Painting in heels

I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. Emma Goldman

I just wrote about the beauty of nature and how good it has felt to go outside and all this time we now spend walking and exploring.  Love roses, but diamonds too.  Let me talk about my new, red heels.   I got a gift card for my birthday and knew back in March that I would use it to buy shoes.  Then the pandemic hit and I thought it would be silly to buy heels, basic heels that I had wanted for a while, that would go with jeans and dress up an outfit.  I let a couple of  months go by, with some hikes outside, but mostly at home.  Then I decided I deserved to do this for myself. Why not?

And I may not be going out much, but I have been wearing them with my painting overalls when I go work in the garage. And sometimes I put on red lipstick too. 

 

I have been wanting to do more painting and two things have helped. Well, a few.  The kids are older and can entertain themselves.  I've decided to set up a table in the garage and keep my projects out there, no having to clean up and put things away.   We still have a pandemic, and the kids will be distance learning all Fall, so we may as well keep both cars out in the parking lot and use our garage.  I chose some pints of paint from the hardware store (and my mom was so supportive to buy them for me). They are exterior house paints in bright colors and the quality is better than the inexpensive tubes of acrylic I would buy at Michael's. When I lived in Guatemala and painted murals I would buy house paint and then use it for my own projects.  It's about time I remembered how great they are.

I have a project that has been brewing in my head for years now, ideas half formed but not acted on apart from a few sketches.    The ideas are inspired by what I have learned and felt, and what I still don't now, about being Liam's mom and the biology behind Down syndrome.   That's all I'll say for now (it;s still a secret). 

So I have been starting by finishing up some paintings that I have started over the years and never managed to complete.

Some of these projects have been inspired by the taco business Pedro and Chencho have started, and I have involved myself in.  Their logo for Corazon 805 Tacos came from a painting I started over two yeas ago and I finally completed the painting and I'm very happy with it. I'd like to think it draws the customers in. As far as logos go though, we have a friend helping us work on a new one.  There was some thought that not all appreciated the image of the anatomical heart as much as we did.  

"If I create from the heart, nearly everything works, if from the head, almost nothing." March Chagall.

This quote from Chagall sums up the artistic struggles I have been having for years now.  I have felt dissatisfied for a while with everything I have started and I knew, before finding this quote, that it was because i was living in my head too much when creating.  I tend to do this anyway.  Small missteps in conversation with someone? I go over and over it in my head until I've made it something bigger that it probably was. Wondering if someone likes me? Yep, still do that, like a teenager.   Making a decision about something important? Ah, this takes forever. So this is one aspect to my artistic frustration. The inspiration is not truly flowing from my true self, but getting fuddled up with the non stop conversations in my head.

Add to that the addiction of technology and the ease with which we (by we I mean I in this case) go to our phones to look up images or scroll without being able to stop.  Guilty.  Wanting to add sone flowers to something... go outside and look? Sketch some ideas? Search my books? No. Google them.  And it just is so hard to stop.

Now, another thing I am realizing, and I am trying to give myself credit for this and stop berating myself so much... is that I have used my creative energies in ways that involve technology and have enjoyed it. Example: For two years I have taught myself more about social media in order to promote the taco business and create a brand.   Capturing what they do in images, using words to tell stories.  I have loved this and found it to be more creative than I previously thought.  I have always loved documentary photography and narrative art.  Murals in San Fransisco and documenting my immigrant/gentrifying Lower East Side street in New York.  This is what I love.  So we have started following others on Instagram and watching the shows on Netflix that do more than just show the food, they tell the story of the people who make the food.  I am so inspired by this.   Anthropology and art. The human experience.

I will keep going.  Paint in the garage with all my projects spread out. 

Accept that the Instagram posts are creative outlets. Try to go by instinct and follow my heart and get the hell  out of my head.  Go have a beer in my paint splattered overalls and red heels.