For the love of paint -- The Artist's Life

New Day

Acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

(The painting I was finishing

when the Oprah Winfrey Show

producers called, and asked

me if I'd like to draw Oprah via Skype!

Answer? YES!)

In the black dress before the dance

Acrylic on canvas

36 x 24  inches

Barbara Muir © 2006

(I love the paint in this)

I have no idea how I'm going to paint in the next few weeks,

which is too bad -- because it's sort of what I do. (Laughs).
Yes it is what I do. I love paint, and painting.  And nothing
makes a painter love that activity more than not being able
to do it.  I dream (on slightly stronger painkillers) of paint
splashing onto canvas. I will figure out a way -- maybe when
I'm not alone in the house, and someone can open (and close!)
the jars and tubes for me.

When my gloomy self chimes in with how long this is
going to last, and how am I going to move the canvas when
I can't lift anything, my dominant, cheerful self answers back with
,"think how happy you'll be when it's over and everything is
back to normal."

I will -- meanwhile, everyone from random people on my
street, to people in stores, to bank employees are offering
sage advice, and endless tips.  So I better stop talking about
it, and move on to the beautifully written, disturbing book on racism
I'm reading by Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in 
Power: An American Tragedy.

And how I hope the American teenagers win and the U.S.
 implements stricter gun laws.  My writing class here in Canada,
made up from people all over the world, unanimously
declared that they see no reason that there should be guns in the
world -- at all.  So that was our young people. I'm with them on
that one.

Have a thinking in new ways day.