Messy and Marvelous

Messy and Marvelous

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Messy and Marvelous
oil on cradled wood panel
14 x 11 x .75 inches
This item is unframed but ready to hang
​(click on the image to purchase)

​It cannot be always comfortable.
So love the thousand knives as they enter
and see your shape still sitting.
See that you too belong to paws
of soft silent hungers, to thirst-tangled
roots, to silver-spun constellations.
Know you’re no sicker than the rest of us.
The big secret is this: No one else can brave you.
Messy, yes. And marvelous. - Rachel Hébert

Life is a little uncomforable right now in the world. We are challenged each day to process societal changes we may never have imagined in our lifetime.

For each of us, this cannot help but become a very personal examination - what does this mean for me? For those around me? For my neighborhood, for my city? What does it mean for my mental and emotional health and for my physical wellbeing? 
We are, each one of us, messy and marvelous. The spotlight seems to be on the messy part right now. And so we hone our investigations to focus on the beauty, the kindness, the tenderness and the hope. Yep, there are still the thousand knives poking and prickling and prodding.  We are still here, still sitting, still ​marvelous.

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About the art: inspired by misty views as I walk across the bridge toward the city in the morning.  I began with a gesso'd wood panel and drew a rough geometric composition in pencil. A wash of darks across the center line and a wash of lights across sky and water. Rough dabs of  treeness and building-ness draaaaaaaaagged with a rubber wedge up and down, side to side. Resisting the urge to define. Allowing the shapes to be blurred as they were in the fog and mist, a paper towel to smudge them some more. A final coat of varnish to seal the deal.

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The first installment of a Question Exchange with Dotty S, who brilliantly suggested using poetry for her answers, which prompted me to create art in conjunction with my answers! Out of the box and out of this world!  Here was my first question for Dotty, with her response following:

An invitation to dine.

I find myself wondering what it would be like if we sat down and had a meal together - just a casual, long lunch between friends. And so, here is the menu!
​           Appetizers - what whets your appetite for writing and painting, makes you want to go there, do that?

appetizers
the everyday no-nonsense part 
of a particular artist i know
leans toward eat-to-live 
rather than live-to eat. 
this gal, god love her,
doesn't snack, 
rarely nibbles while she preps food,
is disinclined to have any kind of happy hour 
where she sits out on the back deck
before a meal to whet her appetite
with crackers or cheese or chips or hummus 
or crudités or hard cider.
she'd sooner take a walk than eat a snack,
sooner have her fill at the table than at the stove,
sooner read than partake before dinner.

however, the part of her that shows up
to write poems and paint? that gal has a
different story altogether! she is all about
snacks, always has an eye out for 
appetizers, is not shy whatsoever
about loading up
the cocktail plate she carries
at all times in her pocket,
cannot curb the gusto 
with which her hungry
self reaches for starters!
a sliver of shadow? she begins salivating.
canapés of calendula and coreopsis? she grabs a handful.
an amuse-bouche of seeing her neighbor watering her garden
on a summer morning? pass her the recipe.
an hors d'oeuvre of grief? she's unafraid to roll it around
on her tongue to explore its depth of bittersweet.
an antipasto of kandinsky concentric circles? bring on the hot sauce.
consider yourself forewarned: 
when she starts noshing,
do not get in her way.
--dotty seiter
​

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Dotty's first question for me was:

what is the origin story for your life as an artist?

What is the origin story for my life as an artist?

It began with a banishment.

For 50 years, I ran from the art police. In a moment of frustration (and likely inebriation), my mother banned me from art as a child. Untalented. A mess! Don't ever go near art! 

I never questioned it. Sure, I knitted scarves, played musical instruments, wrote short stories and poems, hooked rugs, made jewelry...but it wasn't ever art. Just crafts

When I was 50, while working an overnight shift unloading trucks to make extra money, one of my co-workers invited me to an art journaling class she was teaching. I looked at her quite seriously and said sorry, I can't. I've been banished from art. And she laughed. And laughed. And laughed! She told me a person actually could not be banished from art, and insisted I go. 

I did.
And I never looked back.
​​

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The December Reader Giveaway continues! Leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered. One lucky commenter will win their own Question Exchange, to be defined in the way which suits them best! I can hardly wait! xo