Does this happen to you?

Whenever I make something - a painting or a piece of writing - that I'm pleased with (very rare event), I go back to it again after a bit to check it out. Obsessive compulsion? Maybe. But back to it I return when the first rush of euphoria evaporates. And then I see them all. The glaring flaws, the wrong choices. Yikes! I think, I did that???

Take the paintings I put up on my last post. I was happy with them when I made them. They came out in a short, glorious outpouring of creative energy. I was so happy with them. Then I hung them up on the wall. And then, then I saw my errors. For a few days every time I glanced at them I thought OK, they really need to be scrapped. I'll just paint over them - start fresh. But that's not so easy any more with my baby butterfly exploring every inch of her fairy forest with me in tow to protect her from evil beings like fluff balls and bits of paper and string and odd unidentfiable objects (where do these things come from anyways?)and the rest of the time feeding, changing or otherwise engaging her.

So I'm stuck with looking at my work and agonizing over it. Why am I never complacent with what I do? I think searching for perfection (in its absolute sense) is futile, but reaching for the highest, the best that I can do, is imperative, something I owe to myself. Sometimes I try my utmost, most times I feel I miss the mark in trying my utmost. Either way I'm constantly stretching myself to learn, to grow, to be better. I hope it's a good thing, because sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

Does this happen to you?

A picture I took of canna leaves a while ago became this:



Check out more versions here.

The minute-by-minute legacy

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in my bank account, or what my clothes looked like. But one hundred years from now, the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child. - an anonymous piece of wisdom I found floating in the blog world.

My own parents have had tremendous influence on how I view life and the universe. They have been a formidable presence, true, but in a way that was such a mixture of straight-forwardness and gentleness that I imbibed values without knowing it. At the same time, I can't recall not having a choice in things that mattered to me. Looking back, I realize that all my decisions were, in fact, made by me.

After SnuggleBug came along I recently asked my mom the secret of their parenting, and her answer was one word: Integrity. She said there was no conflict in values between herself and my dad and they therefore became one solid block of parenting policies. I respect them, probably because they always respected me and my freedom to choose. Because of this, we never had confrontations, but rather, open dialog. There have never been screaming fights or power struggles, let alone any kind of violence. When I talk to friends about this I am amazed at their amazement. Apparently, I have pretty unique parents.

I hope I can carry this privilege over to my own baby. And be important to her.

Feeling BLUE

And painting it. Blue is a very happy color for me, so all's good here. Our little BabyDuckling went and hid under her wing for an hour and I jumped at the opportunity to make something out of the mess (read paints and canvas) that's been inhabiting the dining table for a while.

Didn't have the time to do any detailed work with brushes so just dabbed paint straight on to the canvas and played with it with my fingers. What fun!
Now if only I could figure out how to post pictures of them here....



Aah...it works! This was the first piece I made. Doesn't have anything but paint on it but still has a look of texture to it. I used my fingers and my nails and a piece of torn-off card from a chalk carton to drag the paint around. Then these two followed. I had the underpainting already done on all three, but still, not bad for less than 60 minutes of work!

Two kinds of pablum

Last night we went to see DaddyBoy's step-sister's newborn baby, and I got to hold him! A little critter (my mom-in-law thinks it's hilarious how I turn babies into baby animals, but isn't that how they look?) so tiny and sweet, which such an innocent, trusting face that my heart melted multiple times. He had a cute little wrinkly face with cute little wrinkly eyes. Adorable!

Our own little ChunkyMonkey never had wrinkly skin, somehow. She was all smooth and shiny when she came out (well, after they had de-mucked her)- no flakes, no folds. But we didn't hold it against her and promptly fell in love with her anyways. At nine months she still makes me think of a star that fell from Heaven and there's nothing I won't do to help her feel loved and cherished.

It's funny how some (seems like a lot of!) people view babies in quite a different way, though. Their child-raising philosophies appear to be a lot about making the baby conform to a set of made up adult expectations, all geared to ensure that the baby causes the least disturbance to the parents' way of life. One sign of this is how many times I'm asked if my baby "sleeps through the night". I sometimes almost feel bullied into answering yes to that. The real answer is "Never!". Thank goodness I've never fudged that never, but there's a cult out there that makes it sound like you've failed as a parent if your baby wakes up at night and wants food and comfort. It's true I'm very new to this and I know there's so much I'll need to learn about parenting, and I really don't want to come off like I have it all figured out, coz I don't. But I do feel bullied. Of course, advice is free and rampant: Feed her rice cereal before putting her to sleep; don't nurse her to sleep; don't pick her up immediately if she cries; and worse, let her cry it out. Ouch. Do people forget they are talking about a baby here?

I hope I'm not being yet another opinionated mommy, but some things I'm just not comfortable doing. I would never talk down to someone about their stance on anything, so is it too much to expect the same respect?

A word (sorry, several) about Pablum: I never knew of this product until after the SnuggleBug came and suddenly the whole world wanted me to feed her this, or rice cereal (are these two the same thing?) as a rite of passage to solid foods. Never mind that a nursing baby is much better off without any solids for at least six months...so...from what I understand, the trademark name of Pablum was derived from the Latin pabulum, meaning foodstuff. Hmmm - is it just coincidence then that pablum means bland in English?

The other meaning for pablum is trite, naive, or simplistic ideas or writings; intellectual pap. Kinda like this post!

A busy few days

Last few days I've been fleshing out this blog with this and that. It's been fun adding stuff to it - making links etc. but I had my hands full with other things as well. And of course, that's on top of taking care of my little BabyDonut, who's been turning into an Inchworm lately with a cute half-crawl, half-creep sidle. I do Attachment Parenting with her, so I'm there for her always, which means I give her all my time when she's up, and she hardly sleeps. So any work I do for myself is usually relegated to the times when I should be asleep! It's getting better though, and I'd rather not compromise on her care anyway.

I was working on designing some logos for a friend the last couple of days of January, and I'm hoping she'll be able to use them. Maybe I'll put those designs on my blog too, later on. My back went out for a few days after that - it has a nasty habit of doing this when I strain it too much. Actually it works in my favor, really, since when it goes out it leaves me with no choice but to take some rest (relatively speaking).

Anyhow, I used that time to think about what I want to do for the annual Pelham Art Show that I take part in every May. Didn't last year though - our BabyBirdie was born that week. I had planned a home birth but after a few hours of labor the midwife determined a need for intervention, and it ended up being a C-section in the hospital. So taking part in any shows that week was out. This year I hope I can show something different. The last time I showed, I had made a whole bunch of black and white drawings that were really fun to do. This year I want to play with texture. Who knows what will come out of that - there are exciting things happening in my head!

I need to figure out what ink and paper to use for the Photoshop images I just made. Check out these leaves. They'll make cool note cards, I think. I may even keep some around at the art show - many other artists sell cards with their work there, and these would be great for any occasion - I think!