What thought do I start with. The small flying orange creature that just flew into my house, my notebooks laying out downstairs, almost bare. One piece of black handmade paper collage is glued on each page. I want to go down and work on them now. Jack and Fiona are not taking a nap. They are watching Toy Story. I can feel the naptimes are almost over. A little boy showed me his Dark Vader ice pack from his lunch box today as I pack up Jack’s left over lunch stuff. The teacher wants each kid to pick up their own lunch stuff. I’m the mom who comes in and picks up after her son. But I want to get to know his classmates, who he’s hanging out with. Jack spills a bucket of old daisies on the floor, they are dried out. A few sprinkled down on top of one of the girls sleeping mats. I pick up the flowers, leaving dust on the carpet, too difficult to pick up. A little girl asks me about the flowers. I say Jack picked them and brought them to school last week. He wanted to pass them out to the other kids. The girl and I talk about sewing the flowers together, making headbands. I tell the teacher she could use them to make prints. Two little ones are dosing off to sleep next to a teacher. They have their toy stuffies over their faces. I could tell a lot of them weren’t going to actually fall asleep. I put Jack and Fiona in their beds when we get home. I come upstairs. Hear them. Check on them. Soap all over the mirrors. They are not going to take a nap. I give them a bath. We read toy story and I decide to just play the movie for them so I get a break. The end of naptime. The end of naptime paintings and writings. It will now become something else. Some other piece of time carved out of motherhood. I will find it. Time will adjust. Now I have to go to my studio for a VERY SHORT TIME and make marks in my notebook.
Category: being an artist
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Muggy, foggy, feeling, studio fan blowing. Been painting. Still feeling rays of clear blue streams, magnificent waterfalls, Steep, climb. Hiking in the ferns, heart pounding, another world. Engaged core; I’ve recently connected with it in Yoga. It saves my knees on the descent. I grab a few flowers, I feel like I’m still sweating from the hike, even though it was hours ago. My studio time flows. My time off is almost over. Yes, my time alone is almost over. I need to wrap it up. This give me anxiety! I need more time. The past week has been draining. Glued to my TV, watching the news. Not believing there are people who don’t care about other people with the power to destroy lives and not care. I get physically ill. My stomach hurts, I just take baths and lay down as much as possible. Today I hiked. I worked in my studio. My work is strong today. I think about pain, and death while working today, even in the backdrop of the beauty of the Cataract trail. The life of the birds and the flowers. Peaceful lake. We will carry on then we will die. Trump will be gone in less than four years.
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I’m sitting in a black and white skull dress in front of a grouping of black and white drawings; A powerful portrait in charcoal by William Kentridge hangs on the wall in front of me. I think to myself, don’t need to rush, I can spend as much time as I need to. I stand in front of white canvases listening to the collage of footsteps, how they echo from the other side of the wall, no faces, only sound. Jasper Johns paintings, every time I see them I look at them in a new light. I recognize a piece of myself, understanding things in these paintings I hadn’t understood before. I have moments of memory flash through my being, remembering sitting in front of these giant Clifford Stills, on my lunch break, or after work on my way to Bart. I spent so much time at MOMA I wonder how much influence these Abstract Expressionistic paintings had on my practice. The Rothko, Joan Mitchell, Jay Defeo, Guston, Lobell paintings I know. I feel like I’m with good old friends. I haven’t seen them in so long; I’ve only been once since they remodeled and that time was with kids. I miss my days in the MOMA, alone. Visiting galleries. I feel like I climbed back over a bridge to a part of myself deep down inside. Today I needed a break, a bath, studio time, writing time. So, Right when we got home today from preschool, I put the babies down for a nap. They fell asleep around 1:30PM. (An hour earlier than usual.) It was so hot and they were so tired and I needed what I needed. It worked out perfectly. Today in my studio I paint in shades of blues, inspired by our meditation on water this morning. I feel like hanging them up in my house to cool things off. My note book entries are beauties too, and I closed the cover of one more note book for my show. I love the quiet right now. I only hear the fridge, the air conditioner and fan. It’s dead hot and quiet outside. Jack and Fiona will be waking from their nap soon. Time to go and make snack!
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 