Sunday, January 30, 2011

Nostalgia on Youth

"New Chewf"
18x24
Oil on Canvas
I was a bright, talented child with expempliary manners,
but it was only because I didn't know any better.
tina jones

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Passion

"Nude 10"
11x14 Acrylic on Canvas



Passion

“Hot” he says so innocently without notion.                            
Careful where you stand. Guard the seething cauldron.
Flames lick, and stretch, caressing in soothing stings
“Feels good” he says warming by embers that softly sing
With ferocity temporarily tame kinetic tombs.
“I love you” he says. Don’t let it consume
Unless you want it, Lest your tempted to open the gate,

Be forwarned. You tread the territory of fate.

Then there’s no return to cavernous space.
 Watch your heart and guard your face,
Yet I can tell you, it will not harm in it’s throes                     
It protects, feeds on its own and grows,
And you are the flames as much as I.
Dive if you’re brave. I rise dripping, meet heart to eye.
Flames lick wet whips in unquenchable screams.
Tongues in heat froth erotic creams.
Breath burns on skin, sweet acidic warm
Touches dissolve towers built from harm.
And walls fall like so much silk
In a gentle kiss, one another’s milk
Be us both lost or found by the liquid sun in me
Who only asks for all, whose All is all of me.
All of me, and all of you melted, to one that began two.

Unchain, reveal me. I beg, unleash me to you.
I am more than a storm of raining fire
I am more than me, reborn of simple desire.
A third is made, an Us created that is more powerful
Than any singular beginning or awakening hour, full
And mercilessly loving. The monster gloriously untethered
 Viciously entangled and ferociously surrendered.
I don’t know that I can survive this, and I cannot find a spark of care.
Stay with me close, Let me become this. Come with me trembling there.
Let me be more than what you see
And only who I am when I am free.
Sweet insanity, this longing without mistake,
No cold threatens, no isolation and no ache.
Arms hurt for now to hold. Sweet kindness cools and soothes
Through bitter nails and hungry bites with will-weakening  moves.
Sweet hunger starved for satiation,
Primal mind, writhing contemplation
Of single kisses and madly thrashing waves
Of willing partners, each others drenched slaves
It wakes, and cries, walls torn apart,
Dare you look, the cost... is but your heart,

For this passion no eyes yet see,

The win is love, and the prize is me.
Still I understand eyes that in fear cannot bear, .
I’ve seen the hidden places that souls cannot share,

I know fear, and I have compassion

For existence long since in silenced passion.
 I know the heat within, and I know the door.
I know how to close it, and I know that I want more.
The sadness of it is, I know how much I have to share
and crux remains, How much can you bear
Of love?
Tina Jones

Sunday, January 23, 2011

What's Your Stand? (Humor)



"Beryl Tribute Self Portrait"
8x10 Oil on Canvas
 
 It seems like everyone is taking a stand.
  They're for this or against that.
 I listen, and I watch the energy move.
   I don't know what's good or not for others,
 but I'm more still than many....
   I'm not much against anything, except licorice.
 I just never could get into it.
   I suppose that's a good enough thing to be against.
 I'm not really for anything, unless a person could count love.
   Yeah, that's what I'm for.
I'm for Love...well. Love and Bacon, but that's really the same thing.

tina jones.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Self Love in Death's Arms

  About six or eight years ago, I attended a life drawing studio. The model was thin, and thin isn't what I would normally view as beautiful, but she was graceful and delicate with a few curves of feminity and a great mane of dark hair. I got out one of the sketches I'd done of her, and I'd left out a lot, so a painting was going to take further construction. I began working shadows and lights, and found myself remembering.
 I got very thin last year, certainly not so much as this painting, but it was bad. I had cancer. It was anal squamous cell carcinoma. I'm ok now, infact a little overweight, but I remember the "me" of the time with much tenderness. Months spent in lieing there in pain that medicine couldn't touch, often losing conciousness at the pain, unable to move, and unable to eat. My daily goal was to drink a little water. In exhausted moments, and there were some where there was less pain, daydreaming of painting the memorized ceiling, and meditating to hold on to a degree of sanity, and the quiet that comes with surrender...the acceptance of the respit of death. The "it's going to be ok," I'll rest soon, and the watching of faces of loved ones, whom I didn't want to leave, but "knew" I would, the deepest love for them and compassion at their suffering, they were so beautiful. I had lived a wonderful life afterall, and I was grateful.... In retrospect, there was even a beauty in the fragile state of such horrid illness. Looking at the painting, is at once frightening and heart-rendering. I have the feeling of wanting to pick her up and tell her she'll be ok, that's it ok to let go, and that I love her.
   I underwent a major surgery, and did it really for the love of my family, so they'd know I cared enough for them to try, but I didn't expect it to work. I had nothing left to fight with. Months went by, and so slowly I was able to eat again, move without pain and far beyond my understanding, I'm alive.
   I had seen people die before, and I had attended their needs and comfort. I have held hands and cried with them, and I've seen the peace that comes before they go. I thought I was strong, but I had never been the one who was dieing, the one who went so far into and beyond pain to absolute serenity.
   This is not the first time I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and sure as death must come for all of us one day, it won't be my last. Until then, serenity remains, love abounds and I paint.
tina jones

"Emaciated Nude"
11x14"
Acrylic on Canvas


Monday, January 17, 2011

Tina Jones Paintings

Autism: Ongoing Understanding of Neurotypicals....the *regular* folk

"On the spectrum" of Autism, such a nebulous term. I lean more toward Austism than Aspergers in spots, yet I'm presentable enough at times to recieve the brunt of social expectation. "Expectation" is a word I wish had never been invented. "Neurotypical," despite it's basic meaning of a most common neurological wiring, is another word I don't like, because I find nothing typical among either those without Autistic traits or those with them. Each human being is an individual to be celebrated for their beingness.  
    I learned about autism 19 years ago when my son was diagnosed, and that's when I learned about me. I even learned about other people....a lot. It seems a whole lot of people never bumped their heads on the floor for comfort as a child, don't chew their tongues, don't have a kneaded eraser in their purse that they can play with for comfort, flick their fingernails against their palms in an "it's gonna be alright" way, and most of them do not have a hum in their voice, nor do they keep a respectful/comfortable three foot distance from people when speaking. Most of them have no problem with grabbing your arm when speaking to you (different boundaries). A whole lot of them (believe it or not) do not see details. They seem to enjoy or ingnore  noise sometimes (ie. crowd chatter), they love fluorescent lighting (Sadistic lights/sounds are pleasant to them.). Many of them, "Think outside the box" without ever looking to see what's actually IN the box, and only vaguely know what I'm talking about when I refer them to the feeling they get at "fingernails on a chalkboard."
     Many of them are burdened with having the socially correct hair cuts, clothing (whether it's comfortable or not) and latest sayings. Idioms, or not saying what they mean are common language, and they have to have a constant translator going in their minds at all times to understand what others (who don't say what they mean), really mean. (Remember that "Who's on First?" Abbott and Costello routine? It's like that for them as best I understand it. I must admire them for this, as I could never keep up with the codes.) They have talents too. many spontaneously know what to say in drivel conversations (small talk) and have textbook body language. A lot of people even have exaggerated body and face movements and a disturbing need to peer into my eyes and worse, many get upset if I don't do it back! Weirdos! (grins)
  If there is one thing I've learned, (and I do hope there's at least one) it's that there is no greater waste of my time and energy than to try to get the world to understand me. They are not going to get it. I'd be better off telling a person born blind that the sun hurts my eyes.They may accept it or not, but they're not going to understand it, and many people get mad at or fear things they don't understand.Thus, I'd totally given up on living happily misunderstood (Yes, I got temporary gratification from it, sadly). I needed a new outlook. There is no chance of me changing them. They are probably perfectly fine just like they are. Sometimes they say that people on the spectrum don't have compassion/empathy. I do understand projection.
   The situation is for me that I live in a world mostly populated by fear of difference. It's ok with them that you're different as long you don't talk about it and can fake a reasonably good *normal.* (Another useless word to me). Many neurotypicals have a need to try to fix others. Well, I can be the one person of respit in their lives who doesn't try to change them. I can accept with love. (This often confuses them. grins.) Someone has got to understand, they can't, it's not hardwired in, they were not made this way for better or for worse, regardless of what I or anyone thinks of it, so, in the interest of me not asking a legless person to run.....
   If understanding, compassion and empathy are what I sense is missing in the world, then understanding, compassion and empathy are precisely what I need to give to the world. Ok so they don't get me, so what? I enjoy learning, so I study them. True, I feel like Jane Goodall of "Gorillas in the mist" sometimes, but I see wonderful things. They interact oddly to me with all of the small talk, touching, social status rules and other things that don't have significance to me, but they do to them. Just because a thing is not important to me, that doesn't mean it's not important whether or not I understand it. St. Francis said, "it's better to understand than be understood," and for the sake of my sanity, I agree, it's better in that it's more effective.
 I'm interested in what works.
   Not all, but some people respond well to being heard and understood. This, I do right in the middle of yearning to be accepted, by the way. I don't care who provides the understanding. I can't afford to worry about that.  It doesn't matter to me when there is a shortage of understanding who provides it, and it most certainly doesn't matter who goes first or if it's ever returned to me from them. I'm going to have understanding of them and myself either way, because whenever I take time to understand others, I learn a little more about me. I become someone I like better, and someone who is ultimately less alone
   I can't afford to care much what others think of me (another waste of my energy). What I think of them, however comes from inside of me even when faced with apparent proof positive of my own judgements. I'd much prefer the compassion of thinking "they just can't understand or are not ready" than the thought "that they are too cruel to try." I am more peaceful when I have the compassion that is so sorely needed in and for everyone. Who does not desire to be loved for who they are? This I can give.I can let go of judgements, I can accept, and I can love.
   Long ago, I was so angry at *normal* people (neurotypicals) for being different. I was doing exactly what I felt was done to me and hoping that would make a difference. It only made the problem worse. I had to learn to give in the middle of needing, to love in the middle of wanting love, to accept in the middle of feeling judged and to embrace in the middle of feeling rejected. I do not crawl, nor do I negate my own needs. I simply allow my natural compassion to fill the void in others and me.
  Somehow through "It's better to understand than be understood," I got everything I needed and more. When I'm willing to give to the need I sense in the world, my own needs are fullfilled. The compassion I have for a world who has struggles that I could not comprehend comes from perhaps not the person I show compassion to, but from someone, or something or even from the last place I thought to look: From me.
  It helps me to look at similarities, for example "stimming." I've already mentioned what I do for comfort. I've come to believe that their form of stimming is small talk. From the outside, it doesn't look productive. It often involves strange staring, *pretend* smiles, and huge body movements,  but it seems to give them some comfort. Where I chew my tongue, they jiggle their change. I have a kneaded eraser, they have good luck charms like rabbit's feet, prayer beads, etc.
   Priorities are relative too. Where I focus on doing what I can to live in a low stress environment and improving my canvas or memorizing that new tune to the last note so much that I'll listen to it thirty times in a day, they focus (like my obsessing) on competitive steps and getting ahead of someone else. Neurotypical or On the Spectrum, to me, we are all a little delightfully strange.
   Understanding, however much or little I can, is making the world I live in a more comfortable place for me. Some of the NT people, I've noticed, even calm down after a while of me trying to understand, and don't do so much small talk *stimming.* If I can't make the world a better place for me directly, I can begin by making it better for them. When the world is a better place, I am content. When I am content, the importance of differences fade, and I see the beauty in all, all, all of us.
tina

Friday, January 14, 2011

Come Home

 Should you choose to enter my world, then you must first forget. Become simple.
  Forget all that has been learned of life and knowledge and what farce there may be in accepted *wisdom,* Become an innocent and be willing to experience the awe of a child. Be willing to tremble at the strength of an evening sun, be willing to catch snow flakes on your tongue and to dig your toes into the sand. Become a child with me.

"First Kiss"
18x24 Oil on Canvas
   I shake my head at those who sarcastically negate what youth know so easily claiming life taught them differently. "Ah, yes, I knew everything when I was that young too!" They laugh.
   I tell you now, if you want to know how to hope or love, ask a child. They have not yet learned the cynicism, negativity or the defeat of social standards. They have not learned of judgement or who is better than whom. They have not built walls or shunned differences. Indeed, these people know love, and forbid they ever know the arrogance of my age.
   These are my teachers, the innocent with their small words, big smiles and real tears. These are my Masters. I pray to grow enough to become what I always was under the labels, before the standards, behind  my judgements. I pray to know the wisdom of a child.
   So, maturity is to me growing enough to unlearn and growing small enough to hope, to love freely with the wonder of a child. I seek such clarity, and miss it by miles.
   Don't grow up with me. Grow small with me. Come home, and per chance, lead me there too.
"Return to Innocence" Enigma: h://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_sAHh9s08

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

"Iris" Transformation of a Painting (nude)

It was an ok painting that did of some "Irises" years ago, hence the title.  At the time, there were a few television artists showing how to paint blended strokes. Usually, this is done by double loading a flat brush. One corner is dipped into one color of paint, and the other corner is dipped in another color. The brush is taken to the palette, and brushed back and forth until it leaves a mark transitioning smoothly from one color to the next. The brush is then taken to canvas to make the same kind of mark.
 


Inspired by a photograph of a model I took a handful of years back, and the interest in Van Gogh's "Irises" paintings, and the love of skeletal and muscle structure,  I set out to recreate what I'd created. I was fascinated by the foreground leg, so that's where I began.



 The original completely covered, I began sculpting the form. I added a bench for her to sit on. To remain true to my original painting and the idea of Irises, I put scumbles loosely in the back ground, and tightened up some forms to resemble the flower vaguely. A sheer drapery was added over the bench to reflect the flower petal's shape in hopes that the figure would become part of the flower. The thought led me to look up paintings by Georgia O'keefe for inspiration.



With the form set solidly, I began focus on light and shadow then added color. This is Yellow Ocre over Ivory Black and Titanium White. In the end, more white and black were added to enhance tonality and shift small muscles and bone within the form to make it come forward or recede, reach to light or fade to darkness. The sheer drapery was trimmed leaving only the remaining petal shapes on the bench. These were highlighted and shaded as well, becoming a carving there.


Though there are many Irises in the final work, I felt the focus should be only one.... her, the timeless lady iris, who sits, supple stone in remembrance of a simple work done long ago.



"Iris"
24x30"
Acrylic on Canvas



Is she finished? I don't know. Perhaps she will call again one day. smiles
tina jones

P.S. Read Critique Comments on this work at About.com Painting: http://tinyurl.com/49yb6s5

5/25/2011: "Iris" Has now been featured in Psychology Today magazine!
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergirls/201105/aspergers-bullying-and-self-advocacy





Monday, January 10, 2011

Making Love, Paintings and Babies

"How long did it take you to paint that?"                                                  

"The Quickie"
11x14"
Mixed Media on Canvas
Tme taken: 1 hour spanning two sessions,
BUT it was sooo good that afterwards,
it was a toss up between having a smoke
and calling the paramedics! hehe
 

 Making a painting is like making a baby.
 Sometimes  it takes three minutes, and other times weeks, months or years.
In the end, it's still a baby, and this...is a painting.


  •                Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it doesn't.
  •                Sometimes it's heavenly and other times it's hell.
  •                Sometimes it's exciting and other times dull.
  •                Sometimes it's memorable and other times not.
  •                Sometimes you laugh sometimes you get laughed at.
  •                Sometimes it's emotional, other times all physical.
  •                Sometimes you get so involved in it you forget dinner.
  •                Sometimes you feel it, other times you'd rather read a book.
  •                Sometimes you get messy, and other times it's grossly tidy.
  •                Sometimes the right words inspire, other times just hush.
  •                Sometimes you have to time it, and other times it just happens.
  •                Sometimes it's easy, and other times it's hard work.
  •                Sometimes it's ecstasy, other times one fantasizes of other pursuits.
  •                Sometimes it's planned, other times, "oops!"

It's still a baby, and THIS........ is a painting.
The enjoyment (or not) of the process or time taken does not raise or lower the value of the end result. If the time question persists, ask how long it took them to make their baby. grins!

tina jones

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Purpose

    It's all be done before, right? No, not like you can.

    But "So-and-So" can do it so much better. No, "So-and-So" would utterly fail at doing your work, and here's why.

     I've seen the inner workings of clocks, and watched how cogs click and roll against each other. If you remove one or push it to go in the direction of the next one, the whole mechanism ceases to work. Each part must do it's "thing" in order for the watch to work.

There is only one you.

   I don't hold that we are unique in a lonely or misunderstood way. Rather, there are amazing things about you. No one has the view that you do. No one experiences life exactly like you. No one sees color or feels sunsets quite like you. We bring to each new event a lifetime of different experiences, understandings and feelings. No one has had precisely your experiences, understandings or responses.

  This makes it all the more important that you do your work, be it painting, writing, singing, making music, cooking, dancing or reading a story to a child. No one else can do it, not like you, and your voice is here for a reason.

   You have purpose simply because you exist, and it is your birthright and duty to create. Without your creative voice, the world would be missing something very precious and very essential.
We would be missing you.

tina jones

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Pleasing the Sensual Woman

With Love, to Men,

  I hear you, and I know how you want to please. I also know how to get there. Slow down to begin. I feel for you, and my heart breaks. Be not so rushed, it seems many want sex over and out of the way, as if there were something better to do. Really?

  Relax.......

  That will help us more than anything. We are empathic and will get a rush from you. Nothing is missing or need be added. You are enough. We've chosen you. Let me say that again, We've chosen you, and for good reason. We want you. We're ok. We're right here, I promise.

Let me take you there.

   Under the veils of society, and duty, there is Woman.
   She's there, though silent (even while shouting orders at kids) and often scarcely alive. The complication you see is in our very simplicity.
   Functioning, as we are sensual beings, within the realms of rules - is the ultimate sadistic act, exceedingly abnormal and grossly perverse. We even get pats on the back for being last, for hurting ourselves and in turn hurting you.

We need you ..
    ...desperately just like you need us to remind us of our gifts, our beauty and our pleasure. Underneath the world we carry, we live and love freely.  We need you to put us first when we forget. Don't let our independence fool you.  We need you to strip us of the weight of the day, the rules of censorship and laws of acceptability. Throw these uninvited guests far...far  away. Let us know that it's ok with you, that our desires are  safe with you, because we get frightened too. Let us glow for who we are free of the dust of life. Our strength is in our ability to surrender to our own pleasures. Give us a place, give us your audience, a sacred state of obscenity to breathe. Encourage us to be decadently selfish. That's where we need to be. Free us of expectation, judgment and pressure to live, love, and touch in acceptance.

 Let us simply be,

    ....and we return home to our sensuality.
   We can join in your world like all of the others we move in, but come into ours to see us as we really are. The rhythms start slower, but it's also much hotter and wetter, the breathing is deeper and the orgasm is soooooooo muchhhhh longerrrrrr....   
   Give us time, and patience, and we'll get there on our own. We can't help but get there. There's no other place to go. Where, if you are fortunate, you'll wait. If not, shhhh...Many of us finish while you sleep.

We're built for sensuality.

    I wonder at times if the Universe preferred women somehow for the gifts we were given of ecstasy. We dance in our own curves, decadently move within our boundlessness, and undulate in unintended steps. When we invite, and beware...we will, join us in this feast of senses, the other half of sex. With ease, we'll take you with us. It is not something we try or you need work for. Sensuality is what we are. We swim in our own juices, revel in our own bodies, and create heat of our own desire. Take credit if you like, and we will give it freely. smiles.Your work is in the acceptance you give us, but your real task is simply... to enjoy.
tina jones