Today, at a friend's suggestion and thanks to her kind gift, I started reading some of Donald Hall's poems about the illness and death of his wife Jane Kenyon. These are powerful and painfull stuff, more meaningful the more I sit with them (and I only learned of it today and have only cracked the book open a few times.) I am thinking again of the healing, processing, and communicating power of poems and pictures in times of loss. We were so lucky to have not lost human life in the fire but I am struck by how quickly things can change, how temporary our lives are, and how much we can give to each other in the telling of our stories and the sharing of our experiences.
I'm finding now that my potential painting pile (those pieces changed but not gone) is large. I'm hoping that if I can imbue them with some more truth, color, energy, and honor the history of their "being smoked out and dampened", and let them say something about this whole process, this story, they will be better. They will be done.
At least until the next fire, flood, typhoon, war, seizure of art, etc. All things are temporary. Nothing can be guaranteed, so a few drawings in the sketchbook are in order and then a good nights sleep. I urge you to do the things you are compelled to do tomorrow, take risks, skirt the edges of your potential. Be of use as Marge Piercy so aptly put it in a poem that moved me today.
take care, Rachael

Well I have been working on making art again after the re-adjustment. It's a lot of sketchbook work and now I am officially squatting an unused area at my dayjob as a make-shift studio. I've had these squatter spaces before and I like 'em. The trick is to find a space where you can have supplies hidden or locked away, at least some time in the space alone, a way to keep it clean (ish, I am a messy painter after all), and access to light, water and coffee. Squatter spaces are by their very nature temporary but can be crazy productive for me (in part because I know the space to work won't always be there...I simply have to make myself go there and make art.)

My first squatted studio happened after a summer of teaching intensive art camps at an art school. One camp consited of a 2 week, monday through friday, 9 to 5 rotation of teaching drawing and paintingt to teenagers. I love teens, I love teaching but at the moment that gig ended I needed to lock myself in a room and paint. So I noticed that the classroom space wasn't going to be used for 2 weeks and I kept the key. When monday rolled around I went to the classroom as I had all summer but instead of teaching I took over the space. Because I could still discipline myself to work 9 to 5 and because I had been teaching all summer, the ideas just poured out. Literally.



So then, we'll see what happens in this squatter studio and as my husband and I start the process of buying a house. Each day we feel more adjusted and comfortable with the change, lucky that no one was hurt, and happy to have the support we do. Even if some of the paintings above are...well I won't say ruined...different now.

I've got some painting to do...

take good care,
Rachael

I'm a happy kid. Everyone was really nice to me today. I received lots of treats (perfect bowls, fresh roses, a delicious carrot cake, funny and thoughtful cards, new stamps with which to write new letters to send down an old mail chute , Umberto's sexy new book, dinner with green tea sauce) and a very clear appreciation of the luck, love, laughter and kindness I have around me practically 24/7, not just my burfday.
I did have time to play with clay today and learned that while small objects make great patterns in wet clay they also get embedded so I guess I'll wait until leather hard sets in.
thanks again everybody for the kind words, the great treats, and just for listening and making me laugh. I'm off to sleep.
Sogni d'oro,
Rachael

I worry that this little blog has gotten mighty navel-gazish lately and I do hear a bit of a whine in my voice when I tell the story (granted any story has it's saturation point and I simply might not be able to tell it anymore). So then tomorrow I'll (sorta) stop. I want to point forward. I want to relax and not worry about what to make of those paintings or how we'll manage to have a place of our own that will never burn.
So on this long and lovely 21st day of june (my 32nd and Hogan's 4th birthday) I will relax. I will not overwork. I will play with clay during my lunchbreak. I will work on getting over my fear of poetry. I'll tryto discover three things. I'll listen and talk to strangers. I'll call old friends and draw. I will hug my sweetie again and again.
Eat cake, enjoy. I'm happy to be in it for another year and ever so ever so ever so happy to be here. Thanks for listening to me and my bellybutton. Maybe someday I'll talk about art again but it's the seams of art and life that are the most interesting to me anyway. The studios, the methods, the meanings, the work, the mess, the process and the people. Always the people...
take care,
Rachael

All of my artwork was affected in this recent fire. My husband, my neighbors, my cat, my sketchbooks, many of our pictures and personal objects survived but everything changed quickly. So we are continuing with everything we can, taking stock, and sorting out. Below is what my floor looks like most nights as I try to insure there is no wet and no mold and minimum smoke smell on the best of the remainders of the paintings. It's kind of funny in a way, since the past few years have been about understanding how I paint and the past year especially has been full of experiments integrating scraps of past work in new pieces. But, seeing the mess and the muck and the change is also tough. Fire trumps any painter's intention. These are different and may be better when (if) I can go back into them.

Today we visited family, played badminton, collected random things (envelopes, soup, bookshelves, a stapler), and remembered again the greater (much greater) importance of people. We don't need things. We need people.
take good care and thanks for listening and all the kind words,
Rachael
Below is some of the pile of stuff that was destroyed in the fire. It's bigger now. We're all still sorting out.