The Art You Do Not See

I want to take you on the little emotional journey of my week creating art, because I think what you can not see is just as important as what you can see. And knowing the story behind something changes everything.

My friend Megan is a Champion for Children, a phenomenal artist, friend and spiritual being. I was delighted to be asked to donate a piece of art to the Gallery of Giving, an art show she has curated bringing together 20 artists to benefit Safe Harbor serving abandoned, abused and neglected children in our community. As far as I know it is one of the largest fundraising art shows to ever happen, You can donate directly to this campaign here  and learn more about Safe Harbor here.  It is a great cause and as you can imagine, I wanted to created something great for it.

The desire to create something great led me to wonder what great would be.  Maybe love? Love is great, which led me to think of the time I discovered love napping. It is one of my most favorite memories. I have been sketching it for over 30 years, little drafts in sketchbooks, never quite getting it right. This memory I revisit so often I can smell the plaster walls and earthy stones of the old farmhouse mixed with garlic just cooked and the omnipresent background scent of Basset Hound. I don't even need to close my eyes to transport back to the crisp perfect Saturday afternoon. The sun was shining, fall was coming. 

 

I am maybe 10 years old. In addition to parents, I was raised by puppeteers. They ran the Brownstone Puppet theater and I spent much of my childhood in their world. Nancy taught me to make puppets and improvise, watching her make a life as a puppeteer, led me to believe I could be an artist for a living and it would be easy hahaha, she made it look easy. 

Nancy was completely herself, she dressed like a timeless gypsy gnome, ruffled blouses, embroidered wool vests and long multi tiered flowy skirts. She loved quality fabrics, meaningful antiques, and wonderful performances. I never saw her in a sweatshirt, I don't know what time portal she went thru to find her wardrobe, but nothing she owned was from the mall. Bob was the perfect compliment he wore weathered newsboy caps, he taught me to draw and he showed me how loving a man can be to his wife. He was consistent and kind, easy to laugh, he did all the driving and behind the scenes work. Bob could make and build and fix anything and he was so cool and quiet about it that it wasn't until he passed and I lived a bit of a lifetime that I grasped how important he was to me.  In teaching me to draw, he gave me a way to never be bored ever not for a moment, and by treating Nancy so tenderly with humor and patience and adoration he became the benchmark I compared every boyfriend to. 

The day I found love napping, we had spent the morning gluing tiny beads and mirrors to the gingerbread trim of their puppet theater.  Bob was on a ladder and my job was to hand him stuff which meant getting to play in the gigantic tool box with all of its tiny compartments filled with treasures. He didn't talk much but occasionally he would play the nose flute or squeak a little squeaker at me, like from inside a dog chew toy, and I would laugh. Because, I'm telling you a well timed unexpected squeak is very very funny. 

We had salmon for lunch and olives, on the stone patio. Nancy told me how she could feel the difference salmon made in her skin if she ate it 3 times a week, We left the dishes piled by the sink with other dishes piled by the sink, and went to make puppets because creating came before maintaining. That was her value and mine too. Her living room was a mess, as we were building puppet heads on styrofoam balls they would inevitably get swatted by a roving cat and I would chase it around the floor, noting everything I could see under the couches and in the corners, so that days later when nancy would say, I need a safety pin, I could say " There is a large silver one under the small table by the door and a small gold one under the velvet chair next to spoon. " and she would say I was "remarkable" After a while Nancy and Bob would take the winding staircase up and I would lay down on the couch. I wish I could go back and take all the naps I didn't take then.  I didn't understand the nap concept so I would just wait... thumbing thru books on Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton,  a puppetry magazine, an old TV guide, time was moving backwards, how long is naptime?  Is it over yet? I had to check.

Quietly navigating creaky wood steps almost to the top, I freeze,  I don't know what I expected to find but there they were, laying on top of their quilt. Something about it was so sweet I got a firefly flutter all about me.  I could see their little feet popping up at the end of the bed. They wore striped woolen socks. his big striped feet somehow protecting her tiny striped feet. They were so adorable in made my spine flush.  "Oh wow, its true love" side by side sleeping in matching socks. It was a loud clear thought in my head.  Someday maybe I will be in love, and if it feels like this that is how I will know.

Painting this felt so good and returning in my mind to that happy time felt so good, and imaging someone seeing it and feeling the love felt so good, and thinking, if it doesn't sell, maybe they can hang it on the walls of the group home and all the kids can grow up knowing the true love I found. I titled it "The time I found True Love taking a nap in striped socks on a crisp Saturday" I signed it and I felt good. 

and then I looked at it again.

                                                      

   This time when I looked I didn't see the sweetness, I saw something maniacal. It looked like.... it looked like I had murdered people and they were dead in the bed... OMG I drew dead peoples feet. I sent the picture to some friends "Does this look like dead people?" It is hard to tell the difference between sleeping and dead in a still shot. I was assured by some that it was fine and others that it was a nightmare. Someone wondered if the devils on the wall were making it seem hellish, 'What!! those are antique Indonesian Shadow puppets!! Wayang Kalit is only like one of the most important ancient forms of storytelling ...clearly my friends were NOT raised by puppeteers. 

I can not donate this! So Ok back to the drawing board.  I am working on illustrating my inner world and the parts I have met using Internal Family Systems Therapy the past 3 years.  So maybe I could try painting "Bumble" the awkward, humiliated shameful part of myself that I have grown to have compassion for. The other day,  my child self her name is Five was playing and asked Bumble, my inner bumbling idiot if she would play with her and wouldn't take no for an answer grabbing her hand she dragged her down to the river. "You sit here Bumble" and Five climbed up arms and shoulders and used bumble as a giant waterslide laughing and hooting and  and having soo much fun and..........WAIT ED HOSE!!! This is not ok. NO ONE on the planet wants to see your inner child playing with your depression in the river of your mind. And this is kind of horrific, even creepier than dead feet. I jump ship leaving it unfinished, the pressure is on I need something to donate in two days.

So I start again. I only had two canvases, so I switch to a 3ft by four foot matte board. Ok ED don't think so hard, just paint what you feel. So I do ,  face after face emerges layered on top of each other. I title it  "All The Cells In My Body Begging Me To Drink Water, While They Watch Me Eat Pizza" I laugh, this is a great title, relatable, I like it.

I work for hours on this giant piece and I realize all at once that it is terrible, I am terrible, this is shit. I am shit. I don't know how to paint. Not at all, who do I think I am? that muddied putrid undertone, is because I am too lazy to change my brush water. I don't have energy to wash a brush. I don't have energy to exist. Not only am I a talentless garbage waste of space, it would be obnoxious to donate any of this, and take up room where something decent and good could go. I should pay someone for the burden of throwing it in the trash. I descend into the madness as if my whole brain has been eclipsed with toxic thoughts and the temperature of my psyche drops 7 degrees in a moment. I am numb and then crying. 

 

I take to the bed. Morning comes. I do not get up. I do not speak. I play scrabble on my phone to stay alive. I try different techniques to change my thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. I don't care enough to shift. I hide the whole day. And part of the next until I hurl myself up with strength I didn't know I had hunt for canvas at a yardsale.

I score two, I go home and paint this absolutely adequate mermaid. I am pleased with myself.  Is this a life altering masterpiece? no, are there a thousand ways it could be better? absolutely! but and this is important, it is not a dark dreadful embodiment of self loathing. It is something I would be glad for someone to have and I am glad I had it in me to give.  And it is a resurrection. I love the resurrection fern, This mermaid sits on a bed of it. I love it because it dries up and looks dead and then comes alive over and over again. I wonder if it knows it has that ability.

I have drawn the conclusions: It doesn't matter what you create, it only matters that you create. 

It is a conclusion I draw over and over, like a fern resurrected and it is really hard to remember I need constant reminders to keep moving. I also need reminders to keep seeing, to see what isn't there. It is easy to see this mermaid reading a book in a tree, and think whatever one thinks about such things, this is charming, or this is ok. This is only here because of the dramatic rollercoaster that came before it. I forget that when I look at the world, what I am actually seeing is the smallest part of the story. 

Inspired by my own ability to paint the adequate mermaid even in the radical abyss of despair,  I made this painting called  "Everyday Angels" and it is an expression of my current obsessions of the day Biblically Accurate Angels, The Annunaki and Circle Dances. 

It is my favorite thing I have ever made and 

I could not have gotten to here, without going thru there. 

I have drawn the conclusions: It doesn't matter what you create, it only matters that you create. 

 Also I spent some time with my childhood memory of my sleeping puppeteers.  It looked more alive especially when compared to the pieces of darkness that came after so I decided to donate that too as it was my first instinct. I will paint it again, so maybe it is first in a series.