Thank You, Mother Mine

Margaret Mair, Come With Me, Original Art

It has taken me this lifetime to realize all that my mother gave me. Love, support, guidance, comfort. Encouragement to spread my wings, even when I didn’t feel ready. A place to leave, a place to come back to. And something more.

My mother was a very important part of my development as an artist.

Art covered our walls, artists and art lovers were among the people we knew. There were art books for looking at, art shows and exhibitions to visit. There was thoughtful commentary, and support for rising artists. My mother loved beauty, but she also loved work that made her think, awoke questions in her. Work that was not always comfortable to look at. She gave me a foundation for my own work, though I did not realize it at the time.

Later, after she saw some of my pictures (I was living far away), she encouraged me to keep working and learning, and hung one of my pastels in pride of place on the dining room wall. And she shared others’ appreciation of it with me. Encouragement which gave me courage to keep going forward.

Now, as I think about her, I am grateful for all this and so much more.

I am grateful that she encouraged me to explore, to stretch my wings even when I was afraid. That she taught me to be self-critical without being self destructive.

I am grateful that she shared more and more of herself as I grew older – including, to my initial surprise, a bawdy and irreverent sense of humour.

I am grateful that she taught me to look closely at the world around me, with an observant eye, an enquiring mind and an open heart.

I am grateful that she showed me that the world was full of many different people, good and evil, poor and rich, and that worth is a matter of character not circumstance. I am grateful that she let me see that talent achieves nothing without hard work, and that no-one succeeds by themselves.

Thank you, mother mine.

Spring Rhythm

Margaret Mair, Dancer in Green, Original Art

My dancer makes me think of the world in spring. She radiates restless energy, attention turned inward, dancing to a rhythm only she can hear. And she’s clothed in green, like the new-grown leaves that promise deeper greens to come.

Spring has been a long time coming this year – cold winds, falling snowflakes, icy hail have all conspired to keep it at bay. As March turned into April those winter friends did not linger long when they came – but they refused to stay away, bracketing each promise of warmer days with their cold storminess. We might declare that is was time for Spring to be here, but they did not agree.

But now they have retreated. Spring is actually here. There’s green grass and the promise of leaves on the trees. There are buds and birds and warming temperatures that bring the hardy (or foolhardy) out in shorts and shirts. The sun shines differently though my window as it comes closer to our northern climes, lingering longer each day and angling its beams towards where my plants sit, waiting. Like me, they are hungry for its light.

And then there’s the feel of things, a kind of restless excitement that tingles the body and wakes the imagination. There’s a sense of good things coming. As day follows night and happiness follows sorrow so spring follows winter, and after the dark days we are glad again. It’s the rhythm of being, the dance of life.

As my dancer in green reminds me.

Contemplation

Margaret Mair, Between Earth and Sky, Original Painting

Spring is a busy time for me. We are getting our boat ready to sail, and the work spreads into and occupies all the time available. As time runs shorter other things are pushed aside. By the time we are ready to leave our winter resting place I am reminding myself that it’s all worth the time and effort.

The reward for all the work? Time spent on the water, reaching and exploring new places, seeing new things that will become part of my life and my work.

As happened with this painting.

We were in the Canaries, where volcanic rocks are rich with color, when I saw her – a young woman sitting, waiting, on a flat rock by the sea. Later I took what I had seen, and mixed in my own feelings about waiting, about being alone, about being by the sea…

We all need a place to breathe, a place where we can simply be ourselves. I breathe best by the water, or on it – in a place between the earth and the sky where the water stretches out before me, the sky arches high overhead, and the air moves freely.

Here I can think my own thoughts, dream my own dreams, contemplate and explore.

Here I feel in tune with the world. I can meditate with the sounds of water all around me, feeling the rhythm of the waves, the rhythms that give us life – and many other creatures too. I can feel the wave-beat in my body.

And I remind myself that a rock by the sea feels solid, as the earth seems solid. And yet the waves moving against it are washing that rock away. They are taking their time, doing their work patiently, whether we are there or not.

I think: we build our lives as if the foundation we have laid for them were as solid as that rock feels. Yet life itself, moving in its own rhythm, constantly changes us.

Rock slowly becomes part of the sea – and we, do we become part of the wider world around us?

The Month of Love?

Margaret Mair, World in our Hands, Original Art

February, I’ve read, is the month of love. A wonderful idea, warm and comforting to think about. But what kind of love, and how should we celebrate it?

Thinking of love we think of people first, of lovers and family and friends. And so we should. But what about love for the world we live in?

This earth sustains us, feeds us, gives us the water that we drink and the air we breathe. And it’s state affects us all.

Which means they are woven together, these loves. We want those we love to live in a world that is good, that they can enjoy, that sustains them. And in loving the earth we find ways to create that kind of world for them. And for those who will follow us all.

It is so strong and yet so fragile, this world. Seen from space, as the astronauts see it, it is a small blue marble whirling through the immensity of space, carrying us and all that makes life possible for us.

Down here we each see a much smaller view, circumscribed by our own horizons. We live in a smaller world within the greater, and act as our lives within that world suggest we should. When we think of the world we love, we think of the world we know.

And so our actions often seem insignificant to us.  After all we are each only one, and what effect can one person have? Yet there are so many of us that, paradoxically, it becomes more and more important what each one of us does. For the sum of our actions has a greater and greater effect.

So as you think about love I hope you will think about loving the world we share, and honoring it with thoughtfulness.  For the love of those you care about.

Sunrise, Sunset – Playing in the Digital World

Margaret Mair, Sunrise/Sunset, Digital Image

The holidays are just past. They’re a time for playing, so I spent some time playing with one of my toys – a digital drawing program on my phone. Creating shapes and playing with color are a pleasure, and when even the act of creating is pure play then creating can only be pure pleasure – and the process more important than the results.

And then I played with words:

Sunrise, sunset,

rolling over

night to day to night.

beginnings, endings,

renewings -

smile hello, wave goodbye,

cry hello again…

 

It’s all endings and beginnings, and life flows on in between.

Last year ended with storms of wind and snow and icy rain. This year is starting with winds that toss the waters and sing in the window cracks, making cold into bitter cold. Old year, new year, the days come and go in much the same way, and weather doesn’t care much for our attempts to corral and predict it with dates and times and seasons. It has its own cycles.

And so do we – wake and sleep, give and receive, work and play, birth and death. Each part of the cycle has its place.

So let us not neglect play, an activity ripe with possibilities and full of joy and discovery. For life, like weather, doesn’t care much for our attempts to corral and predict. As John  Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans…”

Wonder what life will bring this New Year?

On Joy and Sorrow and Christmas Wishes

Margaret Mair, Nature’s Cathedral, Original Art

I know what I want for Christmas. I want Love. Because with Love, Peace and Joy are possible, Respect is always there, and Sorrow becomes more bearable.

No matter what the season joy and sorrow entwine, intermingle. We find that the higher the one, the deeper the other. It’s only in times of contemplation that we look back and, weighing them, find they both have their place in our lives.

Joy comes from rising above sorrow; sorrow from losing that which has given you joy.

“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.”

So wrote Khalil Gibran in Joy and Sorrow.

As I write many of us are consumed by sorrow at the deaths of the young children in Newtown. Deaths that came before they had time to experience their full share of life, of joys and sorrows. And we hurt for the adults who died with them, and for the families and friends left behind.

Faced with such sadness, how do we find our way back to joy and not wonder at ourselves for feeling happiness again? And yet we cannot live always in sorrow – we are creatures of hope, looking forward to better things and trying to find our way to them.

Perhaps the greatest joy will come in finding ways to make this world one in which such heartrending things will not happen so easily. In contemplation we may look at the path that took us here; with thought we may learn from all that happened along the way; with hope we may find a new way forward.

I am hoping. And wishing hope and love for you.

Sparked by SPARK 18

This gallery contains 1 photos.

SPARK encourages you too look both inside and outside yourself, and blend what you find into your own response. The results are always interesting, sometimes magical. Continue reading →

Emerging…

Margaret Mair, Emerging, Acrylic on Canvas, Original Art

“Floating free

Dancing forward

Released

New

Again”

Today “Emerging” went out into the wider world. Imagined and created specifically for the purpose, she’s a gift, a donation, a wish to help create a better world for someone else.

On September 24th she will be part of the Annual Art Auction for Alice Housing. She will be part of the drive to raise funds that will help women and children fleeing abusive situations find safe, long-term, affordable housing, counseling and an opportunity to heal.

So she emerges as they seek to emerge.

And I wish for the women and children that Alice Housing helps safe passage to a new life, and thank all those who are part of the organization that makes that passage possible.

ReSparked!

This gallery contains 2 photos.

First there is the Spark. Then the ReSpark. It’s time for the painting to speak to me… Continue reading →

Just for Fun, 3

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I play with curves and shapes and shading – and she appears… Continue reading →