thoughts on time

Yesterday, a collector emailed me a photo of my painting, "November" hanging in her new home. When I saw it and remembered the process of painting it, one of the thoughts that came to mind was this old, anonymous quote:  "The greatest gift you can give to someone is your time because it is a portion of your life that you can never bring back." An interesting thought to me; that she would have a portion of my life. I had to think about that.

I feel a more exact statement is that she has the product of my time (which is a portion of my life). She has the tangible product of every painting thought for however long it took me to paint "November" but I have the intangible benefits of every thought of the same time period. If I was mindful (another word for paying attention) while painting this scene, I gained skill with the medium and an increased ability to express an idea.  I may have even saved some time by thinking about what to prepare for dinner while I was painting.

More thoughts on time, different subject: We finally received the permit to build our house. I am so glad Jay and I chose to have an optimistic attitude while waiting five months for the OK to build. We now look back on that time with mostly good memories and time well spent on other things. In the end we decided it was time to make a change so we could move forward and all was resolved within days. The excavator should be at our property today to begin. Backstory on our building project.

Happy

We are happy today after receiving the good news that we can finally begin to build. Note the time on this - several hours earlier I received the following advice from the universe: When all is said and done, farewell to summer yesterdays. It is time to let go of the past five months and move on.

back and forth

 

Yesterday, Jay and I went to The Fair, a Northwest tradition that goes back to my earliest memory at three years old when I wore my slippery red velvet dress (a strange fabric now that I think about it) and rode on the ferris wheel. That is where I lost my precious red helium balloon - a vague memory of the string getting tangled in the machinery. Maybe someone lost their grip on it when they tried to get it loose or maybe the string broke but I distinctly remember the feeling of loss as I watched it float upward knowing there was nothing anyone could do to save it. Very sad. Yesterday we started with one of the famous Fair scones and ate our way through a shared Myers hamburger, polish sausage, smoothie and finished with an over-the-top strawberry shortcake. Four hours of walking, looking, eating. A nice look back and diversion from other things.

My life has been going back and forth. We have been waiting since last spring for the permit to be issued to build our new house. We have tried to "hustle while you wait" by down-sizing. I've been selling excess studio supplies and am finally down to a pile of books that will be donated to the library. Our house plans are on-hold during what seems like a step back in an effort to finally move forward and get started before rainy weather sets in. Also this week, I handed off the last of my Women Painters of Washington volunteer jobs that have been a big part of my life for the last 16 years. Back again: in October I will show twelve colored pencil paintings in a two-person show with my good friend Kay Dewar. Also in October I will show my newest work, still life oil paintings. Meanwhile, I need to revisit my recent past with a pastel painting project. I'm becoming interested again in more writing...and so it goes, back and forth.