Sunday, February 14, 2016

Happiest Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day. Today was wondrous. I was going to go clean up all my paintings I took out of their storage area but my cat got on my lap so I decided to come here and write about this awesome day made more awesome by my big warm cat purring on my lap as I type.

I sold three paintings today, woo effin hoo!
 This one was hard to let go as it is steeped in meaning for me. It represents a period in time when I was in Manhattan kind of dating, sleeping with the drummer I loved so well. He didnt love me but I loved him dearly. We looked at this painting, all the different layers and aspects. He rally likes my work and it was a lovely way to spend 4 hours going through all my work. Except the really bigger work. He een ear-marked some other pieces for another time. He has teenage boys and plans to bring them by to see where I work and perhaps join in at a Paint Night. Thank you Tim Day, you wonderful collector you. He has some art from a Russian man and a Mexican. My work fits in with the pieces he already has.
 This piece is Stella, a character in a kids book I wrote.
This is a piece I did recently aimed at Paint Night. Now I need to do another rendition before Thursday which I dont mind it was fun to paint.

I rejoiced when he bought my work because now I can pay my rent and I was sick with worry. I staved the wolves off for another month. AWESOME

As I walked him out to the car I saw the dog from yesterday with the other sister and I ran up to them to see how he was. She said he was fine, he had pink ice stuck to him, it wasnt his penis at all.

WHAT A GREAT DAY.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Lost Frozen Dog

Today was the coldest day. I have not seen the birds much at all. A few here and there but nothing like the last ten years. It feels like an omen. It feels like a way of telling me, the universe telling me I wont be living here much longer.

It is so freezing cold I had to go put out bird food anyway just in case and put out some water for the squirrels, pifeons and sparrows. I went out there and there was a pile of pigeon feathers, a hawk or something had gotten to and ate everything but the feathers. I raked them all to the side and fed the birds. There were a few sparrows in the cedar trees, and I whistled to them. It is how I talk to them. I think my thoughts and feelings out loud and whistle to communicate with them. Very sad and depressing.

I agreed to go help tear down the cat adoption event at the Stockyards not far from here. I was getting ready and I saw the semi-feral cat waiting outside on the porch waiting for some food. I made her and my cat a dish of food. I was bringing it and my bike out of the hallway when I saw my neighbor.

"I need your help" she said.

I was cutting the time short alread, and feeling anxious about showing up on time. Of course I would help her. There was a little white dog on the loose and her and another neighbor were trying to catch him. I jumpd on my bike and headed down the road after the little dog. I followed the tracks and found him in a backyard. I had him trapped because he couldnt get past a fence although he tried. I noticed his penis was hanging out and thought that was so weird. He was growling at me and shaking. I bent down and told him I would not hurt him not looking in his eyes so I would not scare him.

I got him and picked him up holding him close as he shook violently, he was scared and so cold.

Now what? We thought he might have come from the housing complex near the park at my end of the street and we started knocking on doors. My neighbor wheeled my bike while I held the poor wee dog shaking, shaking, shaking.

Finally a young girl late teens, came from the other direction. It was her job. I told her there was something wrong with her dogs penis and I held him out for the first time to look and hand him to her. His penis had frozen and was now only hanging on by a thread. It was a horrible sight. It was frozen which is a blessing because he would not have felt it as much, I hope. I told her to take him straight to the animal hospital and she ran with him with me yelling "Run, run!" behind her.

I jumped on my bike and went to the pet store to help. I was in tears and freaked out. The little dogs name was Wally. I hope he is okay.

She told us he had run away. When I asked her how long she said 20 minutes, but the 3 of us agreed, after she left with him that it was longer than that in the state he was in. Thank God we got him and I pray he is okay.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Newer Paintings

Oil on canvas

Oil on Canvas

Sunflower in the Backyard

Sunflower that broke off and I brought in and painted. Oil on canvas

Hope Oil on Canvas board

Sunflower broke off, brought it in to paint. Oil on Canvas

Tulips in the Backyard Oil on Canvas

Front and Back of a Butterfly, Moonstruck, Oil on Canvas

Healing Power Oil on Wood

Gwendolyn in the Window

4th Millennium Basket design and sunflower that broke off

Fleabane Daisy and the Power of Love Oil on Canvas

Butterfly and Magic

Help in the Water Oil on Canvas
Oil on Canvas Tulips in the Garden

Prince and Woman Oil and Canvas

Crying Woman Irises in the Garden Oil on Canvas

Blowing Kisses Oil on Canvas

Gwendolyn in the Window

Gwendolyn in the Front Window


Monday, February 8, 2016

Life for the Underdog, Year of the Dog in the Year of the Red Monkey

The birds sort of showed up but hardly any of them and sporadically.

This cat makes me happy.


Here's the important point. There is research showing that the most important relationship in determining a woman's success in the workplace is the one with her father. 

I saw this, one of the million posts out there to guide and inform us all.

Second rate painter, first rate artist 

Art requires skill. 

Impeccable taste and terrible paintings in their homes.

Art is a luxury.

No why have w been making art 40 thousand years. There was cave paintings. Art in prison, in asylum concentration camp, in kindergarten. fundamental to who we are. Marc Mayer, director of Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada

Art does not have to be beautiful. Beauty is an unstable notion. It can change within your own life.



Year of the Dog in 2016


Some sites have quite a bit of gloom and doom forecasted, depressing. I am afraid, I am. I am scared and I move forward as best I can. I spent the last few days and still need to finish up making Super Powers Potion. The batch smells lovley. It was a fight to produce as often seems to be the case. Every time I have made it something goes haywire and drags the process on and on and on. I prevailed and I am pretty sure this batch is dreamy.



Tuesday, February 2, 2016

The Rain Comes Down, the Birds Dont Come Round No More

Early buds coming out in the backyard.
Around 730pm I went for a walk. They said the rain is coming, big storm warning. My heart tightens. The birds have not been around in the longest time ever since I moved in here 10 years ago. I have been feeding them every single day--unless I am away--and now I have not seen them in like two three weeks. I miss them dearly. The song, being able to go to my bedroom to take a break, look out there and gain some sanity watching them eat. Seeing them at all. Hanging out in the cedar trees, on the laundry line, squabbling on the ground for food, pecking each other away at the feeder. Their sudden take-off if they heard a noise and then descending back down all a pretty flutter.

Print I was given to paint in.
The sadness I feel, the damp dread from the potential flooding again in the basement with the pending storm. It is physically the same part of this house. The flood happens in the basement where the cedar trees meet the house. My back bedroom window. It is a feeling like it is crumbling down.

The same way I feel inside. It feels auspicious. Portending an ending. I am at the end of my money. I do not see the way out. I believe there could be one, I have a glimmer of hope. In my deep feelings I am afraid and sad. I went for a walk, heading north instead of the eternal south on my walks around here. Lake Ontario is south from here. Walking there and back is a two hour gig and I dont always feel like doing a two hour walk, coming home too tired to do anything else.

I need to get in the bath or the shower but I sit in the dark typing my ragged heart. My cat is awake and sometimes brushes my knee. She is pouncing on something in the dark around me. Thunder sounds and Jazz 91.1 plays sad songs. I want the sad songs right now. My heart is a piece of origami and I am not sure how to handle this all.

Here is the finished painting. I used gouache paint.
I walk up a hill and see something white up ahead cross the road, dart across the road. It looks like a white dog. I see it on the other side of the road but it is not really moving. I think it cannot be a dog, a dog would not stay there like that. Someone would be walking it, it would be heading away from the road. Not crossing the road and staying right there on the other side.

As I approach I realize it is a large clear garbage bag. Empty and big enough that crumpled up it looks big and white. I look at it hoping it turns into a big white dog I could be momentary friends with. A white dog to take my blues away for a moment.

I walk north up a hill, down a hill and up a hill, turned around at Lambton Av and came back. I walked through the ravine on the way back. A tiny part of me wishing someone would snatch me and murder me so this aching fear would be over. I know I dont really want that at all.

A part of me is looking for a way to syphon off the pressure of what seems to be my reality. I trudge thinking "No one really believes in me, no one really wants to take a chance on me". No one who can.

It is not a pity feeling I feel for myself but a kind of out in the woods where it is wild.  I wish it was wild. I think of moving somewhere where corporate greed has not waved their greedy gloves all over it, ruining it, taking any natural element away. I long to live where the land is land and man has not spit all over it with his crap.

I made it safely home and came in the side door. My cat greeted me and made me happy. Happy within a terrific sadness I was feeling. I went to my bed and fed my cat. Her dish is on a bench close to my bed, under the window. I lay on my bed and began to weep and weep and weep. I could not stop. I looked out into the dark night where my curtains were not drawn. Into the branches of the cedars and cried for the birds not coming. I realized the location is too dangerous for the sparrows. Predatory birds have discovered it as an easy mark. I wonder waht I can do to change it. I wonder if I google where the sparrow experts are so they can tell me why they have gone. I did enquire the other day why and they said dirty bird feeder, predatory birds.

The bird feeders are not dirty. Now I want to find the sparrow experts. I dont want them to be killed, I want them to be safe. I miss their song. The highlight of the day, one of them, hearing them sing.

I cry and cry and cry and cry. My heart aches like a rock. This is pain, this is pain. My mouth hurts from clenching my entire life. I cry for so many things, my tears flood my face rapidly.

I begin to pray to God. I begin to feel better talking to Him.

My saddness rolls me on my side and I cry more, my tears coming out round and cold over and over and over.

I need to take a bath but I dont want to. I feel exhausted. The jazz music is an elixir. Sadness and complexity embraced with open arms.