At The Eye

One of the very fun things I have been experiencing this year is people from the past showing up in my life. Some of them I am happy to see, as in “Hello old friend!”. Some of them just came back around again so I could finish with them and move on.

Memories are showing up too. This has been ever so enlightening, amusing, validating, eye opening. Here’s one that just showed up this weekend, so suddenly that I laughed out loud. Hey, I haven’t thought of this in, literally, decades!!

The story: I was 20 and still in art school, when a good friend and I were hired by a local vintage shop to make costumes and props for an over the top promotional drag show. This was to take place in a local nightclub that was known for its gender bending. Lots of flash and fun, plus we were being paid. Very cool. At the time, my friend Dorothy and I were both studying fashion and fabric design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. We were to make a number of cupcake/phallic sculptures out of pinks, reds, oranges, browns… in satin. Big and stuffed, but small enough that the performers (on roller skates and wearing lots of sequins) could carry them and point them at each other. They turned out great. You had to be there.

We also participated in the show, which was a cross between a performance, dance, musical, and drag show. Lots of performers. It all looked fabulous. But when the time came to be paid the balance (half down, half at the show’s end), we weren’t. After a bit of strong arming from a scary looking boyfriend, (not mine), we were told we could take the other half in trade from the shop. Not exactly the deal we’d made, but better than nothing. We went in and picked out what Ginny, the less than honest business woman we’d been dealing with, hadn’t removed from her shop before we got there. A great learning experience.

Epilogue: One day, a month or two later, I am walking home from the el stop after school. I remember it being a gray early fall day, kind of cool out. A small pickup truck comes zipping by, just missing me as I cross the street. Ginny screeches to a halt, jumps out and throws several big plastic garbage bags at me. Jumps back in her car and takes off, looking really mad the whole time. Inside the bags are the remains of the soft sculptures. She has ripped them apart and taken out the stuffing, (to use in her own soft sculptures?). Standing there, holding the bags literally, I yell after her, “but Ginny, you paid for them! They’re yours.” She thought she was dissing me and Dorothy by doing this, but we both found it so funny, and raised a toast to our great learning experience together.

To this day, I make it a point to thank in particular the people who have been the most challenging in my life. Ginny was nothing compared to some of them because, frankly, I didn’t care what she thought. I just wanted to be paid what I’d been promised. The ones who have been most challenging for me have been the people whose good opinion I desired. I know I am not alone in that. As I become more in charge of my good opinion of myself, what others have to say about me carries less weight. Yes, in the art world too. This doesn’t mean I don’t want it. What I have learned is that if I need it, I am stuck. I am no longer working for the validation coming from others, or from the fear for lack of it. So a big Thank You! to everyone who has helped me along the way.

Have you got any stories to share?

Featured Painting: “At The Eye” 2008 15″x15″ SOLD

And Another Funny Thing…

It’s been fun getting back into the swing of blogging, bit by bit. I haven’t really been visiting other blogs a whole lot, but I will soon. Life has gotten quite busy, especially this month. Very exciting here in downtown Los Angeles.

I was recently juried into Women Painters West as a new associate member. Women Painters West is a diverse group of professional women painters, out west! One becomes an active member after being accepted into three shows with this group. I volunteered for the publicity committee, because I want to learn more about doing that in general. I’ve been educating myself for some time now, and I know working with others will help that process. There is a monthly member’s luncheon, which was today. So much fun! Very validating and friendly, and boy do these women have their stuff organized. Having been part of other artist organizations before, and merely an observer of others I dared not join for fear of death by aggravation, I am impressed with this group. I am going to try to get them to start a blog, which all the members can contribute to.

I must admit I was in resistance to joining at first. Something along the lines of Groucho Marx’s quote, “I don’t want to join any group that would have me as a member.” Just a little curmudgeonly on my part, but it was a challenging Spring, energy wise. I showed them only my abstract work, which I was feeling a little stuck about at the time. I couldn’t see my way out of the paper bag I was in. I thought, “if they accept me for this work, great. This is who I am now.”

It’s so much fun to finally get something one is trying to get. Now I am positively owning my abstract work. I am also reading about the histories of the New York School, the original abstract expressionists in this country, again. As well as the European surrealists and abstractionists, many of whom came to New York during WW2, having been chased out by the war and the Nazis. I read and knew about this stuff years ago, but it did not compute the way it is now. I am not matching to those artists, I am interested in what inspired them. I have loved Rothko, Motherwell, Kandinsky, Klee, Johns, Rauschenberg, etc… for many years. I realize much of my art education was about me finding permission to educate myself as an artist. The commitment is the deal here. I have that strongly right now, and I feel like the most fortunate person for it.

Featured Painting: “Another Funny Thing” 2008 20″x20″ Available at www.kriscahill.com

Jazz Hands and a Bee Story

Another recent abstract. I need lots of intense color these days. Reds especially, though I am finding myself increasingly called upon by my good friends Orange and Yellow. Blue stopped by the other day, and Purple keeps trying to make a date with me, but Red usually wins out. I like to work with all of my colorful friends together, especially in odd combinations and mixes.

The name of this piece is “Jazz Hands”, and is somewhat typical of the new direction my work is taking, though that can change momentarily. I am interested in movement in this piece.

So I promised you a Bee Story a while back. My Bee Story takes place on March 21 of this year, the first day of Spring, also Good Friday, and also a Full Moon. Wild energy that day. I was meditating in the afternoon in my loft. We live in a loft building converted from a warehouse, so it is odd and cool. It has real beams, brick, interesting wood floors. We live on the third floor, and often have the front window wide open, no screen. This window faces west, and though we live just south of downtown LA, the place we live has jasmine, bougainvillea, palms, 3 story high cactus, calla lilies, and a garden one of my neighbors planted. It’s pretty. It’s also quiet, which one wouldn’t imagine just driving by.

I have my eyes closed and am in meditation, when I sense something isn’t quite right. I don’t know, a tiny sound, an energy? Opening my eyes, I am horrified to see a swarm of bees, actually I think they were yellow jackets, in my living room, which is where the open window is. Now actively freaking out - I am a wuss around bees, I call my husband. He doesn’t answer his phone, and what’s he going to do anyway? Yelling “Go away” to the bees, who ignore me completely, I call my sister Betty, who lives nearby in Burbank. She is also a Bee Wuss, and sympathizes with me. Then she reminds me of window spray, and how you can spray far distances with it.

Now I have a mission. It is obvious that the bees are not going to leave on their own, and now they are starting to fly further into the loft. I grab the window spray, and my killer instinct comes out. This window spray really shoots far! One by one I take those terrifying little suckers out. About 20 of them. It is disturbing and hilarious. Note: these were not honey bees, so please don’t yell at me. I closed the window, and sat down, the victor in the Bee War.

Later that day, my sister called me back to tell me the same thing happened to both her and another friend, the same day. And, another odd twist is that an apron I modeled for her, one with a bee pocket, sold that very day. Here’s the link to that photo: Bee Apron.

There has been no recurrence of the Invasion of the Bees since then.

Featured Painting: “Jazz Hands” 2008 13″x13″ Available here.

Diva

I have now lived in Southern California for nearly two full years, and have a more realistic view of what seasons bring here. There are many people transplanted here from Chicago and other points back east, and we often find ourselves talking about the difference in what is meant by the word ‘winter’. Especially during what I call “real winter” in Chicago, versus “Hollywood winter” here.

LA has summer, a lot of it. Fall brings the season known affectionately in these parts as “fire season”. It has started early this year; in Northern California there are something like 800 wildfires burning right now. Winter does cool down, but that is relative. Our heating bill last winter was about $8.00 a month. For maybe two months. And Spring, I love Spring here! Also known as the rainy season, and again that varies from year to year, spring brings with it wonderful blooming of incredibly beautiful and fragrant vines, trees, flowers.

Jacarandas bloom in the spring, and I am in love with them. Their season lasts just a couple of short months, and is awesome to behold. Imagine tall elegant trees, spilling over with beautiful purple blooms. There are entire streets filled with these trees, and it is crazy cool to drive down them during the height of jacaranda season. I am a dangerous driver then, but at least I go slowly. Walking works too! People here actually complain about the jacarandas dropping their blossoms onto the streets and cars. What-ever.

“Diva” is my ode to the Jacarandas. It may be the last tree I paint for quite a while, since I am absolutely focussed on my abstract work right now. I don’t know how many tree paintings I’ve made over the years, I suppose I could go count them up, but I think I am done for a while with this imagery. Many of my earlier works used an object as the focus, and I am both moving in closer and pulling out farther in my focus for my new work. It’s all about the energy in the imagery, and especially how my energy is while creating it.

What this decision means is that over the next little while I will be redirecting my image as an artist. I will be releasing many older works, selling them yes, but also donating a few here and there to some worthy organizations and benefits. I’ve given two to the Los Angeles School of Arts and Music, and am sending two more to a benefit in Kentucky for a school that helps kids with disabilities and special needs. They auctioned one of my heart paintings last year for twice what I was charging for it! I feel good about giving to them.

What I am creating now feels and looks very true for me. What’s more, it excites me. I know when I am bored with my work that it is time to take a chance, move on, stop creating my greatest hits. If you have ever wanted to own a tree, heart, or flower painting of mine, what you currently see now is what is available. Period. Word to the wise.

Featured painting: “Diva”  2008  32″x32″  Available at kriscahill.com

An Abstract Passion

Lately I’ve been joking that I’m living la vida abstracta. I have an abstract passion. I am thinking abstractly. Though my dreams are sometimes filled with everyday things (last night I dreamed of my perfect sandals and now I am on a hunt), my days are filled with visions of color put together in ways that do not exactly make sense. Voila, Abstracta! I know I am healing the part of me that has always been under a demand to make sense. If I am making sense, others are safe somehow. Did I mention yet that this no longer works for me?

Another thing that doesn’t make sense is clairvoyance. Really. You can’t prove it. It just is. Intuition can’t be explained either, or gut feelings, or how you feel at any particular time. What makes all of this work is to just have it. Which is why I have such a passion for clairvoyance too.

This painting, funnily enough, is called “Abstract Passion”. I have shown it here before. I made it in 2006, the year I left Chicago for Los Angeles. (Try explaining LA to somebody. Makes no sense, and is still fun.) Some things just have to be experienced, I guess. Anyway, I own this painting, look at it almost every day, and still find new things to learn from it. I love it more than I did when it was new. It inspires me, and has helped me with this recent decision to truly dive into my abstract passion.

I have a good friend out here who is also an abstract painter. He was the first friend I made here in LA, and we became friends before I even moved out here. I was on my first visit to my husband, Noel, who moved here before me. We went to see the Pacific Design Center, and there was an art show happening in one of the showrooms. I saw a big red and blue abstract painting through the window, and said to Noel, “I want to go meet that artist”. We went in, and while looking at his work, Mike Chearney came over and said hello. I liked him right away, and we soon became friends. I am inspired by his commitment to his abstract passion. It has helped me greatly to see another artist dive in and own that vision.

It takes some doing to change what one was doing for so long, whether it’s a style of work, an old habit, a way of thinking, being, doing. To consciously change takes courage. Of course, many people go into changes kicking and screaming. I have personally done this very thing. It’s funny, oh the Drama! I like the conscious way better. More fun, better fashion. Don’t ask what that means. It may not make sense.

Featured Painting: “Abstract Passion” 2006 32″x30″ at kriscahill.com

The Agents of Change Are Here!

After taking an entire season off, I have decided it’s time to return to the blog. I needed some space, and to make some new choices. The painting you see before you is a result of that time, and a harbinger of things to come. It is called “The Agents of Change”, and is the first painting created in the new series I am working on by the same name. Such an interesting time to be alive, though I can imagine anyone in every time thought so too, except perhaps for a few jaded and disgruntled souls caught in the miasma of the mid 80’s to early 90’s, but I digress. (Shoulder pads, anyone?)

Some of the new: my website, which continues to delight and impress me. If I am delighted and impressed, it’s working for me. Then there’s my decision to commit myself fully to being an abstract artist, which truly feels like a weight off my shoulders. I was stretched too thin by trying to do it all. I have been accepted into Women Painters West, which is a diverse organization of professional women painters, well, out west. Where I live. The first dinner I attended was in honor of the 23 new members, and there were about 100 people in attendance. Very validating and fun. A good step for me.

I am giving many psychic readings these days, and it delights me again to read person after person going through huge and wild changes. Everyone is redefining, creating something new for herself or himself. Some are in resistance to it, as I was for a while. Many are jumping right into a new life they are creating for themselves. The human spirit is a delightful and impressive thing.

I taught several workshops and a six week meditation class this Spring. I made some decisions for myself based on this experience, which was great and positive. I’ve been attracting much to myself with my clairvoyant abilities.

I’ve even been learning to DO less. Which for me, takes some doing. Or actually, NOT.

What’s coming next? More completion. Lots more new paintings.

It’s all about change and growth, baby! What about yours?

Featured Painting: “The Agents of Change”   2008   26″x20″  Available at www.kriscahill.com

I have a brand new website! Woo hoo!

Check it out: http://web.mac.com/kriscahill1/iWeb/kriscahill.com/Home.html

I’ll be back soon. Honestly.

I hope you are having fun!

Back Soon From Spring Break…!

With good stories about bees and changes and teaching!

Happy Spring!

I’ve been taking a break to regroup. I didn’t know I was going to take a break, then it happened and became clear it was time for one. I’ll be back soon.

Enjoy this wonderful Spring day, and Happy Easter to you!

“Green Meadow”  2006  32″x36″   acrylic on vinyl in reverse   Available at kriscahill.com 

Getting A Psychic Reading With Me

I have had many people comment, write, call, send me messages on MySpace… wanting to know more about my readings. Often people say they wish they lived closer so they could get a reading. I want to let you know that you can get a reading with me - wherever you live!

From my studio here in Los Angeles, I have given many phone and iChat readings to people from coast to coast in this country. I also give readings at several locations in the LA area: the Valley, Westside, Downtown, and soon West Hollywood will be another. I have even given phone readings to people living here: no driving. (One thing I have learned since moving to LA is that it truly is Location Location Location!)

There is a free service called Skype, which you can download and then use to communicate with people anywhere while online. I have a video camera built into my Macbook, so I can give video readings this way, provided the person on the other end has a camera too. Otherwise we can still talk, for free. And, if you are a Mac user, we can iChat.

How a phone reading works: you email or call me to say you want one. We make an appointment, and then you call me at the agreed upon time. I will read you, recording from my end, and then send you a cd of the reading afterward.

What you can expect in your reading with me: I am a clairvoyant, which means I see energy, and can see the energy of anything you ask me about. I do not predict the future as I already see you as having free will and being capable enough to create your own future. I am more interested in seeing you and reading the energy of what you are doing in your life. Where are you now, what are you working on, what challenges and changes there are for you. I can read relationships, career, health, spiritual growth, or anything you’d like read. I do not tell you what you should do or judge what I see. The healing part of a reading is getting the true direct hello, without all of that stuff.

Payment: I will give you my Paypal address to pay for the reading, or you can give me a credit card over the phone. All readings are 60 minutes long and cost $150.00. I am currently offering $25.00 off your first reading, making it $125.00.

For more information about my Clairvoyant Readings, please visit my website: kriscahill.com.

This Painting: “Playing With Fire”  2007  36″x36″   Available at: Energy Series