“Painting is a physical tribute, honoring the gifts that surround you and the life you’ve been given.  Art permits you to step out of the labyrinth and into your own private joy.”  Robert Genn

When I was in the second grade my teacher, Mrs. Potts, drew the picture of a beautiful clown.  He had large blue buttons and a bright red ruffle, and a pointed hat with a blue ball at the top.  His face was white with big red lips and cheeks, and dark circles painted around his eyes.

When Mrs. Potts finished the drawing, she hung her masterpiece in front of the class so we could draw one just like it.  I tried very hard to make the circles that seemed so easy to Mrs. Potts.  But when I finished a squished, cramped creature stared back at me from the page looking nothing like it was supposed to.

The day the teacher drew the clown I thought, “This time I’m going to get approval for “my art,” and in the confusion when everyone was leaving school for the day I stole Mrs. Potts picture.

I took the drawing home and showed it to Mom and said, “Look at my clown.”  Mom’s mouth opened in surprise and delight.  “Oh, Cindy, did you draw this?” she asked with reverence and awe.

I nodded my head, “Yes,” without saying it.  (Was that a lie?)

I was, at last, the talented daughter she expected.

Mom was thrilled with my clown.  She went right out and bought a frame and put the picture on my wall.

At school the next day the first words out of the teachers mouth was, “Who stole the clown?”  No one said a word in the anxious silence.  Every day for two weeks the teacher asked, “Who stole the clown?”  At recess kids would ask, “I didn’t steal the clown did you?”  Everyone wondered who had taken it.

I didn’t know what to do.  I couldn’t tell my mother who had gotten such pleasure from my lie, and I couldn’t bring my classmates home anymore because they would see the clown on my wall.  It seemed as though my torment would never end.  I used to lie in bed starring at it, wondering how I could accidentally knock it to the ground and set it on fire.

I was grateful when, two years later we moved.  I could, at last, bring a friend home to play.

Here I am, 56 years later, living in Ojai, making a living from my paintings, which I sell in art shows, online and on greeting cards.  When I first began to paint I drew with a permanent marker.  I forced myself to use my mistakes of perception, or a careless line.  Nothing mattered more to me, than telling the truth.

Mt. Carmel Church

Available in prints and cards here.

“Only he can be an artist who has a religion all his own.

An original way of viewing infinity.”

– Vincent Van Gogh -

I asked my husband, Wyn, what he thought I should do with myself.  I have so many things I could do, but I am 64.  I want something to involve me at my deepest level.  There is no time to waste.  Without a moments hesitation he said, “Paint.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re happy when you paint.”

What a surprise.  I thought he would say, “Find a job.”

That night I went to a birthday party for my friend, Jill André.  While talking to several people there, who were also trying to figure out what to do with themselves – all of us were about the same age – I mentioned I was thinking of making a commitment to painting.  They wanted to know what I liked to paint and I told them I had two paintings in Jill’s house.  Before I knew it there were six of us standing around my paintings in Jill’s bedroom.

Well, they could not have been more complimentary.  They loved them.  There were two women who knew something about art and started talking about the perspective, what ever that is, and the believability of my art.  “It draws you into its world and holds you there with all the detail,” one woman said. I drove home in a daze.

I had started a painting of the Mt. Carmel Catholic Church when I first moved into the cottage in Montecito where we lived for a year and a half, until recently.  Mt. Carmel was a block away from my cottage.  It looks like a small Mission, done in the most delightful adobe, with a wonderful bell tower with a huge bell.  I had drawn it months ago, and then began painting the church.  The color, instead of tan adobe, became a passionate, sunset color.  I tried to talk myself into making it more realistic, but another part, the painter, could not do it.  Passionate mauve/pink it stayed.  Then I painted the brightest dark blue sky. The bell, instead of grey, became an orange/gold color.

I stared at it, wondering if it was okay to paint an orange church bell.  I could justify anything in doors – any bright color was possible, but would that same style work out doors?  Then I began painting the plants around it – penis shaped blossoms, orgasmic flowers, flirting palms, all for Love.   Oh dear!

The next evening I attempted to paint clouds around my church.  I looked through all of Van Gough’s books, looking at his skies.  Oh my what skies.  There was even a green one and a gold and orange one.  Mine of course was blue, and it needed some clouds.  I tried to paint a Van Gough cloudy sky.  It turned to mud.  Mud on high would not do.  So I painted little white puffs.  It looked like an illustration.  I don’t want to be an illustrator; I want to be Van Gough.

Today I read in Van Gogh’s Complete Works, “Only he can be an artist who has a religion all his own.  An original way of viewing infinity.”

Though our religions have failed us they point to something that reflects our true home.  Isn’t that what we are all seeking?  Home.  A place that is our own.  Comfort.  Kindness.  Blessings.  Full self-expression.  Rest.

This is what I was seeking when I first began to paint.  Home.  My home.  My church.  My painting showed me that I had finally created my own religion with my own church, according to Cynthia.

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These were the horses I met in South Dakota on Pine Ridge Reservation.  After I painted them I noticed their front hoofs looked like dancing feet.  Thus – a chorus line of horses.  Someone asked which horse I was.  I am the white one.

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I was at a Sun Dance in South Dakota.  While sleeping in my van I heard horses galloping back and forth in the field in which I was parked.  I cut up apples for them and they, very reluctantly at first, approached me and ate them graciously.  When I left home as a child, I had two horses that had been with me since I was eight years old.  My mother decided to sell them while I was away at school and wouldn’t tell me where.  Those horses have haunted me for years.  These horses, in South Dakota, owned by Lakota Sioux, healed my heart.  I have not been able to stop painting them.  I was at a Sun Dance in South Dakota.  While sleeping in my van I heard horses galloping back and forth in the field in which I was parked.  I cut up apples for them and they, very reluctantly at first, approached me and ate them graciously.
I have painted this scene five times.  Each one has sold.  I should call them Healing Horses.

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A friend started doing a show called Buddha Abides.  It is installed once a year and there is a call for entries.  I told several of my friends about the show and suggested they submit their Buddha paintings.  The night before the submission was due, I had the thought, “I wonder if I could paint a Buddha?”  In one night I painted The Golden Buddha.  It has sold fifteen times.  Next I painted the reclining Buddha.  It has sold many times as well.  I love the peace that comes over me as I paint the all seeing eyes of the Buddha.

 

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A friend started hosting a show called Buddha Abides.  It is installed once a year and there is a call for entries.  I told several of my friends about the show and suggested they submit their Buddha paintings.  The night before the submission was due, I had the thought, “I wonder if I could paint a Buddha?”  In one night I painted The Golden Buddha.  It has sold fifteen times.  Next I painted the reclining Buddha.  It has sold many times as well.  I love the peace that comes over me as I paint the all seeing eyes of the Buddha.

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6 Cards $24.00 5×5 Print (8" frame) $50.00 14×20 Original $600.00

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A block away from our Montecito Cottage, was the Mt. Carmel Church.  It was all adobe and angles, in a conservative tan and brown color.  I loved that church with the cacti and succulents and palms surrounding it.  I drew it as best I could then came home to paint it.  It would not stay tan and brown.  It became pink with an orange bell.  I call it my wild, passionate church.

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6 Cards $24.00 5×5 Print (8" frame) $50.00 14×20 Original $600.00

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One day Dorjé, my other Tibetan Terrier, was taking a nap on our big chair.  He was so comfortable I couldn’t ask him to get down so I snapped his picture.  He is a creature of comfort.  When we first chose him he was with his litter mates in Denaire, California.  He was still too young to bring home and I called the breeder every now and then to check on his progress.  “What is he like?” I asked.  He said, “He thinks he is very important, and he is an over eater.  He knocks every other puppy off their mama and lays in front of all the tits.”  That’s my Dorjé.  He is twice as big as Marco Polo.  I am constantly trying to monitor his eating, except here in his dreams.

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This was my first painting.

The brightness inside and the dark winter tree through the window, let me know I was Blooming Inside.

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My friend, Amy, has a home over-looking all of Ojai.  This is her doorway, with her stained glass sunflowers.

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6 Cards $24.00 5×5 Print (8" frame) $50.00 14×20 Original $600.00