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It seems  the art life finds me savoring the planned, the organized, the cultivated.  I want to have a routine studio and plein air schedule, a controlled palette, the perfect substrate and the finest brushes.  I want to paint with uninterrupted mind and space and predict the outcome of my artistic intentions.

I want my art life to be like the azaleas so carefully tended by the Chongqing University gardeners, blooming in beautiful arrangements set up to manifest beauty  in every season by their placement against other growing things.       

                                     
But the reality is that my real art life seems to be like the wild things that grow on my apartment roof.  Beauty is there, but I must see it in the confusion of the  brambles and wild flowers that grow at will.  At this stage in my life, my schedule is not my own. (Will it ever be?).My space is limited and keeps changing with my schedule--I meet my students in a make-shift studio in an office or I  paint in my cubicle-sized space in our apartment.  My access to art supplies is limited by my inability to get to the source of what I really want--say a 45 min. ride by taxi to the art district--or not available at all.    

 Do you ever feel like your life is growing wild? That nothing significant is happening in the daily chaos?

I do. But just yesterday I took a photo journey through my art work, starting from many years back, and I saw a pattern emerge.  I saw a slow but steady improvement in those areas in which I struggled. I saw a new recognition of areas I want to work on. I saw that I’d learned to appreciate the beauty of common things often overlooked, and I saw how I’d learned from other artists also taking the wild ride of a less-than-ideal art life.

These two paintings have become my reminders that the cultivated and the wild things are both valuable in my growth as an artist.

What wild things are revealing their beauty to you?