Looking Forward to 2020

As I've written here before, I, along with a small group of friends, have been pushing each other to expand creatively. Most recently we tasked each other with coming up with five paintings for a studio show in December. I, personally, managed three... well, two and a half. One wasn't quite done, but the day and hour had arrived so I hung it up. It felt good to have work hanging and shown.

All three pictures I painted were of cats. One was Carmela, whom I've written about here in Bemol Ardiente. The second painting, the one that wasn't quite finished, was of PumKin, a beautiful orange cat that lives in the back yard. (The Cat in the Grass from a few posts ago.) But, the real star of the show was Clarice. Clarice is a black cat who is getting up there in age and who has a lot more white in her fur than she used to. The most prominent examples are two white whiskers that stand out on her face. In the painting (and the picture that I used as a guide) she is looking at the person who is holding the camera and letting them know that taking a picture is not an acceptable alternative to actually giving her attention.

A lot of people, as it turns out, have needy black cats. I knew that people would relate to cats, and I've always been fond of the picture that I used as a model. (Have you ever tried to get a cat to sit for a painting? Just save yourself the tears and trouble and use a picture.) But, I was a little blown away by the response to this particular painting. Looking back, I shouldn't have been surprised. In Carmela's painting, she's sitting on a quilt, in profile with the sunlight gently falling on her face. I find it lovely, and people told me that as well. But Clarice is facing the camera, her body language and facial expression clearly say, "Give me attention.” It’s a much stronger image.

People actually requested to be able to buy prints of the Clarice painting. This is new for me, and I don't quite know what to do with it. Of course I want to sell prints; that's why I painted it. But, that part of me who's not used to selling his artwork is screaming that my art isn't worth it yet, that I should be giving it away until I have developed more of a style, a following and a body of work. I gently shut that part of my mind up by putting a chocolate chip cookie in its mouth. That done, I began to make plans on how to sell prints of Clarice, and create a system that can be used for future paintings as well.

Carmela the cat, who is featured in the second painting, is the main character of a novelette that I wrote, "Carmela's Outside", which is due to be published this year. I've mentioned to the publisher that I have a painting, and they are interested. That is doubly exciting for me, and makes me think that I should focus my attention on painting the cats that are in the novelette. Mozart, Tom Cat, Anastasia and Raku are all quite beautiful, each in their own way. I'm working on finishing up the PumKin painting and starting one on Anastasia.

At the moment I'm having the Clarice and Carmela paintings professionally imaged. That is a logical next step. People have also asked me about buying the original of Clarice, but I’m not willing to part with it for a small amount. I can use the digital image to make limited edition giclée prints, which could be sold for a reasonable price. And, I can send a digital image of Carmela to the publisher for their consideration for use on the cover of the novelette. To get the digital images I am using a photography service here in Austin. I had considered taking the picture myself, but there are other people with years of experience and studios set up specifically for that, so I decided that my time would be better spent painting and I'll let the professionals do a better job at photographing the art than I could possibly do on my own.

Now I'm preparing for the May studio tour. And I'm writing on a mystery novel, until I begin working with an editor on Carmela's book. 2020 is stacking up to be a very successful year. I like to think that I laid a good foundation for it during the atrocity that was 2019. As I fought to retain my life and my sanity, I also made plans for what to do once the storm had passed and I found myself still alive. I don't know how I had the presence of mind during all of that, but I'm thankful that I did.

Check out a few related websites: davincibox.com is Tamara Talamantes' page. She is a graphic designer, among other things, and she is one of the friends who painted and showed work. barryperez.com is, not surprisingly, Barry Perez's page. He's the other friend in the group. Barry is a master jeweler who has been making hand-fabricated jewelry for over 30 years. Lastly, a work-in-progress page is elginstudio621.com. This is the studio where it all happens, a place with great energy and where we plan to have many more events—not just visual arts but yoga and writing and ceramics. Keep an eye on it.

Let's here it for new years, new decades, and new beginnings. Make 2020 a great year.

Minor Meltdown

I’ve been reading some motivational books recently—more specifically listening to audiobooks during my ungodly commute. Jen Sincero is amazing to listen to; I recommend You Are a Badass to anybody who hasn’t read it. No seriously, go get it. I’ll wait…

Something that she (and others) talk about is getting out of your comfort zone. If you want a life you’ve never had before, you’ll have to do things you’ve never done before. And a lot of those things will be different enough to be very uncomfortable. This is just what i need to hear regularly to reinforce the decision I made a few years ago to be a writer. I allow myself be talked out of it regularly, even though nobody is trying to discourage me. I just give up on myself; it’s too much work, or I’m not as talented as real writers, or they’ll just look at me as if I’m cute for trying. Or, I don’t have a degree, that’s a good one to fall back on. Listening to these motivational materials is so effective to help us keep momentum when the doubts attack.

Aside from writing, my partner has challenged me, himself and another friend of ours to have 5 paintings done by mid-December. Not a problem, I thought as I penciled in time on my calendar. We’ve been painting with each other for over a year and we’re in the flow. So I thought.

Somehow this is more real. This time I have an idea that I’m really excited about. I mean, this has potential and I can’t wait to see the series up and in person. Before that, though, i have to paint it, which is what I began to do yesterday. I decided to get in the studio and get going.

First, I had to have coffee. Then, I needed a nap. I was thinking about my wonderful ideas and how I would execute them. Which made me terrified. Like, I-couldn’t-get-out-of-bed terrified. This is irrational because, as I’ve said, we’ve been painting together for a while. Our friend is out of town, and Partner was at work. It was just going to be me painting in peaceful solitude with my own music playing and cats keeping me company. So, I breathed and got out of bed to get to work.

First I was angry at everybody. Then, I had to find a reason to be angry at them, which wasn’t all that difficult. Why did you stack stuff on top of my canvas? Now it’s all warped. So, I got a new canvass out. Who took my ruler! How am I supposed to draw a straight line without a ruler. And my paint brushes; where are they!? Doesn’t anybody around here respect my stuff?! I’m never painting in this studio again. I will find someplace by myself to paint. WHY DOES EVERYBODY HATE ME? I’M NEVER TALKING TO ANYBODY EVER AGAIN EVER!

The canvas can be fixed by getting it wet; it should tighten up again. Oh, and the paint brushes were neatly standing in a container designed specifically to hold paint brushes.

Breathe.

I approached the canvas. This was really really frightening. I’ve been slapping paint on things pretty regularly for over a year, but this… this was a brilliant idea that I love and that I think has true potential. If I messed this up I’m messing up my dream. I thought about taking another nap right at this point. Tomorrow is a good day to start painting.

Breathe. Get back to work.

I have a fairly good eye for sketching, but that part of my mind was blinded. So, after a few pencil lines that I didn’t like were on the canvas, I sat down and looked at the picture I was working from. I thought back to high school when we would put a grid over a picture, then make a grid on our drawing paper and break it down that way. It’s like the drawing grids in the Dell Variety Puzzle magazine; you don’t know what you’re drawing; you’re just making each square in the grid look like it does in the guide, and when it’s filled in you see you’ve drawn a turtle, or a person riding a bike. If you had known you were drawing a person, your left brain would have kicked in and messed it up trying to make it look like a person. But, doing it square by square, your right brain can just do space relationships.

I pulled up my picture on the computer again, lightened it, overlay a grid and printed it. Then, I lightly sketched a larger grid on my canvass. Panic receded and a peace fell over me as I made lines I was drawing in each square match the each individual square in the reference picture. I threw my left brain off course even more by working on non-adjacent sections. I’d do the top middle, then go down to the bottom left, just making the lines match. Partner came in at some point and aimed a light at my canvas, which helped immensely. (Don’t tell him about my fit earlier.) (But seriously, this is why we need coaches, editors and people with other perspectives in our lives.)

I stepped back, and I liked what I saw. The sketch was coming along to be what I wanted. It needed something else that I couldn’t put my finger on, so I stopped. I came inside and began writing again. Honestly, after all that I did need a nap. While lying down with my cats I got a nudge from inside saying that I didn’t have to stay 100% faithful to the reference picture. I listened, and the feeling inside me said I could move the angles of a couple of straight lines in order to make the perspective more dramatic. I feel like that’s going to improve it greatly, and I’m glad I didn’t begin painting right away.

Jen did warn that if we weren’t 100% committed to make a change—like become a visual artist no matter what—then as soon as things got tough we would give up. Nothing was even all that difficult and I was ready to quit and take a nap. This is, if I’m not mistaken, when I usually give up. So, I will persevere. I’ve done it before when I had decided I would do something. In my early 20’s I learned Spanish in spite of things being thrown in my way, thinks like not speaking Spanish, some people making fun of me, or scorning me, or simply my being really really bad at it and clumsy. I thought I was giving up a few times, but before I even properly quit trying, I was listening to Spanish music again trying to make out the lyrics. This just shows that I CAN do these things; I just have to WANT to do them, and DECIDE to do them.

Thank you for sharing this meltdown with me. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.

Writing

I should be writing. In a sort of twisted game of procrastination I’ve ended up writing in my blog, which is, in fact, writing. Shh… don’t tell me; I think I’m procrastinating and distracting myself from painting, which was part of the long list of procrastination techniques used to keep me from writing. A few minutes ago I was working on a mandala that I plan to use in a small exhibit that I’m supposed to be a part of this May. So, here I am at my keyboard in spite of myself.

If I’m going to be using my laptop, it would make more sense for me to be at my desk, where I have a docking station along with a larger monitor. However, there’s a spider on the computer and I don’t want to disturb him. He might be my father visiting me. The spider was here earlier; he dropped onto my mandala and wanted to play with my pen. He’s so tiny and delicate you can barely see him, and only if you try hard. I didn’t want to let him hang around a piece of paper I was working on, so I grabbed him by his thread of web and carried him outside. The light out there was not great. I could see him on my finger, but I had to kind of go on faith that I had successfully released him into the wild. When I got back to where I am working—a meeting table in the middle of a larger space that also contains my office—the spider was right there on the table. I resigned myself to the fact that it was my father visiting from the other side and no amount of taking him outside was going to change anything. So, here I sit with a tiny spider building a web on my Surface computer like he’s supposed to be here and we’re just hanging out.

Life, overall, is better than it was earlier this month. While work is still a handful, I seem to have more emotional wherewithal to deal with it. I’m not hiding in the revolting bathroom of that very old building, or calling in sick, pulling the sheets over my head in bed and contemplating what excuse I could find to go on disability so that I could spend my days taking care of the cats and writing. Now I go to work, and most days I look forward to it. I don’t for a minute want to give the impression that my employer is abusive. They’re wonderful; I’m simply falling apart.

I visited a psychologist a few weeks ago. Come to think of it; he’s supposed to call me back with what my insurance company said about his plan to go forward with a psychological assessment. (He pitched this as a wonderful thing for me. He said that I could use it with his clinic or take to any clinic of my choosing, that it would be treated as a golden egg.) I went so that I could learn better coping mechanisms and techniques. I’ve kind of given up on the idea that it will all just go away. It’s probably a part of my genetic make-up and I just need to learn how to deal with the depression/anxiety or what-have-you. When I visited him for the intake interview I was so distraught that I forgot to ask him what I should do if I have another episode. I’m not certain I want to know what his answer would be. I have a feeling it would involve an emergency facility, and I’m not looking forward to being in an emergency facility. Not while I still have sick days left.

I’m not even sure why I’m feeling better. My medical doctor, when I described that horrible Tuesday in which I was hiding under the sheets, told me that it sounded like an anxiety attack, so I’ll stick to that term until I learn otherwise. Anxiety attack: a nice little package I can present to people when they wonder why I’m nauseous every morning of my life, or why I’m in a fetal position in a bathroom stall that is so small you can’t open the door without straddling the toilet, and so old that opening one stall door throws both doors open and you have to avert your eyes when you walk by in order to not see the startled expression of some other unsuspecting dude sitting with his head in his hands, unaware that the stall door just hit him on the knee, exposing his nude bottom half to the person who is now walking out the door. There aren’t a lot of good reasons to do this, and ‘anxiety attack’ says a lot in just two words. And most people can relate.

My friend, the spider, has moved to the lamp. It seems like it would be too hot for him, but he’s swinging up and down, building his little web to catch microscopic dust mites that float through the air. It’s getting late and probably no more work is going to be done on my novel tonight. I believe that there is pie in the refrigerator in the house. I have milk, so I think I have a plan for the next 45 minutes until I go to bed and let the CPAP take me into the lovely world of dreams and sleep until the alarm goes off and another work day begins. It’s nice that this Sunday doesn’t find me anxious and distressed. I wish I knew what I did to make this happen. Maybe I’ll review my journal to see if any behavior patterns appear. But, probably I’m going to read while I eat pie and then go lay down with the cats.

Life is good.

* Update: Three days later and I found myself, yet again, hiding under the sheets this morning. But, that’s okay because I now have an appointment with the psychologist tomorrow morning to have the assessment done. They tell me that I’ll be sitting alone in one of their offices answering questionnaires. That’s not the one-on-one experience that I longed for, but something about this guy makes me trust him. He did tell me that the actual therapy would begin after the assessment was done. While I’m there tomorrow they will set up an appointment for me to come discuss the results, once the doctor has analyzed my answers. Fair enough. And that will be the golden assessment that I will be able to take with me and be received with open arms at any office I might want to visit. (He did say that I could choose to stay with his office, but he didn’t seem exactly excited about that. I have a feeling that his main bread and butter comes from other sources, like people visiting him at the behest of a judge.)

I’m sitting at my desk with the Surface plugged into the docking station and my friend, the spider, is spinning his web on the larger monitor. He has a buddy with him; two spiders spinning in concert on my monitor while I work on my novel and my blog. I guess my dad is looking out for me after all; he seems to be in it for the long haul. Usually, the spider/Dad is gone in less than an hour, but this little dude has a roommate (Dad’s brother, Ken?) and they’re building a web, making themselves at home. Like they’re gonna see this thing through with me.

And, Life is still good.

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My friend, the spider