The Glass Coin

I'm stoked that my painting, "Your Voice Was Smooth; Like Water Running Over Rocks" was chosen as the October cover art for Ontario-based Literary Zine, The Glass Coin.  The Glass Coin is a split-themed open zine that explores both sides of an idea...examples are "Heroes and Villains", "Eureka! and Oops!", and October's theme was "Oil and Watercolor".  

"Your Voice Was Smooth; Like Water Running Over Rocks"

24" x 36" x 1.5"

Oil and Mixed on Canvas

The irony lies in the fact that I used both of these seemingly unfriendly media in the painting that was chosen, and then some. I often work in collage, ink, acrylics, oils and watercolor in the same piece.  Maybe that makes me indecisive and a bit schizophrenic, or the other part of me believes that's my way of just trying to make everything get along in a sort of peaceful harmony that can be achieved only when the composition feels finished.


By the way, this piece is on display at The Blues Jean Bar in Snider Plaza and available for purchase. Message me for more details.

A Poem For Wednesday: Postscript

Poetry is like breathing. It happens all the time. Poetry is life. Poetry celebrates life. It is life as seen through the prism of another's thoughts, of their process of thinking. Poetry doesn't give answers. It asks questions but the answers are elusive. But in the poetry, in these questions, these perspectives, we find ways of coping, ways of venting, ways of release from all the vicissitudes that life presents us with.

Your Voice Was Smooth; Like Water Running Over Rocks

24" x 36" x 1.5"

Oil and Mixed on Canvas

This painting is currently on display at The Blues Jean Bar in Snider Plaza

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
so that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffeings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.


In college I took a course in Irish Literature. It was a course for Lit Majors but I took it anyway. One day my professor said "The finest poet writing in the English language today is Seamus Heaney."  That was the first I heard his name, over 30 years ago. With Heaney, I found a poet who engaged me in a constant conversation. Each poem was a kind of search, an examination of life and at the same time witness to life.

A Poem for Wednesday: Dutiful

"Transition"

30" x 40"

Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas

Fine Art Giclee Prints available on my Etsy site.

DUTIFUL


How did I get so dutiful? Was I always that way?
Going around as a child with a small broom and dustpan,
sweeping up dirt I didn't make,
or out into the yard with a stunted rake,
weeding the gardens of others
– the dirt blew back, the weeds flourished, despite my efforts –
and all the while with a frown of disapproval
for other people's fecklessness, and my own slavery.
I didn't perform these duties willingly.
I wanted to be on the river, or dancing,
but something had me by the back of the neck.
That's me too, years later, a purple-eyed wreck,
because whatever had to be finished wasn't, and I stayed late,
grumpy as a snake, on too much coffee,
and further on still, those groups composed of mutterings
and scoldings, and the set-piece exhortation:
Somebody ought to do something!
That was my hand shooting up.

But I've resigned. I've ditched the grip of my echo.
I've decided to wear sunglasses, and a necklace
adorned with the gold word no,
and eat flowers I didn't grow.
Still, why do I feel so responsible
for the wailing from shattered houses,
for birth defects and unjust wars,
and the soft, unbearable sadness
filtering down from distant stars?

by Margaret Atwood

New Painting(s): Podcast I & II

two canvases, 

15" x 30" x 1.5" each

oil and mixed

"You must be who you are and cultivate this. Do not wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working." Henri Matisse

In these two paintings (Podcast II detail on left), I have begun to explore a new series in my works...the theme of Growth: The Miracle in the Seed.  So many of my paintings explore this already, how nature grows and changes and how that is reflective of personal development. Where we come from, who we become...how we were made, how we change...why only some thrive and why...

Treasury Tutorial

I heart Etsy, the site to go to find all things handmade and vintage that you never new you had to have. Etsy is a haven for independent artists and artisans to sell their work online, and once you stumble into it, there's a bit of a black hole effect because each great find leads you to another even greater find. 


From time to time, my paintings and prints are selected by other Etsy Members to be featured in their Treasuries. Like today, this print of an original painting of mine (which is sold and now lives in St. Louis) was selected to be in an Etsy Treasury entitled "Raspberry & Green Whimsey".

The Edge of the Deep Green Sea

As an avid Etsian, this always brightens my day, but when I share the news with others unfamiliar with the site, they are a little like, "Whaaa...?"  So I thought I'd take a sec to explain what exactly a Treasury is. 


The Treasury is a member-curated gallery of short-lived lists of 12 hand-picked items each. Members can feature their favorite items, items selected on a theme, or just whoever they like. The Treasury is not intended for self-promotion, but instead to acknowledge and share the many cool things for sale on Etsy. Etsy Admins often choose an exceptional Treasury list to promote on the home page.
So there ya go, now you know. 

A Poem for Wednesday

Trial

20 " x 24"

Oil and Mixed Media inCanvas

Fine Art Prints of this original painting are available on my Etsy site.

How Is Your Heart? 

by Charles Bukowski

during my worst times

on the park benches

in the jails

I always had this certain

contentment-

I wouldn't call it

happiness-

it was more of an inner

balance 

that settled for

whatever was occuring

and it helped in the

factories

and when relationships 

went wrong

with the 

girls. 

it helped 

through the

wars and the

hangovers

the backalley fights

the 

hospitals. 

to awaken in a cheap room

in a strange city and

pull up the shade-

this was the craziest kind of

contentment

and to walk across the floor

to an old dresser with a 

cracked mirror- 

see myself, ugly,

grinning at it all. 

what matters most is

how well you 

walk through the

fire.

A Poem for Wednesday

Conception

30" x 40"

Oil and Mixed on Canvas

Fine Art Prints of this original painting are available on my Etsy site.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know The place where the sidewalk ends. Shel Silverstein

Stumbling Through Memories

16" x 20" x 1.5"
Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

The recent move and coming across lots of boxes filled with things that trigger memories has really stirred up some feelings I had forgotten about, sort of like dust being raised when you lift things you haven't touched in years. That's how the title for this new painting emerged.

We got Apple TV in our new house, it's a really fun new toy. We have music playing through every room in the early evenings, and it just makes that hectic time of day a little more tolerable when you can listen to something mellow. I complied an all-DMB playlist, and although I've heard the song, "Grey Street" a million times, it struck a chord with me last week when I listened to the lyrics. It's a deceiving song because it has such a light and happy melody, but the lyrics are much darker than the tune implies. I really worked from that place in my latest painting.

Oh look at how she listens
She says nothing of what she thinks
She just goes stumbling through her memories
Staring out onto Grey St.
And she thinks...hey
How did I come to this
I dreamed myself thousand times around the world
But I can't get out of this place
There's an emptiness inside her
And she'd do anything to fill it in
But all the colors mix together
To grey, and it breaks her heart

Oh how she wishes it was different
She prays to God most every night
And though she swears He doesn't listen
There's still a hope in her He might
She says I pray
But they falls on deaf ears
Am I supposed to take it on myself
To get out of this place
There's a loneliness inside her
And she'd do anything to fill it in
And though it's red blood bleeding from her now,
It feels like cold blue ice in her heart
When all the colors mix together
It's grey, and it breaks her heart

There's a stranger speaks outside her door
Says take what you can from your dreams
Make them real as anything
It will take the work out of the courage
She says please
There's a crazy man creeping that's outside my door
I live on the corner of Grey Street
And the end of the world

Oh there's an emptiness insider her
And she'd do anything to fill it in
And though it's red blood bleeding from her now
It's more like cold blue ice in her heart
She feels like kicking out all the windows
And setting fire to this life
She could change everything about her
Using colors bold and bright
But all the colors mix together
To grey
And it breaks her heart...Oh and it breaks her heart

The Edge of the Deep Green Sea

16" x 20"
Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

"and so we watch the sun come up
from the edge of the deep green sea
and she listens like her head's on fire
like she wants to believe in me" -The Cure

The tentacles of an octopus first inspired this painting, sort of a reflection of how tied down I feel at times. With the children so young, there are often days when I don't leave the house or even make it out to the studio to paint. (If I don't make it outside for a morning run before the household wakes up then I'm REALLY cranky.) As much as I love all three of my precious babies, it's simply a hard time feeling so occupied with constantly meeting their basic needs.

As I worked on this piece, I noticed this painting slowly started to take on a more abstract look while preserving the feeling of something aquatic. I almost quit working on it because it was frustrating me so much and I hate feeling like I am fighting with my paintings, but then I had a breakthrough on Friday. Friday happened to be a special day as my husband and I were celebrating our fifth anniversary. I like to think that April 2 is a lucky day for me all around, and I'm glad a little luck made its way onto the canvas.

Am feeling very "oceanic" lately...ever since I did the two paintings below I feel like I am stumbling upon a new series inspired by the mysteries of the sea.

A Poem for Wednesday

Every Breath is a Small Victory
16" x 20" x 1.5"
Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas

Each Wednesday I am going to feature a favorite poem along with a painting of mine I feel reflects it. The paintings are all available on my Etsy site. Here's an old favorite, a lovely but sad verse that takes me back to college days:

A Sad Child, by Margaret Atwood
You're sad because you're sad.
It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.
Go see a shrink or take a pill,
or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll
you need to sleep.

Well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
Count your blessings. Better than that,
buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.

Forget what?
Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that was done to you
the day of the lawn party
when you came inside flushed with the sun,
your mouth sulky with sugar,
in your new dress with the ribbon
and the ice-cream smear,
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.

My darling, when it comes
right down to it
and the light fails and the fog rolls in
and you're trapped in your overturned body
under a blanket or burning car,

and the red flame is seeping out of you
and igniting the tarmac beside you head
or else the floor, or else the pillow,
none of us is;
or else we all are.

I made the front page of Etsy!

Effervescence
8" x 12"
Watercolor and Ink on Paper

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34351338

In the midst of celebrating the arrival of our beautiful baby boy this weekend, it was fun to learn that my painting, Effervescence, was featured on the front page of Etsy. It was like the icing on the cake of one of the most wonderful weekends of my life. The exposure was great and my art reached so many people who otherwise would not have seen it.

These little circles remind me of bubbles, or pebbles, and these circular images have always been a part of what I create. This painting was done on heavy watercolor paper. I don't often work on paper, but when I do, I find that it is often a freer way to express my ideas. There's something about getting a painting started on a blank gallery-wrapped canvas that always intimidates me...I wonder if that will ever go away? Probably not, but it's those creative butterflies that I can't live without.

Release

18.5" x 17.5"

Oil and Mixed Media on Wood Panel

I found two wood panels in the studio and thought this painting was a nice compliment to the one on wood I posted yesterday. I usually work on canvas, so these were a fun experiment. The cellular images represent looking at your feelings under a microscope, examining them, and working through the magnitude of what you find. Releasing your feelings, letting them go, is more beneficial than harboring things inside. For me, art is my release.

"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment."

Eckhart Tolle

Evolution

18.5" x 17.5"

Oil and Mixed Media on Wood Panel

"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive."

- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology

Evolution generally refers to any process of change over time. Humans, like all living organisms, undergo this change. Our thoughts, our behaviors and emotions, our styles and our preferences are subject to this phenomenon. In this painting I wanted to express my own personal evolution, the gradual processing which I have changed into a different, more complex, and hopefully better form.

I will be featuring this painting among several other new works at FG Gallery in Arlington for the "Sixties" show this Saturday night. Come out for a great opening party, fun music and lots of interesting art!

This Woman's Work

10" x 24"

(3 panels, 8" x 10" each)

Acrylic, Wire, Ink and Plaster Gauze on Gallery Wrapped Canvas

This triptych piece is a very personal expression of my views of womanhood and motherhood. I was listening to Maxwell's "This Woman's Work" in the studio, hence the title, and I can't help but be overcome with emotion every time I hear this inspirational song. Current condition aside, it always makes me think of that movie "She's Having a Baby" with Kevin Bacon, and more recently the piece that Tyce D'Orio choreographed about battling breast cancer on So You Think You Can Dance. Powerful stuff.

I used wire and plaster gauze to create some wonderful texture on this piece, it is so inviting to the touch. I think each panel is interesting on its own:

"This Woman's Work" Lyrics:

Pray God You Can Cope
I'll Stand Outside
This Woman's Work
This Woman's Worth
Ooh, It's Hard On A Man
Now His Part Is Over
Now Starts The Craft... Of The Father

I Know You've Got A Litte Life In You Yet
I Know You've Got A Lot Of Strength Left
I Know You've Got A Little Life In You Yet
I Know You've Got A Lot Of Strength Left

I Should Be Crying But I Just Can't Let It Show,
I Should Hoping But I Can't Stop Thinking,
All The Things We Should've Said That I Never Said,
All The Things We Should Have Done That We Never Did,
All The Things We Should've Given But I Didn't,
Oh Darling Make It Go,
Make It Go Away...

Give Me These Moments,
Give Them Back To Me,
Give Me A Little Kiss,
Give Me Your Hand Baby