Hungry Dog 2013

Recently, when I've left on trips, my little dog, Niko, has been getting out of the yard.  He has been able to locate and then squeeze though the tiniest of holes in the wire fence, and once we fix one spot, he finds another. Last week I was in Kansas City, visiting my daughters, when I called my husband.   "So, your little dog got himself in some trouble. Let me tell you what happened" he said.  So, while my stomach churned and roiled, this is what he told me:

From inside the house, Bob had heard a high, shrill, yelp coming from the outside. He started out  the back door, and then, with a feeling of dread, began to run toward the fence, frantically calling Niko's name. "My gut said  something was really wrong" he told me.   He saw Niko in the large field to the south of our house running back towards Bob as fast as he could, and at the same time, Bob saw a large male coyote loping  away. Niko forced himself back through the hole in the chicken wire that he had used to escape from, and greeted Bob with a mixture of guilt and excitement.  Bob examined him and found two slight puncture wounds on either side of his thigh, and later, the next day, another puncture wound closer to the joint on his back leg.  Bob thinks the coyote lured Niko out of the yard, and then grabbed him by the back leg once he was a safe distance from the house, planning to have Niko for his midday meal.  When he'd heard Bob charging out of the house yelling, he'd dropped Niko and decided it was time to move on.

Man Waiting 1987

Once again, I'm ready to start a new body of work, and I'm afraid, unsure, unhappy, and not at all confident that I can ever make a good image again(in fact, I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen).  On the day last week that I started in earnest(which means showing up in my studio in painting clothes and  putting my apron on along with a "can do attitude"), I managed to spend over two hours online looking at REI"s Gear Mail link, which allowed me to look at hundreds of items on sale, and since I had a $10.84 dividend which I could use towards the purchase of something from REI, why not? I finally found and ordered bike gloves, which I don't need.

The problem is the problem.  When I start out I don't know where I'm headed or what I'm going to do. This fills me with anxiety because  I don't know where I'm headed or what I'm going to do.  As a person who A)likes to be in control and B)needs immediate gratification, this waiting, anxiety filled time is very hard. Change comes about not because I see clearly where I want to go, but  because I'm bored and have lost interest in what I was doing.  It's out of that ennui that things will eventually sort themselves out and began to take shape.  It's the ability to sit with this discomfort that is a key factor in the whole mysterious process.  Having done this for so many years, my suspicion is that my Big Self,  who thinks she's in charge, has to exit before my Creative Self, who knows she isn't, can fill step in and take over.

Woman with Caged Bird 1993

In 1993 I had two daughters, aged 3 and 6, not easy ages(but not as bad as 2 and 5, or 1 and 4).  When I look at the images I did that year they fall into three categories:  horses, figures kneeling and/or suffering, and figures with children(often kneeling and/or sufferingl).  I think the horses were about wanting  power in my life, but not feeling that I had it.  The kneeling and/or suffering figures were about being a parent, and about being brought to one's knees by these small, forceful beings.  They were about not knowing which way to turn or act when dealing with little people whose powers of logic were not good, but who had all the conviction in the world when it came to getting their needs and desires met.

It was a hard time for my husband and me.  Most of the images I did that year reflected our struggle as we tried our best to be good parents.  We worked hard at it, but so often  were overwhelmed.  Today, with 26 and 23 year old daughters, I look back at those years and wish I had them to do all over again.  This time around I would rejoice at the fact that we had our girls close to us, day in day out.  I would know that a three year old's constant tantruming wasn't an indication of how she would be for the rest of her life, but rather just a hint of the spirited and gifted woman that she is today.  Instead of feeling caged and powerless, I would live in the moment and delight at the power and strength of these two unfolding and forming human beings.

Dog with Ghost 2000

Barney was my sister's first dog as an adult.  "Definitely our fist child" she told me in an email recently when I asked her to tell me about him.  Mostly yellow lab, from the Tacoma Animal Humane Society, chosen in 1989 from all the dogs that were available that particular day.  He died at 12 from a mysterious illness that took away his appetite, and at the end of his life he had a feeding tube that went into his stomach into which Melisa, and her husband Mike, put a soupy slurry of  food.  "To the very end though he happily went on walks with us around the block and wagged his tail whenever we came near".  

 I did this painting before he died, but not much before.  The photo was from before he got sick, when he still had an appetite because it shows Barney politely waiting to be fed.  I made the painting with an awareness of his illness, knowing he would soon  be "crossing over the rainbow bridge(as the vet who put our old dog down recently told me)".  It's with a kind of horror that I remember that I sold this painting to my sister.  I'm  hoping I gave her a good discount.

Woman with Small Dog Watching 2005

"Art is another form of Prayer" as overheard quoted by Oprah Winfrey.

Woman with Small Dog Watching is a self portrait.  That's my head  sitting on top of a torso made from bits and pieces of the Reverend Dennis's home outside Vicksburg,  Mississippi.  The Reverend Dennis, a World War II Vet, covered the outside of his home with biblical writings painted in pink, yellow, red, and white.  The writings are both his own and quotes from the Bible.  There is no question that for the Reverend Dennis, his art was his form of prayer.http://www.detourart.com/rev-hd-dennis-renowned-mississippi-folk-artist-1916-2012/

Is art a form of prayer for me, like the Reverend Dennis?  Is it as true for me as it was for him?  I had to think long and hard about this simple statement.  But here's what I came to:  It's where the best of me lives, it's where I am most present, and it's where, when I'm there, I'm closest to the big things that matter most. So yes, I think art is prayer for me. This is what this painting is about: being made of what comes from witnessing the world while being guided by something I can't lay claim to.

Fox with Fallen Eggs 2013

Two things helped shaped me as a child:  riding my horse, bareback and alone, in the rural ranch land around my home outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico and the nature programs on the Public TV Station, PBS.  The shows portrayed a democratic world where nothing was either all good or all bad (except man).  Yes, the lioness killed the newborn baby gazelle, but she had (adorable) cubs to feed.  The programs seemed always to be about the struggle of the animals to survive, be it weather or predators or loss of  environment. An episdoe in which drought causes the rivers to dry allowing the crocodiles to attack and devour antelope with the speed of light as they nervously creep down the dry bank to drink is burned into my brain.  One minute you're just about to stick your nose in the dirty brown water for a needed drink, the next you're being pulled under the water, trapped in the jaws of a prehistoric monster. There is no easy street in nature.

When I would go out on my long solo rides, I would look for evidence of what I'd learned from those nature programs.  The country I rode in was mostly ranch land, so I would see cattle, but not much wildlife.  But still, I was always on the lookout.  Circling birds meant something.  "Vultures" I would mutter, then urge my horse into a canter, searching for whatever was beneath the floating figures. Usually it was just crows flying around, but every once and awhile I would find something dead, most often a cow.  I had hopes of finding much more exciting carrion, but it was alright when I didn't.  I loved  being in a world where mysterious and unknown things were happening, and to be a part of that world all I had to do was pay attention.

Orange Head (with Elvis) 2013

A Saturday morning, an argument with my husband, escaping to my studio to let him know--I don't need you--finding scraps of photos of hair and a beautiful little silver/gray/orange panel that I'd painted several weeks earlier.  I start dropping and placing the the curved hair images on the orange and silver panel. A face emerges. I find a perfect nose and eye, then another eye made from a leafless tree and a tiny black spot.  A mouth that looks like a snake but that is in reality a sliver left over from a photo of a Navajo rug.  Last, a neck made from tiny Elvis from an Asian newspaper of he and Kurt Cobain side by side (why they are together I dont know because I can't read Korean).* I hear the door of the studio open. Its my husband, not sure of his welcome.  I show him the little portrait.  He likes it.  I'm pleased.  We forget about the argument.

* Kurt ends up in another portrait as ears.