I'm painting what other people see as ugly and am making it so beautiful they can't stop looking.

Sometimes people have feelings when they see my artwork.  That can lead me to feel like I've done soemthing wrong because I've made them uncomfortable.  What I have to realize is that I haven't necessarily done anything wrong - they are having feelings.  I can't change their feelings or cause them to have them or not to have them - that's on them.  I am but a vehicle for the words and images which come through me.  I am not even the origin of them.

In my co-counseling session* just now, I got attuned to the following:

I'm painting what other people see as ugly and am making it so beautiful they can't stop looking at it.

I realized that when I was younger I believed that my feelings were too ugly to be allowed.  I held them in and didn't even feel them until I'd done four or five years of therapy and learned to feel again.  I was thirty years old before I allowed myself the then very frightening experience of letting my anger surface.

One of my former partners was so uncomfortable with my feelings and his own feelings that he would do whatever he needed to in order to keep me from having mine or provoking his, including being harsh and sometimes cruel to me.

Gradually I learned that it's OK to have my feelings.  They are completely valid and OK. They're even safe.  It's so much better for me to have my feelings than to try to suppress them.  When I shove them down, I overeat, or I get rigid and controlling, or I get very angry, or I shut down to those around me who love me and want the best for me.  I need to keep the flow going and to be wide open, both with my "good" feelings and the ones which are harder to be with.  It is such a joy to be uninhibited and honest.  It feels like the Universe is my partner in goodness erupting all over the place.

When I was in session with my co-counseling* partner, I thought about how I really feel about my heavy models.  Their bodies are not the aesthetic I was raised to believe is beautiful.  I saw Mom as beautiful - she dresses well, her face is beautiful - yet Dad kept telling her she needed to lose weight.  It was so confusing to me.  I wanted her to be beautiful - she was beautiful - I wanted her to feel beautiful.  I wanted Dad to tell her she was beautiful.

As I paint these overweight women, I am trying to learn what my mother looks like.  I don't know.  I have never seen her body naked before.  She wouldn't undress in front of us except in the most secretive, veiled fashion.  When she was in the hospital lately, the nurse was helping her dress, and I asked Mom if she wanted me to leave the room so I wouldn't disturb her modesty.  I turned away as she took off her pajamas and put on her shirt.  But before I turned away I saw some of her belly flesh and just the side of her right breast.  I tried to burn the image into my brain.  I felt such a yearning to know how she really looks.  I can still see the image strongly enough to paint it as if from a photograph.

I want to take my mother in my arms and hold her and rock her and tell her how beautiful she truly is.  I want her to feel my compassion and sorrow and I want her to heal the deep broken places within her.

My co-counselor asked me if I want to heal the wounds of the world with my work.  I think she wanted me to recognize the futility of that, but I am aligned with the desire.  Yes, I want to heal the world, and especially  my mother and other women I  know who hate their bodies so deeply.

I looked at the picture I've begun of Heather - my goddess painting, and I imagine myself gently applying the paint over her rounded sagging belly.  I imagine her belly as my feelings - something others have told me are so ugly and reprehensible and uncomfortable - and I want to caress them oh so gently.  I want to make them so beautiful that people get lost in the gorgeous details, the subtle nuances.  I want people to revel in the utter authenticity and sensitivity they are privy to seeing.  So beautiful that they get lost in the experience and can't even begin to zoom out and see that this is something they had previously abhorred - feelings being expressed fully, belly protruding, fat rolling, stretch marks.  Up close, allowed to exist, they are nothing short of miraculous and exquisite.

As I paint the women whose bodies others judge, I will honor them with the loving attention they deserve.  In so doing, I will heal the deep wounds in my psyche where I believed I was too wrong, too intense, too sensitive, too strong, too "feeling" to exist.  My sensitivity and intensity are my greatest strengths in the work I am doing.  They allow me to feel acutely the nubs of canvas under my fingers and the beauty of the women I am painting.

For the first time in my life today, I am feeling exquisitely gentle towards myself and towards all I have felt and will feel, recognizing fully and completely what a gift my sensitivity is to me and to all those in my life.  Not a curse.  Not something to be hacked off with a butcher's knife or a cruel man's tongue lashing.   Rather, something to be honored and revered and trusted and held as the sacred blessing it is.

Blessed be.



*Reevaluation Co-counseling is a healing modality I practice with a friend.  To learn more about it, see the following:  http://www.rc.org/  It has been a very powerful tool for me in my search to get to know myself better and to love myself more.

Today I worked on revising some pastel pieces I'd thought were finished.  Last night Chris and I started the fairly arduous process of framing 7 pieces for the show I have coming up in October.  I cut the mats while he cut the wood for the frames.  I'm so blessed to have such a talented, supportive husband to make beautiful frames for me.

Because I had good luck using spray fixative on my self portrait, I decided I was going to fix the pieces I was getting ready to frame because I am tired of having pastel dust fall onto pristine white mats, causing me to have to re-mat the pieces.  It's a pain in the butt!  So today I got out my wonderful Schminke fixative and went at it.  3 of the pieces weren't too bad - they seem to have taken off a layer of pastel, but it was manageable - but the 4th one was horrible!  It went from glowing to dark and dull.  I was so disappointed.  there was no way I could frame it like that, so I brought it into the studio and started working on it again.  The picture on the left is how it looked pre-fixative.  The one on the right is after I repaired/re-did the fixed piece.  The good news is that I think it's a stronger piece now.  The bad news is that I can't fix it for fear of messing it up again!  Oh well - what's a bit of pastel dust on a mat?

After I finished repairing Valley's Folds, I decided to re-do another piece, American Beauty.  I had been pleased with it when I finished it, but the more it hung around the studio, the less I liked it.  The colors were too yellow and fake.    I decided to try to make the colors more realistic, or at least more muted.  I began by changing the background.  That made a huge different right away.  Then I put more pink into the flesh, and green and blue into the shadows.  That made is look richer and more realistic immediately.  I love how powerfully complementary colors create shadows and make the form have the illusion of going back.

The third piece I did some work on today was Just Thinkin'.  That one has an interesting history - the model at first was almost defiant in wanting me to paint her whole body, including her face.  After our session, though, and after thinking about it for a while, she realized she wasn't comfortable with it after all.  I think she was concerned that people she knew might see the pictures and use them against her. 

She's not the only model who has had that concern.  Another woman was worried her employer might see her picture and fire her simply because "that's not the kind of woman they want working for them, and they don't need an excuse to fire someone."  I hate it that women need to have those concerns.  I understand them, and I honor them completely.  I just hate that it could be the case. 

Anyway, the model for Just Thinkin' saw the piece I had done of her and asked me to remove the tattoo on her shoulder so she wouldn't be recognizable even by that in case someone should see it.  So the other revision I did today was to "erase" the tattoo - much easier done in pastels than in real flesh!

I think it's really interesting all the feelings we women go through when deciding whether to model, how much to show, whether to show our faces or not, who can see the pictures, etc., etc.  I've had those feelings myself when thinking about my self-portrait, so I completely understand. 

This evening I had the pleasure of teaching intermediate pastels in the studio.  I love teaching!  It's so exciting to see people come into their own as artists and to see them develop the awareness that they, too, can draw well!  It's exhilarating!

European Nudes and American Prudes

My brother, who lives over in Germany, was thoughtful enough to send me a link to an article from CNN about the difference between how Americans and Europeans view nudity. I had a very similar experience when I was living in Europe - living there gave me a sense of ease with the naked body and taught me that it's just not a big deal. On their television there, violence is what they try to shield their kids from, not nudity.  What a concept!




Here's the link: article

American Beauty and Dora

Today I had an appointment in the morning then afterwards went STRAIGHT to the studio (wisely leaving my computer IN THE HOUSE!) and went to work.  I've been having some issues getting to work these days, despite the large swaths of time I have to paint.  I think depression/anxiety had me somewhat paralyzed for a few days, thinking about Dylan's surgery, but now I'm feeling better, and I'm glad to be painting/drawing again.

Often a good way for me to get back into doing art is to draw with pastels.  They are very direct and simple and forgiving, and I have a lot of skill with them since I've been doing them for a long time now.  Oil painting is more difficult for me since I haven't been doing it for so long so can't use the materials in as many ways.  There's ease to drawing with pastels which I really appreciate.

A couple of days ago I began "Dora".  Today I worked on her again and made some refinements I like.  I don't know if they're visible online, but I definitely see the difference when looking at it in person.  I'm happy with how this turned out.  It's the first pastel I've done on canvas - that's what gives the body so much texture.  I've used all the fixative I have to make it so the pastels won't rub off.  Frankly, I don't think it's fully effective, but it does seem to help somewhat.  I'll get some more fixative in the next few days and coat it more to protect it as well as possible.  If that isn't sufficient, I'll frame it under glass.

After finishing "Dora", I began a new piece which I'm entitling "American Beauty".  The model for this piece was 57 years old when I photographed her.  She is in phenomenal shape.  She exercises daily and is quite fit.  I don't feel finished withthis piece.  It needs some correction and refinements.  That's a good thing - when I leave the studio with a piece unfinished, it gives me a lot of excitement about getting back in there the next day!