I'm Becoming a Sugar Master

 Between teaching jobs, I am helping my pa with his maple syrup business. Last year was the first year I was around for it and I illustrated a small zine about the process. This year I am way more hands on! In fact I can see it annoys my pa and Dennis for me to have the camera or my pens in my hand when I am in the sugar shack. There is lots to do and I need both hands to do it well.

 We have been cleaning. Doing inventory. Sorting. We have been pulling the lines up from under the snow and moving limbs and branches from on top of them.

 It's been pretty cold with temperatures in the teens so the tress have had at least 2 weeks of deep sleep. (Last year was much warmer and more stressful for both the sugar masters and the trees). The forecast is calling for warmer temperatures by next week and we plan to be ready to tap the trees right away. If we are late, the season is shorter... once the sap runs, the trees start to bud, and when that happens, the sap turns bitter and the window is closed. 

 

Right now I am sorting parts. It seems an endless job, but a needed one, to be an efficient "sugar master".

#syrupseason #homefarmmaple #maplesyrup #familyfarm #sweetness

Elfing season

This has been a lot of fun!

Our house has been jumping with ideas and steaming kettles, ribbons, tape and twinkles.

What are twinkles, you ask?
Its a seasonal mix of cranberries, cinnamon, charm and gratitude.

#dyigifts #celebrateonashoestring #mullingspices #puttanesca

Time to reflect

It's the time of year where we're attracted to looking back and looking forward. It seems the calendar for 2020 might be potently laden with hindsight. There has been a lot of struggle going on all over the planet. Even though we live in a period of massive prosperity and un-imagined peace, the news fills us in with the horrors of incarcerated children at our countries borders, as we live sandwiched between them and the sorrow of leaky corporate oil lines trespassing Native American reservations. What can I do?

Politics is such a messy money filled game. I gave thousands of dollars in small increments this year to buoy favorite candidates and causes. It seems never enough and always more to do.
What can I do?

We moved from a southern city to the northeast countryside. From apartment living to managing an old house and a couple acres. We feel new to the neighborhood. I love having the seasons again at my door. I enjoy the folks down the road at the farm, and our friends who swing by to chat and drop off jams, soaps and even driveway salt! How can they ever know how thankful we are? It seems so warm up here!

Every morning Michael and I take an early morning walk. Its a balm to our souls. I also think it has helped us acclimate to the environment. Today, when I saw it was 40 degrees, I thought that I didn't need to wear long underwear! Surely, I am almost native now!!!

Looking at Picasso's Women of Algiers

In 1954, with the news of the Algerian uprising and the death of his friend and art rival Matisse, Picasso embarked on a painted tribute, taking the subject that was most Matisse, the Odalisque, and running with it. He went back to the father of Orientalism, Eugene Delacroix, and the 1834 painting of his, the Women of Algiers in their Apartment. 

My interpretation of Delacroix' painting on a Paris map to emphasize the French fantasy of it.

Picasso had started in the 1950’s to paraphrase masterpieces of art, starting with Lucas Cranach’s David and Bathsheba. The tradition of sketching the masters has a long history. Delacroix copied Rubens, Van Gogh copied Gustave Dore, and now I copy Picasso.

laying out space for all 15 versions

My interest in the 15 versions of Picasso’s Women of Algiers is in understanding and appreciating the way a master abstractionist thinks. Picasso is playful and analytical. As we move through the series we see an entire range of approaches, thoroughly modern in style, spontaneous, creative, and smart. The artist is focused on breaking forms and flattening lines, connecting foreground and middle ground. He takes the viewer on a journey that is grounded upon a motif of classical and romantic history. We are rendered patient witnesses of the process of dismantling and reorganizing as voyeurs into the studio of the artist  as he plays voyeur into the private lives of women.

Picasso, at age 73, created in a span of three months, from December 13^th, 1954 to February  14^th,1955, 15 paintings and 2 lithographs versions. He titled them along the alphabet from version A to version O so thus we are able to follow his sequence of thought.

Picasso's version A

Version A and B were done in the same day, on December 13^th. One in color and pattern and the other in Grisaille.

Version B- grissaile- done in the same time, December 13^th  as version A Chiaroscuro renderings contrasts of lighter and darker shades

Picasso's version B

New puppy commission

Can she get any cuter?
Her name is Milly, and Tilly is going to paint her!!

Still accepting commissions for small pet portraits. Email me your picture and I will send you a quote.  tillystudio@aol.com

Happy New Years!

From always sunny Florida. We wear our sunglasses because

Mixed media sketchbook page

"it's the sunniest spot for the shadiest of people."  Badaboom!
Looking forward to another great year, keeping it simple in my wonderful pad with my sweet lover.

View on the balcony

Hoping everyone stays safe, healthy and is feeling the love. Don't stress too much about the ritual of New Years Eve. It's only a new day, like any other, a gift to live through.

calendar page notes

3D printing project

I am working on a gift idea that keeps coming back to me over the years. Last week I was lucky enough to work with MakerMia, a local maker space and machine shop.

They have tons of experts, like Paul Grata who shared a course introducing us to 3d printing.

And Andrea Gellatly one of the famed Witch Doctor Battlebot engineers. She showed me one of her tiny new robots- Hammerton, inspired by dueling Alexander Hamilton.

Here is a sneak peak at my project:

It's the gift giving season, so please consider art as your present. Look at my store on my website for originals or on my Fine Art America site for reproductions at great prices.

Edition of Anxious Truths

 It's pre-election time here in the USA, and of our two main contenders for the presidency, one politician paints the landscape as an apocalyptic promise, and the other as a glass ceiling to smash through. Science and statistics actually show that there has never been a safer or healthier time or place to be than right now and right here. We live longer and in more comfort than our ancestors...

So why are Americans so anxious? Our anxiety levels are off the charts. I see it everyday with my students and their parents. The media feeds it. Everyone seems to be on some sort of medication.

 My answer is to search out a set of symbols and re-create the poetics of street signage. Then, like a small loose-bound book, bind up the packet as a small gift edition. Contained in the "pages"' are the words and images that promise to measure the truth and realities of our current given situation.

It is my own cardboard literacy project. Ink and acrylic on cardboard bound by ribbon. Edition of 10

The Unruly Mystic, Waiting like a box of chocolates

Still in the wrapper!

This movie, directed by my college buddy and life long friend, Michael Conti promises to lift me out of my routine, ...my self.
 Its about Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval visionary...a woman...a writer...a composer.. a polymath considered by some to be one of the most important (and controversial) figures of the Middle ages.

I'm waiting for an evening when I get home from work early enough to curl up with my lover and a bowl of popcorn... a real treat ... Maybe this Thursday?
Watch this trailer: The Unruly Mystic
Michael is a true artist. He works magic. Years ago, while visiting me on our chicken farm he made a fun film about chickens and art...a link is on my website.

Student exhibition at the Deering Estate

 

In the midst of
finding out which college they have been accepted to, several of my seniors arrived to a packed opening at the Deering Estate this evening. They are launching off into the art world to study and produce. Tonight, in just one moment, with a show like this, they seem to me already grown up and confident. The world is their oyster. I am very proud of them.

the grandsons fill their grandparent's woodshed

In a synchronized move, the boys converged on the holiday weekend and brought in a couple chords. The wood shed had been completely empty since the harsh winter just past. Family has to watch out for each other. It warms my heart to think of how these sweet young men are helping warm the hearth next winter. I am so grateful as a daughter and proud as a mother and aunt!

I've got to thank neighbor Dennis as well... he prepped the job in innumerable ways, and seems to always have my dad's back, especially when most needed.

Working for my salary

I raised the bar so high for the kids, I am exhausted. In just one day I pushed five classes, and an advisory, on separate creative missions. I had faculty pose, I had easels set up in the mango grove, I had drawing boards in the garden, I had senior students doing self portraits, and advisory decorating my class door... I can hardly walk, talk or think anymore today!

Did two sample pieces of my own as well....This painting I did as a quick sketch of them in the butterfly garden. Try to emphasize mood with light and dark.

This painting I did in a 25 minute demo of how to map in the head and features. Push, push, push, my seniors to quit moaning, let go the fear, and get it down on canvas

 And here we go... from 8 am to 4pm!!!! when is rained we painted the central courtyard from under awnings.

It is pretty amazing I get paid for this!