Farewell to Artist Angst - Part 2

Last September I wrote about finding a new definition of myself as an artist in Finding Freedom, Fun and Myself in Waterford. It was a joyous - if somewhat belabored - apologia of myself as an artist. My own definition is/was "someone who opens herself to the world and expresses herself with abandon", with the key ingredient being abandon, letting go, and play.

This morning I woke up with a new thought: Call me an ACCIDENTAL ARTIST!

I am proud to say I am an amateur artist: I do art work for the pure love of it! If you know your Latin derivations, that's exactly what amateur means. Being an amateur greatly increases one's freedom - go wherever you are lucky enough to have the muse lead you - without concerns about the product.

Anyway, today I stumbled on the idea of ACCIDENTAL ARTIST. That's what I am! And a wonderful thing it is to be! This can only be explained by relating the latest turns on my artist's journey. I guess the latest twist started with a course I took called Art Jump and it certainly got me jump started! The course was comprised of various processes: marbled paper, paste papers, French-fold books, nontraditional silk-screening, whatever. The power of the course was in the teacher, a woman who nurtures spontaneity and fun.

In the course, when we got to the "books", it started with brown paper, gesso and freeform color with pastels. Freeform, in this case, means fairly mindless. We were told, for instance, to use our alternate hand [righties using their left, and vice versa]. Since the paper was later folded into a book, one really couldn't think too much. Just play! After the paper is folded, there are 3 spreads + a front and a back. That's when one decides if an image is finished or not. On the first book I took wing! Off I went! By the next class I had finished my book. I had considered it the basis for 3 collages + front and back! I used the marbled papers and paste papers and much ephemera to make, I guess you would call it, a highly embelished collage "book". It wasn't until much later in the course that I realized that that was not a direction that the teacher would have had in mind. For I realized she is something of a minimalist. "Less is more" was also a lesson for me in the course.

Yet, off I was: flying! The impetus was the freeform beginning. Working spontaneously - like doing tissue paper decoupage [See The Joy of Paste and Paper]. It was so freeing! It brought the joy of serendipity into my work. Next I was finding all sorts of things to make into "books". Two of my best were: one totally in fingerpaint on shelf paper - the other on an old charcoal drawing with pasted tissue paper on top. I had completed many books by the end of the course - not stopping there. Then I took another course, just for a day where I learned another technique using paste and silk organza. Soon I had developed my own variation based on Art Jump! I contiued to soar!

While all this work was going on I finished a major project that I had in the works before the classes. Two collages called family constellations - welcoming new members into the family. In the process I had an aborted attempt. I had pasted some handmade papers, my own marbled papers and my own painted tissue paper on foam core board - to be the background for the constellations. The next day when I went to check on the board - OPS! Too much water in the pasting! The board had curled into a perfect U! Not having worked with foam core before, I had a quick lesson. Not knowing what to do I put water in a bathtub and submerged the board in order to salvage some of the paper. Afterwords, [wish I could remember how long], I did just that. I tore off as much paper as would come off - sat the board aside and put the paper to dry. At some point, I noticed the board had straightened. So, it eventually made its way to my studio. Later as I was working on something else I noticed it out of the corner of my eye. "Do I see what I see?" started whispering in my head. I literally did about a triple-take! That leftover board was beautiful - an abstract image of mountains! No, it can't be; it's trash! So, I just left it there. Many days later my friend and artist came visiting my studio: she stopped dead and said, "Suzanne, what's that?!" The amazement on her face was greatly increased when I told her the process. Just the beginning of ACCIDENTAL ARTIST!

One of my next projects: I found on old canvas on which, twenty-some years ago, I had painted with oils a background of a seascape. I never had the nerve - nor perhaps the technique - to do the foreground. I decided to do the foreground in tissue and papers - rather spontaneously. [What did I have to lose?!] The result is extraordinary. Who knew tissue on oils would work so well?

Next, I saw a picture on an online meditation site; it is a picture of reflections on water: yellows, golds, blues, greens, oranges. I decided I would make that as a tissue paper collage. It didn't go well. My colors lacked subtlety and sufficient gradation. I kept looking for ways to reduce at least the former: Glazes, pastels, whatever. Then I tried pasting a piece of silk organza on top. Still didn't work. So, the next day, I tore the silk organza off! Hmmm, some of the dye from the paper came with it. Hmm. I pasted the organza on a piece of canvas board. Voila! My Reflections piece!

So, now you know why I'm the ACCIDENTAL ARTIST! Hanging in my home [not an everyday thing] are: Mysterious Mountains, The Storm [seascape], Reflections - oh, and a triptych collage made mainly from those papers torn off the foam core board!

Am I fulfilled?

In 1964, when I left home to live in Washington,D.C., I was not seeking fame or fortune but FULFILLMENT! It was my somewhat puffed-up battle cry. I was going to make something of myself before I got married! That last part makes me groan now. Those were the prehistoric days of women's liberation. I was simply not going to be one of those women "who incubate in college" until marriage! Not me, I was going to be fulfilled - first.

Luckily the "first" of that statement fell away; for to this day I am single. My latest strongly held feelings on that are: It takes one hell of a man to beat no man at all.

This question of fulfillment came up this morning in my quiet-time, I was thinking about how my lesson now seems to be to take more of an attitude of letting things come to me. I noted it Friday when I was volunteering at hospice, that I don't have to go looking for something to do, it will come to me. Maybe it's my lesson on a much more basic level. I guess it's a variation on: your mission is what is "on your plate", right there in front of me. That's a lesson I've been on for several years.

It seems to me that for most my adult life I have been on a quest - one way or another, a quest. For a long time it was a quest for a satisfying career; then it was a quest for creative expression - and that had/has many phases. Always there has been a search for meaning - for spiritual answers and practices: from divorcing myself from my Roman Catholic heritage and beliefs, to embracing ethical culture and appreciating Unitarianism, to finding emancipation through song, especially gospel-singing, to a brief flirtation with Roman Catholic ritual and some exraordinary people.

So, this morning I was thinking back to when I first really started on my quest, when I first came to D.C. 41 years ago. [That takes my breath away - I hardly feel 40 years old!] As I look back I ask the question, did I find the fulfillment I was looking for? Yes, a resounding YES. Now it might not look like what I thought I wanted but yes. Marriage was a goal in those days and now no husband, no kids. It would be great to have someone who I came first with; it would have been great to nurture and watch babies blossom into adults. I also know that some of the things I have I would not have if I had those things. Both husband and children can be liabilities and both always require tremendous effort. I have had the luxury of nurturing myself and finding out what I want and need - some folks never find that out. And I started from a deficit. Low self esteem was my heritage and depression my manageable though not-exactly-curable disease.

So, Suz! If the 21-year-old Suzanne asked you, are you fulfilled? The answer would be YES and look at the list of accomplishments:

A career helping people find jobs and designing training programs for employment;

A later career - though somewhat brief - in organization development, where helping work groups be more humane and effective called on everything that I had become at that time. It also gave me more personal vailidation and praise than anything else -maybe ever;

The joy of being Aunt Suzie - and there were years when I was a smashing aunt - a little bit of Auntie Mame - with 8 nieces and 1 nephew - who are still the lights of my life - even at a distance;

A time when I worked only 3 days a week and could devote the rest of my time in other pursuits, primarily photography but always a time of wonderful balance;

Chez Suz, not this blog, but my happy home - 25 years ago I bought a dank, dismal somewhat derelict house and with the labors of my wonderful parents I renovated it into a wonderful home. Not only that it was the focus of my rapprochment with my parents! And to top that off, I updated the house at some considerable effort last year.

Doggie parenthood took some learning but I have been fortunate to have the companionship of 3 dogs: Lily, Sweet Pea and Poppy. Lily has gone on "to the rainbow bridge" and she taught me important lessons on a cosmic level. Sweet Pea and Poppy bring me joy now.

Song, when I was about to turn 50, I found that I have a singing voice. I went to a singing workshop where I sang morning, afternoon and night and was transported. Many workshops followed leading to the transcendance of singing in gospel choirs! Singing affirmations! Glory hallelujah!

The Artist Way - it's the name of a book and a program - and the reality is my life. Opening myself to the muse is opening myslf to Life, to the Creative Source. So, I paint with dye on fabric, do fabric collage, decoupage anything that hangs around too long, write - if only this blog, and at the moment I am making "books". They are to me a folded collage triptych. What fun! I've been on a creative surge for the best part of 3 weeks and life is grand!

That gives me 8 items on my fulfillment list - but it really should be 16 items. Because after each one should be an entry: good friends! Good friends make everything else possible; A friend got me the contact with the Department of Labor - the scene of the first 2 careers; a friend told me about my house, a friend helped me to get Lily, a friend told me about the singing workshop, a friend did the Artist Way with me - but mostly my friends are just there with me through it all. They're the oil that keeps the machine functioning. Friendship is a gift but it is also an accomplishment because friendships take work too.

In the movie The Four Seasons, Carol Burnette's character says that in the beginning "when you find out a friend is a jack ass you drop'em". But eventually you realize that we are ALL asses - ourselves not the least of the asses - and we learn to live with that and with them. I am fortunate to have several wonderful human beings as friends and they should be items 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18 on my list. I could put initials beside each one of those numbers to indicate specific friends. It's a perfect fit....but discretion is the better part of valor. I am happy and lucky to have each one as a friend.

Well, now that I answered that question for myself, it's time to go to my studio and make another book or whatever. Then sit on my porch this afternoon of this first day of May!

One Afternoon at Hospice

Hear the word: hospice - what comes to mind?
Quiet setting - as close to homelike as possible?
Hope So,
Old, sometimes ancient faces, slipping away...
Often, yes

But today, as I orient myself to my shift as a hospice volunteer,
the picture tilts.
Everyone who was here last week has gone on - that's not unusual
The census is low - only 5
But every person is younger than I am - from one year to 21 years younger!
Somehow that realization comes as a shock wave to me.
EVERY ..ONE..YOUNGER!
I want to go into a room and holler!! And wail?!
"NO, Not yet!" - "Not for them! Not for me!"
"Time goes too fast!!"
"How can I be 62 years old?!" -
How fortunate I am to be 62 years old!
Am I savouring this life?!
Maximizing this life?!

Ahhh! Here I am back to the eternal questions. I ask them and answer them regularly. Usually I come back to the same thing:
Look for love and pass it on. And don't forget to laugh, especially at myself -
Like today's dance to the shock wave.

Helping at Hospice: "What's It Like?"

Quiet living room atmosphere
Kind welcoming staff
surrounded by rooms
with men and women at end of life.

There is no dramatic musical soundtrack
Just the everyday care taking
Meals delivered, medicines given,
Beds made, pillows fluffed...

Sometimes a patient calls out
in pain or in need
Most excitement - in the form of agitation -
comes from patient's family and loved ones.

To this comes the new volunteer
Knowing the drama of end of life
Yet sensing only quiet efficiency.
Is this a "not with a bang but a whimper" thing?

Back to the here and now:
"How can I help?" "Answer the phones!"
Sudden need for course in Telephone 101!
New technology is greatly surpassed by panoply of people and issues.
Maybe telephone 101 and Hospice Procedures graduate seminar!
Definitely Privacy 210, 301, etc.
So many questions! So many questions NOT to be answered by volunteer.

So much for the apparent stillness and quiet
Sitting at the telephone console
Meeting staff as they go by
It is clear the myriad of services that hospice affords.

Doctors consulting, nurses giving meds,
nursing assistants bathing and repositioning,
chaplains checking in and/or praying,
social workers helping families with final arrangements...

All this becomes visible but is only the more visible care taking.
What also becomes clear
is the great kindness that is passed on throughout.

I, the volunteer, see the kindness
I feel the kindness
It is the primary product of this place
Not death - kindness.

Finding Freedom, Fun and Myself in Waterford

Ever think of yourself as an artist? I struggle with it and it can be a horror. Maybe if I studied fine art in college or if I was selling my work ... But the truth is at my very core I am a person who needs to express herself - in visual arts, song, or words - and what is that but an artist? Finding that core was my salvation during my many years of therapy many years ago. Nonetheless, I can get so caught up in the expectations around the word. I found a definition of artist at dictionary.com as a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination. That simplifies it some but the emphasis is still on the product. I am working on my own definition: someone who opens herself to the world and expresses herself with abandon. Not an easy thing, abandon requires a letting go which is both process and goal. [My definition skirts the issue of discipline and technique so I'll just say it presumes them.] My key ingredient is abandon, letting go, and play and they are the wings on which artists soar!

Yesterday was the annual all-day gathering of the Fiber Art Study Group at a beautiful colonial farm estate in Waterford, VA. Every year this group of fiber artists [primarily] get together for a meal and a long Show & Tell. But I had to surmount a large obstacle before I could leave for Waterford; I had to deal with the debilitating feeling of not belonging in the group. So, I opened up to a dear friend and fellow fiber artist; I told her exactly how I felt. She listened and reminded me of 3 things: that it is the Fiber Art Study Group - emphasis on STUDY; that even my puttering around projects lately have been in fiber [having a great time lately playing with decoupage] and finally, by asking me a critical question, she reminded me that I am committed to what I do. She also told me that she and our friend and sorta-mentor respect my work.

Eureka! After that I not only wanted to go but felt I needed to go to make myself part of the group. [Important to note: you will not find a more welcoming group of women anywhere!] It also became clear to me what I needed to take for Show & Tell. As I said to the group: I brought 2 fabric collage pictures: one I'm proud of, Cranes Crossing is a collage using commercial fabrics involving a more complex use of color and the other which is the real me, Snoopy Joy, an embroidered Snoopy character [cut from a commercial sweatshirt] with cutouts of stars from many different commercial fabrics and paper and painted stars and the words joi de vivre . All 3 of us were well received! One woman, someone I know and respect, told me that Cranes inspired her. Another woman, one of the many teachers, who had impressed me with her contributions said a couple times how she liked Snoopy. Two women each spoke to me privately about appreciating my putting myself out there. One said next time she was going to talk about her alternate projects. What a kick! What a validation! It's all about opening up and putting yourself out there!

But that was only the beginning; there was the listening and watching with wonder as the artists shared their work and experiences. It was tremendously inspiring!

There were art quilts: one was a large pieced quilt primarily in earth tones; one was a creek complete with glistening "water"; one was a tree inspired by the microscopic picture of a tree cell; one was a still life of a large onion complete with roots; another was a beautiful abstract in blues and rusts based on the photograph of the weathered door of an old pickup truck; one was a black and white [bleach discharged] with subtle embroidery in primary colors.

And all that diversity was only in the quilts. In addition there were many other fiber media! Falling in the arena of surface design: one woman having spent 3 years in Mexico City brought yardage of fabric she had designed and printed in beautiful colors and intriguing designs. There were silk paintings: two women had worked with silk organza in totally different ways. One had painted an orchid on regular silk and on organza and then framed it in such a way that it was dimensional. The other transferred photos of rocks and sticks on individual squares and painted other squares and stitched then together like window panes and hung it with all its transparency on a dowel. There was applique: one woman made collages of "curious animals"; another's was a lovely scene through an unusual window of a European dome.

A medium I had never seen before was machine embroidery on top of unwoven silk and recycled silk threads - The result is extraordinarily soft and beautiful. Another woman transfers old photographs on to cotton using sepia and yellow-with-age colors and embellishes with old buttons to make what she calls postcards.

Then there was the cat! A life size large house cat; the artist made the underlying metal armature, the ceramics for the nose and toes, the crocheted legs and tail and the felted body! Another woman makes memory dolls - soft sculptures sometimes of real people using photo transfers of their actual faces.

Another woman who often makes books has been doing outside installations and has taken to painting on tar paper. A really dramatic effect. She recently did an alley cleanup and beautification which included children painting Pollock-like on tar paper. The paper was then cut into strips and woven through a chain link fence! That was only one part of a truly creative project that greatly benefited a community.

One woman is doing a series of painting and exceedingly fine machine embroidery on canvas based on the alphabet [not working in order]. Her present work is W: From wood to water with woodpecker and whale. The wood grain and water ripples span from each side of the canvas blending in the middle. Our hostess, a weaver and collector, is presently knitting scarves with unusual fibers and the scarves look like beautiful boas! Another woman, one of the several who also teach their skills brought felted bags she'd made to teach beginners. One woman brought in a work done mostly in cardboard.

This is a not an all-inclusive list of the Show & Tell. Some brought pictures of installations and large projects. Others brought reports of working with various techniques and machines.

The most wonderful and ephemeral aspect of the Show & Tell was the artist's attitudes and experiences. Remember the art quilt in earth tones? It's creator spoke of how she felt while making the quilt: lumpy, greasy, pudgy [not verbatim]. She wound up writing the word grease in the quilting throughout the piece. At the end she named it: Middle Age! What fun! Lots of laughter! Another woman told of how she changed the direction in which a picture is hung because the original way was too Georgia O'Keefe and explicitly revealing! One of the most well-known in the group, spoke about doing one half of the piece of extensive machine embroidery over 2 times: she did it 3 times in all! I know that tearing out stitches is part of the process; but the image of someone this respected spending hours un-doing! Now we know why she is so respected.

So, that's how I found freedom, fun and myself in Waterford; It was a marvelous day with wonderful welcoming women!

The Joy of Paste and Paper

This week I have been having a ball tearing paper and pasting it on surfaces - also known as the art of decoupage! I have taken two old wooden TV tables that were a mess and turned them into usable pieces of art. All with tissue paper, old postcards of French impressionist paintings and an old children's book! One table top is an impressionist rhapsody in blues and the other is a mosaic of green foliage. Heaven knows what I will actually do with the tables but I had a grand time and they may be an important accomplishment for me.

As a person who has been creative all my adult life but never an artist, this decoupaging has been extraordinary. I've always done artistic or artsy things but have thought of myself more as a dilettante. The latter is a put-down that I have sworn off over the last few years. During that time I have been more serious about my artwork. One of the great helps has been following the program in The Artist Way. In addition, I have set up 2 studios - one in a former detached garage and one in my home [for when the cost of heating or cooling the big studio is prohibitive]. Sometimes I laugh at myself that I'm better at setting up and reorganizing studios than I am at the artwork. Nonetheless, I have been working in fabric: painting fabric with dyes, fabric collage, nontraditional quilts, etc. These activities, especially working with dyes, require considerable technical competence. The learning curves are steep and long. And breaks from doing the processes require relearning. It's all part of the artwork. Lately, I have been coming off a long break for home renovations and hoping to get back to my artwork.

Then, entering this land of Languishing Intentions, came my new young neighbor and her desire to decoupage a piece of furniture. I've done that, says I. It turned out her books from the library and my experience were not the same process of decoupage. So, I gave her one of those old tables and we experimented with my freeform process of paper and paste. My new friend says: "Oh, this is almost entirely intuitive, isn't it?!" Her words were a tiny epiphany for me. Yes! Almost entirely intuitive. No brain or mental tapes to get in your way! Just tear a piece of paper and paste it and keep doing it as the spirit moves! oh, my, I just realized: a flow experience! Yes, unselfconscious spontaneity!

Sometimes doing something is not enough to appreciate it properly. Decoupaging was fun yet my friend's comment helped me realize how wonderful. At the moment I seem to have run out of surfaces to decoupage but the experience has been both wonderful and informative. At least some of this is transferable as well. The last fabric piece I finished was a glorified birthday card so I felt freer to just go with the fun of the process. I am soooo grateful for this experience! Anytime, one can have self-forgetful spontaneity isn't that a little piece of heaven?!

Fear and Panic as Teachers

Lately I have been going through a strange passage - one characterized by high anxiety, a sense of dread and tendencies toward panic. I have had claustraphobic nightmares, images on TV of people or animals with anything covering their faces scare me big time and I often have a sense of forboding. Of course, the latter scares me more as I wonder"Is this is a sense of knowing!?" When panicky I feel like I'm not getting enough air and my heart palpitates. Not a fun time!

As I tend to this medically I have learned much about my life. Medicine has provided an anti-anxiety drug which seems to be helping; it's takes a long time to work and then very gradually. I have gone through several boy-I-would-rather-be-somewhere-else!-tests at hospitals, which have ruled out ailments I have scared myself with when panicking. One thing was discovered: I have a severe case of sleep apnea - I stop breathing while sleeping - apparently alot. Eventually I will have a machine to be hooked up to at night which will attach to my nose and force air so that I won't stop breathing. Sounds attractive, doesn't it? Luckily I sleep/live alone; no one has to sleep with elephant girl! I can see that the sleep apnea could cause at least some of my clautraphobia and anxiety. Nonetheless, it has been what I have learned non-medically which impels me to write.

This seige of anxiety started almost 2 months ago to the day. I wonder if this suffiecient time to provide a wise prospective - yet I feel I have learned so much. As I have been seeing doctors and the medicine is building up to theraputic levels, time and life go on. Life provides these opportunities to learn. In some recovery circles there's an expression: an AFGO [Another F-king Growth Oppportunity]. And here I am in the midst of one.

Fear can be one hell of a teacher! I guess there are many fears but my bet is they pretty much wind up as one - fear of death - the unknown. That is my experience anyway. Death and its fear seem to cut through the crap of life so that you decide and face what is important to you. For me it meant going back to a process of resting in the hands of a loving force. I believe in God but not in the way that many of us have heard of God. I believe in a God that is beyond our ken; I believe that most people and often religions underestimate God. I trust in a spirit that links all of humanity and living things; a spirit that is the epitome of all virtue: love, truth, beauty... ad infintium.

So, fear and anxiety have taught me to constantly let go to the divine loving presence - a presence that is like the water for a fish. It can be a wonderful thing to trust that if I do what I can I will be buoyed up by the grace of that spirit. I'm old enough to look back and see how things work out while we are unaware of it. It makes me grateful for my 61 years. I lament the 20-somethings who take their own lives because they don't have this vantage point.

So, as I let go to love, my vision also improved. It was a rather rude kind of insight when I realized how in the passed year or two I had become so passive. I accepted my increasing physical limitations nonchalantly. So what if I have to drive the 2 blocks down the street to the stores! I have the wonderful companionship of 2 delightful dogs; but how much do I play with them? My friends are dear to me; how active has my kindness to them been. How many friends have I not been in contact lately? When was I going to get back into doing my fabric artwork? As I progress with this insight I wonder if some of the anxiety is related to the fact that I was letting life slip away - at least at some level or in some way. That's scary and I believe it is only as I get some distance on it that I realize how scary.

So those damn teachers of Fear and Panic have set me on my way again. I'm working out for the first time in my life! I seem to be eating less - naturally. I've completed one fabric collage and almost finished another. I went out to a concert out of town and stayed overnight for the first time in years. I carry on with my little dogs and entertain their friends.

Yet, there is still something more wonderful about all of this. I'm not sure I can articulate it well yet. I'm a person who is generally on a quest - something to make me a better me - following it with a passion. That passion, I'm beginning to realize, had gotten lost. As an artist - at least at heart - I had longed for the elusive "Flow" - to be connected to the creative source. The letting go and being connected to the creative source is where it all comes together for me. In my searching about anxiety I found a reference to flow as "self-forgetful spontaneity". If that isn't the opposite of anxiety I don't know what is! So, F & P have set me on a quest - hear the strains of The Impossible Dream in the background - a quest to lose myself in art, in the moment, in life!