Mixed Media Artist

crying

This Big

This-Big

This is a 9″x12″ (2″ deep) mixed media painting on wood.

I painted this same image last year, an ACEO. It may have been the first ACEO I did. A couple of weeks ago I was going through my images, looking for inspiration, and I came across this photo again. It was taken when Imogen was almost three, I was pregnant for Scarlett. I think I asked her how big she was and she stood as tall as she could and stretched out her little neck. At three, it was really important to be ‘this big’. Come to think about it, I guess it is still important at six. Imogen had a big cry the other day because I made her get the size 13 shoes instead of the (big girl) size ones. Let me tell you, the 13s were even a little on the big side but she cried and cried and said ‘I am just a baby!’. It was hard not to laugh, if she could only realized that in a few years she will be wishing her feet were smaller so she could fit in all those fabulous size six shoes on the sales rack!


IF ‘flawed’- Sad Song

sad-music

Her song was only flawed by its sadness.


The Thinker

It is amazing to me how children become who they become so early on in life.  Imogen has always been a thinker.  Very compassionate and sensitive.  When she was less than a year old, you could not sing certain songs to her because they would make her cry.  Really cry, like her little heart was going to break.  Two of these songs were My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean and Momma’s Going To Buy You A Mocking Bird.  As she has gotten older, it hasn’t really changed.  She basically doesn’t like songs sung in a minor key.  This kind of rules out  lullabies.  Maybe that is why we didn’t sleep for that three month period when she was first born!  We thought we were comforting her but we were actually distressing her!   I have since asked her why she didn’t like the Mocking Bird song and she said because the mamma kept taking everything away from the baby.

My friend took this picture of her and  it seems to capture her in a moment of deep thought.  Who knows what she was thinking about at the time, she could have just been contemplating what she wanted to whine about next!  A five year old’s prerogative, you know.

SOLD


The Pink Tutu

This is a drawing of Imogen in her Tutu from my sketchbook.

When we were in Victoria we bought a fairy dress and a tutu for the girls and the night before we flew home we put some music on and let the kids dance around. I was laughing so hard at them all and the way Scarlett (2) was moving to the music. Then, if that wasn’t enough, my Mum put the Tutu on Matthew (2.5). It was so hilarious I was crying! He is such a boy and to see him dancing around in this delicate pink Tutu when he is anything BUT pink and delicate was so cute, but really funny as well.

Poor Matthew, I photographed and video taped the whole thing.

Oh well, when he gets older he can just blame us crazy women for making him wear it…

BUT I’ll let you in on a little secret: he was just dying to put that pink Tutu on!


In The Wings

Yesterday was Imogen’s novice ballet recital. She did a great job. Some of the older girls were so beautiful dancing their solos. I got all weepy about it all and then right in the middle of the show, everything was stopped and a teacher came out carrying a sobbing little girl. Her parents were called and when she saw her Daddy approach the stage her little body shook and she sobbed even harder with relief. That was just too much for me. Tears were streaming down my face. It would have been very embarrassing if it hadn’t been so dark in the theatre.

This multi media piece is called “Waiting”. I did it a little while ago. This is what I wrote about it at the time:

How much time does a dancer wait in the wings? Certainly more time than actually dancing. I am sure it is true of a lot of things but I am so intrigued by the world of dancing right now  that I couldn’t help but paint this.


Crying in the Moment

I was thinking about loss today.

I had a good cry listening to Yael Naim. Not the “New Soul” song, but track 6 and 7. Usually, those songs would not make me cry. Not like Ben Fold’s “The Luckiest”. I can’t really listen to that song without crying. It is ridiculous. Like Robert Munsch’s “Love You Forever”. Just forget about it. I definitely can’t read it out loud. Imogen usually won’t let me even look at it unless for some reason or another she will show it to me and say, “remember this book?” She looks up at me nervously, curious. Maybe she thinks that I will start bawling right on the spot. Not satisfied with my reaction and perhaps with more than a little morbid curiosity, she will start flipping throughout the pages. “Remember this part?” she asks, again, carefully watching me.

Crying helps me when I feel sad and happy. Today, I was sad. I thought about how some people don’t get a fair deal in life. I thought about losing my own Mother. I thought about dying and leaving my children. I thought about how fast your life can change. And I cried because life can be so raw sometimes. Just so cruel. I thought about that for awhile and about how the opposite of that is the total and utter beauty that life also offers us. The babies that are born to us. The friendships that we develop. The love that we find. The nature that surrounds us. Once again I had to remind myself to live for those things right now because none of us ever know when those things might change and to never take them for granted because there are so many people that would switch places with us in a second. The only way to show respect to those who are suffering is to live life right now, fully present in each moment and, if that means having a good long cry, then so be it.

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