Why is it called a work?

     In the last few weeks I have been preparing a triptych which is a three piece work of art for an upcoming exhibit called "Her Hands".   (More about the title and where it comes from will be coming in a later post).  This was a hard one for me to design.   It just didn't come to me  and it also took me awhile to figure out the substrate that I was going to mosaic on, so consequently it didn't get started until last weekend and I had a deadline.   Of course it was also supposed to be relatively large, so I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me.
 Sometimes I just see a design in my mind, sometimes I just start working and it happens, but more often than not I have to let the idea percolate until it comes to completion.  It is a frustrating process, especially when you have a deadline.
      This design started with sketches, lots of them, on scratch paper at first, and then more complete ones in my sketchbook.   At times I don't need a lot of information in my sketches and at other times I do a more complete sketch with colors.   I did two complete ones for this work and one that was just a pencil sketch.  Then I assembled and painted the substrates and drew my design on them, with changes I already had decided on.   Next it was finding the metal beads and old rhinestones, the colors of glass, and  the  brass ballchain I needed.  Grout color had to be decided and purchased and glue bottles had to be filled.   Finally I was ready to start..........

     Things were moving along at a decent pace and I was satisfied.  The relaxing motion of placing pieces, listening to music,  and gluing down the pieces was a rhythm I was familiar with.   It seemed as if the way would be smooth.   I finished for the night and went to bed.   The next day I looked at what I had done and I just didn't like the design of the bird.  A phoenix like creature that seemed not to be what I envisioned.  It was flat, not firey.   It just didn't fly like I wanted it too and it had taken me a good portion of the night before to make it.  About the time I was considering the bird we got a phone call asking us to pick up my son's little white chihauhau which meant our daughter-in-law had entered labor and our grandson was on his way.  We picked up the dog and went away expecting to see our newborn grandson sometime later that day.   I did all the things I had to do that day and that evening I continued to work on my piece and waited for the news.
       Now I had to remove the bird, which meant prying off all the pieces I had put down and redesign him.  I do what I often do and searched the internet for interpretations of a phoenix and I looked at various ways other mosaic artists handled birds.  Finally I came up with a new design and worked late into the night expecting at any moment to get a text or a call that the new baby had arrived.
        Little did I know that during the process of this piece that my little grandson would take 44 hours to make his way into this world.  I worked and waited, getting updates every so often, answering people's inquiries of fb or the phone and prayed for the health and strength of my daughter-in-law and her son.
My piece grew and it's eventual appearance became clearer in my mind.
        Eventually labor ended for my DIL and little Asher made his appearance!  The most amazing creative process of all, a child, was over and a new precious personality entered the world to begin his life's journey and to change his parent's life forever.  We got to hold him and greet him and welcome him with relieved and joyful hearts; a tiny little miracle with perfect tiny parts; fingers, hands, wrinkly little feet, the firstborn of my firstborn.
Meanwhile I still had a lot of work to do and time was getting shorter, so I dug into the process with the help of coffee, ibuprofen,  a speaker call from my friend, music, old movies (one I can listen to while working) my husband bringing me food, my youngest son cutting glass, another friend hanging with me until 4 in the morning, a final 24 hour work period ( with breaks for stretching ), a 4 hour sleep, and 3 more hours of grouting and cleaning, the triptych was finished!  It held the symbolism of new life, of starting over, of rebirth, of empowerment, of joy, and laughter.  Much of what being a woman walking through this life means to me and the optimism of my own personal worldview, with all the color that speaks to me.  This is why is it called a WORK of art.

The Process of Respect

The new look of the elevator waiting area..

I have heard it said that when an Arab befriends you, you have a friend for life.   I now have an Arab for a friend.  He is an Iraqi refugee and in the process of working on our lovely old church I have begun  to know him.  He is not strong on the English language and I definitely know no Arabic so our attempts to communicate are interesting.  I tend to speak too fast and his attempts are strongly accented.   When his children are around, one of them will often translate or he will phone them and ask the word he wants to say.  There is still much we have in common.  We share a love of music.  He was a professional keyboardist in Iraq and even though the arabic musical system is quarter tones he enjoys the sound of the piano and plays it beautifully.  He does not read music, he plays from the "heart" and it is sounds from his heart you hear when he plays.  He has four children that he loves very much and so do I.  He loves beauty and so do I.
Why do I speak of my Arab friend?   Because even without language I have learned so many things from him.   He is in this country which is so very different than his and I don't even know how welcome he feels here, but I can imagine that suspicion greets him often.  He is used to a very hot country and we have long and cold winters, but he says he likes the cold.   He is doing a job that is unrelated to the music he did and yet he does it with such love and care and attention to detail.   I do not see resentment, but gratefulness in his attitude as he works and  he goes the extra mile and beyond.  He always seems joyful and yet I have learned enough about him to know that not all is joyful in his life.
When I examine myself in the light of his ethic, I find myself lacking.   I find myself complaining and ungrateful for many things.   I also find myself challenged by my own attitudes towards the Arabic people and I wonder.   I wonder if I could be so brave as to leave the culture and the language that I know so well and make a life in another land, a land that is suspicious and sometime hostile towards me.   I wonder if I possibly could work as hard or as carefully as he does.   I wonder if I could care so much.
If you follow my blog at all you will soon learn that neatness and tidiness is not a natural gift for me and when I am working I tend to make messes and finally clean it all up when I am done.  I often come into the workroom at the church and find my messes cleaned up ( and sometimes stuff I was saving is thrown away, because I do keep things that look like trash to other people:)).  If I am doing something that he can do he will jump in and offer to do it for me.   It is humbling and consequently I do try to be neater and more orderly in my process.
  How does he deal with this culture where women do so much?  Or is he grateful for a culture where his daughters can thrive also.  I know he wants much for his daughters.   They do art with me and his 9 year old daughter says, " I live for art!"  I am honored to be trusted with them.
While I was working on the project that is pictured above this post, he and his son were cleaning the building.  This little room is the elevator waiting room and one time he brought garbage up and opened the door and hit my ladder.  "Sorry, sorry," he said.  After that he would call, " Hi, Cathy!" as the elevator passed by the place I was working.   It was getting late and the building is big and it makes noises that freak me out a bit.  I asked how long they were going to be there, because I wanted to leave when they did.   I tried to explain my nervousness.   He caught what I said and told me, " I not afraid in this building.   This is God's house , it safe here. You do not need to fear."    I do not know him well enough to know how he views God or if he even thinks the way I do at all, but in that moment I realized that he has a respect for sacred spaces and that the work that he does is a work of honor, from his heart, as is the music that he makes.    Yes, I learn a lot from my Arab friend.

      When I was little I had a neighbor, John, who was a farmer and a strong, gentle man.   He took a little girl's drawings and paintings and hung them in a place of honor above his desk.  It was my spot and it made me happy to have my pictures posted there.   Years later, after I was an adult with my own small children,  I visited John again and he had another child's pictures above his desk.   My first reaction was, "that is my spot!" and then my rational adult self took over and I was happy to see another child being encouraged, but there was still a spark of jealousy.  Why is that?
       I watch a tv show from Australia about young dancers and their struggles at prestigious ballet school.  It is not a deep show, but the theme of jealousy is woven throughout and because I love dance and my daughter was a dancer, I like watching the show.   The main character is a young lady with an incredible talent that she doesn't realize that she has and others are jealous and try to sabotage her.  Even a teacher, at one point, lets her jealousy hurt the girl.    This is not so rare.   The art world is competitive and jealousy runs rampant, be it music, fine art, dance, theater..... But the girl's focus is the criticism, the things that are wrong with her dancing, not the things that are right, and in the process often loses the joy that dancing brings her because she never feels good enoughand she often misses the way other people are jealous of her.
      Jealousy is something that all artists and creative people have to deal with.   Not always from ourselves to others, but from others to us.  At the risk of being called an overly sensitive women (see, I have to put a disclaimer) I think it is difficult for women, (especially women who are wives and mothers)  to escape the disapproval and jealousy of others.  Art takes a lot of time and a lot of focus and to do it and to do it well, one has to let some things go.  Maybe traditional things that others consider important.  There is a level that you are allowed to be at, but if you want to be more than just a hobbyist, you often face a lot of condemnation.  Oftentimes it is unspoken, but it is there and it is painful.  I think a lot of it stems from jealousy.
        Oftentimes there is this impression that the person is "showing off" or " egotistical" because their work is on display.  And in all art forms there are those who are doing that, but I would say for most the work is not about showing off.   It is often extremely difficult for artists to believe in their own ability.   We see our mistakes, we see the parts that are unsatisfactory to us, we see the picture in our mind that we have not obtained.  We have a difficult time judging our own work and the work is often a part of our personality.  So learning to take criticism can be difficult because it is like a criticism of our own being, but that doesn't mean we don't want or need criticism.   A good critique can help us move past things we are struggling with and help us see things that we cannot see.  
      We deal with these kinds of questions.   Are we good enough?   Do we have anything important to say?  Are we more than just another piece of sidewalk Elvis's?   Is it finished?  Is it ?   Am I?  How do I balance my family with my art?   Why can't I get through this block?   I did it once, will I ever be able to do it again?
     So how do I deal with this?  I have to admit these kinds of things have held me back.  I fear the resentment of others.   I struggle with time and guilt about other areas of my life.   I'm not the mother or wife  I pictured myself being.   I sometimes ignore the needs of others.   I spend way too much time in my own head.  I get jealous when someone is more talented than I am.  I am human and I have an often fragile ego.
      I have had to learn to let go of some of the ideals I pictured and work with who I am.  I compete with myself in my best times.   I work on sincerely appreciating the talents of others and doing my best to support those talents.   I give back in any little way that I can.  And sometimes I just stick my tongue out and say, "this is the way God made me, so what!"
     My path has led me to a good place, a place where I feel I can grow as an artist.  A place that is forgiving of me when I can't forgive myself.   I am losing the fear of stretching my wings and flying.   Even though I am not a youth, my time is just beginning, my story is still being written and I am endeavoring to live for an audience of one, the one who made me.

http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/    
This is the documentary that made me cry because it voiced so many of my feelings about life as a woman artist.  

What Dreams Are Made Of

    I sometimes dream of a perfect studio with beautiful furniture and perfect organization looking ready to be posted in a magazine.   My studio is a riot of stuff that I pull together in the work that I do.   I find inspiration in lots of things that appear to be junk in the eyes of most.   I like rusty metal, pieces of wood, odd rocks, broken jewelry, broken china, old paper, new paper, books, objects that people have given me, and of course lots of paint.  I have scenic paint, craft paint, wall paint, special kinds of paint, expensive acrylics, cheap acrylics, watercolors, tempera paint, and even face paint.   Then there is tile, stained glass, glass tile, mirror, beads, shells, and various objects that will someday be covered with other stuff.   All these seemingly unrelated things can be combined into another thing altogether.
    So I have another dream of a very large, even warehouse size studio, where I can spread out my items so that I can see them better and let them speak to me.  A place where I can spread muslin on the floor and build weird large objects and cover them with papier mache or cement or some combination of the two.  I am experimenting with assemblage which is like collage only you use more objects.   There is something fascinating about taking disparate objects and making something totally different out of them.   I like the textures and pattterns that come from metals and woods and plastics and paper mixed together.   I like trying to figure out what I can say with the things that most throw away.

     At this time in my life I do have a studio.  It may not be my dream studio but it is a real one, built in a double garage and made even better by a good contractor friend and my supportive husband.  I came home from a trip to find this studio built for me with tables on wheels and floors that are built above the concrete so it is not so hard to stand on.  Amazingly enough in this studio of dreams to be made, I can find almost everything.   There is order to my madness although you may not see it at first.   I have my paint areas, my collage and assemblage wall, paper storage, drawing tools, regular tools, mosaic materials storage, mags and books, fabric....I know where I keep stuff.   It is a place always in progress and I constantly try to make it better, but I like the fact that it is not perfect and I can spill paint or drop grout on the floor and I can leave stuff out if I want.

I think a lot of my life is about taking broken or unwanted pieces and putting them together.   I like the beauty and the story of of things that are not so pretty at first.   I like rough textures and patinaed surfaces that speak of mysteries to be discovered and possibilities to be explored.   Something may look useless and ready for destruction, but when we look deeper we can discover a new purpose.   It works that way for people too.  There are times in my life when I feel totally broken and unwanted, where mistakes I have made overwhelm me, or even a slight comment from someone else totally destroys the fragile view I have of myself.  Times where I am shattered to pieces and empty, ready to be discarded like so much trash.  There are times when I get to know other broken and shattered people because life has a way of destroying dreams and killing hope.    But I believe in redemption, brokenness made whole, and that is where my art springs from and my messy studio full of bits and pieces of stuff is a tool for my journey in the restoration of broken things and broken people.

OK, I am back!

For some reason, I just quit blogging.   I am not really sure why, I just quit.   But I find I miss it, even though oftentimes I cannot think what I want to say.   So tonight when I dragged myself by my own ears to my studio and I started working, I wondered why I have such a hard time doing what I love.   I think I have mentioned a book called "The War of Art"   which is basically about how we don't do what we love to do and how we have to fight to make ourselves do it.   I get very tired of fighting this war and wonder how others seem to plow right through the battlefield.   How do I create when every bone in my body wants to ignore the call of creativity?   How do I keep blogging when I feel as if any word that I tried to write would have to be pulled from me like a cow being rescued quicksand?   How do I win this war?   Motivational speeches are nice, but oftentimes not nice enough to make me drag myself off the couch.   I think I just have to do.  Just do it!, as the Nike slogan says.   Just do it.    Every excuse we make for not doing the things we know we should, even things we enjoy doing could be solved by just doing it.      JUST DO IT!