One of the things I’m loving about oil painting, aside from it being a shiny new object in my life, is it if you don’t love whatever it is you’ve done, painting anything on canvas or wood, makes it easy to (cue the tune of “Many a New Day” from the soundtrack of Oklahoma) pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. This is tonight’s future fresh start.

Stormy weeks are so uncomfortable but so awesome too.

1. It’s almost midnight, you’ve still got a brush in your hand and….

if the next words out of your mouth aren’t , “it’s time to go to bed,” you might have a painting problem.

So it took a few days to do it, but when I told T2 no screen time until his room got done, he promptly walked down the hall to point the finger at my studio/pack rat hole.
In the end, I’m really happy. I have a place to paint and write, each activity done standing or walking. My little purple easy chair with the Big Guy’s grandma’s afghan is in the corner for reading.
The only trouble is that I’m finding out — again — that when the studio is clean there’s no such thing as just going in to take a quick look at a piece in progress. Whatever I tell myself at nine or 10 o’clock at night when I go in, swearing I’m just going to pick up that brush and touch up that corner or lay down a quick layer, my organized room is still a sign of a sick mind that won’t be able to call it quits until it’s time to get up for work.

313 Haze

It’s appropriate to finish this as a little cold front pushes the haze through the valleys and over the mountains. 

This one has more to go. It’s another of my favorite curves in Vermont. There’s a bedraggled barn on the left as you head into Upstate New York. It hasn’t changed much over the years, but the light and the ever-evolving cornfield keep the scene new each time I go past.

This repost brought to you by Gentleman Jim-bob the  Orange and my formerly black T-shirt.

Yesterday T1 turned 18.I have to work, but he and the Big Guy had already planned an adventure – driving the length of Vermont via Route 100 from south to north. 

It’s the second year in a row that Thing1 has come up with a little adventure for his birthday, kind of a walkabout. Last year he hiked up the back of Mount Equinox, the mountain that backs up to Manchester, Vermont.He  dodged mountain storms and negotiated with the bear. Yesterday‘s trip wasn’t nearly the same nailbiter, but it seemed appropriate for a father and son to have a little road trip together.
When they got home, they were both too exhausted for anything but a piece of T1’s traditional blueberry birthday pie before falling into bed.
We have never been big on the lower blown kid birthday parties. Thing one had one party at McDonald’s and another one at the house with all his friends when he was in first grade, but his birthday is usually a family affair for us. We usually celebrate on Lake Michigan with my parents – we called them at the Michigan house from Germany the morning he was born – and a barbecue dinner and blueberry pie.
Tonight will be the family celebration. We’ll be home because we missed Michigan this year for various reasons. Thing1’s girlfriend of 2 1/2 years, along with her family, will join us, And there will, of course, be blueberry pie. It’ll be a simple dinner, and the only decoration will be the happy birthday banner that we recycle every year for every family birthday, identical to the one my mother hangs in Michigan for every birthday we celebrate throughout the summer is there.

 The gaudy dollar store banners have become their own theme, but it’s one I love because ultimately this theme is a celebration of the days the Big Guy and I expanded our definition of family.  

Back in February, knowing my eight hours a day on my ass work schedule combined with an hour of writing and watercolors–also on my ass — was a recipe for muscles so atrophied you could grind them into powder, I converted my desk into a standing desk. It wasn’t just a standing desk, it was a walking desk, and it was one of my least bad exercise plans ever.

Now I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that I’ve been diligently walking five and 6 miles a day. Nobody who knows me would believe that anyway. I am going to sit here and tell you that there have been weeks at a time where I have been walking 4 to 7 miles a day while working and writing. I’ve done some of my best writing while walking.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Most people tend to mull things over when they’re walking by themselves, and once you get the hang of typing normally while you walk very slowly, the two activities blend beautifully.

One thing walking is not great with, is painting. Now I’ve been known to paint and dance, I paint and stand all the time, but painting and walking takes way more coordination than I have. Even standing and painting at the standing desk is problematic, since paint and paint water tend to get flung or knocked over by furry studio mates.

So this morning I got up a little bit early to do a little more rearranging of my studio/office. I’m turning on old desk that’s too small to paint on into a tabouret and putting an easel on it. I’m adding a shelf to make doing watercolors and oil possible at the same spot. There’ll be some excavating and even — gasp — cleaning. Sometimes, however, you have to do some pretty dirty things to be able to make room for the projects that really matter.

I hadn’t painted much since Thing1’s illness switched into overdrive. Depression and and insanely busy schedule highlighted by almost weekly four hour round trips to the hospital made me feel like I had to pick my creative battles, and for a while that battle has been writing, and it has been invaluable.

A friend’s prodding a few weeks ago, however, made me wonder why I hadn’t turned to my brushes during all the chaos. I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t really know at the time. Painting, ironically, is the perfect outlet for depression. Unlike writing a book, you can do it in short bursts and even have a finished product at the end of the evening.

A couple weeks ago I was driving back from the hospital with Thing1. He was too anemic to drive, but he was alert enough to point out summer scenery that we might’ve missed because the route is too familiar. One mountain scene caught my breath, and for the first time in months, I remembered why I paint.

Since my last show, I’ve been wondering if painting was a selfish act, much like I often worry bringing children into a world filled with uncertainty was purely selfish. Hundreds of artists have painted these mountains thousands of times. What could I possibly have to contribute to a body of work created by people infinitely more skilled? As T1 and I drove south along Vermont 7, however, as the road curved to Reveal the perfect combination of mountains and field and clouds, I knew that, despite T1’s precarious health situation, at that moment we were both feeling as strong as the mountain itself.

“We’re so lucky to be able to see this,“ Thing1 said. 

Later that night when we got home, I picked up brush the first time in a long time, hoping to recapture that feeling from the afternoon. I didn’t retreat to my studio; I sat on the couch next to the kids hoping my characteristic clumsiness wouldn’t result in oil paint on our new secondhand couch. I posted the pic when it was done, and I knew it wasn’t purely selfish. It might not contribute anything new or profound to that body of work that has already been created about these mountains, but all it had to do was make one person feel that moment of joy or even hope.

I’ve been painting on the couch every few nights since then (T2 likes me to be close still, and that won’t last forever), but getting the studio behind the kitchen reconfigured for writing and art is part of drawing very important line in the sand. It’s physically and mentally making room for art in my life because while writing helps make sense of the chaos, art is what gives me hope and ultimately strength to keep pushing through it. And that’s not entirely selfish.

We chased this lovely purple storm cloud from Saratoga to the Washington County Fairgrounds. can’t decide if I should add the rainbow that was actually reaching down to one of the back parking areas.