i have a lot of conversations with God. they aren’t really formal; instead we just chat. well, i chat. or implore. or express gratitude. or cry. or ask questions. sometimes my head is bowed and my hands are folded, but other times i am driving or playing the piano or walking or eyes-wide-open. for me, prayer is not just that thing i do at church or before a meal or at night before i go to sleep. it’s just an anytime, everyday way of being, with this magnificent higher power watching over the universe.
anne lamott’s book Help, Thanks, Wow is a gorgeous primer for anyone wondering how to pray, a beautiful reinforcement of the internal power of prayer, an outline of simple spiritual praying. i have read it many times, nodding my head and struggling to always remember, remember, remember the important stuff.
this painting PRAYER reminds me of the quiet, the steady rock, the essentiality of praying.
several people lately have asked us what we meant by “products”…the “products” we were designing to go along with our blog post images. many of you may have noticed these product bars on our blogs each day. we understand that not everyone has seen these or understood our intent. we have been seeking the easiest way to present these products as options and so we listen to each suggestion we get.
there is sure a lot of fodder in our studios: paintings, music, cartoons, graphic images, photographs, writings…a melange of our work. it’s fun (and necessary) for us to turn all of this into a line of things that are purchase-able: wall art, tote bags, mugs, leggings, throw pillows, home accessories. i love the design work and have learned so much in the process!
we thank each of you who have taken a look at the sites where these are available (we have five storefronts on society6.com.) we have been told and have seen firsthand that our designed products that society6.com ship are of good quality and they stand behind them if you are not pleased. if you have any questions, please let us know. we appreciate you so much.
this week’s product line links are right below. the link brings you to one of the products in that line on society6.com. if you scroll down the page a little, it will say “also available as” so you can see the image in its varying iterations.
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.
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.
david’s painting SHARED FATHERHOOD makes me weep. it is a powerful painting of two fathers tenderly and humbly holding their baby. it is love in a pure form. it makes me think of my son, The Boy. i can see him in this painting and the possibility of him choosing one day to share fatherhood.
SHARED FATHERHOOD, mixed media 39.5″ x 51″
in the very corner of this painting is the morsel i chose for today. a doorway. or is it a window? either way, it struck me as a morsel image, especially in the context of this painting.
so many figurative doorways/windows, so little time…. is it a doorway into acceptance? into inclusion? into openness? into home?
we sat this morning, over early coffee, and talked about our perception of ourselves. how we can’t see that we exhibit the very things we tout we aren’t. or, conversely, how we aren’t (in whole) the things that we tout we are. how scary is that? it’s human. we ponder and perseverate over the things we believe. and we realize in moments of self-judgement that, yet again, we have a view of ourselves that is perhaps somewhat inconsistent with who we are. that goes both ways, however. the times we believe we are not enough, we are incomplete, we don’t measure up – those times are also inconsistent with who we are.
the doorway in – to acceptance of where we are, what we have been through, where we are going – to learning more – to growing – to knowing we are held in grace – to forgiveness of others and ourselves – to trying again tomorrow – to home, a place of as much gratitude and peace we can muster and then even more – this is a doorway/window in to shared fatherhood (read: parenthood) of the world, where each of us is responsible to do our best, bring our best, try our best.
president jimmy carter was being interviewed by stephen colbert on the late show. stephen asked him (words to the effect) how he could love all people. president carter, absolutely sweet at “almost-94”, responded he “let go of the animosities he had cherished.” wow. although there were many moments in the interview that reinforced the respect i have for this man as a positive force in the world, this one really struck me. -let go of the animosities you cherish-
for who among us can not relate to that? how tightly do we hold to those things? and how do they prevent us from living right now? life is layered and our history and everything, from small slights to life-changing wrongs that others have done to us or our loved ones to -worse yet- all of our own wrongdoing, piles up like dark layers of sedimentary rock. weathering, weathering, weathering. how can we possibly be zen in all that?
president carter also said that he “forgets about them”…the people who have caused him undue pain or stress, who have been perhaps, i think, a dark layer of sedimentation in his life. now, at almost-94, my own sweet momma would have agreed with him. he reminded me of her. two peas in a pod. leading with kindness and generosity. forgetting about the rest in all the ways that forgetting is a good thing. who really has room in their life to hang onto all that and still make headway toward goodness?
from david’s painting MEDITATION, this morsel of painting – called LAYERED MEDITATION – makes me think of these layers of sediment, layers of life. the darkness on the bottom -not necessarily because it is buried but because it is overruled by other layers- the fire of passion and earth-life in the middle and the effervescence of light on the top. sedimentary layers of life. a picture of letting go, of transforming dark into light. a layered meditation.
my husband is a painter. of course, you know that. his studio is steps away from mine, steps away from our office, steps away from the coffee pot. what that means is that i can just pop in at any time to see what he’s painting, to chat, to have a cuppa or bring down a couple glasses of wine, to throw myself in front of paintings he is about to cover over with a swath of new paint.
what’s really fascinating is the process of his painting. i will walk down and find pieces on the wall or the easel that speak to me and he will tell me that he is “no where neeeeear done.” he takes pictures along the way and i scam them onto my camera roll for future use, not willing to let go of the resonance of one of the along-the-way iterations of a painting.
this week is a perfect example of that. he was in the middle of a painting – a follow-up to earth interrupted I – when i went downstairs to chat (read: procrastinate doing whatever it was i was supposed to be doing at the time.) the image and color screamed out at me. i couldn’t beLIEVE he was going to cover it all up with more paint. the process was so striking. take a moment to just really look at these process shots and the morsel i chose and breathe them in:
process morsel
process morsel
morsel of a process morsel – held in process
and yet, the finished painting earth interrupted II is a stunning, stunning, stunning canvas. it belongs somewhere to get its due. it makes me feel like the universe is weeping for the earth. it makes you pay attention to it. i am humbled by how truly magnificent this painting is.
earth interrupted II, mixed media 48″ x 34.5″
each week i design products from each of the days in our melange. some of these are cartoons, some just words, some lyrics or song titles and some are david’s paintings. i have the creative latitude to choose morsels of his paintings and design from there…a enviable starting point for someone who loves flexibility. this week is a sort of brain stretch. with the exception of designing leggings, where i used both of the morsels on this page, the morsel i have used in design is a morsel of a morsel process shot of earth interrupted II (i said it was a brain stretch.) it is called held in process and is a beautiful (and absolutely timely) image on its own. how odd that it is not actually the painting, but is underneath the painting, a layer of earth interrupted II.
it makes me wonder if we ever think about how layered everything is, everyone is. what is beneath the surface…a richness we may never know, a history we can’t necessarily comprehend. where we have all come from is woven color and texture and light and darkness, swaths of paint and attempted erasures that would cause other people to stand in front and call out to us, “no! don’t erase that! it’s beautiful! it’s important! it speaks to me.” we are all held in process.
reverse threading 