Synchronicity & Time

There is a perverse corner of my being that functions only when pressed for time. I seem to be visiting that corner now. My work schedule has doubled, my finances are pinched....and I am writing and painting like a madwoman! Looking at myself from outside myself, I laugh.

I just started several new paintings that are very exciting. I have 2 writing projects that are on the move. And a new project I am not ready to talk about yet. YIPPEE!!!! I am a really happy artist!

This past week was a cranky one. It is doubly nice to finally have a day off and have all these wonderful, creative projects flowing. Also to touch base with my place (water the plants, do some cleaning, restock the larder) and get together with friends.

Life is such a gift...not at all what I expected, but such a gift!

There is an article on me online at www.society805.com click on arts & culture and WAV artists...not perfect but nice to have press! and I like the pictures!

Another New Beginning

I am on another new adventure! Trying to make inroads into LA, the art, the theater etc, etc...so close but so far away! I like to isolate, it is what comes naturally to me. These days there are people all over my life! It is both exhilerating and exhausting.

I am driving longer distances on a more regular basis...unnerving...so odd for someone who used to drive all over the country at the drop of a hat!

I have anxiety. Lots of it. The last year has been filled with it. I thought there was something really wrong with me and that perhaps medication, which I never take, might be in my future. Several people suggested magnesium and meditation. The result is a calmer, happier woman (with fewer leg cramps thanks to the magnesium)!

Back to the topic...I am facing my anxieties, my new adventures with a calmness and a knowing that if I just take one step at a time, one person at a time, all is doable.

And I might even enjoy it!

Speaking of new beginnings, I have added a Gallery page...not perfect but not bad! A new beginning......

What a Difference A Week Makes!

Last week I was stuck, mired in almost ready, getting there, not quite or absolutely not. This week everything seems to be moving forward in a rush.

My show at Gallery 255 is hung and looks really great! The newly configures space is perfect. I have audaciously hung only 1 painting per wall. Scary for me but these paintings are large and are worth it! The opening is Saturday night. There are a lot of other events going on and I am holding the space for people to come to mine. The perfect people.

My day job ends on Sunday. It is an end and it is a new beginning with all the attendant emotions.

I am rehearsing with a new director for my show 'Skydiver'. I am so excited. He is going to help me find the humor in my life story! Honestly I can't wait to laugh at it & me!

It is all good. It is all for my good.

It is better when it's moving forward!

Busy Busy

Where did the last week go? I feel as if I am marching, mostly forward, at a slow but steady pace, and now all of a sudden things are picking up speed!

I am hanging an exhibit of my paintings at Gallery 255 in Ventura on Wednesday. I finally figured out what paintings I am going to hang and so have a huge sense of relief. It is going to be an impressive show! She says modestly. My job is finishing up this week. I have rehearsal for the ballet and have started talking with a new director for my 1-woman show Skydiver which will be performed on June 12 at the WAV. I am teaching an art class, doing a couple of closet organising gigs, thinking about teaching a beginning acting class, taking a writing class....the list goes on. I am grateful that my time is being used creatively.

The problem is my mind has gotten lazy habits. Life has been frustratingly simple these past few months and I stopped using my organizer/day planner. I have started writing things in it. Now I have to retrain myself to actually look at the things I have written.

I love being creative! I feel alive! I feel like I am fulfillin my purpose here on earth! Gratitude is overflowing!

Bon Chance

I am going to be the Queen in the Ventura Ballet Company's Sleeping Beauty! I have never danced ballet in my life. I do not have to in this, but...I do have to be graceful, stand up straight, glide regally, and use hand & arm gestures that are totally unfamiliar in their grace. I will be spending the next two weeks doing lots of yoga, Pilates and more pilates, and practicing making my old hands and arms graceful!

Be careful what you wish for! I have been wanting to get fit, I tend to need a goal...and bingo! I manifested this amazing opportunity! Scares me to death and makes me grateful!

So today I am going to finish some paintings while standing regally, moving my brushes in graceful strokes watching the Sleeping Beauty dvd so I can manifest myself into someone who knows what they're doing onstage in a ballet!

Bon Chance

Cranky

My work has been going well this week. I am excited by it! I am grateful for it! I will put new photos on here as soon as I have them.

I have been really cranky and disappointed lately...agitated. Today I just happened to look at my May horoscope and there it all was. It was a relief; it's the planets doing this to me!

I don't believe everything I read in horoscopes, but I do believe, having experienced transitions that aligned precisely to planetary transitions. So I feel I can relax a bit and enjoy the ride. I have definitely not been enjoying the ride in recent weeks.

So today I am enjoying the sunny day in beautiful downtown Ventura, the friends I am seeing and my lovely home. Not much to be cranky about really, is there?

Untitled

I am trying something new in my work and, at the moment, it is not pretty. I am frustrated and think I will never paint again. I have not struggled like this in a while; it is probably good for my soul.

Instant gratification is the name of my game. In life and art. I started painting with acrylics 45 years ago when my then 1 year old son ran his finger through all the wet oil paintings lined up along the wall of my studio. It turned out they better suit my temperament. All that quick layering and energetegic paint application...perfect! In life, all that should translate into living in the moment, a good thing. Somehow it feels like I've fallen a bit short of that goal.

As I'm writing, I realize my old friend fear is the culprit. Yesterday, I was bemoaning my state to my friend Jeanne. After I finished unloading all the things that were wrong with me and my situation, she quietly told me how much I have grown, how well I am doing, how many changes I have made successfully. That is what friends are for! A reality check. I am doing better than I feel. It is my fear, free-floating or focused, that keeps me in a state of seeming paralysis and subtle self-loathing.

Awareness is the first step to ridding myself of my fears. The next step is meditation & prayer, and the next, action. Enjoy the struggle. Bless the process.
Breathe in the moment. Life is good.

Even if the painting is not. Yet.

long time coming...

I haven't written in a while. There has been a lot going on. ArtWalk and the Grand Opening of the WAV was last weekend. It was a lot of time and energy by alot of people to make that happen in the way it did. I am proud to have been a part of it.

My daughter left for the Czech Republic last week for 7 months. To follow her dream. Her boyfriend committed suicide last year. She spent the year grieving and healing. I am so proud of her. Catherine has always been an adventurer, so she has set off on a new adventure with some old friends. She is working for a company in Klatovy that puts on skydiving events all over Europe. She is taking chances and going for a big life. It makes me happy!

My son is engaged to a lovely woman who is perfect for him. He is the happiest I have ever seen him. He has become a warm, charming and responsible man. I am so proud of him. He was in a good job with no social life and no future and he changed jobs and met the love of his life at the new job! Another adventurer in the family.

I am struggling to stay afloat in my new life. Everything has changed and continues to change. My job is ending in 2 weeks and the new one doesn't start until June. My finances which are tight anyway will seemingly be stretched tighter. I am in the middle of the ocean, can't see either shore, so need to keep swimming forward and trust that the far shore will appear. And that I have the strength to make it.

Friends

I am performing tomorrow night. My script seems to have disappeared during my move. This morning I was a lunatic, wailing and swearing, berating myself for....every horrible character defect I have. Real or perceived.

My friend, Olivia, was the first to call and tell me all kinds of horrible things, much worse than mine. She was right but I did not want to hear it or do anything to make myself feel better.

Then my friend, Charloa, had a piece of the script, and I located another source for more of it and right now I have reprised the entire script. I just wish it hadn't been so painful. I wish I could just know that by bedtime I will have the script, even if it's not myscript.

Along with that drama, I had a great talk with my daughter,also my friend, went to work for 5 hours, sold 3 paintings (to a new friend) and sang with another friend. he sang well, I did not. I am going to practice and get better.

What a wonderful day!

Joy & Grace

I had lunch yesterday with an old friend. It was wonderful to catch up and he is doing very well, which pleased me. He has come up with a powerful prayer for grace which is enabling him to be a happy, productive, positve member of society. I am impressed and happy for him!

Mostly. There is a little bit of me that says, "He's happier than you, his life is working better than your's, he's going to get (whatever) and you'rs not." This dark side of me scares and horrifies me and I am told I need to embrace it, make friends with it, to make it dissipate.

So I sit here thinking of ways to turn these thoughts into something useful. If people are messengers from the Universe, then as we say in NY, "What's da message heeya"?

I do so many fun things as my business that sometimes I lose the fun of it while concentrating on the business of it. Life becomes bleak and sad; I am trying so hard to get somewhere, to win whatever race is hidden in my psyche, to be someone, that I forget I am somewhere and am someone and the joy is in the running not the winning.
(Although, honestly, I do love winning.)

I think the message is pray for grace and get into action. Pray for grace, paint my paintings, write and perform my plays, send out my ships (business letters and PR)and pray for grace. Then let got of the results and enjoy my life.

Beginner's Blog Feb 8, 2010

Art has driven me all my life. As a shy withdrawn child, I would dream of being an artist, even sent in the matchbook cover thing, and sadly could never follow through. I did however keep the dream and it has taken me many years to actually be able to stand up straight and tall and proclaim myself An Artist!

I then found out that I was the only one who didn't know it, that I had been living the life of an artist in spite of myself! Creativity drives me. Thought drives me.

I keep looking towards the destination only to realize I am already there.

There, for right now, is a new loft, in a new artist community,with living and working space with lots of light and space a block from the beach in Downtown Ventura! I have been living in attics and basements and small rooms for most of the past 15 years and painting wherever I could. Four years ago I rented a studio (I chose nice studio over nice living space much to the dismay of my children and some friends) that enabled me to paint larger and more interesting work and put me in a creative environment with the 20 or so other artists who rented space there also. The result was an enormous growth spurt in my art and my art process!

I went from painting flowers, gardens and animals to painting a series on alcohol & addiction, a series on war (after the US went into Iraq) and then an emotional abstract series that has taken me on quite a journey for the past 2 years.

Now I have a huge (for me), beautiful studio space and I am wondering what to paint. I want, in my little girl heart, to do something amazing, something that will justify my being given this wonderful space. That little girl heart drives me.

I am aware that I am here. Just because I am who I am. I don't need to do anything amazing for anyone but me. The most amazing things have always happened when I let go and get in the zone and just let the paint, ideas and life flow.

Today I am allowing myself to flow.

Glitches

Glitches happen. Yesterday I set up this page and wrote my first blog and posted it and...everything went to my personal blogspot page! If you would like to read the 1st ever Vonder blog, go to www.vonderschollgray.blogspot.com. That is supposed to be my personal blog for family & friends. I liked what I wrote yesteday and am lazy enough to not want to repeat it here (won't let me copy it which is comforting) so go peek if you like.

I am frustrated by the business of art. I have struggled with business most of my life. My struggle is becoming less and my successes are flowing along and then my camera is lost for 2 weeks or my knee goes out for 6 weeks or I move or there are workmen fixing my windows or my kids need help or work...or...or...life goes on. Life just goes on.

There is always something to keep me out of the studio, to keep me from putting paint on canvas. Then I get the fuckits and tailspin into bed.

From business to bed in one paragraph Wow.

I have learned that I have a choice how to see things. If my life is full, I get to do all these things. It is the privilege of a full life. If I am an artist, a fairly successful one I get to do the business of art. What a gift!