Painted a still life of a few things that inspire ideas.

The Canandaigua Writers Group met recently, and a common theme among the group was that we get easily side-tracked and don’t finish things we start.  A novel becomes a project we work on over years, while other ideas appear in our brain that we have to get written down before they disappear.  A word or two, a visual prompt, or a dream can be the seed of the best poem or book ever written! It’s as if a character has taken up a space in our brain that has to tell us what he, she or it is up to. And who doesn’t think of something, an idea or a mental picture, maybe a memory, and think “I’ll remember that when I get home and start writing about it.”  Sadly, if I don’t pull the notebook out of my purse and write down at least a morsel of information about the concept, I almost always forget what it was later.

There’s also the problem with creativity of how to know when something is finished.  One can always keep going over something and editing and re-editing. Does the poem need one more line?  At some point, we have to allow ourselves to say  “It’s done.  It’s not perfect, but it’s really good.”  Own it.

I’ve started, and hopefully I’ll actually finish, a sort of card catalog.  I’m looking at each of my story and novel document files on the computer, and writing down what the title is, what the computer file name is, and where I am in the process. For example, I’m pencilling in “draft” or “edit” or “Illustrate.”  I’ve discovered snippets of concepts, essays I’ve done, poems I’ve forgotten, and stories who have characters taking up forgotten spaces in my mind. The process has inspired me to start working on at least one of the children’s stories I started some time ago.

I can’t say how successful I’ll be at completing my catalog, but hopefully some of these characters who have taken up residence in my head will tell me what they are up to next.  Good or evil?  Saving or destroying mankind as we know it?  Fairies flitting about a garden making flowers bloom?  Who knows?  You don’t know unless you try, right?

I’d better make a note of that fairy idea, before I forget it…

An urn in Sonnenberg Gardens smiles across the Italian garden on a summer day.

What makes you smile? What makes your blood circulate a bit faster? Is it the sight of your grandson’s toes? The scent of that first cup of coffee in the morning? Something that gives you an idea?

If we had a “sparkle meter” in our brains that rose and fell with things that uplift us, I think mine would rise with the smallest things. Seeing a hummingbird flitting among the bee balm lifts me more than buying a fancy purse at the mall. Seeing a child’s coloring of a rainbow lifts my spirit, more than watching another sitcom rerun on TV. Fog rolling in around my house can even inspire a spooky story in my brain that I have to get written while the spark is there.

I realize that the world is far from perfect but gives us so much. I think about the influences I’ve received from so many directions. It’s hard to explain, but when I start reaching outside myself, I’m influenced by the tiniest snail or the artwork of Botticelli, or the wonderful art being made by people like Pat Rini Rohrer. Seeing a flower blooming or an antique dress at Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion can give me inspiration. It’s like nutrition for the soul. Watching the eagles fly over Montezuma seeps into me and teaches me to pay attention. The community of thinkers, artists and writers I know adds imagination and flavor to my world.

Today I watched the deer in the woods, looking for morsels to nibble on, so beautiful as the snow fell upon them. The moved slowly, and I smiled.

Painted this view of the lighthouse buildings on the top of the hill on Mohegan island, Maine.

I think we all strive to do something, whatever we are doing whether it’s writing, painting, learning something new.  We think we’re supposed to do it, work on it, no matter how we feel. Recently, I was talking to a fellow artist (who is a fantastic and talented painter). He admitted sometimes he doesn’t feel up to the task of creating.  I told him that was okay to give yourself permission not to paint at times.  We have to realize that we aren’t always in “creativity mode” and that’s when we give ourselves permission to step back and breathe a little bit.  Creating can come later when we’ve recharged, our brain and body are back into the process.  We also have to give ourselves permission to  get rid of our creations if we aren’t satisfied with them.  Start over from scratch.

I met an artist a few years ago on Monhegan Island, Maine, in his studio.  He has decades of painting behind him, and he gets a lot of money from his wonderful paintings.  But he also had a pile of paintings that he was going to destroy.  Although he didn’t elaborate, when asked what he found wrong with a particular painting, he answered, “Because the paint got too close to the canvas.”  We laughed, but we knew what he meant.  All artwork is not a work of art.  Sometimes the exercise of creating something is just a lesson for what better work is to come.  I call them “studies” when I’m not painting what I want to paint but it doesn’t mean I can’t start again and get what I’m looking for in my work.

Winter

Frost on a leaf,
once green
Fallen
Torn
Faded to softest red
Crunches underfoot
Shattered
Reminder
Winter comes

Artists aren’t necessarily just people who know how to wield a paintbrush or a pencil, chisel or clay, words, camera or an instrument.  I think artists are people who have an extra “eye” within their soul, an eye that gives them a gift.  The gift shows itself when an artist encounters something that others might overlook.  It might be a cloud, a rusty truck, a stranger’s smile, ice at water’s edge, or moss on a tree’s bark.

The artist sees something in these things that inspires them to create, to hold onto something from that otherwise ignored moment in time.  I remember being in Italy in an old Tuscan mountain town with a group of painters.  We walked by a door, faded, worn, surrounded by old stone wall.  Several of us were drawn to that door, and the inhabitants of the town probably thought we were at least a bit off.  But that door spoke to us as a beautiful thing.  I once saw a woman photographing the base of a fire hydrant.  Most would ask why, but I think she saw something there that intrigued and inspired her.  I was recently in a meditation at the end of a yoga class, and soft music played. By the time the meditation ended, I had an entire short story and the illustrations poured into my mind. A photographer posted photos he took of ice in a stream, with rocks and dead leaves, in patterns only nature could create.  I relished these images as gifts that the photographer gave those who chose to see the marvelous there.

Tuscan mountain village door

Of course, the downside is that artists often are distracted, driven by their gift of marveling in the ordinary and the need to make something from that inspiration.  Sometimes these distractions give them the desire to create things that others cannot understand, fantastic and otherworldly, unique stuff of dreams.

Whatever your gift gives you, I hope for this new year to allow you to receive the moments and experiences that become wonderful creations to share with the world.

My family has recently had a sick kitty and sadly had to let her go.  Honey had kidney issues, is about 14 1/2 years old, I think, and was a feisty 6.3 pounder.  She started acting out of sorts, and I took her to the vet.  A kidney panel blood workup showed a lot very out of whack and she obviously wasn’t feeling well.  So she was in the “hospital” and being treated, and my husband and I hoped they could figure out how to keep her with us a while longer.  As a pet owner and steward of this kitty’s welfare, it isn’t easy to know when the pet is going to be better or when the pet is suffering.  When it became clear that her kidneys were no longer functioning well enough to remove the toxins building in her body, it was time to do the kind thing, with the Vet’s recommendation.

My husband and I were with Honey when the time came to euthanize her.  How heartbroken we are, so sad to live without this special cat in our lives.  When time heals us a bit, I hope to give another good cat who needs a forever home a place with us.  I can’t thank Happy Tails shelter and the Canandaigua Veterinary Hospital enough for helping us have and take care of Honey for over eight years.  She was special. So, while I’m very sad, I’m glad that we could take care of Honey and she could give us so much in return in the time we had her.

Yesterday I walked in Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion here in Canandaigua, New York.  Always delightful and such a treasure to have right here so close to my home.  We often think we have to go to some exotic place to visit something wonderful — when wonderful can be right where you are.  

What can make me smile can be a flower being visited by a butterfly or an old-fashioned dress hanging on a hanger in the mansion as though it was waiting to be worn again. Frogs were calling each other from a pool in the Japanese Garden.  Dahlias are bursting forth with gorgeous colors. I can only dream of mixing my oil paints to get those hues. Tiny creatures flew and fed within the gardens’ blossoms.

I tried to photograph a spider – but was having a hard time getting a good focus on the tiny thing on its web.  Reminds me sometimes we’re so busy looking at the “big picture” that we forget to notice the little things in life – the now, the moment we’re in right now.  How often we find ourselves distracted. Sometimes coming back to the natural world and truly observing the life we find can be the best cure for whatever occupies too much space in our minds. 

Seen in a little town in the mountains of Tuscany

I remember once seeing a woman taking photos of a fire hydrant. I understand her. If you’ve ever spent any time with creative, artistic types, you might have observed them paying attention to something others would casually walk by, not noticing it. Perhaps they see things in a different way than others might. Something is inspired within these observers, a texture, a light, a color, a shape, even a sound, giving them something mentally that they need, like nourishment.

Once I was with a group of artists in Italy, up in an ancient little town in the mountains of Tuscany.  I recall several of us studied an old door, paint peeling off, fascinated.  It struck a chord inside our heads as a painting subject.  Maybe some people look at a tree and see a poem or a symphony.  

Now, at home, I looked through my photos looking for a particular toadstool photo I took at some point.  I needed it for a photomontage I’m compiling my photos for.  Searching my computer files wasn’t working.  So, when I took the dog outside and in the backyard, low an behold, there was just the toadstool growing that I needed!  So I was down in the yard on my hands and knees, clearing grass away and photographing the group of three toadstools.  Perfect!  Now it’s in my Alice in Wonderland montage.  

So if you see someone paying close to something like a fire hydrant, a toadstool or even a seemingly unassuming, time-worn door, wonder what they’ll create from that bit of inspiration.  You never know.

Left — “Painter in the Old Fashioned Garden” 

I recently went to paint at Sonnenberg Gardens — got all the way back to the Japanese garden and set up my tripod, easel box, paints, etc….. I realized my brushes were way out in the car in the parking lot.  Scrounged around my supplies hoping I’d find one brush of some sort but only found one pallet knife.  So I thought – why not give it a try?  Since I’ve never tried just painting with a pallet knife, I considered it might be a good learning experience, at least one that would get me “outside the box” I usually paint in.  Loose was my only option. Well, I can’t say I loved my painting, but it was rather fun to do.  Sometimes we need to take a chance on a different way of doing things.  

While I never intend to show another living human being my palette knife creation, here’s a painting I did in my usual fashion – with brushes – of one of the competitors in the recent Finger Lakes Plein Air Competition and Festival.  It was great to meet the artists from all over who came to Canandaigua and got to enjoy our beautiful “Chosen Spot.”