When we first got Tilly several months ago, she was so sweet and gentle that it seemed like she could be a comfort to others as she has been for us. After nursing her back to health physically, I went about contacting a group here in Houston called Faithful Paws. Faithful Paws’ mission is to bring trained animals into hospitals, nursing homes and rehab facilities in order to administer therapy to adults and children. The therapy can be as simple as letting a patient pet a dog, or letting the patient work on fine motor skills by brushing the dog.

Animal assisted therapy is recognized as being both therapeutic and recreational. Health care professionals have noticed and documented the therapeutic effect of animal companionship, such as relieving stress, lowering blood pressure, and raising spirits. In recent years, therapy dogs have even been enlisted to help children overcome speech and emotional disorders. (Wow.)

Before attending the first training class, the Amazing Reese and I were invited to participate in a “blessing of the animals.” There were dogs of all description, birds, cats, mice, hamsters, and even a turtle in attendance, all with their humans, of course. After a short outdoor service that included a homily, a few prayers, and singing All Things Bright and Beautiful, we all lined up with our pets for a blessing by the preacher dude. Here, the preacher dude (priest?) has just finished blessing Tilly in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Amen.)

The preacher dude (minister?) couldn’t stop gushing over how beautiful and sweet Tilly is. (She is.) Teasingly, I said, “I bet you say that to all the dogs.” (He doesn’t.)

Tilly did surprisingly well at our first class last week, considering she was basically new at all of the skills. (Sit. Down. Stay. Tilly, come! Good girl.) We’ve been working hard all week long, taking advantage of every opportunity to practice in public. (Sit. Down. Stay. Tilly, come! Good girl.) Tilly excels at giving unconditional love….or at least the dog form of unconditional love. She’ll let you tug her ears and tail, hug, and pet her ad infinitum. The hardest discipline for Tilly, and what we’ve specifically been working on this week, is over-reacting when she sees a cat or a squirrel. (Tilly, look at me.) And me? Sympathetic to her natural instincts, I have to train MYSELF to train her to not react in those situations. (Good girl, Sarah.)

Yesterday was one of those days….no, no, no, not one of THOSE days; just an ordinary day with expectations, and then the expectations were crushed. It was a day where I had set aside a time and prepared a still life to paint. Everything was ready. And then, by the grace of God, one of my daughters agreed to pose for me….and so I painted her instead. And the portrait was SO terrible, that I wiped it off and wondered if all of this was a fluke. Do I even know how to paint? Then, because the still life was prepared, I painted that, too. In my insecurity, last night I was whining and moaning about not knowing anything and Reese reminded me that I go through this process about twice a month — wondering if I actually know how to paint….and then I dreamed about it. I actually dreamed about writing this blog entry (and the responses to it), spilling all of my insecurities about painting and wondering if painting/art is what I should continue to pursue….

So after painting my daughter and wiping all of the work off the canvas because the painting was grotesque, I painted a still life of tulips. The last time I painted tulips was several years ago. That time and this, the tulips kept moving and changing so much that they were hard to follow and paint. They wiggled. They weren’t still at all. Who knew tulips behaved this way? So, instead of calling this a Still Life with Tulips, this is called a Wiggly Life with Tulips. It’s 12″ x 16″ oil on linen.

Back in the 50’s and 60’s, my grandmother (for whom I am named) had an antique shop on State Street in Jackson, Mississippi. To find items for her shop, she scoured the countryside for treasures. On one trip to New Orleans she found a pile of chairs on the street outside a nunnery. My guess is that sometime between 1960 and 1974, my grandmother was in the right place at the right time when these chairs were being thrown out with the trash. The best I can figure from a little bit of internet research, is that the chairs came from the old Ursuline Convent, which, in 1960, was declared a National Historic Landmark.

My parents have the chairs around their breakfast table in Mississippi. Either my grandmother collected all of the chairs outside the convent and sold one, or someone else gathered a few, because surprisingly enough, this one, the one in the painting, was discovered at The Guild Shop here in Houston.

The Guild Shop is a consignment/re-sale shop with an ever changing inventory. When the Amazing Reese and I got married, we, as mentioned before, were so poor we couldn’t even afford the “o” and the “r” in poor. We were just po. To furnish our home, I followed in my grandmother’s footsteps, scouring the streets and re-sale shops for almost every piece of furniture we have. On one of my many trips to the Guild Shop, I saw this chair and, of course, recognized it immediately.

The Guild Shop lists three prices on each item they sell. The highest price is a “buy it now” price. The second lower price is generally one month later, with the final lowest price marked at the beginning of the third month. Taking a chance (because we were po,) I waited until the final markdown price to buy it. (I even put the final markdown date on the calendar.) At the front door when the Guild Shop opened the beginning of that third month, I hurried to the chair to claim it. On my heels, another person was coming for the same chair, also having put the date on his calendar for the final markdown, and was supremely disappointed to have missed it.

This trash to treasure chair is one of my favorite pieces of furniture in our home and is living happily in the art studio. (I honestly can’t verify the history of this particular chair, but the eight chairs around my parent’s breakfast table are just like it, and I’d like to think that my grandmother touched this chair, too.)

In mid January, we adopted a standard poodle (Tilly) from the Humane Society. We couldn’t tell at the time because she was covered in a mess of hair, but she was in bad shape.

Look at her now. Her weight has doubled, and day by day, she is learning to fully trust us.

She might actually be the best dog ever.

Sarah Hazel Art Studio is clearing house.

On the table (literally) are eight paintings from 2005-ish that will be given away. For my gentle readers, this offer is on a first come first served basis.

Up for grabs are from left to right, starting on the top row: Sister Friends (24″ x 30″), Little Cowgirl (16″ x 20″), Tea Party (20″ x 24″).
Middle: Apples and Pears (11″ x 14″).
Bottom row, left to right: Aspens (16″ x 20″), Garlic and Tomatoes (11″ x 14″), Paperwhites (11″ x 14″), and Sisters Fishing (22″ x 28″).

Donations accepted (but not required.) Only one painting per collector. All work unframed. Unless an adequate tip is included in addition to shipping costs, no shipping. I, Sarah Hazel, retain the rights to all images.
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*Thanks for the overwhelming response. All paintings are now gone.

After the project for the American Heart Association was turned in, gone, no longer at our house, I kind of missed it.

So, I painted the image again. This time, instead of being painted on a giant art heart, it’s on a 36″ x 48″ canvas. It’s quite large (for me.)

Now, this isn’t an exact copy….it’s only inspired from the original. Some of the same techniques were used as were used in the last piece. Such as, this was painted in thin layers with drying time in between. The sky got three layers. The field got at least three layers, and I don’t remember how many layers of paint are on the tree. Also, I loved the color scheme of the art heart and wanted to work in that same color scheme again. The purple, blue, orange, and yellow form a tetrad on the color wheel, which was an accidental discovery after the art heart was completed.

One of our friends named Minh immigrated to the US from Vietnam as a teenager. He tells the story of when he and his family arrived in Guam. Riding to the military base from the boat in the back of a pick up truck, he smelled the air and thought to himself, “That’s the smell of freedom.” After being in a communist oppressed country, everything was new and beautiful to him. Years passed and he never smelled that particular scent again. But while visiting a friend in New York, he smelled it. He excitedly exclaimed to his friend, “I smell it. That’s the smell of freedom!” His friend was puzzled. Undeterred, Minh explained his first impression of being on free soil and how powerful a feeling it was to him as a young man and how he associated that smell with the smell of freedom. This was the first time he had smelled the same scent since his first moments on free soil. His friend said, “You like that smell? Dude, that’s a skunk.”

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Last night I went to an artist talk at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston by my friend and fellow artist, Jonatan Lopez. Jonatan and I first met in October 2008 during Fresh Art’s MADE FROM IKE exhibit benefiting Americans for the Arts at the Caroline Collective. I immediately liked his work and almost as immediately, commissioned him to make a pit lantern for us out of our old Weber grill. He and I have been in several shows together since then. We have lots of mutual art friends, and consequently run into each other on a fairly regular basis at various openings and art events.

Ours is an unlikely friendship. He’s Latino, young, and energetic. I’m a middle aged white woman. Lately, he’s been more and more extreme in the message that’s attached to his art. Me? I’m the exact opposite. Very unextreme — in life and the art I create.

I like Jonatan. He’s kind, friendly, thoughtful, a hard worker — qualities that I admire in anyone. He’s a real go-getter. He’s constantly exhibiting and expanding his repertoire artistically. He’s moved from metal sculpture to performance art to installations to film to curating — he’s talented. Did I say he’s talented? In the last two years, some (not all) of his shows have exhibited a decidedly darker view of life. Religion, sexuality, politics — all are fair game in his artistic expressions, always pushing the envelope, and in his own words “questioning and defying mainstream views.” Whether or not I agree with his “in your face” message doesn’t mean that it’s not OK for him to preach it.

His current work is clearly striking a cord within the Houston art scene. Good grief. He was giving an artist talk at the Contemporary Arts Museum! Last year he had an exhibit space at Project Row Houses. Those are big deals. I like Jonatan. I like him as a person. I believe in him as an artist. He’s incredibly talented and thoughtful. I can fully endorse his (as he called them) decorative arts, including the two pieces in our own personal collection.

The current religious, sexual, and political work is causing me a crisis of conscience to endorse. It’s hard to separate this newer art from the message. The message is the art and the art is the message. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like him; it’s just that some of his art is not what I would ever choose to display in my living room, except, of course, for the two pieces that we already own.

Jonatan’s artistic freedom of expression is applauded and accepted, especially by the art elite, or at least it seems that way. I’m pretty open to artistic freedom. I don’t even mind that Jonatan creates what he creates. More power to him — honestly. I’m continually impressed by Jonatan’s artistry. I want all the best for Jonatan. What really happened at the talk last night, and the reason for this extended explanation, was that I was uncomfortably bombarded by Jonatan’s political, sexual, and religious views through his artistic expression. I just wasn’t expecting such a visually graphic lecture. Shame on me for being naive.

I’m proud of him for all that he is accomplishing in the Houston art scene. Freedom of expression should smell sweet to all of us, whether we have a crisis of conscience or not.

The Amazing Reese and I sometimes babysit our niece and nephew. Last time, they went in Tilly’s cage all by themselves — promise.

As a child vies for attention when his mother talks on the phone, my thoughts are competing for attention in my brain. With so many competing ideas in my head, formulating a single train of thought is almost impossible. One thing, does it do any good to sit here and stare at an empty computer screen when I can’t think of anything (instructive, uplifting, constructive, compelling….) to say?

Today’s thoughts are thoughts of introspection, and I’m not sure that you, gentle reader, actually want to go on a tour of my brain.

1. There are several instances in my life where people have believed in me more than I have. The Amazing Reese is one of those people. He daily encourages and enables me to live well.

2. Over the weekend, through the magic of facebook, I heard from a high school era friend. A wave of memories followed. It made me realize that I’m very much the same person, even though I’ve changed a lot.

3. Every day I make choices in how to live. For instance, every morning I choose coffee.

4. Not everyone understands or appreciates my way of living. A lot of people want me to be someone different. Why is this? Why would anyone want someone else to not be who they are?

5. Some days I don’t fully understand myself. Does that matter? Do I need to understand everything?

6. I would like to have all of the health benefits of running without the actual running part.

7. It sometimes makes me sad that I don’t enjoy running anymore. Then I think of all of the other things that use up time that are less physically strenuous — like for instance, drinking coffee.

8. I love Jesus but I drink a little.

9. I’m 47. I wish I were more fit, but not enough to do anything about it. See #6 and #8.

10. Sometimes, even at artistic or creative events, I realize that I’m a little bit outside the box. Then I think that if I were in the same box as everyone else, it would be very crowded. Even though I don’t mind boxes, I would prefer not to be in one.

The field trips continue. This time, Flat Elizabeth came to visit all the way from Hillsdale Elementary in Hayesville, Ohio. Her Aunt Gail brought her over to see the mural on the back of the house. (She loved it!)

Flat Elizabeth also enjoyed petting our wonderfully gentle and friendly poodle, Tilly.