Leonore Carrington is dead

She was just 20 years old when she eloped to Paris with Max Ernst, who left a wife for her. The following year, 1937, the Nazi's arrested Max. Fearing for her life, Leonora escaped France to Spain, but then she suffered several mental breakdowns and medically administered experimental drug horrors. Max eventually escaped the Nazi's with the help of Peggy Guggenheim (whom he then married).
Leonora was an accomplished surrealist painter. This painting is a parody of a portrait by Leonora of her Max. I like it for many reasons. When I painted it, I had no idea Leonora was dead.

Hi

Just writing to let you know that I am adjusting to my new surroundings, which include the dawn of new beginnings and the mourning of old endings. I have physically moved away from family, friends, support systems, and home, and found myself with out internet or phone for the last month. There has been plenty to do with a good job, wonderful students and stacks of syllabi. But above all I try to digest a new found and mostly awkward silence and, when I start to panic, I make room for stillness.
I bought canvases last week!

I have to, I have to, I have to...

I have to go down to Florida and attend a trust meeting where we vote on suspending the gift giving for at least a year. So sad, but we are out of money. And where I will run into my ex-husband and that always seems to make me sick. In fact, I feel quiet nauseous today. And I will see my mother and that carries some baggage too. I feel like Persephone traveling between worlds. Which is hell and which is heaven? It's not so easily labeled. I will also get a chance to catch up with my 15 year old son, and meet his school advisor. It could be heavy. I also have to attend an art opening that my Bed Song painting is in! Isn't it crazy how the timing worked out? I am in a juried group show in my mom's hometown that opens while I am visiting! So... its all about riches. But even riches are part of our luggage.
This collage painting is called- like the text in it says- A Cry For Help. When I made it it really helped me get through what I was in the midst of... (which ironically, to put it simply, was too much family). It's just under 6 x 9 inches and I've priced it at $75.
Though instead of buying it, if you should find yourself of similar mind, you should make your own and see what happens.
I have to go paint now!

Isn't this the time of year we do impulsive things?

I remember seeing the back of Malcom McMullen scooting off on his bicycle after I heard the door bell ring when I was in about 6th grade. At the door my nanny found a giant heart-shaped box of chocolates with a little silver bracelet taped on top. I still have the bracelet with Malcom's name etched onto it. How brave he was!
And dozens (30?) years later I drove my 11 year old son on an icy February morning to deliver roses to an unsuspecting girl. Just outside the door he had cold feet and we both realized the flowers were in danger of freezing before their prime effect was to be had. He flung them at the door- rang the bell- ran to the car- and as his chauffeur, I dutifully sped us away...
Ah! What speeds us on at these moments? Is it love?
Small collage with paint on wood. 3.25 x 6 inches, I call it "...loosing my mind".

Bad TV

Been married now 24 years! My husband moved out 11 months ago but is not agreeing to the separation. It's what my friend calls, "bad tv". Script goes something like this:
A:How much will you pay me to never see me again?
B:(Sigh)How much do you need?
A:What?
B:What is it you truly want?
A:How about everything you've got?

Flowers in memory

After making it through the winter I was surprised by the sadness that spring brought when I smelled the flowers I had planted for my husband. This is a large painting with maps and layers... acrylic on wood, 24 x 32 inches

a tangle of lines to leap off of

Paint is such a magnificent tool for discovering messages inside and outside ourselves...
Here is a series of paintings... really just ONE painting that kept changing and transforming, a record of a journey this time last spring... I feel like the signs my marriage was ending were all there... and as I hung it out to dry, so to speak. It became so complicated, and then the two birds appeared- they were made from maps. I tried to let a dialogue happen and be positive and willing... suddenly a sharp division and wild place became evident. I actually became so frightened of this work that I cut it into tiny tiny pieces...

Steps to forgive

I think I've stopped dissolving. My painting has gone through as many transformations as my flighty horoscope-gemini-mood-moon-calendar! First I was too illustrative, then unbearably dark and shadowy. A frustrated brainless attack left the paintings a surface victim. Now, after today, I find the line and color are resolving themselves. In my own life I am starting to feel less the protagonist in a dramatic short story, not as much in the guilt ridden shadows, and actually, eventually, more substantial and brilliant. It took measures such as confessional tea dates with very patient girlfriends, driving across states to help a bigger cause, spending time rooted with siblings, working the gratitude list, crying salty oceans, and telling myself over and over that I forgive me. I forgive me. I didn't do it perfectly, but I can believe in more joy.

scattered

I am surprised I have a shadow for to do so, I must have substance. I feel vaporous.
So depressed about my children and their choices. I am powerless.
Who am I if I am not their mother anymore?
I threw down maps....
I am nothing but tracks between places I have been...

Nest with chair, nest with suitcase

The nest painting is just painted over an older image done last fall of shoes, maps and suitcase.

The earlier one was about movement- I was actually trying to pack for a trip to Miami Basel.
This new painting more about being still- though there is the hint, with the vehicle in background, of movement. (I think that is my family exiting)

THE EARLY YEARS

In one we had the whole world in front of us... and 5 years later we had our homestead.

Smell the Roses

I made this wood and paint construction while the babysitter held my son. I was desparate to understand what I was going through and needed to make art to get there. This forest features a giant rose and an exhausted mother in her house shaped space. She needs to turn towards the flower and breath deeply. 

Though I loved being a mother it really stripped me down to my skeletal soul. Does falling in love make your vision narrow and yet open your body?

Nests in the past

I love these two paintings... even though they were painted in times of struggle. I felt very alone building the nest... even though my husband worked the farm and was managing the addition onto the house, I was often alone. It felt as though I had really gone out on a limb being a wife and mother.  The long narrow painting was about Time and the midnight care of my son that probably connected me to other mothers across the globe. I consoled myself with the thought that while I was up nursing, rocking, and living without sleep, other women were in their own houses doing it too. I collaged individual panels of house shaped wood panels so that we would really be connected.

nest within barbed wire

I did this in the late 1980's. It is three panels hinged together in the back with copper tabs. I was trying to convince my husband that having a child would be good for us. i remember wandering across the farm past the edges of the fields and finding nests in the crooks of old tires, in barbed wire, thorned hedges and junk piles. I knew you could build a thing out of beauty even if it were a trash site. I think that is what I am best at- Making something beautiful out of something ugly. In fact, I have rarely seen anything ugly...
Angry is ugly. It is hard to look anger in the face and keep my strength.

Stormy weather

6 x 6 inches

There has been a bit of a storm going on as I figure out the relationship I now have with the man I married 22 years ago. He has moved away and yet wants me to be his wife. I am exhausted and my heart and head conflict. I can't place any text in this one. It's stormy, to say the least.

EMPTY Nest

Time pours on out

My son the afternoon he left for Military school. He is holding his grandma's hourglass. I love being his mother. I cannot believe how my baby can be so grown. His big toe is the size of his whole foot when he was born.
6 x 6 inches

Rest stop

So I haven't been able to paint. Too many family crisis to deal with... They just keep coming and coming. I know I can handle them all but I have to work hard not to freak out.
My son took this picture and I really love it.

Home with baby

9 x 9 inches, paint and headline text collage. If the homecoming was not the way she imagined... can you imagine what she was thinking?

This was done for 1991, the fall I took my son to France to meet my grandmother, aunts and uncles, and stay at a castle with my sister. On the trip my son rolled over for the first time and I learned how to manuever his additional luggage along with mine. It was... idealistic to return home.

Sisters in field

6 x 6 inches
My baby sister has always inspired me to be a better person...
Everyone should have a person who believes in them- Believes they are even better than they really are. It makes you strive for excellence. It gives the world hope.