Peachy Poppies
5″x7″ mixed media painting on rag paper with .25″ border.
This painting is available HERE.
maria@mariapacewynters.com
Ready
This is a 5″x7″ mixed media on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
Ready for her ballet performance,
a little nervous,
but ready.
maria@ mariapacewynters.com
The Summer Garden (The Poppy Walk Lrg.)
This is a 18″x18″ mixed media painting on canvas. The sides are painted red and are 3″deep.
More poppies…’tis the season.
This painting is available HERE.
maria@mariapacewynters.com
Three Ballerinas
This is a 9″x12″ mixed media painting on claybord. The sides are 2″ deep and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
The Light
This is a 5″x7″ mixed media painting on paper. There is no border. It is available HERE
maria@mariapacewynters.com
The Novice Show
Scarlett, the wild flower, performed in her novice show today ….
oh, beautiful, beautiful wild flowers…
As She Grows
6″x8″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
When I was eight, my sister, Lisa, died. She was three years younger than me, just like Scarlett is to Imogen. The difference is that my sister was born severely brain-damaged. My family mourned for those five years while this tiny little thing suffered through full body casts, seizures and pneumonia. To say that her death was a blessing sounds cruel and really, too simple. The death of your daughter or sister can never really be considered a blessing. The idea that it even could be, illustrates how unbelievably hard and painful her life must have been. To think about her continuing down that difficult and unrelenting path into her adulthood was almost unbearable. I know my mother went down that path, often, and I can imagine that those thoughts must have been very tiring and terrifying. Of course, I didn’t think of these things as a child. All I thought about was that my sister was gone. Miraculously, two days before she died, my mom gave birth to a new baby, another daughter. I felt like I had traded one sister for another and I felt guilty about this because even as a baby, this sister, was significantly different. This sister could be held, carried and cuddled. In the morning I would sneak into my parents room and steal this sleeping baby from her cradle. She was a living doll. My mother never stopped me or disciplined me for this. Perhaps she realized that this was my healing process. Holding this perfect new life in my arms helped me forget the pain of the loss of Lisa. Or maybe, my mother was so deep in mourning, so tired from all of the pain and anguish that she had suffered over the past five years, she didn’t have it in her to worry about any of this. I don’t know, as a mother of two daughters, I can not even imagine .
It never ceases to amaze me how the present can make us remember the past. To relive that time with the new perspective that only time can give us. Thanks, Dad, for reminding me of this time and the similarities of my girls right now and of course,undeniably, the differences. I have often thought about how it would have been if Lisa had been ‘normal’. If she hadn’t been born with such insurmountable hurdles. She was the length of a five-year when she died, but she was like an infant, unable to even raise her head. My mother carried her around on her hip, as you would a small babe, for those five years. She was so beautiful. Her hair was honey brown and she had big beautiful chocolate brown eyes. Her skin, like peaches and cream. She truly was an angel. She was pure innocence. When ever I think of her, I think of a tiny fawn.
Lisa would have been forty this year and today, that baby that helped us all get through that difficult time, turns 35. Happy Birthday, Emma, your timing was truly a perfect example of when a door closes, a window does indeed open.
You Can Hold Me In Your Hand
This is a 8″x 10″mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ and are painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
You can hold me in your hand.
You can hold me in your heart.
While you sleep.
So you can sleep.
AND FINALLY, the winner for May is….
….Kathy (Mudgoddess) YEAH!
The Poppy Walk
10″x10″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and painted red.
This painting is available HERE.
Yesterday, my friend Trish, sent me a slew of great photos from her iPhone. They were of her morning walk and I found them inspiring. Perhaps, not as inspiring as taking my own morning walk, but ahhh…baby steps….baby steps.
Ha, ha…. this makes me laugh because that is indeed how you would start a morning walk, step by step. Why do I resist this so? I think that part of the reason is that from 9 to 12, for three hours, 4 days a week (sometimes 5), I can paint, and I find it very difficult to give up one minute of that painting time. I realize that taking half an hour would probably be, not only inspiring, but give me great balance in my life, as well. But, still I resist.
Julia Cameron tells me in her books, over and over again, the importance of walking half an hour a day …. but do I listen? Why am I so stubborn? Perhaps, I don’t truly believe the good it would do me .Deep down,I know, I just haven’t bought into this idea. Some how, I need to trick myself into realizing the truth in the benefits of a daily walk. Trick myself into a daily walk. A walk to the Italian market for a skin milk latte? (This would be well over a half an hour walk.) Like a horse with a carrot.
But, I am smarter than that, I can see right through that trick!
Tricking yourself, is a little like tickling yourself. Not very effective…
but if you could let yourself fall for it, suspend your disbelief for just a moment, you might end up enjoying it! You might end up loving it, waking in the morning in anticipation and perhaps, even, making excuses to get an extra half an hour in. (I am talking about walking not tickling….I hate being tickled, no amount of suspend disbelief could change THAT).
So, really, wouldn’t I actually be smarter or even wiser to allow myself to be tricked?
“I am just heading out to get a skim milk latte, I’ll be back in half an hour.”
Now, I have to admit, the above sentence doesn’t sound a bit like any walking, or even excercise for that matter, is involved at all. In fact, it almost sounds like a pleasant activity!
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Oh, and I know, I haven’t done the draw yet for last month! I can’t believe that we are into the second week of June already! I promise, tomorrow I will do it. It has just been so busy around here. But no more excuses. Tomorrow I will pick the winner .
How Do You Love Me
11″x14″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are red.
This painting is available HERE. Canada Post is threatening a strike, though, so shipping time may be up in the air (pun intended). Thanks Canada Post. Thanks a lot.
It is my Scarlett’s 5th birthday today. Five years old. WOW, I can’t believe that I had that little baldy biddy five years ago and that my Imogen was only turning three. I treated her like she was so grown up and I expected her to be.
I remember holding Scarlett in the hospital and looking at her beautiful little hands. They were not like a baby’s hands, they were like miniature women’s hands. They reminded me of my Grandmother’s hands, I am not sure why, but as I held that new life in my arms, I felt the presence of my Grandmother in that room. I will always remember that.
How do I love you, Scarlett Wynters, Let me count the ways
I love your curls and the way that they spring loose from every pony tail and ballet bun I try to tame them with. You, my dear, are very much like those curls.
I love that you gave me a list for your birthday. It was clear and concise, there was never a doubt of what you wanted.
A watch
A bathing suit
A small stamp dispenser shaped like a post box from the post office
AND
A snow globe
I love your giggle. It is infectious, and the fact that you like being tickled, allows me to hear it often.
I don’t LOVE your ‘dynamic’ eating habits but I do appreciate your need to fulfill your tactile desires. What does that muffin feel like when you break it in little pieces between your fingers?
I love the fact that you feel it necessary to pull all the dried acrylic paint off of my palettes. Very helpful, not only does it keep you busy but, in the end I have clean palettes.
I love your abstract paintings and the fact that you think that everything you do is a masterpiece (which, of course, it is).
I love that you love cleaning the kitchen floor, in your underpants, while singing like Cinderella.
I love your special ‘Scarlett hugs’.
Happy Birthday to you. You are so grown up, but you are still my baby.
