Last month I was sitting in the Portland Museum of Art theater waiting for a movie to start thinking about my development as an artist, the work I created over the past 40 years, and what is propelling me at this point in my life as I round the corner towards 60. Art has been what I do since I was a kid, it is my center and where my soul resides. I have always had to work a day job. Having enough money is always, and still is, a worry. For many years my life was divided in three sections - mom, social worker and artist. I pieced it together as best I could, and managed to be prolific in my art work, and for a period of time I showed regularly and made enough money from selling my work to fund annual trips to Greece, France and Denmark for a month or so. With limed time, I stopped pursuing exhibitions and concentrated on working - day job and art. I came home from work, fed my kids, got them settled and then went to my art table. I created a written and visual narrative on 30 foot scrolls in my hallway, painted life size nudes on paper as my kids and their friends ran by saying nice painting Paula, and made paintings from the pencil drawings I frantically sketched before my departure from the Greek island of Folegandros or South of France. I painted and wrote poetry on old doors and windows in my bathing suit at China Camp (given to me by Frank Quan) as my kids played on the beach. That was my life from the time my kids were in elementary school through high school. I made do given my reality. I needed to make art so I did in every spare minute and corner of my house. It wasn't an option for me, it was a necessity. I was younger and had energy, and it seemed like there was a lot of time ahead of me to focus on exhibiting and selling.
I went back to school to get my PhD so I could better integrate art into my day job. My kids were grown, and while always a mom, the day to day child rearing was over. The academic schedule is flexible and conducive to making art; however, it is also very demanding and not as well segmented as my past jobs were. I have been fortunate to have the freedom to infuse art in my teaching, research and community work. I took the job at USM because I sensed I would be supported and encouraged to explore possibilities for art and creativity. So far it appears I made a good call. More to come on that front as this blog progresses.
What turns out to be strange is how we can never anticipate how fast time passes and the changes we experience physically and emotionally. Four years in the PhD program with no break exhausted me. I put my art aside for the most part, though I used art as a strategy for community building, which has been amazing. I began my job tired and hit the ground running, managing to produce intermittent spurts of painting. I exhibited my Senegal and Ghana paintings. I had sincere intentions to make connections in the Portland art scene but found myself overwhelmed trying to renovate my home, work, and rent the house in the summer on Air B N B to make extra needed cash. Last December I hit a wall and decided it was time to reassess. I wondered if my work even mattered anymore, to me or the world. I had piles of it in my house - on the walls and in storage. Not to mention the stock pile in California. Every time I look though my work I feel overwhelmed and wonder what has become of the woman with boundless energy who created all this work? And really good work. All I saw and felt was a tired woman approaching 60 who seemed to have given up, was just getting by and spending way too much time worrying about money and watching TV.
I spent the winter break at home alone with my doggies, thinking, crying, sleeping, and being quiet. I realigned my teaching strategies, reigned in my research agenda, and put some projects on hold. I started to write and paint again. I pulled out old drawings from Greece and France to get the juices going. I worked on canvas and paper. I wrote in a journal. I got sober with my eating disorder, which is another story with more to come. I began to exercise. I started to feel more hopeful. I found joy again in my work and came to the realization for the millionth time that it never had to matter to anyone but me because I need it to live, to feed my soul and without it I am hollow. Making art is my rapture. I love my kids, and would give my life to save theirs but without making art I have no life to give. I still have to hustle - rent my house on Air B N B this summer, pick up side gigs when I can and dedicate significant time to a job I love; however, the art will not be sacrificed and I am out of excuses.
Many of the series I created started with what seemed to be a random sentence coming into my brain at an unconnected moment. My scrolls were inspired by the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit in San Francisco in the 1990s and a series of 5 windows with poetry and images from the thought You get to claim your life, which flashed through my mind while pushing a grocery cart in the store during a turbulent period in my life. For this to happen I must have space in my head and heart, and I have cluttered both for years with the necessary and unnecessary. It takes deliberate action to remove clutter and make room, and when I do, there is an organic flow of ideas and inspiration. Sitting in the PMA theater the idea for Project60 landed in my brain and let me know - just enough that is - what my next artistic endeavor would be. The unfinished sentence, I am no longer the woman that... flashed across my brain, and with it a string of thoughts - I am no longer the woman who is not completely herself, who is the mother of young children, who thinks she is always 5 pounds too heavy, who defines herself by men, who runs hills, who is silenced by fear. And then I thought, I am no longer that woman yet I am, and will always be her and she is always in me, good or bad. I thought of making 60 paintings and creating a multi media project to document the process before my 60th birthday. I have begun to go through photographs and journals to see what might be included in the work, with an emphasis on might since this is completely iterative and unfolding. I just know I have to do it and see where it takes me. I am inviting you all along for the ride and hope we can travel this road together. I encourage you to share your insights and experiences with me. I am in the research stage and plan to get started painting in late May when I go to Greece and carry on through until January 9, 2017. I will be writing, including video perhaps, and photos (old and new). Project60 is a total experiment and leap of faith, a lockstep backward and forward journey with the insistence that art is my way of taking in life. So here's to big breaths, bold colors, tangling with words, creating space, and the courage to no longer be and still be all at the same time.
I went back to school to get my PhD so I could better integrate art into my day job. My kids were grown, and while always a mom, the day to day child rearing was over. The academic schedule is flexible and conducive to making art; however, it is also very demanding and not as well segmented as my past jobs were. I have been fortunate to have the freedom to infuse art in my teaching, research and community work. I took the job at USM because I sensed I would be supported and encouraged to explore possibilities for art and creativity. So far it appears I made a good call. More to come on that front as this blog progresses.
What turns out to be strange is how we can never anticipate how fast time passes and the changes we experience physically and emotionally. Four years in the PhD program with no break exhausted me. I put my art aside for the most part, though I used art as a strategy for community building, which has been amazing. I began my job tired and hit the ground running, managing to produce intermittent spurts of painting. I exhibited my Senegal and Ghana paintings. I had sincere intentions to make connections in the Portland art scene but found myself overwhelmed trying to renovate my home, work, and rent the house in the summer on Air B N B to make extra needed cash. Last December I hit a wall and decided it was time to reassess. I wondered if my work even mattered anymore, to me or the world. I had piles of it in my house - on the walls and in storage. Not to mention the stock pile in California. Every time I look though my work I feel overwhelmed and wonder what has become of the woman with boundless energy who created all this work? And really good work. All I saw and felt was a tired woman approaching 60 who seemed to have given up, was just getting by and spending way too much time worrying about money and watching TV.
I spent the winter break at home alone with my doggies, thinking, crying, sleeping, and being quiet. I realigned my teaching strategies, reigned in my research agenda, and put some projects on hold. I started to write and paint again. I pulled out old drawings from Greece and France to get the juices going. I worked on canvas and paper. I wrote in a journal. I got sober with my eating disorder, which is another story with more to come. I began to exercise. I started to feel more hopeful. I found joy again in my work and came to the realization for the millionth time that it never had to matter to anyone but me because I need it to live, to feed my soul and without it I am hollow. Making art is my rapture. I love my kids, and would give my life to save theirs but without making art I have no life to give. I still have to hustle - rent my house on Air B N B this summer, pick up side gigs when I can and dedicate significant time to a job I love; however, the art will not be sacrificed and I am out of excuses.
Many of the series I created started with what seemed to be a random sentence coming into my brain at an unconnected moment. My scrolls were inspired by the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit in San Francisco in the 1990s and a series of 5 windows with poetry and images from the thought You get to claim your life, which flashed through my mind while pushing a grocery cart in the store during a turbulent period in my life. For this to happen I must have space in my head and heart, and I have cluttered both for years with the necessary and unnecessary. It takes deliberate action to remove clutter and make room, and when I do, there is an organic flow of ideas and inspiration. Sitting in the PMA theater the idea for Project60 landed in my brain and let me know - just enough that is - what my next artistic endeavor would be. The unfinished sentence, I am no longer the woman that... flashed across my brain, and with it a string of thoughts - I am no longer the woman who is not completely herself, who is the mother of young children, who thinks she is always 5 pounds too heavy, who defines herself by men, who runs hills, who is silenced by fear. And then I thought, I am no longer that woman yet I am, and will always be her and she is always in me, good or bad. I thought of making 60 paintings and creating a multi media project to document the process before my 60th birthday. I have begun to go through photographs and journals to see what might be included in the work, with an emphasis on might since this is completely iterative and unfolding. I just know I have to do it and see where it takes me. I am inviting you all along for the ride and hope we can travel this road together. I encourage you to share your insights and experiences with me. I am in the research stage and plan to get started painting in late May when I go to Greece and carry on through until January 9, 2017. I will be writing, including video perhaps, and photos (old and new). Project60 is a total experiment and leap of faith, a lockstep backward and forward journey with the insistence that art is my way of taking in life. So here's to big breaths, bold colors, tangling with words, creating space, and the courage to no longer be and still be all at the same time.
