Resolution Update

The end of February. Already.

Yeesh, me and time are just not getting on lately! It is flying by too quickly and none of my threats or entreaties have gotten it to slow down.

(art journal page done with watercolour crayons, pen, graphite)

So how 'bout those New Years resolutions now that we're a couple of months into it? I had 7 "wants" for this year. Some are coming easy, and some are going to take a lot of work.

Creating...easy, peasy. This is where I am most driven and inspired right now. It would be painful to stop creating.

Spending more time engaged with my sons...also not so hard. Planning and throwing their 9th b-day party, spending more time just talking, working on communicating better as a family and choosing some special activities to do one on one with each of them has been fun (well, except for the communicating better one, that's more like work...but good work).

Remembering my inner Varga girl...it's a wonder what some new makeup and just putting on a pair of earrings can do for a girl's attitude about herself. Also, apparently Varga girls get more sex...so that's a nice fringe benefit as well. ;)

Cultivating good health...hmmm, this is where I start to get wobbly, and also please pass the cake. I've been in some bad habits for a long time now, this one is going to take some time and more effort.

Waking up spiritually...now this one could have some pretty broad definitions, purposefully so. I need to be more in the now, more connected and more open. Challenging at times for someone who fights with time and myself as much as I do, but I am working on it.

Spending more time outside...um, it's cold. -30C today. I give myself a get out of jail free card for this one until Spring...which around here, should be sometime in June. *sigh*

And my Waterloo...my big giant pile of fail..."I want to be more organized." Groan. I am one late deadline/missed appointment away from asking my doc for Ritalin. Can't concentrate, can't stay focused, can't remember anything. Make a to do list, and then lose the to do list...this is where I am at. Oh well, I have armed myself with Sharpies and post it notes, and I will do better. I used to be very organized when the boys were little. I had to be really on top of things, or everything just unraveled. It was a relief to not have to be so tightly wound about every little thing as the boys got older, but somewhere along the way things have gotten too sloppy, and all of the undone things nag at me, late at night, when I have insomnia, and PMS...

But all in all, not such a bad start.

Swimming in the Same Direction

(mixed media art journal page 16" x 12")

Got inspired by Gary Reef's "loosen me up" challenge, and missed half the Oscars painting turtles last night. (sorry Mr. H, but I am going to be useless when it comes time to dish gowns!) But yay Slumdog Millionaire! Yay fast, loose, happy creating! And yay for friends who swim with you through life in the same direction.

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Edited to add another "yay": Yay for Sean Penn's Oscar acceptance speech!



Commie, homo-loving son of a gun, yup that's me! :)

"I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the bans on same sex marriage to sit and reflect, and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes, if they continue that way of support. We have got to have equal rights for everyone."

Fear

Fear. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of looking like an idiot. Fear of looking like an asshole. Fear of screwing everything up. Fear of tragedies and calamities unknown. Fear of loss. Fear of pain. Fear.

The women in my family all run to anxious. It is genetic. Anxiety coursing through our veins right along with the red corpuscles. Hair trigger fight or flight responses, flooding our bodies with adrenaline at the most inopportune moments. Worry woven into the very fabric of our beings.

The women in my family also run to courageous. We don't give up. We stand, undaunted by the cloud of anxiety ready to roll in and smother us, at the first sign of trouble. We carry on every day building lives and families and ourselves, even when every step is haunted and hunted by fear.

I've been thinking and talking a lot about fear, as I venture on this journey of making art. Facing my fears of inadequacy and failure every time I sit down at a blank page or canvas. There is nothing there... no props or subterfuge to hide behind, just you and your own creativity. It is hard. It is humbling. It is exhilarating.

Everyone has fears, even those without the genetic predisposition to anxiety. And I think the trick may be really coming to understand the nature of the beast. The duality of the monster that both protects and traps you. That fear itself is not indicative of lack of character or resolve, but a primal force...important and inescapable. Sometimes to be mastered, sometimes to be accepted and sometimes even thanked.

So I embrace this idea of acknowledging the monster, looking it squarely in the face, and then carrying on. Fear, anxiety and worry will always be a part of me to some degree or other, because I am human, and because I am a human who is wired in a certain way, for better or for worse. But I will not let fear trap me. It can't be my motive, to act or not to act, or my excuse. Anxiety is my uncomfortable companion as I walk my path, but it will not determine my course. I have better companions by my side to help me with the navigation.

(the work above is mixed media acrylic on canvas, 9"x12")

Influences and Inspiration

Art on the brain this week. I feel a little like a giant sponge, getting heavy and over saturated with all the exciting stuff I've been encountering lately! I can't seem to find quite enough time to paint or art journal it all out, even though I've been taking more time than I oughtta, and am scandalously behind on everything I have to do right now (planning the boys 9th b-day party, yikes!)

So here's a bit of an attempt to gather some of these influences and inspirations into one tidy place, and to share the joy!

What I am loving right now:

Gary Reef! I have been admiring Gary's work and enjoying his youtube vids for awhile. He recently started a ning site, and will be offering all sorts of cool workshops there. Gary makes me want to paint...really, really paint with boldness and panache, and to try new things...





Willowing (Tam), another youtube artist, with a fun and whimsical ning site. She is warm and engaging, and her art journal work is absolutely gorgeous. It's a bit of a departure for me, having a general horror of anything too "girly", but Tam is such a beautiful person, she inspires me to want to embrace the frilly, pink bits of my personality too. ;)



A happy discovery that I stumbled on from a link to a link to a link, Seth Apter's work on his blog The Altered Page. So rugged and tactile, I absolutely love it!



And last...for now (Time, curse you, you cruel mistress! *shakes tiny fist at clock*), Egon Schiele. An old interest rediscovered with fervour.

Hangin' With Ignatius

I don't tend to just read a book. I devour it. I luxuriate in it. I get deeply engrossed. I find myself pondering the characters as I go about my day, their cadence and vocabulary slipping into my own thoughts and speech, and even invading my dreams. I think that my manner of reading contributes to this total immersion...I tote my book around with me wherever I go, greedily snatching a few minutes of the story whenever I can, like as I wait for my children outside of their school, or fall asleep every night in the middle of the very last sentence that my tired eyes can possibly be made to comprehend. So I read my one book at a time (I'm definitely a monogamous reader!), a paragraph here and a chapter there, and in between times the characters are present with me as I go about my day...and lately I've been hangin' with Ignatius.

Ignatius J. Reilly that is. Yes, I've been reading A Confederacy of Dunces.
A synopsis:
A monument of sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern - this is Ignatius J Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. In magnificent revolt against the twentieth century, Ignatius propels his monstrous bulk among the flesh posts of the fallen city, documenting life on his Big Chief tablets as he goes, until his maroon-haired mother decrees that Ignatius must work.

What a character! Colourful? Chit. Colourful doesn't even begin to cover Ignatius. He has made for a strange bedfellow these past couple of weeks. He smells funny. He takes up a lot of room. He fills me with perverse desires to complain about my valve and the wheel of Fortuna, and to call for anyone who opposes me to be flogged. I am tempted to take to wearing a green hunting cap and voluminous plaid scarf, although after much consideration I've decided that a plastic hoop earring might be a little too much...


I loved this book, and not just for Ignatius. It is blisteringly well written, and the tragic/comic characters ricochet off of each other in a plot so improbable that it seems somehow completely inevitable. I laughed out loud, and squirmed uncomfortably, perhaps in equal measure. I gobbled it up, belching heartily in honour of Ignatius, and am now left savouring the experience, as I slobber over the last few crumbs.

This book has been on my "should read" list for ages. One of those books that has become part of pop culture, an iconic main character, a tragic author, a posthumous Pulitzer prize...one of those books you really ought to read, but probably won't if you don't have the impetus of a book report about it due on Friday. I've been reading quite a few of those "must read" books in the last little while, and each one has been a revelation and a reward...The Bell Jar, Slaughterhouse 5 and A Confederacy of Dunces are now firmly ensconced on my personal all time favourites list. There are reasons why those certain really important novels have wormed their way deep into our social culture...they are really frakken' good!

So your homework assignment, boys and girls, put down that TV remote / get off the interwebs / step away from that copy of Twilight (!), and pick up a book off of your "really should read" list...it doesn't matter if it's Moby Dick or Naked Lunch, Charles Dickens or Jack Kerouac, pick something that piques your curiosity and suits your particular taste...and read. Read like the dickens, read like your book is water and you are in the desert, read like literacy is a precious gift and a truly good story in the hands of a master storyteller is one of the greatest treasures, soul foods and tickets to escape the mundane and prosaic every day that there is.

(pictures by Chris Chua and Mark Martin courtesy of Hey Oscar Wilde! It's clobberin' time!!!)