Possibilities: Love What I See, crayon and watercolor, 8"x10" double matted finished outside edge $20, by Tammy Vitale
Wasn’t even looking and I found her! This one says the same thing as yesterday’s Possibilities only using the first person (and designed in a different way, too). There I was putting away books (!) this morning and there she was sitting on top of the shelved books I was putting away in. Now why did I stick her there, I wonder? So now she will go in the prose painting pile and I will be able to find her whenever I need her.
Yesterday, my plan was to create 6 masks and 3 chairs. I made it through 6 masks. Because when I got to the studio I had to empty the car (to get the chairs from the trunk). Then I had to empty the cases I had emptied from the car, which meant finding places for the work either in storage bins or hanging. Much shuffling around of things. Then I had to pack a box for Island Artworks since some of what was in the car I unhung specifically to send to her. Then I glazed and put in the kiln all the work I did the other day. In order to do that I had to clear space on my workbenches (you see how this works). In order to clear space on my workbenches, I had to finish several pieces that have been laying around since my last foray. So in the end I only created 3 masks, and was pretty pleased with that as the last 2 masks my back was hurting and all I wanted to do was stretch. And this is using the tables Son built me that are built to my height so my back won’t get tired. All in all, despite only 3 masks, I consider the day productive.
Yesterday morning I was out in the yard – the weather here is absolutely gorgeous. We are having no humidity! I cannot believe we are having no humidity! And we are in the 60s at night. No air conditioning necessary! So yesterday morning I was in the yard enjoying 
the pond and the goldfish were all at the top of the pond looking, well, gold against the dark very reflective water – the water is very clear right now as we haven’t cleaned out the bottom for a while (although it still needs it). So I ran in and got my camera and the fish immediately dispersed, not to mention the sunbeam they had been in had moved. But I took a picture anyways, and it’s not perfect but it’ll do in a pinch so I’m sharing that with you here, too.
Today is a part-time job work day, so nothing much will get done in the studio (except take the masks from their armatures), and since I have much to do, including an evening meeting (get home around 10 pm) I expect to get tons of hours in today which will free up later this week for the studio when I will finish the 3 masks I had intended to finish yesterday, along with the chairs, and maybe several more masks, another mermaid and some large seahorses. Or maybe something new all together. And one or two more Possibilities just for practice until they’re ready to really come through.
thought for the day: The Yogic path is about disentangling the built-in glitches of the human condition, which I’m going to over-simply define here as the heartbreaking inability to sustain contentment. Different schools of thought over the centuries have found different explanations for man’s apparently inherently flawed state. Taoists call it imbalance, Buddhism calls it ignorance, Islam blames our misery on rebellion against God, and the Judeo-Christian tradition attributes all our suffering to original sin. Freudians say that unhappiness is the inevitable result of the clash between our natural drives and civilization’s needs. The Yogis, however, say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. We’re miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. We don’t realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme Self who is eternally at peace. That supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine. Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: "You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not." Elizabeth Gilbert, eat pray love
Note: I seem to be on a spiritual quest these days too, and find that even Tama Kieves, in my latest estudy with her based on the Course of Miracles is using the GOD word and saying: make peace, look at all the ways you can define this. She does it with collages of dewdrops on flowers, etc. Which isn’t a bad idea at all (but I don’t like that word anyways). I am wondering what has set me off and think it might be that last week my Aunt Kat died (in her mid 90s), a quite lovely death – "she just went to sleep" (the short version) from a lovely gentleman I’ve never met but who had her list of people to call (I’m so grateful – I was always afraid I’d just get a letter back marked "deceased" – she wasn’t much of a communicator). She was the last relative on Momma’s side. Her house is where I can think of her, Momma, their younger sister, my Aunt Queen (Ruth), her two kids, my cousins Susan and Julia. Susan drank herself to death at 49 and Julia I haven’t seen for 40 years. I am in touch, sporadically, with Susan’s kids, who have grown kids of their own. Anyways, perhaps that’s why this strand seems to have lodged in my writing and thinking lately.
1 Comment
Tammy, "What if" is a question I often ask as I start my day. So I love the art that connects to it. I'm going to highlight this post and want to use the image on my blog with a note that it's your art. Will that be OK?