On Monday night I am venturing to take an art class.

Now I know, my life on an island is beginning to sound like Camp Club Med. Take art classes, learn to row, hike. Next I’ll be taking classes on self-awareness and meditation (probably not, though I know it’s good for me). But there you have it, on a community Facebook page, an artist offered up a six-week course in oil-painting, all as a fundraiser for the local Jewish temple, so I’m getting a two for one really, I’m being charitable and doing something on my LIST.  Can you tell I feel guilty? Well I do. I have guilt over allotting time for myself. I have guilt at spending money I haven’t made. I have guilt at having enough money to spend on art classes when so many go without.  This is problematic and it is habitual for me.

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Art is…

Art is… Art is a really big thing. It means so many things to so many people and artists do so many things in so many different genres. To say I’m taking an art class is kind of open-ended.  Specifically, for many years, I have wished to know how to properly paint (I’d also like to work in clay, but one ridiculous adventure at a time please). I didn’t expect to try oils – and never have even on my own, so that’s quite scary and new (how do you wash up after oil paint?). I have so many friends who are brilliant artists and I crave to understand how they make the brush do what it does. Do I aspire to be a famous artist? Uh, no. I just want to feel how it all works. I want to understand it.

Over the last two years I have been painting and then molding these little paper fairies. They’re ridiculous. They are hobby-craft.  I have no outlet for them (other than a few friends who have been trustingly gifted one). They scratch an itch in me to make something by hand.  And so, I carry on, every few months inspired to pump out more fairies. How does one introduce oneself to new friends and say, “in my spare time I spend hours making tiny paper fairies with big noses!”. Insert crazy detector here.

Sometimes I have painted other things; tree bark, a tiny canvas, scraps of paper. Once a friend who is quite an accomplished artist took me to the beach and taught me to look for the horizon. That was kind of life changing in my whole painting world.  “Holy crap, right, the sky does always meet the earth somewhere!”

And so, this Monday, I undertake my first formal attempt at really knowing how to paint. I feel that this act, like much of the last few months is a step towards my own personal meditation on me (WAIT! Didn’t I JUST say I wasn’t going to meditate?). A formal job, a too busy schedule hasn’t quite gotten its fingers into me, so for now I can continue to send out my feelers for what is right for me (until I run out of money – but that’s another blog).

To art.  Let’s see how this goes.