Blink!

Picture two young parents, several teachers, a psychometrician, and myself sitting around a large table, sharing information, and planning thoughtfully to meet the needs of a bright shiny energetic mop-topped rising first grader.

Picture that I begin meeting weekly in one-to-one tutorial sessions with this wonderful mop-topped child to support him in his educational journey.

Picture a parade of syllables, math facts, yawns, world maps, topic sentences, laughter, questions, answers, assignment notebooks, partnership, paragraphs, three-ring binders, intellectual curiosity, pencils, erasers, worksheets, test prep, essays, and research papers.

Picture a hip young man—mop-top long gone in favor of a straightened, half-red, undercut 'do' with a high temple fade and some racing stripes on one side—about to graduate from eighth grade and start high school in the fall.

Blink!

Stylin'
3x3.5"; acrylic, ink, pastel, collage, and machine stitching on paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

Bouncing Around Like a Ping Pong Ball

I'm bouncing all over the place as I close out academic-year tutorials, schedule for summer and fall, plan a day trip to Maine, prepare for a vacation in Canada, and paint cards for babies, birthdays, weddings, graduations, and condolences.

Today I take two 12/24" canvases I received for my birthday (thanks again, Scott!) and activate them.

Collage on one, paint marker on both.

Buh-bye, blank white canvas surfaces!

activating two 12/24" canvases

One Heart

One of the ways I hold someone else in my heart is by painting.

I painted The Long Run with Beth in my heart. I cannot truly know the depth of her loss. Cannot know her grief, her disorientation, her resilience.

But I can paint for her and hold her in my heart.

---

Very few people,
maybe one,
maybe none,
stay with you for the long run.
It's a kind of miracle
if someone's with you
for the long run.
A kind of miracle,
I'd say.

—Jane McCafferty, One Heart

The Long Run
3x4"; acrylic, ink, and collage
abstract
2017
[gift]

Art and Money!

Last week Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1982 painting, untitled and depicting a skull, sold for $110.5 million.

Last evening, three paintings of mine (titled) (no skulls) were on display at the opening of a Compassion and Appreciation for the Natural World fundraising exhibit for the World Wildlife Fund, where the take was good … but not quite $110.5 million.

Nonetheless, what an honor to have my paintings accepted to the exhibit, and to have my art participate in quiet activism. The exhibit was sponsored by Compassion Anthology, an organization/publication that promotes compassionate thought and action through the arts. This current exhibit/fundraiser is supported by the Beverly Arts District, and benefits the World Wildlife Fund in its mission to help those in business and government make sound decisions regarding natural resources and the environment in general, holding paramount the protection of vulnerable species, places, and communities worldwide.

This was a first adventure for me in exhibiting. I was delighted by and grateful for the presence of family, friends, and tutoring clients who supported both me and the WWF at the opening last night. I learned a tremendous amount through the prep I did for submitting and showing my work, totally enjoyed stepping out of my day-to-day routines to meet other artists and have the gift of conversations with 'my people,' and came away with both leads to follow and a palpable sense of a shift in my art life to move more fully into the world beyond my own four studio walls.

Hanging Out Together and Stoned Soul Picnic
rubbing shoulders with other paintings in the Compassion exhibit opening

Moo, Schmoo!

DIY business cards—way fun!

I ask you, does moo.com start with a hay-scented heaven? I think not.

I began with some free-form scribbles and a bunch of torn-paper collage. From there I painted and stenciled and added pastel until I was ready to head to the paper trimmer. 

Ta da!

Here I Am, Day 5 (and final)

How did I get here?

Not at all where I thought I might land.

But …

Here. I. Am.

Christina's Café
3x4"; acrylic, ink, pencil, collage, and oil pastel on paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

One and Only

I have to say again, here is one of the magnets of painting that pulls me in again and again:

painting is just so right here and now. 

The piece I made today? The piece I make any day? Unique.

It is the product of what comes together in the moments of making of it, and is like nothing else that came before or will come after.

Some of what came together:

• card stock passed to me twenty years ago,
• my paper trimmer,
• one eighth of an exercise I did for my Jane Davies class late last summer,
• collage paper I made from cleaning excess paint off my brush sometime in 2017,
• a Posca paint pen,
• texture sheets,
• a sunny cool day in May following a surprise heat wave the prior three days,
• wanting to write a postcard to my dad,
• wordless intuitions, and
• whoever I was when I painted.

The Specifics of What Had Passed Between Them
4x5"; acrylic, ink, and collage on paper; mounted on card stock
abstract
2017
[gift]

Here I Am, Day Four

About twenty-five years ago, when my kids were still in my nest, I said hello to a neighborhood mom on an exceedingly hot September day, and I grumbled about the heat. No grumbles from her—she replied, "I LOVE a day like this—we have ice cream for dinner!"

Shook me right out of my curmudgeonliness!

We didn't follow suit that day but I pledged to myself and my kids that the following summer, on the first day when temps were 90 degrees or higher, ice cream for dinner.

The next year, there was not one single day when the temps rose that high.

Not one.

What the heck?!

This year, we've already had a heat wave, i.e. three consecutive days with temps higher than 90 degrees. During the third week of May!

Summer!

In spring!

I love painting on summer days, in part, I think, because my first season ever of painting was summer, three years ago. Last week, on the last day of our heat wave, I cut Here I Am, Day Three in half and kept playing.

work in progress, 4.5x6"
working title: here i am
day 4

Here I Am, Day 3

The left side of my brain "makes time" for things. Looks ahead at the day's to-do list, plans when and how long I might be able to paint, goes into the studio with ideas, keeps an eye on the clock, watches to make sure all balls are staying in the air.

The right side of my brain goes into the studio, makes a mark or a bunch of marks, responds with color or more marks, has no notion of clock time, paints until it stops painting.

The whole of me notices that I have been painting in snippets of time lately, but with a feeling of fullness and sufficiency.

I cut Here I Am, Day 2 in half, added to one half.

work in progress, 6x9"
working title: here i am
day 3

Unexpected Gifts

One of the unexpected gifts of paintings is that I now have artist friends around the globe, hailing from such locations as Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan, Oregon, Massachusetts, California, Washington, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Manitoba, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, Scotland, England, Denmark, Sweden, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, and Israel, to name a few.

On my birthday, Arizona artist Sheila Delgado, whose art and photo editing capabilities I've admired since September 2015, surprised me with the unexpected gift of a clean-up of the photo I posted last Friday—which was a photo of a photo of a photo from a decades-old album! She brightened the white borders, evened out the dark border, fixed the deckle edging on the top border, and got rid of the stain on the ceiling.

Awesome!

Thank you, Sheila!

Before and after:

   

Artist Carol Edan, who lives in Israel, and whose sketches first caught my eye in January of this year, surprised me with the unexpected gift of a card through the mail, a card that happened to arrive in timely fashion for my birthday, even though she had no idea of my birthday.

Awesome!

Thank you, Carol!

a Carol Edan original

Here I Am, Day 2

Today, again, a day filled with blessings and richness and activity and responsibilities and opportunities and tasks and undertakings beyond my ability to count.

Today, again, I pay attention to and seek the spaces in between, hold myself as open as I can to the stillness always available to me if I will but drop into it.

Today, again, I go to my studio.

Today, three new colors to play with—all house paint hand-picked by my granddaughters.

Outwardly, the scene is one of my hands and eyes working together, using foam rubber brushes to move some paint around on paper, on the start I created yesterday.

The inward experience? A wordless simultaneity of stillness and movement, of deep peaceful energy, of elemental flow.

work in progress
working title: here i am
day 2

Wherever You Go

I keep thinking I have soooo much to do, too much to do.

I pause first thing this afternoon to wonder why I tell myself that story.

My new story—I'm going to start a painting.

Materials: cheap drawing paper from Jane Davies class; torn paper collage from my college alumni mag and the packing paper that came in my birthday gift from the Peerys; PaperMate pencil; new Faber-Castell paint brush pen from the Peerys, Utrecht matte medium.

Wherever you go, there you are.

activated drawing paper

Salle de Bain Galerie

A 5x7" panel currently resides in my en suite bathroom where it acts as a periodic visual reminder throughout the day to drop my shoulders down from holding up my ears. I see it just often enough for it to serve its purpose.

I come back to my breath.

The panel looked like this in June 2015.

Jonesport Geometry

Never liked it.

Grabbed it a couple of weeks ago and started using it as a 'throw-away' board, a panel on which I off-load the last bits of paint from my brush rather than wash that valuable commodity down the drain. I have no game-plan currently other than to reactivate the panel for some future painting.

Until then, I'll keep off-loading residual paint and returning to my breath.

Birthdays!

Not only am I the baby who initiated my dad into fatherhood, but also I had the great good fortune to be born on my dad's birthday on May 13, 1950, when he was 24 years old.

Here's a photo of us a few months after that birthday.

We've made a serious number of revolutions around the sun since that May 13th, but we're hanging out together this May 13th also, with daughters #4 and #5 joining in the fun. 

Although my dad most likely won't be tossing me up in the air as part of the festivities, I'd say we still lift each other up in countless ways : )

Happy birthday to us, Futh!

I took this playboard from April 2,

    

and fiddled around with it till I had a birthday card.

Daddy Tosses Me up in the Air
2.75 x 4"; acrylic, ink, pencil, and collage on paper, mounted on cardstock
abstract
2017
[gift]

Rock, Paper, Wood

Decided to mount Salt of the Earth on a block of 1.5" deep wood to create a piece that can stand by itself rather than be hung on a wall. Bought some house paint to do the honors on the back—love the way the grain makes itself known through the black.

Salt of the Earth
4x5x1.5"; acrylic, collage, and ink on paper, mounted on wood
abstract landscape
2017
[SOLD]
---
The canyon is full
of hush. Self-contained, holy.
I sit in its lap.

Salt of the Earth, detail

Salt of the Earth, detail

MDF Again

Another painting is spiffed up and ready to strut its stuff, this one a favorite of mine that I painted in December 2015. I covered MDF with a medium gloss, soft, buttery, yellow house paint that picks up on highlights in the painting and speaks to the sunlight in the accompanying haiku.

Mighty Darn Fine, if I do say so myself.

Hanging Out Together
5 x 7 x 3/4"; acrylic, ink, collage, and pastels on paper, mounted on panel
landscape
2015
[SOLD]
---
They hold hands under-
ground while, up above, sunlight
kisses their wild hair.

Hanging Out Together, detail

Hanging Out Together, detail

Centerpieces

Today I snag one of the playboards I created about a month ago and start to play.

playboard

I am so grateful to have invited art to become a centerpiece in my life. To have committed myself to making space for losing myself in this moment, and this moment, and this moment. To be, here and now.

I pull out a china marker I purchased recently. Haven't used one of those for decades! I draw some circles and then bring them into high relief by painting negative space around them.

I bump into the acrylic skin I made sometime earlier this year, cut it into bits, and let its random marks find places on my emerging piece. That acrylic film experiment has made appearances in several paintings now. Very satisfying.

Then out come my Posca paint markers, and the house paint Caroline and Emmy gave me at Christmas, and a PaperMate pencil.

Making a record of what I did when creating a piece is just that—some words that tell what I did.

Art making itself is a string of moments of looking at things for the first time; art making is being what I'm doing.

I take such pleasure in having all of that—all of everything I've just articulated, and more—fit into a little 3x4" painting that I can share with a friend to celebrate her being a centerpiece in my life, too!

Looking at Things for the First Time
3x4"; acrylic, ink, oil pastel, china marker, pencil, and oil pastel on paper,
mounted on card stock
abstract
 2017
[gift]

Happy Household

Late last week I started a painting with an impulsive scribble born of a frantic need to put aside my day's to-do list and get something, anything, onto canvas.

Now: I've created a happy little house on a happy little 4x4" piece of property on a happy little hillside.

Happy little me!

The Ivy Hanging in the Kitchen Window Weaves Itself into the Blinds
4x4"; china marker, pencil, ink, acrylic, and collage on canvas
abstract landscape
2017
$45

More Messing Around

Yesterday's few moments of impulsivity, playing with paint and ink on a 4x4" canvas yanked out of a drawer with only twenty minutes at hand before I had to be at an appointment, were definitely an antidote to my grouchiness and irritability.

I messed around with the canvas again today, trying this and that, playing happily.

Nothin' beats a little free-play in the studio.

more messing around

Antidote

Grouchy.

Irritable.

messing around

MDF

MDF …

Master Dirt Farmer?

Mother Daughter Friend?

Make Dinner Fast?

Nope. Medium Density Fiberboard, an engineered wood product that artists often use.

And, at the moment, a Major Distraction Factor.

I'm taking another hiatus from my 100layersofpaint challenge to turn my attention to mounting some of my paper paintings on MDF. Went to a local lumber yard to see what the stuff was, brought home a sheet, and had Dave run it through his table saw to my specs (thanks, Dave!). I varnished my painting, painted the sides of the MDF, glued the painting to my panel, wrote a haiku on the back, and now I've got a painting all spiffed up looking for a new home.

Stoned Soul Picnic
7x7"; acrylic, pencil, and collage on paper, mounted on panel
abstract
2017
---
He left the field. Walked
across the limestone beside
the clattering brook.

Stoned Soul Picnic, detail

Stoned Soul Picnic, detail

Stoned Soul Picnic, detail

Layer 22/100

Uh oh.

How will I move on from here?

I know I will.

I just don't yet know how.

Or when.

Either Waves Tapping Sea-Worn Rocks will sell, and I will send it to a new home, or … the tide that has ebbed way way out, making space for me to attend to the smallest of details, will come back in and wash over this piece, changing it into something entirely different.

Waves Tapping Sea-Worn Rocks
6x6"; acrylic, collage, ink, pencil, and oil pastel on gessobord
abstract
2017

layer 22/100, detail
stamped letters, wax pastel markings

layer 22/100, detail
stenciling, oil pastel, pencil marks

layer 22/100, detail
shades of gray, asemic writing, stamped letters

Layer 21/100

I'm starting to like my new do. It's starting to feel like 'me.'

Layer 21.

layer 21/100