A New Journey Awaits...

It's been a few years since I've visited my MemoiART blog, the one that began in the summer of 2012 with a few graduate school friends and ended up becoming a safe place for me to share my deepest thoughts, my research, my art...in a sense, my heART.  And now, 5 years later, I sit here on a lovely Thursday afternoon and consider my life and where it's been.  And where it's going.

I just completed my 24th year of teaching and I am taking a year leave.  My headaches have gotten to a place that I need a break.  I'm not sure what's causing the head "tingles" that I deal with daily, but my neurologist and I suspect it could be mold in my old art room, so saying goodbye (which was one of the most difficult things I have ever done) is in my best health interest.  I am keeping the Gwinnett County door open and will possibly come back next year to a new school and a new "art-venture" but in the meantime, I am planning on writing and creating and traveling and living BIG.  I want to share my 24 years of teaching experience with teachers...I want to teach children in small group studio camp settings...I want to put my toes in the sand and BREATHE!

I'm not sure I've really been able to adequately breathe since that horrible summer of 2008 when my Croy was taken from me too soon.  I try.  I really try.  I go through the motions of breathing and I believe on most days, I find JOY because I am blessed.  I have a career that I am passionate about, a husband that I mostly adore, an incredible smart beautiful daughter and friends from each corner of my life.  Again, I am blessed and I don't take these gifts for granted.  I give thanks daily.  But I have found that when I turned 50 I became angry.  Not a frowning, pissed off, horrible person on daily basis kind of angry, but a "deep down inside something isn't quite right" angry.  So I'm ready to take a good hard look and see why.  It could be as simple as coming to terms with the fact that my son should be turning 21 next month.  The fact that he's not here with me continues to rip my heart open daily, but it will be 9 years since the "nightmare" and I have found authentic joy and have lived big FOR HIM.  I know that he lives in my heart and so I breathe for him and I live big for him.

But yet, there is this anger?  I'm restless.  I'm "bored".  I am seeking adventure and a new journey. My beautiful Carson is living life fully, she is in her second year of working on the SIC beach patrol and will begin her sophmore year at Carolina where she excelled last year in the journalism school.  My Chuck continue to amuse me and bring me joy and together, we have made the decision to sell all of our collected stuff in the suburbs and RUN to the beach as fast as we can.  I think the suburbs are slowly killing me.  That could be the beginning of my anger.  Suburbs.  There is just so much to say, but I will wait and perhaps create a poem / art piece on that sad subject.  But I do believe a part of me will miss it, afterall, this suburb held me and my family up during the nightmare.  My school, my staff, my students literally saved me.  I can't complain about MY suburb, I believe it's just suburbs as a whole.  There's something so fake about them.  I am tired of FAKE.  I am on a search for real. REAL living - and perhaps when I find it, I will be able to fully BREATHE again.

"Living...One Breath at a Time" mixed media original - dewestudio 2016

Our travels begin on Sunday.  I have been blessed to work since school ended teaching my summer art camp to 40 incredible children, working at the High museum teaching teachers about the integrated ways they can use printmaking techniques with their students and at ArtsNOW teaching teachers about the art of reflecting...through Narrative Necklaces.  I think the more I talked about reflecting yesterday the more I realized that I sorta stopped reflecting a few years ago and just started going through the motions of living.  Sometimes reflecting hurts too much.  And if something hurts too much, we turn away from it and ignore it.  But I can't ignore it anymore, so my MemoiART begins again.

...and I will breathe again!

my morning poem - june 23, 2015

...and sea brush mingles 
             with the pale oyster shell dust 
                                                   while my children's footprints whisper in the morning air....


beachwalk memories 
i hold tight to my heart 
as i stroll the morning sands 

                                                  and watch the sun emerge upon the earth

I'm Back...

It dawned on me the other night that it's been years...YES, years since I last posted and so much has gone on over the years that it would make your head spin so we will leave that for another entry, but the bottom line is, I am ready to start writing again.  Let me rephrase that, I have continued to write and create but I haven't been sharing it and I believe that I am ready to share my writings again. Blogging has become quite a big deal these days so it makes me happy to think that I was doing it back in 2012 here and there and now, in mid 2015, I am ready to take on the challenge again.  I want to reflect and create and share...so what better place to do that then through this MemoiART blog.  And although the initial idea was that Drew, Tammi and I would write together, it didn't pan out that way, so I will keep this gem as my own.  I hope you all join me and together, we can learn and grow as art educators, as moms, as researchers, as artists...as women!

More ART Matters Thoughts...

I was excited to be asked to submit a 50 word comment about why I think ART MATTERS...

Here's what I came up with (and 50 words aren't many - this was a tough task!)

ART matters because OUR CHILDREN MATTER!

…they need to communicate creatively and divergently in environments that encourage problem solving skills!

…they must be able to apply their knowledge to real world applications through their “Heads”, “Hands” and most importantly, their “Hearts”! 

…they must desire to stay in school…to learn…to express themselves…to care! 

…they need to understand that ART documents our past, our future and perhaps most importantly, OUR NOW! 

ART Matters because OUR CHILDREN MATTER!

NGHS...Art Matters...for the NAEA 2012

NGHS...Art Matters...for the NAEA 2012

Check out this video that my students just completed for the NAEA!

A November Post:

The written text is becoming my media of choice this month.  

I feel as though I must write daily.

…another shower and another day of finding comfort in writing my Croy's name on the steamed shower doors,  just as I did in my youth - my teenage years where I wrote my latest crushes names on the steam filled door in a big heart, or with an eye and a tear, the dramatic teen mastering the precision of drawing an eye ball, showcasing  the shadows that silently fall in the tear drop, the subtle lines, grey tones, whites, tints, shades.  Shadows.

I always found comfort there, comfort in my "shower drawings - my shower art". 

Personal.  Private.  Mine.

Now, as I seek ways to urge myself to make it through another day without my Croy, I find a renewed comfort, a peace, writing his name in script followed by a heart,

< my heart >

wrapped around his name.  His heart wrapped around my soul - my very existence. 

I close my eyes and rinse the shampoo from my hair and often, when I open them, he is gone. 

                                  croy is gone

His name has quietly dissolved back into the steamed walls and I am left wondering how to keep his name, his memory, his youth and his magic alive. 

Through my art - through my text - through my narrative - through my teaching. 
I don't know. 
But I know I must - it has become my "art with purpose".

Art

With

Purpose.

October 25, 2012

It's been too long - but I have more MemoiART to add as I am living such a busy life as mom, art teacher, grad student, wife, friend, artist, writer, presenter, speaker...I'm tired.

Music has been a big part of my life the past few months - specifically the Indigo Girls.  As I listen to their music, I am fueled to dig deep and attempt to figure out the "where am I going...where am I headed" feelings that I am haboring daily.  I'm not sure if this is mid life "stuff", 4 years of hidden grieving "stuff", or complete and utter exhaustion - bottom line, life is good and music and art most definitely SAVE!

Here are the lyrics to "Closer to Fine" - Thank you to these incredible song writers, guitarists and singers - from morning to night, I listen to these words and I keep moving.  I am working on an art series and a few personal poems that are inspired by this song.

Songwriters: AMY ELIZABETH RAY and EMILY ANN SALIERS - Indigo Girls!

 

I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine