Calling Artist to Earth

Lady, oil 24 X 36

Calling Artist to Earth
Earth to Artist, come in artist! When did it happen? While I was busy creating, Al moved in! I mean, he really moved in. The big brown leather chair remains as an eyesore in the middle of our beautiful bedroom and it’s not going away any time soon. I didn’t realize Al had become so comfortable nesting in it. He has moved in literally lock, stock and barrel.

I realize last winter was long, hard and cold, but as I was busy being creative; painting, writing articles and working on a book, Al was busy sitting in front of the television with his remote, clicking on hunting channels, cleaning his guns, calling turkeys from his brown chair, and with his faithful Labrador by his side, he was dreaming of his next hunt. Seemed pretty innocent, I thought.

We were cruising around Mexico in the spring, now it was mid summer, and it was time to do some deep cleaning. When I began in our bedroom, to my surprise, Al had little by little moved in his whole hunting experience into every corner, every drawer, in the closets and under the bed. The top of the beautiful antique dresser, his mother so adoringly gave to him, was piled up with such things as screws, nails, and matches, the usual things from his pockets. In the frame of the mirror was stuffed hunting cartoons, pictures of him and our son-in-law standing proudly with their deer, elk and fish.

Under this beautiful antique dresser, he had moved in five or six batteries, belonging to his lawn mower, the four-wheeler, the R.V, and the tractor… all of which needed to be inside during last winter. He had masterfully draped a cabbage rose throw over them.

“Al,” I said, “These batteries go back into the store room. Why aren’t they in the vehicles?”

“Well, I had to put them somewhere from out of the cold.”

“But it’s summer.”

Al plays dumb when he doesn’t want to be confronted. I have his number by now.

I pulled out one of his dresser drawers. I gasped in disbelief. Hunting books, hunting videos, turkey call apparatus, buck knives, twenty pocket knives, a small hatchet, rabbit’s scent in a bottle, a small portable cassette player with cassettes of squealing rabbits, and the list goes on and on. In between was wedged his underwear and socks.

“How many subscriptions are you getting? Are you reading these magazines? They need to go to the library.”

“I haven’t had time to read them; there is so much work around here to do. Don’t throw them away; I need to read them first.”

Al had a handkerchief drawer which now has become a junk drawer. I said, “Al, I don’t want anything in this drawer except your handkerchiefs.” Lo and behold, after I had cleaned, Al had chinked some Trapper Magazines and a hunting dog book into the back corner of the drawer. “Al, I am reminding you again. This drawer is for your hankies only.”

In his bedside table, he had put more hunting paraphernalia; red plastic ribbon to stake off his kill, old hunting licenses, a survival kit, more hunting knives, two pair of binoculars and about 30 lip balms. In the double doors beneath the drawer were fifty batteries from triple A to D, fifteen cameras and stacks of hunting and fishing pictures.

Next his closet! It was a nightmare too; four hunting jackets, ten camouflage outfits, hunting boots, hunting chairs and more. No wonder he had moved into my side of the closet.

“Al, everything hunting goes upstairs to your room where the wildlife roams. You have made yourself at home and have turned our bedroom into a hunting lodge. I feel like I’m living at Cabellas.” When I looked in his man cave, it was empty. It had all come down over the winter.

Calling artist to earth! How did I not see all of this stuff?

Hunting season is around the corner; all the gear will probably come out again. And once again, I have a feeling most of it will find its way back into our bedroom. Is there a moral to this story? My son-in-law, who also hunts, was appalled that I would write about it and put it in the newspaper. “It sounds like you don’t want Al to go hunting and he’s hen pecked,” he said.

“Not at all! I don’t care if he goes hunting, just not in our bedroom.” I want to blame the big brown cumbersome rocking chair which commands all the attention in the bedroom but maybe that’s not the problem. Could it be, I have been in my own world of art, and I haven’t noticed that the every day life is going around about me?

I think I’ve been too busy creating to see what happens when I leave a busy boy alone. I’ve got to keep a better eye on him.

Final Brushstroke! Creating takes us away to another world, but we better stay tuned to earth.

Comments from Readers: Send your comments to bettyslade@centurytel.net. Check out my Blog for other articles. http://bettyslade.blogspot.com

Every blueberry has its own story!

A Blueberry's Story - Watercolor by Betty Slade

I recently listened to a documentary on Garrison Keillor, writer, master story teller and broadcaster. He said when he starts to write, he begins with one idea. Until he writes it down, it is undeveloped truth. Only when he writes it, he knows what he is thinking.



Until we develop an idea, we really do not know all that a certain idea can bring and what we are thinking. Julie of “Julie and Julia” says “I have thoughts!”



I was sitting at the breakfast table reading the back of a cereal box. When was the last time I read a cereal box? Probably when I was a kid; when they artistically wooed kids to convince parents to buy cereal, not for what was inside but what the box offered on the outside.



The writing on the back of the cereal box read something like this. “Each plump juicy blueberry is picked at the precise time to burst into intensity of flavor. Each blueberry has its own story.”



“Wow,” I thought, “Here is an article. If a blueberry has its own story, just think how our lives are so intricately put together so that we will burst into intensity at the precise time we are picked. I’ve got to write on this, where is this story going? I’m not sure. I won’t know until I write it down.”



Then, I received a comment from a reader. She writes, “Thanks for writing and sharing your inspiration. Speaking of, I would imagine that one of the challenges of writing a weekly column is finding things to write about. You seem to receive inspiration from the details of life and you know how to turn them into an article. Tell me more about your process. When something strikes you as column material, do you quickly jot it down if you're not at home? Do you run for the laptop and get started right away? What have you learned to do that works for you so you can stay on top of an inspired thought?”



I diligently write down a thought when it comes, knowing I could forget it. I might use it as a quote, a phrase or a full blown story. When the idea comes it is usually 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning and I can’t stay in bed. I have to go to my computer; the idea won’t let me sleep. My mind is alert and the trials of the day haven’t presented themselves, yet. Some times it is out of a gut wrenching dilemma turned funny. Ideas always develop themselves as I write. I also have learned to give the idea its own reins and let it go wild. Some of it I will use and the rest I discard. I never know until I write it, what reads well and what is nonsense. Some times what seems frivolous becomes the best part of the story. So I write it all down and go back later and start slashing away the fat.



At a recent writer’s conference, I asked a writer who writes a poem a day, “How do you do it, I am sure you don’t wait to be inspired or you wouldn’t write every day. It must be a matter of discipline, I know those who wait to be inspired and they are not writing consistently.”



Five years and 1,825 poems later, she says, “After awhile, after writing so many, I have learned how to get into that inspired moment. I know THAT place which opens me to inspiration.”



I look at my own writing career and wonder if I hung on the bush too long when certain undeveloped truths came and I didn’t write them down. Could I have written earlier in my life? I played with writing but not with the zeal I possess for writing today.



I believe inspiration comes through truth and illumination. When I begin to write, it is usually undeveloped truth, and as I write, I come to know what I am thinking. I couldn’t get there until that moment. “That moment”, being that precise moment when the intensity of the flavor bursts forth. Perhaps it was a lack of rain or sunny days but it took a long time to catch the inspiration for writing. When it happened, I started picking the berries from my garden. Hopefully they are juicy and full of intense flavor and are sustenance for others.



I picked some fruit too soon, before the berry had the intensity it was designed to have. Maybe it was for practice? I believe our stories are developed as we live them.



Ideas are ripe for the picking, whether they are artistically rendered in a painting or writing. Until we put our ideas on canvas, paper, computer, we are not sure what we are thinking. But when we finished the idea, there is always another story.



Final Brushstroke: Keep writing! Give your mind free rein to think. Water the tree, or the bush or whatever you grow on, and you will be surprised at what you might produce. Fruit comes from within the plant. It animates its nature.

A Time for All Seasons

Artist’s Quote: “When you focus on what’s wrong, you get more of what’s wrong. Conversely, when you focus on what’s right, you get more of what’s right. Gina Mollicone-Long, Author

When is it time to let go? As Al and I have been down sizing, we have been working and cleaning letting go of things. But, as we have been working on things, we are the ones who needed to be worked on. We have become too sentimental and emotionally attached to memories and things.



I just remember when I was eight or nine, in my little Southern Colorado town where I was born and raised; there was a big white house. In a child’s eyes, it was a picture of a mansion from “Gone with the Wind”. I was intrigued with its lily covered pond and two big white sun porches with lots of windows. There was a mystery behind those windows. With permission, we ice skated on the pond in the winter and my eyes saw it as the biggest and best house in town. I wanted to live in it some day.



Just a few years ago, we went to my little country town and the family in the big white house was having a garage sale. New windows were being added and other construction on the house was going on. This family with 5 or 6 children was not the family who once owned it.



I asked about the previous owners. The children pointed to a modular house two doors down the street and said the older couple traded houses with them. I just remembered how I felt. I was sad for the older couple. I felt they gave away their inheritance; they had stepped down to a meager existence. From a mansion to a modular, how could they do that? They must be out of their minds. If I owned it, I would never turn loose of that house. They lived in it all their lives and raised their children there. The house was a status symbol for their family. What about their one daughter and her family. What did she think about it?



I didn’t realize it then and it still pains me today, but the older couple was thinking very straight. They understood where they were in life. They were not feeling like they were stepping down, but making life more comfortable and enjoyable for themselves. No longer were they living in the demands of keeping and maintaining a big house and yard.



I am sure that the big house with the drafty rooms, with the big old leaky windows, was too big for two people and too much to take care of. The old electrical wiring and plumbing probably needed to be updated along with the kitchen and bathroom. The yard work needed the strength of youth; all of it became a burden for them physically and financially.



They were no longer the same as they were in their younger days and a younger family had the enjoyment of it now. Also, they probably had fulfilled their dreams in their prime. They lived that life and it was no longer so important to them.



I questioned myself and thought, “Am I thinking old or thinking wise? We too are making a change and letting go of my big 4,000 square foot studio and gallery and retreat center. It’s too much to take care of.”



I taught on a passage recently and questioned why we do not know when it is time to change. “Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the turtledove, the swift and the swallow observe the time of their coming. But my people do not know….” Jeremiah 8:7



Turtledoves are seasonal birds and they understand their appointed time. Why is it we do not move easily from season to season? Is it because we become too emotionally entrenched in a certain mindset of how it should be and we can not change?



When I talked to the older people just a few years ago living in the modular, I was still experiencing my childhood expectations and was not ready to see it any differently. Today I understand. It’s OK to let go; in fact, it is necessary if we want an easier and more comfortable life so that we can do the things we find more enjoyable, such as painting and writing. There is an appointed time for each season.



I know a few people who are living in the wrong season. Their season came and left and they continue to hang on. Why and what are they hanging on to? Maybe, it is a preconceived idea of the past, a childhood notion, or what they think they need. If they let go, they might think they have lessened their dreams, lost their security and something important they had in their younger days.



I have found when I finally take courage and get out of the box; I can’t and won’t go back. The box becomes too small and less important to me. Am I giving away my children’s childhood memories? I haven’t figured that out yet about children and grandchildren and what they need to hang on for their sense of inheritance. Maybe they have to figure that out for themselves.



“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1. There is a purpose in every season. We should be excited to understand and see the purpose in this new season we live in. We will miss the purpose of today, if we hang on to yesterday’s notions.



Final Brushstroke! A new season brings new understanding. There are new benefits in a new day.

Driving in Your Lane with an Artistic License!

Artist’s Quote: “There comes a moment when you have to stop revving up the car and shove it into gear.” David Mahoney, Executive and Philanthropist

This column should be called, “The artist’s lane and your lane too!” Maybe it should be, “A Crazy writer driving with an artistic license!” Or, “What Box? There are boundaries? Where?”



Recently, I wrote a brilliant article. Anyway, I thought it was. I could hardly wait to read it to my family, my truthful and trustworthy critics. Oh me. I didn’t see the oncoming drivers on the road of life.



I read my well-thought-out article to the family.



My daughter says, “Mother, it sounds like a Sunday school lesson. You’ve lost your focus. Some times you are really out there.”



My son-in-law jumps in with his comment, “I feel like I am reading a Dear Ann Landers Column. If you wrote for a big newspaper your column would be toast. It’s the Artist’s Lane.”



“My sweet Al, says, “Write humor and write about artists. You get too deep.”

I thought he was the one who asked a few months ago, “Why do you always have to write to artists? Others read your articles too.” It’s amazing how fickle fans will change when the noise is louder on the other team.



I was built up in my thinking that I had done something good, when unexpected comments came upon me and threw me into a tail spin and out of control. I crashed and I became pretty pitiful, “My friends like my deep truths, my church friends tell me they are inspiring and even transforming and other people think your Dad is funny. Others ask for my advice. Maybe grace has run out.”



“Mother, just stop it,” my daughter said, “You are on a pity party. You’re getting better. You just need to readjust your thinking.”



This article is No. 100. I’m marking two and half years of writing a weekly column. I’ve been bumped a couple of times, but I am still on the highway with an artistic license. I have three backseat drivers riding with me, my fenders flopping, a stream of oil on the highway, my foot on the gas and I don’t know where the brake is, I’m still racing my engine.



The column started as a fluke. I felt that the artists needed a voice, understanding and encouragement and I began sending in articles under the title, “Life in the Artist’s Lane!” I was amazed and was overcome in giddiness when the newspaper actually ran all my articles and people told me they were reading them.



The first article read something like this, “The smell of turpentine, the thrill of oil paints, the roar of the engine, the cheer of the crowds, this is the life in the artist’s lane. I am ready. I am sitting behind the wheel of a hopped-up car with a loud 350 horse power engine, squealing my new set of wheels. I am sixteen (going on sixty) and driving without a driver’s license. I am ready to tell the world, ‘Watch out, I am on the highway of writers, I’ve been an artist for forty years, and now I am writing about them.’”



Eventually to my surprise, I was asked to write a weekly column. The Editor said, “Come in, get a head shot, but I am concerned about your sustainability.”



My response was, “Are you kidding, I will never run out of material for artists. They have so many crazy things going on in their head and around them.” And sure enough, I haven’t run out of material, I live as an artist, but I am changing all the time as a person. Inspiration comes on me, and I go with it.



When I walk into my studio, I love the smell of turpentine and paint and inspiration takes over, I rive my motor, ideas come and I have to paint. When I sit at my computer, life comes in and I want to tell everyone the things I have learned recently. If it brings clarity to someone, then I’ve been successful in conveying my heart in words instead of paint.



A readers writes, “It’s very interesting to me...I am not an artist per se, but as a contemplative, I could relate to some. Are you writing specifically to artists, or are you trying to help “non-artists” understand the artist a bit more?”



I say, “Maybe yes, and maybe no. I don’t know what I am doing. I write about what I know. Whatever you get, is what I’ve got.”



So, in my articles, I have crossed the double yellow line and jumped over a couple of lanes. I’ve driven in your lane; I’ve been in Al’s lane, back in my own, and in the artist and writer’s lane. I’ve changed since that first article. Maybe, it’s a senior moment. I have meandered down memory lane, hard-time lanes, and made circles in victory lane.



We’ve crossed the Red Sea together with Moses and gone through the wilderness. We’ve lived through a couple of hard winters together in Pagosa; wrote about the poet’s mistress, I’ve taken you into my bedroom with the brown throne and looked for Al’s Hawaiian shirts.



So I made a trip to see the Editor of the newspaper who understands artistic license. After all he cruises parking lots looking for bumper stickers and gross behavior. I told him my tale of woe, “I have three backseat drivers, I’ve been practicing on the back roads of Pagosa, I’m behind the wheel of an awesome machine and I want to hit all the bumps and puddles. I have so much to write about, and my column is “The Artist’s Lane. Will you tell me when I go over the double yellow line?”



“Don’t worry, I will. You’re doing fine. You might mention artists once in awhile.”



“Whew! I’m not toast yet. I’m off again to the world of words.”



So when I am driving on your side of the road; just smile, honk and wave. You might have to dodge me once in a while when I cross the line. My mind is probably wandering and thinking about the next article.



If you see me stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire, I might need a lift or need to borrow your air pump. If my writing takes a detour and I end up on some bumpy back road, humor me, take a ride with me and enjoy the scenery in this awesome adventure, called “writing”. I am so thankful for you, my readers; you’ve hung in there with me. One day, I might get my “writer’s” license and figure out what I am doing.



Final Brushstroke: Life is always an adjustment. Blessed is the one who can change with it.



Reader’s Comments: E-mail bettyslade@centurytel.net with your comments.

The Dark Horse in the Winner’s Circle

Artist’s Quote: “Whatever you want in life, other people are going to want it too. Believe in yourself enough to accept the idea that you have an equal right to it.” Diane Sawyer, TV Personality

Are you and your work living the life of the dark horse? You’re straining your neck at the starting gate, you hear the gun, you bolt out of the gate and with all you have in you, you run the race like it is your last. Decked in bright colors, you’ve trained with the best, you’ve paid your entrance and stable fees, but it seems like you fall short of the golden ones, the ones running on the inside track who everyone is shouting for.



As the dark horse, you stay in obscurity. The world is not looking for you and gamblers are not placing betting odds on you. You’re out there with the others but until something extra ordinary happens, you are just running the race. My friend tells me that technically a dark horse isn’t considered a dark horse until it becomes prominent. It isn’t lacking, it just hasn’t been discovered.



The King’s Choice is such a contender. It had a brief moment of prominence but now sits on my bookshelf dormant. I opted to give a small devotion on Friday night at a women’s campout. The devotion would be nothing big, just a thought or two of a small section from this book that I wrote in 1992. So I blew the dust off the cover, threw it in my backpack and added enough copies for everyone.



Sitting around the campfire in the dark with only light from the embers, I began by asking, “Has anyone read the most beautiful but the most misunderstood book in the Bible, The Song of Solomon?” One lady immediately said, “Pleeease, I live alone, I don’t need that!” Yes, by the natural man it is considered the X-rated book of the Bible and is very controversial. It is not usually sought after because of man’s opinions; fear, guilt and lack of understanding. It is seemingly a dark horse. It is as if the wonderful imagery and beauty has been hidden from gawking eyes.



I have taught from Song of Solomon many times over the years, but I always felt in my excitement that I was whipping things up and with glazed eyes my students went to another world and I would try to rein them back. There are over 1,005 songs that Solomon penned, this one is considered the Song of Songs. The chosen one!



The King’s Choice is a Study Book on the Song of Solomon and is full of passion, purpose and expectancy. I spent a year in research and study and I loved every word that I wrote and believed in every word.



It didn’t end up the way I thought it would, it had its spurts and starts. I taught seventeen 30-minute television programs from it, master videotapes sit on my shelf to bear witness. I rented the Country Club of Albuquerque for the evening and unveiled the seventeen paintings I painted. A playbill was placed in everyone’s hand, food covered the tables, music played in the background, actors and dancers performed, and a narrator told the beautiful love story.



So what happened to the dark horse after that night of exquisite artistry? The paintings went to pasture, the golden ornate frames were stripped off and given to other fanciful fillies that could wear their size.



Well, back to Friday night. Something out of the ordinary happened. There was electricity that jumped off the pages. The subject continued Saturday morning, Saturday night, and Sunday morning until the whole book had been ravished. The words lit up the hearts of the women. I was dumbfounded. They were grateful, I was in awe. They were hungry to hear and I was overjoyed to give.



But the story goes on, the weekend was so rewarding that I fell back into the old familiar mode of operation. Since I had gleaned more material and knowledge than when I wrote the book, I immediately started dreaming how to revise the book and include all the wonderful information that I had acquired.



My neck was straining, I was just waiting for the gun to sound and I would be off. I was feeding the horse again, “I know! I will publish another one, bigger and better and this time it will make a sweeping triumph across the finish line.”



But whoa! Stop! Pull in the reins. Let this horse have its own head. Don’t beat it to death. It just ran a race and is a winner. Even a fine race horse needs to walk around and cool down. There might be another race down the way and when the time comes, when the current in the work is drawing life from whoever is hungry to hear, it will happen.



Final Brushstroke! Writers! After the book has been written, it’s not finished, its story and life has just begun. Don’t shoot the horse, even if there seems to be no market or use for it at the moment, it might surprise you. Be open and ready and give it its own reins. It might be in the back but will break through the pack. I’ll meet you in the winner’s circle. I’m placing my bets on you.



Reader’s Comments: Write your comments to bettyslade@centurytel.net Kathy Gibson cleverly mentioned the readers of this column the Candy Club, so I e-mailed her and ask her what the Candy Club meant to her.



Good early morning, Betty, The Candy Club for me is being part of a bigger expression of art and writing that this column shares with its readers. It’s a vicarious one, to be sure, since I do no art at the moment.



So now what is our candy: The stuff of our lives, what we can possess and what is imagined that gives us inspiration to move forward with whatever project we are working on, right now.



Then come the lies. We feed ourselves lies; you alluded to that. Others feed us lies, like a bad piece of chocolate (is there such a thing?) or candy too stiff to chew. The demand or technique or school or genre change outside of us, yet we push forward to express, no matter what the critics say. The critical response from our community, or the lack of sales might discourage us, but no matter once we have finished that stage, that experimentation, that theme, we can put our efforts away to begin anew, a new theme, a never been tried stroke.



The candy is our motivation. The candy is what we share with each other, to encourage and sustain the process of discovery and creation. Your column is that for me. You’ve given me a lot of food for thought, CANDY, and it is moving me forward inch by inch toward writing again. I need the candy you write? There is nothing in our local paper like your thoughts. Kathy, Michigan

You can’t do it wrong!

Artist’s Quote: “Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.” Simonides

At a community function a former student reminded me of something I said in an art class years ago. She had not forgotten it and she reminded me, “You can’t do it wrong, there is no right or wrong in art.” That statement had given her the freedom to express and had freed her up.



My response was, “Did I say that?” Interesting enough, I needed to hear it myself. Sometimes my own words hit me in the face. Especially this day when all the artists were trying to paint something that would represent the beauty around. Four hundred people came by, glanced at the work in a way as to apologize for intruding into a private moment.



By the time I got the painting drawn and began to paint, I looked up and the clouds had shifted and the shadows moved across the mountain. I felt like I was chasing the shadows just as surely as some of the artists were chasing their watercolor paper in the field. Myself I continued to drag my white jacket cuff into the paint, just silly little things that makes plein air painting what it is. Some of the artist did well, others chalked it up to a good try, but this day was not about that. It was about enjoying a beautiful master piece created by God and expressed by those who cared.



It was about the people who cared to stop by and ask things about us and our work. It was also a time when all the artists worked together as one. Everyone was so gracious as to lend a hammer, nails and wire, umbrellas and chairs.We listened to each other’s concerns about things that could affect all of us as artists.



Every artist was looking at the same subject, but each one had a different understanding of what they were seeing. Some painted the little red barn in front of the mountains, the old log cabin or the cattle, the flowers and fence in the foreground.



For me, I wanted to paint the artists. I found them all so different like Norman Rockwell characters. One artist sat at his easel, another stood with her western hat and bag draped on a nail, another slouched down in the chair with a notebook and pencil. One supported a big floppy hat, another looked like Indiana Jones. A collection of the most diverse artists and work you would lay your eyes on, but they were one in spirit. It felt good to be named as one in their midst.



The destination was a generous endeavor by the people of Pagosa. The day was well organized and designed, from serving delicious gourmet food, orchestrating the music, directing the traffic and entertaining with music. Large and small white tents were provided for shade and comfort.



Then there was us, the artists. a splash of color here and a dash of paint there, the mountains rose up to kiss heaven and the artists gazed at every detail capturing the most magnificent beauty that surrounded the El Rancho Pinoso. Months of preparation before made the beauty of the day seem effortless. All these little moments gave way for the freedom of expression and where the art of enjoyment flourished.



Final Brushtroke! Don’t worry about getting it right, live in the moment and stay free to express what the day gives to you.



Reader’s Comments: This column is for artists to voice their heart. Write bettyslade@centurytel.net. One concern is track lighting for the library for the artist’s work to show effectively. If anyone knows of any track lighting that could be used, please e-mail me and I will forward it on.

Feeding us Candy and Telling us Lies!

Artist’s Quote! “You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event – it is a habit.” Aristotle, Greek Philosopher and Scientist



Artists! Is someone feeding us candy and telling us lies and we believe them? It could be that we believe them because we do not know what we are looking for as artists. It’s the difference between perception and reality.



Believe me, for years I looked everywhere for validation, satisfaction and affirmation in the art world and finally after years of searching I found where it comes from and where it doesn’t. Interesting enough, it hasn’t come from any place where I was looking for it.



Have you ever fallen in love with an idea of how it should be? Or maybe it was a person; you were in love with the perception of an image rather than the person. Reality hits! Art can be the same way. It’s like love and marriage. Art starts out very simple, you want to create and you fall in love with creating, next you want a name, title and position.



Then the art world comes crashing in and you have shifted from the love of creating to the business of it. It demands market savvy, selling your product, inventing and re-inventing yourself and your style. And then there are the people who tell you how it should be and you listen. It becomes an unpleasant job if you forget why you entered into that love relationship.



Is your perception of the art world reality? I was interested in an interview with Eve Arnold, a famous photographer who photographed Marilyn Monroe and other movie stars. Eve said that when the camera was on, whether it was an amateur with a box camera or a professional, Marilyn would immediately pose, her breast lifted up, her back arched and her rear came out. Eve said poor Marilyn was short, dumpy and small with swollen ankles, but she made herself look tall for the camera and fans. Didn’t we all have a different perception? But Eve should know she was Marilyn’s personal photographer.



Eve said that Marilyn loved the fantasy of being Marilyn Monroe as if she was playing the part of Marilyn. Eve believed when Marilyn was no longer playing the part of Marilyn Monroe but had became the real Marilyn with all the pressures, that is when the actress’s world came crashing down.



Are we enjoying the artistic image or the reality of being an artist? If it is validation from jurors, affirmation from buyers or confidence from our peers, we will become discouraged. They will fail us. We are looking in the wrong place.



Art is a lifetime commitment. You either marry for richer or poorer, better or worse. When you are still in love creating art in your old age, it will be your constant companion and those delicious creative ideas and sweet thoughts that are whispered in your ear will wake you up early and with excitement you will begin a new day with a new idea that you can’t contain. Now this is reality!



The Final Brushstroke! Art is a relationship with your creative self and sharing the beauty of it with others. So feed yourself candy and listen to your own creativity. The world needs your uniqueness and will make room for you.



Reader’s Comments: In the Starving Artist column I like the interesting twist you put on poverty, whether it be in finances, the mind or the spirit. As you pointed out we think of poverty as a negative when actually it can be that our definition is what is negative. Julie,

Minnesota



I realize that listing the former owners of the Hub was not the point of your article in last week's paper, but I think that Lou Poma and Billy Lynn should have been mentioned also. If not for Billy, Dairy Queen soft serve might not have been in Pagosa for decades!

Steve Hudson (former resident-frequent visitor)(also old)

Artists are Made to Fly!

Artist’s Quote: “Your past is not your potential. In any hour you can choose to liberate the future.” Marilyn Ferguson


Artists are made to fly, to soar with new ideas and create in realms that are beyond them. But what if your wings are clipped and your heart is pumping and you are going nowhere? I have been there. I remember a time by my own making and by circumstance I couldn’t control, I felt like a caged bird and thought when the door flies open I’m out of here. Being grounded just brings more frustration, confusion and harsh self-judgment.



In a book by Brenda Ueland called If You Want to Write, she quotes from a letter that Van Gogh wrote to his brother. I understand if an artist continues to grow he must become honest with himself and his work. It seems that he must go backwards before he can go forward.



Impassioned with grief and pain, Van Gogh writes, “There are two kinds of idleness that form a great contrast. There is the man who is idle from laziness and from lack of character, from the baseness of his nature. You may if you like take me for such a one…”



“But there is the other idle man, who is idle in spite of himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action, who does nothing because he seems to be imprisoned in some cage, because he does not possess what he needs to make him productive, because the fatality of circumstances brings him to that point, such a man does not always know what he could do, but he feels by instinct: yet I am good for something, my life has an aim after all, I know that I might be quite a different man! You may take me for such a one.”



“A caged bird in spring knows quite well that he might serve some end; he feels quite well that there is something for him to do, but he cannot do it. What is it? He does not remember quite well. Then he has some vague ideas and says to himself: ‘The others make their nests and lay their eggs and bring up their little ones,’ and then he knocks his head against the bars of the cage. But the cage stands there and the bird is maddened by anguish.’”



“Look at the lazy animal,’ says another bird that passes by, ‘he seems to be living at his ease.’ Yes, the prisoner lives, his health is good, he is more or less gay when the sun shines. But then comes the season of migration. Attacks of melancholia, - ‘but he has got everything he wants,’ say the children that tend him in his cage. He looks at the overcast sky and he inwardly rebels against his fate. ‘I am caged, I am caged, and you tell me I do not want anything, fools! You think I have everything I need. Oh, I beseech you, liberty, to be a bird like others birds!’…But I should be very glad if it were possible for you to see in me something else than an idle man of the worst type.”



Van Gogh’s life seemed to remain in a state of dilemma. I heard years ago that a dilemma is nothing more than a new place for new understanding for a new horizon. It is a higher place where we haven’t been before. It could be that we are flapping our wings like little sparrows, flying too close to earth and do not know there is more out there.



A couple of years ago, as Van Gogh states, there was a place that I inwardly rebelled and I knew there was a higher place I needed to go with my art. I decided with my oils to change from traditional to impressionist and contemporary. I took a risk and began trying different things.



With my own frustration and self-judgment, I crashed. It felt that I had digressed, and I didn’t know how to regain my footing. It took time experimenting with new unfamiliar ideas and finally I pushed through and I discovered a new and edgy style. Of course, my family and friends thought that I had lost it and wished that I would go back to my old safe way of painting. Safe meaning that everything is identifiable and not far out.



For me it would be asking me to climb back into the cage. I had seen some new horizons in my work and I couldn’t go back. I learned that when we make a change, it is not popular. We have come to a new horizon by persevering, but others haven’t and can not understand.



I’m not telling anything out of school, yes, all artists have been there if they have tried to go higher. And yes, they feel they have digressed and can easily go back into the cage and many do. But, oh me, when you have soared with the eagles and you are looking from a new vantage point, you want everyone to come up and see what you see.



Final Brushstroke! Being grounded is necessary. It is a place to get new wind under your wings and re-think how your art is affecting you. It will affect others with the same intensity or lack there of as it affects you. Take assurance, the artist in you will see new horizons if you refuse to play it safe.



Reader’s Comment: Write to bettyslade@centurytel.net and voice your thoughts.

Wow, the article, “A Woman of Profound Contradictions” is great-super great! But the comments on the Candy and Lies Article is amazing – so many people were moved by those words. Julie, MN

The Starving Artist

Artist’s Quote: “Look into the depths of another’s soul and listen not only with your ears, but with your hearts and imagination, and your silent love.” Joyce Kanelokos



In a previous column called “Untamed Passion”, I wrote, “Our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier and the thing that we desire will tame us.” I received a comment and thought it would be fun to tackle it. I’m not sure if I’m up for the job, but here I go.



Good morning Slade, I thought about untamed passion all night long. Passion in my mind is me! This is my thought. Poverty! What is it? It exists only in the mind of each person as they view life. I say this based on a question asked of my mother who was born in 1911 and lived during the great depression. “Grandma, how hard was the depression for you?” Grandma answered, “What depression?” Lucero, New Mexico



We must define the difference between poverty of finances, soul and spirit. Poverty of finances comes from without, poverty of soul comes from within and poverty of spirit comes from above.



Artists know well the poverty of finances. We laugh and call ourselves starving artists. It’s not a laughing matter but it’s the best way we know how to handle our lack because it is the career that we have chosen. With years of study, practice, energy, heart, hope and desires, not to say the vast amount of money that we have poured into supplies, frames and workshops we should be making big bucks. But we aren’t. Does that stop us? No way.



I have a friend that has painted for over 50 years and continues to paint. He was asked, if you are not selling why do you continue to paint? His answer is, “I love to paint and I will always paint.” Even though most of us do not receive in comparison what we have given to the arts, we are not going to stop. So poverty of finances is just the way it is and most of us have come to terms with it.



But, “poverty exists only in the mind of each person according to how he or she views their life”. I know people who have everything and feel cheated. Artists are notorious for feeling this way, because of their melancholy personalities which lend to self pity, rejection, jealousy, envy, on and on. Then they also put themselves out there being vulnerable, and so often shot down. They nurse their feelings, they feel everything very deeply and believe everything and everyone is against them.



But, then there is poverty of spirit. This poverty is what I was describing in the Untamed Passion. Everyone is looking for themselves in the mist of striving for soulish satisfaction and taming their passion. People who are conscious of their own spiritual deficiency are the ones who humble themselves and receive from the source of their blessing. If they aren’t willing to surrender to the Spirit, they will continue to strive to understand who they are and their place.



Real greatness, goodness and contentment are possessed by those who take no praise of it to themselves, because they are profoundly conscious that it comes from another source. To be “poor in spirit” is being genuinely humble and open to the Creative Spirit. It is not negative at all in fact the person who finally gets it is rich indeed.



Great artists who have left great works behind and have touched a world deeply knew the secret and power and were humble of spirit. Great artists such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Titian and Veronese have sought to capture that genius and reality on canvas and in frescoes.



Outside things are strange instruments to frustrate the inside things to bring us to the end of ourselves. When we get out of the way, only then is when we really create. So, it is a long way to the end of one’s self. When the prodigal son came to himself, he had used up life and been used up by life. In poverty of spirit he was then capable to receive the knowledge of where he belonged when he became open to hear his own heart.



Starving artists? Not hardly! We are rich in the little things that truly matter. We have to come to the end of ourselves in poverty of spirit and receive grace and be richly blessed.



The Final Brushstroke: “A journey may be long or short but it must start at the very spot one finds oneself.” Jim Stovall