Body Image Evolution

This post was going to originally be titled "Body Evolution" and discuss how my body has changed over time. Given my new found obsession with physical activity, I feel a post explaining its origins could be fun...also embarrassing and a little painful...but still..fun! After digging through 36 years of photos, I realized my body did not change much..but my mind's image of my body did.

For my entire life I have viewed myself as fat. Not hugely obese, but not attractive either. By my "whole life" I do mean all the way back as far as I can remember..I thought I was fat. Yes, I had some "chubby" moments, but at no time was I really, really fat. Let's start at the beginning, this blurry photo clearly shows some cute little rolls on my arms..but nothing to be alarmed over. I even remembered this pictured differently. I told some friends last week who have the immense pleasure of being new parents that I could show them a picture of a fat baby. Hm..guess not.

Next is an equally blurry picture of me when I was about 7 or 8. This was about the age I really started to consider myself "fat." I think my body image was created around this time by a combination of my peers and a belief in stereotypes. For most of my school years I was 2 years younger than all my peers. Being labeled "smart" also came with the label "bookworm" (which I was definitely was!) and athletic just didn't get added to my image. It didn't help that not only was I younger, I was also short even for kids my own age!

Around 9-11 is when I really felt physically inadequate. I was always the kid to be picked last for kickball, I got "Most Improved" on the 6th grade softball team...you get the picture. I was sure I was a whale at this point in my life..but, again, reality is not so fat..although I am loving the flipped hair and rolled cuffs!

The next picture is from what I call my only "normal" era. The summer between 9th and 10th grade I had my "growth spurt." I shot up a whopping 2 inches to bring me to my current height of 5'2" (if I'm standing really, really straight) and I concurrently lost about 10 pounds. That is also the time in my life when I really discovered physical activity. I got a 10 speed bike and was given the freedom to ride it about anywhere I wanted to in our little suburban town of Clemmons, North Carolina. I also joined the girls soccer team in 9th grade and discovered the joy of running. In 10th grade I completed my first race - the Titan 5 miler (I came in 2nd place..but only because there were only 2 girls competing..still I was proud!). Look at this photo of me at about 13..no fat..yet I was sure I was huge, especially my stomach! Oh..I'm making a weird face because that innocent looking cat had made a swipe at the fish I caught, only he missed and scratched my leg!

Fast forward a few years, I stayed with running and switched to tennis in high school (moved to new high school in 11th grade..no soccer) so I felt fairly fit. The last two years of high school was probably the most confident I ever felt about my body. Then after a too-young pregnancy and some non-supportive people in my life, my self-esteem plummeted. Here is me at around 20 or 21. My self-consciousness at there being a picture taken of me in a swimsuit is almost painful. See my hand trying to cover up my (in my mind) extremely fat stomach? The cutie next to me is my first-born. Needless to say, most pictures during this era of my life were of her!

During 1995 I was the heaviest I've ever been outside of being pregnant. I quit smoking at the beginning of the year (best health move ever!!) , graduated college (no more multi-mile daily walks to class, parking lot, etc), and got a desk job. The combination of the three sent my weight up rather quickly and I signed up for my first "commercial" diet program, The Diet Center, and tried to get active again with roller-blading, tennis, and sporadic running. The funny part is that although I'm obviously over weight, I viewed myself as being about double that size. Side-note: The painting I'm standing beside is an original by my favorite painter, Toulouse-Lautrec at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

During the next 10 years, I had 2 more kids so I gained and lost more weight than I cared to think about. After baby number 3, a friend convinced me to join Weight Watchers which I've been a member of off and on for since including now. I also have read about a zillion books on health, fitness, nutrition, etc. I'm a bit of a health food freak at times but I live a normal life with its usual temptations. I've also become an avid runner (between baby 2 and baby 3), joined several gyms, played a couple of seasons of adult soccer, and even belly-danced for a few years. I've grown more confident in my body's abilities, but I've always felt "fat." I was 32 when this picture was taken, certainly curvy..but not fat.

Now, as I still struggle with reaching my "ideal" weight (20 lbs lower than I am right now) I am fascinated that I am probably in physically the best shape I've been in since high school. I did a 10+ mile hike with scouts in February, I exercised 26 of 31 days in May, I'm getting my running back up to par (knee surgery in 2005 slowed me down a few years) and I'm training to do a 30 mile bike ride with a friend this October. I eat a fairly healthy, varied diet (although I am a sucker for good beer and chips & salsa) and health-fully home-cook probably 90% of my family's meals. So why am I so obsessed with a number on the scale or on our clothing tag? I asked my husband.."Why did I think I was fat all my life?" his reply, "Because you're a girl." Extremely sad, but probably true.

This is a photo of me taken 3 days ago, sorry for the odd angle but it is the most recent photo of me. Again..not fat. I'll never be mistaken for a fashion model or Olympic athlete, but not too shabby for 36. I'm also starting to work harder at and celebrate each 5 minutes I add to my run more than a pound lost on the scales. After 36 years I'm finally starting to realize, I'm FIT not FAT!

Tomorrow on Summer Solstice I am starting the SocialWorkout.com 's Feats of Summer Challenge. This is the same site that did the 26 Days in May Challenge. They've added some pretty serious stuff, definitely aimed at the under 36-not had 3 kids crowd. But, I'm going to give it a try. I may not complete 20 of the Feats as required, but I'll celebrate each one I can do.

I'd love some encouragement and teamwork during this Summer Challenge, either virtually or in real-life. If you are planning on doing the challenge, let me know and we'll keep each other motivated!

Summer Reading

Book Reviews
I love books..fiction..non-fiction...magazines..okay, magazine aren't books but I love them too!

I read a lot so and mostly unconventional non-fiction stuff so I thought I'd share some interesting reads and get some suggestions for new stuff.

After reading an article in the magazine that Lifetime Fitness sends out, I got on a simplicity, non-consumerism kick. I started with Giving It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less by Mary Carlomango. This is a quick read that I didn't identify with very well. She is single (with boyfriend) living in New York City and living a very urban lifestyle not at all in sync with a suburban wife and mom of 3. Ms. Carlomango picked 12 vices and gave one up each month. I'm not quite sure if her lifestyle is excessive or mine ultra-moderate but I think I could give up taxis, chocolate, high-end shopping and newspapers with much greater ease. I did like the premise of the book though and may make me rethink how I handle my New Year's Resolutions for 2010.

Next on the list was A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy by Sara Bongiorni. This was definitely a more entertaining read but also a bit scarier. Ms. Bongiorni along with her husband and two young children decide to not buy anything made in China for an entire year. It is frightening to learn the amount of consumer goods that this eliminated from her shopping list. Even more frightening was that she resorted to a bit of "cheating" to even survive the year. This book was a good read and I'm definitely checking labels, but unfortunately with a bit of feeling of despair and futility!

I'm currently reading Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine. Although this book got lower stars in the Amazon rating, I'm enjoying it more. Ms. Levine is definitely putting some philosophical thought behind her decision and the impact on her life. This is a deeper, more thoughtful book and thus not as quick as the other two.

Twitter Book Club
Concurrently with Not Buying It, I'm reading de Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. This is for a Twitter book club host by Alyson B. Stanfield ( @abstanfield ). This is a thick book (600 pages) but the goal is 100 pages a week and it started last Monday. I'm about 30 pages behind but I'm enjoying this biography so I'll catch up quick. If you are interested in joining the Twitter club, read about it here on Ms. Stanfield's blog.

Add to My List
I've got a few more on the bookshelf but I always love suggestions! I do read fiction (mainly sci-fi or modern off-beat like Alice Hoffman or Jodi Picoult) but I tend to stop the rest of my life when I'm in a good fiction so I have to limit my exposure. My husband still hasn't quite forgiven me for the week I was lost in the Twilight series. Thus non-fiction is more managable while trying to function in society!

On Art
I've finished a collage last week but I haven't signed or photographed it. I'm also working on a new project with art and haikus..more on that later. This bright, summer-ready painting is from painting en plein air (outside!) at the Dallas Arboretum last Spring. California Poppies can be purchased here in my Etsy shop.

Yummy Green Beans

This is one of those non-art random posts I warned you about in Blogs, Business, Books & Beaches. I bought some Texas green beans from Sprouts yesterday and made up this recipe as I cooked them. It turned out great!

Ingredients:

Green beans
2 Tbl butter (or olive oil would work)
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 Tbl Red wine vinegar
2 Tbl brown sugar
1/4 cup pecans, broken up and lightly toasted. (or skip the toasting and toss them in anyway)

Clean, trim, & break green beans into 2" pieces. I'm not sure how much I used but it filled a 9" saute pan. Probably a bag of frozen would work just as well. Don't used canned green beans...canned green beans are very gross!

Bring 1/2 cup water to a boil, add beans, put on lid, turn down heat and simmer for 10 minutes (watch the water to make sure it doesn't boil away)

Remove lid, add butter & olive oil. Cook for 2 minutes, add remaining ingredients and cook for another 2 minutes.

Yummy!

I don't have a painting of green beans but I did a quick search on Etsy and found these adorable earrings from a French artist. Glutamate's shop carries these earrings and other quirky designs.

Self-Portraits continued, Grades 2-4

Grades 2nd - 4th, including one advanced 1st grader. I also forgot to mention in the last post that they could do whatever they wanted for a background with 2 colors plus white. Some kids sweet talked me into another color and some used their color-mixing skills to made a secondary color. ALL of them demonstrated a wonderful amount of creativity!

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First Grade Self-Portraits

Spring session is when we study animal and people portraits. Towards the end of the session the students paint a 20" x 16" self-portrait in acrylic. The work this year has been fabulous!!

This 4 are from my K-1 class, but all 4 happen to be 1st graders.

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Reflecting on Reflections

Reflections took about six months from beginning to end. I took photos along the way to share my painting process.

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Step 1: I apply flexible modeling paste mixed with a little paint (the blue) with a palette knife to create a stucco-like surface on the canvas. Then I use paint thinned with water to draw out the basic composition.

Step 2: I block in the major colors in a medium value (except for the figure).

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I started with a photo of my son I took right at sunset at Topsail Island, North Carolina several years ago. I always liked the very monochromatic (one color) look of the painting. It is that point in the evening where all the light turns blue and everything is very calm and relaxing.

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Step 3: Working from the background to the foreground, I work the painting into a loosely, realistic state.

After getting the back waves painted in, I decided I didn't like the composition of the diagonals. I added another layer of water in the middle picture. I felt it also helped keep the focus on the boy in the center to have the waves converging behind him.

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For most of this painting I kept my palette to a bare minimum: Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Orange, Titanium White, and Mars Black. When I got to the shading on the boy, the orange was just too harsh, I add several more colors at that point to get the look I was trying to achieve.

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Step 4: The figure. The first image is getting the shape and middle value blocked in. In the second picture, I correct some proportional imbalances in the arm on the left and the shape of the stomach & hips on the right. In the 3rd picture, I realize that my limited palette isn't going to give the depth in his body so by the 4th image, I've expanded the palette to sharpen the focus on the boy and his reflection on the shallow water on the sand.

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Reflections is about reflecting, the light on the ocean, the wet sand & the boy. The boy on the wet sand. The final painting, Reflections, 36" x 24" acrylic on canvas.

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Blogs, Business, Books, Beaches

Blogs...

This one is going to be more active, maybe not always about art, but, hopefully, interesting. I've wrestled with the personal vs. business and the getting-to-know-me vs tmi (too much information for those not...um...blessed?...to have lived with a teenager).

I've learned over the past 4 years that my customers are not just interested in a pretty picture for the living room, they want to 'know' about their art and about me as an artist and person. I've also found myself drawn to art or other things based on getting to know the person. So after picking the brains of some close advisers, I'm going to get a little more informal (but not tmi!) with this blog.

Business...

Art classes are almost over for the Spring Session. The kids have done some fabulous work. I'm taking the summer off and will have Fall's schedule up in July.

I've re-arranged the gallery portion of my website to showcase my work by medium. I've also removed smaller paintings and put those on my Etsy Shop, Cobalt Blue Dreams. It is easier to add new work as I finish it and I have a lot of work from my flip bins to add so there is something new each week in the shop!

Books...

I've been reading a lot this year and want to share..some book reviews coming soon. I'm also up for any suggestions, read any good books lately?

Beaches...

Summer is almost here! Can't wait for my annual trek to visit my family in North Carolina. As always, I'm expecting to take a zillion or so photos to inspire me in the studio. Speaking of studio, I finished Reflections, a 36" x 24" acrylic painting of my son right at sunset walking on the beach. This painting is available for purchase on my website.

Does Your Love Have to Be Your Life?

I have a cousin who was an unbelievable swimmer. When we were kids, his mom signed him up for the swim team each year and he always won medals and ribbons. Just as soon as he was able to choose his summer activities, he dropped swim team like a rock. I never understood why, because he LOVED swimming and was so GOOD at it. He told me being MADE to swim instead of CHOOSING to swim took the joy out of it for him, regardless of how many ribbons he won.

I've been struggling with this love/hate relationship with my art. I LOVE doing art, I'm fairly GOOD at it (won ribbons, sold paintings), but I've not enjoyed DOING it for over a year now. I don't want to rant or whine about my art career during the past year, but I can wrap it up in two words..It Sucked. By a business definition, it was a "successful" year: I had more art students and full classes than ever before, plus my art sales almost doubled from the previous year. In terms of personal satisfaction, it was out of control freight train careening down into the canyon. Art became work, not joy. Every act of creation was second guessed and analyzed.... "Will it sell?" .."Is is too big?..does it need to be smaller & more affordable?" .."Can I paint this subject or do I need to paint more flamingos/chickens/etc?" .... whoops... sorry, the whining is slipping in... but you get the picture.

I decided last fall to take a good look at my life and do some thinking, praying and researching. I realized that I didn't like the art I was starting to create or the way I was trying to make a living at it. The guilt was (and on some days..still is) overwhelming..here I was living most artists' dream...nice studio space, supportive spouse...but maybe it isn't this artist's dream.

I'm still creating art..better art now that the pressure is off. I'll still be selling my art, but I'm not worried about business terms of success anymore. Art can be my voice again instead of my living. As for teaching, I've found I have more time to concentrate and I enjoy it more than ever. The students are an inspiration to me and I'll continue teaching as long as I can over the next couple of years. As for my making a living, I'm heading back to graduate school for an entirely unrelated career (another post..another time!).

As I said, I'm still selling my work. The walls of my house don't seem to expand at the same rate my art creation does! Instead of art shows, I'll be concentrating on internet sales and word of mouth referrals (always my best source!). I'm shifting my website to showcase my large (and more expensive) pieces and Pet Portraits. For my smaller works and reproductions (prints), I've opened an Etsy shop. It is called CobaltBlueDreams and I'm adding work weekly to it. I'm starting with new works and prints and going backwards through time. I chose Etsy mainly because it is easy and fun. I love browsing Etsy and my smaller works and collages fit the "browsing" style of shopping at Etsy. My larger works will remain on my website, not many people impulse buy a $1200 painting or Pet Portrait.

So check out CobaltBlueDreams today, and then check back next week, and the week after...you get the idea! If you see something disappear off my website, check out the shop..I may have moved it over.

This painting is a fun piece inspired by an amaryllis that was given to my daughter for Valentine's Day. Valentine is a 12" x 6" acrylic painting on gallery-wrapped canvas and can be purchased in my Etsy shop.

By the way, CobaltBlueDreams isn't just a random name. Cobalt Blue is my favorite painting color and appears in most of my skies (the ones that are intensely blue!) Dreams got added on because it fit. I'll send a random pack of 5 of my notecard prints to the first person who can tell my what else is significant about the name of my shop!