What a year. I meant to finish a third children's book about Bijou, the British dog who moved to France. I meant to get the 90% complete book of poetry through the editing process and up for sale. I meant to finish the second Shelf Barker humorous mystery novel and publish it. I've got two watercolours unfinished on the drafting table where they've been since mid-November, before we went to Ireland the second time. I meant to get rid of the intense sacroiliac pain. (Might be underway at last; fingers crossed.)
I cannot tick a box for any of the above except--I hope and pray--the last.
I did go to Ireland twice and meet more than half a dozen of my second cousins for the first time. Went to Leo's Tavern in Donegal for the first time, home of Enya, Clannad and Moya Brennan because Leo is their father. We replaced the ratty carpet in our entry and living room with hardwood. I renewed a connection with a friend. I had a really not very exciting art exhibit. (I will NEVER ever invite people into my studio again; I mean, do actors invite theatregoers to visit them in their dressing rooms? Argh. What was I thinking?)
However, I planned to post some words and art from upcoming books/sales as holiday gifts, and so I shall. But they are not new, mainly; they have a bit of age on them. But they come with love...as long as you don't insist on seeing the mess in my studio/office!
Bread and jam today
by Laura Harrison McBride
Winter
is late. Freezing. Cold draughts limbo under the front door,
roll
up the stairs and hopscotch around the banisters to
attack
me in my studio. No, no
I
will not
buy fingerless gloves. I will turn
on a space heater. I will
because
I am not Degas, this is not Paris, and
I
have a meal ticket. A man who
supports
my engaging the arts to do battle with
whatever
demons make us--
all
of us arty folk--
engage
ourselves in repetitive futility.
 |
| NYC tenement in earlier times; reminds me of Degas' Paris studio. |
The best do not repeat. The wealthy
do.
The wealthy artists find
a
gimmick, a gimcrack, and crack their
muse
on its sharp, metallic edges
all
the way to the bank. Schnabel pottery on canvas--
oh
dear, and other
New
York talentless...well, I had better not go there. But,
No
frozen, northern-lighted studio for them; they can afford
heat. Models.
Holiday
trips to exotic lands. I can
turn
on the heat, thanks to my meal
ticket
(dear man, he's my soul's bread and butter.)
I can
labour at one-offs until I tire, and then
go
downstairs, toss costly grounds
into
the French press, stick a piece
of my
favourite once for-rich-folks-only
white
bread into the toaster. Slather butter, spread
strawberry
Bon Maman to my heart's content.
Brown
bread I used to bake, before the meal ticket, and drench
in
butter and honey still warm. In the old days, the days when
I
couldn't turn up the heat. I had no meal ticket. But I wouldn't...no,
never...I
wouldn't use a gimmick to attract buyers. I ate brown bread, honey,
not much else. But no gimmicks.
No.
Thank
god for my beautiful tall handsome meal ticket; I owe him my art.
Copyright Laura Harrison McBride
