Happy Talk, Part II

It's really not all bad.  Sonia (above) says, "Be happy."  She's winging her way to California, as we speak, to cheer up a Marilyn Neuhart doll collector.  Another Neuhart doll is on it's way to France, and I just sold a beautiful mid-century modern chair on eBay.  That one's heading to England tomorrow.  Commerce continues, art is supported, and the snow is beautiful in the sunshine, ice flows crunching and grinding up the Hudson when the tide comes in.  Man they move fast!  

The dogs love the snow.  Their husky nature thrives in the cold.  Of course they have no concept of death or of the future and all it's lurking shadows.  We're the only animals that think about such things.  The two dogs know nothing of the plane that ditched in the river forty-five miles south of where they frolicked this afternoon (all 155 passengers and crew got out OK, but some geese weren't so fortunate).  We also have poetry and central heating, if we're lucky.  The dogs and us, that is.

Artists have to do all sorts of things for money.  (I know I've said this before.  I'll probably say it again.)  Agnes Martin, when she lived in New York, used to work a job for one year and paint the next.  She lived on almost nothing, to the point of rationing food.  Her jobs included dishwasher and probation officer.  You won't read that in the biographies.  We do what we need to do.  We maintain, if we can, claw our way back when we can't.  

Here's another excerpt from Agnes Martin: Writings, this time part of an essay she wrote, titled "The Current of the River of Life Moves Us:"

In this life, life is represented by beauty and happiness .

If you are completely unaware of them you are not alive.

The times when you are not aware of beauty and happiness you are not alive.

When we see life we call it beauty.  It is magnificent – wonderful.

We may be looking at the ocean when we are aware of beauty but it is not the ocean. We may be in the desert and we say that we are aware of the "living desert" but it is not the desert.

Life is ever present in the desert and everywhere, forever.

By awareness of life we are inspired to live.

Life is consciousness of life itself.

The measure of your life is the amount of beauty and happiness of which you are aware.

The life of the artist is a very good opportunity for life.

When we realize that we can see life we gradually give up the things that stand in the way of our complete awareness.

As we paint we move along step by step.  We realize that we are guided in our work by awareness of life.

We are guided to greater expression of awareness and devotion to life.

Sonia reminds me of Agnes.  Look how she's beaming.