Actor, Artist, Teacher, and ?

I have updated my life, and surprisingly to me...the answer given to the question,''So, what do you do, John?''.

It's a year later. I moved from my home in Scotland to Los Angeles with a small suitcase, leaving all my worldly possessions in my home in Scotland. Based on a weekend spent with two dear friends in LA a year ago last summer, I decided that I might try my hand at acting in front of a camera. Chuck and Megan, the friends, are both casting directors and told me I could work in the industry. I found a very workable room to rent with a young man that is now a dear friend in No Hollywood. The room had the advantages of location, space, good light an proximity to my brother, who lives 12 minutes away! Seemed like a good place to start a new adventure.

Trying something new with my life didn't come quickly. I spent over two years after Margie's death in Scotland wondering what might come next. I don't know if other folks have plans set for when their lives course comes to an end. I didn't. Living successfully with Margie pretty much meant that I lived in the moment. Many people, including myself, think they live in the moment, but they don't. What they do is make decisions on the run about what they might do tonight, or where they might go for the next week. But really living in the moment means you REALLY don't have any plans for next month, next year, five years from now. I actually took me a couple of years with Margie to get to that point, a necessity for us, but her passing did leave me wondering what I might do tonight, the question of the rest of my life on my own was truly the dark side of the moon in my life plan.

So...a year later, a commercial, a pilot for a new series on the Biography Channel, many auditions, many more paintings, a website for my art, some new friends, and two plays with a new and growing repertory theatre company later, I am still enjoying the adventure. I still haven't filled in the blank with what will be happening next year, or five years from now. However, I have found some likely locations for a second home...built an ETSY site for my artwork...want to help some good folks build their theatre company in reputation and scope...am excited about finding some new locations to display my paintings...am much fitter than I was a year ago...confidant and ready for the next audition...am enjoying my daughter and her family, grandsons, my son and his girl friend...and thinking about what I might do tonight. Oh! I have stopped saying, ''I am a retired teacher.''  These days, I have finally started saying to new acquaintances, ''I am an actor and an artist...and a retired teacher.''.

Here are the ETSY site and the Theatre Company.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/GamrieArt  , art by John Lambie
http://www.lakearrowheadrep.org/       , theatre company
http://www.lakearrowheadrep.org/       , theatre

Artsy Fartsy

There are unlimited ways to express yourself, and I am enjoying blundering through some new and old ones. I have recently started to pursue professional acting as a, yet again, new career. I have been writing and singing some new songs, which I haven't done in quite some time. And here, I am even posting a current blog for the first time in nearly a year! Thank you, Sarah, for suggesting I get back into this old blog format. The absolutely brand new artistic expression I have been enjoying for almost the last year (10 months is close enough) is painting. Like so many things, I wish I had taken art classes when I was in school. I have drawn pencil sketches, set designs, some costume designs, and doodles for many years, but oil and acrylics and brushes and canvases are a new language to me.

 I have found myself making beginning amateur mistakes with almost every effort. I have called my daughter, and posted questions to You Tube all along the way. But experimenting with a different idea almost every time I squeeze a tube onto my plate has been a very enjoyable journey of discovery. I am hooked. To now, I have found two universal responses to this new medium. One, I really don't know when I am done with a painting. I have asked several other artists how they know when they are done. For me, it more like a cat playing with a mouse, I just sort of lose interest in batting it around after awhile, and move on to the next thing.

 And Two, I am rarely sure when I am finished if I like it a lot or not. But fortunately, the paintings I've done each sort of grow on me the more I look at them. Some I end up liking quite a bit.

 I have had encouragements from artist friends in Gardenstown, Scotland  that have been important in my love of the process, so thanks Katherine and Jamie and Janet and Helen.

Everyone should be so lucky when making something out of nothing. There might even be a showing of my work in a wonderful little gallery there in the near future, and that would be the best kind of encouragement.

So, I will be continuing to learn how to better express what I feel and see. I have good examples for both in my daughter, Sarah, and my grandson, Walker. Both show a great freedom with their brush strokes that i hope to emulate someday!