25 Years Painting

Some Things I have Learned (in no particular order)

photo courtesy of Charles Wooldridge

Painting is my best friend. I am a mother and a wife, a daughter and a friend, and I play these roles gladly. But I would not be one bit sane if I didn’t paint. Here are some things I have learned after 25 years in the studio:

• Being a painter is not a passive act. At times it’s an endurance event. The solitude required for painting puts you at the mercy of many hours spent alone with your own thoughts and old tapes. You must be willing to stay. To listen. And then you can start to find out things you don’t know and possibly more importantly things you don’t even want to know.
  

• The paintings that annihilate you emotionally are usually the best ones. If they don’t get to the darkest parts of your own heart, if they don’t challenge you to the core, they aren’t going to challenge or deeply touch the audience either. It is the struggle, the clawing through to the revelation that makes work that resonates with others.
  

• You can’t ignore the work that wants to be made–and in making the work you will face much doubt, will be seriously humbled, and if you are lucky, genuinely annihilated (often). It is often very very difficult work. Sometimes making paintings is akin to transmuting pain. But it is the most necessary act of all time, isn’t it? Truly, how would we survive without art in all its forms? And what else would we do with all of the pain?
  

• Painting offers a way of excavating to the roots of pain points, allowing you to experience an unselfing that frees you from the grips and in turn makes something. Then the thing that remains is in essence a record, is proof that transformation is real and possible.
  

• Writing about the work can provide a self-rooting, self-soothing–way of understanding, of pulling the revelation back into yourself–like an elixir. It is a strange thing to go through having an intense relationship with the work, with the one painting that becomes its own thing, and then to release it into the world. Not everyone is compelled to do a second deep dive into their own work and instead set it free and let others define the work for themselves, but there is a lot to learn from careful consideration and perhaps the forcing of meaning onto each painting.
  

• To force meaning is a bit like dreamwork–and to trust whatever comes through in interpreting the meaning will reveal something about yourself. Whether healing a wound from the past, resolving confusion, processing distressing current events, offering up an elaborate prayer, touching in with archetype…the excavation of the meaning first feeds the artist then may also cross over and become soul food for others.
  

• Sometimes a painting is simply about making something that makes sense, that uses interesting color combinations arranged into a composition that strikes visually and mentally. Sometimes it’s about trying new things and enjoying the interplay of shapes, colors, textures, and feeling the music in the abstract montage.
  

• Painting provides a path of individuation, a making of one’s own visual, mental, emotional language that has been forged through trust in source, through showing up day after day, refined and reiterated over years. Miraculously, this language is often recognized by others.
  

• The practice of painting can be a salve and respite, a place of processing life—the elation, terror, devastation, and awe of the miraculous mess that somehow comes full circle and makes perfect sense—at the very point at which you have given up all hope. Alongside the painter at all times is painting. It never fails, never abandons.
  

• Myth: being a parent will take away the precious time you could devote to being an artist. Truth: The coupling of these two major areas of life meet in ways that are symbiotic, healing and revealing.
  

• What you learn as a parent makes you a better artist. The patience, stamina, showing up whether or not you feel like it, constant surrender to having little control, doing your best, being as clear as possible in order to serve, and riding the emotional rollercoaster–this crucible of parenthood can inform your studio practice, and visa-versa. It’s a self-nourishing intertwining.
  

• The work is the way. The quiet, the satisfaction, the self-realization that is eventually gained from showing up to do the work, helps you and heals you and makes you more present as a human.
  

• The artist’s job is to serve the work. The artist is not in service to the audience. The audience receives privileged viewing of the finished work. The audience can make their own judgments, can vibe or not, can take or leave. The audience has a choice. The artist does not.
  

• You have to have stamina–to get through the parts when you aren’t necessarily engaged with productive work, and you are bumping around in the dark woods for days or even weeks. But if you can stay with it, a subtle voice arises that is woven in between the panic, questioning, noise and ego-soundings, that holds wisdom and truth, and eventually, an elegant solution to your (self-created) problem.
  

• No painter is an island. It’s good to regularly marvel at the connections—both human and technological—and all the people who show up for you as an artist in myriad ways.
  

• The work doesn’t get easier. It gets harder, leads you down to darker places—like a miner excavating diamonds (the deepest known gemstones). And you can handle it because you have the experience of navigating the depths. If the work is getting too easy, it’s probably also getting boring.

• But doing the work is easier when you are sober. Read more here…

Tell me things about myself I don't know

The title of my most recent exhibition (Space Gallery April 12-May 18, 2024) comes from a quote from one of my favorite books, Too Loud a Solitude, by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabil. The main character and bibliophile Hanta says,

“Lost in my dreams, I somehow cross at the traffic signals, bumping into street lamps or people, yet moving onward…my briefcase is full of books and that very night I expect them to tell me things about myself I don't know.”

After 25 years in the studio–a place of deep solitude, I realize I receive each painting in this way–as an encounter that will tell me things about myself I don’t know. To me it’s like doing dreamwork or having a subconscious dialog with the psyche. And I get a sense that within this space is a doorway to the collective unconscious, the realm of archetype, ancestors and spirit. The final compositions are organized records of the resolve and revelation of these interactions. 

This practice has taken me on a ride that I could not have imagined. I guess I am an accidental artist in that I never thought about being a painter as a child or attended art school. It seems that painting has a plan for me that I am still figuring out and I am quite happy not knowing what’s next. 

I was so lucky to become an artist in Denver, a nurturing place in which I showed my earliest work at humble venues such as cafes and hair salons with a supportive and kind audience. This positive initial experience gave me a foundation, real encouragement, and deep trust to keep making and sharing my work. I now have collectors, commissions, and collaborations all across the US and overseas including Macao, Singapore, Nanjing, Dubai, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, and Sydney, among other places.

This path continues to expand my world–both inner and outer–and reminding me constantly that my cleverness, wishes, and ambitions often get in the way. I have mostly listened and continue to try my best to show up, do the work, and let the work say what it needs to say.

Some of the ways in which I translate this experience of painting is with the use of techniques, symbols and themes including the following:

Hard edges - On a foundational level, most of my work is arrangements of hard edge shapes that serve as building blocks. The clean, definite lines make a dialog of shapes, colors, and textures that also allows for an architectural approach. I may paint this way because I used to sew; my mother sewed dresses and costumes for me; and my grandmother hand-stitched quilts for every single family member. I love the bringing together, the control and containment the hard edges provide for dealing in the abstract.

Repeating patterns - The repetition of shapes again is tied to quilting and also reminds me of the practice of mantra or a word or sound repeated to aid concentration in meditation. Ultimately the repetition will build to create a vibration or an effect. I also like that visual repetition provides a rhythm and a foothold for the viewer within the seemingly groundless space of abstraction.

Altar Arrangement - Sometimes I see the work as an arrangement of elements like one might place objects upon an altar. The placement is carefully planned with the intention to hold space for transcendence, magic and higher knowing. (Examples: Private Myth, Lamplighter)

Protector/Warrior/Healer Arrangement- Many of my compositions have “shoulders” and to me are almost figurative. I imagine these entities are protectors, warriors or healers from the subconscious, spiritual, or ancestral plane. (Examples: Double Arrow, Private Myth, Dream Dress)

Dress shapes / Dressmaker Pattern Pieces - Sometimes my compositions are dress-like or feature shapes like those from a sewing pattern. In my mind then the “dress form” provides a canvas within the canvas for holding shapes and colors together that ultimately function to clothe. The extension of the purpose of the clothing is to transform the wearer into a healer, an actor, a participant in ritual, and so on. (Examples: Dream Dress, Cascade, Seamstress)

Costume / Mask - Related to the dress idea, I sometimes make compositions that are costume-like and again hold a purpose for transporting the wearer as well as the observer. In this way costumes provide a portal to alternate realms including the imagination, the ethers, and ancestral plane. Additionally, costume also wields the power to unify through shared agreement in suspension of the rational mind as in theater/film/ritual. (Examples: Dream Dress, Mask)

Oracle/ Fortune Teller - I like the idea of these roles in that they offer conscious possibilities, alternate paths, different perspectives on our multi-faceted, infinitely complex selves that exist unbounded by time. (Examples: Oracle, Circus Tent)

Headpiece - As an ongoing theme in my work, headpiece compositions represent focusing the mind on another realm, or placing something on the head that would open one up to visions or channeling. (Examples: Viewfinder, Crosshairs)

Shield shape - A contained “shield” shape composition holds things together, creates a unified field that offers protection and embodies meaning for the wielder. (Example: Indigo Lens, Lava Line, Golden Lenses)

Mirroring - A lot of my work has mirrored shapes and reminds me of the face cards in a deck of cards or the reversed interpretations in tarot. It also represents “as above, so below;” the concept of the micro/macro; the power our beliefs have in informing or creating our outer lived lives. (Examples: Heart Mirror, XO, Distillation)

Black and white stripes - In Sanskrit, the word Guru comes from the roots 'gu' meaning darkness or ignorance; and 'ru' meaning remover of that darkness. So in my work the black and white stripes represent transformation–moving from dark to light–through learning or awakening.

Circles - Circles are used for establishing a drishti or focal point for gathering the mind into a concentrated place. They are also used for directing the eye as well as creating a subconscious geometry and visual rhythm.

Translucent Circles - Often represent lenses and ideas around seeing from the mental and emotional aspects. Our lens on the world is colored by our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Also, lenses relate to ideas around microscopes and telescopes, how changing perspective can increase understanding and compassion. 

Translucent shapes - I love how translucence feels spiritual and otherworldly. Layering translucid shapes not only brings depth to the painting, the interaction of the subtle colors also creates new and surprising secondary shapes, as well as unusual additions to the overall palette. 

Black Circle - A peephole to the unknown, the universe, the abyss. 

Black Rectangle - References the constant presence of the void, the unknown as a balancer/bringer of chaos for all equations and assumptions.

Colored squares - Stable places for calibration, to reset the eye, bounce color, add anchoring.

Faux 3D - I make suggestions of 3D in my work. It is often not precise or accurate, but hints at another dimension–if only subconsciously.

Chaotic Brushwork - To represent chaos, primordial matter, the unformed, unrealized potential .Also to leave areas of the canvas more painterly, less controlled.

M A G G I D

limited edition of 5

I love how this kaleidoscopic remix of my work reveals ethereal moments anchored in an almost subconscious grid. To revisit my paintings in this way is very satisfying because I notice so many details that otherwise I would miss. I see the work a bit more objectively—with less judgement and more curiosity—and am amazed at all the things that happened.

The gathering of the loose abstraction into patterned and repeating sections satisfies another level of sense making as it conjures cosmic dust, ghostly birds, ikat textiles, lovely geometries—things with names.

There’s also something about the kaleidoscope—the rotating and flipping of sections of the original painting that opens up space and perspective in my mind that is similar to tarot or consulting an oracle—an alternate seeing, a new thought-way that breaks open the typical. For instance, the rich black running through the middle is punctuated with tiny white triangles that point to a subtle opening flower.

Badges

The shapes in this mirrored piece remind me of badges like you would see on a military uniform. They made me think of how we have all earned our stripes in different ways. Whatever things we have experience, weathered, or worked hard for have transformed us on various levels—from the physical to the mental to the spiritual. A piece from the Mirror-Mirror series, this idea also extends to sobriety—another area in which you will be tested and where you really gotta earn it by working on the self.

White Noise

“White Noise” a print from the Mirror-Mirror series

White noise, the background sounds all around, the sounds that you don’t really notice until you pay attention. These sounds can sooth through listening meditation. When you need to get out of your head, if you sit and simply listen to all the sounds around you—the birds, dogs, cars, sirens, ambient electronics, tiny fans, your own breath, people, etc… you start to slow down. Then if you try taking each sound apart—following the siren from its start to its end, noticing the way the pitch changes and the doppler effect of its movement…somehow you start to dissolve, find a little peace. It’s also useful for staying sober, for getting through the early evening hours that can be especially sticky sometimes. And, it’s a cool experiment if you’ve never tried it.

1000 Days Sober: Things I have Learned

It has been 1000 days since I quit drinking.

It feels like a significant milestone so I wanted to share some things I have learned. It has definitely impacted my life as an artist—to become sober. It is one of the best choices I have ever made. So…here you go…

I should have made the choice to quit drinking 30+ years ago. 

Definitely a lot of fun, definitely a lot of mistakes and toxic damage. So many bad choices, risky behavior. Some of it is just being a crazy, wild young person, but it’s a slippery slope that sucks some of us in for decades. Obviously I stopped while pregnant and nursing-but once the kids were a little bigger, the mommy wine years weren't good and I know contributed to depression, anxiety, being tired and moody and not feeling good–just being lame overall. The culture around mommy happy hour definitely perpetuates this destructive habit. My drinking tapered off substantially over the years, but even when I was down to ¼ glass of wine it would still give me a headache the next day and this weird, dark, metallic anxiety. An unmistakable cause and effect.

You’re not broken.

I thought it was something wrong in me, the feeling of constant searching, the longing for something unknown, a map I couldn’t quite follow. I thought it must be my basic brokenness, but nope, this is part of how it feels to be alive. It took me until very recently to realize that the tricky thing with addiction is that it manufactures a drive to attain the unattainable, tells you that you’ll actually get to see the thing just around the bend. And it strings you along with empty promises. It’s the hamster on the wheel, the carrot dangled before the donkey–it serves itself to no end–to infinity–to the deep black void…

IT is never going to be found through drinking.

It is to be found by sitting still with yourself. By feeling what you are really feeling. By being agitated and annoyed and still having to stay with it. Because the temporary relief is just digging you a hole. I kept telling myself day after day, “It’s not doing anything for you.” But that wasn’t true. I realized, yes, it was doing something for me: It was helping me relax, unwind, be social, stop over-thinking, be ok just sitting–all these tricky things that drink/drugs do for us. But with real and negative consequences.

Life is so much better without drinking. 

More moments of clarity, energy, inner peace, stamina, ability to plan, joy, health. No more waking up to working hard just to swim to the surface for at least half of the day. No more headaches every morning (I would take ibuprofen with my coffee pretty much every day), waking up out of it–I called it “coral brain” because it felt like my brain was dehydrated and full of holes. No more regret for passing out too early, things I did or said. Less anxiety, stress, worry, regret. More presence, more patience, better eating, better skin, more exercise, better relationships, able to show up and not be hung over or stuck in a brain fog.

BETTER SLEEP. 

The foundation for a good life is good sleep. And alcohol wrecks your sleep. I used to wake up every morning around 4:00 am with heart palpitations and quietly knowing I was hurting myself. That can’t be good long-term. It’s better to wake up after a good night’s rest and start the day above water and go from there.

Going each and every day without drinking is a practice in itself. 

It looks like a gradual coming home to yourself, to sitting comfortably with yourself, to sitting uncomfortably with yourself, to being in the uncomfortable reality of your life, to having downtime with a cup of tea and sitting next to your spouse and having a real conversation or having nothing to say at all–and being ok with that. Or not being ok with that. It looks like breathing through nervous energy. It looks like breathwork. It looks like getting used to yourself. And it looks like moments of yourself being so goddamn happy to see you.

There is a price to pay for always wanting escape.

We are not miraculously created from nothing in order to deny the gift of having a life to live. We are not meant to disown our own souls, to abandon the quiet voice, the rambling, the uncomfortable self, the nervous, the uncertain. This is all we have. This is all we are. I would never ever want to go back to being hooked on that false promise of nothing at the end of the rainbow, blindly following a clueless, manipulative fuckface (aka addiction). The end of the rainbow is right here, right now–in all its shitty, magical, crazy and mind-blowingly divine colors.

Day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment is how we build our lives.

The repetition of actions–whatever they are–build a thing. What do you want to build? What are you meant to build? Chances are you are very consistent at certain things. And consistency creates a momentum, and momentum gets harder and harder to stop. So it is with addiction and making bad choices for yourself; so it is with sobriety and making wise choices for yourself. When you choose wisely, moment by moment, you build something more beautiful and life affirming. You become a node of concentrated radiance. 

Don’t be mistaken. To quit drinking isn’t the answer to your problems. 

Getting off the well ridden rail of addiction won't necessarily make your life easier. Yeah, you will feel better, and have more energy and clarity and all the things. But life's still life. It’s fucking difficult sometimes. But drinking makes it even harder to deal with. 

Drinking is an insidious drain on your potential. 

Like an app left open in the background, using up your battery, slowing the actions and efficiency of the important tasks. It’s convenient in a way. Since you don’t have the bandwidth to face the uncertainty of creative work, you can be certain that you are going to spend most of the day recovering and thus not risking rising above baseline into some place entirely new and enlivening.

Drinking is a disservice to the work. 

…The work of being an artist, a parent, a surgeon, a salesman, a server–of being a human of any kind. Drinking is a convenient way to poison yourself out of accountability to your work, your relationships, your life.

If you are toxic and out of tune, you are wasting precious time, you are missing out on being a conduit for life.

If you are toxic and can’t show up for doing your best work–whatever it is–the rest of the world is missing out as well. Better to take responsibility for the moments and days you are lucky to have. Better still to have a clear mind, to feel the natural rhythms of a healthy body and brain, to have the discipline and freedom of choice to direct your energy into attunement with your work–which isn’t really your work to begin with. It’s life’s work, working through you. Could be terrifying, could be electrifying. This is the real and true work of living. To be open and attuned and clear for channeling, for streaming, for letting life reveal itself through you–for as long as possible–until you are no longer.

Something super cool is that life builds along with you. 

It magically supports you. Your soul supports you. There is a real momentum in making choices moment by moment that support sobriety. You begin to build a foundation for yourself that gets stronger and stronger each day. Truly. You will find that your good choices support more good choices, which in turn make a better life and it builds and builds and builds. The consistent and “easy” choice is to choose sobriety. It is empowering in every way. You have nothing to lose with this choice. You will change. You will become a better person. You will feel better. You will inspire others.

Drinking is a convenient way to avoid owning the full force of your life.

You could spend your days cleaning up after yourself and have little left for your real work. And your “potential” may seem overwhelming and wholly unachievable. But the thing is, nothing is achieved with one grand attempt. You get to choose each and every moment and make small moves that add up to bigger moves. It isn’t one big test that you pass or fail. It is literally moment by moment, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. If you are starting with a big blank canvas, it is shape by shape. And it adds up to something, it builds, it begins to take on its own power and force–just like drinking can–but choosing sobriety and being in alignment with your higher self, you actually serve life, serve others. You just have to show up and make one move. Start there. You’ll be reacquainted with your purpose and find that yourself has been waiting for you all this time—with total forgiveness.