Deadlines Make You Work, Don't They?

This is a painting done by my neighbor, the artist Alicia Hunsicker. I thought it a perfect image to add here considering eggs are on the minds of many of us this weekend with the Easter holiday. Alicia is having an art opening at UMass on April 4th. She has been working on her current series of oil paintings intensely for the past few months. Every once in a while, I stop into the studio to see how it is going and in what direction the paintings are going. I particularly like this small painting because of the egg and nest motif which resonates with me since I raise chickens. Alicia takes her artwork very seriously and spiritually. I’m not quite sure I ever quite understand what she is talking about when she explains it all. Everything she paints has a symbolism which is cool. And she is incredibly talented on top of it all.

Alicia has been painting for years and her work is so fine and detailed. She can work on a particular 4 inch section of canvas for days. It’s been fun to watch her develop this new body of work because she has had to speed up her painting and really crank it out. It is no less beautiful than the other past work, just different. She has a lovely sense of color. If you are in the vicinity of UMASS/Amherst, stop by to check it out at the Hampden Gallery. You can read about it on her blog here.

Me, I’m a total deadline person. If I don’t have one, most stuff just doesn’t get done and materialize. I think this habit began when I was a young girl – working on a school project until the last minute. Then when I was in 4-H, I made so many projects for the County Fair or some kind of special contest.

Today, I am no different, unfortunately. I am totally deadline driven. This past week, there was a photo shoot at our house and I had to have a couple projects done for it. I was down to the wire, once again. I just love a deadline – it gets my juices going and I can always feel the creativity rising to the surface. Most times, I am never sure where my work will go but it’s always a fun experience riding the deadline wave. But then this week, I also had to clean the house on top of it all which is really totally impossible during mudseason. Thank goodness the people who were shooting knew me and didn’t care if the floors weren’t waxed (that's an understatement). We just moved the stuff around to make the photos work. Here’s a cute photo of Julia having her make-up and hair done by the woman who was doing this at the shoot. Julia was eating this up.

Photos shoots are a lot of smoke and mirrors. (At least everyone I have ever been on.) You can look at one of the photos of our house in a magazine (like on this page on my website) and it looks like total perfection. But if you were to look behind the camera, on the other side, you would of course see all the kid, yarn and book clutter piled up. Then it all gets moved back after the photo happens. I’m assuming most shoots go like this although I probably have more stuff than most. This photo shoot had the extra added danger of the sheep being thrown in. All in all, it went off without incident and the sheep looked fabulous. Luckily, Mother Nature gave us a brand new lamb that morning. Baby lambs are incredibly photogenic, aren't they?


Happy Easter and Spring to All!