Gypsy Living

Nearly 3 months of living between three households, socioeconomic classes, and family lifestyles is taking a toll on my mental well being. A year ago I was a mom who worked from home  as an artist/subcontractor, a full time student, and part time research archivist. What this meant in reality was I spent hours on the computer and the phone while keeping up a home with three teenagers, a husband, two not quite domestic house cats, and a pirate parakeet. The entire time I did this monumental task I longed for adventure, art, culture, and anything new. My family depended on me for mission critical things like clean socks, and rides to the mall.

   Well now I have it. A small artist's studio 4 hours and a world away from my Ohio home, and three days a week at a zip code well beyond my credit rating. La Bohemia! The starving artist bit I do not mind, no one makes a mess but me, my stuff is ALWAYS where I left it, and the question "Who ate all the ice cream and put the empty carton back in the freezer?" is no longer an hour long argument with celebrity guests like Not Me and I Don't Know appearing in staring roles. It took me a while to miss my family, a guilty but true statement. I do indeed sometimes miss the chaos almost as much as I miss the kids.

  I don't miss being needed, the fear I always had as my kids aged that they wouldn't need me anymore so what purpose does my role as Mom now serve, that seems ages ago. When they call me now to tell me they will facebook me later and somehow miraculously are not naked, starving, or in jail (fates I was certain the future may hold) . I am proud of their independence and ability to manage without me. The fact that they could of all along would of saved me hours of work and therapy, but at least I know now.

  So what now? What do you do when you are 80% of the way to the goals you demanded of the world for so many years you doubted their possibility? What next? As an artist it is easy to answer that question history always gives us a what next when you need inspiration, spin the globe a few degrees and advance a time line a hundred years and the art is all new. I have been working in geometric patterns and shapes reminiscent of the Prairie and Mission Style design of Frank Lloyd Wright. Classic and renaissance art has always been my passion, the industrial revolution my hobby and strongest skill set, but this distinctively American aesthetic is keeping my attention.

 Maybe it is a need for order in my life that draws me to simple lines, repeating patterns, contrasting colors, absence of line and the play of light to suggest a mood. Not in paint or physical objects but in the way a physical object functions within the light and feel of space. A door is art, as much as the painting on the wall of the room it opens too. I know this in a new way. the "uncreating" of art finally makes sense to me.

   It is so very funny that this revelation happens to me now, when I am finally surrounded by art on an everyday basis. I work in and near some top notch museums. The art in it still takes me to new wondrous places. But when given the tools to be an artist in my own hands it is "how can I bend the light to show this color on this piece of wood trim?" or "how do I give this room a cool tone without adding or taking away color?" Art has become not just a three dimensional piece like a vase or light fixture, but it has become both the piece and the environment it is in. How does this piece work in the world it will live in. I used to create glass series in colors or shapes until I purged them and moved on now I create for a space and time. I have gone "organic".


  My need to create to purge in order to vent has been quelled by my urge to enhance, or show hidden details, much like my parenting needs. It is not a blank canvas anymore that I must fill up every corner with imagery and try to say and show all my ideas at once without creating nonsense. A task that often left me disappointed in the results. Now I create for a space, and event, controlled, concise, limited. Like my family interactions. I have brief windows of time that can only be filled with small vignettes to represent what I hope to leave my family with. The same set and setting is lost on the next visit, the light and mood changes, new events and influences become more pressing. Parenting is an art and for me they are even more connected than I realized. Seeing it in my work has given me the ability to laugh at myself in whole new ways. Dammit kids who ate the last danish?