When I woke up on Wednesday I was afraid to look at my phone. Memories of past elections left me and probably many others with trauma. But it seems the people, especially the young people have spoken and boy what a relief. There are so many issues it is hard to know what motivated people to vote blue: gas Prices, grocery Prices, health care, day-care, ICE and the images of those they have murdered, Gaza, the war in Iran, Climate, Artificial Intelligence and data centers, the crazy CDC and the failure of the FDA to protect us from tainted food. And I suppose it doesn’t matter what brought people to vote because it is all connected and especially young people know that time is running out and we need to wrench power away from the charlatan leaders in power who are only interested in their own survival and interests. But now the hard work begins. Schummer and Jeffries and their AIPAC money need to go!!! It is going to be an interesting 3 months before the newly elected are sworn in. I am both hopeful and scared.
Now back to art…I discovered a Korean paper technique called Joomchi where you felt layers of mulberry paper together using just water. I did it with my two granddaughters on Tuesday (as they did not have school) and we had a lot fun. Since then I have been experimenting with it on my own trying to “make art”. I like what I have created but Roy thinks it is a bit too crafty looking…..I am still exploring. Maybe when we go to NH in 2 weeks I will bring some paper up to do it with my other granddaughter and my daughter-in-law, who has a great artistic eye.
Speaking of artistic eyes, my son-in-law is back in his painting class every Monday. He is incredibly skilled with his brushwork but I am struggling with his current painting because I do not like the composition. He has heard me on this and has also politely disagreed and also feels he is still working on it and the compositional problems will improve. I love that we can share our work with each other and get honest feedback. I know that he will be honest with me if I show him something that is not working for him and he is comfortable with me giving him feedback on his work. I want to be wrong about the composition but I am pretty convinced that the underlying composition is going to be a problem for him no matter how much he works on this painting. I might ask him if I can share the painting in process with my art group to hear what others have to say.