’ve been wayfaring deep in Sad Valley this month – so many damned anniversaries. There are the happy ones – The Amazing Bob’s birthday and our anniversary. And the heavy ones – the heart attacks, prostate miseries, chemo, the chemo triggered heart attack during the travel ban blizzard odyssey. Yes, TAB and I really liked to pack as much as possible into each winter, especially January.

Now, I totes understand that, in order to rise outta this swamp of anguish, I’ve got to float in it – experience the loss and horror show grief.

Got it but could this be just a weensy bit less overwhelmingly brutal? Please? Bitte? Prego? I’m beggin’ ya!

With the goal of achieving more bearable days I’ve gone ahead and begun painting over an old, large canvas of mine. It was one that never thrilled me so, instead of peeling it off the stretchers and expensively, exhaustingly, stretching new, fresh, virgin cotton duck, I’m employing the time honored tradition of just painting the fuck over it.

a new beginning

It’s 40”x58” and really takes up a lot of my newly set up kitchen studio. I've found that I do, surprisingly, actually use that room for more than making coffee in the AM. I'm gonna need to expand into the dining area. Grand mas furniture rearrangements are, clearly, in my near future.

I've been drawing, doodling, painting on the walls, snapping zillions of pics and all that's been helpful but, given this crazy month of red-letter days, MORE is needed. This new comp is less distraction from and more a channeling of my mondo grief.

Also too, now that I’ve more room in the basement, it’s time to set up my damn wheel, a wedging table and a hand building surface again. My sleeping self has been nagging me, don'cha know.

And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.
~ Meister Eckhart

Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring.
~ Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

There hasn't been any art yet. Art is just beginning.
~ Constantin Brancusi