painting studio | reverse threading

September 17, 2021
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

and the universe says, “shh”. [k.s. friday]

the old radiator in my studio was its home for years. i picked it up at a wholesale show…an old fencepost with equestrian leather…i couldn’t resist. it was perfect next to my piano. shh. quiet. ponder. dream.

it’s outside on the back deck now, really for the same reasons. shh. quiet. ponder. dream. it reminds us to take those moments and just be.

in the middle of the night last night we talked for a few hours. it was a big discussion…about life, about existence. we agreed that life is merely about those rare and outstandingly idyllic moments – a collection you might store in a little special box or place in photographs-in-the-round for a viewmaster – ready, at any time, for you to look at, review, be reminded of, hold close. not usually the gigantic stuff, but the slides of tiny, even silent, markers, instants you recognize as mica.

we had another water episode a few days ago. it seems the theme this summer. once again, drains in the basement yielded water instead of no water. a really lovely young man from the sewer-drain company came; it was their second time in just over a month. the tree roots they had cleared likely had left behind another piece. it doesn’t matter. he cleared it out and we moved on. it wasn’t without a ton of unexpected work…clearing all of david’s paintings out of the space to protect them, moving any and every thing out of the way of the water and allowing room for the technician to work without feeling nervous about anything around him. after he left and we cleaned everything up it was back to quiet.

we exercised down there again yesterday. it’s a peaceful place, even though it is a basement. being surrounded by the muse of david’s time at his easel brings a certain life to it. i imagine he wishes this little sign was in his studio, but there is a hush nonetheless, even without the sign.

our studios – places where time fills in the gaps between noise.

in the middle of existential questions about my wrist and hand, a screeching halt to occupational therapy imposed by the insurance company (don’t get me started), questions and the after-effects of betrayal, a silencing of my professional work, i have not sat there much. i enter to allow in light and fresh air, gaze at my piano and walk out. another silent day.

each morning, for at least a week, as i have sat with pillows propped sipping coffee, the window beside me wide open, i have been visited by a chipmunk. it sits atop the fence post across the driveway right opposite the window and looks in, chirping. i named him ‘sunny’ as it is often that the sun is just reaching that fencepost as he sits and the first time he was bathed in rays of light as he held his spot and said whatever he was saying to me in chipmunk i could not understand.

today, in the quiet of the morning, sun not even yet beginning to stream in the window, sunny was out there, chirping to wake us. i called out the window to him a good morning greeting. we chirped back and forth a bit before he left, satisfied he had awakened me. i watch for him now each day as the sun starts to rise.

three times in a twenty-four hour period over the last weekend i heard or saw the words “everything will be ok”: once written, once spoken and the third time bob marley sang it in the woods as we hiked the river trail.

sunday as we sat at the table on the deck in waning light a not-oft-seen hummingbird came directly over and hovered right in front of me. a couple days later as i stood on the deck, david watching, a monarch butterfly flew over to me and circled less than a foot above my head. and sunny, a chipmunk on a fence post, greeting me each day.

i guess that sometimes the universe is quietly whispering, “it’ll be ok. everything will be ok. shh.”

*****

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

SILENT DAYS from BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

April 15, 2021
by kerrisherwood11 Leave a comment

and the gasket smiles. [d.r. thursday]

every day i hold my breath and touch it. i slowly open the closet, bend down and approach it. i nudge the tiny trap door over to allow space for my hand. the coupling has no idea it wields such power, such angst. but it does. it is disconcerting what 1/2″ pvc pipe can do to your psyche. and so… i reach out and grasp the connection. i daresay i even close my eyes. and every time it is dry i thank our lucky stars. a search of great proportion, text messages and voicemails from our “village” and treks to every plumbing supply house in the area later, we seem to (knock wood!) have solved the problem with a 99¢ rubber gasket and a little repositioning of the pipe. and so we attempt to move on. the ptsd of waterinthebasement demands i test it often; i am trying to release some of this and move from every day to maybe every other day. suffice it to say, the big black plastic bin remains – and will remain – in its spot directly below the offending coupling for some time to come.

this little adventure has set us on a course in the basement. the havoc created a ripe invitation to sort, to clean, to reminisce, to give away. a task undeniably time-consuming and cumbersome, but gratifying nonetheless. the leak itself was smack in the middle of david’s studio, but fortunately had not affected any canvasses. now, at last, as he puts his studio back into place, he will dance with the black bin and his patina-rich easel.

we love patina. perhaps it is because we have patina ourselves. at 60 (whatever) you have no choice but to own it, this “gloss or sheen on a surface resulting from age or polishing”. i never thought of it as “polishing” before. age, yes. polish, no. it seems the opposite. it seems that one removes patina with the act of polishing, an action misguided and not recommended by antique collectors everywhere. which does make me think about all the work we do in this country, in particular, to avoid ‘looking our age’, to eliminate wrinkles and age spots and the bumps and lumps of time-spent-on-earth. seems contrary to the upholding of patina, the celebration of the worn, the shabby-chic, the tattered, the threadbare, the velveteen-rabbit-ness. let’s just call it all wizened-beauty.

much of the basement is dedicated to glorifying wizened-beauty as this is an old house, 93 years worth. in the section of the basement where it is studio, all the pipes and walls are painted bright white. there are spotlight tracks in each area. it does not feel old-basement-ish. instead, it feels to us simply a cozy space, inviting our presence. the studio that holds david’s standing easel, the space that holds paintings-waiting-for-homes, the storage that holds boxes of my cds, all analog in a digital world. that studio also holds two rocking chairs, both with treasured history. one from spaces-of-painting past and one from the nursery upstairs that only exists in memory now. how often we have each rocked in those respective chairs. how much time has gone by. not fancy and definitely sans polish, they hold steadfast. they are there for the times of muse and the times-in-between the muse. and times like now.

the studio in the basement waits, just as my studio where my piano waits. raw opportunity, beckoning each of us as we rearrange, store away, go through, readjust and re-enter.

the gasket, up above and comfy in the coupling, looks down and smiles at what it started.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

visit DAVID’S gallery of paintings

March 29, 2018
by kerrisherwood11 1 Comment

dr thursday

cropped II earth interrupted with frame metal square WALL ART jpeg copy 3

“held in process”

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.

HELD IN PROCESS – PRODUCTS like wall art, cards, throw pillows, mugs, phone cases, laptop sleeves, tote bags beach towels and leggings