inclement weather stitching

I have a minute or two, so I want to let you all know that I have been doing tons of hand embroidery lately. Beautiful Valley is coming along pretty well, and I am almost done with the block for the Red Hook Quilt. I also finished the sample for the Annual Red work Ornament. I like this one alot. With whatever kind of precipitation it is, coming down I will likely get lots more done on one of these projects tonight. It would stink if this is snow, Hubby is driving home from the city tonight, and it's a long dark drive to make at the end of the day by ones self - and worse if it is inclement weather. I'll just pour myself into my stitching and hope he gets home asap.

Quality, not Quantity

So I have been thinking alot lately about my artistic past. I cannot live there though. That crazy busy active part of my life really defined my sense of color and design. That will come with me no matter where this creative journey takes me. Having looked in detail at those old paintings of mine, some going as far back as High School, I can see the beginnings of my fascination with texture, threads, and low level relief ( can you say quilted surface? ) I can see evidence of the color pallette that I love emerge. What we have done, and what we have attached significance to will always be there in our hearts, memories, and sometimes even deeper in our unconscious.

I have also realized that even though I was so productive then, what now do I have? - a handful of paintings in a storage area. When you consider that I made 3-4 paintings a week in those days, what I have saved as worthy or important is a very tiny percent. Even then much hit the trash as soon as the paint was dry, or the critique at school was over.

Now, with a slower and more deliberate medium, I do very little that lacks significance. So, Quality is higher, the quantities are smaller, but actually, the output of significant work ends up being a bit higher now. And, even better perhaps, much of what I do is displayed and/or used. That beats being in a storage area any time.

What to hold on to??

After this strange weekend, with the water, the potential loss of the last remaining paintings from my past, and my beloved dog undergoing emergency surgery as I type, I am left wondering about what things, memories, or beings I should really be holding on to.

This morning I was still feeeling what I guess was nostalgia for those crazy days of being a bohemian type artist, riding the NYC subway with wet canvasses at rush hour, wearing paint smudges even on my underwear, slightly high from turpentine and linseed oil almost all the time and totally buzzed on coffee at all hours of the day or night. There was a focussed and frenetic energy to life then. My responsibilites were few, my energy was really high, I was about 50 pounds lighter, and I painted all the time. I went through a sketchbook a week.

I learned then what is was to work really hard. I learned what it is like to feel so compelled to create artwork that sleep and food no longer matter. I learned how to put my deepest emotion and darkest feelings into the paint, so that even now decades later, I look at the paintings and am immediately transported back to the moment brush met canvas. Happliy the joys still speak louder than the negative emotions.

My life now is very involved with raising a family, keeping a store running in a terrible economy, and tyring to keep my house from showing up on the "Hoarders" TV show. Creative pursuits are relegated to evenings when the kitchen has been cleaned and the laundry folded, if I have the energy- which I frequently don't. Like any muscle, the creative ones will atrophy if they are not exercised. I think I should have fought harder to keep that energy alive. After I get photos of all that art, I hope I am able to let it go. I made it, learned from it, and maybe it's not the actual art I should hold on to.