Having Faith
I will be there for two weeks, being nurse, mommy, grandma. I am fretting a bit because I NEED to get into the studio to paint, and I will have to postpone that for a few weeks. But I am packing my watercolor pads and my watercolors, and at the very least will make art with them-they are easy to pack and easy to set up. And, I can share with Alanna.
I was recently rejected from two shows which I really wanted to do. They are both good exposure for me, but as fate or the jury panel would have it, I did not make it in. Over the past few years I have learned to face the rejection letter/phone call with honor. Art is subjective; what one person loves, the next one can hate. So I chalked it up to "the universe/God knowing that perhaps I will not be able to pull these shows off, or else there is something better down the pike" and I put them in the file of rejection letters, remembering that Beatrix Potter and others were rejected for their work/book ideas.
I did have two pieces at WAAM and the opening was last night. I forced myself to go as the weather was uninspiring, and I had just come from a visit to my mom in the nursing home for her birthday. I found her ill, and though she was glad to see me, her grayness and inability to eat disturbed me. Other family issues are going on, and I really was not in the mood to meet and greet. But I promised a friend that I would bring her, so I mustered up bravado to head out into the world.
I was not however, in the mood for the group of men salaciously checking out the women there, some of whom also showed up at the CPW opening. They I avoided, greeting and kissing only Jerry, my friend's boyfriend, and spending time talking to one of my ex students, who at 30 is a dashing, debonairre man who does something mysterious in the gold/silver stock business and drives a Jaguar.
I like to see my art in these shows..how it is hung, how it looks, and yes, how it compares to the other art in there. I just hope it holds its own most of the time. And it was good that I went, as I was approached for a few art opportunities, one for a show on "Art by Art Teachers", the other a friend who owns a few shops in town who is interested in my Nursery Crime series of hand made cards, and the last, an enthusiastic artist who fell in love with my abstract piece and said if I were intereseted, she would love to trade a piece of her art for it. Though I am not ready to part with it, I was honored by the comment.
Afterwards a light dinner at Cucina, the site of the old Deanie's, a place where I sipped on many martinis in the pre child era of my life. I had a blood orange cosmo, and Karin and I shared a lovely tuna salad, as well as a thin crust pizza with cheeses topped with prosciutto and arugula.
I drove home smiling, feeling inspired and hopeful, and having faith in the events of my life as they unfold...realizing that disappointments are somehow balanced out, and in the end, I can truely say "and it was all good".
Patti O Faithful
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