Thirty Paintings-Day 8

Today I started to reorganize my studio because of some of the things that have cropped up since starting the challenge but had to stop and get ready to leave to attend a new session of a grief support group.  I have been to spouse loss support, three six week sessions offered by Home&Hospice of Rhode Island over the past year and also I see a grief counselor from the same agency weekly.  The new group is for those who are at one year and beyond of the loss.  I just hit the year.  This agency cared for my husband here at home then inpatient at the end.  When Richard died I  received support immeasurable through this agency.  Teaching me about grief and mourning,  to feel and get the pain out but rest when I could no longer work through it.  It has been a long road since Richard began in-home hospice care.  All this to say I was not sure if I would get to painting as I still needed to make my dinner after the meeting, make a book purchase that had been recommended to me, Man's Search For Meaning, then finally sit and eat and relax some.

But then I walked into my upside down studio, found an image of my Maggie I wanted to paint and began to dig in.  Music playing, and she started to appear on the canvas, I was present and the pain had subsided for the moment.  This image was from a few days after Richard's death.  I had taken Maggie and went to the ocean and just sat for hours.  Maggie was just looking out at the water and the sun was getting ready to set but was still bright.  Maggie was with me on the unit for eight days while Richard was dying and ultimately woke me very early,  between 4 and 5 AM to let me know he had died.  I did not know what she was trying to tell me.  I pulled her up on the little chair/bed I was sleeping on and tried to go back to sleep never thinking Richard was gone.  All I thought was I would have allergy eyes in the morning because she was near my face.  My brain was not functioning or it went right into denial because she never wakes me, never.  Shortly thereafter the nurse came in, checked on Richard, and took my hand to tell me he was gone.  When I got my wits about me I told her what Maggie did and she wanted Maggie's time as she believed Maggie was awakened with Richard's passing.  Still emotional to write about or even think about but I must do both.

So you see this little dog is very precious to me...and I am fully aware that she is twelve years old.  She is a very real connection to Richard on so many levels.  She was our dog with loyalty to us both.  She is somewhat more somber since his death and I realized our house had never been empty thus when I went out to do an errand in the beginning she was alone now and did not like it.  I would come home to her howling pitifully.  There use to be my husband, a teen ager who grew up and left, another beagle who passed away a couple of years ago, and my cat who died a year and a half ago from cancer.  So Maggie and I have suffered these losses together.  We have just adopted a five month old tabby kitten a month ago hoping to help Maggie's loneliness in general.  More about her later.

                                                                     Maggie
                                                                     9"x12", oil on stretched canvas

ThirtyPaintings-Day 7

Someone asked if we could draw and the answer was yes as the point was to be in the studio and making something daily. 

I was invited to a two camp two weeks ago that was for children who have suffered loss in their young lives.  I had a specific task that I was asked to head.  With that I was tagged as 'the art lady' to guide the children in a banner making project.  I was able to bring my twelve year old beagle, Maggie.  The children and adults loved her and made her very welcome.  On the last day a little girl came up to me and asked if she could give Mag a cheese nip.  I said yes and how nice of her to want to share.   Then one cheese nip led to another...they were serious now as the little girl and Maggie were now face to face and I melted,  gave in, and said share on.  Maggie has not had a salty snack shared since Richard was no longer able to eat them himself and of course was no longer able to share with Maggie.  She has last ten pounds since his death.  I took photos with permission of her grandparent but this one exemplifies the sharing nature between the two.  L was feeding food and love to Maggie and Maggie was returning that love and attention to L. 

The gestural movement of this image is something I think I may paint but wanted to do a drawing to see what I caught.  Today has been a busy day so I chose to draw.  I can do fussy literal drawings that can take hours and days. But for my purpose for both the challenge and the planned painting later I was looking for the gestural qualities and a simple drawing.

                                                              Sharing With a Friend...
                                                                charcoal on paper, 11"x14"

Thirty Paintings-Day 6

This little painting was an impromptu deal.  I tend to take the left over paint on my palette and mix it up in luscious piles of greys to cover with plastic wrap and save for the next painting session.  Other times I play around and see what I can come up with by using what is on my palette to make a painting as was the case with this pear.  I pretty much used the palette knife and what was there for paint.  That's the rule, can't squeeze out anymore paint.  I can only use what is there already.  Sometimes I do them from out of my head and other times as in this case, the pear was sitting there from the other day.  Pretty ordinary.

The last two days made for difficult painting as the heat and humidity here were both unbearable.  In the ninety's, both measurements.   My in house thermostat read at 85 degrees.  I do not have air conditioning.  I do not respond well to this weather and find it even hard to think or do anything.    Everything seems accentuated thus I was miserable.  But I did paint,  did some much needed computer housecleaning, and grieved hard today...but made it through.

Thanks for reading!

                                                                       Pear
                                                                   oil, 6"x6"
                                                               canvas panel

Thirty Paintings-Day 5

The thing that gets me up is the thought of that first cup of coffee in the morning.  Pretty ordinary but with many memories attached to the act.  I so enjoy it and feel revived like no other drink in the rest of my day.  I am also attached to my mug.  I like the feel of it in my hands.  I am a tactile person always checking how something feels and that includes mugs, bowls, and glasses.

It reminds me the many times we made pots of coffee for each other.  How many times did I wake to being handed a mug of coffee by Richard.  Or how I would set up the pot for him at night for the next morning because he had to get up at a ghastly 2 AM for work.  Having the the pot ready for him to just hit the switch seemed like the best thing to do, seeing as I was not getting up with him.  Almost to the end, while he could still swallow, I gave him a mug of coffee in the morning.  Now it is coffee alone...

                                                               Grey Morning
                                                                oil, 6"x6"

               

Thirty Paintings-Day 4

In my search for an ordinary object which really is not what I wanted to do, the search I mean.  That defeats my purposes.  In ordinary I want the subject to just show up.  So in a way it did today.  Less time was spent in a hunt but I just thought what are the everyday things I enjoy.  A cup of Tazo Zen Tea revives me...so I have a painting for day four.

I am already learning about time management and that I don't but at this point in my life I am not worrying about that.   I am also thinking about some of the things that I had forgotten over the last year and a half of not painting regularly.  I am also beginning to see what I do not want to continue and beginning to remember where I was headed...wanting to free up, use larger brushes, and let go.  I want to listen to myself and not the other voices of what a cup of tea is 'suppose' to look like but rather what I want it to feel like.  So I am taking note...it will all be on this blog for you and for me.  My painting, as I am, is evolving, hopefully.  Thank you for visiting today!

                                                           Last Flower of Summer
                                                            oil, 8"x10" canvas

Thirty Paintings Challenge-Day 3

My garden, for a few reasons,  has not flourished this summer.  The temperatures just never seemed to get hot enough for the tomatoes.  Also the tomatoes were Richard's project every year.  He babied them, picked their suckers, watered, and tied them up off the ground.  He was out there checking them a few times a day.  Gave them what they needed in terms of natural , thank you chickens, fertilizer from which he would make a very stinky tea and feed them.  Then when he started to harvest those beauties he would make the best tomato salad from tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, wine vinegar, and Italian herbs.  It was the best.  One could soak Italian bread into the juice and it was amazing.

I have only planted them and did a once over sucker picking.  I have green tomatoes, still...even though they are the same type we always planted.  One's heart needs to be in to the gardening process,  I believe and my heart was not.  Being out in the yard is very hard with out him as everything is.  So I picked these green tomatoes and painted them.  They in some ways are a visual reminder of his absence in the garden this year as well.  I guess there is always fried green tomatoes.

                                                                Summer Green
                                                                  oil, 8"x10"
                                                                  

Thirty Day Painting Challenge-Day 2

I awoke today remembering it was yet another anniversary of loss.  My mother died two years ago today,  three thousand miles away and I could not leave my husband.  The odd things that come to you sometimes.   She loved danish pastry and fig squares.  Once upon a time they were something I made trips to the bakery for as Richard and I also loved pastries.  Those days long gone for me.  But this morning I thought of my mother and decided I would find a bakery and buy 'her' a raspberry danish.  So I ventured out into the ninety plus  temperatures with the same amount of humidity searching for the right danish I had in my mind.  One of the last things she said to me via a long phone call before she became ill was she wished I was there and we could have coffee or tea with something 'good' together and just talk.  I so wished that too.  I always thought there would be time to share that with her.  It was not to be.

                                                            A Danish for Mom
                                                            oil, 8"x10" canvas panel