Patti Gibbons Art

The late Alan Watts made this three minute video.  I have been showing it in my classes. Whenever I get nervous about leaving my secure job in a few months, I just pop this on, and I am encouraged, inspired and KNOW all will be ok. Three minutes. Three powerful minutes.  This video may have started getting the ball in motion.  I can't put my finger on the definitive moment that the seed was planted, but this was certainly part of it.

I've had a rough school year. New schedule/new students/new rules that have made the amount of stress and work at my job as a teacher unbearable. Months of sciatic and back pain while having to be on my feet 6-8 hours a day teaching.Months of PT, acupuncture, doctors. Bottles of ibuprofen.  Tests. Results? Herniated disc OR a cyst on the lower spine. Arthritis of the spine due to age.Inflammation of the coccyx. Then I got the horrid eye/sinus infection that laid me flat for 10 days. So I had a lot of time to think. I was miserable. My health was suffering on many levels. My art was suffering. My soul was being smothered. Then... I had an epiphany. I was done with my career. After 21 years of teaching in a school for special needs children, and difficult circumstances, I was toast.  I knew at that moment I could not go back.  I was far from the wonder retirement that veteran teachers of 30 years make. If I left now, I took a 50% cut in retirement fr...

I feel badly that I have neglected my blog. It's like neglecting an old friend. Once in a while people ask me why I don't write anymore. It's not that I don't want to, or don't like to, but I have been doing other things that eat up my time. Things that mostly make me happy. But I promise that I will better, even if  I don't write every day. This winter has been tough. This time of year I struggle with the lack of light and warmth, and not being able to put Sexy Sadie's top down.  I spend much time dwelling on life,  and even though I have my dark days, it excites me that I  have taken a step closer to serenity and to being true to myself. Having faith that all will be fine. Being honest when I make a mistake.  I learned a lot in 2012.  Most of them good lessons - and out of the bad came some hard core learning and growth.  I learned... To Look for magic in everyday things. That it takes a lot of work to be mindful and grateful. That pai...

I recently gave an artist talk. One of the questions that I had been given in preparation was  “what inspires you to create? “ It  not a simple answer. Or maybe it is.  Everything inspires me.  I told that to my accountant, said that an artist should be able to deduct all life expenses on their taxes.  He looked at me a little oddly and laughed - while shaking is head “no”.  I was serious. Most of my life is run at breakneck speed. I want to do all and feel all and cram all into my reservoir of life experiences.   I  race through the day to get to the next thing, my life scheduled into 30 minute segments.  And then I freak out and scream STOP....  put the brakes on and  S L O W  DOWN,  BE IN THE M O M E N T.    FEEL.     SMELL.     HEAR .  TOUCH.    TASTE. And when I do that, the inspiration reveals itself.  Stories  resonate in ...

Summer flew by. School started. My days are now fast paced and crammed with so much work. Teaching in NY has changed and all I do it work from dawn till dusk doing stupid paperwork, some of which is a waste of time and proves NOTHING save for the state can make teachers do more.  When will the state start making parents do more? I am still drawing every week in my Abstract Drawing class with Meredith Rosier , producing a body of what some are calling"new surreal colorist art".  I have worked in a surreal manner ever since I was a child, and especially seen in my collage work.  Now it is creeping into my drawings, and  I am  finding my voice in my art making.  It is the most original work that I have made -  most drawings are automatic drawings (meaning they are begun with my eyes closed) and it is created out of a well of lifetime experiences, and sometimes I think the human race's collective experiences; there are times when I feel that th...

I have been gone much of July, starting with a trip to Barcelona, Spain, then to Nashville to visit my daughter and grandchildren, finally to paint with Woodstock artist Christie Scheele for four days in Provincetown at the end of Cape Cod. I am home now...but not sure for how long.... It has been a summer where I have had little time to think about my travel phobias; I just put on my big girl panties and did it.  Don't know if it is was the EMDR, getting older and braver, or help from GPS, but I had little if any anxiety about traveling - save for a few instances in Barcelona when 1) I got lost in an immense building and forgot where my friends were sitting in the outside cafes and 2) when I stopped to take a few photos on the street and my friends disappeared around the corner in what was only a few seconds.  I don't speak Spanish, many there did not speak English, and it put me into instant anxiety mode.  I lived through it and eventually found them, and quickly go...

I spent most of Saturday doing chores. 9 am killates, followed by breakfast,  the farmer's market,  dry cleaners,  drug store,  art supply store. By 2 pm I was done. Done from the running around, done from the 96 degree heat. At my last stop my cell phone rings. It is my friend telling me she is at my house and can I meet her  at Michaels. Seems she bought 150.00 worth of canvases, LARGE ONES, at 60% off, and decided that she did not need them.  They were holding them for her there and she needed to either sell them to me, or else return them. Did I want them? HOW BIG? The convertible would not hold the canvases, so I used the CRV, Larry's car, the one WITHOUT A/C (and it isn't that we don't have the money to fix it, it is just that he never has bothered to get it fixed...) and crankily headed over to Michaels, an arts/crafts "box store" that I try to avoid. In the end, it was well worth it.  Six 24" x 36", and two 36" x 48" heav...