In your first year of art school, most often there is something called a foundation program. In FOUNDATIONS, students are exposed to a little bit of every major the school has to offer, from ceramics to painting. By experiencing the basics of all the arts, you get to see what medium best suits your creative voice and leanings. By your sophomore year it is time to declare a major and your corse of study becomes an intensive in that area. I hated making that choice. I was loving everything still, including photography. But choose I had to, and I majored in painting with a minor in printmaking and still loving everything else. What I have learned over many years of art making, is they are all connected, all wonderfully related, and I did not have to ever choose one over the other. I do not profess to be a learned photographer by any means, but when you see the world through an artist’ eye, how you choose to portray it, is secondary. Some famous artist once said this about MONET.

“He’s just an ‘eye’. But what an ‘eye!”

This is how it is with the arts. Your viewpoint, your eye is what best tells your story. Draw, paint, photograph, sculpt, build… how you create, and what you create is secondary to what you uniquely see. Make it your own.

This photograph I have featured was honored for the director’s award at the A Smith Gallery , in Johnson City, Texas. I took it on a trip to Florida a number of years ago, and entered it in this show that had a ‘travel’ theme.

The juror was Alison Wright and I could not be prouder to have the piece both accepted in the show and honored by the gallery directors, Amanda Smith and Kevin Tully. The A Smith Galley exhibits the work of both professional and amateur photographers. See the entire show on line at their website ( asmithgallery.com)

Before I started to write this, I had to laugh because of how commonplace New Years blog postings have become. I have no interest in making a list, or boring anyone with future plans or last years regrets. But it was with interest that I read a dear friend’s recent post regarding consolidating his many sites and posts from various platforms, all of which he uses to the benefit and encouragement of  himself and others to lead a healthier lifestyle. He is an inspiration and has inspired others, including myself to greater health. His fight has been longer and harder in some respects, but where I see him now and where he has been to get there, I think we see differently. To me, he has moved on and arrived at his destination. To him, he is still ‘getting there’.

A number of years ago, I started a body of work that became , and still is, a long running commentary on living a creative life, observing life and trying to tell a three-dimensional story in collage form. It was an extreme break from traditional art as I had always done, and remains a mystery to most. Every time I try to go back to traditional art as I have done in the past, it’s like putting on ill fitting clothes. I keep making theses art pieces and they continue to teach me, excite me, and interest me … and I have no interest in defending them. I am just compelled to make them. Recently I had the pleasure of a studio visit by a dean and provost from a local university. To my delight and surprise, they got the work immediatly! Even posing the question as they observed some of the works in progress ; when did I know I was finished with a piece? I love that question, because the answer is so universal to bigger moments in life. The answer of course is, YOU JUST KNOW.

During a time in my life when I needed some heavy medication to carry on after a rough patch in life, I asked my shrink, when will I know to go off this stuff? He simply told me, ” YOU WILL KNOW.” As it turns out I knew and remember the very day even after all these years.

Which leads me back to my friend and my title, MOVING ON. The New Year always seems like a perfect time to start over, fresh, anew. But it’s just another day on the calendar of life to me. I see my friend as already having moved on with giant life accomplishments, but only he knows when his moment to stop and MOVE ON will be. Because , you just know…

” In the end, we all become stories.” Margaret Atwood

Forty one years ago I took a cross-country trip from Buffalo , New York to as far as you could get  in the United States –  Hawaii.

It was not planned, possibly very foolish and most certainly under the category of youthful indiscretion at it’s very best. It was exactly what youth is for and all about. I regret nothing. The right trip at the right time with all the lessons I could squeeze out of it without dying in the process. I think we remember these moments better than trips in later years because there is nothing but new adventure ahead, no previous experience to draw on and more importantly, no expectations. Every day was a gift of wonder. National Parks and Forests, a Volkswagen bus, a geodesic dome,  a 30 foot catamaran and any friend who took us in took the place of a house. Life lessons happened on a daily basis. After a few months the country stopped and the ocean appeared. The mighty Pacific Ocean! I thought I would be thrilled. Awed. But we arrived at sunset and to this day my strongest memory of that long travel to end up at ocean’s edge was – loneliness. I felt small, vulnerable, and oh, so alone. Weird, right? I am still not sure why I was so overcome with that emotion, but I suspect it has to do with the space in between. In only a few short months, I had come to some big conclusions about my young life and made some very big realizations. The vast space in between the east coast and the west, the Atlantic and the Pacific, my searching and my finding, my needs and my wants, my past and my future.

It’s funny how we yearn for youth and avoid old age. What we lose in the physical body we gain in spades in our heads and hearts, and that’s the trade off…and I’m okay with that. Those decades of the learning curve of life were long and winding. Little went as planned and much more came from finally accepting. I want to tell those in their 30’s, 40’s  and 50’s that it gets easier in your head right around the time your body says, “this is wearing me out a bit.” To which I say, it’s supposed to. We are all warriors on the road to a final rest.

I love this photo I chose for the blog header. Here I am, some thirty odd years after my first sad encounter with the Pacific Ocean with a very different outlook on it to be sure. And that’s what happens in the spaces in between – we find some joy and peace on the way.

This is the time of year I start to pack up my Nevada life and drive back to Texas for the winter. In truth, I started packing things up over a month ago – anticipation, you see. We all have things that we look forward to in anticipation. Vacations, grandchildren, children, promotions, holidays, weddings and for some, just the next day. We can look forward in anticipation to both big and small things.

For me it’s a road trip.  

I’m not sure anything  compares to everything that leads up to the excitement and pleasure I derive from planning a road trip. This year the trip has the added twist of a scrapbook documentation of  3 days on the road. I find pleasure in those small things as mentioned previously, like the driving snacks, packing the car just right, organizing the maps by each days progress. We all have our little road trip diversions and my husband has an abnormal fascination with mile markers. I like the roadside oddity. Other travel companions I have had love their music library. Researchers say that talking about your upcoming ‘anticipations’ , be they vacations or weddings or the like, increases your happiness level – so I blog on!

The WELCOME TO signs along the interstates and WELCOME CENTERS are another favorite of mine. You can drive across France, but you are pretty much always in France. I love the uniqueness that driving across the United States affords as you pass from one distinctively different state to another, each welcoming you with open arms and also letting you know when you are leaving. WELCOME! You can live here if you want, or just passing through is alright with us as well, so goodbye – YOU ARE NOW LEAVING…

And yes, I anticipate my time spent in Texas. It’s a time to immerse myself  completely in my art. This year I’m beginning a new body of work and I have even more anticipation regarding what that holds. Ideas and visions for the paintings live in my head for now and occupy mile after mile of the upcoming road trip. I’m never bored when I drive and think I would have made a pretty good truck driver in another life.

What else do the researchers say about ANTICIPATION? They say that anticipating the future delivers more happiness than reflecting on the past.

Given that, even if the road trip holds disasters ahead, or the body of work I envision in my head disappoints, I will have had plenty of excitement and positive expectations built up to offset things that don’t quite come to pass.

” THE COLOR OF SPRINGTIME IS IN THE FLOWERS, THE COLOR OF WINTER IS IN THE IMAGINATION.” Terri Guillemets

Enjoy your winter friends, wherever you are.

Did you know there was a time in our history when the simple act of walking was America’s favorite spectator sport? A man has written a book about this:

Matthew Algeo’s ,” Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America’s Favorite Sport.”

It all started in 1860, with a challenge between two men resting on Lincoln winning the presidential election. The bet lost, the man had to walk for 6 days  from the State House in Boston to the unfinished Capitol building. Competitive walking events ensued and continued for over two decades!

I happen to love walking. It was my favorite thing about living in New York City. I walked to work every day, from Sullivan Street, through Washington Square up to midtown. It was the best part of my day. It was contemplative, and relatively pedestrian free at that early hour – not so much coming home. But it afforded me a chance to unwind and feel my bodies’ motion in a way that both grounded and lifted me out of my ever racing head.

In his book, “A Philosophy of Walking”, author Frederic Gros, calls this contemplative walking. It’s what you do to clear your head. One can also do walking as a form of meditation. I’ve seen race walkers, and  I must say it wears me out to see that unnatural gate. On this form of walking I must agree with Mr. Gros, who declares, “Walking is not a sport.”

As an artist who loves to walk, my favorite assertion from Gros is this.

” when walking, the body stops being in the landscape: it becomes the landscape.”

What more could a painter ever ask of an activity?

” LET US TAKE OUR HEARTS FOR A WALK IN THE WOODS & LISTEN TO THE MAGIC WHISPERS OF OLD TREES.”

I read this recently and was so moved by how beautifully these words were both chosen and written. How much of our days are spent attending to the most mundane activities that eat away time. I myself, spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about health and health matters. This could be time worse spent, for sure, but then there is the question of balance in one’s life. Attending to our heart and soul. The needs of our heart and mind.

I have the luxury of being in very close proximity to the woods of northern California, where within 45 minutes I am so far removed from the mundane activity of modern life, that I have occasion to enjoy this type of walk in the woods with my heart. It’s not about the exercise, though I am grateful my legs still carry me so, it’s that effort it takes to recognize how much our heart needs to be pampered and constantly healed and nourished by things like, ‘the magic whispers of old trees’ ; trees that have been here so very long before generations of us, and will still be here growing ever bigger after we are long gone. We need their silent whispers in our lives, as well as their old wisdom to put us in our place and humble us, and remind us of  how we choose to spend our days. We can race around believing much of what we do matters, or we can respect the fact that much of what we really have to learn, we learn in silence… and the whispers of old trees.

It‘s hard to know when to stop.

There is a movement afoot to lighten our loads. I think we are beginning to be overwhelmed by the burden of our possessions. It’s natural for this to happen when you get older , as with my generation, but I think the young are seeing it too. It’s evidenced in the ‘tiny house’ movement, the move to apartment living instead of home ownership, and the ever growing recycling movement. Recycle, reuse, repurpose.

It’s hard to know when to stop.

Supersze. Big Gulps. Big Macs. Double stuff. Double toppings. Tall, Grande, Venti, Trenta!

It’s hard to know when to stop.

I make art. Lots of us do. It stacks up. Some of it sells, some of it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, it stacks up. How do you stop doing something you are compelled to do? Do you put yourself on an art diet, like you would with food. Simply stop creating certain things that add to your stockpile? Do you limit yourself , like with a tiny house, to making only small works? It’s a quandary for the creative soul.

It’s hard to know when to stop. 

If ancient sailors had not set sails, the world would still be flat.

If Van Gogh had stopped painting, there would be no Starry Night.

If the wheel had not been invented there would be no modern transportation.

If Bob Dylan had stayed acoustic there would  be no Subterranian Homesick Blues.

It’s hard to know when to stop.

There’s no easy answer for those driven to create. I don’t have one yet for myself anyway. Like a junkie, I often wish I could just stop. Lay it down and watch life go by. I even tried it once. It only lasted for a few years, and then it came back in spades, like the floodgates of creative hell. I have learned to pace myself a bit more, but that is mostly a function of  maturity and experience.

It’s hard to know when to stop.

I await a sign. If I went blind, would I sculpt from memory? If I lost my dexterity to arthritis would I fight through the pain and carry on?

If I lost my joy of life, would the creative spark die with it? I have no answers … I guess I will find out in time, because for now...it’s hard to know when to stop. 

Getting out of your own way in life is no easy task. I’ve had lists of things that I wanted to do, achieve, see, make etc. And I’ve had lists of thing I swore I would NEVER do. Never say never. Next year I am crossing some oceans to do something I swore I would NEVER do.

Take a trip on a cruise ship.

 I swore to never set foot on cruise ships, convinced I was too germaphobic to not get deathly ill. Then an intriguing invitation came for a trip entitled –  the  MUSE CRUISE. The title had me intrigued. It is being hosted by an artist and coworker from my early days. The cruise is for women creatives from all walks of life. Painters, photographers, writers, jewelers , poets, and I’ve heard rumors of ranchers and homemakers, all wanting to walk a creative path. The trip has a workshop in creative journaling and docks at some fabulous caribbean ports of call. With the exception of one country, I have never been to all the others.  It includes one very tantalizing spot that is on the list of the 7 Wonders of the World. It’s a bargain for a week filled with all the energy that being surround by interesting, creative women from all over the country might afford. The MUSE Cruise is calling, and I must go! This continues my studio without walls odyssey, and gives me yet another opportunity to ’embrace the horror’ and get out of my own way in life. What’s the worst thing that could happen? I’m choosing to think about all the great things that will happen!

” …if you lead an interesting life, you’re on track to make interesting art. Your job is to put yourself on an intercept path with interesting experiences.”  Ted Orland from The View From the Studio Door

Facebook is awash in photos of summer vacationers in a seemingly fiendish pitch to show how far flung and incredible their vacation excursions are. Take heart those of you who keep your travels close to home… for joy and adventure can be found in the most mundane of trips. That fellow down the block who has turned his yard into a folk artists dream but his neighbors nightmare. The outdoor graduation parties loud enough and close enough to be in your yard too. Street fairs in small towns across the country. Luling , Texas has a watermelon festival! You needn’t go to the far flung ends of the earth to have FUN!

SOMETIMES THE HARDEST THING TO SEE IS WHAT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES!

LIFE

if it’s not fun, then you’re doing it wrong

(photo by Catherine Massaro)