My Life in Coffee Spoons

How well I remember the afternoon light filtering through my honors advisor’s windows at UT Austin, not so/so long ago. The timbre of Dr. Sullivan’s voice when he peered at me over his glasses and said: My dear, Edna St. Vincent Millay was writing about you.

Worst/best compliment ever. My flame will not last the night; But “ah my foes, and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light!” Much as I try to pare down my [schedules, desires, hopes, projects] self, the same bad habits sustain me: inertia, miraculous interventions, and an unhealthy amount of caffeine. Here I am, fifteen freakin’ years later, and elbows deep in art show prep, full time teaching, and trying my darndest to raise my two kids to be good humans. Oh, and an impending studio move to Old East Dallas. I’m joining the new studios at Art on Main! Because enough is never enough, and this candle is lit, y’all.

Just a year ago, I changed high school campuses and reframed my teaching career. At the same time, I put together my first solo show, hosted by the fabulous Susan L Sistrunk in Waco, and on the heels of the opening, I began house hunting. My family moved into our first home at the end of the winter, collapsing weeks of packing and unpacking into a flurry of manic days. Last year was hard. I swore to myself I’d do less, but here I am: a mouthful of “oops!” and glorious evening espresso. This is fine.

I have a problem. BUT check out my first public photos of my new space! If you’re local to Dallas, you know real estate prices have escalated at an unholy rate since the pandemic. My new studio was a miraculous find (seriously!) nestled closely between our new home, Woodrow Wilson High School where I teach art, and Deep Ellum. I get my keys in about two weeks! I love the light, the location, the fact that I have more space, and the window the studio owners installed for me so that I can see the skyline from within my walls.

New beginnings mean endings, as well. It is with a sad heart that I bid farewell to the space that’s been my home by White Rock Lake for the last six years, and the dear art friends I have made there. I’m a better person and a much better artist for having worked among the fabulous ladies of ArtWorks Studio. Wednesday Studio Nights have been the highlight of my week for years. While I’m looking forward to forging new friendships and evolving in my practice, I will miss my home-away-from home so very much.

Art Mart is coming- catch me next weekend at the Bath House Cultural Center for my first official art festival since 2019! And help me celebrate my move by checking out my studio sale! Onward, aflame and aloft on caffeinated wings and daydreams.

“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!”
— Edna St. Vincent Millay

With gratitude <3

An Acceptable Time

Perhaps the most difficult virtue I’ve had to embrace this year is patience- with myself, with decision makers at various levels, and with the louder, meaner voices I’ve encountered. Regarding this school year, I am not exactly comfortable saying “the end is in sight!” yet… but it is getting closer. I learned a lot. I absorbed a lot of trauma. I was stretched in difficult ways. I’m not entirely better for it, and it’s going to take me time to recover- so I will need to be patient with myself through the summer, too.

-Knowing it is OK to take a break and be unproductive is not the same as feeling guilt-free when doing so. That’s tough.-

A while back, I wrote about the importance of creative habits. I had to let go of my studio habits this year, as my work responsibilities ballooned to gigantic proportions. If I’m being completely honest, in order to be emotionally available in the way my kids (all my kids) needed, I had to put almost everything else on hold.

I need to re-establish my artistic inertia (especially as I plan for solo shows this coming year and wrap up some commissions), BUT I am enormously grateful for having confronted my work-life boundaries.

What I really crave is the space- the mental and emotional breathing room- to explore some ideas I’ve had rattling around in my head. If I could, I’d cloister myself with some paints and books… and disappear. When I used to teach dance, sometimes I would go into the studio during my planning period, turn off the lights, turn on some music, and move without any real purpose. Freedom! Freedom from being seen. Freedom from being “productive.” Freedom and the vast, empty space to fill with whatever movement felt right. I want this as an artist, desperately.

I used to stay up late to paint. I delight in being the only one up- it is so quiet in the wee hours of the night. There’s a pleasant stillness and inherent mischief in the air, a sense that the line between possible and impossible blurs a bit. It’s a blissful solitude that I love so much.

Freedom from being seen… anybody else need that in their lives? It certainly takes on new meaning after teaching through a camera being broadcast on the internet for an entire year!

It ain’t over yet, but it will be soon. I am so, immensely, grateful for my students this year (and every year, but this year those relationships sparkle in a precious way). I pray that I have the energy and fortitude to be the human/teacher/artist/mom that they inspire me to want to be.

Some recent work, with the hope of more to come.

"Cinnamon and Sugary and Softly Spoken Lies"

October in Texas is alternatively blue skied and beautiful, and sweltering and oppressive. The diffused light of this most glorious month lies, sometimes: peering outward, you’d expect the air to whisper its sun-ripened promises, but half the time you’re met with a hot, brutal weight that embeds itself in your brain. Humid betrayal in the pale light. Autumn’s golden raiment is brown and crispy.

We went to Glen Rose with some dear friends to celebrate my daughter’s 12th birthday. It was the first gasp of fresh air I’d had in weeks, and a great, 108 degree gasp it was! Dinosaur Valley State Park is a treasure not too far from Dallas. The Paluxy River and the limestone cliffs are tantalizing reminders of the Hill Country. Every October, my mind goes south: Austin-ward. The few Autumns I spent in the city marked me forever. The heat, the light, the overgrown Austin yards, and long walks along the dusty streets, or hot coffee overlooking the pier from Mozart’s. There’s a special magic in central Texas.

My hands and my head are full of unfinished paintings. This year has me questioning all my life choices, and I feel off-balance, flat footed, somewhat impotent. It’s hard to commit to the act of oil painting, the labor and -labor- and bold intention of it. I’m surrounded by actions and decisions that forcefully deny accountability, dragged by the tide of the times toward some ruined shore. How much culpability does my participation bear down upon my head?

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

These roller coaster days parallel Texas’s October weather. Sometimes, my heart swells for my students, my commitment to the work, my desire to serve these kids who really do give me life and hope. Other days, the policies (and policy changes) and lack of consensus about anything, and the fatal indecision and its consequences, which push immutably forward… all of it makes my mind reel. I wake up most nights in a cold sweat. We have a lot to lose, and only in retrospect will we see the cost. We are too close, too close to these problems; we are too close to ourselves; and we care not enough about the life and liberty of our neighbors, valuing only our demands, our ceaseless and selfish “I.” “I.” “I.”

Those who feel the most justified do the most harm.

My kids provide daily reminders that the work matters. There’s much about all this cognitive dissonance that shatters the reasonable mind, but I keep spiraling back to the “essential.” Of course we are essential workers- teachers catch most instances of child abuse. We provide care and nurturing and growth that kids need. We are a service not just to our students, but to their families as well, by providing a safe place for their children while they work. And yes ::gesturing wildly:: Education Matters! Obviously, we are essential. But to receive that designation now, as a political chip- after years of under funding, when the structures of our educational system have been crumbling for decades, when we are over burdened already, and then to be treated as unfortunate casualties in this weird, fractious war? If we are essential, we need the resources to Do Our Jobs. If we are essential, we need the support to Do Our Jobs. If we are essential, should we not be given the same professional dignity as the nurses and doctors to whom we are constantly compared? Hmmm. Essential means valuable and necessary, not expendable. They keep using this word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

So I straddle these questions, while I continue to go to teach, I straddle these questions, and this fine line between work and life, career and profession, calling and -seriously- self preservation. I grapple daily with whether what I am doing is morally acceptable. And when I want to paint, when I really thirst to take this burning in my brain and make it better, I am just too tired.

Recently, I read All Quiet on the Western Front for the first time. I’m reading East of Eden now. I’m embarrassed that after the small taste of Steinbeck I had in high school, I’d never read more of his work… my immature mind did not at all appreciate his wisdom.

“An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.”

We are not meant for this world, but we are called to do our best to make it better. Stay safe out there, friends.

All things new

I suppose it is human nature to long for spring in midwinter. Grey days abound, in Dallas. I began working on a series of work in oil on Venetian plaster last year, and I find myself obsessing over color. These works are still largely experimental, but I love working with plaster and oil. There is something calming in the rhythm and method of plastering thin coats on panel, scraping and re-scraping, then burnishing the layers to see what sorts of patterns emerge. And then, there is something about Texas herself: the sky, the land, the hospitable people and damn, inhospitable heat. So here I am, playing with contradictions. Blossoms in winter, oil and plaster, the sweet, natural gifts of the Texas landscape for those who are willing to sweat their way through Texas summer.

Magnolias are among my favorite trees. They are a symbol of summer in the South. I began painting magnolias last spring, taking walks with my daughter after the heat of the day had (somewhat) passed, and photographing the blossoms before they turned brown and curled in on themselves. Magnolia petals contain beautiful shadows, and make for great color studies. My newest is on crimson and turquoise plaster, a palette that reminds me of everything I love about the southwest.

Magnolia in Crimson and Turquoise, 2019

Magnolia in Crimson and Turquoise, 2019