My closet

In the cosmic universe we live in, and with my experience of the last six months of moving, I know it is an illusion that I own anything in my closet. The closet incarnates my idea of what is inside our souls.
Life is a journey without a home. Hebrews 11:13, " They admitted they were aliens and strangers on earth". What I hold dear is transparent to the eye. It doesn't make a picture. My closet is about the process of learning faith. I put symbols such as scissors, papers, books and a heart, instead of robes, shoes, treasures, and weaponry.
I am uncomfortable enough to know I have to keep working out the details.
Prompted by a 30 day challenge to document the details- this is #2.
Acrylic paint on panel 6 x 6 inches

My heart art on front page of The Summit

Rosemary Barrett and Kevin MacDonald's gallery at Eastworks is hosting the "Napkin Show" through March 10th. My torn heart napkin made it to the cover of the local paper! And it sold! What a hoot.
Next to my napkin on the front cover is one designed by Luke Gellatly, created after a trip to the Miami Zoo last Christmas.
The Selections Gallery at Eastworks is located at Eastworks, 116 Pleasant street Suite 137 in Easthampton, MA. Sounds like they have a lot of fun events planned so try to stop by.

preview of painted hearts

Everything from the "book of love" to the "key to my heart" has Michael and I slinging the paint back and forth. The clay has been squished and nailed and buttoned and even bitten.
Nice way to spend a day.
Look for more to come as we get closer to the Bakehouse open studio, on February 10th, to premier these one-of-a-kind sculpture collaborations.

Palm Thatch study

So much to discover in Miami! I am starting with the Thrinax family. A painting and research so hopefully it will stick logically in my mind.
By painting, I am following that proverbial quote: The hand teaches the eye to see. Who said that?

Is "Sunday Painter" a derogatory phrase?

Is it insulting, offensive, deprecating, belittling, and disparaging to admit to only having time to paint on the weekends?

Where I sleep

#draw365 #dailypainters


Michael is so kind to me. He says we need to dream- it's paramount to our well-being. I dream when I paint. So here I sit in a small 6 x 6 inch panel, between sunrise and moon set with a good book in my hand and a garden at my feet. I tried to capture the light I see coming through the palm trees on my way to work every morning. At that point I am heading due east to the water and facing the sunrise. The foliage is visually distorted by the rays of light. Of course I can't paint it while I am driving... so it's a memory by the time I can put it down. In fact by that time the idea of WHERE I SLEEP is a fantasy, like the pea pods under my mattress, and the moon sliver caught in the vines and my funny looking swollen feet!

Post-holiday neighborhood blues and greens

Just a month ago these trees had a central role- I imagine- in our universe. Decorated with baubles and tokens, they've fallen from grace and
now every street corner has one. I wonder how many trees are cut and killed in the name of Christ?


(ndp)


PS. No palm trees were killed in the name of art while making paper.

Palm paper production

One of my favorite projects is showing how paper can be made from a variety of sources. In the process we learn to look at the structure of paper, the often overlooked and the simplest part of our luxurious lives.





The kids have been foraging, chopping, boiling, pulverizing and blending palm leaves to make sheets of green paper.

It's not parchment, which is animal skins, or papyrus, which is pressed reeds. It's water suspended pulp lifted through a screen enabling the fibers of the material to settle and lock into place.


It's alchemy and it is art.

(ndp)

Can we paint the begining?

I am part of this year's Palmer Trinity book club, reading Journey through the Universe. Each one of us is to do weekend research on the previous chapter, and bring something to the table. I am stunned by the big bang theory as it pertains to dark matter. The Universe only gets light and transparent after contraction and collision creates a light source. As it is, scientists believe we only see less than one half of one percent of what is out there. We are blind. Our eyes do not see. I feel really handicapped...and humbled.
It's all about vibrations- perhaps there is a sound. Many sounds? Music?
So how do I possibly try to paint it?
Also, on my own, I am reading The River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and studying the wildflowers of the Everglades. Unfortunately, I see my canvas looking more like a flower than a cosmic reality. But is it there, the essence and echo of our lives?
Here is a beginning... I can't say this painting is a "daily painting'... it's a theme that will take me much longer than a single day to capture. Once I passed the perfect, initial, gestural moment and muddied the painting waters, I became committed to figuring this out further.
Downstairs Micheal yells up to see what I am doing and I yell back, "I'm painting the cosmos!" And that kind of ends his inquiry.
9 x 9 inch canvas

Heart in hand

A Sunday morning exercise has Michael and I molding hearts in our palms in anticipation of the valentine market. We, together, are working on 21 hearts... each one unique (as we truly are). Look for
more to come later.

Clay and mixed media

A Big night in Little Haiti

Times like this, I know I am far away from Amenia!
Some locals in a Konpa band played in the plaza between gallery and studio and had us stomping and clapping before a second band- with Jowee Omicil, jazz musician and celebrated Haitian star, had the crowd screaming with delight. At one point, he jumped off the stage and into the crowd to be smothered by gyrating women trying to get their pictures taken as he played the saxophone in their ears.








Michael and I stumbled upon this magical and FREE Miami night of music and art in a local neighborhood.
We had heard about the Global Carribean gallery during the Art Basel festivities and were very pleased with the quality and intensity of the exhibition that curator Giscard Bouchotte has put together. My favorite works were the mud cakes on display at the entry. They are like the ones that were for sale right after the earthquake. Having no nutritional value, they are eaten by poor Haitians to stave off hunger.
Behind the stage we were blessed with a visit to the studio of Edouard Duval-Carrie! What an amazing den. I loved everything I saw and can't wait to see more of his work.

Me standing behind the assembled scavenged material sculptures by Andre Eugene, of the Atis Rezistans Collective in Port-au-Prince.

(ndp)

Plant Material...

in myth, energy and structure. This is a piece I was able to put together this week between classes. I love the landscape where I am working- it is lush and full of interesting species of plants like this fern tree. I walk by it about 6 times a day on my way to and from my classroom, the teachers lounge and the cafeteria. It is decorated with blue and yellow ribbons in honor of the Japanese earthquake victims. Feeling like it needed something, I painted in one of great (x15) grand-daddy Lucas Cranach's Eve. She's holding an orange because...it's Florida?
I thought to call it "Temptation in the schoolyard" but maybe that's too sinister sounding.
I AM tempted to document many more of the plants surrounding me... tonight I picked up a floppy orange flower bud that had dropped near my car--- it's crimson crepe edges lined with a delicate bright yellow line, and the flower's base split to feature an additional growth, is it a shell?, protruding like a comical olive nose! Don't know what it is- but it fell from a huge tree.

assignment of the week

#arteacher #passiondriven This botanical art assignment had 5 rules: 1. enlarge a plant through study and observation of it. 2. frame it with a border. 3. use a Latin phrase 4. Use at least three different media and 5. have fun.

You can see which kids used their eyeballs and which painted from their heads. Some have a great sense of dexterity with technique while others, of the same middle school age, show less degree of it. This was interesting because no matter how the work came uot- if they did all 5 things they got an A.

painting the way for a little princess

#palmertrinity #theater #arted The middle school production of a Little Princess is about to enthrall. As the kids rehearse their lines and stage directions, I love painting illusions! Even better I love having kids do most of the work! Have had a great time with Phoebe, the drama director, and Patricia, the costume guru. Several of my classes worked on the walls and a couple dearly devoted thespians came in over the weekend to lay out the floors! The curtain rises this Thursday! (ndp)