Restocking

I guess I should get back to food, the original reason I started writing this blog. Cooking has been waylaid by painting.

When I am creating—really enmeshed in the process—food is the last thing on my mind. I know it's cliché. I start my studio mornings with strong coffee, then move on to water and herbal teas. I'm not the neatest painter, so I end up with oils all over my hands, often on my face if I happen to brush a stray hair away. These paint-soiled hands should be nowhere near anything that goes into my mouth. If I stop to eat, I have to scrub down my hands several times to remove all traces of lead and other heavy metals. More importantly, eating means interrupting whatever flow I might be riding. It doesn't seem worth all the trouble.

I know. This is coming from someone who thinks about her meals days in advance. Someone who started a food blog.

A few weeks ago, in the middle of a creative spurt, I discovered that I had no fruits or vegetables in the house. ZERO PRODUCE. For me, this is a state of emergency. There was also no hummus, no bread, no cheese. The refrigerator was pretty bare. In the cupboards, I found crackers, dark chocolate, peanuts and almonds. I felt like a bachelor (sorry, boys.) Actually, I felt like I had failed on basic functions of daily living.

So, this preamble is to introduce a food-related post. I made homemade pasta for some friends and to carbo-load before a half-marathon. (Is carbo-loading before endurance exercise obsolete?) I cranked the dough through my pasta machine to make sheets for folded-over lasagnas. The filling was simple: herbed ricotta, sauteed spinach studded with pine nuts and raisins. A simple marinara was laid down on bottom and spooned over the top. Finally, fat rounds of fresh mozzarella finished the dish.

It felt good to be feeding myself, in a real way, again.

Laughable loves

I am in love with my studio. I feel like it is a sacred space where I can create and express with total freedom, where I can work through challenges and anxieties, where vulnerability is welcome, where I can sit for hours in sunlight and let thoughts flit in and out.

I have a lot of work to do here today. I have four canvases in progress and only a few hours before I need to be elsewhere. Instead, I am sitting on the floor, leaned against the door frame and scribbling away in my journal. I look up at the painting currently on my easel. It is almost finished. I am writing as procrastination, to avoid what might be the longest process for any creative piece: editing. I need to really look at what's there, decide what is critical and what is superfluous.

For me, editing a painting is very different from editing text, which is what I do full-time. For a painting, I have less regard for the artist's voice and more reverence for the work itself. Often, my favorite brushstrokes get painted over, sacrificed for the work as a whole. When editing a painting, I place one mark; the composition reorganizes itself around this newcomer. Does this mark matter? This process continues over and over again until the work comes together. I usually know the precise moment when a painting is finished.

Writing about painting makes me want to paint, much like reading about running makes me want to run or watching cooking shows makes me want to eat. Painting makes me want to make love.

Look, see

One of the reasons I love to travel is that being away gives me perspective. Not just distance from my problems and trivial woes, but literal, visual perspective. When I am somewhere else, I take the time to look, to see as much as I can. I take in the lines; note color (hue, vibrancy, tone); watch shadows to feel the textures. For a visual artist, this practice is critical.

After returning from my trips, I make a conscious effort to keep this practice alive, to maintain my "vacation eyes." On my commute to work, I try to appreciate the different scrollwork on building gates. I try to see random graffiti markings (not murals) as if they are gilt-framed paintings. I try to imagine the stories of delivery men rolling their dollies to and from their double-parked trucks. I look up and back, not just down and ahead. Inevitably, I fall back into my regular routines and I stop looking. How does one see things that are familiar with fresh eyes? Does it take rewiring? (An ex-boyfriend does research on synaptic plasticity and neural circuits of the visual cortex; perhaps he would have something to say about this, and how it might relate to our consciousness.)

Barbara Kruger, Untitled. (2004)

Looking is clearly invaluable to an artist, but it makes me wonder what kind of human being I would be if I kept my sights fresh and new. Would it make me more compassionate to my annoying coworker? Would it allow me to fall in love, in a new way, every day, with my partner? Would I be invigorated by all the discoveries that lay waiting for me, instead of being jaded by the inevitable fallibility of human nature?

Trickles ...

I am sitting in Peter's dining room. The windows are open, and bright sunlight streams in on me as I write. It is the light of summer dusk—golden. The wind blows quietly over the potted nasturtiums on the back patio. When it blows stronger, I become distracted, as if a visitor has just appeared at the back door to ask for some sugar. I am taking my time today, pausing and listening, writing a few words, pausing and listening again.

The light wanes now, dipping behind the building as the sun sets. I miss you; I have always missed you.

There is a sadness in my heart that cannot be assuaged by the laughter of friends, the comfort of family, the glow from a long, hard run. It is there when I smile at strangers, when I walk the canals of Paris or Amsterdam—and presumably Venice as well, although I have never been there. Perhaps this sadness arises from the realization that life is cruel and heartless and arbitrary. That people murder each other for cars. That my art might arise from this, as a way to understand or document or counteract or deny.

The sun has now hidden behind the clouds, somewhere on the horizon below the building. The gold has shifted to steel, and I am writing (literally, blue ink on buff paper) in gray light. Soon, I'll draw the heavy damask curtains and turn on the internal lights. Shut out any curious eyes as I burn the artificial light.

It is starting to rain again.