What happens when we're on the brink of something new (new phase of our life, bold new direction perhaps)? 

On the brink of something new I often feel like I'm going to die. I've had that feeling many times. Once I got pneumonia trying to make a major change in my life. When I was first getting sober I kept dreaming that an ex-lover of mine had died until I realized that it was my old self that was dying. I cam home from three days in Woodstockwith some of my oldest friends refreshed and enthused. I felt that I was finding my spiritual center in Woodstock. My friends, always encouraging, helped me to decide on my next step with my art. So I entered a contest through the Artist
s Magazine and promptly got sick. I've been in bed since Tuesday and am only today feeling like I can do anything but eat soup and watch TV or sleep.

Today I think I've given my mind and body a break by resting and am now ready to live with a more courageous and fun mindset.

I may not be physically ready to go out in the world yet but I am awake and have started a new painting. With it I've decided on a more confident and bold me - artist - watercolorist - friend - lover - family person.

Thank you my friends.

I dreamed I was part of a design challenge. Three of us had parts of one room. I had no idea what to do so I left to go shopping. While out I picked up a few things but realized I wouldn't be back in time to make my part acceptable so I stayed away.

Now, mind you, the real me is not into interior design. I have no eye for it nor am I particularly interested other than the end result when I'm watching David Bromstad on TV. The real me however does know about giving up on my dreams. I've done that countless times. And was in danger of doing that just recently. A few weeks ago I was chatting with an artist with whom I had become friendly. I happened to mention that I still take classes and came to painting late in life. She said "Oh, I thought you were...." and didn't finish the sentence but I did it for her. My mind went straight to "Oh, I thought you were a real artist."

How quickly I give my power away. I reeled against that for a couple of weeks. I finally talked myself into painting again but it wasn't until yesterday that I shared my work. They are perhaps not my best work but they are part of my healing process.

I know I'm a "real artist" but on that day my sensitivity became palpable (death to the artistic spirit). I can take constructive criticism but dismissal throws me back to childhood. I have to work to bring my self-esteem back to the reality of today. I'm all grown up. I'm an artist who is still learning and growing. Thank God for that.

Here are those paintings.

Is happiness an inside job or does it more depend upon our geographic location? Eric Weiner in his book The Geography of Bliss. He has travelled around the world looking for the places where people are purportedly happy. The Swiss claim to be happy but Weiner finds them boring. He travels to Bhutan where they have a Gross National Happiness index and the people mostly claim to be happy but he is not. Right now, in my reading, we're in Iceland where everyone is purportedly happy again. Is it the booze? Is it the isolation from society? Is that they're in love with the language? (I doubt it's the weather myself). What is it that makes these people happy.

Weiner spends a little time explaining that the Icelandic people love their language and that it is pure from Viking times. They invent words for things that have been invented since Viking times - their own words - they don't bastardize their language with pigeon English or pigeon anything else. But does that make them a happy people?

I love language. I love the spoken word and the written word. I love to read fiction and non-fiction. I love poetry (both reading it and listening to it). I love dialogue, good conversation. I love language. But does it make me a happy person? No. I'm happy when I'm reading something I enjoy. I'm happy having a good conversation. But, I'm not a naturally happy person.

I'm happy at the beach. I love the weather down here much more than that of upstate New York or New Jersey. I love the number of sunny days we get here. I have SADD and the winters in upstate I found more depressing even back in the days when I got out and did winter hiking which made me happy for that time and made it possible for me to function in the winter. So the change in climate has added to my happiness index. However, I love the culture in the northeast and miss that terribly. I have good friends here but really miss my "community" in New York.
I'm happy that Carol's health is better than it was when we were in New York.

I'm happy that I don't have to struggle to my job everyday all winter long. I'm happy that we can sit at the beach whenever we want to. I'm most happy painting.

Are we a happier people along the coast of South Carolina? Right!

"Through my works I reflect about the world where I live and about the space that art occupies in it. I particularly work on two concepts: beauty in the broad sense and craft as support of the work." A quote from Alejandro Rosemberg in an article I read the Artist's Magazine.

Very succinctly put. Craft supporting beauty. Having the techniques to convey on paper what I see. I'm not with the hyperrealism movement (that is seeking to recreate reality with the precision of photography). I admire those who convey beauty through color. Those masters that I admire the most tend to be the impressionists - very old school of me I know but there we are.

Yesterday I spent time drawing and sketching trying to improve the craft. Today I did some of the same but spent lots of time reading about and experimenting with mixing color.

I've been working in greys and blues lately conveying foggy seas; grey days at the beach. It's been a change for me and we'll see how it goes.

My friend tells me that I don't open up enough. I think I do. I think the only drama in my life is my struggles with my art. The fact that I'm always broke is an ongoing drama and that I really don't want to talk about ad infinitum. It's been the story of my life. I've made bad choices and it looks like I still do.

So should I cry about it or just get on with the life I have? If I want something different I have to do something different. What I have I can live with today. Do I sometimes envy others their seeming good fortune? Sure I do but I try to remember what an old friend of mine used to say "Don't compare someone else's outside to your inside".

I have everything I need today and am grateful for that. I've had a hard life but much of that had to do with my own choices. I would rather have freedom than money. Some of you will say that money give you a certain freedom and yes, it does. However my freedom is a freedom to be who I am, to love deeply, to enjoy what I have and who I have in my life. Painting can frustrate me because I'm never as good as the next guy but I'm as good as I am and strive to be better. I strive to express myself through my painting. Painting gives me freedom. It allows me to focus, to get away from my rambling thoughts for a while and it just feels good. It feels that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

This is my life and what you see is what you get.

Greetings from the beach. My beach book this summer is Mike Lupica's The Big Field - a book targeted at teenage boys. I, however, love those kinds of sports books and I enjoy Lupica. He was one of my favorite sports writers back in the day when he wrote for the NY Post (the only good thing about the Post).

I played baseball and softball when I was young. In high school (maybe it was junior high) we had some softball for girls but by then I wasn't much of a team player or popular so didn't play much. In my twenties I played one season for a corporate league and would have been picked for MVP (so I was told) except that I didn't actually work for the company. The next year they cracked down on ringers like me and required that players actually worked for the company they were representing. That was OK by me because I wasn't interested in the corporate world or team playing. I still loved the game and loved watching but was OK with not playing.

As a teenager it was the Jewish Community Center that saved my life. First, it gave me access to a wonderful pool where I could swim my laps. There was nothing so calming or good in my life as swimming laps: stroke, breathe, flutter kick. Nothing to gain but the end of the pool, turn around and come back. I took some classes. I even took lifesaving although I never got the certificate because I could never find the cinder block on the bottom of the pool. Still I learned basic lifesaving skills and would know what to do if someone was drowning, unless of course you were at the bottom looking like a cinderblock.

So in New York when I stopped playing softball I joined the YWCA at 50th and Lex. I swam three days a week on my lunch hour until I moved to New Mexico where I took up fishing and hiking. I gave up fishing but continued with hiking until I hit my fifties. In Albany I joined the Jewish Community Center and swam. So my favorite activities for myself were swimming and hiking - solitary activities. I know, you're not supposed to hike alone but I've never been so good with rules. I did spend several summers with the Appalachian Trail crew building pontoon bridges, stone staircases and relocating trails. That was a team activity but only lasted one week per summer.

The closest I came to a team sport was boxing. I took it up in my fifties. Boxing a team sport? I always had a partner who pushed me and who I pushed to do our best, strongest workouts. There was a crew of four of us who became good friends. (We still are even though I live 1,000 miles away. We have a bond borne of teamwork.

Maybe I'm getting better and can do team sports now - except my favorite exercise is still swimming. I do play golf so I have a few friends I golf with once in awhile - otherwise I go it alone.

Team player? Still, not so much. However, progress not perfection. I spend time with my partner, with my friends and can open up a little more than I once did. And it's all OK. I am who I am.

On Writing and Painting

I published my blog and I painted Monday just like I said I would. Later in the afternoon I took myself around the golf course. I find that golf relaxes me, makes me feel at one with the universe even when I'm not playing well, which I wasn't. The walking, the breeze in my face and the concentration on the ball all contribute to my sense of well being. Life is grand!

Did all this inspire me to look at one of my manuscripts? Not really although I have started sifting through one of my notebooks relevant to my latest work in progress. Who knows, maybe I'll actually finish this one.

Who knows? Start, stop, start, stop, finally abandon the project by putting it away. The fear of writing relates to something my friend Bill said the other day. "I can hear your voice when I read your writing." So I'm sharing myself in a way that I can't go back and deny. When I paint I leave the interpretation up to the viewer. When I write I have a harder time leaving it to my reader because I have exposed myself on the page. Even publishing this little blog which was supposed to be about my painting often leaves me drained. So I share my latest painting with you and leave it to you and my writing, once I hit publish I have no choice really but to leave it to you.