I first had to settle down and search my heart on what kind of style I like to create.  What thrills me.  What kind of art makes my heart beat a little faster.  Then I thought about what kinds of things can I do with that art?  I can make just paintings, but I see further than that!  I have some unusual skills, such as Corel Painter 12 software, that is rarely used in some fine art reproductions or ever the stationary circles.

I have researched canvas’, suppliers, websites to sell on, all the things that entail starting something new and realized, HEY do I even want to keep creating in the vein I am in now?  There was a dissatisfaction bouncing around inside me, draining me of creativity.  Was I succumbing to pleasing the masses and not myself?  At what point was I a sell out?

So I set out on a discovery trail by searching and finding art on the internet and even purchased the book, Finding Your Visual Voice. I noted what thrilled me, what colors excited me, what kind of brush strokes.  It helped immensely.  I actually thought I liked some other style more than I really did.  If I had gone down that path, it would have been fine, but I would not have been as happy.  So I took some time and have been putting effort into exploring my likes and dislikes and that thing, that creative vein that makes me hum.

I found I adore loose brush strokes, definitive and unwavering, decisive brush strokes, strategically placed.  I love abstract expressionism, not all, but those that burst with riotous color!  And it goes without saying I love texture.

I was in a silk painting business partnership for four years.  It was fulfilling but the little offshoots, while we were good at it, did not satisfy me and I came to resent it.  No way to do well in business!  It came to a close.  I had all the skills and knowledge to custom dye textiles and wearable art, but my heart was just not in it.

I am careful this time.  I want to make a lasting thing that I will enjoy, will help my family out and not cause undue dissatisfaction.  It takes time to figure all of that out.  It takes time to find out what makes you hummmmmm.

It was my brother Dan’s birthday celebration complete with in-laws out-laws and everyone in between and one daughter’s young friend for good measure.  We go to the restaurant the birthday person selects and we knew it would be this one place, actually several of us were dreading, when it was my brother’s turn.  It was not especially bad food, just blah food.  Lot’s of average french fries, average ribs, nasty broasted chicken (the thing my brother wanted) fried fried fried!  Not even the diet breaker craving kind of fried either!

So I order fried shrimp and home fries (blech) with my meal.  My mother ordered by pointing at her entree on the menu.  We all ordered.  Two waitresses took our order.  There is ONE thing we all like unanimously there, fried mushrooms!  We have gone there just for these and they were out!  No explanation, just took our order and came back and said, we are out, what else would you like?  Well NOTHING!  That is what we came for!  We stayed but should have walked out because truly, that is what we came for.  For a restaurant known for mushrooms would you not go out of your way to make sure you have some?  So, said restaurant on unofficial probation.

Enter tonite. Oh my goodness!  So OK.  Mushrooms were great.  Funny that.  Dear son #1 quips earlier in the evening, I wonder if they have mushrooms?  Well if they don’t maybe we can get something free!  Right away my little alarm in my body goes off, oh my, that would mean something goes wrong!  I stuff it aside in the little dusty corners of my mind.

Salads were fine.  So comes the entree’s.  A new person brings them out (never saw that here before)  He obviously does not know who has what, something I find irritating.   He asks and runs around a 12 person table giving food away until… he comes to mine or nobody’s, it depends on how you look at it!  “Who has shrimp and broasted potatoes?” He asks.  And waits.  No answer (we are animatedly talking and patiently waiting for our entree to be called out.  He asks again.  I say, taking the lead, how many people here ordered shrimp?  Me and my son.  Son has his, oh, must be mine.  I say I ordered shrimp but I ordered home fries (not that I really wanted them at all but I absolutely DID NOT want broasted potatoes there).  He offers the plate to me, I say I ordered home fries NOT broasted potatoes, I would like home fries.  Did I need to repeat that?  Seriously.  So back goes my order.

He goes back in the kitchen and brings out another platter of orders.  Gives them out.  And says everybody all set or something like that. My in-laws and my sis in-law and mother have no meals, we point that out.  Why did that need pointing out with starkly blank areas before them?  Very good, he goes back and checks.

We discuss the pasta dish my mother is getting with grilled chicken with some sort of al fredo or the like.  Out come more meals.  Sis in-laws meal and my mom’s….. SALAD?  My mom, 81, asks where is my grilled chicken searching through a newly placed salad before her looking in great confusion at the mysterious oily substance that we suspect is some kind of dressing on the side.  The waitress says, “The grilled chicken is coming, it is in the back, it goes on top.”  My mother very confused wonders if she made a mistake and ordered the wrong thing.  We wonder about it for a brief moment and I remember our pasta conversation and recall her pointing at the menu and then I tell her to ask for a menu.  She does and discovers she is not senile yet  and tells the waitress she got the wrong thing.  And further explains that why would she order a grilled chicken salad and have a salad for an appetizer?  I am still confused that if it was indeed a grilled chicken salad, why does my mother have salad and no grilled chicken and further consternated knowing that it SHOULD be pasta!

I bite into my shrimp, overcooked, nasty.  I discern it is not going to do any good to complain.  I ask my fellow shrimp eaters.  Same deal, nasty.  Mom’s meal comes.  Mother in law asks to have some.  They have not gotten their meal yet!  They have pointed this out several time during this extended time of serving and getting things straight always met with the same answer, “It’s coming.”

Suddenly out comes another shrimp dinner.  Ok what is this?  The waitress looks confused.  Oh just keep it, it’s on the house.  No one ordered a shrimp dinner, they DID order a slab of ribs for two, lost somewhere in the depths of the kitchen.  Jokes are made all around about having to go out back and slaughter the cow.  I look around.  People who arrived after us are happily noshing on RIBS!

All this time the waitress is calm, explaining the kitchen is having problems.  No fooling!  So we are folding our napkins, asking for carry out containers (I don’t want to take my home fries home, they tasted like shortening discs, no flavor, not even potato flavor)  We all realize my in-laws never ate!  Never got their meal!  We decide forget it and start to get ready to walk out and out comes a boxed up meal.  Father in-law is outspoken and unpleasant as usual lol!  Waitress says it’s on the house and proceeds to fix the bill.  We discuss how they have made a bad situation better by fixing the problems and trying to make us happy by giving us a free meal.  We get the bill, the ribs are on there!  We ask about it and the waitress says they changed their mind, we got the ribs, we pay for the ribs.  Well my father in-law explained where they could put the ribs in an unpleasant manner.  My previous discussion on how they handled bad service and a bad situation was reneged vigorously and my patience was worn clear through!  They definitely could keep the ribs.  Then we noticed they “recharged” my mom for her wrong dinner.  Now we were upset.  We are grumbling now.  The waitress fixes that when she sees we are upset and volunteers some free cake to go.  How come we got free cake and free shrimp but we could never get what we ordered?  RIBS?

Did I mention they don’t keep their bathrooms clean?  My mother always says that if they bathrooms are dirty, the kitchen is dirty, they do not care about cleanliness.  I won’t go back, brother’s request or not…

The waitress did not add the mandatory 15% gratuity although we left her something.  We never once saw the manager, only heard about her decisions.  It was the same woman who did not look happy that a party of 12 walked in to their practically empty restaurant.  They will not have that problem again.

I took note.

As a manager of a restaurant I would have personally gone over to the table and made it right, no matter what I had to do.  This blog would have never been written.  12 people would not tell of their bad experience and I would have kept my restaurants reputation intact.  I don’t expect it to make it in this recession with that attitude.

It’s so true what she says.  Just talking about the art of an artist you like does so much!  Popularity is key, good and bad.  The buzz that is created from mentioning, discussing etc is so valuable.

There are many ways to support the artist as she says in sharing a FaceBook page, forwarding a blog, sharing a new piece of art with a link on Twitter.  You never know where it could end up!

Please support your artist!  I will support my art friends on this blog also!  They are worth it!

This is the time of year I get three teens, well one not even preteen going on 25, ready for the school year and football season etc.  Making sure the gym shoes are taken care of, even those size 15′s my 13 yr old son has decided to grow into!  I mean I can’t just take a trip to the store with those ya know?  Books, binders, backpacks. Pens, pencils, highlighters. Notebook paper, graph paper, construction paper!  We are supplied!  And mom, tries to remember three schedules, three sign up dates, three batches of necessary papers and still have time for the creative process.  I think I will take the liberty of saying that doing all this IS creative lol!  It takes a creative person to manage to juggle all of this.

Hence the problem of working at home.  This works great during the school year when I am alone at home but not during this time between the lazy days of summer and the flurry of activity leading up to the dreaded “First Day of School”!

I did sign myself up for a Painter 12 Intro class at The Digital Art Academy.  I love that place.  Nice people, you learn tons and be ready to do HOMEWORK!  Painter 12 is just different enough to cause a bit of frustration.  I’m sure this will all clear up after the class.  It starts the last week in August.

I also have to submit some work, oh my lest I forget, to the Redbank Community Church and the “Taste and See” Exhibit.  Oh gosh I believe I have to stuff that in my schedule quick!  I’ve been ruminating on what to paint for that.  My friend Gerda Liebmann is the curator.

Today I created some new Biz cards.  I like ‘em.  They grew on me.  It was one of those free premium offers from Vista Prints.  They have nice stuff.  Of course it is never free and I did not leave there without spending over 30 bucks!

I left off some personal info at that bottom.  I made it the same font and lighter gray.

Oh gosh I have so many ideas I am all over the place!  I love graphic arts, acrylic painting, digital painting and all of that. I really need to focus to create a cohesive body of work :/.

That artwork on the card is one of my favorite paintings. I do truly love abstract with it’s color and texture.  I know it’s an acquired taste. I also know that many friends would rather I do the digital art of impressionism. But I really have to please myself first regarding that, what a thought!

I’ve purchased paintbrushes and paint though LOL!  I am an absolute office/art supply junkie.  I believe it stems from my lack of said supplies growing up where writing instruments were those golfing pencil stubs sharpened with a knife and paper was, well, a napkin!  I realize now, pointed out by some very insightful counselors that the very fact I was adopted accounts for the fact that my parents, well meaning of course, had no idea of the paper pencil deprivation that was consuming me as a child!  That they also had no idea that the skimpy supplies I was supplied here and there were skimpy!  My fledgling artist status demanded mega boxes of crayons (remember the delight of those big boxes of Crayolas on Christmas morning?) and reams of paper!  Alas lol!

Back to the creative slump.  I really love digital art on Photoshop and Corel Painter.  Corel Painter seemed to take too much effort for this slump but I seemed to do better with images and putting collages together and different things to make up some banners for websites for some friends and myself.

This for a friend on Blogtalk Radio.

This for my Pastor’s and their new endeavor!

For another friend!

You get the picture!  But seriously I need to get going on painting again!  I signed up for a couple of online classes to kick me in the booty!   One by Daniel Edmonson .  I love his style and if I can ever wrangle my patience long enough to make something that looks a little like realism… HAHA!  Boy I tell ya I love to splash color on anything, hence my abstract art tendencies!  Sorry to say those lessons are still waiting for me to start them!

My good friend Vicki gave me this link today! Creative Exercises by Benoit Philippe who has been so kind as to offer this eBook for free!  YES FREE!  May only good things come back to him!

By the way, my friend Vicki is part of a group of ladies that sort of got formed (dropped into my lap) that gather for painting/art/coffee klatch.  It’s very stimulating and soul comforting.  Life has made me extremely busy but we still have a private group on FB.  I highly recommend communicating with your fav creative types often!

I am slowly healing and coming out of this stressful time of my life and effective creativity stopper.  But it takes time.  I SHALL PREVAIL!

I feel a lot younger than I am.  Some people even put me 10 years younger than I really am! I’ll take it!  But that is not the point any longer.

I go through thoughts of “Wow, did I miss it?  The whole point?  The whole point of me being on this earth?  Where did the time go anyway? Someone stop that clock!!”

I’ve decided I have waited to officially become an artist for too long.  After all WHO decides if you are, if you are not?

I think I held my own standards of what I thought an artist was.  It was kind of generic, kind of a floaty out there thought, nothing really tangible, but always something that I have not achieved.

Then in a span of a week I had all kinds of people say things about me being an artist.  “Well you KNOW you’re an artist!  That’s how artists are.  And Kelly is an artist.”  etc…

Hmmm when did I arrive?  Why did I miss it?  What was I thinking that I was doing all these years when I produced art in all it’s forms? Cooking?  Delivering mail?  Answering telephones?  Driving a truck?  I was producing art!  Ergo, I am an artist!

Wow, like I am almost 50, wondering about my destiny etc so on and so forth and I am IN my destiny!  Striving to BE what I already AM!  How many of us are doing that?

I’ve always wanted to change the world.  Make it a better place.  Help people and help them be happier.  Heal them, love them, make them see their worth.  I’m a pretty good cheerleader I am told!  But yet, I forgot to cheer lead myself.  I think I am going to do that.  It’s a strange feeling, lifting myself up!

Things changed drastically in the time I have realized I am who I am!  I am free to consciously create on PURPOSE!  I can guiltlessly carve out hours in my day to create and do art!  Previously it was a guilty pleasure.  Kelly’s little hobby.  I squeezed funds here and there to work with substandard materials because it WAS a hobby, so I thought.  I was an avid hobbyist. I was a PASSIONATE hobbyist.

I can buy a really GOOD canvas now, guilt free.  I can buy really GOOD for real for real artist paints!  I do not have to apologize.  I do not have to be embarrassed to call myself an artist.  I can do all things art now with a freedom I have never known!

I cannot tell you the freedom and lightness I feel now.  What all this has done for me as a person.  I made silk flags and scarves and hand painted them for years yet I was a business person to me, not an artist.

Guess what!  I really AM AN ARTIST!!!

WHO are you?

Have you ever felt that you have changed so much that what you were, what you wrote was not relevant?  As if you were not you back then?  That’s how I feel now.  That’s how I am now.  I am not that person.  That which was all fresh and all new then is stale as week old bread with a side of mold.  There for I feel it is time to update and renew and redo this blog.  Perhaps a new header, a new theme a new direction.  I am little miss ultra google researcher.  Perhaps I will place my well found articles from my laser like searches on here.  SOMEONE can benefit from them I am sure!

I have again changed my focus and medium in art from silk painting to acrylic or whatever I feel like painting with.  From a blank white length of silk to canvas.  It’s like night and day and I love it all.  I am a beginner all over again.  I’ve never been able to keep myself tied down to one medium.  I’ve gone from drawing to sculpture in marble and wood to watercolor and pen and ink to silk and acrylic painting.  Oh and throw a little tie dye in there!  I just got rid of all my textile dye items!  Ah freedom to begin anew!  Oh and I MUST not forget my foray into quilting and jewelry making!  It never stops!  So much to do and so little time.

I admit I feel a little ADHD when it comes to art.  I am like a kid in a toy store!  I wanna try this or I wanna try that!

There is one thing that still fits.  This blog’s name. Perceptive Regeneration.  Yep!  That’s me!