Back to the blog, back to the art
So it has been a little while since I’ve blogged or done any artwork. Honestly, anything I wanted to say I didn’t want posted for the world to poke at. Lots of anger and frustration at the world and bits of life we are dealing with right now. And when I get this way the creative juice dries up. Some people can make angry art and work out their frustrations that way, but it doesn’t work so well with me. Since I don’t have the energy to stay angry for the next three years and nine months I wasn’t really sure how to deal with everything and that just added to the frustration. On the warmer afternoons I’ve been outside cleaning flower beds and moving heavy rocks to work some things out but that is only a temporary fix. Great for the waist line though! Saturday afternoon two different people called me to go see a speaker at church. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to work out in the yard, get covered in dirt, find spring plants sprouting and stay grumpy. But I went anyway. Yes, I’m glad I did.
The speaker was Immaculée Ilibagiza. She survived the Rwandan genocide by hiding in a 3′ x 4′ bathroom with seven other women for three months. All the while people (men, women, children) were being murdered, butchered with machetes simply because they were of a different tribe. This included her parents and all but one of her brothers. Happy story, I know. But the beautiful, amazing part of her story is her forgiveness of the murderers, one of which turned out to be the father of a girl she went to high school with. There is so much detail in her story that I can’t do any justice to it here. She is a truly humble and beautiful person. She uses the money she makes to fund orphanages in Rwanda. She allowed God to heal her heart even though she had a really good reason to hold onto her anger, vengeance and hate. I can’t recommend her books enough.
So I’ve turned off all the news sites and radio stations and turned on some music and podcasts. Discovered Ben Harper and a few other musicians on a great playlist on Rhapsody and I’ve been really enjoying those. I can feel the creative juice starting to move again. I even found several boxes of my old artwork and art books from high school through college and realized that some of it wasn’t half bad. I was reminded that I did get a degree in studio art and got to learn so many cool art mediums. I have been working on a couple projects, not anything I should be working on for any one of the great shows coming up this year. One of them may work in a rural type show if the group says it’s not to big.
Here’s a little bit of that one.
I have a pile of papers brimming with great opportunities for my artwork in 2009. So I need to kick out the funk and embrace the challenges otherwise I won’t move forward and where’s the fun in that.
Themocracy
Wow – i know you wrote this a while ago, but i really appreciate reading it now (i’m perusing your site since Victor linked to it from FB). I have always admired your art, and as i’ve been reading your posts, seeing little snippets of you, I think i’m getting a better sense of who you are and you seem very impressive – smart, kind, creative! Thanks for posting – it is inspiring to have a glimpse into someone else’s life even if it is only for a few paragraphs or photographs. – Marie
wow, thanks Marie!