My New Existence

I realized I have lived in my new existence since mid-summer and I haven't blogged about it yet.  You know about moving, don't you?  Saying good-bye to the old with a lot of work and effort, and saying hello to the new and hoping it doesn't overwhelm you with all that work right after all that work at the old place.

Remembering to breathe...that's the important part.  Breathe in, breathe out.  I'm famous for forgetting that bit.  I always think I'm going to get a million things done, then I settle down with my to-do list, forget half the things that should be written on it, and am exhausted before I get half-way done with the things that made it on the page.  That's only a quarter of what I imagined I'd get done.  And then I added moving to that!

The experience is mixed.  We did a lot of things wrong, and a lot of things right.  We found things we hadn't seen in years, and lost things we use everyday.  We pushed our five-year-old to be patient during the moving process as his usual summer activities gave way to frantic packing, but we also made sure he had love and encouragement, and excitement for a new place and new experiences.

We moved to the city.  A city I LOVE.  Minneapolis.  Breathing became easier just knowing how close I now am to places I adore.  We now have half the drive to the grandparents' house and church, no drive to Minnehaha Falls or Bren's cousin's house.  We can take the LRT (train) or bus to most of the places we want here in the city.  We have our pick of farmer's markets for the summer, ice rinks in the winter.  While we now live further away from the few friends we made in Elk River, we are much closer to many friends we've missed dearly.  I've been dizzily planning all the places I want to go...and for once getting there.

Minnehaha Falls, early July 2011

At the same time, however, we now live in a condo and I'm having to adjust to less space as I finally start considering my art my job that must be done.  I can't afford a studio yet, so it's a struggle to find space for living and working at the same time...but it's a struggle of love.  

I have a feeling that with this new existence, I will have a studio soon.  I'm full of creative energy and can accomplish anything I put my mind to, because I've given myself a new attitude and new opportunities.  I have plans, and dreams, and...

Okay, just breathe.

Portraits (and why I like them)

My first 'professional' art job happened when I was just a small girl. My brothers paid me some small fee (probably a quarter, or an ice cream cone or something) to draw a picture of my sister. Easy money, I guess, because I was hooked.

When I went to college, I knew I would be an art major. There wasn't even anything else I'd considered for a minute. I was a big fan of Leonardo da Vinci, Monet, Renoir, Degas and the other impressionists, M.C. Escher, and...Norman Rockwell. There are other artists, too, of course...but those are the biggies.

The thing that brought me back to those artists again and again was their ability to give the subject a life. They didn't just paint how a person looked, they painted who they were. They conveyed their souls straight through into the paint. You could feel yourself there with them, wanting to know more about that person across from you.

A broader, yet intimate, representation of their culture is also available in those paintings. For example, in Norman Rockwell's The Homecoming, which is the painting I keep above my bed, he depicts a young soldier coming home to his neighborhood after WWII. You can't help but feel happiness for the young man and those that so obviously fretted and worried for him during his absence. It symbolizes what so many people went through during WWII, and gives us the ability to empathize with our elders. This picture is worth millions of words, because it sums up what would be the memoirs of so many.

While I'm not claiming to be that accomplished, it is what drives me to keep doing portraits. I want to make the person looking at the portrait have that sentimental moment of their own, even if they've never met the subject. I want the people who have met the subject to look at it and recognize the person in the picture, not just their face.