Everything’s All set up. Shelves stocked with cerulean Blue, Anthro blue, green gold, burnt sienna, and more wonderful colors and colors and colors. New colors. Past year been keeping colors basic. Neutrals. Now deep. Deep in it. Officially getting ready for Solo show in the fall. Am excited. Got the supplies. Got the preparatory work started. Almost seven months to dial it in. As well as publish my book of Nap Time writings and paintings. The problem with my book is I want to just keep writing instead of editing and curating. I have to match the photos of my naptime paintings with the corresponding naptime writing that spans two years. Maybe it should be split up year two and year three. That’s a start at least. It feels like a daunting project! I had a wonderful day painting today. I made a supply run this morning, that is a help. I’ve been having vivid, intense dreams and feeling a sense of needing to put self-preservation first. Don’t take any chances, I think. I grab a long stick on the ground as I’m hiking this morning; A trail up high overlooking San Rafael. Its my first time this far up. It’s a spot the homeless camp out on. I walk across someone’s spot. A round circle of grass is flat. The sun is just peering over the eucalyptus trees. There’s a small, tidy bag of garbage. I see a cigarette box. There was a bad fire on the hillside a few years back, during the drought. “It’s the homeless camps” everyone shouted. I would set up camp here. If I were homeless. With some mean dogs to protect me. Billy’s getting old. Her leg isn’t quite healed. She’s feeling her recent injury. Her days. That’s why I Grab this stick. In my dream, I was scared. I ran through tall grass. I ran from a thief. I was scared. This would be a convenient spot for rape, I think. I remember how vulnerable I used to be when I was on the street as a young runaway. I had to line up with guys who would protect me. Even if I had to have sex with them to keep that protection. It was the lesser of two terribles. In my dream I was a teenager again. Sitting in the back of a pickup truck. Trying to figure how to stay alive. I brushed it out of my memory. Buried it down deep like they’re someone else’s stories. I picked up the stick this morning because the alternative, in the event that strange, somewhat in trusty worthy looking man was to come at me. I would have to run through the brambles in the wrong kind of pants, or strike him, hard. The other night I dreamt I was trying to protect myself with a garden tool but I couldn’t swing hard enough. The noise of the fan brings me back into my studio. I only have fifteen minutes left of my break. Tomorrow I am staying the night in the city. I’m going to the MOMA to see the Diebenkorn and Matisse show. It’s going to be the best night ever. I’m going to a Brazilian Steak house. I’m going to eat steak and drink wine.
Month: April 2017
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Purple and pink. Burnt umber and grey. Who can tell what is real or dream? Last night in a dream I walked in tall grass. It scratched my legs. Today I walked through the same grass. Little white bugs flew up but never touched me. Fiona called them flies. “Mommy” she whined. “Flies are getting on my horsy”. I walk back through the flies and tall grass. A bit of asphalt on the ground catches my eye, I hadn’t noticed it the first time I passed this spot. The area intrigues me. Old remnants of structure, of road that used to be here. A strange brown bridge Jack, Fiona, and Valentina sit on. It’s old pieces of round, dark brown, wood, it almost looks like tree branches. It’s scratchy and splintery. It goes to nowhere over nothing, as if it were transplanted from a place it belonged. “Fiona, your horsey loves grass.” I say. She got a new play horse yesterday, she loves it. Memories flood me, being a kid, playing with my horses in the grass, pretending they were eating and I was going on a ride. I imagined what I did and did what I imagined. In nature. Under the sun, the dirt, red ants biting my butt, stepping on nails, getting tetanus shots. Bugs and beetles and pollywogs. Frogs and snakes and old barns, old trailer campers. Vacant rose greenhouses where the sun shines through the broken fiberglass roof and roses still bloom. We rode our ponies through, feeling what was, feeling what the space is for us. A vacation. A dream world with real spiders and scary stories. Purple and burnt umber. Pink and white. These are the colors I chose to paint with today. It was a good, productive day in my studio. Painted in my notebooks. Pulled apart tons of pages that have stuck together leaving scars. Leaving repairs to be done. Structure. But it went well. Realized I have a lot of pages to finish in my gargantuan notebook before my show this fall. I can do it. I take deep breaths throughout the day. I stay connected. I cocoon when I need to. I got what I needed today.
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Drawing. Red. Rush. Heart Pounding. Newsprint. Red Watercolor Pen. Fast. Dishes piled up behind me. It’s beaten me. The endless piles of dishes and laundry. It’s different now. Big portions. Messy Messy all day long. Finding Mud Puddles. Ice Cream Cones. Lizards in the house. Spiders falling on the living room floor from Jacks shorts and pants and shoes and socks that I pick up in the back yard. He won’t stay dressed. He pees in the bushes. Picking up all day long. Always a pile in my arms. One arm dirty rags. One arm dirty dishes. One arm trash. One arm cup of water. A little precious hand to hold while crossing the street. A Blu Blu. A Tiny. We have a conversation; Jack, Fiona, Me. “The dentist says you can’t chew on your Blu Blu Jack, and you can’t suck your thumb anymore Fiona”. I say. “But we Love our Blu Blus and Tinys.” Jack says. Fiona puts her head down. She’s so distraught, disbelief. “I Know! How can it be? I Love Blu Blu and Tiny too. I’m upset too. I totally understand how you feel too. I like special things. Things I hold and cherish and can’t let go of.” I say. I wonder should I consult a psychologist? I don’t know how to do this. How can I take away these creatures, these special toys? Toys that have been with them since they were born. They attached to Blu Blu and Tiny right away. They were my saving grace when Jack and Fiona were babies. They call them transition pieces in the child rearing books. Now I’ve probably made them even more important with my chat in the car today, now they know how much I am attached to Blu Blu and Tiny. What are we gonna do? Blu Blu and Tiny are sentimental and nostalgic. I will miss them so much. I almost feel depressed about it.
They took a nap today. I’m so glad, they needed the rest and I needed a break. I made myself not clean. At first I didn’t know what I would do, feeling the way I do. I get out a pad of newsprint and box of pens. I turn on my computer. I start to doodle, then draw, draw rapidly and freely. I write. Now my time is coming to an end. Jack and Fiona will be up soon. My husband will be home. I need to do a list of things. I don’t feel like it though. I feel like just sitting and doing nothing for the rest of the night. Then just going to bed.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 