Renovations and Gratitude........

"The Star - Grace" (1993)

the pink room

Ever since returning from England, I've done nothing but work 24/7 (I even lost 15 pounds in the process).  Settling my mother into assisted living, and renovating her house, which has fallen into great disrepair.  I feel very far away from the realms of art and poetry, although I confess, it's been a lot of fun (and muscle).  I've been learning the mysteries of carpentry, plumbing, and tiling, all that "guy stuff" I never got to learn when I was younger.  It's really rewarding to see broken, ugly spaces become bright, beautiful, and working!  It's actually be very interesting peeking into the worlds of carpenters and electricians, their patience and magical skills, watching these men climb up the roof , or tear open a wall and know exactly what will be behind it.

 The point to all of this is that I need to not only rescue the house, but need to generate some income in the future, and my idea is to find roomates, or  create a sometimes B&B, especially during the winter months here in Arizona, when the gem show goes on and the snowbirds flee harsh winters. 

kitchen with "La Mariposa" presiding

I don't know if this is something I'll actually do, but at least I now have lots of room for friends to visit, and it's time to fill the house with people, conversation, art and poetry, and potlucks.   Soon,  I hope!

patio

Anyway, the end of renovation is almost in sight, and we'll see if I can then recapture some of the more esoteric aesthetic skills I once had. 

Hanging some of my artwork has been interesting - I find myself reflecting that many of the works I most love, that are most deeply important to me...............most people can't relate to at all.
It''s been an irony in my life that the work I consider my most challenging or conceptually successful nobody seems to want, and the things I make for fun, like many of my masks, always sell and people notice. There are times, to be honest, when I churn out yet another Green Man mask, happy that someone will enjoy wearing it, happy that it pays the bills, and yet............

I feel sometimes that the work I'm most proud of sits in a closet, lost or destroyed. The painting above, "Grace", for example.

the blue room

 I remember when I made it, on a dark winter in upstate New York, the snow just outside my window, everything white and infused with incipient magic.  I felt so wrapped in magic that winter, I could just close my eyes, and the visions would come like that painting, and many of the images that later became the "Rainbow Bridge Oracle".   The intensity of that visioning/creating time I can still taste when I look at that painting, the inexhaustible Grace that flows to us.  And yet I've never been able to sell a single print of that painting, and have pretty much given up on the entire series. Never the less, it always hangs above my bed, to remind me that the Earth, and the Universe, is generous, generous beyond anything imaginable.  And to remind me to remember to live with Gratitude.

So, forgive me friends, if I'm not very literate these days............swinging a hammer seems to do that.  But wanted to share the current fruits of my labor, and a wonderful reflection on gratitude by film maker Louie Schwartzberg (thanks again to Charlie Spillar).  He is an award-winning cinematographer, director, and producer whose career spans more than three decades.  I found the imagery here so inspiring.....it's good to remember, every single day, what a gift the day is.