The Gift of Time

It’s been awhile since my last post… Back then, on the eve of 2020, I described “challenging times.” 

Was it clairvoyance? It’s always so tempting to try peering around the corner, wondering what will come next. Who could have imagined where we were headed? All I knew then, and all I know now is that there are always challenges. We’ve been given time, which is a gift and also a puzzle. What to do with it?

For me, creating art, has always been a gift. A gift to be able to express myself in images. And more and more it’s been a puzzle — to figure out how to share those images and visions with others.

My new online notecard shop started very simply – I printed a few of my paintings on notecards and sent the cards to friends. It felt so much more satisfying than sending a text, emailing, or having a FaceTime session. It was a way to slow down and not necessarily engage in conversation right then. Plus, I wanted to send something special. When one of my friends told me that he’d framed the card I sent him, it was natural to take the next step.

From my wildlife gallery, I chose six of my favorite bird paintings and I created six cards depicting those birds with their very different personalities. This group of birds is powerful, colorful, and very wild. It took time, as I searched carefully to find the right paper, the right pigment ink, the right process to render and print these in full color and to package them safely.

I’ve designed these cards for a purpose: to carry your thoughts, your message -- whatever is special to you — to someone you are thinking about or to keep for yourself. Each card is blank inside, so it can be used as a greeting, a thank you, a card to hold a longer letter inside of it, or it can be framed to sit next to you and keep you company throughout your day. A link to the shop is here.

Each of us has been given gifts that carry with them quandaries and puzzles. I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

The Road Ahead

Yesterday, my friend and I were talking about the future. And about life. She paused, then said: “We come and go for no reason.” And I burst out laughing. Well that is one perspective. What a perfect antidote to worrying. Especially given these challenging times.

But maybe one’s times are always challenging. Centuries ago, Shakespeare gave voice to a similar thought in the words of Macbeth: “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing.”

But to be here now — and to know one is here now — this is something incredible.

Today in this wintertime California desert I was struck by the beauty of snow capped mountains. I grabbed my iphone while stopped in traffic. I captured an image of the road before me.

Tonight, the day is over, and tomorrow a new year begins.

I think about what Gandalf said to Frodo: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

St. Barth

From an early age, I’ve loved to draw and paint. An early memory: I’m sitting on the floor of our kitchen, collecting my finger paints from the bottom drawer of a cabinet. I pause and look into the future, wondering what it will be like to be 16 years old, and then older, and my mind throws itself forward in such a way that even today, I can go back and be that child sitting in front of the drawer.

In grade school, I proudly showed my art teacher, Mrs. Zigler, a drawing I’d completed of a group portrait of some musicians that I loved. Her response was to draw all over it and tell me I didn’t have enough experience yet to draw portraits. That her class at the Art Institute of Chicago had JUST begun studying portrait drawing. I was chastened. From then on, although art classes called to me (and I did try one in high school and one in college) it was frustrating to see everyone else so far ahead of me. So, I stuck to academics and did very well.

After college, I moved from Minneapolis to Boston and discovered the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Again, I plunged in with passion and excitement. It was so wonderful to be drawing and gaining excellent critical guidance from amazing teachers. But life is complicated and bills must be paid. I found public relations to be a very creative profession, and that part of my brain has had a lot of exercise.

So what does all of this have to do with St. Barth? In 2006 my husband took me to the Caribbean for the first time in my life. We had traveled all through the world, but that island for some reason claimed our hearts. We began spending winters living simply on that little island with our dogs and cat and learning to turn down the tempo of our lives to simplicity, surrounded by indescribable beauty. It was while on St. Barth that I really began pursuing my creative passions, drawing and painting. During that time I also founded my own PR agency, which again claimed more and more time, and interrupted many creative projects.

Still, by 2013 when we spent our last winter there, technology was so far advanced that i was using my iphone more and more to capture images instead of sitting for hours contemplating and working en plein air. And so the creative work shifted again to the side…a passion on hold, burning like little coals in the background of my life. St. Barth had given me permission in so many ways to live, explore, love, enjoy, and embrace beauty. Like no where else in my life, and like no other time, my soul emerged. Still, I move slowly, in fits and starts.