Monday, October 4, 2010

.... weighty matters ....

in my last blog post, i mentioned my art wall redo ... had to be done since i sold quite few paintings last week .... so here's a photo of the art wall with its up to the minute look ... a couple of the paintings up there are only a week old ... i'm not usually so prompt .....

... now, a small break from the art blog, to tell you about the colors inside of my head ...

so ... you know how i'm all about color ... hot, popping colors ... on my walls, my shoes, my paintings .... that wall up there is the ONLY white wall in my whole house ... i like good saturated color ... i daydream about good colors ... i guess the daydreams help decide what colors to put into paintings ... or because i want some turquoise converse sneakers .... or because a hot yellow colander caught my eye at target (little.e.beck.artist tried to talk me into getting it ... but that's a whole 'nother story ... remind me to tell you my colander story sometime) ....

i like that blues and greens can be soothing ...
i like that oranges and reds are stimulating ...
i like that some yellows can give you a headache ... but some yellows are your happiest memory of a beautiful spring day ...
i like that some browns are gorgeous ... and some are really just hideous ....

... so ... color ...
i've been going to a new gym since june .... it's a class, more than a gym ... but it's got gym stuff ...crazy treadmills that have three speeds: too fast, faster than that, and gerbil leg fast .... balls that you balance on, bounce on , sit on, and curse .... medicine balls (yuck! send me to the doctor!) .... slider discs (no really, i'd rather my feet remain stationary!) .... rubber bands that seem to go every direction but the one that i'm intending .... implements of sheer torture, all of them.... but ...i've worked my way up from a contemptuous mix of embarrassment and pain ... to resignation mixed with a bit more flexibility, balance, strength and endurance.... now i'm going three times a week ... as compared to the whiney days when i started out and could barely walk the next day or the day after that ..... but color ... my thoughts of color are amusingly tickled by the colorful weights that sit under sunny window ....
the hour work out alternates between treadmill and strength training .... i like the treadmill portion better ...well, except for when i'm actually ON the treadmill .... and i like the strength work ... but only when i have the orange dumb bells ... orange .. you know? orange? my color, right ...

so, when i start exercising there are frequently a black set of weights and an orange set of weights sitting there waiting to be used at my station, my spot on the floor.... and the orange ones are too heavy for weakling me ... but ... they are orange ... so i try them anyway ... for as long as i can ... because ... well, because they are orange ... when i give up on orange and need a smaller weight, i move down to black ... heaven forbid the black gets too heavy, cause then you might have to walk over to the weight rack and trade them in for blue ... sometimes, your workout station starts with blue weights there ... that's good ... the blue five pounders are a really great vibrant blue ...

so this is what i think about while i'm doing weights .....their color ... not about my triceps or my biceps or why-ceps .... but the color of the weight .... has anyone ever used those eeny weeny beautiful color one pound weights? ... i think not ... or the two pound purples? ( i don't love purple, so let's call them lavender...) why isn't the heaviest weight black? black has heft...those weight designers just weren't thinking, huh?..... last week there were two men in my class and while i was heaving away (barely) on my royal blue weights, they were going to town with lovely pinks ... i smirked between my grimaces ... right up until i dumped my blue weights all together and just did the squats without weights (i'm toting plenty of weight right here inside my own skin... who needs those blues?) .....

and the best color weight? the threeser ... the wee three pounder that i've been looking at longingly for the months that i've been going to this workout ... months of going to this class and i NEVER even got to touch that wee green weight in all it's verdant loveliness (did i use verdant right? does it mean springy?)... sigh ... the best color and it is so tiny that i thought we'd just never get to use it ... well... be careful what you wish for .. on monday, imagine my delight when i walked in and there were bright beautiful tiny green weights at every strength station ... yes! limey goodness for my exercise ... it's going to be a good monday, right? .... i get to strut my strong stuff with those darling chartreuse weights ... i was smiling right up until the point where we started and i was kickboxing and carrying on with those lovely greens AND weights strapped to my ankles ... oh ... the torture ... chartreuse torture ...

so ... i have gone from whining inside my head during my workout ... to daydreaming about colors ... i think that's progress, right? ... i daydream ... i wonder why there aren't any yellow weights ..... i marvel at the people on the treadmills next to me and wonder not IF i'll be that fast one day, but when i'll be that fast (eternal optimist finally shows up!) ....

so .... you can take the e.beck.artist out of the colorful art studio ... but you can't necessarily take the colorful artsiness out of e.beck.artist ... right now, i'm wearing black shorts and a vivid green shirt ... and i'm on my way to work out with colorful weights .... hope the weights that i'm told to use don't clash with my shirt ... might alter the daydreaming if the color combinations are too distracting ...

what color is your day today?


5 comments:

cath c said...

i love your colorificness. i am kind of like that, too. my head is usually kalidescoping on what i see around me, trees changing, mums, the mess on my desk...

i imagine there are no yellow weights because they woud get grubby awfully quickly in all those sweaty palms.

artmom said...

I am tired just thinking about beautiful colored weights! I would go for the lightest (in weight) ones and love that color forever....proud of you for sticking it out. I am walking a bit now and the short circle in the neighborhood is so long! maybe if the leaves turned color here it wouldd be better?? Or I xould carry my palette to get the color thing going?

Darla said...

Well, I choose the wall of pictures over the wall of weights no matter how colorful those weights are.

After reading all that I now need a nap. And a doughnut. I'll have colorful sprinkles on that doughnut just for you.

Darla

artmom said...

colored sprinkles are far better than colored weights in my book!!!!! :-)

Mary said...

oh I love color too - and love your wall of paintings!!!

you know, I think we live close to each other, how about grabbing a cup of coffee sometime??