Where I've Been...

Hello folks,

I realize it's been a bit quiet here. Everything is alright, I've just been terribly busy.

Work, of course, and the ruined carpet drama, new furniture that had to be bought and ongoing contacts with the police, medical tests for my husband and now a lost wallet.

And something else, too.

I've been painting the last week or so. I don't really paint often, but sometimes something comes along that can only be expressed by putting a brush to canvas. Something in the dynamic between two of our managers at the shop reminded me of an old Celtic myth and the more I tried to explain it the more I realized I could see it, but I could not say it. It needed to be communicated from that place in the mind that functions without words; the part of the brain that originally gave birth to art.

For those of you who may never have come across this information; our brains are divided into two halves. In the simplest terms, the left half of our brain controls logical thought and language while the right half interprets images and symbols and some researchers believe it may process most of our emotion. (Mind you I am talking about the physical make up of the brain here, not Freud's theory of the different levels of consciousness.) Some also believe creativity is mostly the product of the right hemisphere, however some creative endeavors, such as writing a short story or a blog do take co-operation between both halves.

Personally, I find that when I have a painting in progress it's very hard to channel creative energy away from that and into the written word, so when I paint I don't write much and when I'm writing heavily I rarely paint. I find the two mediums enhance each other, giving me a break from each in turn and giving me time to renew myself so neither gets stale, but they really don't co-exist well.

People often ask why I don't share the other half of my life/creativity, the painting, here on the blog, after all it says right at the top that I intend for this page to incorporate all of me. It's a fair point. The trouble is I am completely useless when it comes to digital photography. I can take 30 pictures of the same thing and not have one of them come out usable. Well, we can all only be good at a limited number of things, right?

But if I ever manage any level of competence with a digital camera I may just see about sharing some of my artwork here. (Sorry folks, it's not usually kinky...)

Ms. Betty