Sunday, August 28, 2011

A Season of Change

The  evening sun lays patterns in my house. Small yellow, glimmering shapes dance across my wood floors. I hold the moment. It is the pause before the turning minute hand. The last breath of the day as it breezes through the trees. It is the memorable porch conversation before death. And it's held together by the voices of the birds as they slow their language and lower their tones. A mourning dove coos in the distance. A dog barks once from a few blocks away and I hear a few more answer across the air. This is the slowing down of the day. 

And it is happening at a time when mother nature typically cracks open the door to Fall and nudges us with a cool breeze and flips a few leaves to orange. Except this year she shoved summer out the door via Hurricane Irene. So we say Goodnight, Irene to the summer of 2011 and reflect on what summer brought us.

For me there were many road trips through the farms and fields of New England, up the mountains and aside rivers of the Adirondack National Forest, up and back to Rochester and Olean for some fabulous art shows and of course to Cape Cod and back, leaving me with hundreds of inspirational photographs, a full plate of painting ideas and a studio filled with small paintings that I've been working on - some since June and about a dozen from the plein air festival last week in Saranac Lake. I am working on them all as well as a few new pieces I started last week as I push to finish my summer's work. 
I was able to confirm, as if I needed it, that I am a studio painter. Not a plein air painter. Although I thoroughly enjoyed being up in the mountains again and am the better for being outside painting and painting with my best friend - I am meant for the studio and anxious to get back to it. 

As the kids move back into their dorms at Elmira College and my daughter shares the joys of settling into her first apartment in Florida I am relating well and feeling like another chapter is about to begin for me, too as I move into a new studio space. Yes! I have a new, larger studio space outside of my home that I am able to use for a few months. It is a wonderfully large space that was once a commercial storefront with high ceilings and the tall walls I prefer to paint on and big windows of light. Perfect! I feel certain this place will not only help me weather the next few months but possibly help me turn the corner within my current season of painting. 

I hope you too experienced a relaxing and growing summer. One where you discovered a few new things about yourself, your own work, your true and personal passions. And if not, what better season to examine what's next than the Fall. 


Yours in the creative life. cs