JULIE AND JULIA AND THE INVISIBLE AUDIENCE

Since it has only been a couple of days since my last post. I am becoming more comfortable with an invisible audience, I think. I had a small epiphany on Sunday when I finally went to see the movie, JULIE AND JULIA. The movie was much more than I expected. I expected to see a passion for French cooking, but what I really identified with was the need to find an audience to share that passion with.

I have been a little afraid of blogging...of saying things to strangers that might sound foolish, that I might wish I could take back in a year because I know longer feel they are true to what I believe. But during the movie I realized that is exactly why I like to speak at conferences and workshops. I don't get to meet everyone in the audience and I leave not knowing what the vast majority of them are thinking. The reward always comes from people I meet or hear from as a result of the talk. And as a writer and artist, I will never know what each reader or viewer is thinking when they are holding one of my books, or looking at a piece of my art.

After seeing JULIE AND JULIA, I admired Julie for two reasons. The first was that she was not afraid to use another person, Julia Child, as a role model, to literally copy someone else's expertise. The second thing I admired was her search for the essence of the cooking. She did not buy the same cooking equipment, or rebuild her kitchen, but using the same ingredients, and following instructions, attained her goal of preparing every recipe in Child's cookbook. While that was the surface acheivement, it was more important to me that she found her own passion, and discovered, as Julia did, who she really was, with or without the constant approval of everyone around her.

I love cooking, but it is my husband who has the passion for it. But if I had been as brave as Julia, I would have sat down and tried to duplicate all the art of Rie Munoz, an artist whose work has kept our walls full of color and energy for years. Rie is an Alaskan artist who is known internationally. She has has captured the energy and happiness of people in Alaska where we lived as well as in many other areas. Because she is so well known, I have gone out of my way not to let my work look like hers. And it doesn't...it can't. We are two different people.

But a couple of years ago, I began to look for the ingredients in her work...not the actual images. I found patterns, a set of colors true to her work and a focus on shapes and editing out. I found a connection to French art for some reason, a freshness and an airiness and a love of what people do everyday at the bakery, the lake, the park, and a fearless use of her imagination.

My picture at the top is called DANCING THE NEW BABY IN. It is an image done with acrylic and colored pencil that I have put into print. It is the result of doodling while on the phone and liking the first sketch. Yup'ik dancing was a big part of our life in the village years ago, and I find the theme comes up in both books and art for me. At a gallery opening in Anchorage at the beginning of the month, I wondered if people would tell me my work was like Rie's. They told me instead that that my art is whimsical and happy and tells a story. But like Julie, I know who I studied to find the ingredients to create my own art, to follow my own passion.

For those of us fortunate enought to get glimpses of our passion, there is a great quote from Abraham Maslow that allows us to take our times of feelikng off course a little easier. "It isn't normal to know what we want-t is a rare and difficult psychological acheivement!"