Is "Self Taught" the kiss of death for an artist???

As I'm wrapping up the studio and actually getting it into a condition that will allow me to work, I'm busy sketching and jotting down ideas for future projects. I like looking at Etsy to see what other artists are doing and to get a sense of whether or not there's any market left given this stinky economy. On the one hand, I'm as intimidated as hell with the artists' bios that go on at length about their MFA from this fabulous university, followed by gallery shows all over the globe. Then I stumble on web sites or printed articles about people who are, in my opinion, great artists and describe themselves as "self taught." I dread the conversations with my husband's work associates (he's a senior administrator at a large university) when they ask (if they bother, because I AM just the wife), "What do you do?" I feel as if I must first apologize for no longer having an office job (it was a great job at a hospital, but then they ask if I am a nurse or doctor, to which I must justify my life and responsibilities for all radiation safety, contracts, etc. and watch their eyes glaze). When I explain that I have "retired" from the world of suits and pantyhose to follow my passion for art, they start asking questions about where I studied or with whom. Some of these people collect the real thing - they have Picasso hanging in their home, among other "real" artists' works. Now I want to change the subject.

I twitch in discomfort and reply that I have learned on my own after years of playing, expirimenting, enjoying inspiration provided by knowing other artists or following their work. Do we have to have permission to use the label artist because it was not bestowed by an institution of higher education? I went to high school with John Lasseter (Pixar) and can tell you that I remember distinctly attending a show of art work by the students, particularly two of his huge paper mache sculptures. I remember thinking that this guy was a seriously talented artist, and he was only a senior in high school. I never even took art in high school, but can't imagine my life without being able to release the creative drive that I can't explain to people who just don't have that compulsion to create something out of bits and pieces.

Perhaps I just need to relax about answering the dreaded question. I am self taught, and I'm not too lousy at it all if I do say so myself. Even if it is privately or anonymously here on the web.

Time to sketch.

Old, silly art

I was looking through photos of work I did quite a while ago and stumbled across the photo of a "doll" that I made for a co-worker. We had been swapping stories of childhood poverty and were joking about who had the worst toys. Trish told me that they were so poor, her family couldn't afford to buy her a doll, so she made one out of a piece of 2x4 on which she drew facial features and carried around like a doll. That inspired me to whip up my own version of a 2x4 doll, complete with copper wire for hair, bamboo extremities, and a skirt made of torn chiffon attached with copper nails. It was meant to be a joke, but Trish absolutely loved it and was actually a little weepy. I couldn't believe she actually kept the beast in the office for a while, then proudly displayed it in her living room (she even provided a photograph). This is the stuff that makes art fun.

Almost time for art

I've got the bookshelf in the room, and today I move in the cutting table and the rest of my supplies. It's hard to stay focused. I was recently urged by "old" school mates to set up a Facebook page so that we could all keep in touch regardless of changes in our email addresses. It's addicting! The best part is that I've reconnected with friends that I have truly missed over the years and am enjoying rekindling friendships that are more than just curiosity after all these years have passed. The icing on the cake is that I found family. Having grown up in a huge family (extended - cousins, second cousins, etc), we all scattered and lost touch. My two children know only old pictures and stories. What a great gift to reconnect. Perhaps it's time to consider a reunion?!?

In the meantime, the notion of reconnecting with friends and family has inspired me on a project idea. Time to sketch and get some supplies. Woohoo! Back in action!!!!!!!!!!!!

The studio walls are finished!

I started with the selected color and instantly hated it. Not willing to go back to Home Depot for a new gallon of paint and just scrap this one, I grabbed my own artist's paints and started squeezing into the can until I came up with the color I liked. No laughing. It's the color of a granny smith apple. The inherited furniture is white, and I'll be painting some mural work on the walls and putting up a lot of art to break it up, so it only sounds dreadful. It's really quite a cheery and invigorating color! Today I paint the trim on the window and door, then sew the curtains. I should be busy at work in there within a week.

On the more melancholy side of life, I'm distracted by the drama in the family that will probably slow down any time for art. My father just turned 75 years old. He's a very old 75. About seven years ago, he suffered a cardiac arrest and lives with the resulting brain damage that comes from six minutes of carbon dioxide delivered via CPR. He had only been remarried for about two years when this happened (Mom died of ALS a couple years prior), so he had a new bride and her two grandchildren that she had adopted (the product of two drug addicted adults that left these babies to fend for themselves). Life took a miserable turn for them at this point. My dad's wife had to quit her job to take care of him. For a while, he thought he had just retired from the Air Force (he retired in 1974). He can't remember that my mother died and is confused about his current living relationship. He doesn't remember that his parents and siblings have passed away, so we just tell him they are traveling. Dad usually doesn't know the date, what state he lives in, or how old he is. He's becoming increasingly aggressive, returning to the violent and angry man that was my father when I was growing up. It's gotten so bad that he attacked one of their kids while his wife and I were on the phone and I had to call their local police in New Mexico from Los Angeles. He will probably spend another week in the geriatric psychiatric ward of the hospital, and then who knows what's next. I just want them safe.

I wish there had been some place for him to go when I was a kid. It would have been nice to have a break from the reign of terror in my house. My closest friends know (love you, Michelle!) and are wonderful when I need to vent. I think it's why I'm such a dork and love the Harry Potter books. If I'd only had a Hogwarts to escape my own Dursleys...

Then I move on. It's done, I don't have to live in it anymore, and I can be happy, safe and creative without looking over my shoulder. Yeah! No more fussing.

FInally broke the studio prepping barrier

It took a really long time to figure out what was making me drag my heels with respect to converting my son's former bedroom into the studio I've been yapping about for months. I couldn't decide on the color, the weather was not conducive to painting, etc. Yesterday I finally just hit a wall. I was tired of not having a place to work. I stomped out to the garage, gathered my painting materials and primer, then threw on my paint-strewn clothes. I marched into the studio, stirred the primer, and got on the step stool to start cutting in primer near the ceiling. I just stood there, looking up at the words that I had painted around the room when I was very pregnant with my son, the child I struggled to have after being an infertility patient for seven years and losing three of five pregnancies. The child for which I endured 4-1/2 months in bed on medications to stop pre-term labor during the OJ Simpson trial (there was NOTHING on TV and the meds made me shake so much that TV was all I could manage).

I had read a children's story wherein one critter friend made a commitment to the other, the words of which I tweaked a bit, but which were my own commitment to my son that I painted on the walls around the entire room. The walls read, "I will show you the moon and the stars at night. I will show you with earth with no shadows. We will dance in the meadows and creep through the woods and whisper secrets in the dark."

We did. When he was a toddler and preschooler, he would frequently wake up during a thunder storm. I'd find him wandering through the house, not frightened, but to get a better look. Together, we'd sit on the floor in the living room, leaning on the fireplace wall and snuggle in a blanket, quietly watching lightening until the storm passed, whispering our report card of the individual flashes of light, then we'd both quietly go back to bed. He'd run outside when I called for him to see a gorgeous sunset or the wild parrots flying overhead (or the crows which I swear only fly one direction!), or lie down with me on the deck with pillows and blankets during meteor showers (both of us scared to death with the sounds of stomping critters nearby, but not wanting to miss "a big one"). We walked through meadows and woods on trips to Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes. OK, Daddy and I walked and Kevin would run yelling and chasing, "A bird!" or "Hey, can I pet your dog?" to any passerby with a pooch.

Painting over the words felt like erasing all of this, much like painting Erica's room when she moved out made me cry, recalling similar emotions and memories. Kevin is 14 now and still likes hanging out with the family (although not as much as he loves playing World of Warcraft until his IQ has dropped a dozen points), but the last vestige of his little boy years was primed over during an almost poetic storm. I cried before the first brush stroke, then rested my forehead on the wall and really cried for a few more minutes. My poor husband came in the room offering me wine. I think it was only about 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon. I said no, the civilized thing that I am (barely :-) and told him to go away. I cried a little longer, then primed the room as fast as I could and not as neatly as I normally would. To hell with the paint I dripped on the carpet; I'll take care of that later. I needed to do it while I still had the ability to see through my rapidly melting mascara.

It's done. Priming, that is. I went into the room a while ago and didn't cry. Of course I did a moment ago while writing, but I didn't in the room. Eventually I'll have the studio finished and it will be my room again, as it was before he was born. Then, while he's at school, I'll get the same bronze paint and sneak into his current room, and paint this phrase at the bottom of the inside of one of his closet doors. He's fourteen. He won't notice, but I'll feel better.

And I'll have a studio again.

Inspired by fabric

Yesterday I attended the "Road to California" quilt show.  It was fun to see what so many artists have pulled off with fabric.  I was inspired.  My husband and son came with me, the return of my favour of attending model train shows (Zzzzzzzzz) with them.  Of course, they were silly and misbehaved frequently.  After the tenth reprimand, I simply announced that for every episode of continued bad behavior, I would be making a purchase.  I have lots of new fabric, trim, a lovely dichroic glass necklace, a few quilting books, new templates and software...their bad behavior was rewarded beautifully!

One of the quilt book authors/designers and I got to talking about studio design, particularly about colours in the room.  I'm moving at a snail's pace renovating my studio, insisting on doing it right (removing peeling paint on the window and doors that dates back to 1955 vs. just sanding and painting it) as opposed to quickly.  I've been waffling over paint colours for weeks.  This artist has white walls.  Ack!  I can't do white walls!  I can't imagine being creative in what would feel like a sterile, primered-but-not-painted room.  Another colour may cast a bit of a reflection on my work, but I'd rather have ten halogen bulbs glowing bright white light in a room with a great colour than to have wickedly white walls snoring at me.

Time to whip out the heat gun and finish removing the last of that wicked paint.  I want my studio!

Lessons in the real world

I had to go in for jury duty this week and I was really ticked off about it. Not because I don't feel a civic responsbility to participate in the process, but because I did, in fact, do my duty with our call in system in this state. The last summons I received (until this recent nasty-gram) was almost two years ago. As required, I registered by phone and dutifully called every evening as required to see if my group had to report. At the end of the week, I was informed by the nice bot voice that I was free as a bird, my duty complete. Six months later I receive a nasty postcard that suggested I was in big trouble for blowing off jury duty and I'd better call and fix this mess. I phoned, and explained that I had dutifully called every lousy day, then called my boss to her know I'd be in the next day, blah blah blah. I still had my old calendar with all of the details which sufficiently convinced the jury duty lady that I was telling the truth. She noted they had no record of my efforts, to which I asked what kind of record either one of us might have given that it's a phone-in system! When I asked how we could fix this, she said she'd just throw my name back in the pot and I may get summoned in as soon as six weeks. I was willing to do it again just to avoid even the appearance of not following the rules. This is what you do when you are the daughter of an Air Force drill seargent that beat the crap out of you for seventeen years...you follow rules come hell or high water in the hope of diverting attention or trouble. The next summons I received was a year later, last month, which basically read "You are in really, really big trouble and you no longer get to call in. You get to COME in to the scariest ghetto Superior Court on this particular day and time!"

On the day I reported, I got lost AND was late. I am never late. I was terrified, even at my age, that I was going to get my behind chewed by a judge, both for being late and for supposedly dodging jury service. Neither happened.

What did happen was that I was fortunate enough to meet a woman who lived, as she called it, "in the 'hood." We talked all day about her experiences with prejudice. I found our conversations enlightening beyond anything I expected. I marveled at her ability to relay these stories in such a calm manner. I personally would have been a sobbing heap of anger had I ever had to deal with the circumstances she relayed. There are so few miles between our homes, but our lives are so very different. While I have always appreciated the fact that I grew up so incredibly poor and had a really, seriously crappy get-beat-at-least-weekly childhood, I got out of that mess. This woman and her husband are raising two children in a neighborhood where gunshots are heard frequently. She told me it's much better, with gunfire heard only about once a month now as opposed to the previous daily experience.

That's the real world. I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for the experience. Thank you, Naisha.