Long Time No Speak

Ah, where to begin other than "It's been a while, eh?". Well, it has been a while and I have been rather busy, but now I actually have some time to write...

We're officially living in New Mexico now...and it's definitely not Belgium. Truth be told, I miss Belgium with a passion like you wouldn't believe. I've met some wonderful people here so far, but, I'm not a fan of the heat. Or the drivers...the ridiculous amount of time it takes to get from one side of town to another. Just..meh. I miss the lush greenery of Europe in addition to how slow paced it is. New Mexico..uh, Albuquerque to be specific, is a whole different beast that will take some getting used to, that's for sure.

Since we're going to be here for a while, we ended up buying a home which is now my personal project. We STILL have stuff in moving boxes since my attention had been divided between working and painting projects. Now, I'm no longer working due to a Viper infesting the work environment... I didn't get paid enough to put up with constant verbal abuse. So, I opted to leave and start my painting business that I had going when I lived in California. Hopefully that will pick up some speed and I can rely on that for a main source of income rather than being someones personal whipping bitch. Besides, who wouldn't want to be their own boss and do something they love? Plus, now that we're back in the States, I can get my camera fixed and get back into photography since there's some pretty interesting desert scenery to capture on film.

There's so much more to catch up on, but frankly, I don't have the focus right now to type out everything. Lots and lots are going on at the moment, but, I figured I'd at least do a post so people knew I was still alive and kicking.

Now that I have time, I should be able to post more consistently.

Take care,

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Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Some of my readers have known me for years (prior to starting this blog), while others have known me since I've moved to Belgium. For the ones that have known me for quite some time, you know that I did paintings, sculptures, restoration pieces and a lot of other types of media art pieces. I absolutely loved where we were in California because I loved painting Golden Poppies, enjoying the cliff side landscapes near the ocean, or just enjoyed making random doodles and coming up with spinoff designs. 

When we were in the process of moving here, I was extremely upset that I couldn't bring any of my paints. NONE of them. I have hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of acrylic and oil paints that are in storage (and most likely unusable whenever we move back to the States) in addition to a lot of my other supplies. I managed to bring my conte' crayons, pastels and other "solid" work mediums with me, but it's upsetting to have to buy the majority of the stuff to replace what's missing. Sure, I can buy stuff on the economy here, but, it's expensive. Given, good quality art supplies are expensive as is, but with the exchange rate sucking right now (and in general), I end up having to pay more for simple things.

Despite living in a beautiful country, traveling and seeing fabulous places...I've been in this funk where I haven't really been too motivated to work on any pieces. I can honestly say that a lot of it has to do with my Mom passing away. Most of the pieces I did after her death were not along the lines of what I normally produced, which caused the majority of them to get tossed. I essentially "retired" from doing anything since I wasn't in a good place of mind. . Most of my pieces are in storage back in California, or I sold them off to friends in the process of moving since we were wanting to get rid of extra weight. I think there's only 1 of my paintings up in our current house, and it's actually in my office rather than in the hallway or the living room...I suppose I see it as good enough for my office for me to see, but no one else. As I was working in there yesterday, I pulled out my "tackle box" of supplies to see what all I still have on hand, found my easel and sketch pads...it's interesting to see what your "mood" was several years ago when you see it reflected in a scribble.

I'm getting the "itch" back that I used to have. That's a good thing, right? Some days, I feel like I can verbally express myself when it comes to how I'm feeling, while other days I feel like it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kinda thing. It's easier to just keep what I have to say to myself verses actually just saying something, because, everyone..in some way.. gets themselves involved in something even though it doesn't involve them from the get go. Know what I mean? Maybe, maybe not. Stress relief, I suppose. Seems like everyone uses me as their venting well or secret keeper, which there's nothing wrong with that because I appreciate that they feel they can trust me...but, I can't seem to get that respect in return. Nothing is ever really kept "between" people, in a sense. I dunno...I'm rambling, but I don't feel like I have that sort of "reliability" with people, so I rather invest myself into my old hobby / profession verses setting myself up for additional headache and drama. 

On that note, off to scribble my cares and worries away..

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Day 22 - A Website

If you asked my husband what kind of stuff I like, he'd instantly say "the expensive kind". It's not like I intentionally find things that cost a lot of money, I just like things that look cool / unique, which usually end up being somewhat pricey. * sigh *

I was doing some window shopping online cause I'm interested in getting some art pieces for our house that reflects "us", as in our family. I like things to look older / renaissance-like.. ornate... pretty much anything within that guideline. Well... I found an artist that has just the type of stuff I'm looking for. His name is Sid Dickens.  He makes "memory tiles" of all various designs and you can get different ones to suit your style, then hang them up in groups:

When you look around the site, you can actually use an interactive part to figure out which ones you might like with your wall color behind the tiles. VERY cool and oh so dangerous for me! After doing some picking, moving around and changing colors of the wall.. I figured out which ones I'd want for us. Thing is, these tiles run, roughly, $90-$100 a piece. Sooooo if I'm wanting to start picking these pieces up, I'll have to do it once in a blue moon and possibly ask Eric for one as an anniversary / birthday / Christmas present, lol.

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