Patti Gibbons Art

I read my friend's recent blog about missing her aunt who had passed away a year ago, and she related a sweet/funny/sad story about an early memory of her dear auntie. It touched my heart, as my aunt is in the hospital dying of cancer as I type. I plan on going to see her early this week. I hope she lasts till then. My other aunt, her sister, asked me not to post it to the Internet. I think some kind of family feud is going on in her head; she is angry with my cousins who were only trying to help them, so I suppose so she did not want them reading about her dying sister, THEIR aunt, on my blog. But this side of my family has always kept secrets, does not like to air their dirty laundry, which now makes me very suspicious. But that is for another blog. When my father was sick with cancer, we had to keep it a secret from him. How unfair it was to a family of four children who never got to yell at him for what he did, or give him a chance to explain or apologize, or settle differen...

The rain is pounding down upon the tin roof where I type. I would like to be enjoying the rain, like some of my friends on Facebook who are posting cozy fuzzy comments like "enjoying the rain while reading, sipping wine to the humm of the droplets". And all I can think is PLEASE GOD, DON'T LET THE STUDIO FLOOD. I didn't get to do a clean up before the downpour. With each downpour of rain I become more and more agitated and despondent - sure that I am going to need the plastic bags, gloves, wet-vac, towels, and have to spend hours of tomorrow cleaning up water and possibly mud. I keep remembering Katrina and the damage it did, and then feel guilty for feeling put out by the mess and inconvenience. You think by now I would have nothing on the floor, and keep everything in plastic. But studios don't work that way; especially mine. It's bad enough I am perseverating on water, but after reading some FB posts, I think I have tomato blight and did not know it. I...

Some of you may thing this cruel, but listen first before you judge. Woodchucks have lived on my little piece of 100 x 100 property for a long time. As do rabbit, deer, skunks, possums, squirrels, birds....and I live in a city. I don't mind their passage through my yard, though they have decimated my crops from time to time as well as my flowers. Sometimes I have to clean up after them; especially the deer like to poop on the lawn. No biggie. We deal. But when the woodchucks too up residence by my side porch and dug a HUGE hole along the foundation of my house, my eyebrows were raised. Constant dirt on my steps, a hole getting bigger and bigger. Then there was the weird smell by the end of last summer. I scoured my back porch for any little turds that may have dropped off my long hair cat. Moved everything to make sure some piece of fish or food did not drop off a plate, and looked in every bag/container to make sure that there was nothing organic in them. Nada. Clean as...

If you think this painting looks familiar, it indeed is. It is the painting that was born from the photo I took of the Hudson River from Olana, and has been my Blog photo for a while now. Perhaps I will change the photo to my painting when I have a bit more energy. The landscape has been my passion for 30+ years, and only now am I listening to voice that has plagued me for years -- to paint. In graduate school I studied that art of the Hudson River landscape painters as well as American art and craft, and it is only now that I have totally joined with them in spirit by painting the very land that they painted 100 years ago. When I am not painting I have been having too much fun. Lots of parties and openings with wonderful people, music and hoop dancers. Lately I have been doing a lot of living, and very little writing about it. And that is OK too. Today was an hour and a half yoga class after not going since March. My knees, hips and back were very unhappy with me, but I shut ou...

I have spent the past few days painting, and not writing. I can't seem to do both in the same day it seems, so I am writing early. Hours pass seamlessly while painting, quiet save for the meditational music that I play, or the occasional phone call that I take. Before I know it the day has slipped away, the sun rising and falling (when there is sun) and I feel like I have been in suspended animation. I remember hearing Deepak Chopra talking once about this "suspension of time" and the slowing down of body functions which can happen when an artist is deeply immersed in his/her work. I totally understand it. It's like a deep meditation. The paintings have been struggles. I have learned some things, while becoming frustrated with others. While I have some colors and methods down, others challenge me. I have made mud in parts, and already don't want to fall into formulas and composition ruts. I also have to learn when to stop a painting and accept it for what ...

Another glum rainy day in the Hudson Valley. I did not feel like going out today, and was totally into grunge. Hair in a bun. Unshowered. No bra. Old jeans and a tank top. No earrings, NO LIPSTICK. I spent most of the day working in the studio, cleaning up messes, making cards for WHO I DON'T KNOW as no one is buying them right now and listing them in Etsy, where I sell very few. Sometimes I wonder why I keep doing it. Making these cards I mean. Few people write any more, at least not on paper, never mind blank cards that require a bit of penmanship and creativity to say something on one's own. Yet I still like making these miniature collages, and in the past they have paid my studio heating bills, though this year, I am not so sure about that. Yet with the recent rejections of my mixed media work, the loss of a fab client, and a very slow market, I keep seeing the signs. PAINT Patti. PAINT. Fads come and go, styles and techniques go in and out of style, but paintings...

I did not know what to write this morning for my blog, and was just going to let it be until I was inspired. No sense in writing about the routine of my day..unless it had an interesting story, a lesson, or a laugh. I don't want to bore. I am not boring. But this morning when I saw that Frank McCourt had died, I felt a keen sadness at the loss of a great writer and man, and knew I would pay tribute to him. I have been in therapy for the past 20 years. I am not ashamed to admit it, and some of my friends even say it is taboo to post that in a public forum. But we are not in the 50's anymore, and I bet if every person went to therapy, the world would be a better place. Yet in spite of all of my therapy, there was one book that changed my life with insight into some of the dysfunctions of my Irish family, and that was Angela's Ashes, a story about poverty, abuse, and Catholicism. My father's family wore their Irish/Scottish heritage proudly. My grandfather's Iri...