Subtract 5

 

 Salad Days

Watercolour and black marker
on Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012
(I'm going through a salad phase --
not eating it (I do that
every day), but wanting to draw and
paint the wonder of salad. Okay
I am crazy -- crazy for
salad, and my son Sam made an
awesome one tonight.)

Going through my draft posts I found this one that I wrote
last year.  I liked the thought.  Frequently people who
are in good health, young (enough) and fit tell me that
they're too old to do (fill in the blank with a long cherished
dream).  Last year thinking about that I decided to look
back on where I was five years ago.  Now of course
the information is about six years ago, but I can add to that.

Original idea written last year

Where were you  five years ago?  I'd been to Europe
for the first time in years, and enjoyed the art
and culture in Warwick, England, Stuttgart, Germany
and Stockholm, Sweden.  I was painting, and
appearing in a few shows a year. I had one child still
in High School, and a small art community that I
loved.  And I had no idea that you were out there
waiting.

You know how we worry about what will happen.
These worries are often in vain.  Since that very
happy year, so much has happened in my art career.

And the main reason is this.  Starting and keeping
going with the blog.

The addition

Lucy

Acrylic and gold leaf on canvas

36 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2007

Today I look back on 2007, which is five years ago.
In May 2007 I took a photo of a  portrait I did of a
beautiful young woman named Lucy.  I am glad to
see that for me that work done 5 years ago still holds
up.  When I read the writing of Mike Dooley from
Tut.com, whose work I enjoy so much, he always
says, "let go of the hows." I tell my students --
too old?  Look at me I'm having the best time I
have ever had."  What's happened since 2007
-- plenty.  I've written 1300 blog posts.  Just that is
something. I started the blog in 2008 in February.
It was a cold, hard February.

That very year I broke my leg, and convalescing
in front of my computer met some blog friends
who I have known ever since.  You know that in 2009
 I was on the Oprah Winfrey show, and I exhibited my
work at the Florence Biennale. In 2010 I showed my work
 in New York City for the first time, and have now
exhibited there three years in a row.  I have been on TV
shows.  My life has been charged.

But for me the most amazing thing has been meeting all
of you.  It's wonderful knowing I have friends in many parts
of the planet, and caring about people in Tucson,
and Colorado, Texas and New York, Boston and Chicago,
Victoria, B.C. and London, England, Ireland and Germany,
 Australia and Italy.  You can't tell me that that hasn't expanded
 my joy in life in hundreds, if not thousands of ways.

Where were you five years ago?  Do you look back
and marvel?  I love some of the work I was doing then, and
honour it, plus I delight in how my ideas have been
transformed and fueled by you and your often daily
thoughts and work.

Thank you.  I am really grateful for the four + years
we've spent together.

Have a -relishing-the-present-day.