...(sigh) and... well, I haven't posted any new art here. I can tell you that I've made some small pieces and should add them to the small works page on the site (will do... I'm way behind on adding things to that page). But I haven't finished any large works, though two were close to finished before I left for LA and one of them is quite a lovely new favorite of mine; the other, I should have left well enough alone. I posted a 'work in progress' pic on instagram of it several months back and it's gotten the most likes of anything -- but I've destroyed it by going in and in and in with the paint, and now have to work out the mess I've made. I do have some finished medium works (a bunch of 24x48's) but will hold off on creating a "2017" page until I have more to show.
This year started out tough from the get-go: I was tied-up with the charity art events I planned and hosted, a Cornelia show, and then packing up my art (CRAZY amount of inventory), and then the actual colossal double move of home and studio, then working on finding a home in LA and getting settled... then upended by a tragic family setback (which took me out of LA for a total of 2 weeks soon after moving here), and trying to get settled some more as if none of the bad stuff happened (which is not something one can even begin to pretend).
I had trouble picking up the paintbrush and the guitar during these many months in 2017. There was either no time or no sense of self during moments of duress, which there have been way too many of lately. It's been more like months of duress as opposed to moments. Actually, take that quite literally. There were a few days in May here and there when I made good progress on a painting for my aunt, which I started after her massive stroke, but I lost momentum when the stress of the current state of affairs took over. Only last night, did I start to work on two small pieces after weeks of nothing.
And music... ahhhh, music! (sweet music)... I finally picked up the guitar tonight in real way (in other words, I'm not going to count the two or three times that I picked it up in vain for a tuning and a 5 minute session of forced play, followed by gut-wrenching sadness over "losing the gift" -- have I learned nothing from my 20s?). I played for real, as in realtime cathartic, focused playing. My heart was in it, and it hadn't been in it in months... many months. I'm almost ashamed to say how many but I remember the last time I played live and it was two songs at a friend's art show. The circumstances surrounding that night (associated with a spirit-breaking loss that I honestly don't think I'll ever fully recover from) kind of put a hex on my singing and playing... it's like when you read about those cases where people experience something traumatic and stop speaking. I had experienced something personally awful that killed something in me. I was able to use that event (and the power of my voice and song) as my blow back but it left me winded and pained... and then I just stopped singing, writing, playing my own songs for many months.
So tonight, I feel like I came back from the dead. No joke. The power of music and whimsy of the muse. Oh yeah, and I painted some today too. So my sense of self (after feeling robbed of it roughly a year ago) had a taste of the return.
There's no telling what tomorrow may bring... and that really means anything...