Saturday morning I was on the air, on KWMR, with my friend Kathy E. Sparling and our host Julie Motz, and that was my first experience of talking on the radio.
It was great, the hour went fast, Julie’s questions were clever and we both enjoyed the conversation with her. We got to talk about our own work a lot, the joys and challenges of it, what we were looking for, the content of the work, our techniques…etc…
I had brought with me a flash-drive that Julie plugged in, which permitted me to go back home with a complete recording of the show ! After the show we went and took down my exhibit at the Pt Reyes library which is next door to the KWMR studio, and of course I had to zoom back home, to open my studio because I was already an hour late !
I loved the radio experience ! Back to my studio I actually had a very subdued week-end… it seemed that the visiting crowd milling through Bolinas avoided carefully my board on the sidewalk and ignored my being there all together… oh well… I’m sure today will be the best Monday ever !…
I am close to completing my big painting now… And it’s been close to finish enough lately to elicit quite impressive reactions from some of my visitors… Of course reactions vary in intensity and some people are just passing through the studio without being really touched, but mostly, what I witnessed has been very rewarding to me.
Someone came by last week, and she’s a shaman, a wise woman, someone that I respect and appreciate a lot and she was kind enough to stop by and visit for a moment though she was tired that day. When she entered my studio we were chatting and I had not told her what the painting was about, just that I’d like to show her the new work in progress… She came in, turned around and faced the painting on my big easel, and her reaction was extraordinary ! She told me about it afterward as she sat looking at it for a moment and offering me the most thrilling feedback… She actually, for a split second, went “into” the painting and back in the room, and said that she felt so good in that moment “there”, it was certainly a healing place, somewhere she liked to be, and enjoyed the peace of it, the non-duality… We talked about what that image triggers and how intense the experience was for her, she actually never had that happen with a painting before !
Let me tell you: that is ultimately what I am painting for ! When I have doubts, fear of the future, the economy, longing for the space I’d like to have, whatever pulls me down, it happens that someone comes by and gets so deeply moved in a positive way by a piece of my work or another, that everything makes sense again and I feel that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to ! I am so grateful for that !
It’s the middle of the year, and as the sun starts its slow descent in the sky, to gently ease us into fall pretty soon, it’s time for me to take a breather, look at the work done so far this year and look ahead at what needs to be done from now… Finishing the painting is in sync with that, and certainly part of the overall feeling of passing a crest or a hinge in the unfurling of things….
It’s been my desire to find this year a larger space to move to, and have a larger showroom, and separate studio to paint larger pieces on a regular basis, with living quarters right next to it so to have it all contained and easy to live with the great improvement of bigger quarters (a lot bigger would be nice !). Well, it is still a great desire, but so far nothing really supported it, so I might have to make do and keep on chugging here in my little studio downtown Bolinas for a while…
And that’s OK too. Right now the sun is shining through my very large windows and the light in the studio is really beautiful !… This afternoon I’ll have the studio open, and people will come by, commenting on my French accent, or the work, or the town, and it will be another day in my year of making Art…
Have a good day, where ever you are…
More later…