Under Water

"Under Water", acrylic on 16" x 20" canvas

I had the good fortune of spending a rain-speckled evening in Redwood City with my mom a couple of months ago. We had a delightful dinner and walk, in which I snapped some color-saturated images I’ll be using for my next slew of nightscapes. I sneak-previewed this piece to you guys a little while ago, and just finished it- there are dabs of at least 5 different colors on my fingertips as I type.

Detail shot

I love the rainbow colors reflecting on the dark asphalt, of course, but since this shot was taken from inside of a car, you can see the dots of diffused light in the upper part of the windshield. I could have edited them out for the painting, of course, but I decided to keep them in. I wear glasses and I suppose I have always felt like I’m viewing the world from behind multiple layers; in this case, behind glasses, a camera lens and a windshield.

Hint of a windshield

The subtitle on this sign says “climate best by government test” which I find hilarious for some reason. I chose the title “Under Water” as a twofold reference to the literal translation of a rainy evening and the figurative use of this term for the real estate crisis, as nearly 30% of homeowners in the bay area are currently underwater. But who wants to think about that on a lovely rainbow-colored night?

Another (kinda blurry) detail shot

If you get my newsletter, you know I just changed policies on my original artwork- all cityscapes for sale at less than $500 will no longer have prints offered and will be sold as one-of-a-kind original paintings only, like Under Water! Available for $400 now on Etsy.

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In Rainbows

"Turkish Lamp", a photo

Day 296: Turkish Lamp, a photo

Today I’m in the bay area to help photograph a wedding with my mom. Neither one of us are professional photographers by any measure, but the bride and groom are pretty casual (and trusting!), so fingers crossed that it will all turn out well. Generally I enjoy the cloudy weather, but today’s one day I hope transforms from drizzle to daylight considering the circumstances! So since I’ll be out and about until this evening, I’m posting a photograph from my mom’s lovely home. This is a photo of a GORGEOUS glass chandelier mom picked up when we visited the Grand Bazaar in Turkey last year. Hopefully I have not already posted an image of this thing at some point this year… that’s how you know the year is almost over, I guess! I’m starting to wonder if I’m duplicating myself… If I did already use it, I’ll double up tomorrow to make up for it. 😉

Day 33

Even though I had hours to work on drawings at the hospital while I waited for news from the surgical team, I couldn’t focus. I called my husband this morning to give him an update on mom’s status and he sounded terrible. I could tell something was wrong. Turned out that his office is struggling financially and implemented a reduction in force today that included him.  I lost my job on Friday, and he lost his on the following Tuesday.

I stood there in front of the window near the waiting room staring out at nothing, trembling. Suddenly the cold, linoleum, sick-people-smelling hallway was even colder. I am a worrier by nature. I’d been able to keep the major worrying at bay since Rob had this great job with good pay that he was doing well at. And it wasn’t his fault, and I knew that. I looked out into the endless gray of the bay and saw my art dreams dissipate into the damp, colorless air.

I told him I would get another job right away.  He said he didn’t want me to, that he would find something, that I could keep trying to make things happen with my project. I let him know that even if I did go back to work soon I would still keep up with the project, and said those words we all say at times like these- it will be okay- even though we have no idea how we’ll make good on that promise.

Time ticked away, slowly, painfully, and eventually mom was out of anaesthesia and feeling a little better. We left her resting in the hospital overnight. Even though I just wanted to curl into a ball and cry myself to sleep, I headed out with my camera in my hometown. The City Hall where I got the business license for painting murals as a 16-year old loomed, stoic and silent and dark- except for a gorgeous stained glass mosaic. It’s a column of beautiful backlit rainbow colors. I parked and set the camera to its no-flash setting and took a few shots.

I’d like to say that today’s piece, this photograph, symbolizes a lesson I’m trying to learn- that even when it’s dark and gloomy, there are still beautiful, bright bits of light out there if you look for them. The cynical side of me does not share this perspective, but I’m about to drown my sorrows in pie, which is effective in silencing both the optimist and pessimist within me.

Day 20

There was a tornado warning in the BAY AREA today. It was raining so hard on the drive home that the sky merged with the freeway and all I could see was torrential downpour and tiny little bumps I was hoping were lane dividers. There were inches of water on the road and I couldn’t even tell how deep it was. Yet amidst all that craziness, I saw the brightest rainbow I have ever seen.

It was technicolor-dreamcoat fantastic. It was as if Rainbow Brite and Lite Brite got together and made a baby and that baby became the neon fabulousness of this double rainbow. It was so lovely that some people on the side of the road who had crashed into each other trying to make their cars swim through Highway 50 were admiring it.

In addition to being a promise from God that he won’t drown us like rats (even though it looks that way), I also took this glorious event as the following:

• A definitive sign that God feels Prop 8 should be overturned (He did throw that thing smack in the middle of the state capital and all)
• Inspiration for another adventure-in-pastel
• Reassurance that my Radiohead “In Rainbows” CD will still play all the way through even though it got a little scratched up

Enjoy! Here’s hoping we see marriage equality for all in California in the very near future.