Out With the Old, In With the Current

For over a month now my husband and I have discussed the need to create space for my 21 piece framed exhibit to come home. Because this exhibit will be moving on to Coos Art Museum this summer, I will keep the paintings framed and ready to hang again in a few months. So what to do??

I have stored many older paintings in our garage. Actually they have been there entirely ignored, some for years. Was it really storage? No, these paintings were in "nowhere land."

Emptying out this shelving unit is trying. I've been "trying" to empty it out for years. Each attempt has stopped short of actually pulling out every old piece and breaking down the frames, breaking the glass, and letting go.

Yes, each piece was at some point worth framing and putting out for the public to look at and possibly purchase. But as I went through the process, I acknowledged to myself that these pieces no longer represent the artist I am today. And my attachment to them was mostly a distant memory and proof of the work I have done to be the artist I am today.

Out of all these framed paintings I was able to revisit where I've been, and marvel on where I am going. I could have (and briefly did) lament over the money spent on paper, mats, frames and glass. But I invited myself to feel relief over the new space I was creating for the artist I am today, and the artist I will become tomorrow.

I am forever grateful to my husband, who cheerfully helped me with a screwdriver and mallet breakdown the metal fames and physically breaking much of the glass. There seems to be no way to recycle the glass and I now usually cover a painting with plexi.

I was thankful for this sunny day to do this work outside. It was almost a cheering activity and a restorative process.




I found a couple of things to keep. One was an early painting juried into the Red River Watercolor Society Exhibit quite a few years ago. The painting itself was inspired by a trip Mike and I took with a great-nephew to Hokkaido, Japan. He was 14 years old at the time. Now he is young man who was recently married at our home.







Hokkaido Doorways has a new home.

Another painting I kept was an early attempt at painting people--my parents from a photo. It is not a "good" painting, but too dear to part with.

I also kept  some pieces I thought might make great additions to a collaged piece in the future. but the rest?






I'm not one for huge drama, but I asked Mike to have a bonfire with the remainders. Why? I didn't feel up to any more decisions.

One small piece I tore away from one of my first framed pieces because it seemed to say something about the artist I would become.

Patterns, I am and always have been a pattern painter along with Klimpt, Bonnard and many others.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Playing with Patterns

a 3-day workshop

in beautiful Nye Beach, Newport, Oregon

March 3, 4, 5th 2018

Contact me: msgodfreyart@msn.com

-->