Atlanta




approaching the megalopolis



 Last week my friend Linda invited me to join her on a road trip to Atlanta.  We planned on visiting an exhibit at the Fulton County Library which included one of her wonderful painted scrolls, as well as exploring several art galleries.  I love looking at art and seeing what the galleries are showing, but I also anticipated the inspiration I would uncover in viewing what was on display.  I've often felt really "charged up" by visiting galleries in other cities, and come back to my studio with new vigor.  There is something about observing and contemplating either historical or contemporary art that just gets the juices flowing.

After seeing the show at the library, we headed to The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. The work on display was diverse and thought provoking, but what I responded to most was the outside of the building.  There is a section that felt like ruins, yet is truly beautiful.  Just the way the trees hugged the old walls made me want to stay there awhile, but we had a lot more to accomplish and had to move on.  



This view appeals to me on so many levels. I see the "writing on the wall" and the "black doorway" (a series I painted from 1996 to about 2005). But I also really like the subtle colors and the sign in the background, (which reads We Will, We Will, Feed You) gets a Queen song rocking in my head.



Moving on to a variety of other areas of the city, we stopped at no less than 7 art galleries.  One after the other of the galleries left me feeling sort of empty.  I couldn't get excited about what I was seeing.  Except at one gallery where I received permission to photograph their floor! Yes, the artwork was pleasing, but I was most moved by the peripheral sights. 

By the end of the day I did come away with gratitude for seeing some extraordinary works at Timothy Tew Gallery and Alan Avery Art.  And the exhibition of Scott Bellville's drawings at Moca Georgia was psychologically provocative.  But I realized, on reflection, that I don't have to look at art to find inspiration.  The way my eye perceives shapes and the way my mind makes metaphors and meaning out of seemingly innocuous objects, is what becomes important. 



do you see the angel in the washcloth I dropped in the shower?








healing

I feel as though I lost a good bit of my life in the last few months after I heard the words that rocked my world.  "You have breast cancer."  First came the total disbelief and shock, then the floundering in a sea of emotions, until I was rescued by my daughters, sitting on either side of me, shoring me up with their caring, steadfast love.  All this in a matter of moments.

Art making took a back seat to the path I was prescribed.  My body and thoughts of my future were all I could manage to think about.  Surgery for a lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy were to prove that I was very, very lucky.  The words "no invasive cells" were an incredible gift.  I had "passed go" and could proceed to radiation treatments.

I have now completed 30 visits to radiation therapy and am left to heal, in body and spirit.  The whole experience has been traumatic. But I am so grateful for the doctors, nurses, and technicians at Spartanburg Regional Hospital who, without exception, treated me as an individual they cared about. I feel humbled and honored by the incredibly kind support given so freely by my husband, my daughters and some very special friends.

I expect that I will make paintings that help me process my experience, but right now, feeling great joy at being finished with my treatments, all I want to do is create paintings that are filled with the light and joy I have in my heart. 

Celebration flowers and ringing the "I am finished" bell all made me cry.  What comes now is a daily appreciation for my life.

Bethan's flowers

Marcia's flowers



Ringing the bell!

 My daughter Bethan took the photo of me ringing the bell.  She was with me at the radiation department for every treatment, and I will miss our time together very much.

ripples

Late this summer I joined a marvelous online project whose goal is to allow people to send and receive postcards from all over the world.  Except for the cost of stamps and postcards it's all free and I've been enjoying the process tremendously. postcrossing.com  In mid September I was diagnosed with a very scary medical challenge.  My mind churned up tortured thoughts and had me all wound up with "what ifs."  Postcrossing was a terrific distraction and one sweet card in particular hit me just right.  It came from a nursing student in Taiwan and she signed it with the words "Always be happy!"  It was just what I needed to hear.  I started looking at life through different eyes and I began signing my e-mails with her closing words.  Friends started offering additional "always be..." phrases and one of my favorites was "always be kind" because you never know what another person is going through.

By October I decided to share those words with even more people.  Since it was the "political season" the landscape everywhere was dotted with voting signs.  I realized I could make my own sign with a different outlook.  My husband found an outdated sign in our barn, cleaned it up and painted it white to create my "canvas."  I then took it to my studio where I covered both sides in abstract swirls of color and lettered messages.  When it was dry I proudly installed it by the edge of the road in front of our home.

Every time I saw my sign I would smile and feel good about my own version of "changing the political landscape" and a good friend of mine who is an artist decided to follow suit and create a sign for the top of her driveway.

I wish I could say that I am still smiling every time I see these signs, but unfortunately someone decided to remove the sign in front of my house.  I'd like to think that he or she really needed it in their lives and that they put it out in front of their own house.  But I'm pretty sure that is a fairy tale. 

Every day life changes.  Sometimes it is hard to be happy.  But for just a little while I think my messages may have added a spark to the thoughts of people passing by, and who knows where those ripples spread.

Always laugh out loud!



studio visit

This is an overview of my studio supplies.  I keep my paper palette on my sculpture stand, and my tubes, pigment sticks, oil bars, cold wax medium, OMS, pastels and powdered pigment are all right where I can reach them.  I do have other paints and supplies tucked away for other forms of creativity.  I actually took over the dining room table this week so I could experiment with some paper and inks.

I've tried to separate my colors by transparent and opaque, but that is pretty much a lost cause.  If my space were pristine, or even organized, I think I'd have a harder time working.

Even the board behind my workbench surface is covered with quotes, photos, postcards, letters and other ephermera that lend their spirit to my space and my work.

I work on many paintings at the same time.  These are in various stages of completion.  Even when I think I am done with one, I have to wait a day or more before I can confirm that it is finished.  When I walk into my studio and my heart leaps with joy, I know this is the way it needs to stay.

p.s. I can't seem to master the new editor on blogspot.  Bear with me as I figure out how to make it look better.

why angels?

When a new friend asked me in an email to talk about why angels often appear in my work, I replied that I really didn't have an agenda for using the angel image because I prefer that people bring their own meaning into the visual dialogue. I recognize that a winged figure is very much an iconic shape, though, and one that carries a spiritual connotation. I probably first truly noticed angels as a child. But aside from an admiration for their ability to fly and a nebulous belief in their protective characteristic (as in guardian angels) I didn't think about them much until my first visit to Italy in 1996. I had just graduated from a local college with a degree in visual art and, of course, had viewed many photos of Annunciation paintings in Art History class. But when I arrived in Florence and visited the Uffizi, Santo Spirito, San Marco and many other sites of paintings and sculptures of angels, something inside me turned toward the concept that an angel is truly a messenger of God.

In the years since then I've photographed dozens of stone angels and used transfers of these photos in my paintings. I began drawing angels as a means of abstracting the shape so that it became more personal. As my process for painting has become more intuitive, angels have often appeared in my gestural surfaces, and when I spy one I entice it forward.

If I had to affirm my particular meaning for angels, my immediate response is that they remind me, messenger-like, to pay attention to the precious moments in my life that often go unnoticed. I can trudge through days oblivious to simple pleasures and small kindnesses. But then, out of the corner of my eye or heart, I catch a glimpse or feeling of something beyond rational comprehension. For a fleeting moment an unexpected angel touches down.

seduced by a sink

A dream I had a couple of nights ago has stuck with me. I was wandering through a rather large old house that was for sale and wondering if I could live there. The rooms had high ceilings but the walls looked as though they were made of metal. The whole place felt awkward and off putting to me and I sensed I could never live there. Until I reached the kitchen. The walls there were just as ugly and the lay out of the room was clumsy, but then I spied the kitchen sink and fell in love. It was an old commercial kitchen sink, with two parts. One part was very deep and would be wonderful for filling huge pots with water. The other side was less deep but as wide as a kitchen table. I pictured myself at that sink, washing vegetables, readying magnificent meals for appreciative guests at my dinner table. Daydreaming in a dream? My reverie broke and I looked at my surroundings again and realized that the sink was the only redeeming quality of the entire house. Better to not buy the house, but to find a better one and buy a similar sink.

In my studio I often get seduced by "sinks." I'll be working away on a painting and not really getting where I want to go, when suddenly I spy a wonderful passage of paint that I fall in love with. I start daydreaming about how great it is and how everyone is going to recognize my talent which is deep and wide. I work around and around that beautiful "sink" until I have to admit I just can't buy the whole package just for that one fixture. I need to look some more for a better solution, giving up that seductive part of the painting.

facing anxiety

This morning in my email from "Daily Good" I received word of a young man from NYC who gave up his job as a civil engineer to walk across the country. In reading his story which is ongoing right now, I was impressed with his ability to face his fears and act on his dream. You can follow him at http://www.imjustwalkin.com

I am an introspective person who is always finding messages in the small universe I inhabit, so I took his story to heart. No, I don't dream about walking across the country, although I most certainly agree with his stance of paying attention to small details instead of letting life whiz by. I was most affected by his admission that he was acting on his desires despite his anxiety. This is a good reminder to me, not only in my daily life, but as an encompassing mood for my studio.

I finished a painting last week that seemed to come from an intuitive leap of faith, and I have been savoring the result, while wondering if I can get back into my studio with anything approaching that freedom. It has been several days since I have squeezed out any paint on my palette and I have to acknowledge that I am anxious about starting anew. I have two beginning paintings that have been in the same state of incompletion since I diverted to the last one.

How can I possibly NOT proceed now that I have read about Matt's adventure? If he can set out to walk from one side of our country to the other, without any preconceived notions of what the possibilities are, then surely I can take a deep breath and walk into my studio, anticipating the journey ahead.