Finding that balance....the tricky part.

After a long bout with a nasty virus, I needed a little extra tension to boost my art mojo.  So I dove into a jar of crackle paste.  I've never used it, had no instructions AND the jar had been purchased at a flea market, so the contents were dried out and old.  If you add some water and a LOT of mashing and smashing, it will revitalize into something really pasty and satisfying.  The undercoat of this piece is a heap load of crackle paste, scored to smithereens with many texture tools.  This is what gives the trees their lovely lines and grainy grooves, which are quite 3-dimensional in real life.   It is probably the most wonderful group of painted trees I've ever made.  I will be doing this again and again.

Here in south Florida, it is difficult to get a real nature fix in a hurry.  I am feeling the call of the wild...a desire to hike amongst tall trees and listen to songbirds while crunching through leaves and blazing trails through undergrowth.  In lieu of that, a suburban hike over to the neighborhood park to peek at the burrowing owl nests will do in a pinch.  I hadn't seen them since Hurricane Irma.  But there they were, peeking out of their holes.  I didn't get close enough for a pic (Pongo is not a stealthy owl viewer), so enjoy this video of burrowing owls in nearby Cape Coral:

"Pouring Water on Ancient Faces" - mixed media on 300 lb watercolor paper,  10" x 22".  Ready to frame.  Available at Artfinder.

Inigo: Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Buttercup is marry Humperdinck in little less than half an hour, so all we have to do is get in, break up the wedding, steal the princess, make our escape, after I kill Count Rugen.
Westley: That doesn't leave much time for dilly-dallying.
                 from The Princess Bride

Not much time for dilly-dallying!  Do you have days like this?  Where one hundred and fifty-four things are happening simultaneously on your schedule, and somehow you are just going to have to MAKE IT WORK (thanks, Tim Gunn!) but at that moment it seems nearly impossible?  Of course you do.

The scene in our house yesterday:  hubby working at one end with a pile up of banking deadlines, me at the other end with a dozen art deadlines.  Cleaners furiously trying to clean even as contractors are energetically tearing out drywall and remediating mold damage (yes, you heard it, mold).  And Pongo, ever vigilantly making sure everyone knows he is really willing to help them, big old nose in the middle of whatever they are doing.  Everyone's phone is ringing and pinging, equipment is grinding and whooshing and swooshing, dust is flying and being swept up and bag after bag of nastiness is being hauled out the front door.  Thank goodness I was feeling a wee bit better and didn't need peace and quiet.

This painting, and its title, inspired by the next chapter in Mark Nepo's book, The One Life We're Given.  In it he  describes beached whales and herculean efforts to save them.  This quote: ..when we're too exhausted to uphold our differences, there's room enough for everyone.  And when we find each other stranded, we must interrupt our lives to return each other to the deep.  As I penned a letter of encouragement to the students of Stoneman Douglas High School yesterday, this quote gave me hope that we could interrupt our lives and cross divides as a nation for these (and all other) children.   There is room enough for everyone.

"Bernard" - needled felted wool over armature.  Inquiries.

Inigo: He's dead. He can't talk.
Miracle Max: Hoo hoo hoo! Look who knows so much, heh? Well, it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Please, open his mouth. Now, mostly dead is slightly alive. Now, all dead...well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing you can do.
Inigo: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
[Max puts the bellows to Westley's mouth, and blows air in.] Hey! Hello in there! Hey! What's so important? What you got here that's worth living for?
Westley: T-R-U-E L-O-V-E.
Inigo: "True Love", you heard him? You could not ask for a more noble cause than that.
      from The Princess Bride

Well you heard the man, what you got here that's worth living for?  A great question to ask anyone you want to know better.  And it's hard to be upset about [insert problem here] when you're counting the reasons you want to be around.  There are a lot of questions you can ask people to foster a closer connection, including this list from some folks who wanted to try to make people fall in love.  

One guy tried answering these questions with his partner.  And here's what he said:  The questions reminded me of the infamous boiling frog experiment in which the frog doesn’t feel the water getting hotter until it’s too late. With us, because the level of vulnerability increased gradually, I didn’t notice we had entered intimate territory until we were already there, a process that can typically take weeks or months.

Maybe that's something to consider.  We have a lot of major societal divides to conquer and foster common ground right now.  A fast-track to connection sounds like something we can do.

I think about these kinds of things when needle felting.  "Bernard" was good company while convalescing.  A sense of accomplishment without leaving the chair.  And though he isn't a painting, he is a creation.  While I continue to hibernate with tea, tissues and cold medicine,  enjoy a little Billy Crystal. :)

Even as kids, we were very conscious of fairness.   Slices of cake had to be measured for equality.  A line was drawn across the back seat of the car to make sure we each had the same amount of space.  Christmas gifts had to be practically identical (yet different) to keep one from feeling less loved than another.

As an adult, after experiencing an onslaught of events that certainly didn't seem fair, I began to question the idea of even using fairness as a measurement.  Because life isn't fair - not in any way.  It's messy and unfair.  So perhaps getting hung up on the fairness of anything is counterproductive, because we get stuck on it and can't see anything else.

This week I am trying to focus instead on what goodness I can see, feel, hear, taste.  And there is a lot of it.  There is an outpouring of love, support and good energy right now.  Weaving a web of connection between humans and families and communities.  It isn't fair, but it is what we have.  And maybe we can make it work for us and for those for whom life has just been desperately unfair.

The next chapter in Nepo's  The One Life We're Given describes the process of growing larger (through building careers and our life stories) and then smaller again (as we move past our ambition) "the ways a storm builds only to dissipate."  Though we know Inigo isn't quite ready to abandon his goals at this point in the story, we would understand if he decided to pursue farming, perhaps, and give up his vengeance seeking.

The irony of deciding to "jettison any particular sense of ambition", says Nepo, is that when we "outlast our will, we exhaust ourselves and let go of the reins, long enough for the horse we're riding to quicken its pace and carry us on."  Yep, another message of letting go.

But it is a little more nuanced than that.  Learning when to bend what comes our way and when to let go and just go with it - that's the ticket.  Leaning in or turning away.  Inhabiting life or consuming it.  Finding kinship or dominating.  There is a time and place for each, but knowing which is when is our challenge.

I think after a heart-wrenching event like the school shooting, we all instinctively lean in a little more.  We listen, we hear, we connect.  And Nepo hypothesizes that even the slightest lean can cause a butterfly effect...one tiny word, kindness, bit of compassion rolling gently into another until something amazing happens a thousand years after we're gone.  I find hope in that thought.  We might not live to see it, but our leaning in will make a difference.

He ends the chapter with an explanation of why our skin takes longer to heal as we age - it thins and holds its markings.  And he compares that to our spirits, which are "more permanently touched by the world the longer we're here."  I know we're all holding the markings of this week's events.  Maybe that's a good thing - lest we forget.

This is the final piece begun in the Nancy Frost Begin workshop earlier this month.  Her process is magical!  Again, it is hard to look at this and know it is watercolor. :)

It's the day after Valentine's Day and Westley is in the Pit of Despair.

And so are the rest of us here in South Florida, where a mass shooting at a school just took place in our own backyards.  The very school where I was scheduled to judge a high school art competition.  The very place where friends sent their children to learn each day.

There aren't words to sooth or heal or fix what's happened.  There is only a joining of hands, of hearts, of community.  Let  us call each other sweetheart for this moment.  Let us reach out and hold whoever is near, and send love to those who are far away.  Let our prayers, our words and our outrage cause a mighty wind of change.

Except I have this dream of a show for the rest of us creative types, Artists on Amtrak Eating Appetizers.  We probably wouldn't be as entertaining as Seinfeld's guests, but we might leave a trail of art across America.  So I ask you, dear reader, if you were invited on this cross-country adventure, where would travel to leave your artistic stamp on the country, and what appetizers would you  wish for?