First things, first. My thanks to Joe Maita, the publisher of Jerry Jazz Musician, for featuring one of my paintings in a recent post to accompany a jazz poem by Steve Paul. Check it out at About – Jerry Jazz Musician Click the upper left corner to take you to Steve’s poem and my “Midnight Sun” painting. You can also read the comments about Jerry Jazz Musician from some leading names in the jazz publication world. I’m delighted.

About the New Window – I had not intended to get into a tee-shirt painting business, and am still not really in that business, but a couple of years ago, I did a shirt for a friend more or less by accident. The shirt was around and I had extra paint I didn’t want to waste, so I began dabbing and daubing on the shirt and voila! He liked it and wears it all the time, gets compliments on it.

The shirt above is a new one, the third one I’ve done after doing another one as a gift for a daughter. This one was less intentional and I’ll likely wear it myself.

Lest anyone wonders, I have not stopped creating my Colors of Jazz, nor do I plan to do that, but I did come up with some “Summer Craft Projects” like the one-of-a-kind tee-shirts and a limited edition of small sets of note cards featuring four of the paintings.

Neither of these are the same as being an artist and painting on canvas, nor am I inclined to make these my full-time work. But fun is fun. And creating is creating.

Work is going well again despite the ongoing challenges of unexpected heat and, well, life.

We are all working toward our new normal after the pandemic. We need to give ourselves time to let this happen. One of my own mantras is “Don’t wait.” Another one is from a workshop I took in the Seattle area. A workshop about illustrating children’s books. We were a struggling group led by the marvelous illustrator, Dana Sullivan.

One evening, one of the women who had been pretty shy and quiet announced that she’d learned to say to herself, “You rock!” We all loved hearing her say this to herself and agreed with Dana that we should tell ourselves this often. So “You rock!” is my other mantra this summer.

We all rock, we artists who keep the faith and carry on. Our clients also rock. And the people who love our work and tell us so, but can’t afford to buy it. The gallery owners who take us on. The families and friends who support our efforts.

The young jazz musicians in San Diego, the Young Lions, whose work I’m supporting from a distance with a donation of small jazz paintings for their upcoming fundraiser.

We all rock. Take a break right now, no matter what you’re doing and say it to yourself. “You rock!” Because you do. Then say it to somebody else who may need to hear it. You’ll know who that is.

Cheers,

Molly