tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668510083398460242012-01-04T07:37:09.010-05:00Field Notes on the Adventure of Being MyselfSukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.comBlogger1981100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-91171380298768324232012-01-03T16:28:00.000-05:002012-01-03T16:28:21.773-05:00

Radishes on Blue Dinner Plate, © Sukie Curtis, 2011, oil on canvas The same bunch of radishes lasted me through several paintings and a few of my classes at Artascope Studios in South Portland, Maine. I haven't checked recently, but I have a hunch they are still occupying some space at the back of the refrigerator, much faded in color and certainly more puckery than smooth-skinned. Though I

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-89574407743367394202011-12-24T08:36:00.000-05:002011-12-24T08:36:31.510-05:00

Radishing, oil on canvas, © 2011, Sukie Curtis Yesterday a friend and fan of my paintings sent me a link to the morning's installment of the "Writer's Almanac," Garrison Keillor's daily NPR program, which had noted that last night was the Night of Radishes, Noche do Rabanos, in Oaxaca, Mexico!  Here's the brief description: "Tonight in Oaxaca, Mexico, folks will be celebrating the Noche de

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-58182847372292855982011-12-18T11:01:00.000-05:002011-12-18T11:01:35.909-05:00

Radishing, 8" x 10", oil on canvas'Twas six days before Christmas, and all ‘round the placethe thoughtful delayers were starting to pace."Yikes! I've done nothing!" was heard here and there."If only I'd purchased those radishes or that pear!" Pear on Yellow, 8" x 8”, oil on woodOK, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. But just in case you're still wondering what to do for a special gift or two, I am

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-51655894869980301922011-12-03T09:14:00.000-05:002011-12-03T09:14:37.145-05:00

Radishing, oil on canvas, 9x12", © Sukie Curtis, 2011 More radishes! This time with a decidedly Christmas-y feel, now that we're in the season of red and green decorations.  One fellow painter on Facebook commented that this could be "red boulders in a landscape;" do you see it? The red boulders aren't so convincing, but the radish foliage does have the look and feel of hilly shapes. And

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-70103699880961610402011-11-21T08:20:00.001-05:002011-11-21T11:43:39.216-05:00

Oak Leaf Shapes, oil on canvas, © 2011, Sukie Curtis (unfinished?) Yesterday, on a very mild November day, with a gang of tufted titmice scolding us and nuthatches chattering from the overhanging branches of evergreens, we buried the ashes of my mother-in-law in a cemetery in South Weymouth, Massachusetts. This recent painting, inspired by an oak branch in a bottle, seems somehow appropriate to

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-12224506554732534222011-11-05T06:53:00.000-04:002011-11-05T06:53:15.557-04:00

Small Square Radishes, oil on canvas, © 2011 Sukie Curtis I paint radishes more than I eat them. That's just the way it is!  I can hardly resist buying new bunches of them at the farmers market, even when I have an older bunch at home. But I've learned that they keep an impressively long time in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, and can be my painting models and muses many times over, though

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-48717536428985117842011-10-14T11:06:00.001-04:002011-10-14T11:17:03.506-04:00

Radishes with a Peach, oil on canvas, 10" x 10" In The Garden, oil on canvas, 30" x 24" Peonies in a French Vase, oil on canvas, 12" x 12" Here's a sneak preview of three of my paintings that will be on display and for sale at the Yarmouth Art Festival, October 19 to 22, sponsored and hosted by St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Yarmouth, Maine. If you're in the area, please come

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-89952068210453941892011-10-06T07:33:00.000-04:002011-10-06T07:33:05.668-04:00

Radishes, © 2011 oil (and Sharpie) on canvas One of the great outcomes of teaching a class called "Expression in Paint" at Artascope Studios in South Portland is discovering what matters most to me in my own painting. What elements are (at least currently, since things do change) so essential to my own way of expressing myself in paint that I neglect them to my peril. I can't say exactly how this

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-55135453876124251682011-10-01T08:51:00.000-04:002011-10-01T08:51:51.768-04:00

© Sukie Curtis, 2011, ink on paper I know it's bad form (and just plain boring) for a blogger to comment on how long it's been since she has blogged, but sometimes it shocks me to see just how long. And though I didn't grow up as a Roman Catholic (far from it, in fact, as a Unitarian!), I suppose it's my twenty-five-years-plus sojourn in the realm of Christian religious practices that accounts

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-25957709622054299782011-08-17T15:47:00.000-04:002011-08-17T15:47:23.553-04:00

Peonies in a French Vase, © 2011, oil on canvas, 12" x 12" "Are you willing to show up with your paint and just 'be' with whatever happens?" a coach once asked me years ago when I was feeling in something of a slump with my painting. I had internalized someone else's negative opinions about my paintings, handing over all authority (and responsibility) for my art-making in the process. I very

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-9122372546844454882011-08-04T10:25:00.000-04:002011-08-04T10:25:15.502-04:00

In the Garden, © 2011, oil on canvas I delivered this painting yesterday to the Yarmouth Frame Shop and Gallery, just in time for their next show, "Dog Days of Summer," that opens Saturday, August 6. If you happen to be near Yarmouth, Maine on Saturday, come by (720 Route One) the Gallery for an opening reception from 4 to 7 pm. The show features work by thirty artists, so there's plenty of

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-1813063971894425842011-06-20T21:11:00.000-04:002011-06-20T21:11:30.550-04:00

I meant to write this yesterday, but I figure that only one day after Father's Day (which we didn't really celebrate in my family when I was a child, maybe because it hadn't yet gained official status) is good enough. I don't really know what my "ten random things" will be; this is a blogging adventure in which I trust I will find out. 1. My dad's birth and death were near each other, both

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-50041162404749871572011-05-08T09:34:00.000-04:002011-05-08T09:34:42.389-04:00

Well, it's Mother's Day, and this morning I read a little piece that Caitlin Shetterly wrote about her mother for Oprah's magazine. (I didn't know Cait was now writing for Oprah, since I don't read O, but that's great for Cait!) It got me thinking about things my mother always says, and it makes for a strange list, very much impacted by her diminishing memory. Our phone conversations (I call

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-20198953161014960862011-05-06T17:52:00.000-04:002011-05-06T17:52:21.458-04:00

Here's another installment in my daughter Bekah's blog from Kenya. As you will discover, this one is about her group's trip to Tanzania about a month ago. Meanwhile, she and her group are now back on the coast of Kenya in the town (city?) of Malindi on the shores of the Indian Ocean. They will be there several days for the presentation of all of their Independent Study Projects--the culmination

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-63175583908435957202011-05-04T09:57:00.000-04:002011-05-04T09:57:00.194-04:00

Pink Door, Yellow Fruit, ©Sukie Curtis, 2011, oil on canvas This painting is one of several that will be on view and for sale at the Yarmouth Frame Shop and Gallery at 720 US Route One in Yarmouth, Maine beginning this Saturday! If you are in the area, be sure to stop by for the opening reception between 4 and 7 pm on Saturday, May 7. I am one of twenty-eight artists (!) whose work will be

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-28509476893944076942011-04-14T09:27:00.000-04:002011-04-14T09:27:22.746-04:00

I thought to check Bekah's blog this morning, knowing she has been back in Nairobi for a while (most recently from Tanzania). And I was pleased to find a new post! There's so much going on--glimpses of Swahili lessons, what's big in the news in Kenya that barely earns a blip on the screen here, and what inspired this particular group of college students to have a sleep-over to watch The Sound of

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-30215215840394927952011-04-05T16:07:00.000-04:002011-04-05T16:07:34.246-04:00

Sunflowers, Late September (detail), ©Sukie Curtis, 2011 So, what's "spiritual direction," anyway? Spiritual direction is collaborative, personal detective work, or like a treasure hunt in which the treasure to be found is you--and the Spirit who dwells in the depths of you. It is giving ear and voice to the conversation that your life keeps inviting you to have. How is spiritual direction

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-49942812099068856942011-04-04T20:53:00.000-04:002011-04-04T20:53:07.760-04:00

I realized this morning with a small jolt and a sliver of regret that yesterday was an important personal anniversary for me and that I'd forgotten to mark it in any way. I hadn't paid much attention to the date, and it just didn't really sink in until today. What anniversary? The third anniversary of my "leap to freedom," otherwise known as the day I renounced my ordination and returned to the

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-21173040280995227652011-03-23T10:05:00.000-04:002011-03-23T10:05:24.599-04:00

One of my Facebook indulgences is to play a slow-paced game of Scrabble with an old friend. I often wish I were more of a Scrabble regular--real-time Scrabble, that is, with the enjoyment of the lovely wooden tiles and actually holding letters in my hand while I search my imagination. But Scrabble on Facebook allows me some helpful cheating, like checking the dictionary, and being able to move

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-31668866439317691202011-03-21T11:34:00.000-04:002011-03-21T11:34:27.440-04:00

Thanks to a conversation of comments on my last blog post (comments that were posted on Facebook--feel free to find and "friend" me there!), I've made changes to my profile for the Spiritual Directors International directory known as the "Seek and Find Guide". Among the comments that helped to convince me to go back and choose that "Other" option that I had paused over before were these: "Go

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-196969210453115792011-03-19T11:02:00.000-04:002011-03-19T11:02:24.860-04:00

Last month when I officially joined Spiritual Director's International and was filling out my online profile, I got stuck at what I imagine for many would be a simple question to answer--my "spiritual affiliation." The profile form provided an extensive drop-down menu of choices for indicating one's spiritual affiliation. By extensive I mean 56 different choices! And more than forty of those

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-46134091243739778852011-03-17T14:03:00.000-04:002011-03-17T14:03:44.586-04:00

More news from Bekah in Kenya! She is back from her weeks in the village of Shirazi on the coast near Mombasa. And there are two new blog posts that bring us up to date on that experience. Swahili lessons beneath a mango tree, eating sweetened spaghetti, watching inventive children at play, and the sounds of goats and the Muslim call to prayer. Bekah says in many ways it was a "regression into

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-77632671354114018412011-03-15T10:08:00.000-04:002011-03-15T10:08:49.129-04:00

I've actually got lots of posts lining up within me waiting to be written. At least that's how it feels some days. As if this not-writing has gone on long enough and until I get going again, I'm going to be a bit stuck. Something about letting creative forces flow where they will. Even if I think I ought to be or would rather be painting just now, if I keep stuffing these writing ideas, sooner

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-75843616378370856762011-03-02T11:17:00.001-05:002011-03-02T19:29:11.581-05:00

                                                    Pink Tulips, © Sukie Curtis, 2011 I think it was probably five or more years ago that a friend of mine first suggested that I join and list myself with Spiritual Directors International, since spiritual direction is something that I do. For some reason, I decided rather quickly that it just didn't sound like me to do something like that. Don't

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-83095629649580706292011-02-27T09:35:00.000-05:002011-02-27T09:35:10.310-05:00

I was reaching for the pair of scissors in the broken-handled mug on my bedside table (my best desk scissors being missing from the drawer--ahem! Anna?), when I heard a voice. Well, not really a voice. I heard the words, "What are you doing?" Well, I didn't really hear them out loud, either. But I heard them clearly from within. As clear as Elijah is said to have heard God's voice when he was

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-4390570424382286212011-02-19T08:42:00.000-05:002011-02-19T08:42:26.064-05:00

"You're my kind of pastor!" the woman seated to my right said on hearing my story (the short version). I was one of four women eating lunch at a small square table at the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, part of a day-long writing workshop sponsored by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. Each of the others had already shared something about their writing projects, some of which were well

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-72925473212671471372011-02-18T10:54:00.001-05:002011-02-18T10:55:19.559-05:00

I fully intended to post something on Valentine's Day, but I had other tasks, including the making of valentine's, that occupied me instead. I had set a goal for myself to finish a few paintings-in-process by Valentine's Day, and I made it--just barely! Now I'm able to share them with you. The first is called Bananas for Madame Matisse. Here's a glimpse of it.                               

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-35029955378274511022011-02-18T09:54:00.000-05:002011-02-18T09:54:42.332-05:00

Bekah has been busy at her blog, which feels like a friendly nudge to me to do that same! Here are her two latest posts from Nairobi. The first called "The Bubble Bursts" and the second, "Chizifreshi." You'll have to read the blog to find out what that means! Maybe I'll ask Bekah for a Swahili pronunciation guide. My slim recollection is that it's pretty straightforward--my guess is that

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-19263133511912725782011-02-12T08:58:00.000-05:002011-02-12T08:58:58.406-05:00

When Bekah was in third or fourth grade and a voracious reader, there was a book around whose title I loved--From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It's about a girl who drafts her little brother to run away with her to Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where they dupe the security guards and hide in the restroom until the museum is closed for the night, and, of course, they

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-28937466882428187892011-02-12T08:18:00.000-05:002011-02-12T08:18:27.052-05:00

I said I'd link blog to blog with my daughter Bekah who is spending the semester in Kenya, and then I promptly forgot to do that when she posted her first entry from Nairobi! It's a great one--informative and entertaining. If only she had included a photo or two--like up close and personal with a giraffe? Maybe next time. Here's a link to it. Her blog is called: Bekah in Kenya. Go figure! (

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-8028072778428600252011-02-11T14:22:00.000-05:002011-02-11T14:22:34.412-05:00

It must feel like spring today in Egypt--the exhilarating, inspiring, take a deep breath and sing, shout, and dance kind of spring. At the edge of the unknown, the future opening to just what new reality no one knows. I had already planned to blog today about spring--the hopes and longings for spring that lots of us northerners find welling up in us on these cold but sunny days, the driveway

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-55984776974652830882011-01-31T21:24:00.000-05:002011-01-31T21:24:18.694-05:00

Seems I've been a bit focused on things other than this blog of late. Among other things, helping Bekah to get ready for her semester in Kenya (with SIT, studying Health and Community Development) and taking her to Boston for her flight to Paris and on to Nairobi. Then it was fielding her phone calls and skype connections when her first flight to Nairobi was cancelled due to two flat tires. We

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-38223455226016988112011-01-06T14:57:00.000-05:002011-01-06T14:57:25.436-05:00

Wow. Here it is January 6 already, and I'm longing for a bit of that slack tide that I wrote about in my last post almost a month ago! Or looking for some way to stop time, or at least to slow it down. Meanwhile, I've noticed that by quirk of fate, through a combination of gifts and purchases, I now have five calendars--two small decorative ones, two large art ones, and one good sized very plain

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-10796452618164110572010-12-11T21:15:00.000-05:002010-12-11T21:15:54.013-05:00

The tide was very high and slack the day after Thanksgiving when we arrived at the "jiggly bridge" where the Mill Pond meets the York River. About ten of us--sisters, spouses, cousins--were out for some fresh air and our annual day-after-Thanksgiving walk to the Jiggly Bridge following lunch together at my mother's. (We walkers were her daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren, and something like a

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-45363640203592996502010-12-01T12:21:00.000-05:002010-12-01T12:21:57.609-05:00

I've been haunted by a story a heard the other day, about someone (name and identifying details withheld to protect the innocent) who had been a professional musician before being ordained as an Episcopal priest, who gave up playing his instrument of choice when he took up ministry. Something about the story got a hold on me, or me on it, as if I knew there was something there to be learned and  

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-59146148649032729982010-11-17T09:49:00.000-05:002010-11-17T09:49:24.774-05:00

"And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey  from my old failures." Antonio Machado I don't know Spanish, but ever since hearing the poet David Whyte read this Machado poem in translation, these lines have been among my favorites. I know the poem by its first line in English, "Last Night As I Was Sleeping." Or something like that. I've been thinking about them a lot lately, and

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-17681511167482697132010-10-17T14:35:00.002-04:002010-10-28T17:43:33.723-04:00

At the risk of beating this particular tired, nearly worn-out horse past the point of usefulness, I have a couple more thoughts to add. One was a moment of self-understanding (that may border on self-justification) about my desire to blog what I feel like blogging without having to worry much about whether I'm being helpful to others. "Ahhh, yes," I thought in a flash of recollection. "Writing

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-48928749685416563202010-10-07T11:40:00.000-04:002010-10-07T11:40:05.749-04:00

This post is really a sequel to yesterday's about "Waiting for Permission". It's where the permission issue hooks up with the selfish vs. selfless (or at least altruistic) issue. What do I mean by the selfish vs. selfless/altruistic issue? You know the one, I'm sure. Usually the things we wait for permission to do are viewed by some super-ego part of ourselves as "selfish," self-centered, for

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-22100590945876812742010-10-06T12:28:00.000-04:002010-10-06T12:28:31.153-04:00

Remember how in grade school (maybe even in high school?) if you needed to go to the bathroom you had to raise your hand and ask permission from the teacher? And of course you had to ask your parents for permission to do things you wanted to do if they required money or a ride or you just plain knew they were a little too big to do without asking. Such as when I took a semester off from college

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-85393674520721100442010-09-24T12:08:00.001-04:002010-09-24T12:08:15.890-04:00

My, how time passes. It's been nearly two weeks since I last blogged. Something about that last sentence sounds like confession. Even though I didn't grow up Roman Catholic, there are enough confession scenes in popular culture for me to know the formula: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been (fill in the blank) weeks since my last confession." I know what they say about the best ways

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-76056221061211956272010-09-13T14:29:00.000-04:002010-09-13T14:29:18.889-04:00

On the large chest of drawers that's in my small study (because the chest is too big to fit through the strangely angled, narrow hallway to our bedroom) I've had two baskets of old stuffed animals that I've decided to put away. By "old" I mean nearly all of them are from my childhood and even some from my older siblings' childhoods. That means many of them have been my companions off and on or at

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-71873560537107099852010-08-30T10:06:00.000-04:002010-08-30T10:06:17.639-04:00

Trio of Clouds, c Sukie Curtis, 2010, 5x5 each, oil on wood What can I say but that I love clouds? Unapologetically.  After all, I am a certified member of the Cloud Appreciation Society. And I find clouds endlessly fascinating and entertaining in their variations of form, color, density, changeability.  Sometimes I wish I could hold them from shifting shapes quite so fast, and yet that's part

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-53944258620510999822010-08-22T16:26:00.000-04:002010-08-22T16:26:08.732-04:00

"East End Rocks, Shadows, Seaweed, " c Sukie Curtis, 2010, 10x10, oil on canvas When I finally got outside that day (which is now many days ago, four whole weeks ago, July 25, to be exact), I loaded up my car and drove around a little, trying some of my former outdoor painting haunts to see how things looked--tide, sky, clouds, etc.  I didn't want to waste a lot of time driving around (and I

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-85117085176008805932010-08-10T20:12:00.000-04:002010-08-10T20:12:13.646-04:00

It is now a little over a week since the day I wrote "Stopping by Fields on a Sunny Morning," and I've been meaning to write what happened next. That is, what happened the next morning. Inspired and energized by sitting in the sunny field drawing two very quick sketches (that really don't even look like much), I was determined to go out the next morning to paint. Honestly, I'd been thinking of

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-10332451784249489182010-07-31T15:54:00.000-04:002010-07-31T15:54:08.343-04:00

This morning while driving home from Freeport, after leaving Bekah for her summer job at J Crew, which was after leaving David in Pownal to embark on another trip to Labrador, I made an impulsive decision to pull over beside a meadow full of Queen Anne's lace, goldenrod, clover, and other assorted wildflowers and grasses. For weeks I've walked by the blooms in various neighbors' gardens--

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-28273146678328251462010-07-23T16:00:00.000-04:002010-07-23T16:00:54.380-04:00

OK, so I lied. But I didn't mean to. At the end of my last post I said that in my next one I would share something I wrote recently about drawing. But now there's something else I want to write about. I am sure I will get around to the drawing post some day. Meanwhile, I never thought I would say and say truthfully what I am about to say: yesterday I actually picked up and voluntarily started to

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-25867673968965316982010-07-19T12:23:00.000-04:002010-07-19T12:23:10.858-04:00

Looking at the date of my last post, I can see lots of time has passed. Two whole weeks, in fact. Wonder what I was doing that kept me from blogging for two weeks. . . . At first I was absorbed in getting some work ready to hang at the Freeport Community Library, part of the group "Artists and Artisans Contributing Together." We hung our work last Tuesday, the show's opening reception was

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-56417153720481418612010-07-05T20:31:00.000-04:002010-07-05T20:31:33.534-04:00

"The Yellow Wall", c 2010, Sukie Curtis, acrylic on sheetrock A few days ago I started to beautify a really gross, never-been-painted sheetrock wall inside our garage, one that we and visitors to our house pass by numerous times a day going in and out our back door. From the start I decided that I wasn't going to worry about the "rules" of proper wall-painting (things like taping and "mudding"

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-39243403026488535912010-06-26T08:35:00.000-04:002010-06-26T08:35:12.461-04:00

A couple of months ago while visiting a recent exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art, I was swept off my feet before I even got to the third painting among the dozens of still life paintings, drawings, and collages that made up the exhibit. But it wasn't even a work of art that stunned me; it was the written text that accompanied a 16th century Flemish (I think) painting. I know I took out pen

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-7414878496363948752010-06-25T21:28:00.000-04:002010-06-25T21:28:37.786-04:00

Cosmos, c 2009, Sukie Curtis, oil on canvas "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers," declared Claude Monet. I know this because David gave me a twelve-inch tall, soft Claude Monet "doll" for my birthday. He currently sits on my desk, cheering me on, decked out in a blue painting smock over his white shirt, with black beret, black tie, and grey pants. He is clutching a paint brush in

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-4299219814398091872010-06-18T15:26:00.002-04:002010-06-26T12:12:35.179-04:00

Except you radish me, c 2010, Sukie Curtis, 24x24", oil on wood Here's an image to help you welcome summer! It's a recently-finished painting called Except you radish me, which is a playful borrowing of a line from a poem by John Donne. The poem is his Holy Sonnet XIV, one of two John Donne poems that occupy some space in my memory bank.  In the poem Donne begs God, in powerfully personal and

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-27249561495763241332010-06-16T19:47:00.000-04:002010-06-16T19:47:32.994-04:00

Yesterday I found myself in the right place at the right time to assist a trapped bird. Digory and I had just enjoyed an evening walk on the beach, and I was savoring the luxurious length of the day and the perfect (to me) temperature in the low 70s. Just plain feeling full and content in a basic kind of way. As we walked past a currently unoccupied summer house, I heard an erratic rustling

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-10911815500678478982010-06-12T21:27:00.000-04:002010-06-12T21:27:10.879-04:00

Lilies and Books, c. 2010, Sukie Curtis, oil on canvas When this painting was hanging in Starbucks in Portland last month, I wasn't ready to sell it. It was my unrivaled current favorite painting, and it may be I was even a little worried that I might never paint another one of a similar quality and strength and confidence.   It felt like some sort of landmark painting for me--perhaps a marker of

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-4455717159852677842010-06-07T13:37:00.001-04:002010-06-07T16:48:43.817-04:00

"O the mind, mind has mountains" declared poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889). This poem, one of his "terrible sonnets," continues: "O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne'er hung there." Hopkins wrote from an experience of depression and intense internal anguish (and yes, in other poems, from an

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-78465233431649482732010-06-03T11:30:00.000-04:002010-06-03T11:30:44.272-04:00

Image: "Path in the Woods", c. 2009, Sukie Curtis, 12x12", oil on panel Sometimes you just don't know what results will follow from something you do. (Actually, maybe we never really know for sure!) I suppose in the right frame of mind, that fact just keeps things interesting. I mean, if we really knew beforehand the exact outcome of everything we did...how dull! I keep mulling over and feeling

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-50814303317206042112010-05-29T16:21:00.000-04:002010-05-29T16:21:30.829-04:00

I've had some paintings hanging at a local Starbucks (on the corner of Exchange and Middle Streets in Portland--Maine, that is) for most of May, and I've been working on more to put there in June. The guest artwork hangs on a wall that's just beyond the counter where special coffees and hot chocolates get picked up, and also where one turns to get to the restrooms, so although they are a long way

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-22248137103699025182010-05-14T11:05:00.000-04:002010-05-14T11:05:49.476-04:00

Last year about this time I took a solo road trip to Washington, DC to pick up Bekah from her first year at George Washington University (its official name is "The George Washington University," but I steadfastly refuse). At least it was a solo trip down, by way of the Brandywine Museum, and a duet trip back with Bekah and all her stuff. Even during the solo part of the trip I was supported and

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-71812545527756047572010-04-28T10:29:00.000-04:002010-04-28T10:29:07.447-04:00

Nell Blaine, an American painter (she lived from 1922 to 1996) once said: "I have the firm belief that the only things that are worth doing are those that are a little bit scary." (Quoted from the book by Martica Sawin which you can see by opening the link at Nell Blaine's name.) It's a sentiment echoed by all sorts of people--like Eleanor Roosevelt ("you must do the thing you think you cannot

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-520142052861698442010-04-24T09:17:00.000-04:002010-04-24T09:17:03.223-04:00

"Damn it, you guys," I more or less shouted into the phone at my three siblings during a recent conference call. "Stop interrupting me, and let me speak!" Dead silence followed. For a long time. At least a good, solid ten seconds passed before I recovered enough from the force of my own small explosion even to think about speaking again. The four of us were in the midst of one of our

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-29104616216576556682010-04-19T12:50:00.000-04:002010-04-19T12:50:28.703-04:00

I ended the post before this rather quickly, as I was going to be late for my yoga class. I felt somehow that the "drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling" connected to the dream, without knowing quite how (and not worrying about it much). I am still adjusting to having yoga in my schedule. I find myself resisting it a little when Monday morning rolls around, thinking, "I can't

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-35547643553573731032010-04-19T09:36:00.000-04:002010-04-19T09:36:09.514-04:00

About ten days ago I had one of those dreams that feels like a landmark, a significant gift from my psyche and the great beyond/within. It hasn't magically protected me from bouts of self-doubt, waning confidence, and getting stuck in my head, nor from having to wrestle with "America's most convenient bank" and more or less conceding defeat. But perhaps it has helped. At least when I have

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-36331846984001462542010-04-18T09:32:00.000-04:002010-04-18T09:32:14.509-04:00

This is hard for me to admit, being a thinker from way way back, but I really have a problem with thinking about things. The problem develops when thinking becomes an end in itself, when "I think therefore I am" becomes my personal job description, when thinking becomes a substitute for doing, for taking action of any kind. Now that phrase "taking action" can conjure up really active kinds of

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-41870774663036931252010-04-16T06:39:00.000-04:002010-04-16T06:39:14.023-04:00

When I woke up my computer this morning and looked at email (which I don't usually do until later in the morning, so as not to start the day in reaction mode), I noticed a whole slew of spam comments on more than a dozen posts. This is the second such occurrence this week. My apologies if you were greeted by any of that if and when you tried to post a comment. No really raunchy stuff, at least,

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-63321853922561416392010-04-14T12:19:00.000-04:002010-04-14T12:19:12.407-04:00

I drove home from Massachusetts that May day abuzz with possibility and excitement, and with Bill's birdcage escape instructions at the front of my mind. When I got home, I did my best not only to share Bill's insights with David, but also, much harder, to put his advice into practice--to affirm myself as a writer and an artist. (I'm really not sure what he meant by "artist"--I think rather than

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-30053970813145479992010-04-13T09:19:00.001-04:002010-04-13T20:12:14.420-04:00

Yesterday morning, in the second session of my new (to me) Hatha yoga class, I found myself considering becoming a Hindu (is there a feminine form of that? a Hindini?). Well, maybe not really a practicing Hindu, since basically all I know about Hinduism is that there are lots and lots of gods and goddesses, and lots and lots of rituals to go with them. And that it started in India and has been

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-5914463345410420462010-04-11T09:56:00.000-04:002010-04-11T09:56:13.209-04:00

"The way to open the door of the birdcage is to affirm yourself as an artist and a writer," the vocational counselor offered as we sat in his wide-roomed old farmhouse in central Massachusetts. The birdcage image was mine, and when I consider that this meeting took place in 1997 I am a bit stunned to realize that it was firmly in place even that far back.  Clearly I had mentioned it to Bill, the

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-85467806419806132842010-04-08T10:10:00.001-04:002010-04-08T10:27:14.307-04:00

This morning I've been pondering finishing things. I think this is what Christine Kane, a great creativity mentor, calls "completion". Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, believes it contributes to your happiness. It seems to me that my small family and I tend to be a bit sloppy about finishing things. We vacuum a room and leave the vacuum cleaner out. We fill the grossest pot from

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-37220205474217528362010-03-31T10:37:00.000-04:002010-03-31T10:37:33.707-04:00

I have a feeling I've already said something before now about how I avoided reading Eat, Pray, Love for the longest time. Like for months and months, maybe for more than a year after it first hit the bookstores and became a big hit, I refused to buy it. I wasn't interested. Couldn't imagine it could be as good as everybody said. Everybody being the New York Times best seller list, and bodies

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-4671915956275607422010-03-22T21:08:00.000-04:002010-03-22T21:08:34.538-04:00

About a month or two after David and I had left our shared position at an Episcopal Church in Yarmouth, Maine, I wrote a poem that began with the words: "I am dragging around/ a ball and chain called God." I didn't exactly "think up" those words; it's more accurate to say that they arose in me, kind of presented themselves to me and insisted that I pay attention to them, which then led me to

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-67047171727521964072010-03-16T21:17:00.000-04:002010-03-16T21:17:04.097-04:00

OK, so I may have overpainted the serious and boring self-portrait at the end of my last post. That's certainly not the whole of who I was. But religiously speaking, a "scared escapee from life" who also happened to love to sing hymns and was drawn to the aesthetics of Episcopal liturgies--that's pretty accurate. And my "deal" with God to protect me from heartbreak if I stayed away from

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-42818114543278079892010-03-13T14:10:00.000-05:002010-03-13T14:10:49.406-05:00

As you can imagine, this decision to renounce my ordination had been brewing for a long time. Make that a long, long time. It had been considered, suppressed, ignored, and muddied; reconsidered, re-suppressed, re-ignored, re-muddied so many times by so many "shoulds" and "oughts" and my high sense of responsibility and obligation to God, the Church, and my ordination vows--And did I sometimes

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-16169563267077670252010-03-12T15:28:00.000-05:002010-03-12T15:28:42.206-05:00

It has been almost two weeks since my "coming out party" and I've been promising to put the text of what I spoke that day into my blog. Today I begin. Because it was fairly long, I plan to post it in sections--just kind of feel my way along and pause when it feels right and sensible to do so. I may add some extra stuff, too--some of what I left on the cutting room floor, so to speak. I imagine

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-66890448051333551952010-03-10T11:03:00.000-05:002010-03-10T11:03:52.342-05:00

So here's where things stand. (Somehow that makes me think of the part in "Peter and the Wolf" when the narrator steps back a moment and describes the situation--where all the characters were in relation to one another: Peter, the bird, the cat, the wolf. Although this post has nothing to do with that!) Here's where I am discovering that blogging can get more interactive. Out of the comment box

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-38011713028242672582010-03-08T10:06:00.000-05:002010-03-08T10:06:34.065-05:00

When I wrote to family and friends in April 2008 to tell them I had renounced my ordination, I felt I needed to offer some kind of explanation for why I had taken this immense and unusual step. Explaining myself was not easy to do, in part because I could think of so many reasons, or categories of reasons, for why letting go of ordination seemed to be the right thing for me to do at that time.

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-35738358727284206582010-03-06T08:11:00.000-05:002010-03-06T08:11:36.443-05:00

I don't know why but for some reason this year I am enjoying this month's name being "March". Not that I'm much into the martial, military flavor of "forward march!" sort of commands, not to mention that if March is derived from the Roman god Mars, the god of war, then the martial and military associations are full on. But I like the sense of momentum that "march" implies. Which has set me

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-9729107228276242102010-03-01T21:37:00.000-05:002010-03-01T21:37:59.157-05:00

Yesterday was a little bit like a coming out party for me. With the generous help of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Luke,  I hosted an "event"in the cathedral's parish hall. I called it "Upside-down and Inside-out: Stories from a Mid-Life Journey," and about thirty-five people were there! And that's what it was--some of the stories (there are so many more!) from my journey out of

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-16625854191225243292010-02-15T09:45:00.001-05:002010-02-15T09:57:22.378-05:00

OK, this has really been happening for a while, and I've been meaning to make it more explicit. After sustaining two blogs, "Trusting Delight" and "Freedom Diaries", for several months, I've decided to make life simpler and put the two into one. And since "Trusting Delight" has been the longer-running of the two, it is the one that will continue, until some good reason arises for a change. I've

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-75722392341983437882010-02-08T10:19:00.000-05:002010-02-08T10:19:21.902-05:00

In the weeks and months that followed my formal letting go of being ordained ("renunciation of the ordained ministry" is the official term for it in the Episcopal Church), I began to notice a clear pattern emerging in people's responses to the news. People who didn't know me all that well but who knew about the on-going brou-ha-ha in the Episcopal Church around the ordination of gay clergy and

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-28503887558305138872010-01-26T09:48:00.001-05:002010-01-26T09:49:12.566-05:00

What strange weather we're having! It was forty degrees earlier this morning when David and I got up. Now I look out the window and big fat flakes of snow are falling, prompting me to check the thermometer again: thirty-six. I love watching snow fall, at least when it's not falling thickly while I'm trying to drive a car on a highway with a long way to go to reach my destination. Maybe it's that

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-49221834157373591992010-01-19T11:42:00.000-05:002010-01-19T11:42:34.009-05:00

Are clergy human? This is of course a completely ludicrous question. We all know that they’re not. Not really, not totally, not through and through. Not quite like the rest of us.  If clergy were really and truly human, why would it seem so strange to us ordinary folks to see them at the grocery store? Clergy buying food is one thing, since we know Jesus ate food and did stuff with food, like

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-21750242323970601862010-01-18T09:14:00.009-05:002010-01-18T09:36:19.835-05:00

"Trees in Snow" c. Sukie Curtis, 2/3/09, graphite pencil We woke to seven inches of snow--more than the predicted overnight fall--and it's still snowing thickly. I have to say I'm delighted. Just when everyone (store clerks, bank tellers, neighbors, and so on) was beginning to mumble and to speculate about a nearly snowless winter, or about whether we'd be slammed in February and March, we've

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-61658483970708090252010-01-15T09:42:00.000-05:002010-01-15T09:42:10.608-05:00

Yesterday I wrote and posted something that I called "Return to Painting" and discovered as I wrote that it really wasn't about that. It started about that but ended up being about two vision boards, so I changed the title this morning and republished it. Here's the real "Return to Painting" story. It's a simple story, really. It's about how sometimes it helps to go very slowly and gently when

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-12530380901983902222010-01-14T09:18:00.002-05:002010-01-15T09:43:05.773-05:00

Yesterday I moved back toward painting for the first time in quite a while, since well before Christmas. I'm not sure of all the factors involved in my choosing not to paint for so long, but I know some of them. Getting in the rut of expecting too much from myself every time I pick up a brush is a biggie. It puts way too much pressure on the process of painting and really kills it, right then

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-31014740744387116782010-01-07T10:48:00.000-05:002010-01-07T10:48:21.405-05:00

This morning I had an early appointment out of the house, which meant that I enjoyed the immense gift of being in the car driving past east-facing vistas as the sun was rising. When I left home there were pink clouds strewn across the sky; that was beauty enough all by itself. My first view of the water showed intense gold gathering along the horizon where some small clouds were clustered, right

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-8951720227937947852010-01-03T13:13:00.000-05:002010-01-03T13:13:56.164-05:00

Over on my other blog, Freedom Diaries, I've posted a new post called "How to Go to Church". Here it is below for your reading convenience and pleasure. Bekah is in Nashville on an "Alternative Winter Break" service project with a group from George Washington University. Although the trip itself and the work to be done are neither explicitly "faith-based" nor religious in nature, the students

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-54273344042455273132009-12-07T13:28:00.000-05:002009-12-07T13:28:01.050-05:00

The primary bathroom in our house is what one might euphemistically call diminutive, or perhaps, petite. It is also very very dirty much of the time--gross, bordering on disgusting. I can think of only one or two of our friends who might even dare to step into our shower in its everyday state. I like to think that we in our family are all very daring because we do so on a regular basis. This

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-37155135577031575812009-11-23T13:59:00.002-05:002009-11-23T14:58:31.486-05:00

While preparing to deliver a few small paintings for an exhibit at the Dodwell Gallery on Long Island in Casco Bay, I decided it was time to update and upgrade my "artist's statement". After a few false starts, it finally started to click and I worked at it happily until I happened to glance at the clock. It was time to go meet Maggie Carle, the curator of the gallery. I threw on some proper

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-30705745109398653622009-11-20T20:55:00.000-05:002009-11-20T20:55:21.169-05:00

Without really meaning to, I seem to have had a break from blogging for the last two weeks, and now I'm returning. I can say that, not surprisingly, the longer one doesn't blog the harder it seems to be to pick it back up again. So I'll start slowly. Some gorgeous late fall weather this week made being outside a real treat. Yesterday I took David's camera out with me, and I caught these

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-53482743435088203852009-11-04T17:05:00.000-05:002009-11-04T20:00:02.560-05:00

Recently I've found great inspiration and encouragement from visiting two local art galleries that highlight the art of adults with disabilities. The two galleries are Spindleworks in Brunswick and YES Art Works at Creative Work Systems in Portland. I step into these galleries (or stop to look in the windows of Yes Art Works on Congress Street as I walk from my car to the Farmers' Market on

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-48310020944003453052009-11-02T17:05:00.001-05:002009-11-02T19:17:05.595-05:00

I believe that Robert Motherwell once wrote that he wished he could be living and painting in an earlier era, like way way earlier, like in the age of the cave paintings of Lascaux. Back in a time before there was any such concept as "Art" (note the capital A). Back in a time when creative, artistic self-expression was present despite so called "primitive" life circumstances, thus affirming that

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-21708250026303693132009-11-01T16:21:00.000-05:002009-11-01T16:21:35.661-05:00

Well, I flunked out of church today. Maybe that's the best way to say it. Maybe I just don't go to church often enough to do so easily and simply, without a lot of "reactivity" (an insightful word that David supplied as I tried to debrief on the way home). I wish it were simpler for me to be there--like, couldn't I just go and enjoy the parts I enjoy and let the rest roll off my back and come

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-9005510896398489102009-10-30T17:44:00.000-04:002009-10-30T17:44:44.034-04:00

A brief interlude to note that here's another last Friday of the month, and that means another Maira Kalman blog post from the New York Times, always worth checking out. This one especially so in light of the agonizingly slow (or so it seems) process of getting some form of health care reform passed. And there's the climate bill too. Both important.

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-78489652144416769132009-10-26T20:51:00.001-04:002009-10-29T10:49:56.263-04:00

c. 2008, Sukie Curtis, Backyard in Summer, oil on gessoed paper, 6.5"x6.5" I never did get around to explaining how I came by the title of this blog, Trusting Delight. And I think it's time to do so. In a strange way this topic also belongs over my newer blog, Freedom Diaries,  because the practice of trusting delight is a significant part of my road to freedom. Perhaps it's one of the

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-66219326755396154692009-10-12T19:44:00.000-04:002009-10-12T19:44:39.145-04:00

Here's my latest post from over in Freedom Diaries: "The story I am writing is about starting over to live my life without God." I declared this to my partner in an exercise at a writing workshop on an island off the coast of Washington. It was June of 2006, only a month or two after writing my two poems about feeling shackled to God and burdened by God. I was trying to be faithful to what I

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-25629115505048434102009-10-09T11:44:00.000-04:002009-10-09T11:44:46.980-04:00

OK, so those two poems I published in two previous posts about stuff I was dragging around might feel kinda heavy to you. But I trust you can sense that they were very real to me and important to write. Note I said: "were very real." I wrote them more than three years ago. I'm not lugging those burdensome feelings around with me any more. I've traveled quite a distance since then. But they are

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-45294977921203283612009-10-06T08:45:00.015-04:002009-10-06T09:01:43.571-04:00

As I said last week, I'm going to connect Trusting Delight with Freedom Diaries for a while, in hopes of bringing more eyes to my newer blog. So here's what I posted yesterday over on Freedom Diaries. And if you want to see what else I've posted there, you can follow this link: Freedom Diaries. The unfolding story of my journey from being good to being happy, from feeling caged to living free,

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-63890529692525117592009-10-02T09:57:00.000-04:002009-10-02T09:57:05.806-04:00

What can I say? During our recent three day stay at Kidney Pond in Baxter State Park, I really got into clouds in a big way. Which was a good thing, since there were a lot of clouds around, and when they mingled with sunlight it was especially easy to enjoy their shapes, colors, and movements. And as you can see from the photos above, I really got excited by what the pond (lake, really) waters

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-72342715675915168892009-09-22T07:38:00.007-04:002009-09-24T06:49:19.287-04:00

*[Note: the title of this post is an adaptation of the last line of the refrain of Taylor Swift's song "Love Story".] On June 9, 2009, I started a new blog called Freedom Diaries. But I didn't tell anyone. In fact, I thought I had selected the blogging options that would keep it out of search engines and the like while I tested the idea and got a feel for it. I began with a grand proclamation.

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-49479732933473966442009-09-20T10:27:00.003-04:002009-09-20T15:56:02.582-04:00

Some days how can you not love the internet? (Not every day, mind you, at least I can't!) Yesterday I discovered a comment from back in July on the blog I had but on hold a month before and never think to check.But that comment included a recommendation of someone else's art blog, which I looked up, and from that blog I found the most delightful and (to me) endearing and inspiring music/art video

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-466851008339846024.post-55849397155730674182009-09-17T08:28:00.004-04:002009-09-17T09:05:48.728-04:00

I'm often a few days behind on what's going on. And would likely remain that way most of the time if it weren't for that handy "most popular emailed stories" list on the New York Times email that I get daily. Lo and behold, today's most popular is about "Portland Restaurants," and for once it means Portland, Maine not Portland, Oregon! It's great to read about Portland's food scene, and even to

Sukie Curtishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15261127654652802027noreply@blogger.com0