Opening doors and slamming others

On deciding one warm and sunny night this week that a fresh pizza and glass of chilled wine at the local pub was a good idea, I was surprised as I placed my order when the pizza chef greeted me with a smile and enquired "How's your exhibition going?" I was taken aback, since I've not seen him for a few weeks. "How do you know about THAT?" I asked, intrigued.... "You emailed my wife and she told me!" he said with a grin, and I smiled back in rememberance. Of course I did! Along with everyone else I could think of in the area who might be interested....

So I wasn't so surprised later on that evening, still in the pub, when I saw another guy I'd not seen for a year, and he asked me the same thing! It's nice to know that the message is getting across and people remember.

And even nicer when my cousin from North Yorkshire rang me yesterday to ask the same question. This exhibition is giving people the opportunity to get in touch with me, which is lovely! It makse me feel all warm and smiley!

Infact, now I come to think about it, two women friends have mentioned it too when I bumped into each of them on different days this week. One of them was just coming back from a late lunch in town, and had a male colleague with her. She and I hugged in greeting and she introduced me to him, we shook hands and she mentioned to him that I'd got an exhibition on at the library and that she'd been but I'd not been on duty at that point (its sods law that I can hang around the library for three hours and not see anyone I know, but when I'm not there, they go!!!!). He looked at me with interest and said "So you've got your own crayons have you?" I smiled and said "I've got my own paint brushes as well". He said "But you could use your hands to smear the paint on" and I agreed and said "And I'd probably earn more money that way instead of painting properly with a brush!". He asked me a couple more probing questions about my work and when I said that I'd sold artwork to America, he commented "Well, its easy to sell oil paintings to the Americans!" followed by an aggressive "Gettttttttt a JOB!!!!!!!!!" I replied that I HAD one!!!! My friend decided it was time to get back to work and I said goodbye to her and to him and walked on. She's a really good friend of mine, but I wasn't sure about her colleague - whether he was being deadly serious and sarcastically critical and rude, or whether he thought he was being funny! I'm still not sure. But I'll ask her next time I see her. I found him to be aggresively rude for no apparant reason. Perhaps he speaks to everyone in that way!

Happy Birthday Blog - three years today!

Wow, three years blogging! I remember the first blog post I did and wondering what to say, never thinking that I'd still be doing it three years later! I had the chance at the time to do a newsletter and chose to write a blog instead. I may start a newsletter at some point, though. Its' all communication, isn't it?

I've made some special friends along the way and some of my friends in *real life* comment about things I've written about here, so even though I'm getting less comments than in the past, I perversely have more readers. Obviously they're very shy ones though,who don't think their comments are worth putting on my blog ...........

As for the goddesses painting, its Albert Dunn, I mean, all but done. Except for Kali whose causing me trouble - but then I suppose she would do, since she's the goddess of change and confusion, She's been trouble all the way through, but this time the trouble is that she has had too much work done on her and looks too sharp against the others. She needs softening about the edges (can you do that with Goddesses? Do they like it if you fiddle with them? Mmm.............). The others are softer and are flowing all together but Kali is just sitting there, alone, apart, quite sharp, too focused and too ......well ....powerful..... I think. Even though she IS a powerful Goddess. MMm....... I'll leave her over the weekend and look afresh at her on Monday to see what I can do to lessen her - not her power, just her fierce facial expression. The rest of the goddesses I am really really happy with and I think you'll love them when you see them too. I've certainly grown to love them, especially Diana, she's my favourite. I could look at her soft beauty all day long.............

And it looks lile my next commission is going to be a bit different to this current oil painting - a watercolour of a church for a special  70th  birthday present. Its a surprise, and hopefully it'll be a happy one. I understand that this particular church is very special to the lady in question - but then this is what I paint - special pictures for people - the 70 year old is obviously a religious lady - as its a Church of England church. But then, the Goddesses painting is for a male witch whose religion is Pagan. They both have their strong spiritual beliefs - I'm just delighted to paint something very special for them both regarding that! Its what I do!!!

Analysing me

I've been thinking about a conversation I've had with a good friend of mine this week (albeit by email, and albeit with many miles and the Atlantic ocean between us!). I've been thinking and analysing why I like painting erotic art and its interesting for me to look at it in depth, because a few people have asked me recently WHY I do erotic art. And there are quite a few reasons WHY. Some deep, some less so......

......its certainly an intellectual exercise for me, and I've always said that painting a picture is only one tenth of the thought process of producing it. But I also want my audience to think about the painting too, to react to it (hopefully in a positive way) so I try to involve subtle clues in various places, some intended, some created by serendipity and kept, and some are even found when I've not even known about them! So then the viewer will get whichever messages they've picked up and if its erotic, their mind will start to think erotic thoughts... I understand the thoughts I've INTENDED to put in the painting, but sometimes I find thoughts I hadn't considered are there. Wow! I love it when that happens! Because as my friend so eloquently says there is no more mystery or intrigue for me when I create a painting than there is for the author of a detective novel who knows which character committed the murder long before the last chapter...... and that is indeed true for the intended reactions. BUT this is one of the reasons why I like erotic art - that people will have different reactions to it than they would JUST looking at a pretty landscape or vase of flowers - then the reaction is just "that's nice!"- BUT for me to depict erotic art, I have to have a good understanding of what people like in a picture, and as an erotic image, what happens within their brain, and then I have to get in there and try to capture all of what they like, and put it down on paper to make them like it even more through shapes, line and colour! Its a sort of psychological visual conversation and communication. I want my images to be more spiritual and intuitive and emotional than "just a vase of flowers" - which I am very capable of painting, but am not inspired by it as a subject matter - there is no emotional commitment or exchange between the viewer and the artist.

So that's one of the reasons I like painting erotic art - the communication between me and the viewer.

And which is probably why I write a blog about being an erotic artist too!!! :)

Speaking through colour

I was chatting with my spiritual healer friend the other day and mentioned in passing that I was waiting for an order for art materials to arrive, amongst it some cobalt blue oil paint I need for my erotic landscape. I said that it was very expensive to buy and she asked why and I said that some paints are, depending on what they are made from. For instance French Ultramarine used to be made from Lapis lazuli and was incredibly expensive in the old days. "Oh" she said "I've got some of that, would you like to see it?" and indeed I did, very much! So, she brought out her crystals and I sat like a child in a sweetshop enthralled with all the colours, shapes and shiny stones infront of me. She picked out her pieces of Lapis lazuli to show me, and I sat with them in my hand, looking at their particular shade of blue, flecked with gold. How beautiful they were. I pictured the guy who had crawled deep underground to find it, had first seen it, had recognised it for what it was, had brought it into daylight, where it had been sent away to be cut and polished and sold, before finding its way into my hand where I could stare in amazed wonder at it.... And with the Lapis lazuli were other stones, equally as beautiful, a myriad different colours and shapes, all polished and shiny in their settings, they shone and gleamed in the light and enraptured me with their beauty. For I could see their colours and could relate to them for that, but my spiritual healer friend could see their energies and knew their individual powers. And we discussed what we each could see, and learnt from each other of what the other saw. And further into our discussions, it made us wonder about the properties of these stones and crystals, and especially Lapis lazuli, because if it is used as a healing stone, surely there must be something of its power still within it even if it's ground into pigment to paint with? Could its energies be chanelled to the artist and held within the canvas and experienced by the viewer? Healing art? Mmmm.... is that likely? Interesting thought........ so, here are the healing properties of Lapis lazuli:

It is deep blue flecked with gold, and can be found in Chile, Italy, the Middle East, Russia, Afghanistan and Egypt. It opens the third eye, and balances the throat chakra. It stimulates enlightenment, enhances dream-work and psychic abilities, and facilitates spiritual journeying. It releases stress, brings deep peace, processes enormous serenity and is the key to spiritual attainment. It encourages taking charge of life, releases repressed anger in communication or throat. It allows self expression without holding back or compromising. It brings honesty and compassion, encourages creativity through attunement to the source. It aids in expressing own opinions, harmonises conflict, teaches value of active listening, bonds relationships in love and friendship and aids expressing feelings and emotions, dissolves martyrdom, cruelty and suffering, alleviates pain, especially migraine. Overcomes depression, benefits respiratory and nervous systems and the throat. Cleanses organs, bone marrow and the immune system. Overcomes hearing loss, purifies blood, alleviates insomnia and vertigo and lowers blood pressure.

Wow! So, then, if that's the case, will looking at a painting with French Ultramarine in it give you a better nights sleep, make you a better communicator and make you feel happier? Somehow I'd love to think so. But I won't feel any of the above by using French Ultramarine, whether it's in oils or watercolours unfortunately. The reason I know this? Is because Lapis lazuli isn't used nowadays to make paint, its too expensive, the paint is made by a synthetic substitute now. What a shame. It would have been lovely to experience the inner peace the stones can give. Mmm... perhaps my spiritual healer friend will let me look at hers every so often instead..... or maybe I should get some of my own to hold!

Back in the world

I cannot begin to describe the feeling of euphoria now that the internet problems that I've been experiencing for the last three weeks are seemingly over! I've been totally and utterly frustrated that I've not been able to launch or view my new website (which I've worked so hard on to produce), view anything on the internet, receive or send emails properly, or communicate fully with the world! So, now that that is behind me, I can get on again and achieve positive things again instead of battle powerlessly against other peoples negativity!