Tonight I shall not write – but  here are my pics from the day – the culmination of a rather intense week – I hope you see the progress that I feel.   —-And to everyone, a goodnight.

I found myself alone in an Atlanta hotel room on my 47^th birthday. I was at a portrait conference. I sent myself there as a gift – to myself.  I felt overwhelmed by the 800 attendees and inspired by the talented teachers. The event culminated on Saturday night with a ‘gala’. I didn’t realize that I had not ‘pre-registered and paid’ so I was without a ticket to the ball. Johan Cederlund, curator of the Zorn Museum in Switzerland was the guest speaker. I tried every angle I know to score a ticket, but “sold-out and overbooked” was the only response I could get.

I wandered back to my hotel room and looked out the window at the life happening all around me. I poured myself a stale glass of wine and sat at my computer.  “This sucks”, I thought to myself.  I pondered the hits and misses of my 47 years (mostly my misses) and wallowed in my own ‘aloneness’.

I need to shake myself out of this. “OK Kelly, knock it off!! Get off your sorry, self loathing butt and go do something, go make some fun…have a little faith in the universe”.  Off I went to the place that always seems to offer the most comfort when I’m far from home -the hotel bar.

There, sitting alone and wearing a ‘portrait conference’ badge was a chap that looked as displaced as I felt.  “Hi, can I join you” I asked.  “Sure, Sure” he said as he shuffled away his papers.  “I don’t want to interrupt”… “No, no, not at all, I don’t want to look at this speech again anyway.”  He was Johan Cederlund, curator of the Zorn Museum.

“OK, now it’s starting to feel like my birthday” I thought.  I had 30 minutes of great conversation with the man I came to see in the first place, but couldn’t get a ticket to.  We talked about art, travel, Sweden, Zorn, and me.  He seemed genuinely interested.  I explained my FingerSmear career.  “I’ve really just started diligently studying traditional methods of oil painting and I am absorbed by it”.   “But, do you want to keep doing these finger paintings” he asked.  “They are fun, and they pay well, and my ultimate goal is to create a global FingerSmear that depicts celebration in cultures around the world.” That’s wonderful, how interesting”, he prodded for more. I obliged.  He offered to be my liaison in Sweden when I get it off the ground.

He also suggested that a late slip through the back door might enable me to see the presentation I came for.   Off he went, and off I went, satisfied and smiling.

I wandered across the street to the Intercontinental hotel bar. I sat in the empty seat between two dramatically different men.  To my right, a 20 something black man with a diamond crusted watch, muttering directives into his cell phone.  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, just send a car” he said, and hung up.  “I own a record label in LA and I’m in town to make sure the stations are taking care of my boys,” he explained.  I didn’t know who the ‘boys’ were, but it didn’t matter. From the look of me he deduced that I was not their target audience.   Our conversation led to the blues bar that Tom and I owned in north Idaho, and my work that hung in BB Kings Blues club in NY. His lack of knowledge about the  history of  his ancestors, and inspiration that ensued was shocking.  He pulled up my site on his cell and started flipping through my work. “When I get back home I’m gonna call you and buy all of these musicians and hang them in my music room so I look like I know what I’m talking about”, he laughed.  Sweet.  Sounds Good.  Off he went.

The guy on my left had been speaking Russian into his cell for 30 minutes.  He hung it up and let out a frustrated sigh, shook his head, and ordered another drink. “I’m supposed to meet my ex-girlfriend.  When she found out I was in town she insisted, and she’s gorgeous…but she’s craaaaazy”, he said.  “Tough decision”, I thought.  “Besides,” he said, “it’s my birthday and I’m alone otherwise, so why not.”  “HA!” I exclaimed.  We toasted to mutually creeping toward fifty and still feeling fresh.  Moments latter his 20-year-old ex-girlfriend walked in. No wonder she’s crazy… you’re crazy, I thought.  Off they went.

I paid my bill and left, quite pleased with the level of entertainment thus far.

I arrived back at the gala, quietly slipped in the back door and took a quick seat in the dark on the platform behind the cameraman. From the happy shelter of my corner, I watched a great presentation on Anders Zorn.

Sometimes… you just need to change perspective.

For years we have discussed the coming of “the bad fairy”. We were told this “bad fairy” would come and kiss our precious daughter on the forehead on her thirteenth birthday, and our sweet Aidan would remain cursed until she either paid her own rent, or had her own children.   There was nothing special about Aidan that warranted this tale, just that she was a girl, and God willing, she would someday turn thirteen.

I was given this news when Aidan was just two.  My husband and I ran a small pub in North Idaho, and Aidan was a regular fixture there – a village baby of sorts.  When one of our regulars delivered the news about this inevitable ‘bad fairy’ (he had a far more explicitly vulgar name for her that refers to your butt) I laughed, rejecting the concept.

Over the years Aidan and I have warded off this fairy with bouts of long conversation, discussing life, religious philosophies, boys… whatever she wanted, whatever I wanted. Even when we knew it was in the neighborhood we joked about our elaborate plans to lock it out.

Then I began to notice changes.  First they were small and easy to overlook.  Then they demanded more notice, until finally, there was no denying them, and succumbing was my only option.  I…was growing older. My taut skin had become less ‘form fitting’. My hair was swiftly leaning toward silver, and nothing short of duck-tape could support my sagging physique. Aidan was growing into the young woman I once was, and I was growing into an increasingly older version, and not settling easily into it.

Yes, we are told to grow old gracefully, and outwardly we do our best to present that.  Inwardly, I think we all stretch back the years in the privacy of our own mirror and think…ohy!

Then it occurred to me, in a moment of impatience and struggle that perhaps the fairy did make it into the house, but it went to the wrong room. Aidan is pleasant and silly and spontaneous. She works hard and dreams wildly about the life in front of her.  She shares opinions and conjures up ideas.  I am (momentarily and very seldom) cranky, irritable, achy, and unsatisfied.   Maybe this happens in many houses. The fairy just gets mixed up, turned around, or even worse… delivers a double whammy – the mother/daughter kiss!

No, we have developed a different kind of fairy, and welcome her kisses anytime.  The Love Fairy. Her general opinion of ‘beauty’ is broad, and influenced widely by attitude and honesty. She sometimes has trouble keeping up with her own imagination yet sees quickly through imposters.  She finds her expectations as enticing as her taste buds, and her adventurous spirit requires continuous fuel. Yet, there is no cure for her curse – children – rent – love – saggy skin – and death – there is no lifting it.

A spark to a flicker, a flicker to a flame. The flame might just set you on fire! …Hot coals hold great potential, but without some fresh air and a bit of prodding they just burn out.  On the other hand… if you have last week’s newspaper, a bad romance novel, or an old pair of sneakers that didn’t take you where you wanted to go anyway, throw them in! A little inspiration can ignite your furnace, even if it’s old and tired.  And there’s nothing better than warm toes.

Yesterday I woke up with a long missed sense of peace. A few things that really matter finally found direction. A few things that shouldn’t matter at all, realized…that they don’t.

A trilogy of rejection from ‘credible’ sources brought the conclusion that they bare little weight in the scheme of creating art.  Perhaps they have some effect in producing an income from it, but its creation is another game entirely.

For me to pretend that some acceptance from the ‘jury’ would not be valuable, would lack the truth. But perhaps it is not that jury that I should concern myself with.  Perhaps it is only the jury of civilization that I interact with every day, everywhere, that should cause me any regard.

My husband is politically absorbed.  He reads tirelessly about the state of the world and all that ails it, and he pains for a way to improve it.  I often think of how I might depict the suffering and injustice that goes on.  He says I cannot communicate that part of history, as I have not lived it. I cannot portray it vigorously, as I am not in the trenches.

I’ll think about that for a while… and get back to you.

For now – I’ll focus on the ‘depicting’ part.  Painting life as I know it with enough freedom and passion to move someone. Or stop them.  Either response proves effective.

I have no paintings to show you today. I am working, but a friend challenged me to slow down and observe more.  Paint, stop, come back, look, come back again, and move a bit more intimately with what I have in front of me.  So I’ve begun a small project of sorts.  I have several canvases in progress at the studio, none of witch I will call complete until I have sat with them for a little while. Perhaps they will never be finished. They may just live with me in the trenches…forever.  Or they may someday vibrate life as I see it, slowly, purely, and with a bit more ease.