An Epiphany?

Spent a couple of days flat on my back with a cold this past week, which had the not-unwelcome benefit of giving me more time to think than do, so I got a lot of thinking done, along with the fun of immersing myself in a ton of gardening magazines. This diet doesn't allow for the various comfort foods that I'd normally indulge in when I'm not feeling well, so I padded out the herb tea and orange juice with magazines, and it worked just fine.

Anyway, all the thinking led to the realization that everything I'm doing is tied together, that there is no separating my art from my garden or from my other life elements, and I mean this not only in the sense of the origins of the art, but in the very fact of being an artist. And to this effect I realize that I no longer aspire to be a certain sort of artist, in the manner that I would make someone's landscape look like a certain kind of landscape. Instead, I'm an artist of whatever organically emerges from me and my efforts, the same way that my garden is emerging organically from the site and the genius loci.

I no longer care whether my art is Serious or Whimsical, Disturbing or Cute. I don't give a hoot. What comes out comes out, be it craft or painting or flower. In this way I'm most fully who and what I am, and that, of course, is what being 50 is all about--others' expectations of you no longer seem to have quite the same weight, the same impact. I can, and have done, all manner of work and art (and decorating, and dressing, and cooking, and mothering, and studying), but these days things are shaking out into their essentials.

And that is both liberating and satisfying.

Brain-Shifting

No art work to report since the last post, but with fairly good reason: I ordered the tax software for both business and personal, learned to use them, and did both state and federal sets. Took the whole lot to my accountant for her perusal, and she was stunned, not only that I'd finally took the initiative to learn how to do all our taxes, but that I'd also done them right. She was very proud of me. We also covered some things which will change as far as expenses and deductions go for this year, and so here I am, ready to mail off the 2005 taxes, and with the 2006 books and files ready for action.

March is the National Novel Editing Month, so I've begun to read the novel I wrote back in November, and to see if I have the chops to edit it into something worth others' time to read. I don't know if I can detach enough from it, because when I read it I know exactly what I'm trying to convey, and I honestly can't say if it will make sense to anyone else. I'm halfway through it, will probably read the other half this afternoon. There are some sections which obviously need rewriting, places where I summarize rather than show, which makes for dry reading. Then I'll foist it on Steve and brace myself for his reaction.

We've had some interesting conversations lately. Last weekend we laid the groundwork for a mid-September event here at the gallery, something very different than the usual opening receptions. Then today I expressed my disappointment in myself for not getting more art done and feeling as if all my other chores and jobs just snowball and never seem to become stable or routine. It seems like every time I turn around we have had to change this, change that, whether it is the house or the garden or the work or the studio or the pots and pans! I really like having very set parameters in my life, inside which I can do my own thing--i.e., my artwork. But the parameters are always in a flux. I guess I'd like to have LESS change in the framework of everyday life so that it doesn't drain so much mental or physical energy from me. He agreed that the past four years have been a time of constant change, but that it does seem to be coming to a natural end--we have finally gotten the house laid out to its best advantage for us and our work, and it's hard to imagine what other major changes could be made.

In the past two months, I've changed the way I cook, the way we eat, the way I bank, the way I bookkeep, the way I pay bills, the way I shop, and the way I do laundry and generally darn near everything. So we think it's a good idea if I just coast a while and live in the moment. If I feel like painting, I'll paint, if I feel like cleaning the stove, I'll clean the stove. It takes a little longer to adapt to change than we sometimes give ourselves credit for.