Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Saturday Mornings

Mommy mornings. The working mother's Saturday...not a break at all. This morning I ponder, what am I going to do today? When you are a working mother, the week guarantees small breaks from your own children (in my case, I happen to still be surrounded by children at work, but it's somehow different). During these breaks, you have time. Time to breathe. Time to think about doing something, and then actually do it, rather than wait for the ability to do it. Being an artist with this kind of restraint is brutal; being an artist with A.D.D and this kind of restraint is almost too much to handle. I can never count on my brain to be in focus when I need it to...much like having a small child (2 year old) sit inside your head and control all logic and reason. This is what it feels like and it feels ridiculous. Saturdays are the worst days because I don't have the structure of the work week to give me some tangible outside version of focus.

Often, during conversation, I find people believe that if you are medicated for Attention Deficit Disorder, the problem is somehow solved. What they fail to realize is that there are a whole mess of issues that are neatly packaged (bow and all) within the gift of ADD. In my experience, medications treat about 25 percent of ADD symptoms. Thus, Saturdays for my purposes (and weekends in general) will always be my nemesis (sadly). Nothing gets done, my son seems to be bored with me and my art remains on the back-burner until Daddy gets home from work.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Thinking about the "D" word...in my art

My latest piece has been throwing me for a loop. It started out as a desire to use the image of a house, or some building in my work. In almost all of my art, I have a need to make the components perfect and then create blemishes (big or small). I cannot stand when anything looks to put together and proper...I'll be honest, it pisses me off. With that said, the house I ended up creating for this piece was lovely and made with the perfect paper, but something was not quite right. Then it hit me: I must cut it in half! Being a child of divorce, I find the image of the broken heart, jaggedly ripped in two bloody pieces, is a perfect expression of the way I have felt over the years ( it has been almost 15 years since my parents split). I use broken or sewn up hearts in a lot of my sketches and random drawings, but very few in my paintings and mixed media pieces. Never have I put two and two together, so to speak. It has taken a long time for me to be able to put the pain of my parents divorce onto a canvas in such an obvious way and, presently, it feels pretty damn good!

Saturday, July 4, 2009