About me and my paintings...

how it all started, where it came from and where it is going

 
 

A friend of mine gave me a painting that someone had given her. She didn’t like it and thought I may enjoy it. It was a rather dark painting, maroon and grey and I actually thought it quite ugly. So, not knowing what to do with it, and not wanting to throw it away, I held on to it. One day I decided to try painting over it. It was a 16 x 20,  unframed stretched canvas. I painted a really lovely heart, and the cool thing was that when I was done, I hung it on a nail and it was nice finished piece. The paint I used was some leftover acrylic from when I made the outdoor sign when I opened my shop, Imagine, 5 years earlier. I had used some of the paint to make ‘sale’ signs for my shop, but other than that had never tried doing an actual painting.


My husband was going to Orlando Florida for a week to install some things he had fabricated for a conference there. I was going with him, we were driving his van down. I knew he would have space in his van, so I went out and bought around 40 stretched canvases, a bunch of paint, brushes, and medium and brought along a  french easel that my brother had pulled out of someone’s trash (brand new!).


When we got to Orlando, we had the good fortune of having a large one room efficiency with an 18 x 30’ deck overlooking Waterworld.  I started painting while he was at work, and I wanted to do nothing for the next 7 days but paint and paint and paint and paint. I didn’t want to eat, sleep, nothing, just wanted to paint. He worried about me, would get up at 1 am and tell me to go to bed (I am normally a very early bedtime person, 10pm is late for me ~ I love mornings!).  I painted all the canvas, plus some paper I had brought. So he and I went to an art supply store and I bought more canvas and paper and he bought me some wonderful painting tools, which I never would have bought because I am ultra thrifty. The tools I have used in nearly every painting since and am grateful for his generosity.


I did around 60 paintings that week. I realize that just because McDonalds sells a gazilliion hamburgers does not mean that they make good food. And I’m not at all implying that the work was remarkable. But most of that work has since sold, so I guess other people liked what I had going on. 


A  few weeks later I headed overseas for my annual trip.  When I arrived in Bali for the first time, I walked into an artists studio and a man was painting a 6’ x 8’ canvas on the floor. I asked him where I could buy some supplies. He put down the huge brush he was using, threw on his motorcycle helmet and then he drove me to an art supply store where I bought tons of materials with his generous discount.  I painted on big strips of canvas which I then rolled up and shipped back with my store merchandise which I  transport by sea cargo. Those paintings I tore up into small squares and rectangles that I then used as artwork for the front of my new line of greeting cards. And some of the canvas I sold as is, and some I incorporated into new works.


That summer I decided to dedicate 50% of my shop wall space to displaying my artwork. I sold 80 paintings that summer and have sold well ever since.  I had an art opening at my shop, Imagine, in early June 2006. We served beer from a keg, hot pretzels from a pretzel cart my husband build for the occasion and had  a three piece rock and roll band perform on my tiny porch for the event. 


I have continued to paint during my overseas travels and paint either in my front yard on nice days or inside my shop/gallery during inclimate weather. Imagine is only around 300 square feet, so my space is incredibly limited, but it works well.  I love painting outdoors while I man the shop and talk with customers and passers by. It is inspiring for me to see how the public reacts to my work. I realize that people’s taste’s are very subjective, and I don’t get insulted if they don’t like it and I don’t get all excited if they do like it.


I am a very prolific painter, hence I care very much if the work sells because I’m not at all interested in storing the stuff or holding onto it. 


I paint because I love painting. I love how it feels, how it develops, how one stroke of a brush can totally change the character of a piece. I am not really attached to my work, I do it, I love it, I could do it all day long.   I love selling it, I love giving it away: either to people who move me to do so or for fundraiser auctions..  My gratitude at being so incredibly blessed to actually have the opportunity to sell my work, has never diminished.


Imagine was opened in May 2002. I started painting in December 2005. My fifth year of having a shop was when I turned part of my space into a ‘gallery’ and a ‘studio’ area where I create the work.  I am told that I should be making up stories about my work, that I should have some very interesting idea or purpose behind the work, but that would not be the truth. The truth is I pour the paint out and I pick up a tool or use my hands and whatever comes, comes. Some of the time I do have an idea in mind, but most often the work just becomes whatever it wants to become.


I love color and texture and depth. The work I produce is a reflection of how I feel...love inside and out. My work comes from a place of love, gratitude, respect for life, and what I have made of my life.  People ask me the meaning of my work and my only response is that it  is simply a mirror of how I feel inside.  Occasionally I do something very unlike anything else I’ve ever done and I don’t know what that is all about, except it too must be a reflection of how I feel.


Again and again I am told of the plight of the artist, the suffering, the sacrifice. For me, I simply don’t do suffering, never have and doubt I ever will. I am not trying to be flip, just honest. My life has been charmed, I have done some pretty wild things,  and yet I have always felt safe and loved and have wholly trusted what was going on. I don’t live in fear, I live in love.


I believe people are inherantly good and that everyone is doing the best they can do.  Hate is not something I am familiar with, it is not an emotion that I have experienced, it is not something that I choose to bring into my life. For me the bottom line is that every single thing in my life I am 100% responsible for, I have brought it to me, no matter what it is. I may not have been able to control what  happens to me, but I have the choice of how I choose to view it, how I react to it.  I have never really been able to figure out if it’s that I haven’t  had much bad happen to me or if my ability to shed light and goodness on things make them seem like they were not negative or insurmountable.  Oh, and I have a bad memory, so maybe I just forget the bad things and the beat goes on and life is good.


More photo’s of my work will be coming soon, stay tuned!

I started pursuing painting in January of 2006.

The studio section of my shop, a bit messy, but hey, that’s how I am

What my walls looked liked like yesterday, 8/5/09, before I added new works

This 30” square orange piece was one of the very first one’s I did when I returned from Asia in March ’06. The dotted piece was done my second winter in Bali, ‘07