Crunch...crunch...it's just a sound in my head!

"Emmie's Yard" by Hilary J. England

My mind is all over the map these last few days...I've been writing alot, but too much of it's way too private, sorry.  I find it difficult to walk the line of what to reveal and what not to, as we all wear our private and public masks, and I'm no different.  I wish I could be 100% authentic in putting it all out there, but there is some good to leaving a bit of mystery, and also insures you won't be locked away permanently ;-)   I find people who put it all out there don't come off as authentic, just as tiresome and needy, so enough said about that!

I went down to Jordan creek and had my lunch, alone, and thought wistfully back to when G was a baby, no older than Maddy is now, and how I would take her down to this creek to feed the ducks...where had time gone, and was I any better for it...the thoughts have been haunting me.

I had been awakened early this morning by the clamorous sound of a passing dump truck, and with my window slightly open, it startled me.   Also, the temperature had changed so radically, it went from icy last night to balmy this morning, and I was suffocating under my comforter.  I couldn't fall back asleep, so I began mulling many things in the twilight, so much my head began to hurt from thinking...that awful "why won't this maelstrom stop!!" feeling, so, I began to meditate, and that began to weed the lunatic from the lucid thoughts.  One thought I have been pondering is the difference between men and women, in terms of relationships and their expectations, and I've boiled it down to one essence,  that seems to be unconsciously true for me--women are looking for God in a man, and men are looking for Mother (yes, the old "Madonna/whore" syndrome), and ne'er shall the two find completion.  I've realized that God is God, Man is Man, and no man will ever approach God-like wisdom, stature, or character...so forget that.

So, where to go from here?  Just forget about intimacy with another human altogether?  Just forego the pain and BS and seek to perfect your mind and spirtual walk on this earth, until your journey is over?  I have found precious few people who are truly content, and in truth, I've never met them---I've heard them on the radio, doling out advice to the rest of us miserable, woefully misguided mass of humanity, or seen them grinning sparkly, scary white smiles from television pulpits, but in my private life, I've never met a truly contented, balanced human.  Sad.  This leaves me vulnerable, and confused.  Two words I despise.

So, I try to run from it, but I can't.  I can hop that plane to Los Angeles, or to London, or to the Equator, or South Pole, but when I step off, these dark thoughts are with me, in my lap, in my purse, in my mind, on my phone...I probably think too much, but I am who I am, so I'm stuck with that (and NO--I won't take some damn medicine to flat line my brain!!).

So, those are the issues of today, this day, the most important day, since in all actuality, today is all any of us really have--corny as that sounds, it's the biggest of Truth, so, I have to make it count...throw myself into my painting, and just forget about the rest....

Busy couple of days....

I just got back from NYC--I was pretty busy running about doing "my thing" there.  I love the City, and I never ever tire of going--after all, it is my hometown...

Anyway, I went in to hammer out the details of my upcoming exhibit at the A-Forest Gallery on 28th Street.  That will be from June 1st to the 15th, and I'll let you know what day the opening reception will be. 

I went to MoMA yesterday, and it's always a treat, even when it was as PACKED as it was, in honor of the Tim Burton exhibition, which was marvelous.  Extremely talented man....

Despite the rain, and wind, Jilly and I managed to find a charming Tapas bar, and it was like going down the rabbit hole, with all of the quirky chandeliers and gauzy curtains...after drinking a pitcher of Sangria, we sat and enjoyed the wonderful Flamenco dancers...also giving us a marvelous show.

We left there and took the subway uptown, and wound up in a wine bar called Ouzo--drinking a hybrid lambrusco out of porcelain bowls--interesting and intoxicating!

We woke up this morning, and headed out to Tal Bagels, had pumpernickle bagels with olive cream cheese and green tea for breakfast, and then went and stopped at the Goodwill, looked around, chatted with the elderly attendants, and petted the dogs that were hanging around in there.  We also decided to go into the two local churches to look at the architecture--one was an Episcopalian Church, the other, Our Lady of Good Counsel, a Catholic church.  Both very beautiful and lavish, with much love and attention to detail in the ornate interiors...they just don't make 'em like that anymore....

Got home after a 3 hour trip with some traffic, made a fast dinner, and here it is, 11:00 pm--and I'm pretty tired.  Will start posting the new paintings...

Good night all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0MgqquN4Rs

Shark Stories

I have always had an obsession with sharks...being the apex predators of the sea, which I am also fascinated with...I can't live without the ocean, the majesty and beauty of it, the mysteries of the deep, the folklore and the truly amazing nonfiction that is associated with it, is just a source of endless fascination.

I think of the story of the woman who was kayaking off of Catalina island, while her husband and two sons fished off of their boat.  Apparently, when this family would take weekend excursions out to sea, the woman would untie her kayak and take some time to kayak in the open ocean while the men fished.  She said the peacefulness of the sea was breathtaking, and she enjoyed the time alone very much. 

On this particular occasion, she was violently "bumped" by a large object that forced her kayak forward...when she looked, she saw an enormous grey mass, and she assumed it was a whale, until she saw the towering dorsal fin break from the water.  Realizing she was having an encounter with a great white shark, she began to paddle away in a panic.  The beast then slipped below the waves, and attacked the kayak from below, launching her ten feet into the air, while nearby fishermen watched in disbelief.  She then landed in ankle deep water, in the middle of the ocean.  The reason:  she was standing on the back of the giant creature. 

There, in front of an audience of horrified fishermen who were on their way to rescue her, they watched as she rode the enormous creature, who was now going out even further to sea with her.  Her last chance was to jump from it's back and take a chance swimming to them, which she did successfully.  This story has completely fascinated me by the sheer enormity of it--how many people on earth can say they rode on the back of a 20 foot great white shark?  Perhaps only her?  We know Jonah rode *in* the belly of the beast, but not on it's back.  Amazing.  She should've played the lottery when she got home!

There are so many other stories, many that do not have the same happy ending, but are fascinating none-the-less.   Maybe one day I will write a compilation of my favorites....for other shark admirers.

Blank

I have so much to say...let out of the hospital this weekend...but don't know if I can be OK.  Heart is "good", everything is "good,"  except, except, Probably not.   My heart is "touchy."  It's arrogant, and willful.  Like me.  It tries to rule and dictate, but it has a big argument...Me.   It tried, and it was a stalemate.  I can assimilate everything...so I thought...but, the hideousness of everything whiplashed me.  It came back and hit me in the back end...it tried to overwhelm me.  NO.   Wrapped up..alone...can I be hurt?  Yes...so immensely.  "It's the stars that lie to you.  I'm looking at you through the glass, don't know how much time has passed....all I know is that it feels like forever..." 

What happened to you?  You know...I don't.  It doesn't matter.  I'm carrying a torch in a world that SUPPOSEDLY becomes less real, because of the ugly, cowardly reality.  I SEE the truth.  I'm NOT a liar, I love...I LOVE so deeply....so deeply...too deeply...deeply enough to kill me.  My beautiful family knows this, sees this, fears this.  They mobilize to be my friend and recall lovely memories..

Paintings, exhibitions, travel...I move forward despite my treacherous self..my nature that fights against me...that is insistent in decimating me....

New painting!

Incredible lightness of being...yea right! Well, a new painting is born!  It was a grueling weekend, with misbehaved teens, a fiasco of a drawing marathon, and raw nerves....I ALMOST drove to LaGuardia ready to set out for Taiwan or New Zealand, or wherever my Visa and my visa would take me!  Almost...

The drawing marathon was pretty damned funny in hindsight...my day started off with my dog disappearing thanks to M's brain amnesia, a faulty ATM that nearly ate my card, heavy traffic, bad directions, 3 hours on the road for a 45 minute trip, and that was just getting to the marathon...once there, there was no parking, the drawing rooms were packed to bursting, it was either freezing or sweltering in either room, and there was no room to move, let alone breath.  I went to the bathroom and came back to some older woman moving my stuff off of my easel, because she "thought it wasn't being used" for the five minutes I was gone.  The icing on the cake--a very unattractive man posing in THE most unattractive pose (looked like Buddha on a toilet)  for three solid hours.  I was ready to head down to the local bar by the time the 21 year old Don Juan wannabe next to me began hitting on me in earnest....it was pretty much a nightmare.  Through this whole fiasco, I received about 50 phone calls from my teens at home embroiled in World War III that got me so peeved I decided decamping to another continent may be the only solution....

Needless to say, I got a handful of gestures before some bozo set up her easel directly in front of mine, literally blocking my entire view.  I did manage to make her understand how incredibly rude it was to walk in 1 hour late, disrupt the class, and the artists in session.  She sniffed at the rebuke and sulkily moved her easel to a cramped but empty corner of the room.  I did manage one, horrendous drawing, which we got a terrific laugh over.  I will post it as soon as I get it uploaded.  I also managed a fast color drawing of one of the female models, which is rather lukewarm to me.  I was completely irritated at the entire affair by that point, and couldn't get into it....

Anyway, I have a new oil to post, and will have more this weekend after another shore excursion.  It's really the only place I can find my center anymore....

This painting is called "Solitude" and it's 12" by 16" oil on canvas.  The day was brilliant, cool and I could just feel pending Spring...once again, Avon-by-the-Sea, New Jersey.

Technology and me, we just disagree!

I've been working on alot of body studies lately, and, in purely selfish interest, I enjoy to work a bit on the large size, which makes it hard to photo correctly...so, I thought to myself, maybe I could scan a portion of each??  Doesn't make sense really, only in my own mind!

Anyway, I tried to fold the artwork, and scan it, and I just managed to damage it...the scan came out very strange, and now I have to repair the drawings...I'm thinking of cutting away the excess paper, and mounting them in to a large "scrapbook" of sorts, since I have many, many drawings, and, I don't know what to do with most of them...so, this at least keeps them neat, and keeps a record of things, progress, changing times, etc.

So, I will begin to gather and put them together....