The dear girl has completed another painting – her third. It’s really interesting to see her style evolve as she does.

Xanga is the best place, I think, to share photos of the girl.

She’s 19 months old now and studying ABC’s. I think she’ll be counting to five pretty soon. She’s pretty solid on the concept of 1 and 2 – gets better with colors all the time and has a wicked sense of humor.
My favorite example:
“Say big words Winnie”
“Big words”, she replies without fail. muahahahahaa… The funny thing is that I know she knows that I mean “rhinocerous, hippopotamus, hummingbird”. She’s just a sarcastic little bit like her mother.
Doomed. We’re doomed.
Onward and upward!
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This is another case of Girl Child affecting my process. I don’t know where this came from, but I sat down to paint and before I knew it, there was a pumpkin patch in front of me. I’m becoming a cheeseball in my old age. There was a time when there would have been some grimace on the scarecrow or the pumpkin… or a hidden skull… or all of the above.
One thing I wish for a bit is more time to stay on each piece. It’s not so much that I have to keep working so fast, but that I keep seeing older pieces that I want more and more to destroy and improve.
But I start teaching again part time in about a week and a half and I can’t linger too much. I typically have a rough time with sales in the cold of winter and I want to have some predictable income for a bit. I have to admit I’m looking forward to getting out of the house solo a bit. It’s hard for me to give up the constant time with the dear girl, but it becomes damned hard work after, you know, 18 months of constant baby wrangling. Time for the Daddy Man to pick up the slack a bit. I suspect teaching a couple classes will feel like a vacation… I sure hate to be apart from her, but I guess it’s time to wean myself off the perma-hug a bit too. She’s not a baby any more and is busily working on getting big so she can leave me. Can’t forget that’s the goal – send her out in the world to do her own thing without me meddling.
Not my most eloquent blog ever, but I just grabbed a minute while she watches some phonics songs on the YouTube…

Pumpkin Patch
Acrylic on plywood with tissue for texture
11.25″x30.75″

Most of the time I feel like I have a pretty normal life. I have routine. I have fun days and work days. I certainly feel like I earn my living, but it’s enjoyable… but every once in a while I’m reminded of the way people around me live.

Someone said to me recently, “We do what we have to do, don’t we?”

I stumbled my way around some appropriate response, but what I really wanted to say was “NO! We do what we want to do!” I knew that would only get me some lecture about bills and parental responsibility and blah blah blah… so I managed to keep those words inside of my mouth, but they’ve been trying to spring out ever since.

Yes, I’m taking a part time teaching job this fall. No, that is not what I “have” to do. It’s something I think will be fun and feel good and help my family and some students. Yes, I’ll keep painting full time. That’s not something I “have” to do. It’s just something I do as a function of my existence. I breathe; therefore, I paint. It’s not some flaming passion; it’s just something this organism is designed to do apparently.

Ok… so things I have to do? Care for my child? Nope. I don’t have to do that. I could be like so many other women I see and pawn the Girl Child off on some grandparent or pay for care or just split. I’m kind of astonished at how many women see those paths as viable options, but they are, certainly, options.

Things I have to do? What things I have to do? I learned a long time ago that making decisions about my life out of a fear of consequences was only a long game of chasing my tail and I won’t do it any more. I have spent my life on a quest for freedom and contentment and I don’t often compromise that any more.

I guess it sounds like I’m bragging a bit, and maybe I am a smidge overproud of my happiness with my life. Don’t worry. All lives have troughs and peaks. I’ll see as many dark days as I do happy ones no doubt. I just don’t let myself on the keyboard when I feel less than my good self haha…

Repeat. No Coda.
Acrylic on plywood with tissue for texture.
~17.5″x9.5″ -edges painted black, ready to hang
Go forth and be in the driver’s seat.

Onward and upward

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I’m experimenting with editing the size of my images in the post. Let’s see what this does.

In other news, we took her to the zoo this weekend and it was awesome.
I’ve felt very busy lately, but have also been reminded that lots of other people don’t put rest as a high priority. Since I’ve had the girl, I’ve just refused to go too fast for her. Sure, sometimes we just get stuff done, but if I push her too hard, she gets a low grade fever and becomes unhappy. So I don’t do that. And it’s good for everybody.

Must get more painting done… as always…
I should have another new piece to share tomorrow if all goes well.

So here’s Xanga 2.0… It’s nice to still be here. I still want to get my WordPress going, but I am super happy to have my community here safe… I’ve been wanting to get back to serious blogging like I did in the old days.
On that topic, the dear Girl Child is amazing me daily. She’s acquired a lot of language ability lately so she’s able to entertain herself and communicate much more effectively so we are both less frustrated! She also has started potty training herself. That caught me off guard. She’s only 18 months and I didn’t expect it so soon!
I’ve had good luck with the painting of late. Sales have been good and I’m hanging in four locations now – three restaurants in Knoxville and a gallery in Gatlinburg. We paint all the time just to keep up!
Here’s a recent piece. Flowers are where it’s at for me these days. Life is blooming!

Dancing in Blue
Acrylic on plywood with tissue for texture
22.5″x35.5″

Seems the impending, possible demise of xanga has inspired me to enjoy it more before it (maybe) disappears. I did decide to sell the prints for Seren.  Here’s the image:

We’ll see what she makes next… We’re talking about getting some watercolor paper stretched for her to paint on. She can sell the originals or give them to family. Either way it’ll be cool

I just hung a BIG show at the Tomato Head on Market Square here in Knoxville and have art going into a Gatlinburg gallery pretty soon. Busy times! Here are a few of my recent pieces:  Tiny demands that we spend a lot of time painting and has had a really interesting, freeing influence on my technique.

So… a couple people have said they want to buy a print of my girl’s first painting. I’m thinking of making it about 8″x8″ and charging $25 with shipping (envelope and postage combines to about $5).  Does it seem fair if I put half in a bank account for her and use the other half to keep us in paints and other art materials? I feel a little weird selling her art when she’s just 14 months old, but, at the same time, if people want to buy it, I hate to deprive them.

Feedback please! I won’t be offended by anything you say. It’s all going to help me think about the best, good, right thing to do.

  It makes me sad to hear xanga is shutting down. I have made so many real friends through xanga and I can hardly imagine what life will be like with it gone…
I don’t have much time to type with the little one these days. She’s 14 months, getting teeth and getting mobile.
I just hung a big art show at the Tomato Head in Knoxville and am looking to be in a gallery in Gatlinburg in 2-4 weeks. Things are going well in general… Still hoping I can have air conditioning in the house this summer, but not sure I’ll sell enough paintings to make it happen. It’s getting hot fast…
Ah well…
The reason I came by was to make sure whomever wants to can find me outside xanga
I’m on facebook under
Starr Cline
and
Ocean Starr Cline – fan page for the art.
I’m also at
oceanstarr@gmail.com and I do google+ periodically

Gotta chase a baby now.
Thank you all for your friendship and love over the years… So sad to see you go xanga.

Edit: Added picture of Seren and HER first painting. She has declared it finished and won’t work on it any more. I did some of the color picking, but the vast majority of the painting task was completed by her She makes me so proud lol…

So I have officially kept my daughter alive a whole year now! I could write all those things about how time flies and they grow so quick, but those of you who have raised your own already know that better than I and those who haven’t just hear the cliche lol… So I’ll give you a couple photos of happy baby.

She likes hanging out at the easel.
And she’s learning about presents. I don’t really celebrate birthdays or anything, but I couldn’t stop her grandmother from playing the game with her. They enjoy each other immensely. 
In other news, we’re starting baby plants for spring now. Husband cut some beer bottles off at the neck, turned the top upside down and ran a wick through to the base of the bottle for a water reservoir. That way we have reusable starter containers that already fit in a nice piece of cardboard to rack neatly on the shelf. It’s pretty cool really.
And a new painting: Shrodinger’s Frog
Is the frog in the grass alive or dead? Both. The next frame exists only in the viewer’s mind. I live in a town full of physicists. Forgive my dorkitude hehehe…

I got three shows hung this month… more in the works! I’ve never hung two shows in one day before. That was a new trick… but it all worked out more or less perfectly. I just have too much stock to let it sit at the house. Once you build up that kind of an inventory, you kind of have to make sure there are walls for it to go hang on!
So now that the shows are up, I’m back into production mode!

He sings west; she sings east. The sun he mourns, the one she greets.

Three Buttons on the Windowsill.

With love as always,
Onward and upward
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