For this week’s Photo Challenge: FRAME I choose this painting in mixed media collage that I did many years ago but which I still refer to at times for the texture and enigmatic composition. I believe the door is Moroccan; I painted it from a photograph.
The above photo is representative of the scramble my mind has been experiencing all day today. Actually it is the paint-splattered floor from my classroom at Denver Art Students League.
Hi. In my absence of the past couple weeks I am sure that issues of vast importance were solved and enormous progress was made with dozens of worldly problems, but in my little domain it was plenty enough that I managed to move to a different residence in the western area outside Denver (at the very base of the bumps that begin the Rocky Mountains) and my book is almost at the printer – thus out of my hands for the first time since it began itself over a year ago. It actually did begin itself, almost without me – I sat down one day with some thoughts that I was intending to call little personal essays. I began writing and one thing led to another – every thought needed expanding upon, every direction I took had to have the back story explained, then pretty soon I was dividing all of it into chapters…no one was more surprised than me. Life sneaks up on us, does it not?
Now I am exhausted and beaten up from the physical task of moving, which I did not sit by and just supervise, and mentally from the great challenge of trying to find the best words to use in a 516 page story about the life of a woman artist. Life came at me from both sides – the mental and the physical, with my deep muscle aches and my bruises and my mental so-tired-I-cannot-even-eat-or-sleep fatigue. What was I thinking? Why didn’t I time this better? Two huge things at once. I must be nuts.
Then there is the new website – the one about the book – which I was all ready to publish today and proudly guide you to. You would not believe the mess, the 3 hour mess, that a super-human Prince of Patience over in India helped me unravel so that 48 hours from now I might have my lovely new website for the book available to see. It was a marathon of communication he and I had on the phone; I have never experienced anything like it. And while it was in progress the company we were dealing with had a system-wide failure (probably my fault) and we had to repeat the same complicated procedure about 4 times. It was also a lesson in acceptance and faith, (just give it up to the universe) because I was hoping beyond hope that I would somehow manage to be helped by a person I could understand and vice versa – and my experience with him was beyond great. Hurrah for Aman in India!! Wish I knew him better.
Perhaps tonight I will sleep more than 4 hours. Perhaps I will not. As soon as the website goes live, or the book is finally published and listed on Amazon.com, you will be the first to know. We are in the final countdown for my novel A CANARY FLIES THE CANYON….
In the meantime, I will be unpacking…
Ten moons til the move is over – Conifer Colorado, August 2015
That which does not kill you….makes you stronger, they say. Not sure about that, but I am in the ugly process of moving to a different part of the Denver area and I am really strong right now from lifting boxes that I should never be lifting. I have muscle definition and even abs. Still, I think it might kill me too. I am so driven to get this horrible transition over and done that I am being a little stupid. And there are stairs involved. I am trying to do as much of it as I can, myself, before the big truck pulls up. The other day I turned a large table upside down and slid it down the entry stairs, hanging onto one end of it for dear life so that we both would not smack into the front door at the bottom. After this entire process is over I will return to my former degree of common sense, jump back into the old groove and be writing regularly again.
I said my book would be published in late summer of 2015 and I still plan to achieve that goal if you will be kind enough to consider Indian Summer as being within the parameters of summer. Oh come on….stretch a little bit and just give me that. Yes there have been a few delays and if I explained them to you they would sound implausible so I won’t bother, but just take my word that they are not within the normal range of belief, but they are indeed true.
My website for the book is going live soon – very soon – even before the book is published. I will also be releasing another tidbit right here and now – this time the official book description. Please enjoy.
“A Canary Flies the Canyon” – a novel by Jo Ann Brown-Scott. Book description, all rights reserved.
Have you ever questioned randomness?
Do you wonder in your life, or any life, whether or not the choices we are offered are really choices or if fate determines our destiny?
With her third book Jo Ann Brown-Scott offers a fresh and energetic novel about the life-long evolution of a contemporary woman artist. In her characteristically vivid, painterly voice, at times both irreverent and profound, Brown-Scott composes the story of a maverick, free-spirited woman, awarded with creative DNA and privilege at birth yet scarred with a childhood of loss and family dysfunction. Fueled with these ideal circumstances for artistic creative development, the heroine Annie breaks loose to become the Bohemian abstract artist she was born to be.
During her artistic maturation, relationships with three prominent men in her life, a salesman, a contrarian and a Swede bring seemingly random disorder, chaos and instability as her art continues to acquire complexity and growth toward success. Facing complicated challenges Annie gradually becomes faith-based, spiritual and enlightened during her struggles to thrive. She questions randomness; can life’s moments of perfect timing be attributed to mere coincidental chance? Do we have any real choices, or is a life already written in the stars as karmic retribution or reward?
Art mirrors life; paintings are a life journal. In Annie’s mixed media life we discover her soul – her humor, courage, passion and her relentless amazement at life itself partnered with her embrace of all that remains mysterious and unknown. She learns of possible past lives; she questions the complete and utter finality of death. Her paintings morph into powerful, carefully structured compositions indicative of her intellect, fire and passion. Her messages about life are evident in the exuberant color and pattern of her art.
Only after Annie hits emotional rock-bottom and is brought to her knees with adversity does the universe present her with an option that hints at both restoration and renewal. They say that karma is a bitch, but more often it is just karma. When it does intervene it is nonjudgmental; pure, swift and arriving in the nick of time to level the playing field once again. It comes bearing gifts for a gutsy, risk-taking woman, many times burned; a chance and a choice that just might balance the scales and enable Annie to grasp some reward in the last chapter of her life. If she decides to take one more leap of faith, the results could be astounding. Will she choose wisely? What is her destiny?
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Book http://joannbrownscottauthor.com – coming soon!
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Yes it is almost time. Imagine my anticipation. I am about to birth a new baby novel after nearly a decade of purple-faced, teeth-clenching labor. My god it is difficult to put a book together. Have you ever tried it? I should have just stuck an ice pick up my nose; it would have been less painful. On some days it was pure agony. Ten minutes of tending the same damn paragraph seem like hours of torture. You call yourself nasty names. You eat junk food, you do not sleep well. You second guess, third guess and sixteenth guess every single scene, every conversation, every insight. And pretty much no one cares until it is really done. You get no sympathy.
If you are also an artist, as I am, sometimes you attempt to work on a painting for a brief intermission as you are mulling over the words that will come next, and writing is a lot like painting so it seems so logical that it would be a great idea to create both book and art side by side…thriving in a parallel universe. Both require a distinct voice, a unique vocabulary of expression and gesture, a selection of color, pattern and texture to flesh out the composition or the plot. And the sub-plots. Writing can be a lot of fun, on the good days. Painting can also be quite enjoyable when you are in the flow. But I have discovered through the years that one of those pursuits is capable of blocking out the sun for the other one. They compete for my attention and they dilute what I am doing into less powerful work if I try to excel in both at once.
What was the delay, you ask? Ten years? That’s crazy. What takes so long about writing a book? Well, I had a fabulous story but no ending. Then stuff happened that inspired and informed the book idea and everything fell together in one big loud, undeniable way as sometimes (but not often enough) stuff does. They say that we need to write about what we know and what we are most comfortable with in order to be authentic and genuinely entertaining. Obviously an author would not, in her right mind, take on the task of writing a book about some wild-ass thing or another that she knows nothing about, because faking it always shows. So unless an author has endless piles of money to pay a fleet of research assistants…
I am my own research assistant. Therefore this book is a novel about a contemporary woman artist.
It is now finished.
Soon I will be able to refer you to the book’s website, as a tasty hors d’oeuvre, and then the actual book – we are in “cover design” mode right now. Soon it will be listed with Amazon.com, so no matter where in the world you happen to be you will be able to get your hands on it. It will also be available on Kindle. I’ll let you know when all that happens.
MANY thanks to all of you for following this blog and feeding my artistic and literary soul – I have sharpened my skills within this blog using all of you as my audience and yes, my guinea pigs, but always with great respect for you and the enhancement of the “some-day” book; this blog and my two previous books have taught me to work smarter not harder, to pull up the best words faster when I need them, to say things sharper and more clearly with fewer words, and to be consistently using my skills. I am going to have a huge celebration when this book is released – you all will hear it from wherever you are, one way or another, through this blog, Amazon, the new book website, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I hope you can all come….I really would like you to come.
Stay tuned for the first excerpt!
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the creative epiphany 