Part 2: Storing my ever growing output of paintings in a 1,200 square foot house

There is a limit to how many paintings can be stored in a 1,200 square foot house. My husband and I need room to move about and live so I am OK with  limited storage. Limiting the number of works requires retiring some of my paintings every time I make a new painting. I am forced to try to strengthen my entire body of work by keeping only my more interesting paintings.  I keep representative pieces. The pieces  that do not make the grade become table coverings, rugs, cloth books for children, or pillows.

While some artist friends manage by moving displays between galleries to other alternative spaces monthly, I keep that activity minimal to give me the maximum time to paint.   I also have work on loan like the Mennonite Corvallis Caring Place rotated every 6 months.  I donate or  loan works to The Oregon State Fall Creek Fish Hatchery and Research Center.

I spend more time thinking of what I can live without in everything from clothes to cookware and books. For years I donate the accumulated stuff from living in a product marketing economy.  Mostly I give to Habitat for Humanity, St. Vincent de Paul,  and Goodwill. When my parents moved from Washington to California, I took a whole trailer full of paintings and furniture, stopping at Goodwill, I donated a few 4' x 6'  paintings one of which was awarded best in the show in a Blaine, Washington Art Show.


After the donations I've ended up with closets devoted to sentimental family pictures and objects passed down to me and collected over the years.  These treasures are in boxes designated for my daughters and grandchildren. Sometimes they are ready to take what they agree is precious and sometimes I keep a few items until my children are settled.

Every time  I donate items like manual typewriters or one of my old fashioned meat grinders. Or family heirlooms are given to a family member who promises to be a  steward of our past. When I have gained a little more space for Don and I to expand I feel good.


 In an effort not to overfill my limited storage, I reinvent some of my paintings. Last Thursday's post about my least interesting Ritner Creek painting underwent an addition of radical reds that made the whole rest of the painting less precious.  I soon became immersed in new avenues to explore.



My new journey is about the tree that died since I completed the original painting last year. This year the flow of the creek is slower. The  very shallow water is warmer. Some  of these steps in the change could be called finished but I am open to more experience.








A number of different near solutions help me learn what linear quality will slow down the flow of the creek. What lines in the tree will be most expressive of struggle?   Stay tuned for a possible resolution. Not sure it will be a keeper.The risk is worth all the learning on how the linear changes effect expressiveness.

More ideas are covered in previous posts can be seen by looking over my previous posts by clicking on my name under labels.

Painting a wedding at Waiailea Beach in Hapuna Park, Big Island Hawaii

At the West Hawaii Plein Air Painters event, 9:30 AM, Friday, February 3, Cindy had been painting for almost two hours. Cindy is not in the painting just on my left on the other side of the log from me.  I was also a little early and just starting this painting and Richard had just arrived and was set up to paint. Then the mother of the groom appeared. She wanted us to all move because her son was getting married there in half an hour.

Richard who facilitates the group said there are no reservations on the site and we would not move. 

To make the lady happier, I offered to paint the wedding and give the painting to her. She said she had photographers and never came to look at my painting luckily because it was in a very dull state after three hours. I have put in many hours on it since.

If she changes her mind and finds me, and demonstrates real appreciation, the wedding painting would still be a gift to her.

The 12 x 16 inch painting is over an acrylic painting on canvas that I covered with absorbent ground that accepts watercolor and mixed media. Then I sprayed it with gloss UVprotective Krylon before making changes with acrylics. With the Krylon protection I could remove the acrylic and preserve the under-painting.

The old recycled surface was intended as a warm up painting before the real effort of the day. When the wedding happened, I decided that the iron wood trees made an excellent symbolic frame for the ceremony of joining of two family trees of life.

 My most memorable paintings outdoors are when I am moved by what happens while I am painting. Most paintings include more than one period of time. This painting depicts the father walking the bride and then he was consoling the sister. The bride was painted twice.

The wedding painting is not finished yet. I am working on the expressiveness of the gestures and relationships between the members of the wedding party and how the eye is directed to the wedding.

downsizing

My fascination lately has been with simplified living, tiny homes, and RV living. Although we have a vacation trailer, I can't imagine getting everything I value in my home/homes into it. How would I store the books? How about the art? My gosh, the art would have to go, and how could I get rid of paintings I love so much? How about the Navajo rugs, the Hopi pottery, the rocks my parents collected that take up so much space? 

Yet, there is this appeal at the idea of simplified living especially with a trailer and being able to boondock (live off the grid) with solar panels. For me, I like to stay connected in terms of the Internet and be able to write using my computer. I bought a fold-able desk to use next time out. We use HotSpots to connect wherever there is enough cell signal (some places there is not). 

I hear about some who desire to live in planned, senior communities and to me that sounds like hell on earth. Yet, how would I feel about not owning anything but a trailer and truck? I don't know, but those who do it fascinate me, and I watch some of them on YouTubes to learn how they live. 

Couple Living in an Airstream

That video is on a YouTube channel by a guy I check up on every now and again, Cheap RV Living, where he posts RVer interviews and what he's learned about how to make it work when you don't live a life like everyone else. He's done some good interviews with women who have chosen this life for assorted reasons. 

Fearless retired woman

Solo Woman Joyfully Living

Well, actually, on YouTube channels, there are quite a few women sharing their lives that way. Most are positive, but I've seen a few like the next link. 

 Scary experiences also happen

We have done trailer and van camping over many years and have had a few scary events also. Be aware is my advice. What she did is what we have done-- leave, even in the middle of the night, when it doesn't feel safe.

Still, most is good. It's not all about old folks these days. Some might be forced out of a stick and brick home, but there are those who want no mortgage or just the freedom to travel. Full time RVing is not new as I remember when our kids were young and a magazine called Trailer Life had a regular feature on those where their rigs were their homes.

Van Life-- Our Custom Van

While I don't see myself doing it at this point, I find the cable shows and videos fun to watch. I used to be a fan of the home remodeling shows, but now it's more tiny living or YouTube for those who have put aside the regular life for one that is unconventional. I am interested in why they made the choice and how they expect to live. I am interested in how it might change a person to live this way. 

Reflections on what society has become

I've thought of it always as something I could do if the economy turns disastrous. It's not for me right now other than as a voyeur.

Some of that and my own experiences with trailering inspired me to write a novella that I first called Red Hawk Christmas but more recently changed to Diana's Journey. It might actually end up with a yet different title, as it's hard to get across a book that isn't really a romance as such and yet is about a romantic journey that a woman makes not to find 'the' man, but to find herself when life has changed for her. 

It was intended to be first in a series of women starting over, with not all involving an RV; but I got sidetracked by the paranormal books and so that put that series on a back-burner for someday. (It also is the one that got a very negative review that literally killed its sales-- reviews can do that.). Still, I like the story and was able to share a lot of my own experiences where I've camped and spent time in the West.

Diana's Journey

I think it's had a problem with not being a romance and yet it kind of is. Cross genre books have this problem.

Starting over

As I get started on my next book, which will take me back into historical times, the political season is almost over but probably not the fall-out-- whoever wins. I've never had a year this difficult for me. I envy those who had a candidate who they believe is good for the country. I don't want either of them, and yet one will be our next president. I have to vote because I believe it's the right thing to do, but I am voting for someone I don't believe in only because the other choice, to me, is worse. Ugh! One way or another my country changes leadership and starts over in January-- like it or not.

On a more upbeat note, the series I hope to begin writing in January is of great interest to me. The first one is out but has kind of met the fate of my contemporary paranormals-- which is not finding many readers.

The new series is interesting to me on levels that go beyond ratings. I have never written chick (in this case crone) lit. It just hasn't come to me, but this idea of women starting over is closer to women's fiction than my previous books. There is romance and will be in all of them, but the main thing these women will be facing is-- starting over at an age they never expected that to happen.  The stories will be about what they do to make it work. No supernatural solutions in any of them.

What will make them challenging to write is to come up with different reasons why women might find themselves in that situation. Death and divorce are the obvious ones, but while I am writing two different books through the next months, I am hoping to come up with some other possibilities-- like maybe a woman totally into her career with no intention to ever be married and then along comes that one man who eventually overthrows all her prejudices against marriage (Gloria Steinem found that). I haven't decided how many there will be in the series and not all the women might be in mid-life with some maybe younger or even older. 

I got a review on Red Hawk Christmas that made me feel good. 

This was the best kind of Christmas story!!! I LOVED the way Dianna had the COURAGE, and determination to not only follow her dream, but to find that she was able to follow her HEART too. This book was one of those books that you just can't put down. The characters were very likeable, and this author REALLY knows how to make the reader feel as if they are right there, seeing the beauty of the scenery, as well as feeling that they know the characters. I highly recommend this book to anyone that loves just the right amount of romance!!!! It is a story set at Christmas time, but it is more about finding contentment about starting over. Thank You Rain Trueax for a heartwarming, and beautiful story! I LOVED it!!!!  

Reviews like that are why writers write. My books may not reach the large numbers of some writers. I get it that they don't follow the 'formula' so many love. If you write something different, you can't expect everybody will give it a try. Still when a book reaches even one reader like that one, then it's all worthwhile and its own reward.