Joy

As I had noted in a previous post, my artwork is a very personal thing for me and I paint and draw primarily because it makes me happy. However, I'm honored and humbled to have discovered over the past couple of weeks that apparently my creations bring joy to others as well since I've sold a few pieces! I put the money to very good use by replenishing some of my supplies and I've been happily painting and drawing all week, mixing things up as the mood strikes me with acrylics, soft pastels and pastel pencils, colored pencils, and even a touch of pen.

I cannot offer enough thanks to all the very wonderful experienced and extremely talented artists out there who so generously offer their expertise in a multitude of ways: posting free tutorial videos, kindly responding to questions about their craft, and generating helpful newsletter articles - their advice, inspiration and knowledge have been a veritable treasure trove of knowledge and I am forever in their debt.

6 Hours of Tanglewood

Today was the 6 Hours of Tanglewood mountain bike race. I was originally going to sign up solo since I couldn't find any local ladies interested in partnering up for a duo. However, luckily I found an awesome teammate on the biketriad forum (my teammate's hubby has some amazing photos and video of the race posted there as well). I had never met Laura in person prior to this race, although we had emailed a couple of times over the past year. Turns out I could not have asked for a better female duo partner, and we had a terrific race, taking second place only a lap behind the first place team (who I heard were pros!), and a lap ahead of third and fourth place.

The trails at Tanglewood were a lot of fun - tight and twisty, with some very fast sections, a few log crossings, smatterings of rocks, some offbeat bridges and short steep climbs throughout, with a nice flat finishing stretch.

I had an incredible time, and hopefully Laura and I will be teaming up again soon!

Teamwork

If I do say so myself, Steve and I make a pretty good team. While I've been busy painting, he's been honing his talents at hand-making wood frames (he has also become quite skilled at cutting mats, I might add). He does some very impressive work - taking raw wood and turning it into gorgeous fully finished handcrafted frames. In my humble opinion, his beautiful handiwork gives a delightfully clean and finished look to my canvases and I'm thrilled with the results.

Below is a close-up look at the acrylic-on-canvas Fairytale Forest Series in their new custom handmade wooden frames that Steve built, stained, varnished and attached all backing and hanging hardware himself. How lucky am I to have such a talented husband who makes my works look so nicely finished?!

Fairytale Forest Series Closeup ©2014 Tammy Kaufman

Here they are hanging on the wall:

Fairytale Forest Series ©2014 Tammy Kaufman

I hope to have more of our handiwork posted soon!

One Thing

Eleanor Roosevelt is credited with saying "Do one thing every day that scares you", so to follow her advice, I'm working on setting up an online gallery of my paintings which I plan to link to from this blog. This is a really scary thing to me, putting my heart and soul out there like that (sort of like the awkward old nightmare where you show up at work or school only to discover you forgot to get dressed first!), so I hope anyone reading this blog and eventually seeing the gallery once it's up will be kind, at least at first. I don't know that I'm ready just yet for actual true constructive criticism since painting has thus far actually been more of a sort of "healing" activity for me. And let's be honest, at this point I think I'd almost prefer to be lied to and told I'm not a terrible artist (I still cringe and feel so undeservedly arrogant even calling myself that). But I'm going to give it a go anyway, thanks to the motivation to do so from some very supportive established online artists - a tremendous thank you for the encouragement goes out to jwjonline.net, skinnyartist.com, et al. Hopefully before too long I'll feel like I've developed enough experience and confidence to handle true critiquing, both positive and negative. Heck, depending on how long it winds up taking me to get the artwork photographed and uploaded, maybe even by the time the gallery is up and running.

Washing Away the Dust of Everyday Life

While fully realizing I am a Beginner - with a capital B - I finally managed to summon the courage to share my elementary attempts at painting and drawing with a handful of friends and coworkers. And I was surprised to find that they apparently did like some of my creations. As these are people I trust to be honest with me, I believe they were actually giving me their genuine opinions and not just trying to avoid hurting my feelings.

I'm still discovering my own style, so many of my drawings and paintings are kind of all over the place, from realism to impressionism and everything in between and beyond, but I'm having a lot of fun "finding myself" in the world of art. During this journey, I am forever grateful to all the artists out there who have so kindly published free online video tutorials. I've learned so incredibly much watching and following along with them, and the tips and techniques they've shared have been invaluable.

I've been jokingly called "Grandma Moses" because I discovered art at an older age, and have already done more than 50 drawings and paintings in less than two months, but I can only hope to end up being as prolific - and talented - as she was! I have, however, been finding this activity to be a freeing and relaxing experience that somehow seems to make every day better. Pablo Picasso once said "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life", and I am certainly finding that to be true for me.

Obviously, I'm still very much a beginner, but I don't recall any activity I've ever attempted where being a novice was so incredibly much fun. Even if I never, ever develop any real talent or skill for drawing and painting, that's okay. This is my own personal haven; my creations are really just for me and don't have to please anyone else or meet anyone else's expectations. Art has become such a wonderful refuge from the everyday that I can no longer imagine my life without it, no matter where my skill level - or lack thereof - may lie.

It's a Bird...

It's a plane. It's a...

FLYING SQUIRREL!

Yes, that's right. We have a flying squirrel taking up residence in our previously unused bluebird house. It's adorable and we hope to get a photo of it soon.

Catharsis

“Why don’t you believe you deserve to be happy?”

It was a simple, logical question, but one I at first didn’t understand. So I just sat there, not sure how to reply to my well-meaning friend’s very open and honest query as to why I seemed to consistently sabotage my opportunities for joy and fulfillment. And then suddenly, one memory from a childhood I barely recall came to the surface. I saw myself as a small child of perhaps five years, so proud of my stuffed teddy bear and wanting to show it off on a home movie. But instead, I was relegated to the background so my family could instead video my vibrantly flamboyant and outgoing three-year-old sister dancing while I was laughed at and minimized for not being comfortable trying to dance myself. I adored my sister then, as I do now and always will, but as a small child I couldn’t understand why not being like her seemed to mean I wasn’t as good?

This brief and painful memory was soon followed by more.

Being ridiculed publicly when I was unable to “hold it” longer than I was capable of while out shopping and had an accident, again as a small child, and my shame of having the attention of strangers brought to me for losing bladder control. Especially since I had been asking to go to the restroom for hours previously, but kept being told “after we look at one more rack of clothes”.

Being the only kid at school who made the Honor Society who had not one single family member show up to the induction ceremony. The parents of one of the other kids were kind enough to invite me to join them when they saw me sitting all alone, but I still vividly recall the feelings of being embarrassed, emotionally naked and abandoned.

Having my family and their friends mimic me when I mispronounced their friend’s nickname. They may have thought they were laughing “with” me, but as a young child, it most definitely left me feeling that I was being laughed “at” and held up for ridicule – I never recalled hearing the word “cute” associated with the laughter.

And the uncomfortable, twisting in my chair, memories continued on briefly until thankfully they began to subside and I was able to give a little more thought to my friend’s original question. I realize now as a middle aged woman that my family surely loved me and never intended to make me feel insignificant or not good enough. And I would venture that the embarrassing, belittling experiences I had as a child were merely extensions of what those adult family members themselves had been subjected to during their childhood, a sort of perpetuation of a sad emotional downward spiral passed from generation to generation. So I don’t blame my family – I do, however, feel sympathy for them because I know how hurtful those experiences were for me when I was young and it had to be the same for them as well when they were children.

As painful as recalling those memories has been, though, I’m glad some of them resurfaced after all these years. Because now I’m beginning to understand a little bit more about myself. What I began to comprehend was that a childhood filled with feelings of being insignificant, minimized, inadequate and unable to compete apparently has transcended into my adult life and in some weird way has caused me to believe that I have to always feel that way and that success, achievement and accomplishment are not options available to me. I think by realizing that, I'm hopefully now going to be able to take the first steps toward resolution and understanding that what I perceived as a child is not necessarily the reality, and that those perceptions are not set in stone as to how they have to continue. 

More importantly, recalling those memories is helping me learn to have more compassion toward myself. For the first time, I was actually able to see myself as a child – a small, helpless, bewildered, embarrassed child who felt minimized and insignificant. And I wanted to take my younger self into my arms and hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay. And that she is important, she does matter, and she is just right the way she is, precious imperfections and all.

I wanted to tell my younger self – and my current self too – to always remember the Buddha’s wise and beautiful words:

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.