Yesterday, I said to a friend that, while driving through a small town just south of me, I felt a throwback to an earlier time, perhaps a time of my grandmother – who knows how far back I was thrown for just an instant.

Vintage photo of my maternal grandmother, in a younger day…

And in that instant I felt my life was good. All was gentle and positive and beautiful. Fresh snowy air (if not nose-pinching-cold), ravines and creeks frozen still, a quiet song only the soul hears – all of these things feed me and fill me with a sense of perfection – the way things ought to be but aren’t always. A sense of hope for today and tomorrow.

These moments have always baffled me. They are not dependent on my circumstances, nor on the world’s conditions. They are internal and frequent, though fleeting.

I wasn’t sure how to communicate all that to my friend…

Today I printed out a message from an art newsletter I subscribe to, from the website The Painter’s Keys, written by Robert Genn. The subject was “The Subconscious Eye,” and seemed to address what I’d experienced from a physiological perspective.

Below are snippets of the letter that most caught my attention. How exactly it applies to my work will take a bit more pondering. It does help me understand how communication at best is only partial, and why art of any kind is subjective. Even why we appreciate a beautiful environment.

Robert Genn writes, in part:

My Granmother with friends… collaged over a watercolor painting. She’s the one whose face is most highlighted.

Our eyes move toward those things already on our minds… Some of these stimulants are with us from birth and are a part of our psyche. Others are learned, selected and personalized by life’s preferences…

…The human eye adores a massage. Mere subject matter (in a painting or in our surroundings) may not always be enough. The subconscious eye seeks out atavistic desires. (That means throwback to an earlier time – I had to look it up. )

…To the eye and the complex interpretive devices that are wired to it, suggestion may be more powerful than reality.

Ahhhh… is that why we are drawn to partial images, abstract thoughts? Why we all find different stories in them?

You can read the whole letter here: The Subconscious Eye

Help yourself to the coffee, and thank you for coming. I’d love to know how you respond to this bit of eye trivia… 

Barb

The question was the first in my blogging class homework assignment, and it has kept me wondering for the past two weeks. Why indeed?

Why read my blog? For the same reasons I read those similar to mine, I suppose. I read them for:

• Stories I can relate to.
• The art work, occasional tips or tutorials.
• Upbeat approach to life without being overbearing.
• A comfy place to come and listen and look.
• A sense of community and conversation.
• A safe environment to think, maybe widen my perceptions, apply a new technique or principle to my life or to my own art(s).
• An invitation to participate, to share a thought.

Over Coffee is a place to tell my stories in order to remind my readers of their own. Then invite them, encourage them, to share those stories in the comment section, or perhaps on their own blogs, as a post. I want my readers to leave feeling validated, so they’ll come back.

Today I discovered and spent a bit of time in Jane Brocket’s Yarnstorm Blog. Reading it is like sitting with the writer over a cup of steaming tea (hers) and a mug of hot coffee (mine), listening to her tales and walking through her experiences as she shares her thoughts and photos. It’s memoir-like, and fascinating.

Her interests are varied — from books she’s reading and photos she’s taken, to yarns and fabrics she creates with, to foods as an art form, to paintings and the stories they evoke, to her home and family.

She appreciates many things, as might a precocious child full of wonder, and she writes well about all of them.

I created this painting from a blank canvas using Painter X, playing with various brushes in the program just to see what they would do. I called it Fabrics and Trims — but maybe there’s a yarn or too in the mix.

It’s a snowy, blustery day in northern Ohio. Thank you for coming by.

Please help yourself to coffee (there are chocolates in the Old World treasure box), and tell me, What do you look for (want to find) in a blog? Can you add to my list?

Barb

More paintings in my galleries…

I like the mornings. I can trust them to show up, on time, and serve up the promise of a whole new day. It’s up to me of course, to grab the promise and make it mine. Life doesn’t happen on its own. It passes. But without my pursuit of its promise, nothing gets done.

As too often happens to me…

What’s planned for today? Am I ready for it, organized for it?

I pull out books and papers to work from, which I neatly stack at the edge of my workspace.  It’s fast and efficient to put my hands on a resource when that’s the only resource there.

This works fine until my neat stack grows… and grows, and I begin another stack off to the side. And another.

And I lose track of what’s in the stacks.

If I can’t see it, it’s not there!

I’m not even certain what it is I’m trying to accomplish today. There are so many things running through my mind, all revolving around family and painting and writing. I know I wrote down a list of goals last January, and updated the list on my birthday.

And I know I’ve accomplished some things — but what’s next? What’s important to do today? For which goal?

Where’s that list?

Without my goals in front of me, specific and doable, I can get lost in a forest of things-to-do…

So I paint something… or draw.

This day I grabbed my liquid pencils, small brush, and a pad of watercolor paper, and drove a mile up the road into our village. I found a seat on a public concrete bench and lost the next hour to sketching. This is one of the sketches…

Next time I’ll tell you how my blogging instructor at LVSonline, Bean Fairbanks, is helping me… Her blog post explains a little of what I’m doing. I’ll be writing more on my experiences with getting organized enough to follow my own passions.

Meanwhile, if you have suggestions for me, I’ll love to hear them! Over coffee, of course. And thank you ahead of time.

Barb

My husband and I had spent the night at this Inn one crisp fall weekend, and since I like my morning coffee before the sun rises, I got up early, dressed quickly and headed to the Inn’s lobby-lounge — big, old-fashioned, and just plain cozy with its fireplace lighted and its cushy couches and chairs beckoning. Tables and breakfast bar filled an area to the side. Windows surrounded most of the space, the kind of glass walls with small panes you expect when a building is named “Craftsman” anything.

I knew when we checked in the night before this was where I’d spend my first hour or so of the new day.

I set my journal and pen on a side table and filled a mug with coffee. I wrapped my hands around its warmth and sank down onto the couch’s end cushion, pulling my feet up under me, to settle in.  I looked up at the carved quotation above the fireplace as I took the first sip.

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.

Amazing the effect its wisdom had on me. Instead of thinking life’s too short to learn to paint (or write, or run a business) well without stress, that there’s very little room in daily-life’s margins, the quote slowed me down a little.

I wondered about the value of taking a lifetime to learn something well, that was important enough to do.

Maybe it was the quiet, or the skies beginning to lighten. Or just my best time of day. But I picked up my journal and jotted some notes, which later became this essay:

The Lyf so Short; the Craft so Long to Lerne…

My piano teacher used to say each key had its own color.

Music, color, words. All are art forms and express truth, she said. Or have the potential to.

Our job is to develop our craft out of what we know, and to keep crafting until our art communicates that truth. Through music, through paintings, through words written or spoken.

Well, that’s a lofty goal. One stuffed full of promise for our lives. But then God does claim to have packed each of us with his purpose.¹ He is not necessarily concerned with immediacy, though, ² and eventually he ties it all up and makes it work.³ … (read the rest of the article here)

A quick pencil doodle… not crafted well, but then my doodles are just scribblings made while the brain thinks of something else.

A line from an old Frank Sinatra recording has always stuck with me: Let’s take a life-time to say… I knew you well.

I do wonder… what is your craft, and is it worth taking a life-time to learn? Can we say to our own talents, let’s take a life-time to know…………

Grab your coffee and let’s ponder that a moment…

Barb

Did I always take for granted I would be a mom? I think so. As a little girl I named my dolls and grew to know each of their “personalities.” Don’t laugh too hard — some of you know what I mean.

Even when we lost our first baby early in my pregnancy, I didn’t worry. I knew I’d be a mom.

Terri took her time getting here though — she was late. And then she had a rough passage, worse for her I think, than for me. I was small, and she was the first to make the trip. I was only half aware of the process, a small amount of meds going a long way in my system.

What I recall most vividly, however, is the sight and feel of her as she lay facing me, both of us exhausted and resting, her eyes closed, mine fully open and taking in the little upturn of her nose, the sweet mouth, the bald head, the angel skin.

She had made it. I was a mom, and I still am………

I know I kept one of my announcements — I can see it clearly in my head. But where it is is anyone’s guess.

So I sketched another, using light and watery paints in Painter. The October winds had picked up, chilling the air to pre-winter degrees, but the colors remained.

Happy Birthday, Terri Lynn……………………………….. I love you still.

Time for coffee — I go through these sentimental times at least three times every year — during my girls’ birthday weeks.

Do you celebrate your kids’ birthdays, maybe even more than they do?

Barb

It smells like the beginning of fall — you know, that smell of half-summer, half fall. Oh, I can’t explain it… but it’s nice.  It smells like something new is coming…

So said my twenty-year-old granddaughter Lyssa, as she opened the door to the morning on the way to her college classes for the day. Her comment was a gift.

…the beginning of… the end of… Something new is coming…

I love beginnings. I count birthdays, anniversaries, New Year’s Day — any day I can find  to celebrate — as beginnings. I go off by myself with a journal and pen, and I think on paper.

What’s done? Or what’s no longer fun to do? What have I outgrown? What in my life is taking my time but is just not important to me any more? Am I spending too much time living up to others’ expectations for my life and neglecting what’s important to me?

Like leaves drying and falling off the maples and oaks, some tasks are simply finished. Or I’m finished doing them. Time to rake them and heap them onto the compost pile.

And yet, as the apple’s leaves wither and curl, the fruit ripens and strengthens its color. So… what’s next?

Do I relax and read more? Take new classes? Discover a new painting medium or technique? What will I learn and who will I meet this season? How can I make my home cozy yet fresh as the holidays approach? What are the next steps to what I’ve already accomplished?

What new coffees will I brew? (Just wanted to see if you were paying attention. )

On the blog If Mama Don’t Laugh…,  Lucy Adams says that what you did yesterday is past your point of concern:

… start over tomorrow, regardless of what you did today. You are relieved of your obligation to any path you’ve chosen that no longer suits you. Today is the day that you quit the volunteer committee that has become a burden to you. Today is the day you tell your spouse you want to make a career change. Today is the day you take the first step on your course to fulfilling a dream. Today you are throwing off all the burden of trying to live up to the expectations of everyone else and you’re starting anew as the authentic YOU. It’s the do-over of a lifetime…

For just a few minutes, sit back — with your coffee or tea — and picture yourself crunching underfoot those dry and cracked and lifeless fall leaves. What would they be? And what fall fruits would you choose? It smells like fall where I live… something new is in the air. What is it for you?

I found such a photo two years ago among my daughter’s snap shots of their summer vacation. Kali, then 8 years old, caught my eye, and I immediately captioned the shot Just a Moment to Myself… Please!, copied it to take with me, and eventually painted it.

I say eventually because, while I knew what it said to me, I had to let those thoughts brew. And then seemingly out of the blue one day I knew what I needed to paint to tell this story on canvas.

What was it that drew me to it?

Her mood? Is she pondering?

Did she just need a quiet time to herself?

I put the 16×20 inch canvas in a wide scraped-white frame and presented it to my daughter, telling her the title and what I had seen in the snapshot.  She just stared at it, then at me, and said You weren’t even there… but you got it!

That was the highest form of payment. That and where it hangs in their family room against the dark sand-colored walls.

Photos are treasures… especially the candid ones. They capture the people we love and know in the most personal ways. They give us pieces of their lives in little two-dimensional bites, yet write volumes on our hearts.

Do you have a favorite snapshot? When you clean your photo boxes pushed under the bed, or on the spare room closet shelves, does it take several days and boxes of tissues for wiping the tears of joy and fun and sometimes loss?

Coffee’s fresh– while thoughts keep brewing. Pour yourself some and share your thoughts…

Barb

Getting creative ideas is not something you do.

It’s something you allow to happen.

My best ideas for solutions often come with time; they rarely present themselves immediately.

For instance, in Chris Price’s Painter Lab at the Digital Art Academy, the first week’s assignment this fall was to paint bold.

What is my bold? I asked me…

• In Pilates, bold means reaching further, standing taller, stretching beyond myself.
• Bold is drama, strong color, size of brush stroke on canvas…
• It’s running ahead on the trail to be first to discover what’s around the bend…
• It’s publicly declaring my intentions, my goals, my purpose, holding myself accountable to all who hear…
• And sometimes, for me, it’s as simple as exploring something different.

So, a week later in The Lab, I picked up the brushes (translate that Painter X and Wacom Tablet brushes), opened a canvas and started painting. This day my bold turned out to be not colors or large brush strokes, but the doing something different, with perhaps a bit of drama.

What took form was a box. A small one, the kind our grandmothers might have kept on the dresser top for little things. My grandmother’s held brooches, and matched her hair brush set.

I don’t know if the face is a reflection or part of a memory. I think it’s a memory, because even though I haven’t finished the painting, my mind sees a woman’s partial profile to the left and just above the box. Perhaps she is also a reflection — from the mirror above the dresser…

Okay — it’s weird, but there you have it. We were in Chris’ Lab after all… and he throws out ideas that take some brewing time before pouring out.

What is your bold?

Barb

As a working adult, I also loved Fridays — to re-gather my energies! To rest in the alternate-routine of ball games or hikes or bike rides or short day-trips with my family. I ran with my girls, played tennis while they swam the last warm days of summer, sketched them if they were still enough, or just sat quietly with a great book. Fridays still signaled freedom, to just be…

Over time the schedule has reversed itself. The weekends are activity-filled, fast and often noisy. And while I love what we choose to do, I look toward Mondays as new beginnings.

Today is Monday. Long early shadows steadily give up space for patches of sun. The air is clear, crisp, easy to breathe. Quiet.

And I have a whole week ahead of me. Brand new. The slate’s wiped clean for new projects, with hope of finishing a couple of them before the hectic weekend of activities returns. I like the quiet time — I think better in the quiet.

I’m in a class — again — and the assignment was to paint the fall. Here at home the greens are still green, though you can see and feel and hear the dry colors. A few leaves crunch underfoot…

I did what was asked in class — painted the fall colors, in digital watercolors.

Do you have a day of the week you look forward to more than others? Or maybe you just love autumn, and every day is special?

I’m brewing Italian Roast today — help yourself. There are tea bags if you prefer…

Barb

She paints such wonderful stories with her words, her poetry. Stories that move in the mind. Like paintings that trigger a memory, we can say Yes! I’ve been there! either as writers or teachers or parents or grandparents… even as students who once had wobbly teeth and forgot things…

She wrote:

interesting…this blogging thing…
ideas in the fingers come out and take wing
on the virtual page, the info age when
reality and fantasy merge
into a digital-land…
so different from the world of wobbly teeth
and dangling shoestrings,
where trevor forgot his backpack on the bus…

Teacher Time… you can read the rest of this poem and more. Enjoy…

A photo of this precious little boy was offered at Wet Canvas Weekend Challenge a couple weeks ago, one of a variety of photos, with an invitation to paint or draw him. I used pixel chalks and a water brush in Painter X.

He drew me with his head-bent-curiosity over a wild flower, and though it doesn’t show here, the little-boy way he sat in the grass with his ankles crossed made me want to sit too, to study what he held and found so fascinating. To grin over the seemingly simple.

I don’t know him, but it would delight me to know that he will someday have a teacher with tender awareness of how he thinks, how he processes information. One who will teach him to explore that curiosity his whole life, to follow where it will take him.

Grab a mug and share: who was your best teacher and why?

Barb

You can see more paintings here…