mama dear (my grandmother) used to sew with her lips pursed, straight pins held between them for quick access. as a little kid, i thought that you had to spit on pins in order to sew; as i grew up i realized that this was a falsehood (i’m sure you are thinking, “wow. what an enlightenment!”)
mama dear was the person who taught me how to sew. with an old-fashioned singer, a red pincushion, a blue sewing box and good sewing scissors, she set me on a course of many projects through my life…outfits in the 70s, curtains and shutter screens for the nursery, jumpers that matched The Girl’s when she was little in the 90s, pillows and stuffed animals, mending jobs, craft projects. my sewing machine is set up again, adjacent to d’s studio where he says he likes to hear me talk to myself or hum as i sew, and i love spending time at my machine, dreaming up things to make.
one thing i am proud of these days – that hanging around me (sewing or doing whatever i am doing) david has picked up some of the vernacular that comes out of my mouth….like “oopsies!!!”
the quiet and not-so-quiet moments of comforting. your child. your friend. your partner. when they see the storm coming and you are there. when the storm is raging around them and you are there. when the eye of the storm gives false pause and you are there. when the tides pull back and regain momentum and you are there. when the storm has finally passed, the debris is fierce and you are there. when the rebuilding starts and you are there. the storm – physical or emotional – does not have to be endured alone.
my sweet momma used to love to walk in the rain. matter of fact, she adored it. my poppo? not so much. but my momma would revel in it; she said it made her hair curly, which, for her, was a good thing.
we have gotten caught in the rain numerous times while out hiking. soft, gentle rain or even downpours. on the trail it just adds to the fun. the rain also makes MY hair curly, much to my chagrin. but d loves it that way….he must also love rag mops. (now, as an aside, i googled “rag mop” to make sure you would understand which kind of mop i was talking about and found this great old song. listen if you have time.)
there must be a time you were standing in the rain and everything slowed down, even the raindrops. it all became slow motion and life was about that very second, breathing in sweet-rain-dewy-air.
this morsel of a painting SLOW MOTION RAIN, soft and somewhat abstract, reminds me of those moments. slow motion rain is a little piece of EARTH INTERRUPTED IV.
when i see images of mountains these days, i naturally think about kirsten and becky. The Girl is living the out-in-the-high-mountains life and the photographs she sends me are nothing short of stunning. i love every moment i spend out there, so i can appreciate wholeheartedly her finding her “place”.
when i was little, we used to go to the mountains in upstate new york. my sweet momma and poppo would rent a cabin in a state park and we would travel up there; they would always allow me to take a friend – most of the years this was susan. i was the youngest by FAR (haha! are you reading this, seester?) so i was the only one left in the house. i was always thrilled to have my siblings’ families with us as well. my nieces and nephew were adorable. plus heather was the perfect foil on the mountainside beaches (and long island beaches as well); as a toddler she flirted with every cute boy around every time i took her there. she was with me a lot as a little girl; i took her everywhere in my little vw bug, especially in the summer. nothing like a little girl who would seemingly deliberately throw the frisbee onto the next blanket where a cute boy was sitting and listening to his transistor radio. what a fun way to meet ‘people’. wink!
later in life, my parents rented condos in the mountains of tennessee and the whole family joined them there. sunsets behind the big deck of the clubhouse, shrimp boils in the field, frisbee and hiking. those are treasured memories.
this image MOUNTAIN IN YELLOW SKY reminds me of every good mountain memory. its warmth, its simplicity. both appeal to me. the really funny thing is that this is just a mere morsel of one of david’s paintings. the painting TOGETHER ON THE BEACH is where i found this and extracted it to create a whole new image. when i asked david where i could find this canvas in the studio the other day, he told me he had painted over it. what?! what was he thinking?! fortunately, i still have the image i took of it and have created a canvas art print of that painting and a close-up of it as well.
MOUNTAIN IN YELLOW SKY…just a little piece of TOGETHER ON THE BEACH. both simple. both dreamy. both beautiful.
our dog has separation anxiety. he doesn’t cry and whine while we are gone (that we know of) but he gets this incredibly sad why-do-you-want-to-leave-me?? look on his face (see: the dad on my big fat greek wedding) when we get ready to leave to go. anywhere. we feel compelled to tell him, “church. we are going to church.” or “errands. we are going on errands.” (and then we feel we have to explain to our dog-who-loves-to-go-on-errands that it’s too cold in the car for him to wait during this particular set of errands.) we have this running dialogue while we are out, joking about how he is asking babycat if we are “everrrrr coming back” to which babycat sneers at him and calls him names, reminding him that we come back every single time. well, at least we are amusing ourselves.
i have separation anxiety. (ask my children.) but i’m not writing about that kind of separation anxiety. it is about the paintings i have fallen in love with leaving our studio. it’s crazy. that’s the whole point of paintings – to be placed where someone will commune with it and draw from it and love it (like me.) as we continue our virtual gallery sale, i find myself thinking about each of these paintings to which i feel so attached.
and i know that i have to let go. and hope for as many paintings to have-to-leave-us as possible for, as artists, this is how we make a living, this is how we pay our bills, this is how we make a tiny impact in our little corner of the world.
i truly wish for each of you who have pondered an original painting or have purchased one – no matter where you have done so – to be just as in love with it as i feel about david’s.
i have stood many a time in pier one or target, or many other retail stores, staring at a canvas print or glass-framed picture wondering if i should purchase it. the prices at pier one and target are pretty good, not to mention any additional sales and coupons. they have great buyers and often the words-only pieces or artwork speak to me. and so i vacillate (cause that’s what i do about buying stuff…ask especially linda or carol about my buying history or, of course, david.) the thing i know is – i can always return it. pier one or target won’t take it personally, and then they can put it back into the mass-produced inventory knowing someone else will buy it.
many many years ago i stood in a gallery staring at a piece of sculpture. it completely spoke to me. it is a figure bowing and was sculpted by duke kruse, the father of 20, our dear friend. i did not have any extra money at the time but this piece was wrapping itself around my heart. i wasn’t sure what to do. i ended up splurging and purchasing it. i have never looked back. this figure graces my studio and i see it every day. every day i know that duke’s hands shaped this clay, duke’s heart designed this, duke’s artistry lives on in my studio. i always always feel good looking at this, touching it, watching it grow as i grow.
although i own some mass-produced pieces and love them, with exception (like the mass-produced beautiful print i own that an artist friend of mine drew and lettered) i don’t think that physically touching a mass-produced piece connect me to a real person like The Bow does. or like the paintings in our home that david painted. or the little clay house or the beautiful vase that jay made me a few years ago. or all the pieces of The Girl and The Boy childhood art still out. not that it’s always necessary, but there’s something about real.
david’s paintings are on a big sale right now. 50% off. we want them to be in homes where they resonate with the people living there, where they will grow with the family and where they will be touched. sometimes that’s not an easy decision to make – to purchase a painting; there are always other bills or things to spend money on.
it is for this reason -even-more-budget-friendly- we are also creating products, although not mass-produced, that represent each of the days of our studio melange, our weekly assortment of cartoons, designs, photographs, paintings, words, songs….products that have secondary practical uses like mugs, cards, tote bags, throw pillows, and yes, the leggings facebook seems to want to feature with my blog posts, overriding the actual primary purpose of these posts and products- a little teeny message in your day in this chaotic world. we offer these with as much sincerity as our original pieces; we hope those of you who have ordered products can feel our good wishes.
the thing i can tell you about these real paintings, though, is how they make me feel. the brushstrokes are tactile, the color right under your fingertips, the heart obvious.
i was distracted when d brought the camera back to me. working on something, i glanced up and thanked him. a few moments later, i asked him how the painting he was working on was going. “i scrubbed it,” he said. “what?!” i replied. “i started something else,” he said. when he left the room, i looked at the camera. this is what i found. an extraordinary look at earth, removed from earth, from a distance away. fragmented mother planet through the haze, i found it to be a striking – and yet abstract – image, with rich, almost-metallic hues. how does he do that?
this is EARTH INTERRUPTED V: FROM A DISTANCE. we need this perspective every now and then. we lose sight. we fall prey to overwhelm in our own stuff. we are but a speck of a fragment on this earth. we are both tiny and vast. and we are capable of doing both tiny and vast things to help our earth and each other.
it’s a great space – d’s studio. i’ve talked about how i spend time down there…in a rocking chair, drinking coffee or wine, watching or talking or gazing at paintings: canvas he painted long before i knew him, finished canvas that have images i watched evolve, gesso-ed canvas on an easel, canvas pinned to the wall in-the-middle-of-its-story. i love these paintings and feel fortunate to love the work of the man i love.
we both have chosen an independent route in our respective artistry. that’s not the easy choice. (think: how many people try out for american idol across this country, how many people choose to do their painting ‘on the side’ as they also day-job.) our “galleries” of work are not mediated or machinated or led or thrust forward by the work of anyone but ourselves and our generous friends, family and people who believe in us.
as i mentioned in a post yesterday, we are coming up on five years together and are offering heart opportunities. this one is to help match paintings with people who hold them in their heart, who wish to have them. sometimes, as we all know, it is hard to justify what we wish for. with this 50% sale on all of david’s gallery of paintings, we hope to make these more accessible to the people who want them. that way, you, too, can sit in a rocking chair, drink coffee or wine (or cocoa or tea) and gaze at one of these beautiful paintings.
reverse threading 