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!
“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.
conte on charcoal paper, 12″ x 18″
Tonight we say, This is the 17th day of the omer, Beauty in Beauty.
Magnolia Tree in North B, oil on canvas board, 20 x 24″
Today is the 16th day of the Omer, strength and fear in Beauty.
“D.J.”, Reed Pen& ink wash on Arche paper, 22″ x 30″
Welcome.
This blog serves as a venue for my artworks to participate in the larger artistic, reflective process and production conversation with other art makers and lovers.
The making of art is so intensely personal and public at the same time for an alla prima, painter of life who is as likely to be painting on the side of the road, or in someone’s house, as in my studio. With the exception of my poetry and some mixed media works, I primarily paint in oil, and secondarily in pen and ink with some watercolor involvement. That said, I will use whatever is at my disposal to get the (dirty) job done.
There is only one question to be answered about a painting: Does it have inner life? This is the question I ask myself before I take the painting off the easel, before I disengage. My paintings are my attempts to make sense of and figure out what’s real in the world, to manipulate materials and to be brave about the way I live my life. I started painting at the encouragement of my friend and master painter, Stella Ehrich, in the summer of 2002, at the age of 43. That first painting of a dumpster behind Powers’ Market told me I was born for this work, that I had met my energetic match, and that I would change my whole life as a result. I have made my artworks almost every day since.
I am married to the very sexy and smart, Jon Lev, and I am the mother of the two most amazing women on the planet: Anna and Phoebe. I am a lucky woman, in every single way that a human can be lucky, and I never, ever take it for granted. I owe my work ethic to my parents, my sense of bricolage to my grandmother, and my love of nature and kick-ass cowgirl attitude to my birthplace and home for fourty years, Colorado. English is my first language, Spanish is the language of my heart, and color is my most native language. My sisters and my friends are my confidants, support and sounding boards. I am part of a community of artists, both living and dead, to whom I owe my art education.
A deep impulse to learn and express my understanding of reality motivates my work and my life in all its facets. I am not a leader, not a follower, not a policy maker or a judge….my role linguistically, educationally, artistically is–and has traditionally been– one of interpreter and translator.
I welcome your your visit to this blog and your commentary.
Paz, pan, flores y amor,
Viola Moriarty
Upcoming Exhibitions:
6 July 2010 4:00 pm Opening Reception for Anna Moriarty Lev’s Art Exhibit and the Screening of Dylan Pasture’s Palace Hotel accompanied by a short by Georgia Roxon @ Images Theater, Spring Street, Williamstown, Massachusetts
August 2010 Annual exhibit of recent works @ South Street Cafe, Bennington, Vermont
September 2010 “El idioma de mi corazon” , Coyote Flaco, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Late October-Early November 2010 “Los dias de los muertos” Images Theater, Williamstown, Massachusetts
The second refrigerator door is of this yellow orchid Jimmy gave me last year at this time. It is blooming again, and radiantly so!
This painting represents a good deal of learning over the week since completing “Chesed”. The stainless steel finish is exciting, and I’m learning to work WITH it— it changes the painting depending on who or what surrounds and confronts it, representing the electrons of the Uncertainty Principle. I learned that it was MUCH better to work with my beloved oils directly onto this surface. The challenge of yellow flower in yellow pot on yellow table represents the boundaries of gevurah, setting up the challenge in order to grow stronger. After all, anyone can paint a red flower in a clay pot on a white tablecloth and make it make sense. But to mix the yellows….to mix all the colors that are really making up that apparently yellow painting, well, that was fun. Gevurah’s associated color is red, but yellow is creativity.
To borrow a phrase from a favorite author, Kay Leigh Hagan, I often feel like “an orchid in the artic” living in New England, having come from sunny Colorado eleven years ago. My sustenance is remembering my Spanish, my sunshine and my 14,000 foot peaks….but learning to live at 1500 feet, take vitamin D, and love the colors of winter. Somehow in this exhile I thrive even though the conditions are not the ones I usually require for living.
My true friend and healer, John Hearst, has doing much healing energy work with me since my knee injury….this friendship and this work sustains and repairs me. I will have to find new ways to exercise, new ways to be strong, and what they will be I don’t have any clue right now.
Last night was the 12th day of the Omer, Hod shebe Gevurah, humility and splendor in strength.
Today I clean the studio, change the beds and clean up from the guests and the friends. I prepare for this week’s work.
Tonight we count the 13th day of the Omer, Yesod shebe Gevurah, Foundation in strength.
Viola Moriarty
(American, b. 1958)
Modern Expressionist painter and poet
