Your News Clippings

I've been trying to figure out what to write about here for the last year or two. Whenever something comes to mind, the thought usually passes faster than I have the attention to actually take action and log it.

I think I'll start here. My husband and I spent the last year in the United States, close to my family. I worked at a new farm for the summer and then at a local adoption center. My art took a backseat, but I was able to take a few months off around the holidays to recoup and focus on painting and healing my body after a season of full-time farming.

My first season farming, at the Hancock Family Farm in Casco, I think we were spoiled just a little. Aside from 2023 being one of the rainiest seasons in Maine in the last 100 years, the girls and I that worked there were doing a sort of internship so our hours were fairly lax. I didn't realize just how good we had it until farming last summer.

Working eight hours a day, 5 days a week on a farm is rough. You're exhausted mentally and physically, covered in dirt or god knows what's in the liquid organic fertilizer. Is it worth it? Yes. Absolutely. Does it make you question your sanity? Again, yes, absolutely.

I've worked physically exhausting jobs before-one that have left me not able to open my hands when I woke up, 14 hour shifts and exposure to carcinogenic chemical soups. So at least this wasn't that. But close. On a different farm, with non-organic practices, the experience could have been very similar.

One of the girls I worked with that first summer was maybe just a year or so younger than I was, but felt infinitely wiser. She had a young daughter, husband and a homestead of her own already. Raising all sorts of livestock, veggies, and grew up on a large family farm raising and processing meat birds. At one point during the summer I remember her saying something to the effect that, "We're all going to break down and die someday, I want to at least be doing something I love." She was seriously incredible, a true force in the world-grounded and raw. Really all the crew and family I worked with that summer had those qualities, and I feel forever grateful to have met and worked alongside them.

The quote that echoes in my mind tonight however, came from our farm mentor, the man himself. A man of very many words. Sometimes strange, other times funny, usually factual and always exuding passion. This time, we were all sitting at the dining room table, where we had family meals and meetings everyday. I don't quite remember how the topic came up...Maybe we were discussing someone, a character one of us knew, when Geof made a statement about "reading your newspaper clippings." Essentially warning about the pitfalls of reliving your glory days, and focusing too much on past accomplishments. "Resting on your laurels."

He went on to explain in further detail, and I felt myself getting more and more embarrassed. I did this all the time with my paintings. I was so guilty of this. Actually it's all I felt like I was doing recently-at least as far as my art "career" (if it could be called that) was concerned. I was 31 years old, graduated almost a decade ago and my last art "show" was over five years ago. Yet in my head, I still called myself an artist. Do you have to be constantly showing work in public to be an artist? No. I generally think you just need to be constantly making and creating art. But I still felt like a fraud. Had I been making art since college? Yes. Murals, commissions, personal pieces, gifts, but I was no longer pushing myself, and really pushing myself. To create meaningful art, beyond a "pretty" landscape or portrait. Did some of these make me happy? Sure. But they still somehow felt shallow. I felt like I was failing myself, calling myself an artist and not even bothering to dive deep into my subconscious or try to tackle any of this world's issues through art.

I've painted many a small, pretty I'd say, landscape. Hang them up on the wall and marvel at them. But what is the value in that? My happiness sure. Do I need to share my art to be considered an artist? Or just to be considered successful. I'm still nowhere near where I would like to be as an artist. Within the last year we even lived in a small town in Maine packed full of art galleries, but I could only get up the courage to talk to one owner in one gallery. I get so nervous, and chicken out. Embarrassed that I'm thirty years old and still can't speak properly around other people. I can't even say adults anymore-I'm 33 isn't that an adult?

A major part of all of this is how much I self-isolate. I don't mingle at parties unless I am with a group of talkative friends or friends that I trust. My husband and I live about 30 minutes from any real town-although we do have neighbors within walking distance. I think mostly it's that I'm full of shit and amazing at making excuses as to why I'm not doing something that I could or should be doing.

Guess I better get my shit together.