Lizard Humor

Folks who know me well know I've been talking a lot about Coyote lately. So much so that he really rates his own post - but that will come later. (Yes, yes, let's keep Coyote waiting and see what happens... wanna play with fire anyone?) We think of Coyote as the trickster and the funny guy - but my personal experiences have shown me many animal teachers have a sense of humor. I know a few ravens and magpies who've enjoyed endless amusement at my expense. I laugh and like to think I'm in on the joke which, no doubt, makes them laugh harder.

I was a little surprised, however, to discover Lizard's sense of humor. I had always thought of the dreamtime as a sort of serious sacred place you shouldn't poke fun at. While working on this piece in my studio, Lizard begged to differ. And I love him for it!

It's All About the Love: The What I Love Series #1

Yeowzas - it's been a while since I posted. Winter was tough - but Spring is here and I'm starting a new series of posts about Love. Specifically, what I love. And for the first post of this series I'm featuring a piece I did last summer, in tribute to the passing of my cat, Rocky, entitled, It's All About the Love. Nuff said.

This is a small piece, approximately 4" across and hangs from a black cord. Here's a close up.

A Book About Death - The Video

To get a taste of the exhibit, check out the video on A Book About Death. Surf the Dirt (my piece) is at 8:06 on the video, but really, the entire thing is incredibly provocative.

A Book About Death

Last year, after losing my dear cousin to lung cancer, I stepped into the studio filled with very strong emotions and absolutely no artistic plan. From that experience came Surf the Dirt, a mixed media piece using dirt from my yard, acrylic gel medium, and a polymer clay surfing skeleton.

That piece has now evolved into a postcard that will be displayed at the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery in New York City as part of the A Book About Death exhibit. The exhibit opens Thursday, September 10 and will run through Tuesday, September 22. If you are anywhere near New York City during that time I encourage you to check it out and make your own book about death. You can click here to see my postcard on the exhibit blog or here to go to my gallery.

Coyote Road - the video!

The video is here! Check out the transformation process of the hubcap for the Landfillart project. Click below to watch or you can go directly to YouTube.

Coyote Road

The hubcap is done! Click on the image below to see a larger version.

As a mixed-media artist, I found the Landfillart program exciting on many levels. I spend a great deal of my time—in both my art and my life in general—exploring how to use or reuse “everyday” objects in ways different than they were originally intended. I am fascinated with the idea of changing our perspective about “trash”. In addition, my art is all about the exploration of our internal, personal worlds and their connection to our physical surroundings. My art is often deeply personal, working a great deal with animal teachers and the natural landscape. I love the idea of using an item like a hubcap to take these concepts to another level. I wanted to explore our relationship with our cars and, as with so many other material items in our lives, how we use them to insulate ourselves from the mess, chaos, and unpredictability of life. We have turned our cars into rolling illusions of control and safety. Coyote is the teacher in this piece—pointing out that there really is no control or safety. Life is messy. The road is messy.

This is a mixed media piece, with a rusty, “gritty” finish, using original artwork and digital images, acrylic skins, and pieces of a broken vintage mirror. The hubcap is turned around with the inside acting as a frame or nicho for the elements. The photo of the empty road in the middle of the Arizona desert is actually from a snapshot I took while on a road trip in 1982. The original drawing of Coyote was scanned and then printed onto watercolor paper using digital grounds. The title: Coyote Road.

Crow Entendre

Here's the other piece that will be featured in the Coastside Mixed Media Artist's show in February. This piece is 9x12 and includes acrylic paint, original artwork and digital photography.

Unlocking the Heart

This new piece is 11x14 and includes original pen and ink and pencil drawings, digital photography, and acrylic paint and molding paste.

This is one of two of my pieces that will be included in the Coastside Mixed Media Artists show at M Coffee in Half Moon Bay for the month of February. To find out more about this show watch the Where to See My Stuff space in the sidebar to your right.

Crow Irony

Yes... more about Crow. Among other things, I like the duality of crow--the light and dark, yin and yang, and the reminder that nothing is ever all "bad" or all "good". And face it. I just plain like crows.

This piece is small, 6X6 on canvas board, acrylic, gesso, white opaque flakes, cheesecloth, and original pen and ink art.

We have the technology...

At long last - here is Raven. This piece measures 24X30 and was completed in 2007. Finding a way to effectively show this piece online has been challenging so my thanks go out to Craig at Luna's Memories, and his awesome scanner. You can click on the image to see it larger, although it still lacks a little something compared to the real thing.

First, the technical stuff. This piece incorporates acrylic paints, tissue paper, digital photography, and old topographic maps. All the images (with the exception of the topo maps) are original.

This piece is highly personal to me and the process of creating it was quite a journey on technical, artistic, and emotional levels.

• Because I'm not into stealing other people's imagery and violating copyright laws, and I'm inherently cheap, I decided I needed to create the components of this piece myself. I discovered that maybe I really can paint.


• Although I had previously only worked on pieces no larger than 9X12 I was being called, loudly, to go bigger with this piece. Purchasing the canvas and taking it out to my car was a true act of faith.


• This is the piece where I first heard my own artistic voice and was able to stay true to it while serving the muse and the magic of Raven.

Oh, and another act of courage -- sharing this very personal piece with the world.

Snake and the Rule Book

Yes, it's a recurring theme in my life -- see Breaking the Rules if you need any kind of history here. Or, if you want more information you can read Truth about my struggles creating this piece. I worked on this piece for a long time. As I mentioned, there were both logistical/mechanical challenges as well as emotional ones.

Here's the other part.

On May 19, just as I was almost finished with this piece, my cousin was diagnosed with very advanced lung cancer. Somehow I managed to grab some time in my art studio between doctor's appointments, the emergency room, ICU, and vigilant advocacy at the hospital. I finished this piece shortly before she died on June 6.

We were very close, saying we were cousins and sisters (although I began to fear people would take us literally and really wonder about our family.) I was "her person" holding her hand throughout her illness. You can see her memorial video on YouTube.

Pain and grief are still very fresh right now so I can't completely articulate this, but I know her passing and this piece are connected. Snake teaches me to transmute, shed my skin, and embrace the power of fire. It's no mistake, ironic as it may seem right now, that the woman is smiling on the burnt pages of the rule book.

OctoPop

No, it's not a blue frozen popsicle treat. My father turned 80 this past April and due to several unforeseen circumstances, I wasn't able to give him his birthday gift until recently. Obviously I couldn't post the picture of it until he had received the actual item, but here it is. Happy birthday Pop - you are officially an Octogenarian!
This piece is all about fun and reminder to me to lighten up once in a while. Not everything has to be deep, personal, and meaningful. Art is about expression, and there really is a lighter, goofy side to me. This is a mixture of digital artwork, using a photo I took of his dog Ruthie, textured papers, more words as visual elements, and lots of acrylic paint and medium.

Hippo Birdies to Bro

The subtitle of my blog is Explorations in art, love, and speechlessness. This post is about all three.

You can't know me for long without hearing about my brother. We survived childhood together, and in our family that's no small feat. To say we're close is an understatement but I often find it difficult to tell the people most important to me how much I love them. He's a multi-talented carpenter, artist, river rafter, musician and he just turned 50. You can see his ceramics at www.sloanearts.com. Aint he something?

I made this piece for my brother, in celebration of his half-century mark this time around. This 11 X 14, mixed-media collage piece has a matte finish. The vintage photos of the mountains and digitally altered topographic map are the San Gabriel mountains, specifically Icehouse Canyon. We grew up at the root of these mountains and I think they are part of our cell structure. The photo of the two of us was taken on my 17th birthday. Hey, we all looked like that back then! Spider walked into this piece of her own accord.

Digital disclaimer: this is a scan of the unframed piece and not only is the resolution pretty poor, but it loses something without the frame. I gave it to him before I could get an image of the framed piece. If I do I'll replace this image, but use your imagination in the meantime.

If it was a snake...

Some lessons you learn over, and over, and over again. You'd think I'd finally get it...

I spent several years away from my art, using it only as an occasional diversion. Then, as the result of a very difficult time in my life, I came back to it only knowing I needed to open the door again, but not knowing what that would look like. So I cast about for a while trying to figure out how things should manifest and what kind of art I should do -- all the while sitting quite squarely in my head instead of my heart. And behind it all I knew I really love collage but figuring it just wasn't cool and "real art" enough. I can be such a snob sometimes.

Then, "for fun" I took a one-day collage class through the community college extension program and a choir of angels was heard. OK, not really. But I had a blast and came out of the class incredibly inspired and fired up. I realized what I had been looking for was there all the time. Right in front of my face. And in my heart. Same old lesson again and again.

Here's the piece that came out of that first class, constructed from elements provided by the instructor. My style has definitely evolved and come into it's own since this was done, but this one is very important to me. What started as an instructional exercise became a personal affirmation on how to move forward on my artistic journey -- and through life in general.

Girls and Horses

Yes. I was one of those girls. Horses everywhere. My walls were covered with posters of horses, my shelves crowded with plastic horses (each with its own name and familial relationship to the others), I drew horses all the time, and when my best friend and I played, we were horses. I wished on every star and dandelion that some day I would have a horse of my own -- and I actually got one!

What is it about girls and horses?

Here's what I think. The medicine cards teach that horses are about power. As young girls growing up in the 60's and 70's we struggled to find our own power. We knew it was out there, and certain factions were encouraging us to find it, but we weren't welcome in sports yet, it was assumed we weren't good at math, and our Barbie dolls still had dream dates and weddings, but no careers. (Take note younger women -- you are reaping what your mothers and grandmothers sowed.)

When I was pretending to be a horse I was independent and powerful and usually wild, or at least "high-spirited". When I was drawing horses I wasn't worrying about what society said I should look like (oh yes, I drew lots of really skinny, big-boobed girls too...) And when I was riding my horse it was one of the few times I was really on my own, just the horse and me in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains.

Creating this piece was one of those spontaneous words-as-elements things. In this case the words came first and the images formed around them. I love to use old topographic maps in my work (a backpacker's best friend) and the blue and gold seed beads carry the motion I was trying to convey. The words are tricky to see online -- but if you click on the image hopefully the larger image shows the words better.

I think of this piece as an affirmation and encouragment for me to go ahead and live. Get dirty, take risks, break the rules, work through the fear, be uncomfortable, trust your vision.

And people wonder why girls love horses.

Wolf Pup

Never take a job on commission. Especially when it's for family. Especially when it's for your teenage daughter.

OR - Go ahead and take the job. Then throw out everything they say they want and do what you want.

I have a word box. I cut out words and phrases from magazines, comic books, and catalogs and keep them in my word box. It's best if I keep this a totally right-brained activity (tricky since I think language is left-brained in origin) and not have any expectations for what I cut out. I just snip what jumps out at me. Then, when I'm constructing a piece I go through and see who wants to come out and play. While many of my smaller pieces incorporate these words, I haven't used them in my larger pieces -- yet.

My daughter, Mara, saw the words "No Accident" one day and asked that I create a piece for her with these words. After picking her brain for some inspiration I realized I couldn't work with her vision -- I had to work with my own vision for her. Wolves are important to Mara (I sometimes call her Wolf Pup) and the rest of the words chose themselves. I really wanted more of a street or graffiti art look for this piece -- something less polished and little messy. I'm not sure if I achieved that but I'm pleased with the end result. I worked with acrylic emulsions, medium, and many, many layers of different paints and papers. The digital image really doesn't do this piece justice (it's too big for my scanner -- this is a digital picture. As soon as I can get it scanned I'll repost). There's a lot of texture going on and I can't look at it without touching it and experiencing the textures. This piece, called "Mara's Wolf", is 9X12 on canvas board.

Some folks have been
puzzled by this piece. Mara and I both really like it -- so both client and artist are happy.

Things I learned:
- Feel the force, Luke. Trust yourself, you know best.
- Composition, composition, composition. It doesn't really work here, I know.
- Life is messy sometimes.
- Wolves really are teachers.

Outing the Artist...

OK, OK... here's the deal. People are asking when I'm going to post more entries and art. I seem to have a billion excuses, including lack of scanner access for my bigger pieces. The truth is, coming out of the art closet is not easy. The point of this blog is to share my art and my process, which is a big step since I am most comfortable operating in stealth mode. It's a long, personal story, but there have been several incredible people who continue to support and encourage me in the process of reclaiming my art. One of them is my gypsy-pirate friend, Shawna, so here's a little something I did for her.

I've learned so much from watching her live her life and she seems to be my personal cheerleader no matter what I do! In fact, she's partly responsible for the name of this blog. When she announced she was moving out of Northern California -- again -- I couldn't let her leave the state without a small piece of art from me and my wishes for joy on her journey and the many gifts life brings.

Joy for Shawna is completely right-brained and only makes sense to me if I don't try to make sense of it. This is a small piece, just 4X6, on canvas board, with acrylic paint and medium, blue tulle (in honor of the tulle queen herself), clip art illustrations, and comic book excerpts.

So the closet door has been opened just a wee bit here, but I'm looking forward to seeing sunlight soon.

Holiday Cards. Performance Anxiety Anyone?

It all started many (don't ask how many) years ago, in a tiny dorm room at San Francisco State, ironically designed by the same guy who designed San Quentin. Armed with typing paper, paint brushes, and green and red paint, I splatter painted my way into what became the first of many holiday cards. What can I say, it was the 80's and splatter paint was big. Over the years the process, and the artist, have evolved -- moving from splatter paint and potato stamps to color copies and finally desktop publishing. I've rarely missed a year, with the exception of a couple when my daughter, Mara, was small. As she's grown she's become an active partner in the process and each year has been a tougher act to follow than the last. We start asking each other in November what we'd like to do this year and we never have a clue. As a matter of fact, we rarely know what we're doing when we're actually doing it and some years, like this year, the cards go out on Christmas Eve (or later...) We've run the gamut from the rediculous to some pretty deep thinking. I'm still not sure how I feel about this year's card - but here it is.

Since I've been working a lot with images of bird, mostly corvids and raptors, I really wanted to do something with wings. I also love using words as integral visual elements, so used a favorite quote from Mother Theresa to illustrate the image of a wing and a recent poem my daughter wrote for the heart. (And for folks who want to know what the words actually say, we've put them on the back of the card this year.) The background is textured and painted acrylic medium and the whole kit and kaboodle is scanned and assembled digitally. (Gotta love Photoshop!)

Happy Holidays! The sentiment in this year's card goes out to all.