Come see the Art!

In a flurry of creative activity I managed to wade through the dust and chaos of my studio (currently a construction zone) and produce some new pieces. I now have four new pieces -- just in time for the Coastside Mixed Media Artists Show and Sale going on the month of June. Here's a sampler. You can go to my Flickr page to see them closer - or, hey, come to the show!

Art Show

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

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.

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.

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.

Animal Teachers

Here's another constant in my life -- a deep almost unspeakable (recurring theme!) passion for and connection to animals. Discovering the Medicine Cards many years ago was the gateway to a more conscious and aware journey. Most of the animal images in my art are inspired by the teachings of the Medicine Cards as well as my personal experiences. If any of these animals teaches you something different than it teaches me, that's fine. Actually, it's more than fine. Remember, there aren't enough words to describe our own internal landscapes. 200 words for snow.

Why 200 Words for Snow?

There's a common, if incorrect, expression about the Eskimos having hundreds of different words for snow. What it means here, in this context, is that there are not enough words in our language to describe two very important things to me.

One is love. I'm talking universal, heart-centered love. The love that connects us to everything. There just aren't the right words in our language to adequately describe it without sounding like you're quoting a Beatles song.

The other is art. Or at least my art. And that's mostly what this blog is about. If I do my job right it is my hope my art will touch a place in people where it can't easily be articulated. After all, that's where it comes from in me. Maybe it's the same place that love I talk about comes from -- who knows. The point is, I think when art truly moves someone, often there just aren't the right words to describe what it touches or why. And -- I think that's good. I'm OK with that.

I'm also OK with my art affecting the viewer differently than where it comes from in me. In other words -- there are no wrong answers. Most of my pieces have pretty specific meanings to me and come from a very personal place. But you are not required to figure that out. It's not a test.

By the way, the whole, words for snow thing is an urban myth. You can learn more about this by checking out the link on Wikipedia. It's pretty interesting -- but it's really intended as symbolism here, that's all.

So welcome to 200 Words for Snow. The purpose here is mostly to share my art and my artistic journey. To that note, the last thing I want to do is spend all my spare time sitting in front of a computer -- I'd rather be in my studio taking that next scary step on this path -- so I will post when there's something new to share or see. Be patient. Be nice. If you can't say something nice, find another word for snow.

Kisses!