We are working on a donut puzzle —- very dangerous when you’re trying to avoid building additional winter insulation after a (seemingly) never-ending hibernation. My husband may absent-mindedly mumble a description of the puzzle piece he’s looking for: blue frosting with long, not round, sprinkles on top of the dark chocolate, or the orange sprinkled next to the caramel drizzle. You can see how this food-based conversation could become a problem! Fortunately for me, I don’t like sprinkles or bright blue frosting or even donuts for that matter. This is, of course, outside of Bill’s chocolate sour cream donut holes.
We started the donut puzzle last winter but gave up, accusing it of being too hard to be fun. After separating the few pieces we connected, and tossing all one thousand pieces in the box, it’s been sitting in the basement cupboard till we needed something to keep us busy during another cold, wet weekend.
Sometimes we’ll pull out a puzzle we haven’t worked on in years. It’s familiar but still a challenge. Once in a while we’ll buy a new puzzle — not necessarily more advanced or more pieces, but a new experience. One thing we agree on: we don’t really want 1000 pieces of jumbled color or similar color everywhere; just a feast for the eyes, a beautiful, slightly challenging immersion that lasts for several days. We’ve never framed a puzzle and hung it on the wall. Nope. Give me something new! I live for change — Mick is an unmoving rock. Puzzle-making brings us together on common ground.
When I work on a puzzle, I often mentally meander into life lessons and metaphors. After all, life can seem like a puzzle, fitting pieces of time, place, people, space; belongings, obligations, responsibilities, and of course, distractions, into an order that makes sense and is — hopefully — satisfying. For me, the border pieces represent life in my soul and spirit. When putting the pieces of daily life together, I start with the Spirit-to-spirit connection to my Creator. The rest of the day (or week, year, lifetime) fits within and in reference to that border.
It won’t surprise you, then, to learn that a life in art is similar to puzzle-making. Starting with the space used for creating, to the materials applied, to the variety of brush strokes, pencil lines, pastel passages, or other marks, each time I touch the substrate (a fancy word for art-surface) I am looking to see how the mark I’ve made fits the puzzle. Every stroke changes the direction of a painting. Does it fit? Or is it a distraction?
I’m taking a short break from painting to work on the puzzle of my space:
The studio needs attention +
we’ve entered the “gray season” =
low inspiration.
The last few days indicate the skirmishes between winter and spring are beginning; I want to be ready to capture the joy when spring begins its occupation. So here we go: Studio Spring Cleaning!
It’s surprising how my studio has gone from a simple 100-piece puzzle to a gigantic 1000-plus. I have too much stuff.
Too many saved bits and pieces that might make great art;
Too many small canvases;
Too many old, thrashed brushes;
Too many near-empty tubes of paint;
Too many tubes of paint, period;
Too many not-so-great paintings;
And even too many great paintings.
I’ve sorted it all into piles. Now I’m taking steps to minimize the number of those piles. The questionable paintings will be recycled into new work or added to Mick’s burn pile. That may sound like a harsh ending for artwork, but I’d rather not have mediocre learning-pieces and experiments sitting in someone else’s home, representing me as an artist.
And what about the paintings I love? They have a comfy spot on my wall. I enjoy seeing them every day. They each have a story to remind me of moments surrounding their creation. But the truth is, paintings are created to share, to have an audience, to speak heart-to-heart with another human. Paintings are “finished” when they contribute to the heart of a home.
So in the lull of the gray days, I am making room for new work by having a painting SALE. From now until the end of March, prices are reduced on my website. If you are local and can purchase in person, I won’t have to ship, so I will take an extra $15.00 off.
This evening I’m heading back to the donut puzzle. There are still a lot of bits and pieces waiting for us to find the right fit, but we’re making headway. The puzzle of the too-much studio is coming along as well. Instead of finding places for bits and pieces, I’m making new space. Empty space, along with quiet, un-filled time, is the perfect ground for new ideas to take root. It will be fun to see what grows from this rich combination. Once the sun comes out, there may be no room once again!
