Engagement

My cooking-loving friends spend hours making soups, breads and full-course meals.  They seek out recipes and herbs and make magic.

My gardening friends know the names of plants I only have a nodding acquaintance with--and know how to care for them. 

When I hired Laren, a landscape designer, I watched my yard--after two years of freeze and heat and neglect--bloom into a veritable painting of purples, pinks, reds, whites.  I asked her son yesterday if he's learning all this from his mom and he said he's not interested, but for Laren, it's a passion and an art and I'm one of her happy clients. 

Initially, she asked me what colors I liked and brought pictures of native plants--all native--and drew the yard as she imagined it.  In the fall, she created a design and readied the yard.  Now that it's all blooming robustly and butterflies and bees are busy pollinating, she says that the reason the plants have grown so well and so fast, even in this current drought, is that the ground was ready, softened, and mulched three months or so before we planted.  

Jan often shares her delicious meals with me--a healthy soup, a main dish, occasionally a yummy dessert.  I appreciate her artistry,  I enjoy everything she brings, I even ask for recipes--but I rarely spend the time and planning necessary to actually cook. 

She recently made two gorgeous quilts for her twin graduate grandchildren, and she comes over from time to time to gel print with me.  I give her duplicate art supplies, she gives me food.  (I used to feel guilty because I rarely returned gifts of food.)

We don't all have the same passions, but  all creatives have a passion for what they do.  

Yesterday I went out to work on my collages, and I literally couldn't pull myself away from gel printing. It's so much fun that I now have enough gel prints to cut into pieces and wallpaper my entire house. 

I probably won't be doing that as it would require hours on ladders, but who knows?

The point isn't to make wall-paper; it's one of those things in which I'm fully engaged in the pleasure of doing it.  It was 2:00 and then it was 6:00; where did all those hours go?  Brayer-ing acrylic paints on the press, then scratching and stenciling parts, then pulling prints with glassine paper, calligraphy paper, printer paper, origami paper, and tissue paper. 

If a piece has possibilities for one of my collages in progress, I cut or tear a section and glue it on. The teacher I'm following right now is Michele Holden, "All My Art and Soul" channel on You Tube. Her process intrigues me and she explains her reasons for her aesthetic choices. 

She's also introduced me to the idea of working with a limited color palette and mixing all colors from four or five primary colors and black and white. 

When I pull a print, it's like a "box of chocolates"--you never know what you're going to get. 

It's not so much about making art, more like discovering it, even more like just having a wonderfully happy day in spite of the brutal heat of South Texas summer.