Blog 1 “Both And”
Though I have done a lot of writing and created handmade books, I am not published. My husband and friends have encouraged me to start a blog. I decided to start from scratch. My friend Laurie said to begin with an introduction. My friend Tracy taught me about both / and.
For as many years as I can remember, people have tried to categorize one another. Maybe that makes things simpler. I have taken interesting personality tests, some that put us into 9 Enneagram types or 16 Myers Briggs. Then there are spiritual categories, our roles, jobs, etc.
About me: I love God, but I don’t understand the separation of denominations and churches. As a mother of a trans adult, I am in another kind of group. And as an artist, I fit into one space but not another. I’m just thinking that if we all have different fingerprints, why not as many personalities?
I love to spend time with family and friends. My favorite color is quinacridone crimson. I grew up listening to classic rock and still love it. My favorite book is “Til We Have Faces” by C.S. Lewis because it gives me hope that no matter how much we screw up, there is still a plan larger than what we see.
My husband and I have been married 34 years and have lived in interesting places like Siem Reap Cambodia and the mountains of Arizona. We met at Art School. We have 3 wonderful children and 2 grandchildren.
Though I have spent only 4 weeks in Thailand, it feels like part of my heart is still there.
Sometimes I get to facilitate creative release through art, sometimes in places like Ukraine.
We currently live in the Appalachian Mountains, though I am from the Midwest.
Sometimes I order pizza from Chicago for special occasions!
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Blog 2 “Artists”
Once upon a time, Artists created works of art and then made color slides of their artwork, put them into plastic sleeves, and submitted that with a letter and Resume to Art Galleries. If the Gallery liked your work and decided to carry a few pieces, the Artist would make sure the work was framed well, sealed, signed, and shipped or dropped off. The Gallery would then display and advertise the work. When pieces are sold, they keep 50% Commission. Sometimes an Artist is featured in a Show so they dress up and try to socialize with those at the Show.
Nowadays most Artists are online which means …. You have to have an ever changing website, Instagram, FB, Twitter, YouTube Channel teaching classes, Videos showing yourself making art, and all the things I am not remembering at the moment. In addition, all the above needs to also be ever changing and connected to each other. The Artist is expected to reply to comments, package and ship work immediately when it sells because we are used to receiving things within a day or two. Packaging and shipping things like Sculptures or large paintings is quite a feat. The upside is that we don’t pay a commission for work sold online. The downside is all the many, many hours spent on tech work. Galleries today still keep 50% commission and they do some print advertising but now they too are expected to have videos and other social media to bring people in. The amount of work that goes into making a painting or writing a song is a small portion of the work. With limited time and energy, the choice seems to be to create Art or sell Art. I listened to a successful online artist talk about having to give up gardening and baking to keep an online presence. Oh that’s right, you have to also have podcasts. I admire how hard that artist worked but also feel sad for her. And I know an Artists can hire someone to do some of this tech work, but they don’t take a commission after a sale, they have to be paid upfront each month regardless of sales. We tried a company one time that took uploaded images of paintings and printed them on things like pillows where we made 10% off of sales. For those of us that spent thousands of dollars and however many years in art school… yikes! At this point it seems smarter to have gone into engineering or accounting, and those are great careers, more stable financially. But what if our ability, our voice is in color, music notes, or words put together in a way that touches someone’s heart. For those of us that are Abstract Expressionists, for example, we are painting our interior landscapes, painting emotions, or songs. For the person composing that music, what have they gone through to start out by selling albums, and having concerts, etc to now a 99 cent download and hours spent on social media?! Meanwhile, back to trying to figure out this WP account and watching even more videos so I can upload at least one image.
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Blog 3 “Discrepancies”
This blog is written but I am not sure I am ready to post it.
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Blog 4 “Quantum Physics and Neuroscience”
In 2005 or 2006, I heard a Quantum Physicist speak a couple of times and the topic just grabbed me. The most exciting thing to learn about was DNA songs, though I was fascinated to learn a little about String Theory. The knowledge that within each of us is a song, a literal DNA song that can be mapped out and listened to, is just amazing. For a long time I have thought that if I could play someone’s DNA song on the piano, maybe they would remember all the wonderful parts of who they are. There are so many voices telling us who we are and more often who we are not. There is too much criticism from ourselves and others. But if you could actually hear your own DNA song, wouldn’t that resonate in such a way to bring you back to yourself? It occurred to me that I cannot play every person’s song, or maybe even one person’s song because that would be quite an intuitive feat. So then I thought, what if I learn to play the DNA songs of nature? Of colors? Of creation? So that is what I am working on. What if by playing DNA songs of colors or trees, that brings us back in time to remember.
One time when I was painting/praying about identity, God showed me that we can look forward to see who we will become. Or we can simply “remember”. That our identity is both ancient and eternal. We were on God’s mind before He created the foundations of the earth. And in Heaven for eternity, we are who we were before the earth. If we could find a way to remember who we are or look ahead, what a wonderful encouragement that would be.
Neuroscience. Primarily I have been interested in Neuroplasticity and now that has become commonplace, which is good. Just in case someone reads this and is not familiar, it simply means that our brains are malleable. They can change. We can create new neural pathways. That doesn’t mean it is easy. One time I heard someone say it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. Close enough. It is also exciting to know we don’t have to stay stuck. Recently I read “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and he talks about developing new, tiny habits that eventually become automatic. Also I took a course on how to heal from chemical allergies. Basically it is learning how to change negative responses into positive responses. People that have bad histamine reactions to chemicals, like perfumes, are able to heal themselves by carving out a new reaction and therefore a new neural pathway. I shared this with someone one time and they got angry. I can’t remember why. It is not meant to sound simple, but I thought it may be worth a try.