I’m Still Here…

So…It’s the beginning of May and I haven’t written in this blog since sometime in December.  The longer the time has elapsed the more intimidating it has become to produce something new…just because I think after the last 4 months I should perhaps report back something…say…earth shattering.  However, it’s not really the case.

I’m still here.

But I did take advantage of the summer here and had an extended period of vacations in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil…    

    

      

    

      

And when I came back, I felt great.

And now I also have the new experience of dating someone in Santiago which is making me happy:)

And I am also painting again.  Returning to my art has been great…even if I am not doing it every day.

Of course when I think about being here…I am still pressuring myself over finding a good meaning and purpose and if am I am living up to all that I could do here…not only for myself, but I also spend a lot of time being conscious of my affect on others as a foreigner here.  Probably I’m not, at least living up to all of the expectations I place on myself and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed…in fact I think too much focus on this stops me dead in the tracks of enjoying myself here.

A couple years ago I worked for a mental health institute, as an assistant to train people in the mental health field.  There I learned about a concept in which all people have a “core value.”  It speaks of the person one is at their core beyond what defines them as a worker with skills or even their own personality traits.  The process of learning about your “core value” is through a series of questions which takes place in a group.  It can last for hours as the group discusses and decides what they feel could possibly motivate you as a person.  I remember mine being about curiosity.  It was as simple as that.  I’m a curious person and somehow my curiosity is supposed to work for me in this life.

As I return to how I originally felt about coming here, I think about how I tried something very random and let myself see where I would go with that experience…all for the joy of exploring and traveling.  Each experience building upon another…and here I am.  When I think of the core of me…a person who loves to investigate and experience things….I came here because I was acting on an instinctual desire of something I love to do for my own curiosity.  Maybe it was a little random, but I started something and now I am trying to figure out what it means to me.

Because i’ve been painting again, I’ve realized that my process of painting is very similar…because I have always started my work with some very random marks and no image in mind (all of my work is abstract)…and many layers later it slowly becomes something but not without fighting with it.  The constant struggle is the part I hate and so I always feel like I don’t completely love painting.

For years this has made me think that maybe I am not a “real” painter…because it doesn’t always flow for me.  Actually, it never completely flows for me and sometimes I have no idea what the hell I am working towards because I had no idea in the first place (one would think that by now I would considering making a plan…but I just don’t work that way!!).  Usually the middle point of my paintings look like a freaking mess of small build ups of texture and color that I don’t want to give up, but they don’t quite support the whole of the painting.  Usually it takes me some time to back away and come back and simplify everything after I’ve let it be for a while.  Every painting is the same.  During the process of it all, it’s difficult for me to realize that I need to eliminate those things to find a balance in the painting.  It can make me feel very insecure as a painter.  The only thing that keeps me going is that somehow I have always had this tenacity (coincidentally…very similar to my last name) where I don’t give up until I find some sort of ending that satisfies me.  And I always love the outcome of all my work.

If that is not an analogy of the way I live my life, I don’t know what is.  My creative process pretty much equals the way in which I live my life.  I struggle and try to do so many things that seem to sometimes be going somewhere or that might lead to something temporarily but then go nowhere and something inside me tries to resist so many things that could perhaps be easier until one day I clear away all of the fears and “problems” and find a sudden peaceful resolution.  The thing is…for some reason I have to go through trying all the possibilities until I find that resolution.  I don’t know any other way.  Yet, I always put up the same fight because there are so many times when I hold on so tight to those same “small build ups of texture and color” in my life that I think are going to keep me feeling so “secure,” but are not supporting the real me totally.  And, just as with my art, it makes me also not always completely love myself.

My original intentions of being here were to explore.  It wasn’t until I came here that my purpose began changing and taking different forms and avenues…maybe I need to remind myself of the origin of who I am…that person who loves to “explore and investigate”…who is “curious”…and that it is okay just being that…because I can feel downright insecure considering all of my plans and intentions and whether I am doing all of them the best I can.

Leaving the city for the day yesterday and being in nature, was an affirmation to give space for what I love.  It reminds me of my very first blog entry of when I went hiking in the mountains for the first time here.

Maybe the best purpose I can offer in my life right now is what I feel that my art is supposed to be about until I begin challenging it with all of the expectations of what the outcome should be…its a matter of play…the joy of building and creating and seeing where it takes me.  I perfected this in my childhood and as an adult I hold on.  This is what I need to remember about both painting and my life…to take a little advice from my silly side in which I feel the most free…let go of trying to make it all work, give it some space and accept the absurdity of it all because maybe that is where I sort everything out and it comes together for me.

My Community Art Project and Why I Want to Create Again…

In July I started working on a mural as a community volunteer project in one of the poorer areas of Santiago.  The community is about a 40 minute bus ride from where I live in Santiago and for about six weeks before the start of the mural, I helped Roxana with a project she initiated by volunteering to teach English to kids.  More than anything, it became a play session with the kids, creating games to practice the alphabet, numbers and very basic vocabulary.  They loved it.  They loved it so much that when I came back recently to paint, the kid’s faces lit up, asking me when the next class would be.  My heart sank a little, thinking about how we hadn’t planned to return again.  They actually really missed us.  This wasn’t some boring class that they were forced into, they actually had become quite affectionate with us.  It made me think about how these kids need so much more than a 6 week volunteer project, they need this type of nourishment all of the time.  I think it takes time to build a relationship and I wonder about what a shame it is to begin getting close to the kids, only to leave them just as they were becoming so comfortable with us.  At the same time, it was obvious that we made some kind of positive impression on them.

When I first started the project in July, I had the help of Roxana, my friends Angela and Dinah, and a few others from the community.  And because of the winter, we put a hold on finishing the project.  For the last two weekends, I came back to finish.  Having this break was actually good for me because after learning more Spanish, I was able to communicate a little more with people in the community.  So when I noticed a little group of children behind me, watching me paint, I let them join in.

This is the first time I’ve ever painted with kids in this way and they really did a good job.  At first they were a little shy and nervous about putting the paint on the wall, fearing that they would do something wrong and so a lot of what they painted ended up being very small.  I encouraged them to eventually paint larger.  And, so the whole mural is by no means consistently proportional, but maybe that gives it some character.  The little girl and her cousin actually consistently painted with me all day, painting butterflies, dogs and flowers.  I gave them little instruction and basically let them do what they wanted.  I think they were a little surprised by my confidence in them for allowing them to paint so freely on something so large and so public.  They were really proud of what they painted too and I like to think of them getting older and remembering what they had painted years ago.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately of how my feelings toward my art career have changed.  I spent so much energy working and developing my art in the States.  I used to joke that my art was like my kids that I had to always pick up when my show was over and I was tired of driving them all over the place on the freeway in California and that they were spending so much of my money.  I look at photos of my loft now and I don’t miss it.  I think I allowed the whole idea of art as a career to take over so much that it replaced the joy of creating and expressing myself through my painting and ultimately robbing me of enjoying all the other things in life that I love because I was forcing myself into this certain artist lifestyle that was more determined by what I thought I was supposed to do according to the art world rather than finding the passionate within myself to forget about “making it” and just create.

In the States, I somehow lost track of my original attraction to art as I saw it more and more as a means of paying the rent.  Being here has separated me from continuing this and now I’ve been able to return to the desires that I initially had when I was younger, back before I was even in art school when I would stare at paintings and imagine other lifetimes or listen to music that really caused me to think differently of the world, no matter how simplistic the lyrics or how accomplished the artist.  All that time spent trying to make money from my own art detached me from enjoying my own work, let alone the work of others.  Sadly, I think even art school detached me from this in ways because suddenly I had all these people in my life constantly discussing what was good art and what was bad art, or what was marketable, more intellectual, low brow, etc…  All of a sudden art seemed so serious and no longer mysterious and fun.  It’s like I couldn’t see something without comparing it to something better, making some kind of judgment about it in my mind.  All that imagination and inspiration I felt long ago…how did I abandon that?  It’s like through trying so hard to pursue art, I disconnected myself from my true feelings and desires.  Sounds like the opposite of what art is supposed to do.

I realized something lately through learning Spanish.  Because I can’t express myself in Spanish like I can in English.  I don’t know the words or I don’t know how to put the words together.  I have to limit myself in what I can say and it’s quite frustrating to not be able to form what I can in English when I want to express something.  So I have to keep it very basic.  And since I don’t have the words, it’s put me more in touch with recognizing how I feel.  I mean I have to really thinking about what I am feeling, so I can choose the correct words.  So now I can appreciate the beauty in expressing something simple again.  And because I have been learning a lot of Spanish through the arts; through music and through books, now I am concentrating on the very simple beauty of how the words are used.  This is art, because language is expression.  It makes me appreciate so much how we express our thoughts.  It makes me not want to take this for granted.

I think the joy of just being able to express myself is returning.  I’m remembering those early feelings of discovering well known artists and writers for the first time and how I felt when I would see something inspiring.  I feel it through learning a new language and sharing my language with others.  It brings me back to what I had already figured out when I was a teenager and later forgot about, that my love of art involves other people.  It doesn’t come from me isolated in my studio trying to conquer a project to get paid.  The end product – the actual finished painting, for me is only 25 percent of why art is so important.  Painting with the kids, painting with other artists, using art to ignite conversation, to influence others, to make someone’s life more inspiring, to connect myself with others…these are all more interesting and give me more of a reason to start again.  I guess that everyone has their own role in life and probably I will never be like some of my friends here whom are very successful in the financial industry and can assert themselves in ways I can’t.  They are great at what they do, and their passions are different than mine.  But, I can assert myself artistically in ways that they can’t.  I need to keep in mind what I can do and what it means to be me and somehow it almost seems like a responsibility to myself to create art because its the greatest way I know of how to give myself to others.

Where is the fun?

I have been discovering that it is hard to meet people in their 30’s here…meaning single people like me who have come here just to break up the routine of life in their home countries.  I meet a lot of people in the 20’s age range who are usually first time travelers and students, and beyond that I meet a lot of people who have come here to retire.

Roxana and I recently hosted an event for expats in their 30’s.  Although about 18 people confirmed that they were coming, only four people showed up.  And, I am no judge of appearance, but the two men were perhaps not in their 30’s.  The thing we did all have in common was the frustration we felt in connecting with other people similar to ourselves…30’s, 40’s, 50’s….it’s all the same.

After this event, we had to think about what kind of social life we are to expect here.

Around the time of this event, which I credit Roxana for organizing, (I just showed up and attached my name to the event posting), we met for dinner at her apartment and she invited her friend.

Her friend is a psychotherapist.  Maybe you can see where I am going with this – but suddenly dinner seemed more like an intervention for all involved.  He knew as much English as I knew Spanish, so Roxana had to translate.  He made me draw a pie of the areas of life in which I divide my time.  About three quarters of my pie was work.  Aside from my actual job, there were maybe 3 big slices of projects I was getting into, starting, finishing, creating…  Very productive!  The rest…the rest was time I spend on the internet researching things for projects I can start, finish and create.  Very productive, very driven and also maybe very boring.  My pie looks like a resume.  I was a little disappointed to discover my life resembles a corporation instead of a human being.  Where’s the fun…aside from the small sliver of pie that included dinner at Roxana’s apartment?

He also recognized that not one part of the pie reflected time that I spend being a woman.

A woman?

How from everything I’ve learned in life in the US about working hard and striving to do better does it come down to my biggest problem being that I’m not having enough fun?  And being a woman?

What a bummer.

My diagnosis:  I need to have more fun and go out and meet people and not to just network for work, but to actually laugh and just hang out and be idle.

When did my life become so serious?  The thing I love to do most in life is laugh and play and they might be the things I spend the least amount of time doing these days other than the times I am able to slip in some sarcasm or joke about some absurd situation I have put myself in and please believe those situations are ample for me here.  I love ridiculous movies.  The other night I stayed up until 2am watching National Lampoon’s National Vacation on TV for the three hundredth time.  And, thank god it was in English.  A while ago, I tried watching School of Rock and couldn’t bare Jack Black’s dubbed in Spanish voice.  The thing is, I still feel very much like a kid and I need to defend my silliness.  But, it’s kind of difficult when at the same time I am expecting myself to be like this person that is supposed to be constantly spiraling higher and higher towards success and self improvement in all ways every day.

I felt pulled in two directions sometimes in the US.  Because at times, I missed the days when I could go to an art exhibition and steal the wine and barely look at the art or the times when my friends and I would go dance every night at the Turkish bar in Laguna Beach instead of taking advantage of the studio spaces we were so fortunate enough to have at the time.  I mean, come on.  We had extremely affordable art studios in the most expensive art city in California and we only half used them for work.  Not to mention we lived in a place with tons of possible connections…an abundance of people ripe for networking, but it was the last thing I did.  Maybe ever since I turned 30, I felt like I had to pay for it by constantly working, worrying and wishing to get ahead.  Everything I’ve been doing for the last several years has been in order to fulfill some sort of purpose to improve my life.  I did yoga, because it made me feel better or I road my bike for exercise.  I met friends because there was an art show or some other event.  Occasionally I would see my old friends who were also trying to recover all their years of not getting ahead.  I also had a relationship with little romance.  We were like two individuals working as a team to help each other survive, very honorable, but we had very little fun together just as a couple in separation from everything we had going on.   In fact the relationship mostly involved working, be it for money or on ourselves.  I don’t mean to sound cheesy here, but a little romance can go a long way.  It does wonders to your soul to feel wanted and to feel the way in which god made me.  As a woman.

So it’s true.  Where is the time I spend being a woman, you know, kinda like I used to do once upon a time back in my early 20’s before I somehow forgot what it was like to live like a female and not a constant problem solver…

This question has really thrown me off.

Desperate Expats

I couple days ago I had yet another great idea for making a reality TV show.  Has anything been done on expats living abroad?  Everything I do, I imagine it as a reality TV show.  In the past I wanted to do art gallery reality TV show, yoga reality TV show, my church TV show…there was plenty of good drama in all of that…trust me.  None of these ever happened of course and I’m assuming this will be a fleeting idea as well.

Desperate expats living in Santiago, Chile, starring Roxana the successful, career driven New Yorker working in the financial industry and me the artist teacher from LA trying to find some inspiration to do art again, but both trying to make some changes in our lives.  It’s perfect!

Yes, I’m from “LA” now, when people ask.  Not Long Beach.  Not that I’m really even from there either.  I’m from a small town in Maryland called Emmitsburg.  No one has ever heard of this place, probably not even most people from Maryland.  I was once at a club in LA and some arrogant guy asked me where I was from and I told him and his response was “I’m sorry.”  I was not pleased about this.  You wonder why I was so hesitant in losing my “Eastcoastness” all those years.  But now, no, it’s just LA because I need it to fit into my Roxana and I are from the opposite coasts theme for our show.

Roxana and I are roughly around the same age.  I think she’s older than me.  But, we seem to have built completely different lives in the States.  Let’s just say that while she was living the Sex in the City lifestyle in New York, I was picking out clothes at the Aid’s Assistance Thrift Store in Long Beach.

We met about a month and a half ago because she was advertising a room in her apartment for rent.  It’s a really nice place.  At least, I think so.  Extremely clean and new, it’s in a very tall building in an area called Belles Artes near a street lined with trees and cute cafes.  She has a roof top pool and a gym.  I’ve never had such nice things!  And for all of these features, I just had to decline.  How unlike me to live in a place that offered so little to worry about?  I mean, it even came with a real oven and real cabinets to put dishes and things.  So unlike my former loft where I would at times boil water on a hot plate to take a bath because my hot water heater was so small.   I could be too bored in a place such as this.  The truth is, I didn’t take it because of the price, but now we are friends and it’s my home away from home.  And she’s a great cook who makes delicious desserts with fruits and sweet sauces, and she invented a dish with my eggplant that I never thought of before.

She has a habit of being extremely positive and clear thinking, and directly yet politely tells people not to bring their negativity around her.

This friendship is really making me see how I no longer want to live in so many ways.

The other night I sat at her kitchen table checking my email and she came out of her room holding some kind of circular thing with clothes pins on it.  My little head popped up from my computer, like a cat that hears its food dish being filled and immediately, thought…is she throwing that out?  I said, “I want that.”  And she replied, “Girl, you don’t even know what this is.”  She’s right, I didn’t.  But, it’s like somehow it’s become instinctual for me now to see some random free item and contemplate how I might need that thing in the future.  This is what living in Long Beach taught me.   Taco Tuesdays and the 99 Cent Store.   Save everything because who knows when I’ll be getting paid next.

It’s not all Long Beach, but Long Beach was where I really perfected this behavior.

Part of this thinking I blame on my mom.  We lived like the Grapes of Wrath.  Any moment we might have to pack up our 1927 Chevy truck and run from the dust bowl.  I never remember my mom ever buying anything nice for herself and instead, only provided for the needs of me or my siblings.  We saved money for problems like what if the basement floods or what if the car breaks down and then we only spent money on problems like when the basement finally did flood or when the car finally did break down.

I feel sort of sad for my parents when I visit them back east and our big dinner out is a night at Perkin’s.  This is a restaurant chain back east where the food tastes like it was taken out of box and heated up in the microwave.  And they have money.  I’m positive of this.  They could buy nicer things, have nicer things, but they are so bent on conserving and saving.  It’s my mom mostly.  My dad makes the money and has handed over his check to my mom for the last 40 years.  He has no control over it.  He has always wanted to go to Italy, but is convinced he can only read about what it must be like to go.  This makes me feel guilty for living abroad.  It makes me feel like I don’t want to share my experiences with my family and it makes me want to only project a poor person’s life.  But I need to change this attitude.

The other part of this thinking, I blame on years of imagining myself living the very romantic life of a poor artist.  I’ve always had this vision of living in a tiny apartment in the city filled with art work and struggling to get by.  Shouldn’t the fantasies of living the artist life be filled with shows and selling art and making it to the top?  Mine weren’t.  All of the time spent visualizing this lifestyle, manifested this lifestyle.  I had what I always wanted.

And it just plain sucked if you think about it.

My beds have never been new.  I’ve had the same scratchy bath towels for years.  I want some damn comfort for once.  Especially as I observe the life of Roxana.

It’s time to step it up a little.

Roxana tells me that my new story is that I’m an artist from LA that is seeking out new inspiration and I chose to teach English and do some volunteer work in Chile.  But that’s not all true, says my little censor!  You went bankrupt in the US and now you’re here because what else should you do and that’s that!  (said in a way in which I’m not even sure of that being the reason for being here).  I love honesty and maybe too much, because I feel like every real thing has to be said or it’s just not right.  But, maybe all those things I’ve been believing about myself aren’t really real anyway?  And maybe it’s okay to dress it up a little in a more positive way, even though it’s almost painful to do this.  But, if life is what we make of it, then maybe it’s okay.  I pretended a lot when I was kid, so why not now?  So then now maybe I can tell people how important I am.  How famous I am.  I know five languages and have many books.  That’s more like the kid I once knew.  When I was a kid I played house, and I didn’t just have a house.  It was a mansion made of sticks and grass.  I was a lawyer, I owned a restaurant, I went on vacations constantly and I had a fabulous sports car bicycle.  I never once played homeless person.   Never once did I tell my kid friends that we had to be careful not to eat too many of our mud pies because our monopoly money might run out, although I’m sure a circular thing with clothes pins on it would have been appealing enough to make it into my pretend home somehow.

Roxana and I talked the other night about how living abroad and being alone makes you befriend people that you would probably never have befriended in the States simply because you need some kind of friendship and bonding.  Probably we would never have been friends in the States.  We would have been too different and stuck in two different worlds and so I’m happy about my friendship with her right now.  It’s waking me up a little and helping me see what I can have in life and maybe someday I’ll even be able to write about how important I am and be serious about it.  Of course, not in a superficial way, but in a way in which I am appreciating myself and seeing how I am doing a lot in my life.  Now is not that time, but hopefully I am on my way.

My New Home

Two days ago I moved into my new apartment.  Hopefully, this will be the place that will last at least until the rest of the year.  My roommate is Chilean.  She’s has her own vintage furniture store and she’s also a painter, my age.  It’s perfect for me.

I traded this:  (Depressing – kind of looks like a room at the hospital)

For this:  (Much Better)

I’ve also been making myself meet Chilean people to have language exchanges where we meet up and speak half in English and half in Spanish.  Yesterday, I met a girl from Peru and was so happy to be able to understand mostly everything she said!  It kind of gave me some reassurance that I am making some progress and maybe Chilean Spanish really is the hardest to learn.

The more I meet and get to know the Chilean people the less I feel homesick.   The more I integrate and stay in the present moment – stay focused on what I can do here – the less I think of what I don’t have here.  I guess that makes sense.  The more I think of what I do have and what I can do, the less my mind wanders toward the negative.

But I have to admit that this can be a struggle because many moments I spend thinking, I wish I could just talk to my old friends and laugh like I used to, express myself in ways I feel more comfortable.  I miss having people who know me so well.

I used to miss the east coast of the US for years and I don’t think, after 13 years I ever surrendered to living in California until the last two years.  I finally felt like I had a home – a community.  I felt settled in ways that I never felt before.  And to me, it was a huge accomplishment.  It meant that I finally felt okay with life, where I was.  I lost that idea that life was better elsewhere and I lost that lack of place that I used to feel there.  The more I think about it, that lack feeling I felt for so long in California was really a need for some kind of special identity to prevent me from fitting in, probably because I was too afraid to.  Too afraid of just being normal.  Of just being myself.  I held on to being “from the east coast” just as much as I think I was holding onto “being an artist” for so long.  In every office job I ever had, I had to make it clear that I was an artist because I sure as hell didn’t want to just be the office worker and how dare I just be Jen.

It’s amazing how much this false identification with words has kept me from changing parts of my life for so long.

If I didn’t drop my negative separatist attitude, I would never have made so many connections in Long Beach and who knows what possibilities could have happened if I would have dropped my attitude years before that.

And at the same time, if I hadn’t let go of my art and tried something new, I wouldn’t be here.

For years, I told myself, when I was in the midst of wishing I was everywhere else, that I probably wouldn’t leave California until I accepted it as home and accepted that nothing was really going to be any better anywhere else.  I didn’t want to leave California because I was escaping, I wanted to be able to leave for the joy of knowing another place.  Mentally I knew this, but I couldn’t make myself feel it.

The thing that really did it, that really made me feel at home was that I finally invested in the area.  I looked for things to do and I met a lot of people and finally I wasn’t living like an island anymore.  And actually, I didn’t just look for things…I had fun with it.  I had fun joining new things…spending a few weeks doing this thing and then looking into something else.  And I enjoyed imagining where each new thing could lead.  I made some of the best friends I have in the last two years.  And, I started to love my life so much that I didn’t want to leave right down to the moment I got on the plane to come here.  I didn’t have money.  I didn’t have a fabulous job.  I didn’t have a comfortable place.  But, I was abundant.

Where the hell did that feeling suddenly come from? (Coincidentally, while the plane was rolling down the runway, we came to a very abrupt stop just seconds before taking off which scared the bejesus out of me (apparently, one of doors was not completely shut…Shouldn’t they check that before take off?).  Anyway, was that a sign for me to stay?).

But, now here I am.  I’m glad that I am here.  I’m doing this because it’s good for me and it’s pushing me in ways I wanted and needed to be pushed, but my heart still feels like it’s somewhere else.

Can you fall in love with a place?

I think so.  And like all of my relationships when I would finally realize I was indeed in love, it was only after a long period of experiencing a good mix of pain and happiness.  Because it’s a love that comes from really knowing something inside out and for merely existing together in the day to day.  I call that love, home.

And, so I’ve decided that I’m experiencing some loss now, and my heart feels it.  I’m mourning things that have passed and knowing that everything in life is always changing and that whenever I do go back to the States again, it won’t be quite the same as it was.  So I feel like I’m leaving a great love in my life and suddenly I’m meeting someone else and it’s not the same feeling at all.  I’m comparing them to the former person.  I’m expecting them to be like the former person.  Trying to dress them the same and I’m missing the music we used to play and the way they used to make me laugh.  In so many ways, I feel that about Santiago when I compare.

But is it good to be that attached to a place or a person where it makes me suffocate parts of who I am because I fear that I’ll lose them?   I have a huge curiosity for life and that will never go away.

One thing I have always liked about myself is the ability to learn from the people I love and allow them to creep into my past without resentments.  And, I am going to use what my former residence has taught me.  And that is to invest in all of the great possibilities that are here and to forget about all the other places I could be right now.

I’m going to have fun with my new space and I even bought two small blank canvases just for the purposes of creating something for myself to hang on my wall.  Hopefully, this will get me painting again.  Photos to come….

Museums, Street Art…and Smoothies

Yesterday I took a walk to the Museo de Bella Artes.  Two photo installations were my favorite.  One, by an artist named Francisco Sanfuentes.  Giant, pieces of metal with a photo emulsioned (is that a word?) image of a church.  The same church on every piece of metal but from different views.  The reason for this specific church wasn’t given:

The other artist’s installation that I liked was by an artist named Francisco Navarrete.  I’m not going to explain what his art looks like as it is rather self-explanatory or if you can’t tell because this picture isn’t that great, its a pile of stones. The images on the stones are all well known icons from art history, famous nudes, portraits etc…  I will add that I did read his artist statement and wished that I hadn’t!  Because, for one, I was bored.  Honestly, seeing his work was powerful.  Reading the statement made me feel like I was stuck in a text book:

I don’t mean to sound ignorant.  I really do like written explanation of art work, but sometimes, I just wish I hadn’t read it because I like the imagery much more, and in my mind…whatever I took from the image is how I wanted to feel and think about it which usually had little to do with what the text on the wall said.  This is why I always liked when people would tell me about my own work (For the most part).  My paintings are totally abstract.  I enjoy when people tell me about how one of my paintings makes them feel like being in water and I even like when people see images like fish or branches of trees, but I do usually cringe when people suggest things like Its Mickey Mouse riding a horse, right? And then a crowd forms around the painting and suddenly everyone is seeing it! It happens.

So often, too, I feel tired walking through art museums and art galleries.  I don’t know what it is…I’m supposed to love it, right?  Since I’m a painter.  But, I’d actually rather be outside.  I’m a nature lover.  I can’t stand to be stuck in any quiet closed off room for too long before I feel like heading for the door.

Maybe it’s how serious everyone usually is when looking at art.

Maybe it’s how tidy and organized everything looks on the wall with the text and with the low lit lighting.

Maybe it’s the guards walking around checking up on me to make sure I’m not too close or that I’m not taking photos (which I was busted for several times yesterday).

I don’t know.

That’s why I had to get outside yesterday and see some of the street art.

Look at the difference:

So much more bright and alive!

Maybe it’s because they seem like they have their own life in the city.  They look different when they’re in the sunlight than in the shade.  They age with the weather and by the way that they are treated.  They sort of hang out with people who walk by.   And the people interact with them too.   There is no guard protecting them.  You can run around them.  You can scream or say things around them that make you sound unintelligent.  You can touch them, lean on them, sleep next to them…which may have eventually been the case for the guy in the picture below.

Basically, you can be yourself with them, because they seem so natural.

Some of my best times painting were painting murals.  I remember painting on the Press Telegram Building in Long Beach last year.  So many of the residents were coming up to us and thanking all of the artists for giving some life to their neighborhood that was otherwise a series of old apartment buildings that looked like they were in demise.  That was an amazing feeling.  I think until that time, I always thought MY art and by this I mean….I didn’t think of painting for others unless maybe if it was a matter of ownership and that is just painting for “buyers” or for “galleries” not people.

I mean, maybe I’m being too simplistic here, but could there be a better feeling than doing something you already love doing and giving something to someone that makes them feel good and possibly have a better feeling about the place in which they spend every day?   But also not even realizing that you are giving something in the first place and having them surprise you by being so grateful?

This all makes me think of the people that have given their creative gifts to me.  I’m not talking specifically about “art,” but creative acts none the less that are often over looked because they are not considered art.

I know someone who gets so excited just to make me a smoothie in the morning because it’s something that he loves creating.  He doesn’t pre-think my reaction.  He just does it because he loves doing it.  There’s nothing that needs to be explained or analyzed about it.  It’s automatic, it’s from the heart and designed purely to make my day just a little better.

If I make art again, I want it to be like this.