Tugging at Heart Strings

I've only been painting seriously for the past 3-4 years, and during that time there have been several pieces I have painted that have evoked a strong personal emotion.  Usually they have been pieces that I have created that focused on my father who passed away 4 years ago today.   

I recall that shortly after his death I tried to do a piece that focused on this favorite cowboy boots.  It was still very painful but somehow putting my feelings on a canvas helped with my healing process.  Since then, I have created 3 more pieces that show him as a young cowboy on the professional rodeo circuit.   It is difficult to explain the emotional experience you feel as an artist when painting something so very personal.  

Riding the Buckskin

This is the last piece I painted of my dad in 2014.  I call it "Riding the Buckskin" and it is painted from an old black and white newspaper photo taken probably in 1959 or 1960.  He is young, strong and full of life.  I wouldn't arrive in his life until 1961 and he wouldn't leave mine until 2011.  

This week I had that same emotional experience as a painting I started for a Hearts and Carnivale themed art show for a local gallery that I am associated with.  The piece just morphed into something so much more.  I had the image of a silver heart painted on a web of ribbons in my mind and that was what I was thinking of when I started to paint on this 12 x 16 inch canvas.  

At some point, I realized that rather than painting just a simply silver heart, I really needed paint my treasured puff heart pendant that once belonged to my dearest Aunt Marilou and was at that moment hanging around my own neck.  

My relationship with my aunt was close throughout my whole life.  She was my only aunt; my dad was her baby brother and she was my dad's only sister and they always enjoyed a close special relationship.  Some of my fondest adult memories are of those two together and the stories they would tell.  Both had a great sense of humor and could keep you in stitches for hours.  

I often admired her silver puffed heart necklace and she wore it often.  Now it is around my neck just as frequently and I love hearing my little grandson hold it gingerly and say in his sweet two year old voice, "Pretty heart."  Maybe someday one of my granddaughters or granddaughter-in-laws will proudly wear this simply necklace and remember me in the same way.

Heart Strings- An Original Acrylic on 12 x 16 stretched canvas

For more of my work, please check out my website at julietownsendstudio.com

Clawing Your Way Back to Creativity

There are many things in this life that want to suck the creativity right out of you and this past two weeks a family trauma has done just that.  I'm reminded of that commercial for Progressive Insurance where these people are throwing themselves on to cars and they are call RATE SUCKERS.   I get that same mental picture when I think of the heavy emotion of grief and what it does in your life.  Grief is is a huge black cloud that surrounds you and sucks so much out of you, especially in the area of creativity. 

Two weeks have come and gone and I haven't so much as picked up a paint brush and I keep telling myself to go in there and at least lay out fresh paint.  Recently, my theme has been gold prospectors and so I have a partially completed piece on the easel of an old prospector that is in real need of finishing.  Should I take a hike in the mountains, lay on the beach or just grab my sketchbook to try to begin the process of rekindling that desire to sit back down at my easel?  

I have for the past two years that I have been seriously painting, always taken my completed pieces with me when we would visit my shut-in mother-in-law.  I felt that this was something that she enjoyed seeing and each time she would comment on the piece as if it was the very first time she had seen my work.  Her recent passing has left a hole in my heart and a lump in my throat.  As soon as I can find the strength, I'm going to have to paint something especially in her honor but first I need to get this old prospector off my easel.

Current work in progress that needs my creativity to return so that I can finish this 16 x 20 Acrylic piece.  I'm planning to include a Winchester rifle leaning against the fallen tree and his bedroll and belongings hanging further up the shore. 

Recent piece that I'm calling "Taking a Break" that shows a hardworking prospector enjoying a simply cup of coffee, a warm fire and a plate of beans.

A sketch I started last week of old prospector that could multitask by enjoying his pipe and working his pan at the same time.