looking back/looking forward

As many of you may feel, post the time change, days seem to take more out of me now that it is dark by the time I leave work. Of course Florida's 6pm is vastly different from the 4:30pm sunset enjoyed/loathed by most New Englanders these days. A feeling of angst and simultaneous apathy overtakes me. To-do lists seem never ending and the demands on my time overcrowd my brain and exhaust my person.

This is best expressed through my evening routine tonight: leave work, drive to pizza hut to get the tuesday lasagna special (we live off of fast food these days), come home, watch an old 30 Rock and eat greasy food, email colleagues, look up and debate supplies for next semester, make changes to several working files, try to relax by watching reality tv, feeling uneasy, reading....more specifically reading The Radicant by Nicolas Bourriaud and wondering if I would ever agree that "Paul Gauguin, Segalen's alter ego, did not exploit the cultural context in which he settled (my emphasis); he translated it." really? Then, feeling really, really anxious (screw reading), watch 15 more minutes of reality tv while flipping through books for assignment ideas, thinking about figure drawing and the skeleton, thinking I should go paint and screw everything else for now....... PAINTING!

It is an activity that exhausts and thrills me, most of all it makes me feel alive. Painting allows me to get outside of my head for a few fugitive moments, I move past this moment, I traverse the mundane, my intellect is allowed to move past the to-do list. THANK YOU PAINTING.

tonight:

tiny small self-portrait 2" x 3.25"

the last couple of nights:

the other painting, my mom is now in the shade and she is reaching for something/someone, light shifts drawing problems to be resolved at a later date.