I am looking forward to setting up my studio, but must wait until the floor is done which I hope will be this week. I have been missing painting and tonight will create a mandala with my traveling set of watercolor pencils.
In the meantime I have been reading a fun book: The Paintings of Henry Miller; Paint As You Like And Die Happy. It is a book that is out of print and first published in 1960. It is the same Henry Miller the famous writer.
Painting, for Henry, was more than an enthusiasm. It was a passion, yet he was curiously self-effacing about this side of his life. He painted for the sheer pleasure of picking up the brush "to see what happens." During his lean Big Sur years, he often spent more time painting than writing and watercolors became his economic salvation. He freely bartered them for food, clothing, and anything else he needed - a cord of wood, a tank of gas. The beauty of it was he assigned no denomination and exchanged them for anything from a song to a month's groceries. Value was a matter of the moment - and the heart. In order to create the book, the author had to find Henry's art.
The paintings in the book are organized by decades along with three essays. I will share more in the next blog. Stay tuned........
