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.
Category: being a mom and an artist
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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.
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Jack and Fiona dip the crusts of their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their lemonade. “Mommy you try it” says Jack. “No, I don’t want to dip my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my lemonade” I say. Then I think, I should try it, if Jack and Fiona think it’s so good. I dip it in, feeling lucky I have the opportunity to try peanut butter and jelly sandwich dipped in lemonade. “It’s good!” I say. We’ve had a nice day, no school today, just us three; we begin the day downstairs in the studio and garage. Jack got covered in black ink, got poop on the garage toilet seat and the sink covered in black ink, Fiona did good with her painting. I gave them wood, white chalk, files, rulers, and clamps to investigate. I painted on my large canvases and worked in my notebooks, traversing between motherhood and artisthood. My two lives meshing together.
Leaving all domestic duties; laundry, cleaning, picking up, controlling the mess, I only did the most important so far: diaper changes, food prep, cleaning the poop off surfaces and butts, focusing on creativity and personal growth, inspiring Jack and Fiona to explore, giving them freedom. It was nice. We had a great day. I put Jack and Fiona down for their nap: I did a short exercise, only twenty minutes since I’ve been sick. I walk down and smell more poop. They aren’t asleep yet; the thoughts start circling around my mind, but I keep everything calm. I change diapers, give them a few toys and say I am taking a shower, you are taking your nap. It worked.
I go into my studio, not intending on working. The babies are asleep; the house is a disaster. I should go up and clean. I decide to work for an hour. I pull out my notebooks, open them up and lay them out. Grab: paints, containers, brushes, palette knives, rags, charcoal, graphite. I work fast, subdued washes, some lines, some print techniques. I work on my canvases again, I’m overthinking. No fun. I accept this and fight for the opportunity to do so. Destroying and covering. Reworking. I think I like it. I’m glad I came in and worked. It’s important to work when I feel the urge and I have the energy. I’ll do the housework later. Which is Now.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 