“Living in the moment is the only way to live. The past is already done. You can’t let it own you, and you can’t make decisions on what’s good for you today based on the past. The future is not even here. You have no idea. We must live now, today. Be the best you can be, the kindest person you can be, today,” explained artist Patty Weaver.
Patty Weaver is a talented fine artist in the Los Angeles area.
I find Patty’s take on life to be as fresh and vibrant as her beautiful works of art. If the name Patty Weaver sounds familiar to you, there are many reasons why it might. She portrayed the popular character Gina on “The Young and the Restless” for decades, and she had several other important roles in her critically acclaimed career as an actress. Then there’s her successful singing career that was simultaneously celebrated in her role as Gina.
Her artistic talent is now being realized through her paintings. In fact, Patty’s latest career as a fine artist is the one that seems perfectly suited for her now. Her first painting was called “Lipstick Sunset”. That happened four years ago when she seriously started creating paintings for the first time.
When I asked how Patty discovered art, she explained that it discovered her. “When I was with my husband, we loved art. We would buy street art. We just loved art. It didn’t have to go with anything in our house. It was just about feeling. But I never picked up a paintbrush in my life. I couldn’t draw stick figures. I mean, really. I was at the lowest point of my life after my husband died, and I couldn’t seem to get out of the hole I was in. It was dark.”
It was at this dark time that things turned around for Patty, and her journey as a fine artist began. She was in bed watching Jon Stewart on television. She said, “I blinked my eye, and I felt like I was going a million miles an hour down a lighted tunnel. At the end of there, there were three silhouetted figures. As I’m going down the tunnel, one of the figures stepped out and reached his hand towards me, so I immediately woke up. It scared me. I thought, ‘Did I just die? What was that?’ Jon Stewart was still talking about the same thing, so it had to have happened in a split second, so I kind of laughed.”
“I went to sleep and got up the next morning. I grabbed the keys to my car, but I had no idea where I was going. I drove to an arts store. I threw a bunch of stuff in a cart. I came home, and I’ve been painting ever since.”
Those paintings are eclectic and full of feeling. Patty has cocktail parties at her studio where she shares her work, including a colorful, vivid painting that caught my eye. That was Patty’s “The Kiss”. It’s, to me, the perfect visual representation of an unforgettable, passionate kiss.
I brought it up to Patty, and she smiled. “Isn’t that the truth? Haven’t you been kissed like that once? Where you thought your brain was going to explode? One of the reasons I’m having these cocktail parties at my house is simple. I’m more interested in what people are feeling when they look at my stuff. Or that I can make them feel something. So, I always ask them, when they go to ‘The Kiss’, I ask, ‘Before you look at this, let me ask you, do you remember being kissed once where you felt like your brain was going to explode?’ And everybody – everybody – it goes right into their eyes, and you can see them physically remembering that kiss. You don’t know how much pleasure, how much happiness, that brings me.”
I also found it fascinating to learn that this artwork is actually six paintings in one. Patty created “The Kiss” with three layers of Plexiglass® spaced apart. She used acrylics and painted both sides of each separate piece. That three-dimensional effect is stunning on the painting that is 62” x 49.75” when framed.
Patty Weaver’s original work of art - “The Kiss”.
Despite Patty’s clear gift for capturing the human experience, she remains humble. She said, “My feelings aren’t any more extraordinary than anybody else’s. I’ve just been blessed that I can put it down on canvas. I’m just the vehicle, you know? It comes out of me. I have no idea what I’m painting when I’m painting. I don’t plan the painting. I don’t plan the colors. I meditate, then I come in, and I stand in front of it, and it happens. I don’t understand it. The first year I was painting, it was driving me crazy because I’m kind of a realist. No, I’m not kind of. I am a realist. It didn’t make sense. That they were good, too. The only reason I can say that is because I’m not doing it. I just didn’t understand it.”
“Finally, everything changed when I decided to jump out of an airplane. I had never…I thought I knew fear. I thought I really knew it. It wasn’t until I was standing in the open plane door. I had a tsunami of terror come over me, and then a split second later, I was out. It felt like every fear, every terror, and every negative thing that I’d experienced in the past got blown away. I can honestly say I have not had one day of fear since I jumped out of that plane, and my work changed. Everything felt enriched. I have dedicated myself now to living in the present, in the moment, because it’s a fabulous place to be. I live only in the truth, right here, right now.”
“I don’t get in my own way anymore. I refuse to do that. When I stopped that, magic happened. The real beauty of life happened.”
She elaborated, “I’ve been on this quest. Once I turned 50, I started wondering what makes somebody old. I ask strangers about this. What makes someone old? I think I know what it is. It’s the lack of fluidity. Incapable of flowing with the moment. People get small because they try to squeeze the life out of everything they’ve already lived. They pull their hands in and squeeze tight. Me, my hands are open. I want to see what’s out there even if it’s painful. Even if. I love the roller coaster ride of it all. Don’t you, really? Throw your hands up, and enjoy it. You know what I’m saying? We’re all going down anyway. You might as well enjoy the ride.”
I find those interesting revelations startling in the best way because I saw a certain fluidity in Patty’s paintings when I first looked at them. The bold strokes and the way the eye-catching, bright colors flow in her artwork all support this.
Patty observed, “I see my soul in every one of them. I can remember the moment, the feeling. I don’t need a photograph any more for anything. I can recall a memory like in a split second. I can feel the whole thing. Listen, I think the reason I’m supposed to be painting the way I do is that I don’t want us to become AIs. One of the most beautiful things about being alive is feeling it all.”
I asked Patty if she recalled a favorite compliment on her art, and she replied, “My next-door neighbor told me. She called me, and she wanted me to let me know that my art stays in her memory.”
“Jumping out of the plane and meditation are two major changes that gave me the ability to be at this time in my life. To be able to enjoy the air or the different colors of green in a tree. I mean, there is so much to see. There is much to hear. You have to be quiet yourself down. I was just able to do that. I needed to do it.”
I am further awed when Patty explains that she has completed 90 paintings in the past four years that she has been creating fine art.
Patty Weaver is an artist that seems poised to continue her beautiful work well into the future. She has plans to offer prints of her work on her Patty Weaver artist website soon. You can also check out her art and get more information on her there.
As for me, I’ll continue to look for more paintings from this one-of-a-kind artist. From the way she captures something as personal as a kiss to the talent she has for making something unique to her so universal, Patty is an intriguing artist who has much to offer art enthusiasts as well as those who are simply seeking a way to see their innermost feelings and humanity expressed in a visual way. What a gift that is to all of us.
Patty Weaver’s “Encore”.