fruits

Thinking of how we may be judged by our fruits. What would I have to show? Time to get away!

5 x 4 inches, mixed media on canvas panel.

what bliss at end of the road!

Key West is like a rainbow in many many ways.

Michael is taking me on an adventure!

He's just finished his map for random House and we are going away for the weekend! We've been working too much and are finally going on a vacation. No laptops allowed!

New painting about gifts

I am counting my blessings. Which has, over the last few days, made me realize how little I really know about anything. I am working on willing myself not to be afraid or ashamed about it.

I do not know how to change the past. Or how to predict the future. I don't know the best way to plan for security. I don't understand the decisions of my children. I don't know if my decisions are much better. I don't know how I forget what I can and can't control. I don't know how I got so lucky. I don't know what is going to happen next, when the shoe will fall and when this will end. And I worry over how my kids will ever grow strong and self satisfied. How will they find their place in the world? Why didn't I, why couldn't I do that for them? Often I catch myself being judgmental or being envious, and I really have no place for that! I have made drastic mistakes and I must lead a charmed life. It is all beyond my comprehension.
There are those who know and those who know they do not know. Which are you?

Small canvas panel painted collage, 4 x 5 inches, $50 plus shipping ($2 USA)
I am starting a small series of up to 50 paintings, inspired by the Easter season, that intend to affirm the presence of joy in this world.

Castles for the middle school

My 7th and 8th graders recently built castles of sand and then drew pictures of the castles mapping their relationship to other castles made by their friends. Then we soaked the drawings in tea and burned the edges for that old time look! I think they had a lot of fun and I am relieved that we did not burn down the art building!

 They got extra points for using one or two point perspective.

 You can tell a lot about a person as to how they burn their art. Some just singed the edges, others "painted" with the soot, and some went right to the center!

a mother's work

After a recent visit I wondered if my sons had any idea of who I was

or where they could find me next time they needed me. So I came up with an idea of a map, a list of instructions that would hint at what type of person I was and where I stood in the cosmology of their lives. But in the process, and through time, telephone calls, texts, etc...things changed...

 The art changed.

I'm made to worry. It is what I do best, even though I try daily, hourly, and by the minute to count my blessings. To do anything but worry takes work.

Map of my son's life (so far)

As his mother, you'd think I would know more of where he is going and who he is to be. But it is all a great mystery to me. He just turned 21 and, alas, is not comfortable in the great unknowing of it all. It pains me that I do not have words of wisdom to share. I don't know where to guide him because he may turn anything into an experience greater than I can imagine. Anything he does will be good. He learns from it all. And I am not good at understanding his quandry because I knew early in my life that I was an artist.
I had this image come to me in a dream... he was, just newly born, shot into the air and now floating through a series of open doors. A cast shadow of his man sized shape lay across the floor. The further I could see down the open doors, the more light, a bit purple haze even, obscured my view. This was all I could see.
Mixed media on paper, 10 x 11 inches

If it's a race I am the tortoise

Since moving to Miami I feel like, as far as my own art, I have moved into the slow zone!

So imagine my delight to be able to paint our science teachers pet, Buddy, an African horned tortoise!

The kids followed him around, tossing him bits of banana to strike and hold a pose.








I like having my students paint fast and from life. The next day we worked form memory and... without brushes. I'll show you those another time. My camera should be fixed soon.

Lets have a hand

There is power in knowledge. I was recalling to my students how when I was in college art classes my professors most often were not. We learned by doing, by trial and error.
So I was insistent and happy to share a quick lesson on Monday morning (when they were all groaning they had homework or sleep to catch up on) on how to really see and draw a hand.


Since then they have been sketching their hands on the sides of their math papers, painting it on the covers of their sketchbooks and analyzing their life lines and fingers to discover who they are meant to be...

I love giving the kids tools and tips that must have been withheld from me when I was younger...

These kids are meant to be the visionaries of tomorrow.

It's all abstract to me.

Never, with all my assignments, has the room been so silent. And yet, the students heard voices!

The definition of abstract art is of or pertaining to the formal aspect of emphasizing lines, colors, generalized or geometrical forms, etc., especially with reference to their relationship to one another.
I asked the students to take a small swatch of printed fabric and, once glued on their paint surface, to respond to it.
A few students noted that as they worked they heard a voice inside them telling them what the work might need next. It was very exciting for me to have them acknowledge this voice as one separate from their teacher's (mine)! It's getting close to the end of the term and I need to launch these artists.
ndp

Feel sorry for me

I told Michael not to worry as he photographed this for me (my camera is still broken). Art is about expressing yourself. This is just an expression.

Excess exposure to the body

Another day in Miami!



At the Rubell Family Collection with Michael, Max, Gabrielle and Dana. The exhibition, American Exuberance, seems focused on the body. Most particularly, the human body with all its sexual complications and manifestations. When the body wasn't present in the work there was evidence of action- paint splattered walls, scaffolding with boundaries of beer cans, tires festooned with glitter spills, diner booths with ripped upholstery... There was a warning at the entrance that you had to be 18 or accompanied by an adult to see the exhibition. My 16 year old loved it. Did it matter that he was in a fowl mood to begin with? He seemed to find a commiserate company in the artist's works of decay, stagnation, ruination, and implied violence.
Across the street we caught Pina at the O cinema. That too was about the body--- only difference is that it was uplifting.

O cinema- 90th NW 29th ST (across from the RFC)

swamped by memories

I feel overwhelmed. There seems no hope to right the wrongs, change the past, and do things better. I feel paralyzed and drowning. My breathing is shallow, my eyes leak. Surely, as the pen moves across the page again and again, it begins to fade, and it dries up. I am the only one able to continue. Painting doesn't change anything. In the end I grasp the truth of where I stand.

paper, paint, ink

Thanks Pam

commute to work

Thank goodness it is the weekend. I've slept in.

A sunrise journey taken daily
A limited palette (leftover student paints), and standard 6 x 6 inch panel.