home is where one starts from

looking to see

last week i worked on an old unfinished painting i made in a figure painting class in college. our model quit early after only a few sessions with us, just as i was beginning to like my painting of her. i've messed the whole thing up now, all you can see are her legs coming out of some sort of storm of color and line. painting over her got me thinking about her, and the figure related classes i took, and beauty.
my concept of beauty was radically altered by those classes. we discussed the body in terms of beauty, but more than thinking or talking through it, my mind was changed by all the time i spent looking at the body in long class hours drawing, painting, and even sculpting the models. thankfully my professors arranged for us to have all sorts of models-- in terms of age, shape, and size.
before i took any of these classes, i had attempted to change my mind about what i saw as beautiful. at some point i realized that i looked at most people's physical appearance with critical eyes, noting their every flaw. actually, i mostly did this with women, as women tend to do with each other. so in an effort to look on people more kindly, i forced myself to find at least one beautiful thing about everyone i saw. it made me look sometimes very hard, but i soon found that it was easy to find ten, twenty things in any person. i tried to ignore what my mind had been taught to see as beautiful, and instead listened to what my eyes had to say. it's not that my mind was entirely different or wrong, just limited...just blind to anything but ideal.
one of my professors once talked about idealism, how ridiculous it is for our society to ignore the role of variety in beauty, and say there is only one type of real beauty. how narrow. i want to know the truth about beauty, which i think has a lot to do with reality, honesty, compassion, hope, imagination.
i'm thankful for the long hours spent painting and drawing many different types of bodies. i fell in love with the body: the weight of a pose, the way the body's shapes repeat themselves and compliment each other, the play of shadows and light. it's complexity is somewhat overwhelming.
i usually hated class periods spent solely working in the studio. i didn't like having to create within an assigned block of time, so i puttered around pretending to work until class was over. it was agonizing. but when we worked with the models in the studio, i lost track of time, and became absorbed in lines and shape, and looking. we spent so much time looking hard. it was more important to understand by sight than to capture it on paper correctly.
the woman i painted over last week was the worst model i ever had in a class, but i liked her a lot. when she came into the studio the first night, she refused to pose nude, which was startling and awkward considering that she was hired as a nude model. but we painted her anyway, partially dressed. it felt wrong to look at her, she was too human, too naked. but i liked that she showed her insecurity. she more than anyone i'd painted yet had a story, a soul, and i was sad to have to set my painting aside unfinished.
the last model we had for that class was obese...severely. the painting i made of her is my favorite of all the models. her body was beautiful in a whole different way. it was also more terrible than any body i had yet seen, because instead of seeing health, i saw a trap. but her, the whole her, in all it's entirety was beautiful. the longer i looked, the more lovingly i painted.
i'm trying to listen more to my eyes and less to mind. i think the truth, the whole truth, is the most beautiful, with all it's ugly parts, and dark pits, and redemptive pieces. and i haven't seen it all yet, but i'm looking.

currently

i have a lovely sun room to paint in these days, but i keep setting it aside for books. i usually choose doing, making, thinking over reading...because i'm a terrible fidget, but lately i've had a hard time forcing myself out of stories. it's somewhat of a relief to forget about myself for moments. i tend to get all too caught up in my head, as if i'll disappear if i forget about me for a moment. i think i must have a terrible case of self-absorption. anyway, if anyone one i owe a painting to is reading this, i have taken breaks from books to do some productive painting, and i plan to do lots more in the near future. and there is one old painting that i've gone back to with paints and ink. i'm enjoying it most of all, but of course, it is not one i am supposed to be working on necessarily. it's just for fun...

gifts from small hands

- i catch the eye of a little boy a couple of rows in front of me at the maundy thursday service. he smiles and holds up his stuffed bear for me to admire. we exchange lots of smiles. during the closing prayer he stands up and leans across the pews separating us, to tell me (quite loudly) how he made his bear at build-a-bear. when his mom gets on to him, i close my eyes and pretend i wasn’t a part of the conversation.

- a four year old girl in her hospital room is playing with stickers. she looks down at my short hair, and nodding with understanding says: “you lost your hair too”. i tell her i did, and that i love having it short. she says she wishes hers was long again.

- a four year old boy in that same room a week earlier wants to do an art project with me. he takes projects very seriously, works very carefully. i love his huge brown eyes. but as i sit down to show him the colors in my bag, he suddenly changes his mind, and says he doesn’t want to do art anymore. later his mom finds me in the hallway to tell me that he had wanted me to stay but was starting to feel sick. he told her he was afraid of throwing-up all over my supplies and ruining them for the other kids. she thinks it is sweet and wants me to know. i think it is more than sweet.

- a family hasn't left the hospital in the last two weeks, spending there time in a room that has become a wreck with so much living going on between its small walls. there's a mom and a dad and a 2 year old girl always there with the sick boy. the sister sits on the boy's bed drinking her own coffee, which the mom tells me she likes with lots of sugary things. the boy says that coffee wakes you up. they all look haggard and tired. so tired. i walk out of the room with the mom, and simply because i am there, she tells me she just found out a close relative has brain cancer. my heart bleeds for her, and i tell her i will pray, wishing i could do more, knowing i don’t even know how to pray. but i do anyway.

- i visit the 30 acres i disappeared into all this past year, and take a walk in bare feet so i can feel the clay and mud, and even the prickers on my toes. i cry a little over the place that knows so well my ache—that caused so much of my ache, but healed much more. and my dog runs ahead of me, looking back more than usual to make sure it is really me there with her again. our cat tarzan refuses to walk, making me hold him and stroke him everywhere i wander. and then my sister marley comes down to join me, and she lets me hold her tight in my arms on the walk back, tarzan cradled between us like a baby.

- at the mexican restaurant that night i sit beside bailey, who scoots her chair as close to mine as she can manage. we look into eachother’s faces the whole meal and talk, and she often spontaneously grabs my hand hugging it close to her heart. then she tells me she is going to be the last one in our family to die since she’s the youngest. to which i say, unless she were to get sick, and immediately wish i hadn’t. so then i say she better take care of me in my old age, and bring me lots of chocolates to eat and kittens to hold. she looks at me gravely and says she will.

contents of our heads

my sister michelle somehow managed to get a few of our family members to draw out the contents of their heads. she posted 2 beautiful heads that you should look at, and here's what i collected for her:

my sister jamie's head

our grandmother's lovely head

marley's head (nine years old)

carson's (8)

bailey's sweet head (nearly 7)

...and mine

Juses

...a bookmark made by my sister carson a couple years ago for our mother's bible. i think God must enjoy having Juses in his pages.

sunday reunion

these photos were all taken by bailey paige, the youngest of my 10 siblings who i hadn't seen in a couple of weeks, which is the longest we've been separated in over a year. i enjoyed every moment of little hands and hugs. reuniting is good. maybe i'll go away more often, and then return more often so i can have more of it.

the contents of my heart

i've been drawing a lot lately, and most of my drawings don't work out. something doesn't quite look right in one, and so i set it aside and start over. but even my mess-ups contain things i love and have to save. i've collected a big stack of unfinished drawings, and now i'm working to redeem them by making beautiful new things from them. this is my favorite way to create. tonight i found a group that i had to put together as my heart.
hopefully it says something i can't seem to manage. i'm tired of words, or at least my words. mine never say what i want them to say. i cringe when i re-read them because they speak my heart all wrong. i have more patience for making pictures...although i'm not always sure what my pictures are saying. but maybe that is more like a heart, thinking outside of words.

my heart (not quite completed):

lost

i took the train to boston alone one time, and once i was there, i accidentally got on the wrong subway. it took me in the opposite direction from the art museum i was trying to get to. and of course, i didn’t notice until i was far far away from my destination. instead of taking the subway back, i decided to explore. it was delightful. i wandered around all day in who-knows-where until i eventually found china town, which was familiar enough for me to find my way to the museum.
i have the worst sense of direction, but i like to think that i am very good at feeling my way to a place. really what that means is that i take the round-about ways going to all the wrong places first before i find where i want to be. but i like this. i like to find myself lost.
i only regret losing myself when i lose other people with me. and one time i got terribly lost alone in middle of north carolina’s woods. that happens to be one of my most frightening experiences. after purposefully getting lost for an hour in the woods near my home, i panicked when standing on a ridge line looking out over more ridge lines, i realized i had absolutely no idea which direction was home. the sun was beginning to set. i picked a direction and prayed it was the right way. along my search for home, i had visions of myself alone in the woods all night with helicopters out looking for me. at one point i found a trail which led me to a trailer in the woods. when i saw a man out in front with a chainsaw, i turned and ran as far as could off the trail back into nowhere. i also came across huge clumps of black fur spread across the forest floor that made me tremble with the thought of wolves and bears. i crawled on my hands and knees through mountain loral bushes, which only get thicker the farther you get into them. i climbed up and down creek beds and became a muddy mess. i finally stopped by a tree to panic and rest, when i noticed the sunlight hitting a group of trees far off. it reminded me of the way the sun hit the trees at a meadow near my house, so i took off running in that direction, and eventually found home.
while i’m thinking of terrible forest adventures, there was a time i nearly got my sister amy and myself killed in the woods. we were riding horses on a long trail a couple years ago, and we were almost home when our trail ran into a section of the woods that were being logged. we couldn’t pass through it, so we turned around to go back the way we came. i couldn’t bare the idea of retracing all our steps, so i suggested we cut straight through the woods. i promised amy that home was just beyond the trees. it took a lot of convincing, but she finally got off her horse and followed me into the woods. not only did we get stuck in mountain loral, but we became hopelessly lost. we could have died dragging our horses through those bushes, which are hard enough for a person to climb through alone. i was falling all over the place, dropping my reigns, getting stepped on by hooves, and trying not to lose my boots (which were too big for me) in the mud. i believe amy was cursing me. we were both in tears. but that time, she got us out, and we are still alive today.
despite my failed moments at being lost, i still love to do it. there is something strangely comforting about being lost. people tell me that i always seem to be lost in thought, so maybe i just like to make my mental states of being physical.
i borrowed “lost in translation” from the library a couple days ago, and gave it back before i’d finished watching it. i wanted to kick myself for returning it. i couldn’t stop thinking about it. so yesterday i went back to the library crossing my fingers in hopes that it wasn’t checked out. it wasn’t, and i finished it last night. i loved it when i saw it in the theaters, but this time i enjoyed it so much more. it was perfect. some of my favorite scenes are of charlotte sitting in her window. i love her lost in thought, lost in the city, lost in her window seat. and more than that, i love when she’s found, when she finds a friend be lost with. better than getting lost is the finding.

sleepless

i've not been a talented sleeper lately, which is odd for me. maybe it is because i've started taking daily naps. i can't resist them because my bed sits exactly where the sun stays most of the afternoon, making it the warmest, brightest, most lovely place to sleep like a cat. i'm terrible at night though. i think i'm tired so i go to bed and listen to music as the old clock in the living room ticks away the hours. i don't know what to do with myself when sleep is impossible. two nights ago i climbed out of bed and watched "the cider house rules", but half way through it, i decided i would rather watch "edward scissor hands", which i turned off right before the end because i'd watched enough. i'm not good at finishing things on my own. i realize i don't have the endurance so i quit and go sit by my favorite window in this house. it's actually a corner with windows on both sides. i love to sit in it at night and look out at the trees, and lights, and the reflection on the creek water bellow. it's says things i don't know how to say.
lately i've been thinking a lot about meaning. i wish i could get over my need for meaning, but i can't seem to manage it. i get so hung up on meaning.
i confided in my mother months ago that i wanted to marry a guy who had survived a critical illness, or who at least had lost a loved one to an illness. after i said that thought out loud, i felt really sick and weird. i would never wish tragedy on anyone...but, the truth is i used to wish it on myself. years ago i wanted to have a deadly disease. for one thing, it would giving me a physical reason for not feeling quite right about life, and for another thing, it would show me the things that matter. i've never gone through any great tragedy, but sometimes i feel like i have, and worse, i've wished that i had. it's only because i associate tragic experiences with great change and new meaning. i'm drawn to people who have gone through really hard things because they seem to see clearly, feel deeply, love fully, breath and experience life, care. i want to be concerned with only the things that matter. and that's what i've been wondering about lately, the things that matter.
tonight i listened to a woman talk about a trip she just returned from touring key biblical sites in israel. my favorite thing she told about was the desert. her trip started in the wilderness. she said it was terribly empty, absolutely desolate. standing in the middle of it, her group was told to be quiet and listen. there is no sound in the desert except for the wind. i know why i crave the desert so much.
i force myself into my own deserts because i want so badly to hear only wind. i want the real stuff of life. i think the desert must be as beautiful as it is terrible.
i keep thinking that if i can be faithful right now in the ordinary then...and i want to follow that with: then i could be faithful with the extraordinary God is sure to give me in the future. but really what follows that first thought is: then i could be faithful with more of the ordinary. and that's actually okay with me because all of my ordinary is becoming extraordinary somehow. i'm fine with the simple and small because there's something deeper, truer, and glorious underneath me. and it surprises me. it surprises me because i asked for it, and it's actually happening. i have been asking God for all things right, and only things righteous. and that's what he's doing all around and inside me, despite me, even though i fight and kick against the things i ask him for.

finding a nest

i was in the basement the other day and i couldn’t stop staring at the vents over my head. i have a thing for vents. the sight of them makes me crave to be instantly inside that dark space behind their slats. but if i take the thought any farther, there is nothing i would like about being in the cold, dark, dusty interior of a vent. and the only thing i can think that is behind this want of mine, is a desire for hiddenness. sometimes i need to disappear. but really what i want instead of a vent to hide away in, is a nest. when i was a kid my sisters and i made nests all the time. we loved making nests. what that meant was stripping the couches of all their cushions and arranging them in a large circle. then we would find every pillow and blanket in the house to create the cozy interior. and when it was fininshed, we would climb inside and be snug and safe together. so when i want to disappear, what i really crave is a nest-- somewhere dark and warm and tight.

a taste of blue

my grandfather tells me the blue shirt i'm wearing today is 28 years old. i like that it's a little wiser than i am. it is the remaining thin shred of the 2 blue shirts i saw my grandparents wearing together in a picture book. i like to think i'm a walking memory for them.

some sort of peaceful, lost feeling has come over me. things feel right. i find myself choosing the window over a book. i'm content to watch the naked tree tops until they get their leaves. it seems my restlessness is taking a rest, and i didn't even ask it to. i don't believe i'll welcome it back any time soon.

today i bent down to put my ear next to the speaker, and noticed a small blue paper triangle on my wood floor. so i picked it up and ate it. it seemed like a nice thing to do, but then i had to take a drink of cold coffee to get it down my throat. i believe that's the first time i ever swallowed a color...though one time i opened a yellow bottle of paint and accidentally squirted half its contents onto my tongue.

i brought boxes of memories with me to my grandparents. all the journals i filled with anything but diary material, sketches on paper scraps, photos, and letters, and pictures i pulled out of magazines. i searched every corner of my former room for these pieces. i opened books from the shelf to shake out forgotten things. and today i dumped it all out on my bed with the intention of organizing. but not only is that impossible for me to do, i have no desire to begin. i can't make memory books like some people. so i think the only way for me to keep these things out of the boxes, is to make something new from them.

a memory

found in an album recently. me (in red) with my sister katie (in jellies) on the front porch of our old yellow house on man-o-war. in those days katie's nickname was fido, and mine was bear. we shared the same room for all of our childhood and a little longer. at night we'd lay in bed and talk hilarious nonsense, play games, and suck our thumbs in unison. one night when katie was feeling particularly fond of me she rolled over and through teary eyes whispered "i don't want you to die." it became our bedtime ritual to say those words to each other.