Author: Joy Murray

This is the second of a painting that is a kind of mono-print. I put on thick lines of acrylic paint, then pressed another canvas on top of it. I let it dry and put on multiple layers of paint with my fingers and a brush. I finished the first one in March, when I had my last art show, just as the pandemic was starting. It sold though, so I was happy.

I finally finished the second one for a client who saw the first and wanted one for herself. I can’t get them exactly the same, but that’s how you know it’s handmade art.

My synapses went awandering to a place I'd forgotten
where all language was a dance
and I was happy
but I didn't know why

I think I’ll use this technique for creating texture in future paintings. I like the way the pulling apart of the canvases make branch and root shapes.

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This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal at my email address joyzmailbox @gmail.com

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.   Including masks!

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

In 2019, I created this painting after a discussion of abundance and how we define it, that most of us have more abundance than we recognize because we define it so narrowly.

I had the tree root floating and the figure more rooted to the ground.

I sold it at a open studio art show, but another friend wanted it. So I agreed to do another one. She wanted to hang it in beside her front door. We decided we that two would be better, and I could paint a sort of homage to her two daughters.

I’ve been working on them off and on for about a year now, because the pandemic started and all manner of troubles became apparent in my country. I was blocked and unable to come to terms with all the discord going on about politics, race, health and safety.

But I’ve finally started painting again and finished this commission.

Here are details from Abundance 2:

Working with handmade paper is always a challenge. The paper on Abundance 3 buckled a lot more than on 2, but both my client and I liked it. It gives a bit of visual animation as well as shows signs of the work. On these, the tree is rooted and the girls are growing from that root.

I’m glad to get them finished and am looking forward to seeing them installed in my clients home.

I also feel that my “block” has been broken and I will paint more easily now. The fatigue of recent life as well as the fatigue of my disability seem to have abated enough that I get a few hours a day of clear headedness.

Stay tuned for more art work.

~~~

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal at my email address joyzmailbox @gmail.com

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.   Including masks!

Lots of other artists have masks for sale there, too.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

I got well and truly flamed this week on my facebook page over wearing and promoting the use of masks to help stop the Covid-19 virus.  I’ve been ignored and had people think I’m over reacting.  And I have friends who believe it’s in the hands of fate if they get it or not.  And those who don’t believe the virus exists at all.  So I’m used to navigating discord and disagreements.

This time, I feel  both wounded and angry.  Everyone believes what they believe and trusts who they trust.  But this person suggested I did no research.  So when I showed the reports from the World Health Organization, I got another flame about that organization.  “If you don’t do the research, Shut the F**k up.”  So I figured the CDC and other health organizations weren’t worth listing.

I’ve been navigating a long term rare degenerative illness for over 40 years now.  Fool that I am, I trust my doctors.  I trust my friends who work in the medical field and in natural medicine.  The consensus practically everywhere is that a mask reduces the risk of spreading it.  It’s a harmless and easy way to help stop the spread of the virus.

Plus you filter out pollution, maybe other viruses, and you can wear art on your face.

But, apparently, to my friend, wearing a mask is akin to wearing a swastika.  Really?  I was dumbfounded.  With all the fascist, racists and supremacists out there, you chose to call someone trying to protect your health a Nazi?

So anyway, another friend lost.  I hate that.  I spent too much time trying to come to some terms of communication, and pass on my belief in peace and conversation.  But I got angry, too.  I got hurt. I spent too much time trying to figure out how to change this person’s mind.

I know that when you lose a friend, it probably means they weren’t really your friend to begin with.  But the loss breaks off a part of you, something you thought was solid disappears and you have to rearrange your memories and question yourself.

A lot of doomsday and conspiracy theories are thrown at me these days, but I think I’m intelligent enough to make a decision on whether or not to wear a mask and take easy precautions to stop a virus.

I’m much more concerned with police abuse of power and the killing of Black citizens, which I see happening.  I also see the lists of the dead from Covid 19.  I see people’s lives ruined by hurricanes and other natural disasters.  I see expansion of poverty.  I see evictions.

But then, I peel myself away from the media, and I go to the park and see trees, flowers, butterflies, dragonflies.  Tall oaks hundreds of years old toss a few acorns my way.

This year I’ve seen so many deaths.  Covid 19 adds a layer of loss to what is already a heavy burden. Distant friends, a close friend, a favorite musician.  And I hear the stories of friends who have lost loved ones.

And so I wear a mask.  A sign of respect, of love, of the desire for us all to have one less thing attack our fragile and brief lives.  I wear a mask because I love people, even if they don’t love me back.

But it’s no good spending my time trying to convert or explain myself to some one so infected with fear and hatred that they are willing to end a friendship over something they have almost no power over and lots of misinformation on.

None of us  knows what the future holds, but I will keeping rolling along, through good times and bad, depending on the beauty of nature, the warmth of friends, the care of doctors and nurses, the innovations of science.  And my garden, thorns and all.

~~~

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal at my email address joyzmailbox @gmail.com

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.   Including masks!

Lots of other artists have masks for sale there, too.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

My apologies for not writing in a while, but I haven’t felt well for the past few weeks.  I’m sure I’ve said this before, but when you have a long term disability, sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re sick or if you’re just feeling your same old bad.  Just about everyone I talk to these days feels bad, or has low level depression.  I’ve had extreme fatigue and brain fog.  I’ve also had a lot of allergy problems, which will give symptoms similar to the corona virus.  So I’ve taken my temperature a squillion times, and tried not to get close to anyone.  But with no temperature (well 97 degrees) and no other symptoms to suggest the virus, I just had to wait it out.

And so, though it took longer than I thought, I finally feel less fatigued and foggy.

But what I really want to talk about is my moonflowers.  In March or April, I planted the seeds.  I thought I’d try to have a moonflower social when they started to bloom.  They bloom later in the summer.  They like hot days and the longer nights as we head towards fall.  But simple things like a gathering on the porch aren’t safe now.  But the flowers aren’t worried about that.

Mine began to show little buds as August started.   They grow horns, then split open and start a lime green swirl:

It’s been an unusually rainy summer here, so most things in my garden have been growing  fast.

I kept an eye on this first aggressive bud.

Even though I wouldn’t be able to have people over for iced drinks to celebrate the first bloom of the August, I wanted to at least enjoy it myself.  They have the most marvelous scent — honeysuckle, vanilla, spice.

So when the white starts to  show through the green, it’s almost time.  I took this yesterday morning.  It was cloudy and it rained off and on.  And in the late afternoon it started raining for real.

I hoped the rain would keep it from blooming, but I checked it anyway, and there it was, a flower the size of my palm. 

The rain muted its scent, but I put my nose right inside it and breathed deep — all that is sweet and miraculous about nature filled my lungs.  I took pictures, risking the water getting in my phone.  I heard a long gone old aunt telling me I don’t have have the sense to come in out of the rain.  I just laughed at her voice, an old memory washed away by cool water and the perfume of beauty.

Here you can see how much the bloom grows as it opens:

And here’s a picture I took before I went to bed, a garden moon shining in the dark:

This morning, it had folded itself up into a package.  They only give you a one night stand.  I doubt it was pollinated, I don’t think moths fly in the rain, so I don’t think I’ll get a seed from this one.

But many other buds are growing.  There will be more flowers, there will be seeds.  A cycle of winter, spring and summer will pass, then it will be time for another moonflower party.  Perhaps just for me, perhaps for my friends, too.

~~~

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal at my email address joyzmailbox @gmail.com

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.