Strange Days

I know how excited I was by this art class, and the last thing I want to do is come off like I don't like the art class, cause I do....really.

This class was put together by the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art....I thought since it was an actual museum that was giving the class that it would be....::shrugs::: I dunno....better?.

I feel like how I felt when I signed my daughter up for an expensive private school (that I could barely afford), and then found out six months later (when she bought home a test that she got an F on, and when I looked over the test, the teacher had marked 10 things wrong that were actually right)...and when I went to school, I found out that her teacher wasn't licensed...and in fact, parochial school teachers do not HAVE to be licensed!?!?

Anywho.....My teacher is nice...but ummm, that doesn't make one a good painter.

See here's what happened...we were mixing paints for our background, and she mentioned that instead of using your brush to add a larger amount of paint, you can use your palette knife...and p r o c e e d s to smear paint all over my background. The look on my face was "what the f u c k ?!?" and the girl directly across from me saw it (my face that is)...but teacher was quite oblivious, and I spent the next 15 minutes trying to blend my background before her smears dried. (unsuccessfully I might add)

Joe says that it was probably all a part of teaching, but I disagree...this is my work of art, my project, why would you use it as an example?

I couldn't paint right for the rest of the class....she could have used a blank sheet of paper to demonstrate on right? :::shakes head::: maybe it's me, but the class seems to question her a lot, on things I think she should be putting out there before they ask...like, telling us to mix colors, but not showing...sure I knew how to do it, but only two other people knew how, the rest just winged it.

Joe says, maybe I should do my own painting class....and maybe I will. Maybe this class will get better. I hope so. It's nice to have that time to myself to go out and do something (paint) that pleases me so much for two hours, especially when I can hardly make time to paint when I'm home. ...I'm going to take it as it comes, and get what I can out of it.

....and....and I am making a promise to myself to make time to paint at home. I have a whole room that I use as my in home office, and I'm splitting that in half to use the other half as a sort-of art studio, thank god the room is about 17 x 15 feet, so it doesn't feel cramped at all. Now that I have a designated space to paint in, I can find the time. :)

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I've decided to write about my past as well as my regular posts. So to whosoever might be reading this thing, I'll be posting all of my "flashbacks" as I call them in green so you can tell the difference, and even choose to read or not. :)

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I dont remember much about my childhood, slices and slivers of memory is all I have...being a baby, nothing..... 4-5 years old...nothing...not a single memory...at about 5 or 6 a memory of waiting for my mother to come home.

She's in the hospital.

a baby sister.

i'm standing in a foyer by myself, looking out a window for her car to pull up, eating a bag of chips as big/tall as me.

moms car pulls up to the curb, i run out to it.

she shows me a little bundle with a ugly crying thing in it...

im not impressed.

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Memories of my sister being a baby. nil. nada. nothing.

memory of her being about 3.....try to follow me here....

My mother was married when she got pregnant with me, so was my father...only they weren't married to each other. My mother left her husband, her husband kidnapped her two sons (2+3) and she never saw them again, she never makes it work with my father...their reasons, memories and explanations differ, and when i was about 4 or 5 she met my stepfather.

Long story short, they get married (her family completely ostracizes her for married a black man, despite the fact that they are hispanic and native american, ie; black themselves), couple years later he screws up (cheating or something), she decides to leave him.

Key point: this is quite frankly the strongest most emphatic thing I'd ever seen my mother do...ever, in my whole childhood. We lived in an apt in Newark....She found out somehow that he was cheating, so she waited till he got up and went to work (5am? it was still dark out) got up, packed every single thing in the house, had some guy (she was seeing?) she knew (Pete...i prefer to think of him as "puerto rican pete) come to the house with a truck, packed all our shit in it, and the only thing she left in the house was his clothes hanging in the closet. I remember as we went to walk out the door, she was carrying my sister, and holding my hand, and she said "wait a minute" and she walked back into the empty apt, walked into the kitchen and yanked the phone cord out the wall...I was like Woowwwww.

"Pete" takes us to this two family house in Paterson, I can't remember the guy's name who lived upstairs but he was old as dirt, and he had a big fluffy dog named BoBo. I loved the apt, it was bigger than the one we had before, and it had a YARD! (OK it was really a driveway, but if there were no cars in it, it was a YARD!)

I remember one day, I had done something...I've conveniently forgotten what it was (how bad could it be, I was what 7? 8?) and I remember my mother and "pete" standing in the kitchen, and "pete" goes, "your a bad girl, and thats why we love paula better" and smooches her on the cheek.

Ok...

a. she cant even talk yet, what can she do wrong?
b. is this a sick statement or what to make to a kid?
c. who is this guy pete...you're not even my step father fer crissakes

****at any rate, i realized just now.... as I write this..... that for the first time in my life I am so over this memory.

My stepfather finds out where we live

(to this day I have no idea how)

bangs on our door day and night, apologizing for whatever he'd done, sleeps in his car in front of the house for what seems like weeks

until he takes an overdose of pills


winds up in the hospital

and she takes him back

big scene with him kneeling in the bathroom hugging me and my sister happy to be home.

home. happy. what a joke.