Christmas Card

I offered my home parish one of my Christmas prints, "Holy Family" to use on their Christmas card this year.  I just got it in the mail and am very pleased with how it looks!

Cards and prints can be ordered at http://www.redbubble.com/people/mbrhapsody/works/11057918-christmas-nativity-watercolor?c=479919-christmas&p=greeting-card&ref=work_collections_grid

5 Brainy Tips for Artists With MS

I found this sketch on Pinterest and wish I could credit it but it had no link.  I really like it.  Every time I look at it I think "Yep." Because it pretty much shows what it feels like inside my brain most days.  My brother unceremoniously-- and by his own admission, politically incorrectly coined the term "Art-tard".

I'd like to blame it on being creative---so maybe that's why I like the image so well.  It gives a strength - based explanation for what has been recently diagnosed as a cognitive disorder due to multiple sclerosis.  Though a much more frightened part of me whispers "You're getting old...  You're probably getting senile"--and perhaps I am,  I prefer to think it's a grown-up form of undiagnosed attention deficit disorder, and that I've always been like this. But as my sister often reminds me "Denial isn't just a river in Africa". I have to face reality, whatever the reason, my brain is getting increasingly untidy.

On any given day there are a lot of images and words, ideas, musings, plans and memories blowing around loose in my brain, like an untidy house.

 I have some great brainy closets just stuffed with creativity, future projects and plans. There are also dust bunnies of thoughts and half-formed ideas rolling around in dark corners up there.

And rummaging in various drawers and cabinets in my brain long enough I often come across things I just knew were in there but couldn't get my hands on when I needed them; Like remembering where that box of colored pencils is that someone had asked to borrow last week.

There's also a whole pot of simmering vocabulary words that used to be much easier to retrieve. But I guess my brain's word strainer has bigger holes because now I have to wait til they float to the surface to get them.  That "on the tip of my tongue" feeling maddeningly nags at me.  Then that word that I was trying to remember yesterday to describe a painting ---"CHIAROSCURO!"--- bubbles to the surface, unbidden, hours later: Not that I need the word anymore, but I'll shout it out with relief, randomly, to my husband  or my dog or  a passing stranger.

Under that simmering pot is a whole oven of half-baked ideas:  Dog portraits, sloth cartoons, caricatures and flower mosaics.  On any given day there are a half-dozen or so  unfinished concepts, schemes and designs.  Some come to fruition.  Most don't.

I used to chase after these sloppy notions only to be distracted by another one.  I flitted from one thing to another. It was taking precious energy from my already high fatigue M.S.days and I wasn't accomplishing much.  I was frustrated and worried that my thoughts weren't more organized.

 I've  worked really hard to make up for this untidy artist brain, MS-related cognitive disability, adult A.D.D., senility, or whatever it is.

 Here are some tips I can share with you that, while not necessarily making my brain a more tidy place, have led me to at least accomplishing more:

1. Keep a sketchbook of inspirations, ideas and projects that interest you. Write them down or sketch them out.

2. Use resources.
Pinterest or other Juxapost are great ways to gather, organize, categorize ideas , which can be shared or kept private.

3.  Make an Art List and put it somewhere you can see, like on the fridge or taped to the side of your calendar or computer screen.
Making lists seems seems like a no-brainer, and many people already do it for groceries, appointments and errands.    Make your art ideas just as important .  Instead of just having a bunch of cool ideas floating around in your head, put them down on paper, either in the form of writing or pictures so you have a visual reminder.

4. Update your art list  and make a new one at least once a week.

•  Give yourself a pat on the back for anything you've accomplished from your last  list.  
• Toss out any ideas that no longer seem feasible or that no longer ignite artistic passion in you. 
• Check your art idea sketchbook and add new projects you'd like to work on.

.5. Put yourself on a flexible Artist Schedule and stick to it.
 Fixed times to do stuff don't always work with multiple sclerosis , because the need for a nap is a real and powerful thing. Include some time in your high-energy moments---whenever they are--to do artwork.  Don't try to fit it in at the end of a day when your energy is flagging.

I need to go now.  I have some stuff to do.
I think.

10 Famous Art Quotes

From www.twistedsifter.com

Draw Me

My dad was an artist.  He doodled and sketched and once sat each of us four kids down and drew our portraits one by one.  He’d sigh and grumble and erase and re-draw, and said he wasn’t pleased with the outcomes. But my mother loved them and framed each one and hung them all up. Sometimes I’d find a little picture he’d drawn for me (a bee, or a cat or a flower) on my napkin in my lunchbox.  I’d tell him later how much I liked it and he’d grudgingly smile and say something touching like “Hmmmph.  Good.”

Sadly he didn’t have money to attend college and he made his living through various office jobs to support his growing family.   Maintaining a stalwart façade and not one to share his feelings (You went to to your room if you were going to have feelings), Dad didn't complain.  But I knew he really wanted to become an artist professionally.  It was the early 60’s, and in the backs of many magazines, including Life and The Saturday Evening Post, there were ads to “Win a Free Scholarship to Art School”.  Each contest would have a picture of a pirate, or a pretty woman, or a cowboy, with a challenge to “Draw Me”.  It promised your work would be evaluated and you could possibly win. 

These advertisements promoted the art correspondence course called The Famous Artists School.  According to Wikipedia The Famous Artists School was “..in operation since 1948. The school was founded by members of the New York Society of Illustrators, principally Albert Dorne and Norman Rockwell.”  I’m not sure which character Dad drew to enter the contest, but I know he did enter.  He didn’t win,  but a salesman came to the door and  signed him up for the course, telling him that-- though he didn’t win-- the instructors at the Art School did see some talent there.  Whether they did that to every entrant I don’t know but Dad signed up.     

Looking back on it, it seems scammy and cheesy.  And though they probably gave a lot of people false hope for becoming a professional artist, the lessons were surprisingly good.  The Famous Artist School Binders began arriving at the house and Dad worked on them during his limited spare time . 

When he finished an assignment he would mail it in and someone at Famous Artist School would evaluate it and send it back to him with comments and suggestions.    Viewed from today, such a slow, clunky method as the Postal Service to get an education seems incredible but that’s the way it was done.   Here is one of his finished assignments, which my mother framed and hung in our house:

When dad wasn’t around, I’d  flip through the binders filled with art lessons.   The drawings were amazing and I especially liked the ones on cartooning and portraiture.  There were lessons on composition, value, and color theory.  It was really quite comprehensive.  Though too young to read all the words, I’m sure I gleaned some good information from those lessons.  

My siblings loved looking at them too.   My older brother remembers dad eventually having to hide the binder with Figure Drawing.  It contained nudes, and he’d caught my brothers giggling over them .  

Dad never finished the Famous Artist Course. I’m not sure why, but, as it was with most things back then, we probably just couldn’t afford it. He never did realize his dream of becoming a professional artist.  I’m sure he was gratified that my eldest brother ---from whose hands he’d removed the binder of nudes, did go to school for art and now owns a successful design firm.  

He dabbled in art his whole life and later made me laugh by taking a watercolor class that I taught where he’d sit in the back and sigh and grumble while he worked.  And he’d bring home his pictures and my mother would frame them and hang them up.

A Fig Leaf

In college I didn't study art; I earned a Criminal Justice degree and took only one art class; Drawing 101.  I’d been doing pretty well and was pleased with my progress on still life and landscapes.  About the fourth week into class the professor told us we’d have a live model the next day and would begin drawing the human figure.  

Now, I'd done figure drawing and portraits in high school art classes and assumed it would be about the same thing.  A person would come in and pose while we stood around in a circle behind our easels and sketched.  

As I happily set up my easel and papers, the male model walked into the room in a bathrobe.  Pencil poised, I expectantly looked on.   He stopped and dropped his robe to the floor. And stood there, completely naked, facing me. 

 I couldn’t have been more surprised if he turned into a mouse and ran away.  In fact, that’s exactly what I wanted to do.  I ducked behind my easel, shocked and embarrassed, my face getting hot.

I cast my eyes wildly about the room at the other students wanting to shout “He’s naked!” But everyone was calmly sketching away. Of course.

It suddenly dawned on me that in a college art class we would work on the whole human figure. And of course the model would be naked.  I mean nude. I realized I was being immature and that I had to pull myself together and act as if I were a cultured and worldly student, accustomed to drawing naked guys all the time. I mean nudes, not naked guys.

See?  Still immature.

I peered over my easel with what I imagined at the time was a casual, observant gaze.  I’m certain now my eyes were like pie plates. The model reclined in front of me, looking bored.  I took a deep breath and began to draw, gradually calming down a bit. I kept telling myself everyone else is drawing this naked guy ---I mean nude figure---Why couldn’t I?

I drew the entire model, head to toe, every finger and facial feature.  But I could not draw his penis.  I couldn’t even look at it!  

What if I drew it too big?  

Or too small? 

Or what if it looked weird?

What if it moved? 

I knew I was being ridiculous and but I couldn’t help it. 

I noticed the model took a break now and then and walked around the room peering over students' shoulders at their drawings.  I didn't want him looking at mine. So I packed up my stuff and ran out of the class early. I got home and told my roommate, an art major, my harrowing story.  

“Let’s see it” she said matter-of- factly.  I unrolled the drawing and there in all his detailed glory was this poor male model lacking his manhood. There was a a big blank spot where his penis should have been. 

Without a word she calmly picked up a pencil and drew in a fig leaf. 

It was complete.

I got a C in Drawing 101.

Art School

I sometimes say that I attended Art School. When I was about 8, my parents signed my siblings and me up for summer kids’ art classes at a local college. I'm pretty sure that counts, right? 

They were planned and taught by college kids.  It was the 60’s, so most of the stuff we worked on was pretty trippy, hippy-ish and sort of out there:  Batik on paper with melted crayons, tie-dye coffee filters and peace-sign dreamcatchers.  One especially sixties-ish project was a candlestick holder – a wine bottle on which we glued bits of cut-out cardboard, covered tight with aluminum foil and burnished with black ink and paint. 

My clearest memory from those classes, however, is when our student teacher left the classroom for a few moments on some now forgotten errand or emergency. No adult was sent in to relieve him.  It was just the students.   I was accustomed to strict catholic school nuns as teachers.  They would put in you the corner for hours if you misbehaved. Or worse: they carried sticks back then and were not afraid to use them.  

 I was delighted with this new-found freedom.  They didn’t diagnose kids then like they do today, but I would most assuredly have been found attention deficit disordered.  My feckless mind immediately turned to what an unsupervised classroom offered me.  I cast a restless eye around and, finding nothing better to do, climbed up and started dancing on my desk.  I was having great time, gyrating around like a spastic eel.  The other kids laughed, which only encouraged me.  

Then a large, red-faced, angry professor put his head in the door and told me to get the hell down.  Startled and red-faced, I scrambled off the desk and sat in my chair, thinking I’d be in a lot of trouble.  He turned and walked away.  I blinked. Wait. Walked away?  I couldn’t believe it!  I needn’t have worried. There were no sticks, no standing in corners. Relief flooded through me. I remember feeling very fortunate and decided to behave myself.

As soon as he went away, some of the other kids ran to the chalkboard to puff erasers together. As I watched the chalk dust rise around them, my newfound “good girl” attitude quickly evaporated. I joined them and we joyfully clapped erasers inside giant white clouds.  

Our hapless teacher returned a short time later.  He soon had us settled down again, happily cutting up pieces of cardboard and gluing them to wine bottles.  Looking back on it, I think I would have hated having me as a student.

Art School was fun, but the only lesson I learned there was that I couldn’t wait to get to college.

Nighttime at Cunningham's

I understand that an art blog ought to be only about ART, and realize that in my last blog post I was in the middle of a tale of my childhood art influences. I promise I'll return to that story, but occasionally I will interrupt artistic musings with a glimpse into current real life. This is one of those interruptions. Hope y'all don't mind.

Last night I woke up around 2:30 am feeling really hungry. I went into the kitchen and tore a piece of bread off the loaf of ciabatta bread left over from dinner. I climbed back into bed in the dark next to my sleeping husband, whom I’ll call “Poor Husband Is Loved”, or PHIL for short.

ME: *Bites into bread. Realizes it’s garlic flavored.* “Hm.”

PHIL: *Rolls over in bed* “What’s up?”

ME: “This ciabatta bread has garlic in it. Want some?”

PHIL *Long pause*“Wait. You’re eating?...No, no thanks.” *Gets up and wanders into bathroom*

ME: *Finishes bread and leans across to drink water which PHIL has on table by his side of bed*

PHIL: *Pads back from bathroom, stops next to bed*

ME: “I had some of your water."

PHIL: "Oh?"

ME: "Yes.That’s the good news”

PHIL: “Did you drink it all? Is that the bad news?” *Picks up water glass.*

ME: “No, but I spilled some”

PHIL: *Takes drink* “Is THAT the bad news?”

ME: *Snorts with not well-suppressed laughter* “Nope.”

PHIL: *Climbs into bed.*

ME: *Giggling helplessly* “I spilled it on your side. THAT’S the bad news.”

PHIL: "Sigh."

ME: *Continues to break out in giggles well into the early morning.*

PHIL: “Sigh.”

Bloomin' Artist

So here I am, starting a blog about art.  I suppose it ought to start with an artist statement of some sort. But artist statements always freak me out a bit.  I have to be honest; when I read other Artists’ Statements I usually come away puzzled and sort of weary; “Aesthetic values”? “En plein air”? “Metaphor of the Middle Class”? It’s like I’ve been to an Art History lecture that I didn’t fully understand.

 I tried to write my own Artist Statement, and it came across as pompous at best, and re-reading it confused even me.

Then I thought I'd just give the facts: I wrote about my education and art training, clear, straight to the point and in order.  And it couldn’t have been more dull.

So now I think that, instead, I’ll just tell my story in a simple “me” way and illustrate my life as an artist. So here goes:

Like most kids, when I was little I adored coloring, drawing and painting, Playdoh, glue, sparkles and scissors. Unfortunately kids’ art supplies weren’t inexpensive back then like they are today.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were pretty poor. I remember vividly coveting the 56 pack of crayons with the built-in sharpener belonging to another kid in my first grade class, having only an 8-pack for myself.

 My parents liked art—Dad was a good artist-- and they did try to give my four siblings and me art stuff when they could.  Christmas-time came with new paint-by-numbers, coloring books, and play dough for everyone.  I love the texture of the then-real oil paints in the paint-by numbers, the feel of my little skinny fingers poking around in the Playdoh, and the smoothly satisfying rub of a new crayon on paper.

  But the smells!  The oil paints were rich and heavenly!  Probably inhaling them weren’t  good for my then-developing brain-- and may explain my later diagnosis with MS, but even today the smell of oil paints transports me back to happy days coloring in little numbered spaces with my brothers and sister at our Formica kitchen table. Crayons and Playdoh had their own wonderful, uniquely childlike smells. I’ve never met an adult who didn’t at one time try to eat either a crayon or secretly munch a ball of Playdoh.   Luckily they didn’t taste as good as they smelled.  Though I did hear about a neighbor kid whose mother reported that his poop was regularly bright blue.

It was never long, though, before the paints were gone, the crayons broken, the play dough dried into hard lumps. I drew this first picture imagining what it would be like to have had unlimited art supplies as a kid.
More to follow.