Recipe for Peace

Winter Beach ©Theresa Grillo Laird- info here

In this season of gift giving and receiving, there's sometimes more focus than ever on things we have and don't have. It doesn't take the Christmas Season to sometimes feel like everyone else got all the goodies- the best toys, more money, better education, unbelievable opportunities and uncanny good luck. If this is you, here's a link to a story that will both inspire and encourage you. In it, a young woman asks what if what you have is all you'll ever have, to accomplish what you were meant to do on this earth?

What if

Ponder the thought. What if what you have is all you'll ever have? It's an excellent question. What would you do? Would you proceed with confidence, or would you believe that you have to accept a smaller dream? Could you abandon the anxious urge to continue striving for what you don't have, and hoping to make conditions better before take action?

I know for myself that I'll follow this young woman's advice, confident that I have plenty despite shortages, and satisfied in the knowledge that I have all I need to find success, truth and beauty in life and in painting. What peace!

Happy New Year! And do read her story. It's pretty amazing.

No Snoozing Here

"Painting must be so relaxing!" The words reach your ears as if from a distance while standing before your easel in front of an inspiring scene. "Uh, no, not really" you might be inclined to say, at the same time not wanting to seem like a complaining ingrate to your temperamental muse. "Relaxing" is one of the last words I'd apply to the act of painting.

A walk in the woods is relaxing. Laying on the beach listening to the surf with your eyes closed is relaxing. Melting into a hot tub surrounded by the shapes and greens of a Japanese garden is relaxing. But painting is problem solving. And problem solving, at least for me, means rapid fire of all the little grey cells.

"Summer Evening" - ©Theresa Grillo Laird-oil on linen-18x24"
Displayed in Oil Painters of America Eastern Regional 2018. Contact here for information

Transforming your intention into a painted canvas, takes thought, effort and recall of the things that worked and didn't work in prior paintings. It's a balancing act with constantly shifting pieces. When you're really in the flow, the answers appear one after the other in front of your eyes as if by magic -though that special gift isn't bestowed every day. A painting session is a workout even though the painter seems to be exerting little physical effort. Like any workout, you feel both tired and exhilarated at the end of it. And hungry for more.

Just Plein Fun!

Put yourself here!

I love plein air painting! I love being outdoors for hours at time, quietly absorbing the sounds and rhythms of the land I'm standing on.

Painting outdoors adds a dimension to the process of creating that's absent in the studio: the outdoors itself. Working on site, it's impossible to not become quickly aware of the many subtleties of color, line, shape and material of the  environment. All of it works its way into a painting.It's as if the place and the painter work in concert to produce the result. It's an intensely rewarding experience.

I invite you to test this for yourself at a workshop I'm teaching this month. On the 28 and 29  of September, The Eastern Shore Art Center is sponsoring a plein air workshop that I'll be teaching on the bluffs above Mobile Bay in Fairhope. I invite you to join me for two days of instruction, demos and painting. But sign up quickly! Space is limited. Here's the link.

https://esartcenter.org/product/bayview-plein-air/

I look forward to seeing you there!

In Search of Silence.

While listening to the radio recently, I was intrigued by a story about a project called One Square Inch of Silence. I won't go into the details of the story here. You can read about it on the link above. Basically it was about finding and preserving silence in national parks.

A Soft Light - ©Theresa Grillo Laird - oil on linen covered panel - 14x18
see it here

Finding silence. It can have so many meanings from the inner silence of meditation to the freedom from the everyday noise that's so hard to escape. When was the last time you entered a shop or cafe or a public space that didn't have some sort of sound track running? Quiet is so uncommon that the silence seems deafening when you enter such a space with the sound turned off. You could say we're  addicted to noise.

One of the joys of painting outdoors is the relief from manufactured sound. Painting in my coastal area with just the sounds of the breeze or surf or birds calling or even the sounds of land animals moving discreetly across the sand, makes focus sharp and is intensely relaxing. Try it! The next time you're at the beach, turn off the music and listen! Hike across the land rather than navigating it in some noisy vehicle or flying fanny fan. Listen for the silence.You just might find a whole new world opening up to you.