Well, I ended up painting and doing art related business stuff all day. I have fifteen minutes left. I was planning on exercising or walking the dog, but I started on some paintings and couldn’t stop. It’s exciting today because all my work for the show is at the frame shop and my studios still clean from my studio visit. Fresh paint everywhere, yellows and blues. Today; enter in the light. I also worked on some GAP collabs with frags from Nicola, which was very exciting. I worked in my notebooks and on two large canvases. I want to work more on them, but know they need to dry. This forced restraint, needing to come upstairs to take care of the babies is good for me. I have a construction toddler video on for Jack and Fiona as I finish writing this piece. Poor little things have a head cold now. I can’t believe it; this is the third virus they have got back to back. I am finally feeling good today, my body becoming healthy and strong again. I hope I don’t get this head cold next! I guess that’s just life. It felt really good to get my work and the collab work Carl and I made for our SIMPATICO show. It’s going to look so amazing. I decided to go with a nice framing job and a clean presentation, it’s more expensive and I’ll have to raise my prices higher than I was intending on. I feel really strong about this body of work; including the COLLAB work Carl and I are showing. I can’t wait to see it up.
Month: September 2016
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Seven A.M., house still quiet. Jacks called “mama” a few times. “just a minute Jack” I say. I need a few more minutes. It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks, my body. Before me it was Fiona, Jack, my husband, I’ve been inundated with sickness. The first round was a respiratory virus. Fiona coughed so much and for so long I thought she had asthma. Then Jack got it, then two weeks ago I got it. Extremely painful virus, whole body aches and chest excruciating. Then my husband had the worst stomach virus, his lasted ten days. Jack and Fiona got small versions of it, I’m on day six, can’t eat food, drink anything without repercussions. Terrible stomach pains, just awful. I’ve started telling the babies, “Mommies sick” because sometimes, I just can’t move. I think they are starting to understand. I have a lot of sympathy for people with chronic stomach problems and health problems in general. It sucks. I am lucky, I will get better eventually. My body will feel good again. My poor intestines will flush out these nasty bugs and be healthy again, be able to nourish my body again. These past several weeks will be a distant, fading, memory.
I look around, toys scatter the floor from yesterday. I smile instead of stress. Just let it be. Conserve energy. My work is done for SIMPATICO, my studio is clean. My studio visit from the gallery owner is today. I feel like, once this bug is finally out of my system I can start fresh. I can work on a new series, eat super healthy! Learn to let things be, not control my environment. Conserve energy. Conserve energy. Conserve energy. Maybe start meditating again. I don’t wanna run myself ragged. I want to be one of those really mellow healthy vegan people. With a clean closet. That’s always been my dream. I think we should all be vegetarians in my family at least. My husband would never. Last night the moon was so big. Jack and Fiona brought out all the cushions from the couch onto the deck, laid them out like beds, laid down and covered up. The crickets were chirping loud. “Are you guys going to sleep out here under the moonlight?” I asked. “Yes” they told me. But it smelt like skunk, so we all decided to go back in the house.
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I have to take a shower, before the babies get up from their nap. I have a thick coat of grey and blue acrylic paint on my fingernails. The warm water runs over my head first, then covers my body washing away the grime from my studio, from painting. I feel ragged and spent. I’ve been working full steam ahead for months, as an artist and a mom. Both dirty, emotional, intense, in the trenches work. Both break the body: back, neck, knees, hands, wrists, and mind wearing out quicker than your average day job. Feet tired and destroyed, mind wrecked. Being a housewife and a painter have a lot in common. Both are alive, transformative. Both jobs, inspiring, exhausting. Yesterday I cleaned my studio, (in-between OBSESSING on a painting)
I started getting my work organized for Susan’s visit on Friday to help decide which works should go into Carl and my show. We had a meet on Monday at Carl’s studio. We went through our collabs and Carl’s solos. We have a great collection. Too much. Beautiful pieces. Carl and I fit in a session too, we painted on canvas for the first time together. Results amazing. It was a great session: magical, spontaneous, surprises emerged, a whole new series developed. We need to line up more shows! Yesterday as I worked in my studio I wondered what it would be like for Carl to work in my space? I’ve only worked in his space. Does that influence the outcome? I looked through the work done by GAP in Italy this year, wonderful pieces. I noticed the palette was much brighter, and wondered if that had to do with being in Italy. My studio is filled with psychological angst. I’m filled with psychological angst. When I work with Carl in his studio, somehow the angst subsides. Is that one of the beauties of collaboration? Of working in different environments? When I was working yesterday in my studio I saw the line and the mark making in a clearer way. I saw my work in a new way, that is a result from working collaboratively, I know this much. Time now to go, be mom, make the lunch, take Jack and Fiona to Early Start, go to sign class.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 