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Welcome to my blog

I have spent many years playing with color in many art forms. I’m not a professional artist by any means. I love color and feel it has healing qualities. I spent several years creating stained glass mosaics. I love glass, but after a while I found the process to be too tedious. It takes too long to get to the payoff of a beautiful piece of art. I’ve also left quite a bit of DNA in my artwork from handling glass. 🙂 I occasionally spent time playing with alcohol ink, acrylic pour painting and polymer clay. All of these led me to find what I truly love – abstract painting in acrylics.

I’ve chosen to share my art and my thoughts because I feel we can all use a break from reality every once in a while. I spend probably too much time pondering all types of things. I’ve decided to share some of my thoughts here. Maybe you’ll be able to relate to some of these ideas.

I hope you’ll take a minute or two to look around. My hope is that these pieces will give you a moment of peace and a break from the world.

You may be wondering why I chose to title my website “My Ugly Paintings”. The reason I is that I found many art classes or tutorials suggest that we paint an ugly painting. In doing so, we create something unique and beautiful in the process. Basically it’s about letting go of expectations. So, I thought that would be a fitting title. It might also elicit curiosity and bring viewers to my site.

Pondering missed opportunities

I watch competition type shows and nearly every contestant attributes their success to their supportive parents and how much they sacrificed for their children. I thenthink about my parents. I had adequate parents. They were loving in the best way they could, but not overly involved.

Recently while watching The Voice I got to thinking about how quiet and withdrawn I was as a child. I was so lacking in confidence, but all I really needed was encouragement. However because I was so quiet and afraid of everything and everyone, I became invisible. I imagine my parents occasionally encouraged me to do better, but no one made sure of it. I heard them say “she’s shy” and apparently they were OK to let me be timid and shy rather than actively try to pull me out of my shell.

But deep down inside me there was this person wanting to be a performer; wanting to sing and dance and play piano. Those were things I really wanted to do as a child, but never had the courage to speak up about.

I understand that who I am now is the person I am meant to be. I also realize I wouldn’t be this person if I had taken that route. But, when I watch those shows, the child in me that always wanted to be the performer feels let down; like I missed out on so many opportunities because nobody even bothered to reach inside my heart to find out who I really was. So I became THIS person instead. This person who is a loner. I’m not shy now, but I spend most of my life by myself, and I’m okay with that.

As much as I thought I wanted that recognition, I’m really grateful that I didn’t take that route because fame is not as great as it appears to be and who knows what it would’ve done to my psyche. However, I’m happy to say that I have been a performer and have fulfilled most of those dreams, and more, on a much smaller scale, much later in life. Better late than never I guess.

It took me many years to overcome being shy and timid, so if you have a young person in your life who is quiet, I urge you to take the time to reach inside and find out who they are. Build their confidence and reassure them that it’s okay to be a quiet person and that they are not invisible.

Sometimes it’s the simple things

Living alone, I use the microwave quite a bit since I often have to reheat food. I get frustrated because the food in the center of the dish rarely gets as warm as it needs to be. 

Recently I noticed my daughter-in-law had some beautiful bowls that were wider and had more surface for the food to be more evenly distributed. I decided to splurge and look for a couple of bowls. Well, they only come in sets of six. I thought I really don’t need six bowls, but then decided, screw it, I’m buying a set.

I have to say I was so excited when I opened the box and saw six of the most beautiful bowls. They are bold, rainbow colors. Every time I open my cupboard I get a jolt of joy. They are just bowls, yet they bring me so much joy by simply being so beautiful. Yes, there are six of them, but I rotate them. Just like in my artwork, I don’t want any of the colors to feel left out. 😂

Sometimes it’s the simplest of things that bring the most joy. Those bowls remind me to pay attention to, and appreciate, the little things in life.

Maybe our parents really do know things…

As I struggle each day to come up with something good to eat, I find it’s harder and harder to cook for just myself. I either make something and eat it for five days or I make something eat it once and throw the rest away. To make some of the things I like to eat, I have to buy so many ingredients to make it and there’s no way I can use them all let alone eat it all. 

Then, it dawned on me. I remembered my mom saying how much she hated trying to cook for herself. Hearing that as 

a young person I thought she was being overly dramatic. Something many young people do, thinking we’re so much wiser than our parents. And then, the real clincher happened! I thought when did I become my mom?! She was absolutely right. Now that I’m older and cooking for just me, it is true. I can cook, but it isn’t at all what I used to do. 

No doubt, I’m not alone in realizing some of the things my parents said when I was young were right! Go figure! When you’re young, it’s easy to just poo poo whatever your parents tell you, but the value of those words, born of experience, ring true as you age.

I realize now, I had no idea what it would be like to be this old. I had no idea that as an old person I’m still looking through my eyes with the eyes and spirit of my young self. The only thing that’s really old is my body. And sometimes my young inner child forgets that and I pay for it later. When I was young, I just figured you’re thinking is old, along with your body but, at least in my case, that’s not true. Inside, I still feel like a 20-something. However, my body has other beliefs. 

So if you’re young, let’s say, under 40, give your parents or elderly people, in general, some grace. Maybe we don’t raise our kids the way you’re raising your kids now. We didn’t have the Internet, or all of the gadgets you have now to make parenting easier, but we still have wisdom that applies to many situations. 

As I ponder youth, there’s another thing I wish I could help young people truly understand. It’s that it’s so important to live your truth, and not live by what you think other people expect of you. I wish I had realized that in my youth. I could’ve accomplished so many things, because I would have had confidence in my own abilities, and not been afraid of what others were thinking or if they were judging me. I’m sure this will fall on deaf ears to anyone under 40, but, trust me, none of that matters. No one cares what you’re doing. YOU are the only one who needs to care about what you’re doing.

Curly Hair Woes

As I sit here, trying to make something out of the mess on top of my head, I’d like to have a word with those of you, particularly women, with straight hair. Most of you covet my curly hair. You seem to think that curly hair would be just the most glorious thing. Well, I need to set the record straight.

At least with straight hair you know what you’re going to look like every day. When you have curly hair, every day is a new adventure. Having it look nice is a crapshoot. I try to go four days between hair washes. Partly for the condition of my hair and mostly due to the stress level it causes. On the fifth day when, I know I have to wash my hair, there’s always a feeling of dread. What the hell is my hair going to do today? It’s particularly scary when I have something important coming up and I have no idea what my hair is going to do. It probably shouldn’t matter, but it does.

I have wasted so much money and time on hair products it’s unbelievable. Straightening creams, flat irons, curling irons, straightening combs, blow dryers, diffusers, serums, gels, mousses, shampoos, conditioners! Nothing really works consistently.

Oh, and let’s talk about the wind, which is prevalent pretty much every day where I live, especially during summer. I’ll spend an hour trying to get my hair the way I want it to look and the minute I step outside it looks like I stuck my finger in a light socket. My hair blows and it just pretty much stays wherever it blows. So much for the curls that I managed to form.

I have finally decided to embrace my curly hair. However, at this point in life, I have a lot of gray hair joining the party. Of course the gray hair doesn’t really care about curling along with the others. Some of the hairs are straight, some of them stick straight up and most of them just decide to go their own way. I am all for independence but not where my hair is concerned. Curls look best when they work together.

So I’ve decided to accept my fate. I have a mop on my head that once in a while looks the way I want – maybe a couple of times a year. I’ve decided that my version of curly hair was put on my head to teach me several lessons. It’s taught me patience (still working on that one) and acceptance (working on that one too). It’s taught me to own who I am and let people judge if they choose. My hair is curly. There’s only so much I can do with it so I’m choosing to embrace it.

To those of you with straight hair, I encourage you to embrace what you have as well. The grass may look greener on the other side, but it’s really not any better. It’s actually just a different can of unruly curls🪱.