I think it time to rejuvenate White River. I would say that approximately two and half years of my life have been framed by the act of selling my house and land and moving. Miserable, nerve-wracking, painful, agonizing, and finally wholly debilitating. Today is the one-year anniversary of the paper signing and moving.
As the process escalated my creative life declined in direct proportion. I cannot remember the last time I had a creative impulse that wasn't "faked" or created artificially while I tried to fool myself into believing I was still an artist.
I realized I needed help. I got it in the form of a morning with Shanley Triggs who gave me a lesson in how to begin a watercolor painting. VALUES VALUES VALUES. That was a week ago Wednesday. She also loaned me a book How To Make Colors Sing by Jeanne Dobie. As I listened to Shanley, I honestly felt something stir inside. After she left I ordered a palette like hers (a Pike's palette) and the Dobie book.
The next day Susan Abbott, on a two-day painting trip through the Champlain Islands, spent the night. We talked far past my bed-time about many things. The next morning I told her about Shanley's lesson and she asked to see my sketch. She got her sketch book and we stood on the back porch for 45 minutes while she talked and I listened. While she sketched and I watched. I felt fire in the belly at last. Onto the fire which Shanley had lit, Susan poured gasoline.
Now I am waiting for the palette, which has not yet arrived, so that I can set it up per Susan's instructions and with the colors on the list she gave me. I will be making a palette chart with saturated colors also per instruction.
I've given you the description of what has happened; for what my soul has felt, there are no words that are not overused, and I refrain from trying to embellish the simple word "grateful".
That black hole inside me is now being filled with colors again.
