Abstract and Landscape
It's the end of day 7. This time last week I was voluntarily getting hit by the chemical equivalent of a baseball bat to the inner ear and brain to try and get some of my old life back, and, after a day or two of delayed side effects, did what any batter who gets… Continue reading Walking to First
Flow, 14”x14”, Oil on Canvas I tried to paint a different spot in that creek the night before, with no success. I knew instantly why it hadn’t worked. I was trying to paint everything all at once, and everything at all at once doesn’t work in any part of my life. Saturday had been an… Continue reading What Compels You?
Scattered (WIP) Most of the time I hate Ménière’s disease. When you’re not being violently rocked as you try to get to sleep at night, you are hugging the floor trying to get the world to stop looking like a ceiling fan that gets stuck on a quarter turn, and then resets itself before Turning… Continue reading The Not So Bad
An interrupted meditation by the Battenkill I’m having a lot of conversations with spring in my work these days. Some days spring is popping; others it’s buried under a fresh dumping of snow. Likewise, some days I paint the conversation with reckless abandon and no image in mind, but as my head turns, outdoors again,… Continue reading Back to the Land
Talking to Spring It’s been in the 40s and 50s the last couple of days, and even though there are some sizable snowbanks left, it feels like Mother Nature is ready to keep her annual promise.The light is changing. it lasts longer every day. It seems as if there are even more critters crawling around… Continue reading Talking to Spring
Nebula, oil on canvas, 20”x20” Once upon a time I saw myself as (primarily) a writer, and I did my morning pages every day for work without fail. Nowadays my job starts earlier, and there is no time for morning pages or sketches. Sometimes that disconnects me from art like a bird not flying for… Continue reading How Do You Do?
Clearing I’d read the same paragraph about neuroplasticity three times and been unable to remember what the major point when I made the decision to kill off a part of myself. I did it with a tiny little pill. It will be a drawn out death, but it’s not a murder. It’s self-defense. For as… Continue reading Spring Cleaning
I’m doing a very different set of paintings right now. Winter seems to be losing its grip, the light is glorious as the angle of the sun shifts, but I am still stuck in my inner world. It’s the one I find myself painting recently because, for the first time ever, I have found the… Continue reading Conscious Detachment
Ice Dams, 10" x 20" Sometimes to help someone, you need to disconnect just enough from your empathy to keep the other person from the fog instead of marching into it holding their hand. I’ve had a few such cases at work lately. I can recognize my own traumas in the person I’m helping, but… Continue reading Winter Heat
Incubation I used to think about December as the beginning of hibernation. Creative output always seems to slow down as the days get shorter, and work seems far more intrusive than it does in the crackling light of autumn. For last last few weeks my output has followed the same trend. It took me a… Continue reading Incubation
Skipping Several days into break, I was still having trouble mentally disconnecting from work and reconnecting with family and creative life. Our family had chosen to skip the bacchanalia of presents under the tree, filling each others' stockings with small items instead. We had all enjoyed shifting focus away from obsessive shopping, but, even as… Continue reading Connecting to Inspiration
The alarm is set for 8 o’clock. It’s just past midnight, and I am staring at the ceiling, my eyes glued wide open. For once, neither I nor the ceiling or spinning, but nobody has managed to get the gremlins in my head to stand down. The last few weeks have been defined by bouts… Continue reading New Rule
Rachel Barlow Art 