Love, Love Me Do !

I have been thinking about love the past few weeks. Not the hot off the press type love and not the Steady Eddy kind of love where he forgets to put gas in the car and you mutter and mumble a bit but you still do the laundry. As opposed to either shredding his shirts or washing them with a red sock you bought off a stall . Those of you who still have stars in your eyes will think this a bit much but your day will come. I am talking about the love that dare not speak it's name [ I can hear that ! }. Self love, silly, the one thing we think we are all good at. We are not . We are all dismal failures at loving ourselves for many reasons. I am not interested in the reasons but in turning this lack in our lives around. I mean of course my own life as I am not thank goodness in charge of anybody elses.
This was made apparent to me when I read that people develop long illnesses at the end of their lives in order to learn to accept love. If you are sick and need help you will accept it with gratitude and thanks or you will be fighting still to control the situation. Even the nicest people will insist on giving rather than receiving but it is in the getting from the Universe that we are given what we need, in order to give back. How this is done I don't yet know but I think it is enough to be aware of the situation and to see what presents itself as a chance to make changes. Of course the danger lies that if this theory is true then as soon as you learn to love yourself you will be hit by a bus and so spared the lengthy illness. This will not be happening to me anytime soon! There will be many future Blogs to alarm and dismay you. God willing and the creeks don't rise.

Sensibly Shod

I watched a young woman stride down the parking lot of Canadian Tire the other day in what Princess Diana used to call "Tart's Trotters". She seemed very aware of the attention she was attracting as there were a number of men around. It was Canadian Tire after all. Maybe that's why she wore them. The men were having their thoughts and I was having mine. I can't speak for the men but I can guess. I was remembering the days when it was the norm to stuff your poor feet into sky high stilettoes and go prancing off to work as if you had never heard of an Achilles tendon, which you hadn't. By night time your feet were in agony not to mention one's back but you looked good and that was all that mattered. Somewhere over the last thirty years there has been a shift, [ thank goodness and the feminist movement] and women are now all about what looks good and what is also comfortable. There are no longer impossible standards of dress where one miserable tight, scratchy or downright unhealthy style was for eveyone whether you had a waist or not. Or worse still a pair of what my Dad used to call Queen Anne legs, [ when he wasn't being ruder] and skirts were short. I remember going to school with snowpants pulled up under a skirt and the snowjacket bunched over the top all because somewhere God said girls must not wear pants to school, or anywhere else for that matter. Heaven's , they might want to run around and have fun like the boys and then where would we be? Life is a lot more comfortable now and it really was a shock to see a woman in a pair of heels doing her shopping. I feel like she is turning her back on a hard won victory but we do live in a democracy after all. I hope she gets blisters !

The Face on the Bar Room Floor

The last blog must have touched a nerve as there were three comments, a record for me. All to do with self portraits and the horror of it all. My masterpiece is delayed as on the day I was to start it I had to send my large canvases down to number one child who is fluffing her house so it can be sold. I hope to make a start this Friday but am laid low with a very nasty sinus, chest thing that is going the rounds. I don't want to be hacking and sneezing over my fellow artists . It is a small studio and we sit cheek by jowl and share everything ! Besides to hear the comments one never seems to come off looking one's best in a self portrait and the odds are definitely stacked against me right now. I feel like I should cover the mirrors as the Jews do when they sit Shiva and mourn the dead. Not that I plan to pop my clogs anytime soon it's just when I am ill I give that impression. Perhaps I am looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe looking like death warmed over and scraped around the frying pan will give the portrait a veracity that looking my best would not, a sort of portrait noir ! Maybe this is my breakthrough ! Maybe I am running a temperature and should go and lie down ! A short Blog but a merry one !

" La Meduse ! La Meduse ! "

I hope that is how the title is spelled. French and I have a very passing acquaintance. " La Meduse!" was what a French friend of mine used to shriek when she saw herself in a mirror. We were all quite taken with it and it could be heard around the house for a number of years until the last female child left the nest. It popped into my head the other day when I had a quick glance into a mirror to make sure I wasn't wearing any of my lunch. That is what happens when you are alone for great rafts of time and tend to read while you eat. The mirror is my little friend in that respect but gosh ! Talk about Medusa ! Normally the sight of my face is just the sight of my face but perhaps it was the light that day. Whatever it was it brought to mind Johanne's shrieks of La Meduse. Now this could be a problem as I am starting work on a self portrait at the atelier where I study the human form once a week and usually wish I didn't as it is a very dry course full of measuring and other non artistic stuff. I find that I am bored to my back teeth but plod on anyway in the hope I may learn something. That's when the idea of a self portrait struck. Next week we start with a sketch and the week after that the painting begins. Now I can't get the idea of the Medusa out of my mind. Could it be the promptings of the Muse ? Could it be the thought of staring at my own mug for hours on end ? Who knows, but be sure I will let you know how it progresses. I can be accused of many things and often am but vanity is not one of them.