I am feeling a teeny tiny bit better today

Manet

Carnations and Clematis in a Crystal Vase, Musée d'Orsay, 1883

A bit better. Not much though. I know part of the problem is that I have not had time to paint unrestricted. I have had to juggle a few other things under a time constraint and the studio is a mess with not much space for play. I get irritable and grumpy if I go too many days in a row without solid studio time. I loathe that I am feeling like my studio is about to burst at the seams. and that THAT is part of my problem. I'm not much good under house arrest, as it were.

I have two projects lurking. One, the pool paintings and two, the flower paintings which I have not started. I took some reference pictures yesterday and today, but am too lazy to upload them this minute. I got the idea for the flower paintings because I was feeling sorry for myself and I thought I'd paint a series of sad bouquets to drive the point home. I mentioned this to a friend, who told me to check out Manet's flower paintings, the ones he did right before he died. I don't think my friend realized the gallows humor he inadvertently implied.

We're going to have to slog through this melancholia and deathwatch theme. I say, "We" because you're going to have to slog through it with me. It's either that or therapy, and since I'm boycotting using my health insurance right now- painting, it is. As an undergraduate, one of my favorite professors specifically thought that art should not be therapy. I agree to a certain extent, meaning, I don't think it's wise to work out unresolved emotional issues on a canvas and call it art. On the other hand, any port in a storm. I wouldn't say that I'm working out emotional issues with my paintings. Let's put a spin on that. While the abstract paintings were about the journey, it would seem that my recent interest in the abandoned swimming pool and now, flowers, is about the destination, as it were. And I might add, that destination, is a relative term, which brings me to...

I had a great semester at Otis. Really wonderful group of intelligent students. I got great reviews. Would have been damn near perfect except there's always one student who is the antithesis of my very being and doesn't appreciate my casual style of knowledge transference. Anh, whatdya gonna do? I've gotten into assigning vanitas as a final project. I don't know if I saw this somewhere or I came up with it myself. (And even if I did come up with it myself, I'm sure a gazillion others have assigned a similar project.) I've been doing it since I began teaching. It's my favorite assignment because I bend the rules and let them pick their own objects that are meaningful, or they can stick with interpreting or critiquing vanitas. The crits are great and we get to hear what's important to everyone and their view of life, really. Nearly all the work was spectacular. One student did a beautiful drawing incorporating a lotus flower in an hourglass and talked about her faith and how she was brought up to think of death like it was just another change of clothes. I like this viewpoint, and can understand how peaceful this might make people feel on earth. This is my new motto. I'm not dying, mind you. I'm just painfully aware of my mother's mortality, and for better or for worse, I find myself taking on some of my mother's idiosyncratic behaviours. I am not going to tell you which ones, but we live 2000 miles away from each other and I worry that I am perhaps puttering around the kitchen at the same time she is puttering around the kitchen, or that one day, I, too, will decide a plate is too fancy for everyday use and I will simply construct an aluminum foil square to eat off of. I realize of course, that this is due to what the doctor calls cognitive impairment, which I do not have, but it is freaking me out to see it in my mom. Anyway, yes, melancholia. paintings. flowers, pools. I am looking forward to 2010.