Oil paint on stainless steel refrigerator door, with watercolor painted paper pieces.
Tim and John, whom I love so dearly, embody the concept of connection and bonding more than anyone I have ever known, both separately as individuals and as a couple.
Tonight, Monday evening, May 10, we count forty two days, which is six weeks of the Omer. This is my sixth refrigerator door painting for the series, “Sustenance in Exhile: Counting the Omer 5770/2010.
Day 37 - Gevurah of Yesod: Discipline of Bonding
Daffodils from my garden = beauty in humility……nuff said…..
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Tonight, Wednesday evening, April 28, we count thirty days, which is four weeks and two days of the Omer.
Day 30 – Gevurah of Hod: Discipline in Humility
Discipline in Humility……Knowing when the bill comes due and being humble enough, disciplined enough, to do what has to be done, physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychicly, psychologically. These nudes are done on actual guest checks, which are about 3.5″ by 5.5″. Thanks, Deb, for the guest checks! in my days of waitressing I saw a whole lot of these little pages. For me they represent working in humble circumstances, holding my tongue and smiling while serving others, holding humility with dignity while working to make my life. They also represent a kind of reckoning: What is the true price of something, some situation? Being an artist is a daily exercise in humilty and discipline in many aspects, including figuring out how to pay the rent while making the work we are called to make from within. I recently watched the documentary, Who Does She THink She Is? which touches on this subject and many others regarding being a female artist in the US of A today. I highly recommend it.
Hod reminds us that we cannot control the outcome. Gevurah is the discipline to work hard and consistently at one’s calling regardless of outcome. Step to the easel today and work, trusting that both a living and a life can be made again today.
Last night, Tuesday evening, April 27, we counted twenty nine days, which is four weeks and one day of the Omer.
Day 29 – Chesed of Hod: Lovingkindness in Humility
“Hod”, oil on stainless refrigerator door, 2010
Once again, it is Anna who embodies lovingkindness, but who also represents humility, the acknowledgment of all that is out of our sphere of control, the knowledge that what we have is lent to us briefly, the realization of just how small we are and how big the world is. Anna is such an accomplished and beautiful young woman, but never filled with ego, never unaware of the magic and mystery of it all. It’s what makes her an amazing artist (levhardware.wordpress.com) and human being. That, and her incredible loving orientation to all who come into her life. Anna remains forever young and very wise at the same time. Her beauty is the beauty of Chesed shebe Hod.
There was another article in Discover magazine this week that influenced my thoughts on Hod: The article dealt with water on the moon, and how the man who first “proved” that water did not exist on the moon, has now been graciously acknowledging new information, with humor, that H2O is actually there, right where we’ve been thinking for fifty years or so that it isn’t. To me, this is Hod, the humility that tells us to remain open, ready to admit that we are wrong and change directions when we need to. It is not hesitation, or hedging bets, or not doing things to avoid failure. It is the full on willingness to participate and create, knowing full well we will be re-thinking a lot of things later!
Today is my husband’s birthday. Over these two days I counted the omer while I hand-sewed stitches that my grandmother would have made me remove if she saw them. But they are the best stitches I can do with these big hands of mine. I constructed a new tie for him from painted silk fabric scraps saved from when I used to work in MaryJane Sarvis’ studio (everything she designs and makes is exquisite–if you can own one beautiful thing, her clothings are the one to have).
My husband likes the tie and that makes me happy.
Today is also the three year anniversary of my haircutting at the Peace Pagoda in Grafton, NY. Thank you, Phoebe, for remembering. I will never forget that haircut, nor the poem you wrote about it. Nor the feeling of your hands holding the shaver completing the job before chemo eliminated all the hair on my body completely over the ensuing days and weeks.
This is the first year of the garden returning after last year’s plantings and garden establishing. The daffodils and narcissus bulbs are blooming like crazy. Another count begins: When to start the seeds, how many gardens left to clear and clean up?…..How many dandelions are already out there going crazy? Can you really make wine from them?
This week of endurance brings different counting….less work in the studio and a fair amout of regrouping in the house and in the yard, field notes and sketches. Sustenance in Exhile: working from whatever is on hand, using every opportunity for creative expression. Counting my beautiful and sometimes painful little life.
Tonight, Wednesday evening, April 21, we count twenty three days, which is three weeks and two days of the Omer.
Tonight, Monday evening, April 19, we count twenty one days, which is three weeks of the Omer.
“Tiferet” oil on stainless steel refrigerator door,#3 of 7 of the “Sustenance in Exhile” project 5770/2010 Counting the Omer project
Tonight, Sunday night, April 18, 2010, we count twenty days, which is two weeks and six days of the Omer.
Jon is my foundation, he fills my life with beauty and stability. He is tiferet in every sense of that word which is so unique among the sefirot, the divine characteristics. He is my everything—lovingkindness, strength, beauty, endurance, humility/gratitude and foundation and ultimately he embodies personal dignity as well. Everyone says he is a saint because of how he puts up with me. But he is not a saint. Definitely not. He is a man–in every sense of that word. My beautiful man. Everything good about me I owe to him and to our daughters. Everything good about my life I owe to him. A saint is loving because that’s what saints do, it’s no accomplishment—A man, however, has a choice about who he is, how he behaves…..
Jon is tiferet and everything tiferet implies, by hard work and hard choices.
This is the third refrigerator door of the Sustenance in Exhile Series: Tiferet.
Tonight, Friday night, April 16, 2010, we count eighteen days, which is two weeks and four days of the Omer.
Endurance in Beauty.
conte on charcoal paper, 12″ x 18″
Tonight we say, This is the 17th day of the omer, Beauty in Beauty.
Viola Moriarty
(American, b. 1958)
Modern Expressionist painter and poet
