I’ve always been a loner. I feel comfortable on the hills, the trails, looking out my window at the blue sky. Listening to the hawks on a cold January day. It’s quiet, my dogs by my side. Or sitting writing or painting in my studio. Nowadays to fill most of my social needs I join conversations on Facebook about instapots and menopause. In my radio interview the other day I said that I don’t have friends coming to my house, I live an isolated life as a stay at home mom, an artist, and a writer. I said my friends who I know and don’t know, my readers, the people who interact with my paintings, the collectors, I must communicate with them, with the outside world. I don’t know why. I am. Everything seems like a possibility. The farther I go into my artistic self the more real I become. The Sycamore tree outside is still bare, the sky is greyish blue. There’s not much warm sun to sit under outside or I would be there now. I’m in the house writing. I’ve been working on my manuscript for my new book. It’s all about babies. It’s raw and uncensored. My fertile and unfertile self. A guy at my art talk last week said while I was talking, and he was holding and leafing through one of my gigantic painterly notebooks, that the notebook was like my baby too, another baby I cared for and gave birth too. I realized that all the art I did during my early thirties has been destroyed and was all about fertility and babies and birth and secrets. They were made from wool, and glue, and plaster, and string, and musty old things. Stockings, black sheer and fishnets. Pods, fertility goddess inspired, death and rebirth. But during this time, I didn’t write. I was scared my husband would read my journal and think I was unhappy, or crazy, or just take everything out of context. So, I squeezed and pounded and stitched fabrics and canvas and old garments. I ripped and tore and scratched. I remember once I was in my studio at my old house, the house Alan and I lived in before this one. It was just a room in the house. Alan and the landlord were outside my room, looking at something in the house. I was working on a painting. I was scratching and scraping the paint off with my nails. I knew I should stop but I couldn’t. My nails were getting ground down, soft and black with paint. I knew the land lord was probably worried about what I was doing and that I sounded insane.
Category: a new beginning
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Yesterday was the last day of my solo show at Fourth Wall Gallery! The show was a huge success and in the end I think I sold enough paintings to begin funding my next book and series of paintings!!! I am SO THANK FULL to my collectors who bought my work and Believe in me!!!! I gave everyone a copy of my book , Nap Time Paintings too! I gave a talk yesterday at the Gallery during the art stroll, I am terrible at public speaking! I need to practice. For now though I won’t worry about that! I will work on my writing, painting, sign language, and fitness!!! I’m excited. Thank You SO MUCH FOR READING my blog!! I hope you have a terrific Sunday!
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2008, I first think Obama, then it says Time For Change in a circle boarder with three paws and it says PETCO. Then I think that’s the year my mom died, and I realize 2008 was a long time ago. I grab a scoop of Billy’s dog food, that’s what I came in the pantry for in the first place. I ripped off the cardboard tag of the re-usable shopping bag. That date, 2008 has stuck in my mind all day. My clammy cold feet mind. I got a call from a woman from Readers Magnet. Before I called back I looked up the info about this company. “Beware of this Scam” it says when I type in the company. I take every criticism I read on the internet with a grain of salt. When I talk to the woman she gives me her sales pitch and tells me a bunch of new stuff about selling books. It gives me anxiety! But it’s informative. She talks about E-commerce and Pay Pal. Selling my books, myself straight off my web site. No Amazon. She also talked about SEO’s which I am befuddled by from my last interaction with SEO’s and advertising on WIX, the perverts the word “mom” brings out of the wood work. I don’t know how to sell my books or paintings or if anyone will ever buy them, it leaves me with the same question, how much time, energy, focus should I do on the marketing and selling side of things? I just want to write and work in my studio. My art show hasn’t panned out any big sales, I just get feeling like this sometimes. Things were so different in 2008, before 2008, there was a big change, for me and for the United States with Obama being elected. My mom died right before the Inauguration. She missed a time of hope and optimism. Even after she died I kept focusing on art and painting, getting into graduate school, I felt like the time would come when I could do what I love, which it has. I am doing what I love. I love painting and writing, and my life as a mother and wife and person in the community, I couldn’t be happier or prouder of myself. But Happy doesn’t pay the bills or store the art or pay for the publishing costs, only cash will. It’s not a choice, I won’t ever stop writing or painting, but, Do I let go of my dreams of my work I produce to cover the costs itself? And what about the hustling I need to embark on to try to sell my book and paintings? The time and the money, it’s overwhelming. With my disposition the only thing I can hope for would be a Gallery and a Traditional publishing company to pay me and sell my work! And that’s just a pipe dream, right? I mean what would I have to do?
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 