3/19/15 New work purchased, sharing links

This is a wonderful interview with Fran O'Neill, one of my "most favoritist" artists and a wonderful teacher and mentor. I am the proud owner of one of her small works and I can only hope it influences me having it in the house! Enjoy: http://www.gorkysgranddaughter.com/2015/03/fran-oneill-march-2015.html

 

Another wonderful interview from an artist who is no longer here. http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2012/03/jules-olitski-talks-about-painting.html

 

2/28/15 New show in Seattle

"Summer Heat/Out the Window," was accepted into the Evergreen Association of Fine Art in Seattle. I took it up today, and saw it placed on the wall, which was exciting. It's really an honor to be accepted into this show. There were close to 300 2D pieces submitted, and 89 were accepted. The work is generally strong throughout, and the space in the Seattle Design Center is super. I will, unfortunately, miss the reception due to Spring Break plans. But all my Seattle peeps - please go see it! 

1/31/15 Branches and changes afoot

It promises to be a big year. I'll be leaving my current work to focus on art. I'd love to keep my hand in with consulting about program development in non-profits, especially with organizational structure, volunteer management and intercultural competency. I've been involved in 4 different program startups, and it would be fun. However, my main deal is seeking for what my art says when looking for the small, the glimpses, the ways in which life speaks through mark making. So often it reflects the bigger questions, relationships and state of being of both the artist and for the world. It's like the story of the person who falls over the cliff and is hanging on desperately to the one branch that's there. She yells to God for help, and God yells back "let go of the branch!" Haven't had this feeling for a long time. Exhilarating? Terrifying? Both. 

1/3/15 Futurizing yada yada

So busy with the holidays, and now just settling back in and work will start again on Monday. Arghh. 

Am thinking once again about doing a year of art school. As a non-degreed artist, I have the urge towards the pressure-cooker of  the academic learning environment and seeing lots of visual ideas from other artists. It could be really fun and a useful thing. I would be looking to push my art and to paint better. Yet, the whole lingoistic, conceptual yada yada of how art is talked about and taught (or so I hear) leaves me cold; I don't want to talk like that or think like that. I want to hold to painting and drawing as deep disciplines in themselves. No emperor's new clothes for me. 

Given that, here is an interesting thought from an article I am reading:  http://hyperallergic.com/172190/penny-arcade-on-the-professionalization-of-performance-art/

PA: a lot of stuff in the galleries falls into two or three elements. This is not the most experimental period I’ve ever lived in, where there’s a lot of innovation going on. There’s a lot of technological use and a lot of emperor’s new clothes stuff going on in the art world....

But the market has invaded so deeply that people are afraid to follow their own hearts. They’re very conscious of what the market will bear or what trends are “in.” You hear it in the way people talk, using buzzwords — “gender” and “social practice.” It’s kind of funny.

12/2/14 Kudos!

Amazingness! Gallery 114, a cooperative artist's gallery of which I am a member, got a write up as one of the 10 best galleries in the Pearl! All of us are soooooo thrilled! And, wow!, they had a link to my website. This is very cool. You can see this at: http://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/oregon/articles/the-10-best-art-galleries-in-portland-s-trendy-pearl-district-/?utm_source=emails&utm_medium=external&utm_campaign=021214oregonart

 

11/19/14 Post post

Tuesday is my go-in-to-work-late day. Even though my show is up and my rigorous painting-while-working-schedule is not the practical necessity that it was, I am keeping the schedule. First things first. I do so much better in every way when I paint in the morning - or sometime in the day although when it is in the morning, then I get that wind beneath my wings for the whole day. So this morning, a first use of a beautiful watercolor notebook from the Sennelier shop in Paris, and an attempt at using the little brush made with the feather of a becasse. I think this is a bird from the sandpiper family. Back to the little drawings, the ones that are just there, aperçu in the day.

11/11/14

Maybe I'm recovering from the opening. So tired, worn out and depleted I couldn't really take it all in. It was a very fun, packed party. Now I can sort through everything and learn from all of it. For one, I kept saying to myself as I worked on my ipad, drew my cats, painted in my backyard, took mysterious photos in France - I need to be working on my show. I Really Need to Be Working on My Show. When I got back from my trip I was working on what my husband calls my "Loire Triptych" and I felt like I was working on my show. When I painted my 36x48 canvas of the garden outside my studio, it was the biggest painting I had ever made outside of a class. I told myself it was dumb to experiment so close to the show, and that I wouldn't have time to finish it anyway. But I felt like I was working on my show. But everything before that ....out the the window.

When all was said and done, the show was forming while I was busy saying "I need to plan my show!," all the while I was saying, "That can't possibly go in!"  The show was happening while I was off to the side trying to figure it all out. Like life. The future is in us, already formed and forming, our direction already present in our lives (and studios). Can I remember that, please?

11/3/14

Andrea Rosselle's work, "Death of Water," is a must see. Installed in the Gallery 114 enclosed space, the Pozzi Room, she has hung infant gowns embroidered with the primary viruses and bacterias that have contaminated water along with the appliques of the primary bodies of water that they have affected. Attached to the gowns are tags with the  mortality rate of death from these contaminants, as per the World Health Organization's latest count, linking them with the infant mortality rate. Outside the room there is another gown hanging from a virus that is not water born - ebola. It is so poignant and beautifully stated. Please - go. Gallery 114, 1100 NW Glisan, Portland, Oregon. The opening is November 6th, with the reception from 6-9. My work is also there - I am showing acrylic and iPad paintings from 2014.

11/2/14

Installation day for "Aperçu" at G114! So amazing to see my work going up - had really no idea it it would all work, focused as I was not on theme but on what caught me eye - glimpses, quick impressions, insights. Thanks to my family and gallery colleagues, it is shaping up super well. Especially excited about my ipad drawings and showing them both via print and also via my ipad. Woot woot!

11/1/14 Day of.......

Typical, right? It's the day of installation and I'm overwhelmed and there's things that still need to be done. I'm overwhelmed – I think it's like giving birth. Instead of muscle contractions, I have waves of anxiety and mental anguish. Not that giving birth is free of mental anguish. But – onward and upward! Hope to you all at the opening of "Aperçu" on November 6th at Gallery 114!

10/28/14 Finally!

Thanks and kudos to Christopher Roberts and to Kenny Saylor for helping get this site started months ago, and then to Alfonso Lopez for helping solve the bugs that were keeping it from going live. A small matter of pointing the domain (hosted by another company) to this space. I didn't know what "pointing" was, why it wasn't linking (an old grid - what's a grid??) and creating a CNAME and an A-record. Learning curve, for sure, and satisfaction in getting the answers to the questions that technology is so good at raising!

For any of you into bikes (and bike fitting) check out the website for Alfonso Lopez at http://www.velopez.com/. Witness a software engineer giving up big bucks to follow his dream. And if you are a bike fitter, know that Alfonso has developed an app that is incredibly useful in your line of work.

10/12/14 Prepping

    

Prepping for "Aperçu" has been difficult. Daily ups and downs, balancing of work. I desperately wanted to go in to work early this morning, but felt too much internal chaos would follow if I abandoned the painting schedule I have set for myself. Painting brings peace and joy for the rest of the day - I find myself calmer in the midst of the turmoils that can happen, interactions and decisions. Seems worth it to miss a meeting that is not mandatory although I also dearly miss the presence of the community. It is stressful, very, yet also seems to be part of the process.  

10/2/14 Purpose

As an art maker, there’s a definition of life’s purpose that has troubled me for quite a while. It is often quoted as, "Your life's purpose is the place where your deepest gladness meets the world's greatest need." I have always counted the greatest needs of the world as being poverty, especially of women and children, inequity in education, the crying need for decent health care worldwide, and increasingly, the need to stop the desecration of this island home we call Earth. How can deep gladness matter when there’s so much incomparably great need?

It’s been a catch-22, and in the end, an impossible problem. Instead, I have begun thinking of art as a way to be with the need, to give way to it, to cry out, to be heard, to give voice through the mystery and enigma of color, the relationships of everything to each other thing both on and off the page. In the midst of and within so much need, art inquires and demands of the world and of self the meaning that comes in making.

There is a different wording of Buechner's quote that works better for me: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet," Being called brings to mind a subtle shift in an understanding of purpose; being called and responding to that call becomes the purpose itself. The quote becomes less didactic and more poetic, more open to possibility, more available to life as it is lived rather than a structure in which to exist. It opens up the possibility of the meaning and purpose of making art.

 

 

 

3/19/14 For the first time

It's only 8:00 a.m. and I've done chores, had tea and laid out what I think of as my first painting for my show next November. We'll see how that goes!

I've noticed a verrrry slow process lately. I get to my studio, do the first task of the day, whatever that may be, and then sit and contemplate the work or perhaps look at some other artist's work. Then I probably come back upstairs to have breakfast, a snack or do a doodle drawing. Then, back downstairs, going forth and back slowly  throughout the day, building on the slow fire - a peat fire I think – burning beneath the surface, underground, almost undetectable and above all, slowly. It doesn't mean things don't get incendiary in the studio, because they definitely do. But such a build up lately. Such a requirement to listen and to be in alignment.

When I came upstairs today, I realized I had been very aware in a new way about the rectangle, the shape of the surface I am painting on. 

3/2/14 Represented

Eight new pieces at the Grace Stairwell Gallery, two at Oregon Episcopal School in the "Land of Light and Shadow" exhibit, two at the Gallery 114 "Bio/Logic" show, and then the piece that I donated to the Cascade Aids Project Auction. Whew! Now, just need to write the artist statement for Grace. Looking forward to all of this being done. Feeling good to see all of them hanging, and the quiet space within that feels so connected when I have work out there. 

3/1/14 Onward

My art self, my brush self, knew that the church doodles were a step towards the mystery of my next show. Do I dare work on this for the next show, due Thursday? Or should I stick with the original thought? I think this is part of painting. It will all come together. 

Thinking deeply about the time to come when I will do more art, whether or not it is totally full time there will be significantly more of it. The longer I do not take that step, the less time I will have to live into that dream. I've been reaching towards this since the age of 10, when I knew I was an artist because I spent all my extra time painting and drawing - just as I do now. Then, I didn't know that it might mean something more.

There is a constant sense of giving in during the last few months. And finally being able to do so. It has always been a struggle - to follow my inner self even when it doesn't jive with how I perceive "everyone else's" direction. Those who sow with tears in the evening, reap with joy in the morning. Clarity cometh as it willeth. 


 

02/17/14 Keeping on

I'm working hard on these pieces, knowing that it's also my goal to get over to Push Dot to get a print made of a previous piece. Yet, just gotta go with my gut, without thinking, and am just staying glued to my studio. Keeping up the level of enthusiasm, freshness and inquiry is wearing for right now, and I'm thinking about the importance of taking a break. Taking off for a walk and some fresh air.

 

02/15/14 A long pose pays off

I'm so confident that this site is going to go live that I'm just going to keep writing.

A colleague on Facebook is doing a drawing a day, and invited anyone who wanted to join in. Of course, being a joiner and loving to draw, I said "sure!" I count myself proud getting in some drawing on a frequent basis, and it keeps the bar high and in my mind. I notice that when I draw, I have a sense of fulfillment, knowing that I have done some art that day, even if not something "big." Even if it isn't "good." Working plus art plus family plus gallery plus, plus, plus! Hard. But to know that even if it is a doodle, it is something.

This afternoon, for another project, I am drawing my feet. Such a sweet thing to finally have a model in my family that is willing to sit for a long pose. I love long poses – there's the time to really see what I am looking at. Thank you, feet!