cobaltika

i know i know. it’s HALLOWEEN! i should be out trick or treating. instead i am having a workathon weekend, finishing up tons of pieces and i am putting them on etsy all weekend. maybe if i build it they will come!? i know i won’t sell them if they are sitting in a plastic box on my artshelves, right? right. some of them i love very much… like that one. and its companion. also i cleaned my house like crazy, since the sun finally shone. and now i think i am going out to make dusk-colored halloween pictures in the neighborhood. i hope there are some pumpkin houses! and some scary children!

i have another project going on, but i think i won’t talk about it (yet).

and i tried to paint a little yesterday. ugh. but i didn’t cry. i just put them away … and got busy with the things that i *can* do. so there. but the paints are still on the table, so …

anyway, Happy ‘Ween!

so there. i tried *something* new!
first of all - THANKS EVERYBODY! - for your kind and helpful responses to my oh-so-whiney entry of last week. i didn’t even realize that many people still read this mess. all is not well, but i do feel a little better. thanks! and such great ideas of new things to try… i was gone over the weekend, to Kansas City, to spend birthday weekend with my poet, so it was not an artWeekend (exactly - although there is always a camera at hand). we had a fine time, with films and brownies and vietnamese food and wallowing and a long beautiful walk in the woods, including the pear forest, now all orange and amazing (last March we saw them covered in blossoms and snow, also wonderful!) on Sunday i woke spinnyHeaded. shit. so we didn’t do much, but knowing i was going to need to drive home, we went out for some fresh air in the afternoon and so i could make blurry pictures of the coloredHouse neighborhood. i know i know. HOUSES. but i made them different, i DID. it was a fun exercise and i might try it again this weekend. along with painting. gulp. and other stuff. i guess i’d better get some cheap red wine. and loud music.

some etsy stuff:
1. there are some new things OH! and DUH! an Autumn Sale … i forgot to say …
2. i am going to close down the print shop. i don’t really need another etsy shop. jeez! but i will offer some prints in the original store off and on. and you can always ask, too!
3. i keep thinking i want to try something different for online marketing, but so far i don’t know what … so i stay with etsy.

onward!

the facts of (my)life.

i think i have been seriously deluding myself for the last several years. thinking that as soon as i had more time and fewer obligations and belongings, my creative powers would just explode.

ha.

not.

the girls have been gone for a long time. they don’t need (or want?) me. i still miss them terribly. i have minimized my belongings to practically nothing. and for the last 3 months i have had 2.5 “extra days” per week in the form of 4.5 day weekends Every Week. more time than i have had in 10 years. the poverty is actually worth that extra time (mostly).

and i am doing nothing. i AM nothing. i am flat. empty. no dreams or visions. no plans. sure. i’m peaceful (more or less). i have learned to Be Here Now. there are seconds of joy and contentment, but mostly - nothing.

i have been dragging around and storing a large assortment of canvasses in various sizes (up to 5′) for years now. because i want to paint. i LONG to paint. not THINGS. i can make pictures of THINGS with a camera. i want to paint light texture color layer etc. last week i was enlightened and inspired by a book i found by accident in the library Emily Mason The Fifth Element. WOW!!!!!!! i am not interested in that much color, but still … WOW! she speaks of working without intention and intuitively, spontaneously - “collaborating with chance while staying alert to the beauty of unintended consequences – painting “the way a bird sings.”” yes!

so last Thursday afternoon, i cleared the artTable off completely, pulled out some canvasses (not the big intimidating 5′ ones!) and my paints and gave myself permission to paint all weekend. it was HELL. it was TORTURE. I COULD NOT DO IT. i do not know how to paint. i do not know how to make marks. i don’t know how to layer. i don’t have anything to express or communicate because i am so empty inside. i didn’t know even what to do but make a big sucky mess and then take everything to the trash on Sunday. that is my experience in a nutshell. i don’t know if i will ever try again. maybe glopping paper scraps on a 4″ x 6″ recycled photograph is all i can do. which i am so bored of.

i am rather depressed. and so disappointed with myself. not just about the painting, but about my whole “creative (NOT) life”. i don’t really know what to do.

a favorite composition

the pink catHouse
no. i don’t know what all those stickers are.
but i wish i did.

it is hard to see that there are 3 cats on the steps -
and peeking out a window seems to be a poodle with a hat

the blue pony
or : reason #436 - why i like to walk in the alley

i have been doing LOTS of walking around and making LOTS of pictures in the last month or so. it is free, fun and good exercise. this is my favorite season. sometimes i feel like i have to do “projects” or post imagery that is relevant to whatever rambling i am doing here, so most of these images go unseen. i am thinking i might just start popping them out here in public. just randomly. for my own amusement. maybe yours, too.

other goings-on: a GREAT weekend in kansas city with my poet. we saw Bright Star. i wanted to come home and throw away all of my 20th century and later belongings and sit and stitch linen cloth by the window for the rest of my life. so beautiful. two walks in new woods, cribbage, my first hotplate cookery and so on. now i am back in reality, but still thinking about stitching. and also about making new books. i have put them aside for some time, but now … hmmmm … missing making them.

autumn is really here. i have worn my fur boots already.

i have been having a pretty good time at the artTable since returning from Texas - yes, sure, i am hunker-down-don’t-spend-A-penny mode for the rest of the month, but i have even been feeling … inspired! i had some ideas and visions on the road and have been trying to work with them. as always, when i want to do something “minimalist” and “abstract”, it becomes very difficult, so it has been an interesting wrestling match, but not too frustrating. i just keep going… it is SO MUCH FUN to make the new papers to use.

some of the small experiments are going on etsy, like so (you can see they are too busy for the small size and there is a THING, so it is not abstract, but still they are pretty likable. the beeswax is so sweet…

also, there is now ongoing an AUTUMN SALE on my etsy shop wherein LOTS of the photoObjects are now priced at $10!! amazing! this includes shipping, too! one can’t go wrong. i have also decided to keep the prices low at the print shop. there are New Things everywhere. and more to come.

and that was my latest public service announcement!