Beautiful Garden

A friend called me the other night, in tears and with enough despair and hopeless in her voice that I wanted to cry with her and I did. I have watched my friend suffer from the temper and emotional instability of an extremely ill-equipped manager for the past three years. Her efforts and successes being award her with “you could do better” and there is a constant undertow of threats of being fired. This is a boss that rules with fear and is using the economic downturn to treat her employees with little to no respect. It breaks my heart. She fights the good fight, with head held high most days, but today was one of those days.

I try to help her gain perspective. We recently read and watched The Help together and we were grateful that a bad day at work didn’t mean physical harm like it did for so many African Americans living in the south only 50 years ago. I reminded her that she had more opportunity than most of the world, that she was lucky. She could see she had something to be thankful for… barely. And I felt like such a crummy friend pulling the whole world into her situation. I hate when people do that to me, and I apologized.

All I could do was be sad with her and tell her she really did work for the sickest most damaged woman living in the United States, well, at least in the mid-west. I listened and did so without trying to fix it. I wish I could have fixed it though. Then when she was finished and the tears became just sniffles I told her things I wanted her to hear. And it’s important to wait for the tears to finish, the words of pain to stop spewing and the expletives to disappear before you say anything. No one can hear during that time. It’s like trying to get someone who is puking to eat… sorry to be so growce.

I reminded my friend of who she is and always will be and it went something like this…

You are kind. You make good cookies. You make me laugh everyday. You bring value to my world and anyone who knows you. Basically you have a garden with lots of flowers! All kinds of flowers are in your garden, it is full of color and beauty and there’s no better place.

Here’s to my friend. Your garden is beautiful and no one can change that, not even a crummy boss.

Happily Ever After....

I've been a skeptic of "happily ever after" mostly because it always seemed to be associated with finding prince charming, getting married, THEN you you get "happily ever after."   In just 13 days, I get to marry my prince charming.  But I have to say "happily ever after" began before I even met John.  "Happily ever after" came with each friend I made that I could call a kindred spirit, with the ability to paint when I was exhausted from life, work and mean people, with every day I managed to hope.  I guess that now that I'm engaged and soon to be a Missus, I see "happily ever after" in a different light.  You can choose to live "happily ever after" NOW.   Then you meet the guy....

Hot Days

Pointillism Flowers
These hot days... all I can do is sit still and move as slowly as possible.  I'm taking my time to finish paintings and even slow down enough to try new things. (like the flowers above)  Not too much thinking today, I get hot doing that too.  I wish I had zinnias to paint, but it looks like I fed a rabbit family this year.  I have sowed at least 5 packs of zinnias and might have five starts to show for it.  But don't get me going because thinking about that gets me hot too.

3x3x3

Three Artists - Three Mediums - Three Works
No, we aren't a country music trio, we are a trio of artists.Several months ago Brad Edwards, photographer, Michael Bolton, acrylic artist, and I, watercolor artist got together and decided to do an art show unlike any other we've done.  I mean, come on, if you are like me, I've come to dread art shows.  The ones where you are intimidated by the stark white walls, okay wine and you feel more comfortable standing in front of the plate of cubed cheese than a painting. Yes, you know what I'm talking about it.  And as an artist, if I don't like going to them, why would I want to be a part of one.  So we decided to try something a little less intimidating and a LOT more fun.  Urban Chestnut Brewery is a new micro brewery here in St. Louis.  With an amazing selection of beers and tasting plates to accompany their great brew assortment.  Recently opened and in a fabulously renovated building - it was perfect for what we were trying to do - which was....
  • Have Fun
  • Make Art more approachable and available
  • Show our guests how each artists works and interprets what he/she sees
  • Support and express our vision for St. Louis - a city with immense history, beauty and potential who seems to be limping at the moment
So here's how it happened.  Brad took several photos of St. Louis and each of us chose one photo Michael and I painted the three selections using our method and style.  These three would be displayed at the brewery.  Then on the night of the show, we did a live painting and had a silent auction. 

Black and White Flight
This was my favorite painting that I did.  It was quite a departure from my normal more realistic paintings.  There are so many dilapidated buildings in St. Louis.  You can see that many of them where once quite magnificent and I look at them and see beauty and sadness.  I painted this from Brad's black and white image, and it was just too depressing for me to paint the image using greys and blacks.  I saw so many great textures and to me that's what made this interesting.
Relic
 and finally
Make sure you go to Brad's website to see the original images. 

This experience was really wonderful for me as an artist too.  Even though I love painting flowers, I found this to be a challenge I needed -- pushing me toward the abstract and to thinking about meaning and what my work says about the world around me.  I strongly encourage artists to collaborate when possible, it truly is a growing experience and I hope to help bring more of these types of shows to St. Louis.