Thursday, January 11, 2007

Painting the Bathroom Yellow

I'm ready to be done with this. I took the kids to the park yesterday and walked in the forty something wind and soaked up as much sun as I could. Sort of going through the motions of what it takes to cheer up.
It helped some.
But today, it's cloudy again, and cold...but they say it's gonna snow this weekend, and I love snow. We haven't had any yet this winter...everything had just been dormant and gray since November...and that's enough to bring anyone down...even the President of the Midwestern Pollyanna Club.
Maybe it's time to re-tie the pigtails, and put on something yellow.
Maybe it's time for drastic measures....I'll get out the paint. Nothing says optimistic like a fresh coat of yellow paint. The bathroom is looking kinda dingy today.
On a side note...I used to paint things other than bathrooms. I miss my creative artistic side. Water colors were my favorite medium, The way watercolors take on a mind of their own,--the color flowing and spreading and puddling in a lovely surprising way, but I enjoyed acrylics too. Oils were too heavy for me-- I couldn't resist the urge to try and sculpt with them. And sculpting was my first love, so that never worked out...it's like a three way you can't control. You just end up with a jumbly rainbow muddy mess.
I loved working with lots of things...wood, paper, steel (welding is so so SO much fun), but by far, I loved the tactile experience of working with clay. The smell of a musty fresh bag of clay, always covered in a thin dusting of mold, like a great cheese. Working the hard unyielding block for so long that my arms are hard and tired from the kneading. Being spattered and smudged with clay and mud...my hair tied back, and that one wispy bit caked with gunge from being brushed back by an absentmindedly gloppy fingertip. The quiet gritty suusssshhh that the sculpting tools make as the wires slice through the clay...the press and mold--using my fingers and thumbs to manipulate the cool clay. The slime of the mud when I wet my hands and smooth over the surface, feeling with my palms, fingertips and wrists for imperfections in the surface. The smells, sounds feel (and taste...a not entirely unfortunate if infrequent hazard)
I wish I had access to a studio.

2 comments:

Leesa said...

What a beautifully written post, sweetie. Such wonderful experiences of the senses. Me, I could not stand getting clay between my fingers. But I love reading about it.

MOAB said...

:)