The Little Maasai Girl ~ Choosing a Subject and Reference from the Past

“Through all the world 

there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: 

Give me a chance to do my best. ” 

~Karen Blixen

Babette's Feast & Other Anecdotes of Destiny

When I started gathering my ideas together for my show last fall, I wanted to choose references that were powerful to me. They were supposed to represent the idea that we are all made and shaped by our memories. So, for the "experiential series" they had to be related to important places, times or people from the past. 

In 1989, when I stepped off the plane in Kenya, I experienced a feeling that I had never had before. It was as if my feet rooted into the ground and in a way that I'd never felt before ... or since. I felt at home in a way that was so grounded.  I want to say "extraordinary" but there was something so normal about it, like coming home after a very long journey. 

I have traveled to places since where I've felt at home, or that felt so familiar that it was like visiting an old friend. In Assisi, I could find my way without consciously connecting my brain to my feet. I guess it felt like home too, but more of an out of body feeling.

 In Kenya, I felt rooted. I get emotional just thinking of it.

So, for my solo show I knew I had to paint a memory from Kenya. I wanted to do a Cheetah (being my spirit animal and having seen them about 8 feet away!) but the panel I have for that is 5 feet tall and if I started that, I would have ended up having a show with 1 painting! So, I picked my favorite photo, which was from our visit to a Maasai village. I'm sure you can see why, with her sweet, lovely, radiance.

I started with a sanguine color conté pencil, drawing in her features on the wood panel, then blended with a brush and mineral spirits, gradually moving into using burnt sienna oil paint.

Little by little I added more varying skin tones, then went into the fabric. I love painting drapery, so I can definitely get carried away! I decided to simplify it a bit to keep the focus on her.

I started adding her beads and eventually her silver necklace but I stopped short of the longer beads. I could have gone crazy with all the details ...

There was such a lovely sense of light on her, in the photo  (faded and discolored as it was) ... I knew just where the gold needed to go. 

And here she is ...

Several people wanted to buy the painting but she sold (to my sister) before the show opened.  

Oh, shortly after I started this blog, in 2009, I did a post about Kenya which you can see here.

Hope you are all off to a wonderful spring! I went to the Holi Festival of Colors weekend before last. I will definitely post those very color photos!

Buona Primavera, i miei amici!

Blessings and light!

“Up in this air you breathed easily, 

drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. 

In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: 

Here I am, where I ought to be.” 

~Karen Blixen

Out of Africa

Kilimanjaro

After taking an amazing pastel workshop last month, I decided I needed to get to work on another piece while I could still remember the techniques!  

I worked from old photos I took in Kenya many years ago with my family.  I was twenty. We were staying at this amazing little place called the Kilimanjaro Safari Lodge. My sister and I shared a one room cabin with dark wood planked walls and mosquito nets covering our beds that would glow at night by the tiny lamp on the small table between our beds.

Outside our room was a big bushy tree that monkeys would use as a jungle gym, chasing each other from limb to limb and occasionally grabbing a branch and using it as a sort of a sling shot and another monkey would go flying.  It was endlessly entertaining and I had never been so happy or more comfortable anywhere in my life. 

The sky was such an intense blue and the land glowed a bright gold in the afternoon sun.  I fantasize about going back someday ... until then, I will take my memories and love for this beautiful place and put them on paper.

"I see my path, 

but I don't know where it leads.

Not knowing where I'm going 

is what inspires me to travel it."

~Rosalia de Castro

East Africa

Kenya is one of my top two places I've been in the world.  It is breathtaking and the people were incredible.  They'd wave and shout "Jambo!"  ... a friendly hello even when you were just driving by in your truck.  

They are having their worst drought in over a decade and of course the fear is that things are going to get much worse.  If you want to know more and wish to help, please click on the link below.  Thanks!

Masaii ~ Kenya 1989

Click on this link to help!
How to Help East Africa's Drought-Affected Areas - The World Newser

Kenya

These are photos I took exactly 20 years ago this month! (Obviously I was an infant!) They were taken with an old 1970s manual Minolta I still own.  Many are water damaged (a canteen of water spilled in my backpack all over my film!) and some are blurry from the movement of the van, but I still love them.  It's one of my favorite places in the world, and nowhere have I ever felt so grounded and at home.  I couldn't resist the extra cheetah photos. They are so majestic and have always been my favorite animals.  They are magical and simply magnificent!

There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows 

and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne 

... bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude of being alive.

~Karen Blixen

If there were one more thing I could do,

it would be to go on safari again.

~Karen Blixen