There's a fresh  blanket of snow on the ground.  I don't think I ever get tired of seeing it.  I made a rather large snow angel the other night and remembered why mostly kids do it.  It's because the snow sticks to you and you become a big, soggy, cold mess.  It was pretty cool, however. 

I had a "maybe" success with the acrylics yesterday.  It's been difficult because i've never really used them and they either dry too fast or too slow and don't blend well at all.  I haven't gone downstairs to look yet.  Usually I make a deal with myself that I can't go look at the work until I get my work out clothes on and go down to exercise.  God, I hate to exercise, but seeing the painting is pretty tempting. 

 

I can't believe it's January and there's snow on the ground.  It's really beautiful, probably because we don't get that much of it up here.  I'm pretty well stuck on the hill and that's OK with me.  I haven't written here because I was busy with the holidays and now I'm taking some classes at the university.  I'm taking an advanced painting class and all I've done is crap, crap, crap.  I'm trying to paint in acrylics which isn't working too well and I'm trying to get away from landscapes which also isn't going very well.  It's frustrating.

On the other hand, I've written my first paper in 35 years.  I really like my contemporary art history class, but the papers are a whole other thing.  More crap, no doubt. 

 

 

I hate to admit this, but I read my first blogs today. Wait a minute, that’s not quite true. A couple of years ago I read a blog by one of the former judges of the Mayor’s Art Show about her experience. Maybe I can blame her for my piece getting rejected because I paid close attention to what she had to say.

Under no circumstances is anyone to take what I say seriously.

Anyway, the artist’s blogs I read seemed to be of two varieties; selling stuff and telling personal stories while selling stuff. I would love to sell more of my work, but there are certain things I cannot do like cold-call galleries. I hope someday that my art will sell itself. Maybe that’s naïve in this technological age, but I don’t care. As Popeye says, “I am what I am and that’s all that I am.”

I also realize that blogs are therapy for a lot of people. They complain about aches and pains or talk about their boyfriends. I will be doing neither because I have very few aches and pains (I’m sure I’d be a big baby if I did) and I don’t have a boyfriend. So, I guess I will just be transmitting my thoughts and comments on what I read, see and experience. Or, maybe I will just go paint

Okay, I thought of a fourth reason why I'm reluctant to write: maybe no one will read it.  Of course that would take care of the first three reasons.  If I didn't think anyone was reading, and at this point no one is, I would feel freer to write something a little more intimate.  Or, not.......

I read an interesting article yesterday about failure and success.  It was along the same old theme of, "What hurts us makes us stronger" but applied to failure rather than emotional pain.  In my book, failure feels a lot like emotional pain.  I think I've lived a pretty charmed life and I fear I haven't had enough failure.  I guess my efforts to get my paintings in the public eye will test that theory.  The first time I entered the Mayor's Art Show, my painting was rejected.  Talk about emotional pain; I went into a total tailspin and started to doubt everything I thought about my abilities.  The fact that there were only 50 selected out of 450 entries had no effect whatsoever.  Of course that was remedied this year when mine was selected, but now I'm afraid to enter again.  Did my success come out of my failure?  Did it make me strive to do better work?  Would the memory of the rejection keep me from putting my work out there?  I guess time and effort will tell.   

I'm a little reluctant to start putting words down.  Number one, it's a little arrogant to think that people really want to know what I think.  Number two, I'm a painter, not a writer.  Number three, I don't know if I want my thoughts made public. 

I use to be the kind of person that blabbed everything I thought.  Painting and aging has changed me.  I've become more introspective and less social.  Outside my daughters and a few friends, I pretty well keep to myself.  I relish the days when I have nothing planned so I can exercise, fool around on the computer, garden and paint.  For the most part, aging has changed me for the better.  I have less angst. 

One might think that a lack of angst would work against me, in respect to my painting, and maybe it does, but I think I can remember enough of it to make it work for me.  It also helps that I listen to music when I'm painting.  Music is a great way to illicit emotion and prompt memories.  I guess it will have to do for now because I sincerely hope the days of real angst are over.