Despite being born in a coastal state our little grandson found the sound of surf hitting the shore line terrifying. We spend months trying to coax him out of the car to walk across the parking lot and see the sea from afar, all to no avail. But eventually, as luck would have it, he held our hands and braved the roaring din to stand along side of us, feet in the sand, hesitant and uncertain, but there. I too have felt overwhelmed causing much self-doubt and uncertainty, even fear, not emotions I had much need for until we moved away from just about everything that made me me. But watching our little guy finally get up the guts to yell back at the formidable Pacific I thought, he’s on to something here. Time to land in this here and now and let go of fears. Time to yell back too.
Tag Archives: Beach
the aging face
If you are cognizant of even a sliver of the media spinning-wheel directing our attention and you are female, you are probably fixated on aging, especially the visible changes on your face. Sadly, this attitude can happen even if you are only a teen, but most definitely can define how you value your worth once you reach an ‘advanced age’. This is not a male issue as evident along the packed shelves in every drugstore and grocery store or at the core of the countless ads directed at women, to conceal, enhance, even to defy how you actually look. Women are being forced to relinquish control of their autonomy thanks to a stacked repressive Supreme Court and equally hoodwinked into believing that while men grow more distinguished with age, women just get old. Our society tells us that men are not able to control themselves if an attractive woman in her twenties wears a pencil skirt but by fifty women should be quietly buttoning up all desires and most definitely putting on a new face.
Transitions
Never easy, the transitional times in our lives, when you arrive somewhere new but still feel like you live elsewhere, the going forward part incremental much akin to labor. Most every essential box we packed-up is now opened and objects are finding their own place in the new space. Paintings, of which we have many, offer decisions we don’t want to rush, so for now we let them elbow out spaces here and there, forming alliances, marking their territory, feeling their way in this new airy and bright little space we attempt to call home. Everything is still unsettled and chaotic but we allow for that knowing that art demands we slow and observe. As my dear friend Jess reminds me, “Art needs to be everywhere because it is the inside of the world” (Bread & Puppet Cheap Art Manifesto).
Nine Cent Girl 