Well said in so many directions and so many ways, Daz. I am having a difficult time getting my artwork to be accepted and am constantly battling with the urge to conform somehow to make people happy. I haven’t yet even done a portrait in rebellion of painting “something that someone wants to see”.

My current exhibit at CityLoftArt LLC in the Miami Design District shocks me because this curator from Germany has the audacity to hang my unconventional paintings in his very nice, elegant, designer store. I’m not sure how it all happened, but I never envisioned being in a designer store; which goes to show ya’ that ya’ never know who will relate to your art.

One time a schizophrenic outpatient purchased a small drawing from me at an outdoor festival on Espinola Way, Miami Beach, because she was obsessed with it. She bought it back later, cursing at me, telling me that it frightened her and didn’t even want her money back. At first I was pissed off but then I realized that at least the drawing invoked emotion in her (it reminded her of her mother). Albeit I hope it didn’t send her sliding further down the mentally unstable slope and back to inpatient status.

My last exhibit in San Francisco, called “Corrections”, was in a huge gallery/warehouse/theatre…the theme was concerning “what we would do to correct the things that are not right with the world..sorta kinda thing…” When I left the opening, there were some homeless men outside, cooking and sharing dinner and someones said, “Is this real or is it in conjunction with the theme of the opening.” It was an ah ha moment and those moments of irony kick me in the ass and remind me that I make art for a reason, and that reason will come to light when the time is right – not if I rush it or try to impose it on galleries or people who are not ready.

It’s so difficult to stick to your soul and even more difficult to encapsulate all your profound and complicated thoughts onto a canvas. But that one moment that someone gets it – it doesn’t matter if they are curator for the Tate or a homeless person – meaningful is important in all venues of the population! Hell, my cat looks at my paintings more than some of the people closest to me and I appreciate it!

When you combine such magic with quantum physics it starts to make even more sense. The deeper you look at reality, looking at the bits that make up the bits that make up smallest parts of atoms, those bits become more potential than real. At our level they seem immutable but that’s only because we believe it to be so…

It’s kind of interesting — our social crowd includes quite a few artists. Me, I’m more crafty; I scrapbook & quilt and do housewifey stuff like that, but it makes me happy. A few years ago, I was very taken by some jewelry that a friend was making out of letter tiles from old Scrabble games. She made these bracelets — they had to be six-letter words; 5 letters were too short and 7 letters were too long. She had a few stock words, but I bought about a dozen of the bracelets for female folks on my Christmas list and customized the words. I put a lot of thought into them for each person.

The wife of one of our artist friends had been having a tough time finding her own path. The usual McJobs. She had just started doing beadwork– jewelry and frames– and they were good. Really good. And they made her happy. She started going to craft fairs and such. The bracelet I chose for her was the word A*R*T*I*S*T.

Really, she was flabbergasted. She didn’t think of herself that way. But she is.

It’s a word with power.