Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been painting with great abandon and I do mean with abandon!  I’d started at least a half dozen oil paintings over the past year or so and they’ve been sitting for sometime in various stages of incompleteness.

With my work schedule it’s difficult to paint everyday and oil paints don’t take well to sitting around squeezed onto your palette unused for even a few days.  In spite of the fact that I store them in a plastic, sealed container it’s important to use them before they’ve developed a “skin.”  Ugh…

What you see here is one of those half-starts painted with abandon to completion.  Had this painting been done in watercolor on a piece of paper it would have long ago ended up in the trash.  Painting on a canvas makes me feel more “invested” and it’s not so easy to just toss the thing into the trash without calling attention to my failure.

Oils lend themselves to working and reworking.   Let me assure you all that went into this painting and the others I’ve not yet revealed to you.  I learned a great deal by forcing myself to push on to the finish.

It’s fun and frustrating to learn something new, but learn I did through this painting process and I will take that knowledge to the next oil painting.  I’m already planning my next piece, which will be a repeat of this subject in a slightly different color scheme.

Don’t be afraid to give yourself a “Mulligan” by tackling the same subject more than once.  Think of Monet and the series of paintings he did entitled “Haystacks,”  and then there was Cezanne who painted Montagne Sainte-Victoire, a mountain within view of his home, numerous times.

It’s all about giving yourself permission to try, fail and try again.

Hiding In Full View Part 1

Hiding in Full View Part 2

And then one day a few weeks ago I drive past my neighbor’s powder blue house. It’s a cold winter morning and I glance quickly to make my morning inspection. It’s immediately obvious there is something amiss. In shock and disbelief, I realize that the big, straight barn has disappeared. All that remains is a trickle of smoke coming from its charred remains. A pile of rubble can be seen smoldering, bits of scorched and burnt debris deep below the surface still afire. I’m shocked and devastated.

I report my distressing discovery to my husband, Tom, who tells me the fire that claimed the old barn had been locally televised. I never knew. I mourn the loss. The smoldering continues for more than a week until a winter rain snuffs out the last of the embers. A cleanup crew is on the property soon after. I mourn the change, the loss and being a witness to this relic reduced to charred timber and ash.

In spite of all this unwanted activity, there is never a glimpse of my neighbor in the powder blue house. Cleanup crews in vans of various colors come and go, but not so much as one single sighting of my neighbor could be had. Is it by design or by chance that we are never to “meet?”

My imagination conjures an old woman lives there, once a farm wife, now an old crone, who requires little to get by and chooses to remain aloof, solitary and alone. Perhaps she’s followed all her dreams and is waiting for her final journey. Or maybe life itself has proven too much to handle and so she remains hidden and alone. It’s possible she prefers a solitary existence or illness keeps her from tending the gardens she once cared for with pride. I’m projecting, of course, and the truth is I’ll likely never know who lives behind those walls.

I realize as I write this that I’ve become too much of a spectator in my life and admit to hiding in full view at times. Rather than being a participant I’m watching and waiting far too often. I know that big changes require courage and while in the process of summoning my courage I sometimes begin to feel an inertia and stagnation settle in.

What moves me forward is that the idea of retreat, giving up or giving in does not jive with the vision I hold for my future. We each have a book to write, story to tell, dream to follow and for me that does not include hiding in full view. I do not know what the future holds and I do not know who resides inside the powder blue house, what I do know is that I’ll not give up striving and so long as I reside here on this earthly plane I intend to be a player and party to the action.

As I drove past my neighbor’s powder blue house this morning I noticed a dark-colored van in the driveway. A visitor perhaps?! No more hiding neighbor, it’s time to get the coffee brewin’ and entertain a friend.