What's Next? No really.....What's Next?

That is a question I have been asking myself lately. What is next?
I have been enjoying using the internet for it's intended purpose and really getting out and looking at all forms of visual art and it makes me wonder. What is next for me? What is it that make a piece of work move from the "That's nice" and walk away stage (which is quiet frankly where I feel that a majority of my work falls into.) and go to the Wow that makes me.....think, feel, desire, enjoy, despise, what I am looking at. How does any artist make that jump? There needs to be a depth of emotion in the work as well as a desire to show something in a way that it hasn't been seen before even in the most mundane of subject matter. Can an artist feel deeply for what they are working on without it being all consuming? I have no idea.
I do know this...I will keep looking and when I feel that passion about a subject... you my dear reader will be the first to know.

Today would be a good day for......

Sleeping, and yet here I am. I was told that if I didn't update my blog I would be booted out of the funny people club and post haste so I figure I better do as told
Today would also be a good day to do laundry and catch up on housework, but I think that tomorrow really is the better day for that. I consulted my inner child and they told me that playing hooky was what I really needed to do. I tend to listen to my inner child they get sulky if I don't. Then I will have to ply the little snot with Chocolate and that isn't good for anyone involved.
Today would have been a great day to clean out the gutters.....Wait I did that.
Today....Yeah I think I am going to stick with door number one, Nap. Funny can wait another day.
Night all.

Sand in my suit.

I never understood why swim attire was called a suit. You wear much less than a jacket, tie, vest, button up shirt and slacks. If I were a different type of girl my suit would be small and held together by floss but, seeing as I have always been a full coverage gal my suit is like myself sturdy and with hidden panels for extra coverage. The best advice I ever got about going to the beach......Was from my friend Kim she said "My body is what it is. I like to go swimming. If people don't want to see cellulite they don't have to look". It made perfect sense and the veil of trying to hide my imperfections fell away. Armed with sun screen, sarong and shorts to cover my flab we headed to the beach. Wow is is bright there and hot and crowded and sand gets everywhere but, and this is a big butt.....If you love the feeling of throwing yourself against a wave and having it carry you toward the shore then you are willing to deal with SAND IN THE SUIT. In July my family went to Virgina beach for a few days of sun and fun. It is not an exaggeration to say that I am still finding sand in the modesty panel of my suit. Leaving the beach at the end of our day I had enough sand in the lining of my suit to give the illusion of having swum in a diaper or that I had not completed My gender reassignment surgery. That night I beat my suit against our porch railing doing nothing but spreading the sand around rather than dispersing it. But, hey I did get another souvenir. Two months later, I have gotten the bulk of the sand out but still it still haunts me like toilet paper flecks. I decided to go for one last labor day swim and later in the shower there was still grit swirling down the drain. Summer goes so fast when your having fun.

Sweat and Raspberries

On a wild bit of land near our house, my brother and I would trek up a steep incline to go blueberry picking. The hard little berries were more nut like than the berries you see in the store and my mother always gamely tried to make something out of them but the results would leave me less than thrilled. The berry to sweat ratio was not even and to add insult to injury I didn't like blueberries very much. Now Raspberries are a whole different story...Let's jump ten years into the future. I am living in my first apartment and the bush that marks off where I should park my car is a pricker bush that I almost crushed the first time I backed in my car. My usually sweet tempered landlady left a nasty note on my door telling me to be careful with her berry bush....You know the kind of note, black ink and underlining words like idiot and new growth. I laughed it off. Hello it was a bush right. Right? WRONG. Summer came and showed me what a error I had made. The bush survived my winter back up and grew into a leggy pricker. My landlady tied back each runner and kept them off the ground then as if by magic the berries started to appear. Huge ruby red and full of the most amazing, sticky, bits of summer. My landlady collected all she could (except for the few that ended up in my tummy) and then the cooking started, the smell in our shared hallway was enough to send me downstairs with a slice of bread and a hang dog look on my face. She explained she was making jam and it is not an exaggeration to say that I never got more than a spoonful for that one slice of bread. That was until the year she went away for the summer. One night when the berries were ripe I got the largest bowl in my house and picked berries until I could find no more. Sweaty and with fingers that looked like I had just killed with my bare hands, I snuck upstairs to my third floor apartment and learned to can. The perfume created from all that berry boiling lingered in the hall for days. I was sure that if she decided to come home early it would be the smell in the hall that would give away my thievery and not the lack of fruit on the bushes outside. Now for those of you who haven't tried canning it really is very easy. Crushed fruit is mixed with vast amounts of sugar. Then boiled until the sugar is dissolved. Pectin is added at the end to make sure that the jam jells and then the hot jam is ladled into hot jars, covered with lids and stuck in a pan filled with boiling water for 10 minutes. Magically delicious.
Which all leads me to today. My son who is 6 is carefully carrying a plastic Hanna Montana bowl filled to the brim with sweet ruby red berries. There is a slight swagger in the way he climbs the stairs to our kitchen. He has been picking berries for our jelly and I know that when he hands them to me to make into something good, the sweat to berry ratio is just right.

Music VS Fine Art....the fight for the girl

Ah "Music".......Now that was my first crush, I remember the day we met. I had been hanging out with this box of watercolors I won in art class when our eyes met across a crowded auditorium. It was all shine and loud noises, A crazy hormone filled time. We were happy together, yes we were.....for years. "Art" would call but I was always so busy with "Music". "Music" and I would see each other every day for hours and my parents didn't mind. My mom would say that "Music" was so much nicer than "Art" so much less mess. "Music" never left marks on my clothing or finger prints on the walls. "Music" was fun and new. "We tried new songs and instruments just learning and creating something special. Sure, I still saw "Art". I had to at school. High school hit and marching band started. It was fun. There was new compositions and cool uniforms but I began to see that there were others who loved "music" too. "Music" was popular. I tried not to be jealous but, cracks had begun to form between us. "Music" began to get into all sorts of things that made me feel a little uncomfortable, bands and big hair, people watching you perform on stage. It didn't like when I would have trouble with timing or difficulty learning new instruments. "Music" wanted the spot light and all the pressure that that requires. Then came the day when "Music" said it was time for us to cement our love in a more lasting way........yes, a bassoon solo. I thought it was too soon. I was 14 for goodness sake. We were too young to even talk like this. I refused. I wanted to save myself for senior year. "Music" pleaded with me, told me I was acting weak and said "If you really love me you would do this" I tried, I really did, but when it came right down to it. I just couldn't perform. "Music" seemed to understand. A week later I saw it talking to a cute trombone player with the same range I had. I knew the score and had seen the notes. I left my band uniform and "In The Mood" sheet music and ran. I never looked back. Music kept the band and I got the records. The next semester I had "Art" in a class I was taking called printmaking. There was something about the way "Art" smelled and looked. "Art had a maturity that was missing before when it was all about the crayons. What can I say. I saw how passionate "Art" was/is and fell deeply in love.
"Music" I hear has been playing with the DAVE MATTHEWS BAND for the past several years I can see that it is happy. I am so glad. We both know we always worked best as friends. "Art" and I have been together ever since and we are happy like that. My husband loves "Music" as much as I love "Art" so we still see each other socially, but it isn't the same.
Post Script........A year ago "Music" sent me a bassoon with a note saying no hard feelings, and my heart felt that old pull again. I talked to "Art" and we decided to take some beautiful photos and perhaps hang them up.