Live and Find Joy...

I guess one only feels like they can only post on their blog when life is smooth and one appears with their best foot forward so to speak...but sometimes life just does not cooperate. Some people seemingly have an easier time than others but I realize that is only on the surface in most cases. So I post this morning in the midst of choppy waters, approaching storms, and maybe some calm after the storm...




There is always the clean, calm that appears after a storm. I just need to climb on, embracing what is, and see where I end up.


I am tired,mostly emotionally but physically as well. I finished the Spring semester well but exhausted, then turned around and registered for Summer sessions, both of them to take the two out of four art history classes I need to take. Not exactly drawing and painting or generally making art... No, quite the opposite...massive reading, quizzes, midterms, finals, papers, all times two. It is pretty intense because these are classes meant to run 16 weeks of a regular term and it is being squeezed into 6 weeks which leaves me no time for anything. Yet, I am enjoying what I am learning in spite of myself. It is answering some questions as well as confirming some thoughts I have had. I am still amazed that prehistoric people had the drive to make art...of course it was not art at the time but rather a recording of life and artifacts that were made as functional objects, yet I am awed by it. I wonder what they were thinking as they were drawing on the cave walls. Actually they put charcoal in their mouths along with water and saliva, chewed to mix and sprayed...can you imagine us in a class, spraying...sorry, I digress. Just amazing, the creative drive has always been a part of our DNA it appears. Some of the drawings of the animals are quite accurate. One can tell the power of observation was at play as well as memory.

Sometimes I get pretty discouraged, not a hard thing for me anyway. This is different though...I get differing responses from people and some of them sting. I have a degree so the question arises, why do this again? I explain and the blank look is still there. I really am not 'doing this again' because I am 'only' ( I jest ) have to do the art requirements, 51 credits plus some, but I am not at that place yet...I would like to work for a BFA which is a professional degree and used for going on...but I do not want to get ahead of myself. Suffice it to say I can't get there from here unless I do what I am doing. A BA in psychology won't do it for me. But then there are the friends and family who do hold me up and push me forward. Who understand I can't be in two places at once. Who don't care what my plan is but rather they just know it is very important to me. I can say to them what the hell am I doing? And I have those days where I ask that question. But then you have a friend that answers that question with a few words that can make all the difference.

"The studying really sounds grueling, but I would definitely stick with it. In the end, I'm certain it will open up new opportunities that you don't have now. Who cares what other people say or think. They are not you! Those off-handed comments can be defeating, I know, but we just need to ignore them"

...and ignore I try. Thank you my friend...

So onward to reading a few more hundred pages this week...on tap for this week are Jewish, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, Islamic Art, and Art of South and Southeast Asia before 1200. Three chapters a week on average...studying for tests weekly and the paper that needs to be written...This session is finished August 13. Need a break.

Then 2 weeks of some errands and orientation as I have been accepted into the college officially as a Second Degree Student...I need to get near the water and put my feet in, after all this is the Ocean State. You can not live here and not do that...it's a rule.

All of this seems all the more poignant to me today. Life is fragile and goes by with the blink of an eye...My brother in law was removed from life support this past week end. His sons wanted him surrounded by family as he slipped away so we stood there with him...I still have not processed this yet...He had back surgery, developed pneumonia and mercer and just never came back. Two of my children were with us as my husband said what he need to say to his older brother who was a father figure of sorts. They had been estranged... as families some times tend to do, fractured and split. Unfortunately we are both from such families...Hard.

This photo of my youngest daughter on here third birthday with her cousin, Steven, three weeks older than her twirling joyfully and just having fun on a day when we were all together. Steven lost his dad Sunday...





So all this to say Live and find Joy...live your life on your terms and work on those relationships...family and friends. Some of those friends are your family I know in my case they are.

Rest in Peace, Bobby...


Thanks for reading. Have a blessed day.

New Paths

I decided a few weeks ago to take a couple of classes. At the start of every semester I agonize over registering but get over whelmed by the enormity ( in my head ) of the task. So I usually let the beginning of classes pass by and I tuck it back into the far edge of my brain, in the area of things I really would like to do, but usually just ignore. Take them out occasionally, look them over, dust them off and return them to the someday shelf...I have a degree, I am very thankful that I have it, but the major I chose never excited me, fed my imagination or was part of a larger passion. I earned it while raising five teenagers and all of their collective angst and as well as my own...

Fast forward to this past fall where sometimes the sadness was so overwhelming that I could not move. Those teenagers are adults moving into their own directions. I came across a program on PBS that I wrote about before, Unstuck, with Dr. James S. Gordon. I proceeded to get his book. The first sentence in the Preface read as follows,"...the end point of a pathological process. It is a sign that our lives are out of balance, that we're stuck. It's a wake up call and the start of a journey that can help us become whole and happy, a journey that can change and transform our lives." Well, I thought, that sounds hopeful. But something in the first chapter spoke to me, very loudly in fact..."calls us to question aspects of our personality, of our ways of looking at ourselves and the world that may themselves be the problem...is there something that needs to change?. adjustments in how we think...it tells us we are on the wrong path.Over time, this second note becomes more and more insistent..." These few thoughts kept rolling around, in the backdrop of all that I was doing in a day or I should say, not doing... is there something that needs to change...that question alone was paramount.



So a few weeks ago I mustered the courage and in the pouring rain ( love rain ) I ventured to a local college and began a new journey, asking questions, directions, and the learning curve began. Last time I did this, one registered for classes in person, pretty straight forward. Now one has to register for a password and ID name and go home and register on line. Then one learns to play computer tag and keep checking the classes in question that are full and wait for people to begin to drop and one then immediately sign in and registers...so both of the classes I needed were full but I learned this little gem and registered 2 hours before my first class and then the next one I needed opened... 1 spot and I was in! And I am off on a new journey. I am beginning to answer for myself the question, what needs to change. I get tired and discouraged. sometimes. My brain is fighting the new information and in some cases I am starting over with drawing being in Drawing 1...quite the phenomena actually. I took these beginning drawing classes years ago but they have to be less then ten years in order for them to count for what I may do...So for now I am starting to work through what is known as Art Foundation classes, a series of drawing, design, and art history classes. I have some thoughts about where I would like to go... but for now a day at a time, a class at a time. But as tired and frustrated as I get, as soon as I get to class and settle down and begin to work I think how happy I am to be there, so very stinken happy, you have no idea, then maybe you do...I have 12 hours of actually class time and in theory we are told 12 hours of homework time. So it is beginning to impact my life in some ways but it is new and I am still trying to work it out and find my way through this so that I can do some more regular weaving and maybe actually paint...ha ha. Again, day at a time...I noticed in the picture of the girls below, their bed needs some serious repair...they are so sweet. One thing to add to
my long list of things to do.


The picture with the papers on the floor just about put me over the edge...the beginning of perspective drawing. Drawing those flat pieces of paper so the do not look like they are floating but actually on a floor. We all had to redo it...thank God I was not the only one that did not do it successfully. There is comfort in numbers...

I just finished the assignment for tonights class. I draw intuitively along with checking for angles and accuracy but perspective drawing has taxed me...so my left and right brain have been in a struggle and taking me along for the fight...I know this is normal, still none the less, disconcerting. I know I am learning because that is really what the fight and the frustration is...so I take comfort in that...so we will see where this all leads me. I read a quote somewhere and it visits me occasionally...it is not the things accomplished we think about at the end of our lives, it is the things we wanted to do and didn't that tend to haunt us...hmmm. So I hope you will follow me along on this new path.

"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."
1 Thessalonians 4:11


I also have been taking a 4 week tapestry class with Jan Austin, a local tapestry artist of 25 years. She is also a member of the Weavers Guild of RI which is how we met. She knew of my interest in tapestry and invited me to take her class in her wonderful studio. We have one more week left. I would love to continue with her but my budget at this point is not impressed with my art pursuits. But I can continue on my own and just keep working at it. It is all good...

Have a great day and thanks for reading. Peace.