Emily Carr, Thinking, Dandelions

I finally got my hands on a book by Emily Carr called Klee Wyck. It isn't that it's that hard to find, but funds, a trip to Powell's and Powell's having it finally all coincided at the same time for me. Ah, the patience was worth it! What a little gem. It makes me ache. It gives a glimmer to me of the Pacific Northwest before it was all "civilized". I wish I could have seen it, with the deep dark forests and the mammoth trees. I wish I could have known Emily Carr. She is by far the female artist I relate to the most. She was just loving the good, strong place God put her and that love is there in her trees and her totems. 

The weather has been so warm this week. I don't like it being this warm so early in spring. I like winter in Oregon, misty and cool and fresh. I go for a walk most every day and I like it when the air is clean and cool and crisp. I like to walk in the quiet and think and pray. There is a road I always walk down, but lately every time I walk down it it smells like some sort of lawn treatment chemical. Ugh, really people? Have we not gotten past needing to through poison all over the place? Dandelions are not so bad.  I rather like them.

I really wish they'd quit doing that.

Bernice Abbott

Kids are a Good Thing

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?

One of my older kids snapped this picture of the "babies" (Though they aren't babies anymore.) It cracked me up because Juh-juh (as he is jokingly called) looks so much like a nice little young man, and then there is.... Well, she's kind of a madcap that girl. 

They are so fun, those little people. They grow up so fast. I'm so thankful for our little kids. They keep us young. I was walking around the neighborhood and I glimpsed in a window what looked like a dinner party with a bunch of adults. But the light was only on in the kitchen/dining room. The rest of the house was dark. It seemed so... odd! To have a bunch of adults sitting and talking and no children anywhere! No thumping upstairs? No loud music wafting up from the basement? 

I hope my life is never empty of children. They give us fresh eyes, keep us mentally flexible I think as we get older we want to settle down to our own comfortable answers and stop thinking quite so much. But the kids keep us on our toes. They don't accept those pat answers! We think we know, they aren't so sure. We have to prove it to them. It's hard, but good for us. 

Kids are a rather good thing. 

Art Spirit

I Dearly Love the Mountains

Wind, Land and Sky

Well, rather than posting more often, I posted none. Sigh, no I won't make excuses. But I won't give up either! 

Actually, this has been a very productive time. I have been painting intensely and I feel like I have come to know myself as a painter, finally, this month. I painted about 15 of those little floral in vases paintings all at once and I feel like I can't do them anymore. I guess there is a time when you just have to commit to one sort of art or another and I decided I am an abstract painter. I love the landscape. I love the trees, the wind, the smell of rain in the air. But when I paint, it isn't the trees and the lay of the earth I want to glorify. It's the spirit  behind these things, the thought that they ever came to be at all. Some call this the "art spirit" because so often artists do feel like they are helped along by a spirit as they paint, or write music or whatever. I know what they mean. But I just think of it as God Himself, as Himself. Showing His own beauty and heart in creation. 

September is here! Hooray!

My yearly celebration of having made it through another summer-or maybe more specifically, August. I'm a little late this year, posting it on my blog that is. But I love this song. I love fall. I come alive again in the fall!

It isn't that I don't enjoy any aspect of summer. But I guess I enjoy it like a tourist. It may be pleasant at times, but I'm not really at home and I don't get quite comfortable. Then fall comes and there's rain and cool evenings and awww. So cozy. So happy. So alive again. :) 

Abstract Painting "Pondering the Path"

Pondering the Path

Almost all my paintings have something to do with whatever I'm going through at the moment, or have gone through. This painting was a completely different one when I started out. I was playing with some landscape techniques. But I wasn't happy with it and when I had played out what I was doing to the end I just started painting over it. A path and a figure emerged and it seemed like there was a light at the end of the path. But the figure seems reluctant to go down it. Or maybe she's procrastinating. Or as I like to think of it, building up strength. 

I know a lot of times I know a path, but it seems like so much work, or there is going to be resistance, or obstacles  and I tend to sit and look at it for a while. Or I push it to the back of my mind and deal with the urgent rather than being proactive with what I ought to be doing.

Etsy is my urgent. I'm glad that I started out on Etsy. I have learned so much there. But I have spent so much time on it. I do spend so. much.time. there. I start to feel a little stuck. And I feel like God is gently prodding me about it. What I spent all this time on my own website? My blog? Would I be freer with my art if my primary focus wasn't trying to fit in and sell on Etsy? 

So, I'm going to challenge myself to post every day, read up on blogging SEO and seek out some new blogging friends to talk to. I think it will be good to find some fellow Christian artists and be able to chat a little more deeply about art and God and life. 

I think it will be a good thing. 

Abstract Floral Paintings

I've been doing some of these little guys lately, trying to get ready for Christmas this year!

sold

"Red and White Roses at Night"

"Summer Evening in the Garden"

"Orange Flowers in a Blue Room"

"Yellow and Orange Flowers in a Blue Room" 

"Bouquet of Roses in a Yellow Room" 

These little guys are fun to do, like old friends when I'm feeling blocked. I like to think maybe some of them will go to little office spaces or something like that where there is a need for a little human touch. 

In other news, what is that blaring yellow ball in the sky? It's supposed to be 98 today. I'm not used to this! It makes me want to find a cool mossy rock to hide under.