I made a lot of progress this morning on Parman Branch Library. I was worried about the proportions but I think it’s going to work out. It’s a very ‘rough draft’ so to speak but I can see how it will evolve, or least could evolve, and that puts me at ease. This is one that’s going to take a little longer than usual.
Tomorrow I’ll go paint another library and then I need to start looking at buying some supplies. I’m going to get a roll of canvas and stretch my own large canvases. I think it will be cost effective. I want to start on my urban landscape paintings. My plan is to paint Fred road and I-10 and then from some photos I took several years ago downtown. I was by Southwest School of Art when I was taking some classes and the photos are while the sun was setting and a flock of jackals were perched on some wires. I’ve always wanted to paint from these photos but haven’t gotten around to it.
It feels good to have plans, a vision for what I’m trying to put together. Later today I’ll go to the library and pick up my new books (the second one arrived yesterday) and tomorrow I can start working on drawing exercises again. Yesterday I got discouraged trying to paint another profile portrait. I finally traced the imaged through the glass view-finder she had us make [Betty Edwards from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain]. I just couldn’t get the drawing down. My nose is not that big and by mouth juts out further than my eyes, but yesterday I just couldn’t see it. I’m glad I had that tool though. In the end I was able to figure out what I was struggling with. Hopefully, those little things click in my mind and will help me in the future.
I had a funny dream the other night. It woke me up at 3:30am, so I figured maybe I should pay attention to it. In the dream I was pitching my book to Matthew McConaughey. In the end he gave me his email and told me to send him a link to my google drive so he could read it. I spent a lot of years working with a therapist who did a lot of dream analysis. We worked like that for months and after a while I realized he was getting more out of me by asking about my dreams than when I was trying to tell him about my life. So I pay attention to dreams, especially if they wake me up.
I was getting triggered a lot throughout the dream. I was in this situation that was hard to be with, hard to believe I was in, and so I was getting really triggered. But throughout the dream I was staying in an emotionally and psychologically stable place. I wasn’t going into shame attacks or letting my ego get the best of me. I was staying grounded in reality, staying present and in-the-moment.
When I ask myself what my therapist would have said, I think about perspective. In the past, I was always looking for an escape. I wanted to be taken out of my life and transported to something better. So I often reacted to life in two extreme ways, either by feeling ashamed and critical of myself, or by puffing myself up and acting invulnerable. My focus over the past fifteen years has been to see myself realistically. I’m not a p.o.s., but I’m not grandiose either. I’m just a person. And so is everyone else, including big celebrities.
The dream makes me feel like I’m in an emotionally good place and that I’m taking positive steps to advance my career. I’m keeping my head on straight, and honestly, that’s all I can ask for. I’m not as interested anymore about what happens, about the circumstances I create for myself. I’m interested in my emotional and psychological stability. My mental health is what it’s all about for me, and that dream felt very affirming.