Category Archives: art

The Creative Epiphany – I Ache to Paint

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Mixed Media Collage titled For Roy by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

I dedicate this Blog entry to Roy Stauth….writer, adventurer and friend of Africa

With my previous blog entry I discussed the tendency of creativity to be dormant and downright absent in times of severe stress, but then, if you are not blocking its entry, to gradually come back through the door of your soul when you need it most. Creativity is your lifetime companion, there for the longest haul. It is a human quality awarded to you and all others free at birth. You need only be present to win it. Creativity’s presence is multi-purposed – to heal you and to be your companion when you most need her; to provide an emotional release; to communicate a message; to channel your angst (or your total joy) into a creation that might live on beyond you, thus leaving your unique mark on the world. Creativity almost always offers the world a message of your choice. Thanks to our predecessors who forged the path toward freedom of expression, you have the ultimate choice of deciding what to say and how to say it through your creativity. People are no longer compelled to paint for the emperor….they have a choice.

The process of being creative requires an opening up of your soul which brings an exposure of your human vulnerabilities and a willingness to take responsibility for what results. If the result of your creativity is a painting, for example, you will most assuredly always remember what it was you were going through at the time you painted it. It might reveal your deepest secrets for careful interpretation by the viewer, or to the casual viewer it may reveal nothing. But YOU know what is there, and if you are asked what prompted you to create such an image you will spill it out unapologetically. As with writing, if you are willing and able to “open a vein” and let it all bleed out of you, you are on the way to healing and communicating what you are all about. You are also on the way to greatness, because great works of art or literature always reveal passion. Only a handful of the great painters and writers, photographers, musicians and other creative folks ever gain recognition – there are many more out in the trenches whose greatness is never exposed to the public eye. I see their work everywhere and it thrills me.

During this time of moving to Denver I have had no time to paint. My brushes and tubes have been packed up for about 6 weeks now because I have had no time for the release of that passion. I feel like an explosion waiting to happen. Or Hoover damn about to spring a huge gushing leak. I am storing up creative energy and I pity the person who might be standing in my way when my new studio is finally set up and I am ready to walk in there and paint again – I will  mow over them like an 18 wheeler. Blood could be shed.

It is super strong, this need to create. It is a force of nature, its evidence still on the walls of ancient caves. With humanity came creativity, with creativity comes greater humanity and understanding. It is a thirst, almost equal to water and air and food in its ability to satisfy a yearning. My old college fine art professor told us that unless we were willing to sell our shoes to buy paint during a blizzard, we were not a true artist. Fortunately I never had to do that, but I probably would have if I had needed to, because my creativity would have instructed me how to make shoes out of something I had on hand.

The thousands of people who blog are manifesting the human need for expression. The need is all consuming. It is undeniable and larger than life, and yet many people around the globe have no means of creative expression available to them. Think how that might feel. We live in a day and time when the people without a voice are growing and the people who do have the means to express themselves are also growing. The wide disparity between the voice-less and the voices is alarming. I feel so fortunate to have several means of expressing myself. Many in the world do not. But that is an entire other problem of such enormity that I can barely stand to address it. Creativity is nothing to be taken for granted, and I never do. If you are among the relatively few on the planet who enjoy the freedom of giving it expression then lucky be you. The creativity you employ as your loyal and dedicated servant is your light in the darkness, and hopefully you will use it wisely and for the greater good, and heal your soul with it as well.

I live, I love, I paint. And I do write.

The Creative Epiphany – The Scheherazade Violin

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

2vioThe violin Scheherazade by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

While we are on the subject of creativity, let me tell you a story within a story. Just a little personal experience of sadness, discovery, healing and joy. A recent chapter in the biography of my art – a true tale, unembellished, able to stand firmly on its own merits. It has always seemed to me that my long career in art has provided me with more than enough fascinating stories – enough for a lifetime of enlightenment and inspiration. Stored in my mind are humorous anecdotes, disturbing happenings, brilliant realizations and numerous other categories of true occurences that have enriched and enhanced the initial act of creating a piece of artwork. Let me begin with this one…..

In the fall of 2010 while living in northern California I received an honored invitation to create a piece of artwork – a painted violin – for the DYAO – Denver Young Artists Orchestra. This long established, prestigious, charitable project involves the yearly selection of about 20 artists  who are invited to paint an actual violin (one that has been put out to pasture) in whatever flavor and style they are comfortable with. The violins then tour galleries for viewing, over several months in the Denver area, culminating in a gala event in the spring, where the violins are auctioned, thus funding the youth orchestra for the next season. www.paintedviolin.com   www.dyao.org

In that fall of 2010 my husband was very ill. I was thrilled with my violin invitation, and yet it was placed in my mind on the very back shelf of priorities…  As December arrived with holiday preparations and obligations, my husband worsened and finally died on December 7th. A week or so later the violin arrived at my door by UPS in a lovely case….at first I had no idea what the DYAO could possibly be sending me, and then I remembered. I made a mental note to notify them that I could not possibly participate in the violin event, as honored as I was to have been selected. I did not have it in me to paint.

After holiday season spent in Tahoe at my family’s gentle insistence, while recuperating from cataract surgery on my first eye and grieving the death of my husband, I arrived back home to face the hard reality of dealing with nasty insurance issues, ugly Social Security issues, clearing out my husband’s closets and office and trying to not have a meltdown. Trying very hard not to lose it, when I ran across the violin. The violin committee was expecting that it be shipped to them, all finished, by April 1st. They requested that it reflect my characteristic mixed media collage technique. I was convinced I could not possibly muster the artistic inspiration and strength to accomplish that. I had only emptiness where the creativity used to be.

As the weeks passed I began to wonder what I would, theoretically, do to the violin if I somehow could do it….if I decided to accept its challenge. Ideas gradually came to mind, creeping in under the  blanket of my sadness. Sort of warming me up. I reminded myself of other circumstances when my art had been my solace and my escape. As a diversion from the sad tasks I was dealing with all day long, I thought about the violin. I remembered when I was young and Mom used to play Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade on Saturday mornings; music inspired by the ancient Persian Tales of the Arabian Nights. The music was haunting and exotic, and told the poetic fable of the handsome Sultan who demanded a different virgin be brought to his tent every night, then killed them the next day so that they could not be unfaithful to him. Enter the beautiful Persian Princess, Scheherazade, who made love to him, then told him an intriguing tale and promised to finish the story the following night. She returned, continued the tale night after night, and kept herself alive for many thousands of years, bearing his children and making him very happy.

I approached my collage papers and my paint with doubt and trepidation, wondering what would happen as I attempted to pull my creative gestures and thought processes up from the depths of my misery. I decided to incorporate meaningful mementoes and papers into the collage as omens of good will and peace of mind. I collaged the violin with the same coral and gold leaf paper I had used for the cover of my handmade wedding invitations as a tribute to my husband,  I used a gold circle, a link from a broken necklace of my mother’s. Then some polished stones that my daughter had given me were used to circle the arm of the violin like a bracelet. I added a hunk of clear crystal for good karma. I antiqued the  entire violin with gold paint, made a keyhole design on the backside as a symbol of entrance to a new life, used an East Indian paper around the edges…and I was quite happy and amazed with the results. I titled the violin Scheherazade, in honor of the Persian Princess, and nicknamed her “Scher”.

The story does not end there – with the violin project I was taken through a door to a new place in my life. A place where I was reassured that my life was going to begin again and there was still much to look forward to. As of this day I am still entering that door, leaving soon for my move to Denver where both family and some special friends await me with open arms.

Scher and I have been telling tales for years and years…..but mine are all true. People ask me often if I have any new stories. And I always do. This particular story is one of my best and will always be remembered as a pivotal point in my long life of change, resilience and renewal, three conditions upon which creativity thrives. The violin and my continued enthusiasm for life are my proof positive of that. I live, I love, I paint.

To see the 2010-2011 season of painted violins in which I participated, plus archives and the current season, visit www.paintedviolin.com or http://www.dyao.org

 

 

The Creative Epiphany – High on Life

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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For quite some time now I have wanted to post a blog about creativity and its connection to being high on life. You know that feeling – well I certainly hope you do – when you wake up feeling like you might burst with potential. Your energy level is over the top, you somehow managed to acquire a handful of new ideas overnight and you will tackle and throttle anyone who stands between you and your desire to manifest this moment in time with a creative achievement. Whether you are an artist, a writer, a musician, a chef, a designer, an inventor, a mother of young children, a tour guide, a choreographer, a photographer, an architect or even a retired person who has the entire day free to create as you please, this rare day of open-ness and possibility is like nothing else. It is a luxury and a gift to have such enthusiasm.

Oh I have produced some of my best paintings on less than perfect days as well. I am not one of those artists who can’t paint, can’t think, and can’t be at all productive when my life is not ideal. In fact I run to my work table when I need comfort and escape. I usually get some good stuff done when I wring out all of my sadness and frustration and drip it onto a canvas. I find that process cleansing and therapeutic.

But those sparkling days of illumination and inspiration that come rarely and inconsistently are the ones I am talking about. They almost always arrive un-announced, because the element of breathless surprise is what gets your adrenaline going. However I personally believe there are things you can do to call out to them and tease those brilliant days into showing up…..

1) I believe it is important to take some calm days to incubate and marinate your ideas, keeping those infant ideas quiet, dormant and unexpressed while they form into full-fledged creative beings. Don’t feel like you must work at things every single day…..being creatively driven does not mean constant special FX action.

2) Get a good night’s sleep – your dreams often provide the answers.

3) Exercise outside, away from the gym, even if it’s raining or windy – notice things!

4) Keep an incubation file of ideas. Go to it for fun and profit.

5) Listen, be aware and communicate with friends and strangers. Ideas flow everywhere and from everybody – the smallest interaction can provide huge inspiration.

6) Last but not least – brand new is great but try to also build upon your best successful ideas. Think about how they can be tweaked and altered to grow them into bigger and better ideas. Rework, rebuild, recycle and get new improved results.

What is a creative epiphany? It is an answer you have been waiting for – new information – new inspiration – a light clicked on in the darkness that illuminates and feeds your creative efforts. A creative epiphany provides you with a grand realization that is sometimes life-changing on a day when you woke up feeling open and eager to receive it….a day when you were so high on life that you made yourself a magnet for such an experience. Lucky be you.

The Creative Epiphany – Through the Mind’s Door

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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Mixed Media Collage titled Mind Migration, by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

In the introduction of my most recent book, titled The Creative Epiphany – Gifted Minds, Grand Realizations,  www.epiphanysfriends.com  I talk extensively about the process of creativity and our  mind’s ability to use or ignore the gifts it was awarded free at birth. It has always seemed to me, since I was young, that the door of our mind is opened wider and wider by one illuminating realization after another as we grow and change. An epiphany is often defined as a door in your mind being opened, a light coming on in the darkness, a discovery, a bit of brand new information being received, a missing piece to a puzzle. It is all of those things and more.

An epiphany can enter through the door of your open mind with a whisper or a shout.  An epiphany can take time to percolate up from the dark depths of your subconscious, then “suddenly” reveal itself and give you the solution to a long forgotten problem. Or it can overtake you in a stunning, life shaking event that arrives with such power it takes your breath away. It can even give you a call to action in times when you are in danger, revealing a way to save yourself or someone else. Epiphany is best friends with intuition; everyone has them. The two hang out together.

Some people, however, ignore  them both. But the information you receive in the moment of epiphany is always, without fail, useful to you. If you choose to ignore it, you might pay the consequences later. If you choose to listen and learn, you can only reap the benefits. You must live in the NOW, remain alert, listen to that inner voice and pay attention in order for epiphany to walk through the door of your mind. If you become epiphany’s friend, she will be your friend for life.

The Creative Epiphany – Not Quite Sophie’s Choice

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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This post should be sub-titled, “Moving, Part II” since it is another installment about the process of changing my residence from northern CA to Denver. In a deeper sense it is about choices in general – difficult choices – and the agony of making them. Did you see the film “Sophie’s Choice”? If you did, you remember the painful circumstances and how her impossible choice was made. My recent choices cannot compare with hers, but still they are weighing rather heavily on my shoulders.

It seems to me there is seldom a clear-cut easy decision about life’s pivotal transitions, because the pros and cons often seem almost equally balanced. That’s one of life’s little tricks when life is being a bitch – offering two alternatives that for all practical purposes might each work out just fine…or not. Which is which? After some thought the pros flip to being cons and then a day or so passes and they flop back again. Would it really matter what your decision is, you wonder? I believe the bottom line has to be to ask yourself which alternative might haunt you the longest and forever be second-guessed. Wouldn’t  just one  clear choice make you unquestionably more happy? Either way…you have to live with your decision for a long time. Perhaps you need a third choice. A compromise. There was no compromise for Sophie.

As an artist I consider my art collection my most precious group possession – each and every piece of it. I own a modest assortment of things that have been carefully selected down through the years based upon what was always my  emotional reaction to that piece. The collection includes just one piece that my gifted father created, some art by prominent artists I admired and could afford, some art gifted to me, and a lot of my own art – images I just can’t part with, which I would never sell. My own art is the art that is the problem, of course. I don’t want to be an art hoarder – a wacko, wild-haired artist who keeps producing paintings like cats keep multiplying, and then one fine day I don’t have room to sit down and I can’t even locate my bed. There is art crap everywhere and the neighbors are talking. They swear my art has begun to smell; paint fumes fill the house.

Most artists have done pieces that feel like multiple umbilical cords to their soul – it’s not uncommon. Your own art carries great significance because it chronicles your life – you the artist can recall exactly what you were about when you worked on it. Much is recalled to you in the character of each image. So there you have the issue – leaving behind some of your own best work, your most revealing work, your “art journal”, does not happen without a struggle. Hanging on to your own art is absolutely an exercise in honoring your life and times – egocentric to be sure. But all the “greats” – the true masters – did it too. After their deaths the families often reveal hundreds of paintings and sketches squirreled away in some attic or barn. And aren’t we glad to see what is in those stacks of stuff? Hell yes we are. But I am not a master.

Whether you sell it at a good price or too quickly and maybe even dirt cheap for the sake of expediency, or flat give it away to admirers who are also friends and collectors or donate it to charity, there are choices that need to be made. Gut wrenching choices. This or that. Too many to move…too few to keep…which ones will make the cut? The train is waiting at the proverbial station. Hurry up and make a choice. If you can’t get all your baggage on the train it will leave without you.

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The Creative Epiphany – A Moving Experience

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

stuffbrushesartpaperskitchennative  Were you listening when I told you I was moving? If you didn’t quite get the enormity of that statement – if you can’t imagine the chaos and the boxes and the agony of the process – the stacks of stuff that don’t deserve to move to Colorado measured against the stacks of stuff that get to go – or if you have not done this recently, in this new century,  then I bet you are clueless. After moving out here to northern CA. in 2006 with my husband’s job transfer and settling right in, thinking I would be here for the duration, I proceeded to bloom where I was planted, as the saying goes. I really did bloom. I have loved being in California. But my husband died, other family members shifted from their Tahoe location to a more exotic locale and so now I am ready to return to Colorado. This time truly for the duration. I am so busy that it’s hard to justify taking the time to make a blog entry.

I am working my way through this 3 bedroom house, including an art studio filled to the gills with paint, brushes, collage papers and canvases, books and art teaching materials. I have a kitchen where a lot of cooking actually happened – these days you see gorgeous kitchens looking like no one ever even boils (a yummy pan of) water in them. There are dishes here for several different types of family meals, both casual and elegant. Linens – I love nice bed linens. Towels must be comfy and thick and plentiful. Art? Are you kidding me? Every wall was arranged with art. Sculpture done by my father and even me, including a tall skinny Massai type woman who I sculpted in college – she has lost her head several times in various moves (I have almost done the same) and I always glue it back on, because where I go, she goes. Masks and tribal finds from Africa and continuing unique gifts from my children’s trips, and those kids of mine don’t go just anywhere. Well actually they will go just about anywhere – one of them is on his second passport now and the other one has 40 countries under her belt. They bring me the weird and wonderful un-noticed items that only they would know I will love. An amazing hunk of stone from Yemen that resembles a petrified brain, if you can imagine that. Taken from the ground in a land of nothing but sand. A nice-sized chip from an ancient pot, gathered from an historic southwestern place where such pieces still casually litter the ground. Both from my son of course. A beautifully embroidered, little bit dirty sleeve of a tribal dress, sold at a market in the hill country of Viet Nam. Just the sleeve, because you see they throw nothing way. So I have this sleeve, which I cherish, from my daughter who knew I would put it out somewhere and honor the intricate beauty of it and that I would also leave it lovingly dirty with authentic Vietnamese soil. Just a few of my treasures collected over a full lifetime. It all has to fit into a truck. Driven by someone I do not know from a hole in the wall. Will he be sober? Does he drive too fast? How’s his vision? Can I please just meet him and look him in the eye before he takes off across Utah and Wyoming with all my things? He has to go over Donner Pass into Reno, then those Utah salt flats, then through that desolate part of Wyoming…

The other night I dreamed that my moving truck went off a cliff. All was lost. My globe-traveling son would hold me in higher esteem if I had fewer possessions – he admires those who live quite simply. He doesn’t own a TV. Even my daughter has  streamlined her environment since she and her husband have begun to live abroad; it is a scary crazy thing to move an entire household of your goods in containers stacked up like chicken crates on the outside deck of a rusty old ship headed across an ocean. Still I have my own humble concerns about the journey  my things will take. I would hate to experience the simple life as a result of my truck going off a cliff. But I am sure I would survive and maybe be the better for it. Although maybe not. I would try to be better for it but…it would be hard to live without my special rock and my tribal sleeve.

The Creative Epiphany – Soul Food

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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This mixed media collage is titled SOUL FOOD – I did it several years ago and it is now owned by one of my favorite people. It is a large painting, it makes a strong statement,  and requires a dedication of space, much like the various things that feed my soul. If you examine it closely it reveals details about the passions in my life. I could not get them ALL worked into the composition of course but there is a selection of clues. Sort of like Cliff Notes. But my life is an open book…always has been. If you ask me a question I answer it honestly – if  you know me it does not take long to figure out what makes me tick. I reveal a lot in my art and my writing, and of course those “life journals” are pretty much out there all over the damn place so it is already too late for me to be mysterious even if I claimed I wanted to be. I am a communicator. It runs in my family – the genes from my straight-up-tight English Lit and correct grammar teacher mother combined with my artistic, musical, eccentric risk-taking furniture salesman father gave me no choice in life, really. My dad could tell a story – always a true one – and it would be hilarious. He was charismatic, handsome, romantic and a naughty boy to the very end. So the fact that I seem to be drawn to that very  type of guy is no big surprise.

But I digress – soul food is what is on my mind today. Cravings – soul food places and faces and things that feed me and fill me up, leaving me satisfied and content. I hope you all know what your soul food is, because when you need symbolic comfort food and you need it NOW then you probably know just what to do with yourself. I guess my equivalent of the old tried and true comfort soul food mac & cheese has got to be the BIG SUR COASTLINE of California. When I move back to Denver this summer I just don’t know what I will do without it. There is a very special place to stay as you travel south on highway 1 – it is a charming cluster of motel cottages perched along the edge of the sand dunes  on a desolate stretch of beach overlooking my Specific Ocean, as I call it – it is going to beckon you again and again once you go there. The place is THE SANCTUARY, just a bit north of Monterey and Carmel. Visit the website at   www.thesanctuarybeachresort.com

Oh and by the way, as you begin your drive down the coast, in the town of Pacifica just south of SF (that place that is always on the news because it is losing chunks of real estate into the sea)  be sure to stop for BBQ at The Gorilla BBQ place, 2145 Coast Highway 1, Pacifica – located in an orange railroad car on the left if you are headed south – the best BBQ I have EVER had. They do have mac & cheese.   www.gorillabbq.com   They even have their own theme song available on the website.

Another must-visit place, farther down the coast past Carmel by almost 2 hours is Nepenthe – you can Google or Bing it and read to your heart’s content – I cannot possibly do it justice with my mere words, but I will say that the word Nepenthe means to alleviate pain or sorrow….to cause to forget trouble….and it does live up to it’s press. The views are beyond belief, and on my last visit there for the occasion of my late husband’s memorial day spent along Big Sur with dear friends, my pain lifted and I felt lighter than air when we settled in there for a very long dinner on the terrace. Go there to feed your soul. Go.

There are many areas here in northern CA that I consider my soul food places. In the 7 years I have lived here I have soaked up a lot of rare and wonderful memories. Yosemite leaves me breathless, Tahoe of course is my family’s playground just an hour and a half from my front door. Wine Country – Oh my goodness. My favorite art supply store of all time is FLAX in San Francisco – it is like a candy store for me. The exotic collage papers imported from all corners of the world are my magnet, pulling me in and holding me hostage there for hours. That store is responsible for changing my artistic life and direction. And it is so much more than papers – it is a great place for kids and for wrappings,  ribbons and albums, books, journals, paint of course and canvas and every single thing you can think of in art.  www.flaxart.com

This blog entry will be continued – so much to say and so little space. Emotional Soul Food is a concept that I highly recommend you explore – if you find a safe and comforting place to go, a particularly wonderful person to visit, something satisfying to eat, a lovely location to sit for awhile or a midnight walk along the beach – if you know how to employ your special people, places and things for your own peace and comfort – well then you are taking care of yourself well. And I believe in taking care of yourself. There are few people who will do as good a job of that as you do, and it is indeed a full time job.

 

 

The Creative Epiphany – Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

recentfolder 013  Time Weavings, mixed media by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

They – whoever they are – say that our lives are shaped more by the prayers that are not answered than the ones that are. When I say “prayer” I use that term loosely – because I think of the word “prayer” as a visualization, a power of positive thinking, a goal strongly sought after, a long-term dream you have chased. But indeed it is a focused request to yourself, or to your higher power, and/or the universe or your soul for something you greatly desire. Well that is kind of a scary thought. Makes you start going back over all of your unanswered prayers, trying to remember what happened or did not happen after you realized that one particular prayer and probably others were never answered. I would guess that in some cases what came instead was a far better thing, and perhaps in other cases it was just a void. Nothing much seemed to take place. But at the time you had no perspective. You were so far under the mountain that you could not see the view.

But let’s just say that, lucky you, your dream sort of comes true. Maybe it isn’t the total 100% super duperest extra special perfect version of your spectacular technicolor  dream, but it is this —- close —- to the dream you always had. What are you inclined to do with that? Did you believe you deserved the absolute perfect answer to your prayers? Are you that entitled and that lazy in your requests to the universe? You must have the best, the very best, or nothing at all? You don’t return a gorgeous and rare rose because it has one split petal. Or maybe you do. Are you going to snub your nose at this gift and curse the imperfection? Or are you going to feel blessed that it came, even in a less than ideal form, inviting you to expend a bit of elbow grease and effort to mold it into the almost impossible version you wanted? Maybe it’s a test – because life does send us tests – to see how badly you really wanted what said you wanted.

By the time you are in the second half of your life, that life that has blessed you with many gifts and unexpected delights, you really ought to be able to look back and see the larger picture. It should be  obvious that if all of your wild-eyed, crazy-ass, howling at the moon prayers had been answered the results would not have been as blissful as you imagined. You thought you wanted this and then that. You wanted what you wanted and you wanted it now. The clock was ticking – you got impatient. When Where and How were your dreams going to come true? You asked for a person or a thing or a time or a place or a cure or a circumstance or a winning ticket. And you didn’t get it. What happened instead? If you made wise decisions based upon what you knew you could realistically have, rather than what you perceived as all the ways the universe had slighted you, I would be willing to bet the results were spectacular and satisfying. The weavings of time may seem enigmatic, but in time you see the threads are carefully woven for the quality of the entire tapestry.

The Creative Epiphany – Gone

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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I am gone – I left the island in the dead of night with a stiff breeze behind me, embarrassed almost to be leaving because who in their right mind would leave, and flew back to northern Cal. I didn’t really want to leave and my dread of the long night ahead of me on the plane was punctuated when the person next to me spilled a full glass of tomato juice all over my carry-on.  I took it as an omen that I was going to hate the trip home. I really didn’t want to leave, or did I already say that. The island life is alluring, delicious, sensual, colorful and it grows on you. You roll around in the ambience, like a dog on a good smell, wanting to get it permanently into your pores. It is sensory overload 24/7. I wanted to really be there – not just visiting. I met a lot of new people who I already believe will be friends, I painted, I wrote and I thought a lot. We took day trips, we went to street fairs and markets, we visited art galleries and many beaches.  I took about 7 million pictures and told myself I was absolutely allowed to stand there on my beach of choice for over an hour if I wanted to, attempting to capture the perfect wave in one magnificent photo.

But now, as the James Taylor song says, “Say nice things about me – cuz I’m gone.”

The seduction of color hits you at every turn in Hawaii. Those of us who are hooked on it, who must have our daily fix, who lap it up and eat it whole with juice dripping down our cheeks as we photograph it, who live and breathe it and cannot possibly get enough of our junkie habit, our COLOR drug of choice, well we are happy as hell on the islands.

The paintings I finished over there in lala land were like alien creations – colorful, wild and a little bit too free even for me. Like craft day in the loony bin. Kind of mindless and silly with metaphorical smiles. Abstract to be sure, and I know it was my hand that painted them because I watched it happen, but somewhere along the way they went all goofy and the color became almost the only thing. It was fun while it lasted, however. I worked fast while held in the zany clutches of some island gremlin and lost my common sense as I flung the paint around. I guess that would be called painting with abandon. A good thing, really, to be able to unleash that inner 3 year old and give her an afternoon purely for her enjoyment. She got her wiggles out.

But she grew up fast on the ride home when that tomato juice hit the fan. It seemed symbolically rude. Like a smack in the face that said, “Ha Ha, nanny nanny foo foo – you have to go home now.”

And so I did – I took my toys and went home.

Wow is it drab here at home in the middle of February. When I returned from the island, the barefoot confetti life gave way to the black frost bitten gerbera daisies in the pots around the patio. Spring is still a way off here.

But I have pictures to prove the validity of paradise and what it does to you. Wanna see some?

And don’t you know when the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around.  55 degrees seems like freezing as I leave baggage claim and load my stuff into a friend’s car for the drive back to Lincoln.

Was that place a dream?

The Creative Epiphany – Painting Away

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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There is a certain charm in painting away from home “on location” as they say – remotely – in a studio not your own. It is liberating – everything’s arranged differently and it forces you to leave your routine behind and get loose. Where’s the paper towels? Do you have a squeegee? How about some light blue violet? The light is best at this window except the ants are crawling across my canvas.

The locale offers you new colors to consider, new views, new sunsets and exotic fruit. That is all true and on steroids here in Hawaii. The visual display begins with breakfast and continues throughout the day – kinda makes you want to take notes, and you do – mental color notes. You wish you had more paint. You wish you had more time. You wish.
Purples with sunset orange, pineapple, lime, papaya, mango – all translatable into colors splashed on canvas. Juicey and delicious.

To have two paintings completed before lunch seems ridiculous. That just never happens at home. To be certain that they are truly finished by mid afternoon is crazy fun. To see colors flowing from some resource you had no idea you could use, as if channeling the island ambience just for yourself, is a delightful discovery. Being away is an epiphany.