A real artist?

I spent a great deal of the spring and the beginning of summer joyfully immersed in painting and writing. I wrote poems and pulled out unfinished projects and started a series of paintings that read like a journal of my time in Seattle. They are happy explosions of texture, color, gloss and glitter. And it was wonderful to spend my time creating, but then I stopped. It didn't happen on purpose, but after spending a season on the mike slamming and the completion of my first art show, I was kind of done being public with my art. Moreover I was traveling locally and chillaxing of my very awesome staycation.

Now, in September, almost two months into my new job, I am working on balance. I am making time for yoga and taekwondo, classes at the Center for Spiritual living, and of course work, but it has been hard to find a spare moment between catching up with friends and sleeping enough to get through my days. Just now I am coming back into balance again and while I still haven't figured out my writing schedule, I have started painting.

I'm currently working on a series for Dia de los Muertos...ironicly inspired by my teaching (I am obsessed with how to make sugar skulls).Though my first show was amazing...for me anyway... I was a little bummed about not selling anything. I wondered if I could still be considered a "real artist", which I pretty much decided I could because there are plenty of "real artists" that never sell anything. But then, last week, very randomly, I sold my first two painting, The Old Man Fish which is a long orange and yellow coy on a teal background with a face like an old man and Strange Fruits a fanciful self portrait of me as a butterfly stretching forth from a golden cocoon hung from a tree (named after song, to for once give the name a positive connotation).

But going back to being an artist, this is all still really new for me. I have so many new titles now. More than just my job transition, I feel like my whole life is transitioning. I feel like I am at choice, which means that my life if beginning to really reflect what I really want as opposed to that feeling of obligation or irritation at all the things I think I have to do. I am choosing to teach, to write, to paint, and to live inside the joy of these choices and it feels awesome. Below are some of the photos from my first show.