Continuum

Space-time

noun 

Also called the space-time continuum, the four-dimensional continuum, having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate, in which all physical coordinates may be located.

Welcome to Creative Continuum.

My life is shifting radically. I think it's been happening ever since I began teaching, as I have opened myself to the realization that I can do this - but in the past month or so it has picked up speed. 

Then there was last week.

As my local friends know, the gallery I was associated with, Saccarappa, in Westbrook, closed its doors permanently at the end of 2014. 

I was fully aware that the space left by its exit would quickly fill with opportunities. I considered several, including the opportunity to go to ground this winter, quietly and happily working on projects I had put off while painting a new exhibit every six weeks for the last two and a half years. This possibility was particularly attractive!

Then a new opportunity arrived. The storefront in the same building as my studio, 863 Main Street, also vacant since the end of 2014, was presented to me last Monday (Thank you, Andy Curran) for consideration as a teaching and exhibiting space of my own. Then on Wednesday a landlord (Thank you, Chris Grimm) who would be perplexed and embarrassed to be called a radical visionary, but is one anyway, got on board with a very tempting offer. As in, rent I could perhaps actually afford.

The name came to me immediately: Continuum. Creative Continuum, really - so people get an idea from the signage. But Continuum for short. 

So have people also come, eager to partner and brainstorm. I love synergy. 

I want simplicity. What I envision is a room with tables where I can teach all my classes and exhibit and (sometimes!) sell my work and that of my students. Contained in this room is time and space. Time to create. Space to create. Space and time to meet other artists. Some supplies. All of which can be accessed by the community whenever I'm not teaching something there.

I do not intend to work any harder, or any more than I do now, because I am happy in what I am doing: painting and teaching some classes.

What do you need to do art? You need a space and time dedicated to the effort. If you don't have space and time at home, this space will be available to you for work for a fee that I want to be reasonable - maybe $10 per hour. You can arrange to come in whenever there's room - and there will pretty much always be room unless a group is using the space - or you can schedule a time slot which will be yours for the month. And you can renew the slot for as long as you like. We will keep the rent paid and keep going.

If you want to use the room to teach your own class, or to have a party or a meeting, let's talk.

I have to tell you: really funny, not-so-funny, stuff has been happening to me lately. 

One example: yesterday out of the blue a stranger called me. His mother, an artist, had passed away, and he wondered if he could find someone who would be interested in taking her supplies off his hands, and his friend (Thank you, Alice Persons) had given him my name. "It isn't paint or brushes," he explained deprecatingly. "I don't know if you could use it. You see, it's just a lot of easels and lights and things. "

I get tears in my eyes just typing this.

Thank you, angels. You know who you all are.

Painting in Steuben

You know I'm always interested to find new places to paint. Last weekend, I found Steuben! What a gorgeous place, downeast of Acadia. My student, Lucille, was the angel who offered her family camp as a venue for a student retreat (and got a painting in return). And what a retreat! There were seven of us. Friday was gorgeous. Saturday it rained, but we had plenty of room to paint inside at the windows, right on the ocean. Sunday morning the sun broke through.

Words are inadequate. Here are the pictures:

Early on a foggy morning, one artist in Steuben
is already thinking about coffee!

Morning hike in Grand Manan.

Road signs for arriving students.

Psyched to paint!!

More autumn doings...

So, I proofed my 2015 calendar today at Walch Printing. Aaron, the printing liaison, was awesome, gallantly allowing me to mark each and every page for color correction. So happy to be getting my calendar printed locally this year! Those calendars should be out by the end of next week.

Meanwhile, speaking of calendars, please mark yours for the Lincoln Farm Artisans Sale! (You may need to zoom in to read the flyer - I did!) Lovely space, LOTS of art and gift ideas, and free homemade cookies - what's not to like?

Just a quick post today as I fly away - gathering and packing for my upcoming Student Painting Retreat in Steuben, Maine! Photos will be posted!

Autumn: Busy doings...

SO, all summer I don't write a word, because, so I tell myself, I'm just too busy. Then comes autumn - and there is SO much to write about - because ... I'm even busier!!! (Does this strike a chord with you?) Kids are back in school, all the regular meetings and activities that we took a summer break from are now back in gear and revving up. Summer's gone, it's harvest time and garden food needs putting up as we enter the last quarter of 2014. Which means...

My 2015 12 Months in Maine calendar will be coming out soon!

Like last year, the calendar measures 8x8". Even better than last year, they cost only $10 each! (Plus tax where applicable.)

To order just send an email to mary.brooking@gmail.com. You can either copy and paste the liink into your email program, or click on the link to my website and the email link at the top of that page. You're welcome to leave a comment here, but sometimes I don't see them, so I don't recommend ordering that way. Anyway, sooner or later I'll need your email address.

After the calendars are printed I'll send you a PayPal invoice, or if you prefer, an address where you can mail your check.

Thanks to all who have ordered my calendars in the past, and who will in the future. You are some of my most important art patrons. I hope they bring a you whole year of colorful enjoyment. 

~m.

Monhegan!

OK, it was June. And yes, this is September. Busy summer!

One of the joys of my life lately is teaching painting. Last June I got brave and led my first retreat, in a big house I rented on Monhegan. It had to be Monhegan! Artists have been inspired here for over a hundred years.

Several of my students joined me for this adventure, but I came out by myself a day early to get settled into the house. It was a jewel of a day, crystal clear, warm and Monhegan-magical, and I was walking around almost in a daze - couldn't believe my luck, getting to work there all week.

That magic never ran out the whole time we were there.

Over the Top 8x8" acrylic on panel

Sunshine Yellow 6x6" acrylic on panel

Down to the Sea 6x6" acrylic on panel

So, next month (yes, October), several of us will be meeting for another painting retreat in beautiful Steuben, Maine. My son spent Labor Day weekend with a friend in Steuben. I'd never been there, but when I saw the photos I knew I wanted to go. Then, as I was arranging my next student retreat, I lucked out again - one of my students offered her family camp in Steuben as a venue!

I will not wait until the dead of winter to post photos. ;-)

Run Away!

It may not be considered honorable to cry "Retreat!," but retreating is something I happily do now and then. Art isn't all advancing, anymore than breathing is all exhaling. Sometimes you need to breathe in, and that's what a good retreat is for.

I attended a very good retreat last weekend, at Pemaquid Point with the Pastel Painters of Maine, a lovely group of artists who graciously allowed me admittance despite my proclivity for painting in acrylic instead of pastel.

Here we are at the Hotel Pemaquid - that's me boldly claiming the foreground!

In a couple of weeks, I'll be leading a retreat to Monhegan! 

M-o-n-h-e-g-a-n!! 

- where the siren's call to artists is so strong that people have been coming there to paint for well over a hundred years!

Many, but not all, of those who will be joining me are my students. 

If you're interested, you can find information here.

There are two sessions, June 22-24 and June 25-27. 

The first session is just about full, and the second, as of right now, has space for two or three more people.

Last night at the opening of the current Saccarappa Art Collective exhibit, I was involved in a conversation about retreats, when I distinctly heard myself say, "I'd like to lead a retreat every month." And that spirit under my breastbone which occasionally makes it wisdom known clearly rejoined, "Why don't you?"

What do you think?

Art is Faith

Can I get an amen?

Studio Tour

Check out these photos of my studio (and me in it) by phabulous photog Erin Little!

Have you seen my studio? I've been working in this airy, light-filled space for the past 6 months. The address is 863 Main Street, rear entrance - which means you can't see it from Main Street! Head around to the parking lot behind the Frog and Turtle, and you'll see the door to my studio right next door to their entrance.

I love visitors!

Pretty is a walk in the park, but beautiful is more often the end
of a three-day road trip through ugly. I like beautiful.

I'm so honored to be one of several Maine artists that Erin has chosen for her interview series!

I have a fool life. (Read to the bottom, I dare you!)

So my especially dear friend Nancy told me years ago when I was juggling a stressful corporate career, a relationship, a social life and a house. Nowadays life seems infinitely more meaningful. I still have several balls in the air: kids, husband, home, painting, writing. So much more worth caring about. If I could have seen my life now when I was still in my thirties, it would have improved my perspective! It all begs the question: what will happen in another 20 years? It's hard to guess, but let me fill you in on a few things that are happening right this week:

1. This Saturday, November 2, 5-8pm, Saccarappa Art Collective in Westbrook Maine ( https://www.facebook.com/SaccarappaArtCollective ) opens its new exhibit with a wine-and hors d'ouevres reception.

Forest Dance, 16x16" acrylic on canvas, by Mary Brooking 2013

I'll be exhibiting several of my paintings from my week in the Bigelow Mountains last month. All our regular members will be there with new work on the walls. Our guest artists are Charles Thompson, Francine Schrock and Laurie Proctor LeFebvre - all three paint the world they see around them in the form of landscape painting - as I do. I've seen the show going up, and it's exciting and colorful. We always have the most wonderful openings - if you're local I hope you can join us.

2. I'm taking orders now for my 2014 calendar! 

It is 8x8", $15 + tax and shipping where applicable. If you want to order one, please leave a comment at the end of this post, or message me through http://www.marybrooking.com/ . Remember the holidays are coming! I had several people tell me last year that they gave my calendars as gifts.

3. If I ranked this list from biggest to smallest, this news item would be first: I'm opening a studio on Main Street! No photos yet, but I'll post some soon. For the first time in sixteen years, going to work will mean leaving my house! I'm over-the-moon excited about this amazing opportunity to become a presence in Westbrook's growing downtown. I move in on December 1. Is there gonna be a party? In time for holiday shopping?? With reduced prices on all original work??? And are my calendars gonna be on sale there???? Ya-baby!!!!

More on this later. Right now, it's Halloween, and I have one kid inviting a friend over to make costumes and have dinner before trick-or-treating, and the other one trying to convince me to let him go to a sleepover party. Fool life, remember? Celebrate safely, everyone.

Sweet Little Highway

Sweet Little Highway (in progress), 4x4"

Sunday morning I was up early, haggard and nervy after a night of very little rest. (I have teenagers. Untroubled rest is a luxury.) Nevertheless, the car was packed and I was ready. I hit the drive-through for coffee, and then I hit the road.

Magic is in the air at such an hour (it wasn't really that early, but it felt early to me), when you are off on an adventure - and I was decidedly pursuing adventure. I'd been invited to the mountain retreat of a collector of my paintings. At one point, I glanced off the highway to my left and saw a painting: gray clouds, strip of aqua sky, red-brown trees, ocher meadow and umber soil. I remembered the layers, one, two, three, four, five. And I drove north.

The deal was, I'd spend five days all alone at the house on the mountain, painting. My host would choose one painting to keep in return for her hospitality. It's a great deal. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

The house was sumptuous and pristine; I determined to live in it with as little impact as possible. I didn't unpack any more than I needed to wear or to use at a time. In the kitchen, I used one cup, one spoon, one knife, cleaning and returning everything to its place as soon as I finished. I found I enjoyed living this way: rootlessly, almost stealthily. All of me was in my painting, walking, eating and sleeping. There was no internet service. I was unconnected. It felt wonderful.

What sort of people trust like this: to allow someone they know so little to live alone in their private sanctuary for five days? Trusting that I wouldn't steal, or set fires, or fall downstairs and sue them? Wonderful people.

My surroundings overawed me at first. I wasn't ready to paint the views of mountains ranging away layer on layer. Instead, the first day, I painted the scene from the highway: gray, aqua, brown, ocher, umber, a tiny glimpse.

What state is so rich in beautiful scenery, that a glance toward the side of the highway is a painting? My wonderful state of Maine.

I sat listening for a while, and heard breeze-stirred leaves, and occasional bird calls. That's all. The mountains changed continually with the weather and the movement of the earth beneath the sun. The morning after the first night, I took a walk. I got out my easel. I painted. The next day I walked again, and painted. That night I heard a wolf howl in the woods. The third day, I saw a moose perhaps a hundred feet in front of me. It moved so silently, and disappeared so quickly, I was astounded. Talk about stealthy. So I walked, and I painted - for five days.

On Friday morning, I packed the car early - truly early this time! - and drove back into my life. I hugged my kids (before they rushed off to their next social events) and kissed my amazingly supportive husband. I set up for my new class cycle, which begins Monday. That night I slept like a baby.

Art and life may seem to imitate each other at times, but really they are the same thing, I think. Either way it's all about perspective.

 

Yellow Trees (working title) (in progress) 18x18"

Creative courage

Reflected Glory, 20x20"

The other day in the studio I was listening to a Public Radio article on creativity while I painted. I'm sorry I can't credit the producer or any of the sources referred to in the article - I was in my painting brain, weighing colors and shapes, hearing the broadcast resonated through my own thoughts and intuitions about what I was doing. What I heard was that many CEOs nowadays seek employees who are not what we used to call "company people." Instead they realize that people who think and perform in ways outside the norm tend to have the ideas needed to propel their company forward through fast-changing times and technologies. Creative people. These people, they find, make lots of mistakes.  Who would have thought 30 years ago that people who do things in unusual ways and make a lot of mistakes would now be prized as corporate employees? Turns out, it's people who are OK taking risks, even if it means making mistakes now and then, are the same ones who innovate the billion-dollar ideas. And these smart CEOs are giving these creative people the license to invent new ways and risk making some mistakes without fear of being fired for it - and this is paying off. Think Zuckerberg, if you will.

That's why it's so vital to fund arts education in schools: it provides our children with multiple alternative approaches to life's problems. Frees them to search other parts of their brains besides the logical left lobe to look for new ways, and to experiment until something works.

Here's the thing: until we let go of our fear of failing - until we risk making a mistake, losing our way, having a great idea turn into a mess of soggy paper and a night of lost sleep, we aren't free to access our full creative power. Fear turns creative passion to icy sludge.

And I thought: That's what I've been telling my students. Well, maybe not in so many words - but it was what I was trying to give them: permission to listen to their creative intuition, and to try. And to fail. And to try again.

We've all been there. What creative people do - what you do - when faced with a problem, is look fear in the eye - and rock on.