Tiger Lilies in the lane: not wild, but uncared for. Growing; uninterrupted essentially. Surviving. Living and prospering through the winds, humiliating heat, and dreadful rains of this summer. Up until now.
These are not the flowers you see along the crescent in well-tended garden beds full of iris, rudbeckia, snapdragons, or common daisies. These are the flowers that creep out under fences, or stand tall beside the bike racks, garbage bins, or garages alongside parking pads. They own the space they borrow. Pushing up from the soil through the spring, sharing pleasant greenery as the seasons arrived, the lilies continued to capriciously fill space in our lives.
Part of our landscape. Noticed, but not truly acknowledged, these flowers have spent past days withering in the heat, and still show off a genuine beauty. Even now they share a simple joy, if you take the time to notice.
Often, we don’t.
The resplendent colours are difficult to ignore. There is a hint of fuchsia (is it purple or pink?) revealing itself through the amber or xanthous, a golden orange so otherworldly, yet entirely natural.
Is there another colour, or another summer flower, that does what it does to the senses?
Probably not, and not for long.
It is only as the lilies in the lane begin to fade away that we take in how much a part of our lives they have casually come to be through the weeks. We simply walked or drove by.
The month will change in a matter of days.
In maybe a week, the laneway lilies will be gone. There will be less beauty to sustain us.
August seems to take away more than it offers. Summer will slowly lose its vigor, like the lilies, and we will have to wait, again, for next year.
My brushstrokes were tentative. A blank canvas, at first, can be intimidating.
I had earlier tinkered around on a painting I began last summer, mostly touching up or reinforcing a work that is, or might be, almost complete. A few details were finalized and now I’ve got a day or two to figure out where it goes next.
So, I moved on. I had to.
Yesterday was the day I decided I was going to, again, paint. I hadn’t for months, choosing to occupy my mind with another artform. Yesterday seemed right.
Composition was, vaguely, in my head. My colour story was planned, but likely will be altered in the days, or weeks, ahead. I fussed around with the tubes of oil paint, mixed and measured as I progressed, and then I just painted.
I had to.
The underpainting marked the placement of the work as I worked through what should be where and where it will go. It is a commitment to the art. For me, it always gets messy at this stage as I tend to alter my tact as I see how the paint responds to the canvas, and my intentions. This is where my mind engages as I determine future layers.
Oil painting requires a patience I once didn’t possess. The nature of the medium requires time; it forces you to slow down as you wait between layers. Years ago, I always had a problem with the waiting.
I tend to paint “fat”. While the initial layer seems thin and transparent, each subsequent application of paint takes on more oil as the layers begin to define themselves. Still too early in the process to consider textures, the tonal range starts to become obvious.
The canvas, at first, is very one-dimensional. While it first seems big and threatening, after spending time with it I am no longer intimidated. This is art, and it has a level of comfort that begins to envelope me.
In the days and weeks ahead, I must enhance the depth of the work. Yesterday my vision came into play and further possibilities became present. More importantly, I was present. I had to be.
Yesterday was a day to get started. Today will be easier as I have an idea where I am going.
I am now a retiree, a pensioner; and it’s taken me a few days to wrap my head around all that, even though I’ve had all these years to prepare for it.
Retired: I am looking forward to what is ahead of me; I’m actually using the term “rewired.” This is the time to rethink how my life is progressing, and to retry and relearn what I want, as I will no longer respond to bosses, mangers, company directives, corporate bullshit and the deadlines and pressure of it all.
I can now do what I want.
I am readjusting my life to suit me. Surely, I will alter some of my fundamental ways, routines, and priorities.
They always say you should plan, well in advance, for retirement.
Decades ago, at a retirement party for an older co-worker, dinner conversation turned to what those around the table were planning to do in their retirement years. The celebrating retiree was taking up woodworking (our gift to the man was a specialized tool he was always talking about). Most of the dinner guests wanted to travel, or had plans to spend time on new hobbies or those they didn’t have time for during their working years.
When the question was asked of me, at first, I didn’t have an answer. Then, in my thirties or early forties, I hadn’t given it much thought; retirement seemed so far off.
One of the guests continued to press for an answer. He surmised that I was already a writer and a photographer, so there must be another artistic pursuit in my future.
I replied “painting… I plan to paint.”
The answer didn’t really surprise anyone, or there wasn’t a wholehearted response, until I added “nudes”.
Yes, I said, “When I retire, I’m going to paint nudes.”
Ha, ha, ha; laughter filled the room. But I wasn’t joking. I truly planned on painting when I retired, and nudes seemed like a wonderful subject matter; maybe even more because of the almost mocking response.
So, for decades, I’ve been holding this out as a retirement goal.
Almost 10 years back, while in Toronto, I joined a sketch group where we would meet weekly for life drawing sessions; timed poses with a live model. Aways an enjoyable evening, it was a chance to gain greater perspective on both my skills and talents, and the human form.
When COVID hit a while later, our life drawing sessions were abruptly cancelled and the group disbanded.
It was during the COVID years that I had the time to get back to painting.
As a teenager I had taken oil painting classes but they, then, were more than frustrating for me. I already painted in watercolour, but oil paint took more time, study and preparation. Oil paints get a little messy and I, as a somewhat restless teen, found oils were nowhere near as immediate as watercolours. I was too impatient. So, I put the pursuit on hold, perhaps until I was an adult.
It was 2020 when I felt I was adult enough to take on the medium. With the onset of the coronavirus, I suddenly had the time. Even then, I told myself it was more to familiarize myself with the tones and temperament of oil paints (I still find them messy). I studied colour theory (again) spent more time working on undertones and underpainting and pursued the practice as a means of getting ready to paint nudes. I’ve got pages and pages of sketches to work from and will soon, again, work with live models (if you are interested in sitting for a session, send me an email; I’m looking for all ages, gender and body types).
When I moved back to Winnipeg last year, in preparation for my retirement years, I also joined a local printmakers group with a well-equipped studio. My plan is to use photography in the silkscreen dimension, and I have a few projects planned. I may even incorporate nudes.
The important thing for me, when I joined the group, was to get ready to make art. I will make art a greater priority in my life. That is my retirement plan.
Yes, in the grand scheme of things, art will direct where I go and what I do during my retirement years. I can’t think of a more fulfilling objective.
The pursuit of art, and its many forms, will give me a focus in retirement. Again, I’m not thinking of it as being retired, but “rewired’. Going forward I will change my thinking away from deadlines and commitments, and my performance will be personal and its results more tactile.
From now on, for me, it is all about art. More so, the art of living.
We exist, standing up to what life throws at us, strong and purposeful. Dwellings: our bodies, like our houses, need constant attention and regular maintenance.
Should we fail to keep up with the demands and rigours of daily life, the neglect will surely show. We just don’t know when. We all have a lot of stuff inside, and so much happening all around. Many times, we get all caught up in day-in-day-out pressures that we don’t notice the disintegration until it is too late.
Scratches and scuffs on the exterior are not always a sign of something ailing inside. Often, we are too busy to notice the force placed on our dwellings by the environment. Change is not always obvious.
The structure of our lives is solidly shifting. It is slightly unnoticeable, until something happens to push everything aside so we can care for an unexpected, yet immediate, priority.
Pay attention to the warning signs.
Address the cracks in your foundation before a major repair is required.
