Pruning Back a Life

Sometimes there comes a year in a person’s life that feels rather catastrophic. Many times one finds, after the dust has settled, that there is opportunity hidden within the catastrophe. I have written in a previous post of the sudden changes in my life and it has been quite a journey. 

To give a quick update, the house is pending and, if all goes well, will close in two weeks. That closing will be the beginning of a whole new chapter of my life and I am looking forward to it. I am currently living in my little trailer which is parked on the property of generous friends. I am getting the final touches done that will allow me to paint and create in my little trailer. I will be there for a bit while I rest, recuperate, plan and work for my future.

Reflecting on this new start, in between packing and dealing with the process of untangling my life from the man I had been married to for 35 years, I realized that I needed to do a bit of pruning of the old life. I feel the pruning analogy is apt. When one prunes back the old dead growth and weak or misdirected limbs of a tree, it often is healthier and more productive. Come spring, the tree blooms anew and healthy new growth is made. 

I am excited about this time in my life. For the first time, I will have the opportunity to not only focus on my own personal healing and growth, but to focus on my art full time. I will have my own personal art residency and I plan to make the most of it. 

2019 has been a tough year, perhaps the hardest year in my entire life. I am planning to make 2020 a year of growth and change. I am committing to my art as well as my vision of sustainable living. There is a lot packed into that sentence and it will take the rest of my life to unpack it. I will be unfolding all of this here on this blog and my website, starting in two weeks if all goes well. I hope you will join me on this journey into art and creating a life!

-Renee

Belay...

The Scarlett Raven

On Belay! I had a brief two year journey into rock climbing several years back. Considering that I have a fear of heights, I learned to love it, creative problem solving with your entire body! 

A climbing partner belays or anchors you while you are climbing up the face of a rock. The command “On belay” signals that they are ready to anchor you and you may climb up safely. I’ve heard a few different commands when the climber needs to stop to either rest or access the way up the rock. 

This is where I feel I am at the moment, anchored, dangling while I stop and access the way up.  I will admit, it has been a long hard climb out of a 37 year relationship that, while there were wonderful moments, there was also a lot of toxicity. Sometimes you have to step back to see what you couldn’t see when you were immersed in it. 

I am healing but I am also still climbing out of this long hallway. The house has not sold yet and, as often the case when things are hard, is having issue after issue come up. There are days when I want nothing more than to run away and never come back! 

Of course, I know that we all go through challenging times some worse or more than others. My heart goes out to those who are struggling with far harder times than I am. I send out strength and courage to them and quietly remind myself to gather my own strength and courage and continue on. 

I am very fortunate. I have been surrounded by many kind and loving friends and am so very grateful for the love and encouragement I have received. I am growing and learning. I am determined to come out of this whole-hearted. 

Above is a picture of my trailer, now named The Scarlett Raven and I am now living in a place I call the Raven’s Nest. I have landed on the property of generous friends for the time being. This allowed me to get out of this house while it is on the market and get a bit of distance from the whole situation. I still come back to the house everyday to work, either on the house or in my studio. It is a transition.

I am savoring my time alone at the moment. I needed the peace, healing, and the time to think and plan. I feel like a neglected caged bird that hadn’t realized the door had rusted open and that I am now free! My wings are a bit stiff and creaky but I will soon be flying. 

I wanted to check in to this blog again. I need a re-start and am stretching those wings to launch into the next phase of my life and art. My belay is almost over and then I will be ready to “Climb On”

-Renee

The cutest wood stove!

 

I have been working on my trailer build every chance I get in between getting the house ready for the market and getting into the art studio for an hour or two. 

Today I got the Reflectix installed on the ceiling! This isn’t insulation but the Reflectix will help keep the roof cool in the sun and the warmth in when it is cold. I will be installing the foam board insulation that is leaning up against the walls, inside the walls next. I will be laying down about 1/2 inch of cork underlayment on the floor with another thin layer of plywood for the floor insulation. The existing flooring has an undercoating and is sealed along the edges. I didn’t want to tear it up to put insulation underneath so I will put in thin layers. 

On the bottom right of the picture, there is a roll of bamboo reed fencing. I am going to use that to cover the Reflectix on the ceiling. I put zip ties in place as I was installing the Reflectix to secure the bamboo. I will have to wait to put that up until I get the walls insulated and painted and this rather clever little wood stove installed:

This is a Cubic Mini Wood Stove. The company is in Canada and I was amazed at their prompt service.  The stove is made for boats and other small places. It is less than a foot square and it is so cute! It will heat up to 100 square feet. My trailer is about 72 square feet so I will keep nice and warm this winter.

These stoves have been around a while and were originally, and still are, made for boats. They have all the parts to make this safe and the installation water tight. I prefer wood heat to propane and will enjoy this stove tremendously.

I have also been learning how to make tables and countertops using cedar that my former husband milled. He is also teaching me the process and how to use the tools which I greatly appreciate.

Next up is insulating the walls!

Thanks for reading,
-Renee

Of Endings and Beginnings...

Warning: Major Life Changing Events Ahead!

I took this photo last Friday on a hike with a local Stewardship group that I am joining. It is a great photo to start this post off as it shows old second growth trees that have grown from a nurse log. From death comes life and the cycle continues. 

Now, I will state right here that there has not been a death in my family nor in my circle of friends. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage as I have a bit of a tale to unfold...

About 6 weeks ago, I was content in my 35 year marriage. Apparently, my mate was not and, unbeknownst to me had been having a relationship with another woman for the past two years. Yes, I suspected something was going on, I will not go into all the details as they no longer matter. Alas, it is an old story. I finally confronted him on the situation and, since the answer was a deal breaker in my world, I promptly asked for a divorce. The state of Oregon is a good one for uncontested divorces and a mere six weeks  later, I find myself officially divorced! 

We are not quite out of the woods yet as we still share this house. We had it torn apart as it is a fixer-upper. We have been putting it back together again and will be putting it on the market for sale, hopefully next month. 

As you can imagine, I have had to put my art business on the back burner to simmer while. And yes, I am dealing with a broken heart. I am a strong and loving person and, in spite of heartbreak, I am determined to move forward with my life.

Now, the exciting news! Out of the ashes arises a Phoenix. I have an adventure waiting for me! You see, I have some pretty big dreams and a strong purpose to pursue...

While working on the house, I will also be converting a cargo trailer into a tiny micro home for the time being. I plan to buy a piece of land, build an off-grid cob house, and steward the land as well as be stewarded by the land. I don’t have to tell you all the world is changing. I feel deep urgency to return to simple living and dig deep into skills I believe will be needed in the years to come. 

Art, music, gardening, Permaculture,  sustainable living, fiber arts, community, and stewardship are all part of my intentions. 

This will be a grand adventure and I will be blogging about it here! 

Finally, my art continues to evolve and develop. It is linked to my purpose. While it is on the back burner it is not completely neglected. I draw and paint and build skills as often as I can. I have come full circle and have added wildlife art back in my life. Here is a sketch of a wolf I recently did. I have more skills to build in this area but it is a passion rekindled. 

I will have more posts coming soon. Tomorrow I take my car in to have the towing and wiring harness installed. I will also visit the Social Security office to make my final official name change.

Saturday, I go in to Portland to pick up my trailer. I am excited! It will be fun to document this adventure in spite of knowing there will be challenges. I hope you all come along for the ride. 

Finally, I would like to re-introduce myself. My name is Renee Delight and it is a pleasure to meet you all! 

Onward! 

-Renee

New Home on the Oregon Coast!

I knew it had been a while since I posted on my blog but I was a bit surprised it has been almost 4 months! I seemed to have fallen down a rabbit hole. The big reason I have been absent so long is that we were finally able to buy a house! We have moved a whopping 1 and 1/2 miles to the south which puts us in the even smaller town of Nehalem, Oregon. The community we live in is a combination of three small villages clustered together. We have been living in Manzanita where the full-time population is around 750 people. Nehalem has a population of around 300 people. However, that hardly matters as we are all part of the same community. We have changed our home and neighbors but not our community. We take a lot of comfort in that!

The house is a 1973 fixer-upper with a need of a lot of fixer-upping. Buying the house was a journey and moving in has been quite a journey too. There was a lot that needed to be done in a short time for safety and comfort before moving in. I had to temporarily put down my paint brush and pick up my pipe wrench and wire strippers.

Yes, my tools. My mate has been busy with his business and bringing in an income so I took on the task of cleaning, painting, and repairing plumbing and electrical. I still have a ways to go but we are all moved in and chipping away at it. I do have a lovely room for a studio. I had to rip the carpeting out only to find the particle board subfloor is disintegrating and will need to be replaced. It is an old story that those who have bought fixer-uppers will be quite familiar with.

All of it has been challenging and fun (and sometimes not so fun) and will be continuing but, I need to get back to my work of painting. It doesn't take long to get out of practice! With this in mind, I am using Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 challenge to get back into the swing of things. I am not totally crazy though! I am going to start small. My theme for this challenge will be 10.20.30. I want to work on certain skills, value being one of them so I will be taking an hour a day and painting a 10 minute painting, a 20 minute, and a 30 minute painting. The short painting time is to loosen me up and to sharpen my observational skills. I will be painting them in black and white or brown and white so I can focus on value or tone. If I have time that day, I will continue on to paint a full color version of my subject. As always, I will be painting from life.

The past four or five months have been spent making a couple of major life changes. These have taken all my energy and focus but I always knew I would be getting back into my painting. I will talk more on the new house and my last painting trip to Stehekin, WA over this next month. In the meantime, I have this wonderful challenge, and two painting trips this coming month!

Here is another view of the house, with the giant Monkey Puzzle tree in front:

Off to get my gear ready for tomorrow,

-Renee

The First Priority

© 2014, R.L. Delight, Morning sun.

This summer has been an amazingly sunny and dry one for the Northern Oregon Coast. I just couldn't help but feel the need to get out and paint as much as I possibly could. Add to that a happily busy performing season with the band, a town and coastal highway overflowing with tourists, long hours of daylight, and not enough hours of rest, etc., etc. It was gloriously busy...but, I thought it was never going to stop. Every week I seemed to be thinking, "One more week and then we slow down." Finally, in the middle of this month, the last hectically busy week and weekend finished.

No more having 10 minutes to eat a meal in between activities or work, no more late nights and early mornings. Finally time to slow down, catch my breath, take stock and settle into the studio.
The rains hit about the same time. Perfect! Or so I thought. I was exhausted and behind on everything. I slowly started to pick up after the summer craziness.

Just as I was planning to make an appointment with my naturopath to continue a wellness treatment, I got bit by a spider, or so I thought. First pain and then a welt appeared on my back. It wasn't bad, just inconvenient. The next day another welt, the following day yet another. I tore apart my bedding and washed everything, vacuumed, etc, but the welts kept appearing.

I made my appointment and the doctor took one look and informed me that I didn't have spider bites, I had shingles! After giving me acupuncture and giving me a long list of what to eat and what not to eat, she sent me home with orders to rest and rethink the choice I made to run myself into the ground.

Shingles hurt worse than almost anything I have ever experienced. The lesions are not particularly pretty either. This past week I have done nothing but sleep, follow my list of instructions, read, rest, and figure out what changes I need to make so that I never have to go through this again!

The main cause that triggered my shingles, besides lack of sleep? Stress, major stress. Some of that was beyond my control and some wasn't. I have spent this past week painfully reorganizing my priorities. Would it surprise people, specially women, to hear that I hadn't put self-care as my first priority?

I eat a healthy diet and I exercise but I neglected other areas such as stress reduction and well, enough sleep. It has also been brought home to me in one painful lesson that if I want to be a good artist, and believe me I do, I need to be a healthy strong person first. I thought I knew that! So, deep breath, reorganize my priorities, get the required and needed rest on a regular basis, and move on. I do have a lot of plein air studies to work from this winter in addition to working on improving my drawing!

I had to think a while to decide if I wanted to share this on my blog. This blog is about the journey I have been on as an artist. This is part of it. I consider myself very lucky. I will recover from shingles in another week or so and go on a bit more wisely. Some people don't get a second chance to make life corrections.

So I ask this question: Do you make self-care your first priority? If not, why not? I can come up with a lot of excuses to put other things and people ahead of myself but it just doesn't work. It will bite you in the rear end sooner or later!

To your good health,
-Renee

P.S. Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. After having chickenpox the virus sleeps in the nerve tissue of the body and may or may not become active again later in life. My mate had shingles at age 28. I am just over 50. There is a lot of info out there on the internet. Some of it good, some of it not so good. I did not get the shingles vaccine as it is not considered 100% effective. I tend be allergic to many ingredients that are included in vaccines. There is no cure for the shingles. I went with a natural care treatment under the supervision of two naturopaths. I am recovering nicely and expect to be up to full health soon.

Blinding Light

©2013 R.L. Delight, Blind Light, 6"x8", oil on canvas panel

Oh this week has been a challenge. The main challenge being the weather. Not bad weather but cold sunshine and wind blowing from the East off the mountains. This time of the year the sun is low on the horizon as it approaches the Solstice. I can't find a place to put my easel, indoors or out, that the light doesn't blind me. I literally cannot see the colors on my canvas accurately. The painting above is a case in point. The color of the sea on the horizon is too intense and jumps out. I couldn't tell until I photographed the painting late this afternoon. That is just one of the issues. I will put this one aside and come back to it later to see if I can fix it. This was painted using a plein air study I made in January 2013 as a reference.
The sunshine also means calm seas. The waves are so puny that they hardly make any foam. They stretch out in miles long unbroken lines parallel to the beach. Beautifully different but not what I like to paint. I might have to look into finding some nice rocks to paint while I wait the weather out.
Well, I just deleted a whole rant about bad insurance and enormous hospital bills and assorted billing errors. Amazing how easy it is to stray off topic! I won't bore you all but will say that the U.S. healthcare system is a rather sad testament to one of the many things that ails our beautiful country. Our people deserve better. Other countries lead the way.
The only way I know, the way forward, is to paint. So, I will paint. Good, bad, I will paint. It will all eventually work out one way or another.
I will get there. Dinner time calls. Tomorrow I paint.