small discovery

I have been on an art making jag... the classes, school starting and the art that is related to that... being back in my classroom with room to work and great lighting. Plus right now I have some time... my schedule really kicks in next week and for the last two I have had time to play, to think and to work a little.

This is from a collage I started in July... I've been looking at it, looking at all of them really and struggling about what I could do, where I could start. I wanted something from these beginnings... that undefinable 'something' that we get ourselves hung on all too often... That's why I like painting furniture.. I don't feel a need to be inspired... I just have fun...and it always turns out wonderful.

So today, standing at my work table I was looking at these collages playing around with one( I thought I had an inspired idea, even though I knew I was copied an idea... why, why why?) and all of the sudden I thought, 'oh, heck, just do what you know... so on one I gessoed out a background that left a tree, on another I gessoed out an area and left a house... and on this one I left a bird, and all of the sudden I felt like I was cooking.

I need to remember I do not have to reinvent myself... I need to remember that trying to reinvent myself is a) trying; and we all know that is not how it works.. and b) I am perfect just the way I am and that if I do not start right here, I will never reach the perfect that I am becoming.....

I've been here before, but it was never art related.

So anyway, what do I like to paint? Chickens. Big leafy plants and cactus. Jaguars with teeth and stiff legs. Like Rousseau and Matisse with a little bit of Suzi Klotz contemporary, off beat southwest thrown in... primitive, flat, with outlines... so that is where I begin. Right here where my comfort zone is, where I know what I am doing, where it is fun.