Chatting

Friends chat, and I know we’re friends, but somehow we never seem to stop, sit down with that cup of tea and just chat...

Chatting is defined as conversing in an easy, familiar manner...to talk lightly and casually, about any an everything that crosses our minds…it precludes arguing, and topics should never be controversial.

On RedBubble, we have great opportunities... we post work… photos, writing, paintings, and once done, we rush off to comment on the postings of others, entering a challenge or two etc…..sometimes on an art page the comments run away with us and end up verging on chat, but we rein ourselves back…after all this is the art page and somehow it hardly fits to talk about things not related to the painting or photo at the top of the page...

So here I am at two in the morning, scrambling around in the dark looking for scraps of paper to write on...I normally have journals all over the place, but it seems they’re eluding me tonight….I should be in deep restorative sleep that I need right now, but it has not happened so far, and this burning desire for a chat just would not be quelled...

Recently I have been going through my large library of Virago publications and re-reading Dame Rebecca West ..primarily her trio of books, based on her own life, starting with “The Fountain Overflows” and ending with “Cousin Rosamonde”...West was “author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, she was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century”..wiki..It was said of her that “No one in this century wrote more dazzling prose, or had more wit, or looked at the intricacies of human character and the ways of the world more intelligently.”

Do you re-read your favourite books? I do… all the time…even after the third or fourth reading there is something new to be discovered, some bon mot to be savoured anew…the fact that you know how it all turns out is oddly comforting…there is no surprise on the last page, and understanding the plot and characters so well, you know exactly what they’re going to do and say and you end up practically mouthing the words along with them..

My reading group don’t really share my taste in books, so I have no one with which to discuss this frightfully complicated, erudite writer, whose prose literally sings from the page…her language is so lovely, you sometimes forget the story to delight in her style and vocabulary… if any of you read Virago classics and/or have read West, I would be delighted to discuss her or any of the others with you...

Chatting has no rules, so I am going to make an about turn and change the subject...

Have you ever noticed that the painting you were proudest of and gloated over a year or two ago as your greatest achievement, now pales by comparison beside your latest masterpiece…it becomes yesterday’s news…well that’s not unusual at all…you are now a more experienced painter or photographer, and your newest piece is a reflection of that..your brush strokes are more confident, compositions tight, etc. etc…does it make you wonder excitedly how much better you are going to be a year from now, and the year after that, or does it make you afraid you may never do another as good as this one?

That being said I am sure you all have as I do, paintings that seemed to paint themselves, without your consciousness having anything to do with it, and you know those works will stand the test of time…that instinctive genius came from somewhere beyond you…we pray for moments like that to happen again…that feeling of exaltation when we knew we were painting with a purpose...

I don’t know about you, but I am a sucker for Flash Mob Dances...they are absolutely delightful to see…you want to get in there and be part of that unalloyed joy…that moment when you are all connected as simply human beings and nothing else..
I firmly believe that if you can get hundreds and even thousands of people to sing and dance in unison around the world, why are we still having wars?...I have some links to a few below, but there are many more of these visual treats on youtube...

Yesterday I took the first stroll around my garden in weeks...though it was cold and wet, there was still much to be seen…almost every shrub carried it’s own particular berry and I was lucky that the birds had not yet devoured them all…there were the Berberries, with their sharp, small and vivid scarlet berries, the Euonymous with it’s orange berries slipping off their white coats, the porcelaine vine with it myriad coloured berries in mauve, purple, pink, and icy blue, the purple black berries of the ivy cascading in profusion over the fence and the dead black of the St John’s wort berry…I took a few candid “as is” pictures to add to my garden website, and exclaimed to myself for what seemed the millionth time…isn’t nature wonderful!!... see some of them on the right with a little glimpse of my Japanese Maple, now beginning to shed it’s leaves

News and Views November is coming very soon….I have exciting new articles and some wonderful artist galleries to show you....

I enjoyed our chat, and I hope you did too…feel free to chat here as much as you want about my topics or raise your own right on the page…share some exciting things you’ve seen or experienced, about art or not as you please..I’ll be happy to join in and I hope others do too...Janis

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LINK to Oprah’s Flash Mob

LINK to TMobile Flash Mob

Grand Central Station Antwerp Flash Mob

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My Blog with articles on various subjects for artists of all levels and genres...News and Views
Follow me on Twitter..Paintability
I am a contributing writer to Earthmonster Illustrated

Your feedback is very important to me…do leave a comment, and best of all join in the chat

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