This week I gathered up the dying flowers that remained from my son's wedding reception. It was a reluctant task, not just because it's very messy with organic crumbs showering the tables and floor but because emotionally I was not ready to part with them. Everyday I tried to be "present" with the many bouquets scattered about the house. Their fragrance, texture, style... beauty brought me peace inside. My outward worries of our fragile economy combined with my new and still unprofitable career path subsided when in their presence. Nothing could really be wrong when such beauty exists. But in the mess of cleaning up the mostly decayed, wilted remains I saw a new kind of beauty. Roses were soft melted masses that when touched scattered petals . I gently gathered them up, inhaled their fragrance and felt there baby-like softness. Visually they were still interesting and eerily still beautiful. Grabbing my camera I took shots of this "new" beauty. They in their slow demise they were still lovely. Maybe the next step will be a painting?

Somethings Just Take TIme

Somethings Just Take Time

I don't know why but white oil paint takes the longest to dry. So here are the last 4 drying in the sun. When they're mostly dry they'll be professionally photographed, proofed and printed on canvas. Then each canvas will be glued onto a support block. Each print painted a bit with acrylic paint, thus making each one again an original. The final touches are gel medium enhancement, the edges decorated with papers and paints, personalized if the customer desires and then the final varnish, gift box wrapped and shipped. That is a lot of steps and there will be a lot of tweaking along the way. But hey, as Michelangelo said "I'm still learning."

I hope that never stops.

Living Forwards

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. -Margaret Young

About 2 months ago I quit my job as a Home Health RN after suffering through 3 months of vertigo. Seeking professional treatment helped, but not completely. When my vertigo started to affect my job, a job I liked, I reluctantly quit. The next day I woke up and the vertigo was gone. So here I am, self-employed. Now I paint pictures of flowers, when I have a nice variety and I have decorated the edges cool and made everyone of them completely unique from the other, then my plan is to sell them. If you buy them, you'll arrange them together, or apart and when you turn one, a different edge will show and you'll turn them around again and again, and swap one out for another, arranging and arranging, trying to decide what you want it to say.

I think everyone is an artist because everyone has something to say.

This blog is about being an artist.

.