The Art of Painting & Sunset

(detail of larger painting 24" x 48", Bonnie Joy Bardos)

“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.” ~ Rumi

This painting with pink magnolias hung in a couple of exhibits over past months until I brought it home from the last one a week ago. I liked having it come back to me, as if the time apart had given me new eyes and a new way of looking at the piece. I still liked it, but....there were new adventures to be found. A few days ago I picked it up and made some changes with oil paint. It's not like I really needed to do it either: commission paintings need to be worked on and finished around here! However, sometimes the little voice nags on my shoulder, and it frees my spirit to be brave enough to jump off the edge and take the unknown path. February is the month of love. Artists must be in love with what they do, to create and breathe their art. As ever, a painting or sculpture will take me on a long journey: it's a story. Mine. Yours. Layers build up, disappear, new images and colors bloom. Sometimes inertia sits there forever, until the day comes: I pick up a brush, paint, and reconnect the heart and soul without fear. The twists, turns, pitfalls become something of beauty, of light, of truth. There it is: life unfolding.

Winter in February brings buds emerging. I picked two daffodils last evening, walking River dog along the street. Climbing over dry grass and brambles in a long-abandoned lot, I picked yellow sunshine to bring back home, holding them in my hand the whole way home, sniffing the light scent of spring. Joy in those little things! Those promises that life does go on all around: the robins coming in, forsythia dancing along branches. An emergence of this world.

New Beginnings On The Road of Art

"Every morning, even before I open my eyes, I know I am in my bedroom and my bed. But if I go to sleep after lunch in the room where I work, sometimes I wake up with a feeling of childish amazement — why am I myself? What astonishes me, just as it astonishes a child when he becomes aware of his own identity, is the fact of finding myself here, and at this moment, deep in this life and not in any other. What stroke of chance has brought this about? What astonishes me, just as it astonishes a child when he becomes aware of his own identity, is the fact of finding myself here, and at this moment, deep in this life and not in any other." ~ Simone de Beauvoir

Every year, I write a New Year entry to this blog, although I find myself a few days behind on catching up this time around. Years do that, you know. Winter in this old house slows me down to: every winter I fuss and vow to never suffer through another one in the starving artist fashion of hand-warmers, wool socks, layers and layers of clothing. Is it the slower I go, the behinder I get? I remind myself it's OK. Just OK to be here, maybe slower than usual, but grateful to have gotten up one more day, and like Simone de Beauvoir, am astonished at being deep in this life and not in any other. Martha Graham said that there is no one else like you. That's pretty powerful stuff to us creative types. I can't imagine being any other way. Perhaps it's living in between worlds, aware of this physical one, aware of a metaphysical layer. Yesterday as snow covered the earth, branches and light came in the windows, I took a picture of the moment with my smart phone that is smarter than me. Blue winter sky, sparkles, white on dark, ripples. Layers of things to watch, learn, ponder. Life goes on...

November: Changes of Life & Art

"Storm Warning", 12" x 24", Bonnie Joy Bardos


“...it is a serious thing
just to be alive on this fresh morning
in this broken world.” ~ Mary Oliver

November has arrived, the month that quivers between fall and winter. Here in the mountains of North Carolina, we've had an Indian summer with a long dry spell, warm days, golden leaves. I bought large pots of marked-down jeweled plum chrysanthemums from a garden center, hauled them home in the truck's front seat and plopped the big pots on the front porch. Luckily, because the weather has been dry, warm, bearable: I've been able to extend painting time on the front porch, rather than having to move paints, tables, easels back inside for winter. Yes, I know. It's coming!

The mums rode home up front with me: the seat overflowing with color and spicy scents, the overhead drive home filled with gold, crimson, blue; corn stalks low in dusty fields, a reminder of long-ago childhoods. All things change, as does life, art, our perceptions of things. Yet, truth remains the same. Something to think about.

Here is a new painting, still in progress, but nearly completed...inspired by colors from a fall day, the hint of a storm on the horizon. Shades of lush plums, blues, and images live in those endless depths. Like the changing sea, skies overhead hold multitudes. And, so do we.

Late Summer Paintings

Into the Sunset, 12" x 36", Bonnie Joy Bardos

'My head is bursting with the joy of the unknown. My heart is expanding a thousand fold.' ~ Rumi

Outside the study window, old stained glass glowing blue, rose, gold in filtered light, millions of rain drops fall from a pearl gray sky. Endlessly--enough where the poor dog can't get out to bask in afternoon sun, I can't paint out on the front porch studio, and the basement in this old house is full of those very same drops. Maybe billions of them. The yard turns to wild jungle, no mower will go forth bravely into it this day. And to paraphrase Macbeth, nor tomorrow, or tomorrow or tomorrow either for that matter.

My work is influenced by what's happening right now. If I'm writing a newspaper column, I don't have a set plan for it, more like a go with the flow kind of deal: the biggest thing I'll do is scribble an idea on scrap paper to remind myself that it's an "Ah HA! idea". So, I just sit and write about what ever has come up that very day and make a little tale a big lesson. Usually the paper ends up getting their money's worth for my two cents of thought.

For this painting, sunset, season, and sky influence the colors. I can only paint what I love and how I feel: it's never about an actual place: I leave that for others to do. That's not my bag, not my scene. The metaphysical always has intrigued me, those delicious mysteries I can't see, only know. Sort of like filtered light through the stained glass. Perhaps I've been reading too much Alice Hoffman. Maybe I'll read more....

Late Summer Art & Magic

( Photos: Love people who buy art and support living artists! New paintings from the outside summertime studio)

It's August. And it's H-O-T. Mornings, (after coffee on the porch swing) I paint outside on the front porch, my 'studio' surrounded with wisteria vines dripping, butterflies, hummingbirds, and life. And mosquitoes. I just can't paint inside when the sun's out, flowers are blooming, and life is full and green. Sweat rolls off my face, into the paint. Mercy, I think. It's HOT! It is. Such is life of an artist: paint when and where you can.

There's not always air-conditioned comfort or lunch prepared for noon. Uh uh. Not happenin'. Oh yes, there are days when I wish, wish, wish that lunch would just magically appear in front of me, ready to enjoy. Uh uh. Usually on a muggy summer day, by that time, I'm ready to head inside with River dog leading the way. We stand at the refrigerator, door open: wishing for that Magic Lunch to appear. Still, I'm grateful, here I've had a morning of good work with brushes, fingers, sponges dipped in color. Things happen. It's always magical, and part of the journey. In a few months, I'll be whining about freezing to death in this old house of mine. Still I'll be at it inside, at the kitchen easel, out in afternoon sunshine when brief respite warms the day up enough, and flinging paint. Working on sculpture. There's a long-time pattern to this, one that says keep going, keep going, keep going. Make art while you're here.

So far, this has been one of my best art years: I still haven't had to go get a side job as bag-boy at the grocery store. Or beg friends to save me from the abyss: artists don't tend to own a lot (if any) stock, live rich, or think like bankers do. I don't. I have no stock, retirement, or silver spoon. No one's ever left me a trust or legacy. I'm it. So far, the dog gets fed, I try to get fed, buy a few plants for the garden and pay my bills. The mortgage payment looms monthly, but there we go, keepin' on. Thank you, universe. Gratitude never fades.

September Musings

The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower—
the hepaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint—
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart ~ excerpt from "Evening" by H.D.

Painting: Evening Gold: 20" x 30", Bonnie Joy Bardos

**I thank Golden Paints for their generous supply of Golden Acrylic mediums and paints in conjunction with their Artist Seconds Program. For years, I've belonged to this program for working artists, and benefited immensely from being able to obtain a wonderful array of various materials they've shared.**

Silver Ribbons of a New Year, New Art

"We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room,
drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.
Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through
the rooms of our lives. . . not looking for flaws, but for potential."
~ Ellen Goodman

Here it is, another new year on silver ribbons of fresh beginnings. Even in early January, to celebrate new beginnings, I walk outside on a chill winter afternoon with River dog to gather forsythia and sweet almond branches to bring inside, to force into early bloom. This is my yearly ritual. Just having those winter branches in the house signifies the sweetness of life waiting to burst into color.

This year, I intend to walk through my rooms, both literal and symbolic: through the weathered plastered walls that crack and bear coats of paint along with wallpaper of yesteryear. Like me, those rooms have continued to stand, despite the passing of days, months, years. They're beautiful, reminiscent of vintage Italian or French estates worn by time and life. I go on, turning a new page, another brush, another painting idea. This year, I'll work even more on my latest series "Songs of the Earth". These sing to me these days, an ode to joy, turning toward home.