What's She Up to Now? Jody's Life Blog

Visited Art Studio and Finished "A Very British Challenge"

Today was a big day--at least it was for me. Then again, "big day" has very different means depending on if you're looking at my pre-Iraq life or my post-Iraq life.

Anyhoo, I went with a group from the VA to visit the studio of artist Jonas Gerard http://www.jonasgerard.com/. Decades ago he painted things that your average person would actually consider "art"...landscapes, portraits, etc. Now he paints modern art. You know, the splatter, looks like a 5-year-old did it kind of modern art. My favorite thing about his studio was that we could actually touch the art, mostly acrylics. However, when he talked about how he made his art, he said he didn't know what it would look like before he got started. He just turned on some music (really loudly) and "let the paint brush talk." Funny, though, that he said there's no "wrong" brush stroke. To me, art is art because it was done in a certain way, even if that way is planned splatters of certain colors. He also said some of the paintings he had hanging in the gallery were "ugly." Yet, they weren't priced as such. A one foot squared painting was over $500 and several larger ones were over $10,000. Most of his paintings were over $1000. The smallest ones, just three or four inches square, were still over $300. To me, the only thing that makes it all okay is that I saw in albums that he has a talent for painting more realistically so maybe that talent translates somehow. However, if you have no plan, there's no wrong brush stroke, and some of them are ugly, what makes them art instead of play or junk? I will say some were very beautiful, though. Others, not so much.

On the other hand, it was very kind of him to allow a group of wounded warriors to come visit his studio and watch him work. He did a question/answer session afterward and even had a canvas and let us each paint on it some, then let us take it back to hang at the VA. Fyi, I think it's pretty ugly. You know the old saying, "Too many cooks spoil the soup"? Well the same goes for paintings. lol

So, the whole event was interesting, but also pretty stressful for me. After Iraq, I get overstimulated pretty easily. Most of my clothes aren't even bright colors anymore. lol In his studio, between the bright colors, blaring Hispanic music, and his forceful demeanor, it was a bit much. I spent almost half the time there pacing in the back. But I made it through. It's good for me...even if there were a few tears. Exposure therapy!

I've also had a pretty productive day on WDC. I did a Welsh poem "Welsh" , several reviews of British-esque writings, and wrote a quiz on the United Kingdom "A Very British Quiz" . Basically, I completed my "A Very British Challenge!" YAY ME! I would say this calls for a celebration, but as a pre-diabetic, there's really nothing in the apartment to celebrate with. I ate it all--probably how I got to be pre-diabetic to begin with. lol

And I won't keep you in suspense any longer. For those none of you are waiting with bated breath, no spider sightings of the runaway from yesterday. I prefer to know they are in their web, but much like "no news is good news," no spider is good spider. TTFN! (Ta-ta for now!)