It's a Question of Balance.

I’m not sure this will ever be a logical BLOG, as I’m not chronological by nature, and am frequently inside out, …but, being human…I’m counting on others feeling similarly laundered. Besides, a little soap never hurt anyone.

It’s a Question of Balance.

I make drawings most days, work on paintings some, love and agree and disagree with family and friends, make meals, plan trips…trips to the market, to the park, to the dance center, to the library, to the art stores and galleries, all in search of something. I’m always on the move, but where to?

As artists, I think we try to get closer to the spirit of who we are, where we’re headed... Why care? I don’t know about anyone else, but I want to attempt to understand life, it seems so BIG, and significant!

Drawing and painting help me understand.
Something about processing (through making,) helps to clarify ideas, feelings…life! So, I draw and I paint and I process, the way I breathe or love.

In picking up a pencil and looking to this person in front of me, or this space or land, I stop all the running around. I put my head back on, and connect to the living in some fundamental, necessary way.

There is no equivalent.

The scratching of the pencil against paper, the energy of its pulse, my arm tingling as it erases and re-draws, the forgetting of self as one steps back and forth to search, the sense of total participation and emersion…this is magic. In the way you believe in something more magical than yourself, something more wondrous.

I believe in lists, perhaps because my mother always made them and in turn, taught me to have faith in them, words, almost like a prayer.
Lists are Good. I always forget to look at them, but they live anyway, somewhere in memory and in wanting.

I will:
Love
Join
Laugh
Listen
Expand
Approach
Erase
Merge
Question
Try
Voice
Believe

On occasions when I feel made of mud, heavy, unfiltered, weighed…I work to clean myself up, pretend for the day, let go. Drawing allows me to let go, to see, to clarify, to love more intensely, and to let go. It is a place for non-filtering, no editing, charged thought and work.
I’ve listened to the kids laughing deeply, silly and in each others faces, belly laughs that make up for all other moods, heard the steady rhythm of my husband’s hammering as he works to build us a porch…I’ve let go of worry over this or that and can feel the mood of contentment settle in as I know I’ll be bringing this to the studio tomorrow, this sense of quiet and well being that will be shaken on another day, but is clear and present in this moment, today.