I spent the first few days of this week attempting to travel backward in time to when things were black and white—yes or no, right or wrong, love or hate. Guess what?! Time travel is only on TV. (Anyway, everyone knows the coolest superpower is teleportation. Time travel is for nerds.)

An invitation from an ex took me out of town on Sunday evening. Turning onto his street, I was nervous. Not just because of the warehouses and dark empty roads stretching before me, not just because my Nuvi frantically begged me to take a series of immediate lefts and get the hell out of that neighborhood. I was nervous in the way I always am when it comes to this guy, but even that wasn’t my foremost anxiety.

I just had to get through dinner with him. That’s it. One little meal. I was scheduled for multiple meals with multiple strangers on Tuesday and Wednesday, but those were nothing comparable. I didn’t care if I made a genuine connection with the strangers. This, on the other hand, felt like a test of all the decisions I made that affected the two of us. What if we had nothing to talk about? What if we couldn’t agree on a type of pizza, what if we listened to each other chew and stared at the TV above the bar? I guess that would have been a relief, because I would have known I was right to end it.

We settled on BBQ pizza with bacon and corn (Yes, corn. Weird, right? It actually wasn't bad). He asked if we could get thin crust, which happens to be the only crust for me. When the waitress arrived, he ordered wheat rather than white, just as I would have.

I’d like to think common ground was discovered where it seemed none existed, but maybe I'm just being fanciful. The same old obstacles hadn't disappeared, however: Calculator vs color wheel. Logic vs intuition. I heartlessly ignored his pain because he caused mine. Who did the greater damage? Who is to blame? Is there a friendship worth salvaging? Why are we even still talking about this?

Back in the black and white, I knew there were a couple of things I wanted from life. I wanted to be looked at every day the way I'd catch him smoldering at me when he thought I wouldn’t notice. In the way you give before you learn not to, everything I had was his. But it should come as no surprise that we killed the good stuff with our blatant disrespect for each other. There were certainly no smoldering glances on this occasion.

I feel ridiculous for even peering down this road again. It's like looking back over my tan teenage shoulder; trusting that girl, with her black-from-a-box hair and roller coaster wants, was never easy. She wanted to be grown-up, but she wasn't. Now she is, and she wants to go back.

Well little girl, it's too late. Time travel is impossible. Let's be honest--teleportation is much more practical. Work to beach in seconds.

On a good day in my ‘studio’ (a corner of my living room), I don’t use words at all. No words enter my brain from the outside and no sentences form inside it either. I’m wholly involved, mind and body, with the texture and color and smell of my tools. Hours pass like minutes; I can stand on two feet in the same position and never feel my muscles complain. I know I’m doing what I was meant to.

I’ve been approaching increasingly personal topics in each new painting. Access to my nonverbal brain allows me to stop analyzing the idea in words—what a relief! The message flows smoothly past my fingertips onto the canvas. When it’s done, a piece of art is as much a part of me as a stray hair stuck to a jacket I wore in 1998. I might recognize it as my own, but it no longer belongs with me. I don’t need it anymore. Its purpose has been served, and now it can go on to mean other things to other people. (Things like, “Hey, this coat is hairy. I should really wash clothes I buy at garage sales.”)

A talented artist has control over how close a viewer can get to a painting’s message. I know what the piece means to me, and I process the meaning while I work. Ideally, I can choose how clear to make that meaning based on what appears in the composition. Obviously I’m not there yet, but hopefully at some point I’ll be able to successfully navigate how wide or thin to make the gap between the messages I send and what the viewer receives.

If I make the meaning subtle—a nice way of saying I haven’t been painting long enough to have a fully developed language of icons—then the viewer has to ascribe their own meaning to the image. It could remind someone of a different time in his or her life, or a story from childhood. The environment might invite the viewer in, giving them a place to escape and rest. I'm satisfied if a person looks at my work and thinks, “This piece of art truly makes me feel _____.” If, by some cosmic connection, they extract the same message I implied, I am really excited and have probably found a new friend.

To me, each thought that passes through a viewer’s mind as they stand in front of a piece of art becomes a part of that piece’s meaning. A pitcher of flowers reminds them that they need to pick up milk on the way home? Fine! That is perfectly valid. I wish I could know all these thoughts, unrelated as they may be to the painting itself.

The point I’m trying to make in this rambling, circular essay is that the subjectivity of art is what makes it so rich and valuable. You could completely write it off under the assumption that there’s no right or wrong answer, and therefore there is no answer. No meaning. No importance.

I think the beauty of the purely visual and nonverbal is just that—there is no right or wrong. It can mean anything to anyone, and that meaning can change from day to day. It can touch a complete stranger in exactly the way it touches you, but your best friend can derive a meaning opposite yours.

When I think about the message of a painting, I think about questions rather than facts. Who wrote this letter? Has it been delivered, or is it meant for the writer’s eyes only? Was it opened? How was it received? What’s inside the envelope? Has it been furtively hidden, saved for a later moment of torture or pleasure? Or was it dropped there and forgotten, its contents causing the reader to faint or run out the door?

You answer those questions any way you want. Ask more questions. The changeability of the responses is what matters.  

Because the sun is shining, and also because I am the proud new owner of a steam espresso machine (for which I accidentally bought caffeinated coffee), I haven't the slightest desire to sit in front of my computer. In lieu of writing an essay, I'm going to post some photos from the group show that opened at Flying Leap Art Space in Fairfield last weekend.

The show is called Flying Leap Land of Love, and you guessed it, it's about love.

There are a variety of Fairfield artists in the show. Some work is focused on romantic love, but other kinds of love are included, too. There's a Paris Cafe themed room which is full of stills from classic romance movies. My work is there to represent things we love in our daily lives.

I went to self-discovery class at Flying Leap this afternoon with the expectation that I would create an interior in a collage. Lots of my paintings begin this way. I flip through magazines in search of patterns, textures, shapes and objects, then compose them. The result is usually some sort of strange perspective and several inviting environments.

But this afternoon there was a prompt: List your strengths and weaknesses. Find images that reflect both. Create a collage that makes a structure out of the strength images, and use the weakness images to create frivolous decorations around the structure.

Wait! I just wanted to cut out pretty pictures of couches and lamps and get my fingers gluey.  I wanted an afternoon of escape, not one of self analysis!

I escaped anyway. If I had been working toward a painting, there would have been some pressure to compose, design, scrutinize—can I pull off that chandelier in oil paint? I still didn’t want to think about myself. I simply went on a scissor spree, cutting out what caught my eye.

When I looked at the images together as I glued them to the page, my conscious mind began to make sense of them. As usual for me, an artwork’s meaning becomes apparent and evolves as I work on it. My list of strengths and weaknesses began to populate in response to the images I chose. The list is actually one of characteristics rather than separate positives and negatives. Who can classify them? It depends on the day, the context, the atmosphere. Some completely contradict one another. Now that I’m done, I feel the need to summarize.

Easy things first. The general is bossy and demanding. The red chairs breaking apart and climbing up the brick wall are restless. So is that poor bonsai who can’t grow into a real tree inside his tiny pot, constricting him like the glass cage just right of center. The pile of rich, color-coordinated textiles is organized and balanced—but don’t ignore the mixture of bright, thin scarves flapping wildly in the breeze above. The sheep are snuggly and loving, and so is the momma cheetah. Her babies are needy (but who can resist?!).

I have a need to know. I want to understand how and why everything happens. How things are made, the inner workings of my body, the mechanics of the planet itself. I want to be aware of it all, and I have a million questions. In the collage, light filters through several sets of clear, open bottles. I give honesty, and I expect it in return. I have no patience for people who can’t get to the point or try to suppress things. How’s anybody going to get what they want if we aren’t completely honest? Why waste time on uncertainty?

That big green gator lurking at the bottom can be cynicism, bitterness, and biting sarcasm. Next to him there’s a smooth chair covered in a sheer white sheet. In its lap sits a spiky thing. In one moment my thoughts and words are prickly and cutting, like that spiky thing and the spiky chandeliers above, spiking right into those snuggly sheep. The next thing I know, I’m the sheep or the cheetah kitten. I struggle between the future and the present. I’m anxious and nervous like a manic set of mismatched plates glued to a wall which don’t want to be touching but are. Time is ticking.

Still, I am still. Like the smooth white sheet that trails behind the chair, cool and crisp. Like the empty mirror, reflecting nothing. Hanging like a million crystal droplets of water, bare nerve endings, fragile glass orbs suspended by the threads of spider webs. Aware, sensitive, but still.

February, you saucy minx.  If I could enter a room the way February entered 2011, I wouldn't need a website to advertise my work. That minx dropped snow so thick I had to sleep at the American Gothic House Center under the copy machine. Okay, not really. I slept next door on Beth’s couch. But when you have to close the bathroom curtain so you can’t see your office from the shower, that’s basically like being at work. Naked.

In 2011 I am keeping a sketch diary. Nightly, I reflect on the day and choose what's worthwhile or funny enough to immortalize with one sketch. I make a point not to limit myself to positives. If something awful happens, and I feel like including it, so be it.  For someone who spent the last few months of 2010 in tears, I’m happy to report the first five weeks of drawings are shockingly pleasant. There are lots of pictures of food (pies, my new crock pot, steaming mugs of tea, a jar of homemade yogurt), a guitar, a turtle shaped loaf of bread (oh wait, that’s food again), a big fuzzy chair. Maybe this little project, which takes only a few minutes a day, is actually improving my outlook.

At least it was...
                          until February.

A couple things happened to downshift my mood.

One: I rediscovered this music video of John Mayer (my guitar idol and new boyfriend) playing Slow Dancing in a Burning Room. This song makes my soul hurt. It’s a great torture device.

Two: February covered up all the blades of grass that were starting to show beneath January’s leavings. There’s just no way I can keep pretending it’s mid-March when my car is stuck in the driveway.

So I’m back to battling my wanderlust. I made a playlist called Sea Songs, which consists completely of stylistically unrelated music about the ocean, the beach, or sea creatures. It didn’t help. I baked and gave away a couple of pies. That felt nice, but then I went back outside and February confronted me by immediately freezing the insides of my nostrils.

I don’t know what it is about the ocean that's pulling me. I haven’t spent much time there—a few weeks or months in total, spread out over years of vacations. Add a couple more days if you count transatlantic flights spent holding my breath in fear of crashing into my big soggy friend.

I remember meeting the ocean and knowing without a doubt it was the best thing I’d ever encountered. I was 11, staying at Clearwater Beach with my parents and my sister. I feel still when I think about watching the water, listening to it, getting in it, breathing the air around it. It’s so vast, so powerful, so eternal—I forget my ‘individual human being’ issues and become another grain of sand on the beach. No memories of the past, no fears about the future. Just a tiny, inconsequential piece of something much larger.

It's February in Iowa, but I have the leftovers of our brief meetings. I find them in the deep pockets of dark suitcases, or in a shoebox in the back of a closet. Or on my easel.