Dispatch From the Island #2" Gallery of Art

It has been a busy few days filled with hours of painting. Yesterday I painted for 8 hours straight, working in the hot sun at my pop up studio as I call it. I have spent many years painting on the island, resulting in an impressive range and quantity of my work; however, this time I am less interested in replicating successes of the past or the representation of landscapes, buildings, etc. I close my eyes and try to paint what I feel, not just what I see.

Painting on Glass

My days are fairly simple with little variation. I walk nearly 4 miles in the morning, which gets my blood circulating. I eat a small breakfast of fruit and a slice of bread, or if I buy a coffee, a sliver of cake that is complementary with the coffee. I meander a bit, read perhaps, and then make my way to the terrace overlooking the sea where the pop up studio is located. There is no real urgency and I move at whatever pace I feel like. The studio consists of an old blanket, which I spend out my pastels and oil bars across. The blanket is folded over the supplies at the end of my work day. I use rocks to keep everything in place so when the wind gusts it is not blown over the fence to the hillside. I contort my body as I paint on the ground, in my bathing suit most days, and listen to music with headphones on. This has been my routine for 24 years now, and resembles the longstanding one that began at China Camp in 1989. Being a few steps away from my room I can take a short break for water or a bite to eat, or use the bathroom. I watch clouds drift by. I reach my arms to the sky and feel every fiber of my being. While others are at the beach I am working the afternoon away. Around 3 o clock, my friend and host Dimitri fetches me for our daily swim. I might have dinner with friends, a glass of wine and listen to live music; however, everyday is much like the one before, which suits me fine. I could not be happier.

Red Door to My "Home" 

Yesterday my friend Sara sent over four old windows she asked me to paint. I painted for 4 hours and managed to complete them. People think I work fast; however, that is because they are not calculating prep time, which is extensive. In fact it took me years to get here and into a zone that allows me to paint intensely with little to distract me. This is why artist residencies exist, and although I have never applied for one, I see the value and have created my own in locations far removed from the demands of daily life.

I had a weird sensation today after I finished painting. My house in Maine started to feel like my house in Austin that I sold when I moved 3 years ago. The house in California, while still with my name on the deed, is not really mine because I do not live there anymore. Do I live anywhere? On the island my room is sparse and simple with a bed, bath and a refrigerator and kitchen sink. The idea I have a house in Portland is real, yet not real at the same time. I look on Facebook at my neighbors' posts and see my tree lined street and 1930s Colonial houses. It all looks familiar; however, I do not feel like I live there, or anywhere. I try to imagine turning on my lovely dead end street, waving to neighbors as I drive by, opening my door and being greeted by my dogs. It is hard to conjure up when home is so elusive. I saw a pregnant woman today and tried to imagine what it was like to be pregnant but I felt so far removed from the experience I was unable. The displacement of moving to CA with my dogs for the summer while I rent the house on Air B N B set my disconnect in motion, then coming to the island made it even more so.

My Portland Home

I have a floating feeling. I wrote in my last blog about seeing my younger self floating too. Perhaps it is because I have detached from the props and people that define and direct my life. We can transition with difficulty or ease depending on the circumstances, and in the case of being on the island, it happens quickly and with no resistance. My feet may be planted on the ground but my spirit is elevated. I breathe colors, roll around in colors and dream colors.

My pop up studio

Below is a sampling of work from the first days. I am in my zone and feeling happy, focused on the process, not the outcome. I painted for 4 hours on Sara's windows with the same passion, intention and depth as I do the work I will take home. All that is important is to do the work, which can sometimes be difficult when you are concerned about showing, selling and approval. When I loose my way, or become overly concerned about outcomes or compare myself to others,  I remind myself my art only has to matter to me, not the world, it is my joy and where I find purpose. That is the best and only place to reside in this work.

Dispatch From the Island #1

Folegandros Greece

June 2016

I have been on the island since Monday morning. It has taken me five days to decompress and begin painting. I actually read two books - novels, went to the beach, hiked, visited with friends, and napped every day. I came to this island 24 years ago, the mom of a 10 and 6 year old, not able to contain the life swelling inside and desire to create. Over the years I have seen slivers of my former self on return visits, almost like a ghost. I envied her energy, thin body running the hills early morning, the stacks of paintings she created each day, her hours of journal writing hunched over yellow legal pads. I see less of her this visit, for some reason she has faded, overshadowed by my present self. 

If I reach back though, I can still locate her bouncing, floating almost as she navigates the narrow streets or hillside foot paths. Perhaps I most yearned for her optimism, and years ahead that hadn't happened yet, unobstructed by mistakes I could not prevent her from making. Sometimes I just wanted to comfort her in her distress and tell her how despite heartbreak and setbacks, she and her children would fare OK. The divorce would happen, it would be the most gut wrenching, difficult thing to occur in her life, and she would measure every difficulty against it. The men she put so much stock in would disappoint her for the most the part and deflect her from herself. That lesson would take a long while, too long, but it would eventually stick. I would tell her the kids would resent her, want her to be like a normal mom; however, her trailblazing would turn them into world travelers and citizens of the world. And they would realize it was thanks to her they had seen a good part of the world by the time they were young adults. I would tell her about the many kinds of love I found, not just with a man romantically, rather with the man I so painfully divorced who remains my partner and best friend, my kids of course, fantastic friends, and my three Golden Retrievers - the loves of my mid life and loyal companions. Best of all, I would tell her getting older offers great rewards, including a liberation from wanting to please and measure my value contingent on a man wanting me or not. That part of life would change for the better and free up time and energy to pursue other things, including a PhD and a new career at 52 years old. It may not have gone as I hoped for in 1992; however, it has been an amazing life. I would tell her I feel grateful, very grateful.

In trying to understand why I see less of my younger island self, I have a theory. I think it is because I have found a degree of peace despite my many missteps. The years can turn it either way, though lately I feel enough resolve and acceptance to feel satisfied with where I am rather than looking back at her with such yearning. I am relieved not to write all those words about the turmoil of love, or the constant challenge of balancing day to day parenting with work and art. I say no more often and worry less about what people think of me. The years have changed me and of that I am glad.

It is day two of painting. I am interested in abstraction, not replication. I want to explore how the island resonates and my emotional response. How does the experience of the island merge with my other geographic and emotional landscapes? I have always said chora is a cubist village, and painted the buildings doors, windows and church domes. Shapes and structures touch me. And color.  The vibrant unbroken blues, textured white stucco walls, bursts of color in the doors, windows, flowers, terraced hills and changing sky. Being away from my normal day to day life I feel and study my environment with nothing to distract me. I notice small things. Gazing at the horizon and the variations of blue is time well spent - it is research. Napping is important to refuel.  Diving into the sea refreshes me. Sitting quiet is meditation and reflection. Walking in the morning is discipline and feeling nature. This constitutes my deeply lived, deeply felt artist’s life and I love it, every minute of it.

So while I am no longer the woman who is a size 5 running hills every morning, or writing words on 30 ft scrolls across a terrace at breakneck speed, I am her still, applying color to paper and finding rapture in making art. Still painting on a terrace, headphones on singing to music, pausing to gaze at a bird in flight, paint in my hair and all over my body. This is my center, my core, and from this place comes what I believe is my most generous and loving capacity. As my friend Chuck told me many years ago, “Take care of yourself, take care of the world". I hope you will stay with me in this journey and share in the peace and joy, perhaps spread a little around your world as well.

I am No Longer the Woman Who...

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.