Journey to the Southlands and a Zillion Projects

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Hello my hopeful readers. We are all so hopeful these days. Hoping to stay afloat on the receding financial waters of our economy, hoping to suddenly be discovered, hoping all the good things last, hoping Sharon will actual write another blog entry someday...
Well here it is! That's one thing checked off your crowded list.
I went away. To LA. That's Los Angeles. For the holiday. The OTHER holiday. not Christmas. Its like the Other white meat- only we don't eat pork. yup.
Almost all the galleries I'd earmarked for checking out while down south were gone, vacated, kaput. Obviously next time I better check how long they'd been around and call them to make sure they were still hanging in there (pun intended). I did get over to The Glass Garage, where I someday hope to show my work. Its fabulous, but out of my league. That is the league of artists who no one has heard of. But they show great surreal/magical realism styles paintings. They show the work of Margo Selski, who I want to emulate. I really hope she is older than I am because one might get to feeling bad about what one has or hasn't accomplished in comparison. Three young daughters and a professor of art and her awesome narrative paintings are selling for upwards of 16K. That seems like a good reality...if busy. Do you know her? Because I'd really love to get her on the phone and ask how the HECK she does it. And she manages to keep her backgrounds almost abstract, drawing ones eye to certain areas (instead of allll areas which I can't seem to get away from). But I was thrilled to visit the Glass Garage which its very kind currator on a rainy day. And I did find one other gallery down in Venice Beach that might be interested, maybe, in a year, maybe. I really need to talk to an artist that knows LA, to give me the shake down.
meanwhile, back at studio central I have three unfinished paintings, some in the throws of some really hard to look at underpainting tones, one painting drawn and waiting that needs to be finished by early January for a local competition, and I just got a bread and butter job painting personalized holiday ornaments. It'll buy the butter but not the bread. AND I have a cold.
But life is good and instead of working I got in the hot tub with the boys and plan to walk and look at all the lovely holiday lights this evening with good friends.
I hope you are well!

Craft Fair Production and two more Fairy Houses

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Please note the new fairy house workshop date is January 30th. That's a Saturday- from 10-2 including lunch. What a deal! Only a couple spaces left so please contact me to sign up now! (see flyer in my next blog entry).

Matching prints to vintage frames to sell at craft fairs. probably around 40 dollars each. So very reasonable! What a deal! These are the bigger ones. I have some true miniature sized frames- the fabulous old ones- mostly oval, as well. What do you think my readers, should I have black friday deals? First ten shoppers get 15% off! That's not bad for the Fairy Houses which are around a 100 each. Doors open at 6:30! Line up!;)

Another week another two fairy doll houses completed. Having fun with wood themes. The material really decides the final shape. Eucalyptus Oasis came out all upright and tall. I like craggy twisty trees, and feared Eucalyptus would not please me but in the end it has its own interesting character- its round skylight roof and regal beams. Redwood Retreat has more of the usual bends and twists, with the one amusing anecdote being that its main branch destroyed my clippers. my BIG clippers. and the bridge of my nose, swollen and a bit blue under foundation, since the metal of the clipper SNApped and flew back at me. The tree won. But I was able to snap the branch anyway. weird.




Redwood Retreat
front, close-up back, and another close-up
sorry the swing is hard to see as it is perpendicular to the front, and there is actually a third platform under the 'swinging lights'.




Eucalyptus Oasis
front, back, close up of swing

Fairy House Workshop

..Please note the new workshop date! I already have some people signed up so only two spaces left!

"Master Crafter!" Doesn't that sound swell?

Fairy Doll Houses

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Grape Vine Villa
2' Tall

Can you believe, dear reader, it has been an entire month since my last post. I do apologize! The holiday season has crept up on me, hiding behind blue skys and chicken eggs and suddenly I realized I needed to get with the times. That is, deal with this crap economy by spreading out even more than I already have. So Im on full time Fairy doll house construction mode. Empty tables at Craft Fairs await me. Im even trying to arrange a workshop on how to make your own fairy house. Join us if you like. Space is limited so write me asap! December 6th. Ill post the flier momentarily.

So some alternate personality I have of crafty mom has taken over my studio. Bark and bits of moss, scavenged from graveyard stone and pruned trees litters the floor. The boys play with the branches and pieces even as I attempt to organize them and there is more than the usual chaos. Still- as impractical as these all natural doll houses are, I am really loving sculpting again. I have flashbacks to being a kid with a couple nails and my fathers hammer in the wood pile. Its terribly fun, though my three unfinished paintings glare at me from their easel perches and I long also to finish them.



Madrone Manor
2' Tall






Chateau de Curly Willow
2' Tall

Chateau de Curly Willow -back view
2' Tall
Pricing these houses, like anything else I do (darn my obsessive detailing!) is a pain in the *!*. It takes five or six hours to finish one, not including collecti0n times. Other people sell theirs for upward of 200 but I'm trying to keep them down around a hundred. Who knows if they'll sell. I'm putting them in the window at Kidspot at Coddingtown mall tomorrow until early December when they'll join their warm fuzzy friends at school craft fairs.
Wish me luck...

New Miniature Painting - The Hunter

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Hunter
9.5" X 7"

Another miniture portrait for you, kind reader, to view. Is it odd I am, in part, coping work from the past? I HATE actually copying works- like artists that hover before some masterpiece at the museum trying to emulate the work. how dull. Sure you can learn so much but, hello- yawn. These don't feel that way. Maybe the animal head makes it mine?
I want to do a whole family portrait of deer. At first I thought to borrow the figures from Las Mininas by Velasquez (I love the little girl but a dwarf deer?), but I want something less roomy. Any ideas?

Works in Progress and Magical Realism

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Rower 2'x4'
click on image to enlarge

Generally, when my painting is done it's done, but every now and then I get a challenging piece that just won't finish, darn it. So it is with "Rower". The teal chair just wasn't vibing with the rest. A case of really liking a part but knowing that that part really wasn't working in the whole picture. It had to go to get to a better place. Sorta like life, eh kind reader? Certain relationships? It just wasn't happening, persnickety thing, so I attacked it with a sander. Please don't think I'm suggesting you do this to your boyfriend.

Anyway- the painting almost seems a bit spooky small like this, especially since I sanded her face off. Ill have to let it sit a couple weeks before I know where to go next. Even like this though its so much more interesting. So much art out there is just plum boring. I fear being dull or not unique or too trendy, which is equally boring. I want to give my pieces all a magical air. I like the concept of magical realism created by many South and Latin American writers (Marquez, Borges, even Calvino)- just a stretch of life- symbolism and the metaphorical layered onto real life.

And another miniature almost done- a sneak peek at my desk! The three wooden boxes are rolling about in my head waiting for their tripich images to magically appear. Perhaps a mobile?

The Rower and Other Challenges like Religion

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Rower
2'X4'

Wouldn't it be nice if just because a painting pushed our abilities it was also a masterpiece? Sometimes in the past I have felt this to be the case but not this time. I worked from an older sketch I had. What works when it is only 4" X 8" doesn't not necessarily work when it is 2' X 4'. Ironically shrinking it down again for the blog makes it look better again. Perhaps I will go back into the painting in a few months or perhaps it will grow on me. Parts of The Rower make me happy. The child God rowing in the sky over wood-grain Buddhist clouds. The feet (which are my squat little feet).


My son entered Saturday school and its been in my brain- I always saw a lot of really great kids come out of various religions weekend youth groups, but then again it is religion in all its crazy doctrine and all the good and bad that religious groups have done in the past. All that history sure muddies the spiritual waters. And I am wary. I've never painted God. Goodness gracious why take up that one? Next I'll be doing illustrations for kids bible books with old men Gods and God Light (actually there have been some awesome religious illustrations not to mention..oh that entire history of Italian Renaissance art!). But it snuck up on me-really. I didn't realize the child might be God until after I'd painted it. And no i don't think of God as a person at all yet to be anthropomorphic He got a bit sneaky this time, and I don't really mind. Oh and I am actually planning to paint a piece called Beware of God that will in fact have a surreal sort of Old Man God and god light as well!
Happy Roshashana!

The Art World and Childrens World, Never the Two Shall Meet

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Why is it that as an artist revealing that you have kids makes one seem unprofessional? As though the world of motherhood should be kept a secret from the world of art. Kids just aren't cool in the art world. Do I believe this?

I recall having to go show my art to the owner of a upscale bistro, with my 18 month old son in tow. This was NOT intentional. The person who was supposed to be watching him for me had gotten sick for the zillionth time and I was stuck. Would it matter? Phineas sat in his stroller, happily turning a string cheese stick into goo while I showed this rather serious young entrepreneur my portfolio. He kept glancing at Phin, expressionless. He seemed nervous. Who could blame him- after all you never know when an 18 month old child will suddenly free themselves from stroller restraints and launch themselves at your neck like the Monty Python Rabbit. He had supposedly seen all this artwork before on my web site and said he was interested. About half way through the portfolio he came to my portrait of Jim Hensen as St.Francis blessing the muppet animals. He balked. He didn't even know who Jim Henson and the muppets were. He didn't get it at all. Suffice to say I didn't get the show.

Most museums these days have a childrens area but one rarely sees kids in the adult areas. While I love having a space for the children to get their hands in the art, I wonder if we aren't working against ourselves. Traveling to Europe I was amazed at seeing children in galleries and museums. The mom or dad would be leaning down and explaining things or asking questions. The children seemed, amazingly, well behaved and interested. How wise to raise them to appreciate art! Not only by giving them bits of fabric and beads to glue on a cardboard crown or whatever the craft of the day but by treating their eyes to amazing artwork.

When I try to bring kids into galleries in the city most proprietors think me mad. But they should not be surprised when so few adults value and want to buy original art.

Sorry- I wanted to post St.Henson for y'all kind readers but I don't seem to have a digital image of it! Still have the painting though so I'll post it tomorrow when the light is better for a quick shot. Meanwhile here is a sketchbook page- the Rhino of Change, for Sarah Soward , the Rhino girl who comes with me to the zoo but only really wants to draw the rhinos.

Kindergarten and Beyond the Used Car Fiasco and a New Box

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My goodness, this feels like my old attempts at keeping a journal when I was a child. Almost every entry started with 'well, I haven't written in a long time...'. But I swear this time is an anomaly. I've been dealing with the great used car search (three potential cars didn't even pass their diagnostic tests). I totaled my old wagon and had only a couple weeks to find a new one. I now know a great deal about used wagons of all makes, as well as newer small SUV types (feel free to pick my brain if you need to). Suffice to say I didn't get a speck of painting in. So you can imagine my JOY at finally getting to not only paint again but with Benjamin starting kindergarten getting to paint 3 days and 2 evenings a week!! I might try to find some solid paying sort of work one morning a week (to pay for my CAR payments- my increasingly badly adult and complex existence in America that consists of buying things then insuring those things. House and Cars and Health and etc etc and with ALL of that I still think its sad I didn't save enough so I could go out and get a big screen TV. Yeash. Hook line and sinker capitalist. And wasn't I clever to go to ART school? So I could make buckets of money after graduation? There really must be a better way!)
ahem.
As I was saying. Benjamin started kindergarden. See the days stretching out as his body stretches up and his mind expands to encompass so much information and to develope and determine who he is and who he will be. His first step on a long path to himself. Here he is starting out! Day 1 of a possible 3,600+.


I'm almost done with that last painting- "Rower", though it needs to sit and think about itself a bit. Meanwhile on to a new hanging box painting. A peek into the process. I am really not careful enough with measuring- my craft lacks. But the box comes together after some tops and bottoms and a lot of sanding. How modern these cubical box paintings for small spaces. How modular. Its so Dwell Magazine.

A New Painting

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Trying something new. A drawing from my sketch book as source (not source of inspiration-that happens often, but source of photo). Usually I have photos to work from and so my work gets rather tight. So this time I can't take photos. The tree was drawn in Normandy at the base of Mont San Michelle, the girl at a cafe, and the little rower from my head. I did abscond with a photo from the internet for the rower, as he is a bit rough comparatively.
So you can see my usual process though. I transferred the drawing with some really horrid carbon paper that gave me just enough of a line here and there to be able to use my Chinese brush and ink to find the rest of the drawing on the wood. Then a bit of staining and Ill carve - the tree and...? there's so many ways to go from here!

Its been really bloody hot and my studio is my garage, oh joy, so one wall is a huge metal heat radiating monstrosity. I hung a red heat repelling blanket on it and various sketches but lordy lordy that didn't do much. So I can only be in there for short periods of time right now (in the winter it is icy cold, but heaters do better than fans at battling extremes of temp.)

I really ought to be updating the work on my web site or mopping or some such domestic chore, but I fear my brain has melted. So I'm off to stare blankly at the piles of laundry and toys and smears of dirt in the shape of small fingers.

Lady Squirrel, Show Canceled, and the End of Summer

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Lady Squirrel
I'm too lazy to go down to the studio but I think its about 7 inches high. One of the best pieces, I think of this silly series thus far. Sometimes even a size 0 brush isn't small enough. How rediculous. Its like buying jeans nowadays, where the marketers keep lowering what a size, say 12, is, so that someone can feel more petite. In old patterns I have to buy 12 sizes up from my current size. Ludicrous! Actually, no, brushes aren't that bad.. But still. A zero?


Sad news- I think the August 29th show is canceled. Either the gallery is being sold or under new management or some such tumultuous affair. I SO need to find a gallery that isn't in economic straights. If anyone can suggest one that would jib with my style I am all ears. If you hook me up with a good gallery I'll paint you a self portrait of myself with ten ears...all ears...get it. I think I need to go sketch that now in my book.


Summer nears an end and soon my oldest will enter the Totalitarian world of elementary school. No tears shall be shed at this cross-roads event, I can't WAIT to get more time to paint. But seeing him in this new identity I am so proud I might get a bit verklempt.And I have been painting less for these last couple weeks so I can spend time with these manic little men. It's odd I don't sketch or paint them more as I find them such lovely specimens of humanity. But I have been taking advantage of their willingness to pose for me.

Why Be A Professional Artist? and Summer With a Toddler

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What a strange profession I am in! Is there any other carreer or job besides being an artist that one works in because its the only way one has any time to do it? Most artists love their work. I sure love to create things. But I can't help wondering, How the heck did I end up an artist? And why?

Being an artist is almost always a really a lousy career. Few people are very successful at it financially. I know of a few, and amongst those few at least half feel they have sold out, or aren't really doing what they want to do. I suppose if one can make it work it's pretty priceless. And how does one go about becoming a 'sucessful' professional artist? Should I hire my own business manager like Schnabel? Should I tote bad reproductions of my work to all the galleries on the west coast? Should I go back to full time illustration and make someones images in a two week turnaround? Should I get a desk job and paint two nights a week and on the weekend? Should I take on any job that uses any sort of creativity? Should I move to New York? Should I scale down my paintings and and sell prints on Etsy? (actually I plan to open an Etsy shop soon for selling prints, as well as toting my bad reproductions down to LA where I think I'd have more luck matching my art to a welcoming gallery but why why why?).

Why? Why do we do it? Is there nothing else I'm good at? I don't remember being 5 years old and saying "I want to be an artist". I guess we just paint and paint and paint and eventually start to sell the paintings because they are piling up in the garage/bedroom/livingroom/shed, and after all, eating is nice, as is buying more art supplies to support this habit.

Some guy from Freecycle wrote to ask me why my handle (on Freecycle) was ArtWithoutReason. I think I scared him because he never responded to the somewhat lengthy account I gave as a reason. But seriously- there is enough art in this world. California is up to her pretty neck in artists! They are like a poor plauge on this coast. And beauty? There is enough beauty in the world- the world itself is amazingly beautiful. And my 'vision'? Is it so necessary to add another persons ideas or outlook or vision to the world? Has art ever REaaLLy had an impact? Changed peoples way of seeing for the better? Should I do somehing just because I do it well or even better than some other people?

So why the heck be a professional artist? What do you think?

While you are considering this question please enjoy these completely unrelated photographs of summer with a toddler.

General Quail, Another Miniature Painting

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Here you are my revered readers- another miniature painting.
This series is so impractical. So much little detail in such a small piece! But I'm strangely entertained by these odd little animal people of the past. I strayed a bit on General Quail, giving him his clover background instead of the more traditional curtains or what have you. Though, when I taught the history of Elizabethan Miniature painting I loved best the symbolism some artists worked into the background. I recall flames and rose vines. All suggesting burning desire and etc etc. So perhaps this skinny necked General is looking for his lucky clover? Or perhaps just looking to eat the bug that ate the leaf.
This one will hang by a ribbon bow, traditional style, attached to the back.

I've just drawn today a Miniature Squirrel Nobel Lady. Very Ornate. Never will you meet more regal a squirrel ("I want a trained squirrel!"). Coming soon to a blog near you!

Benjamin is in summer school in the mornings and yet somehow I am getting LESS done when he is gone, still trailed by the grasping hands of young Phineas. I hope this is not a foreshadowing of my [lack of] activities during kindergarten. Still I must remind myself daily to spend some time with my older son while I still have him, mostly, to myself. So today with an odd overlap of daycare I was able to play Candyland with Ben for a precious untoddlerated hour.

New Show Date Change

Just a quick note to let you know that the opening for the show at the Pallete Gallery in Healdsburg that Ill be participating in has been change to August 29th. The show will run for six weeks.

Letting Go of the Original Vision

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4'X2' Letting Go

The balloons were tied to my clothes line for a week. I took so many photos of them out in the sun I near on got sun stroke. From sun stroke to brush stroke. Sounds like the title of an article in Weekend Artists magazine. Originally and until a couple days ago the balloons were multi-colored. I just couldn't balance all that brightness. Finally I realized they needed to be all white to blend with the sky and I had to let go of that original vision. But what a fabulous example of how layering can really add dimension and enhance the finished piece. I think if there hadn't been a bright orange, celadon blue, and grass green balloon in the mix it never would have glowed like this final painting.


I've never painted clouds before (or balloons) on such a scale and it was quite challenging and fun. I held Benjamins hand in the air and sketched it directly onto the painting. His little fingers flexed and rolled and straightened alien long but the final, I think, worked out so all is well. Thank goodness the boys don't mind being free models. (okay perhaps there was a promise of ice cream).

Life Isn't Fair

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Well, the tempest of creative energy that hit me finally moved away to more temperate studios. I have nothing to show from the last week save two alllmost finished pieces and a few not so finished ones. Why these waves of energy? I know women who have four children and throw enormous block parties and go dancing on the weekend and sleep six hours or less a night, and don't tire or get sick. I shit you not. How the hell do they do it? Why are they so blessed with energizer bunny like attributes while I come to the end of the roller coaster ride and crash for two weeks? And of course it's these crazy frenatic ladies who bear eighty children and populate the planet with MORE perma-charged children, and I am left in their wake.

I always over-do it. Then I burn out. Then my annoying chronic condition flares up and my body says, "laundry? hell no! Painting? uh-uh. Sit on the couch and stare out the window while small children climb mount Mommy, puncturing your ribs with their pointy apendages? You bet!". So while the desire to paint is making my brain spin I have to still my self. (my more zen like, less gripey self might say something meaningful like- these periods of so called calm are when I imagine up my next series of paintings, when my creative self refreshes, but Im not feeling so pleasent as all that right now).

And people say- ohhh- young children are just so wearing-just wait until they are in school. My mother is one such person who says this. But at my age she raised my brother and I while working on her PhD disertation while taking care of a ranch full of animals while working a part time job while cooking and housekeeping for my rather traditional father. Of course NOW she can't babysit Phineas and Benjamin for more than two hours without collapsing, exhausted, and rushing home. So I guess she just delayed burn out. Maybe the mom of four, who, by the way, is also a part time nurse (yeash) will also burn out someday. And why does frenetic nurse lady get the parents who can't WAIT to take the grandkids for a weekend, hell a whole week!

It's just not fair. I really hate it when life isn't fair. It really gets my goat.

Persimmon Thief and the August 1st Show as well as Grumbling About Art Reproduction

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Sometimes the influences of having lived in Taiwan, not to mention having had an interest in Asian art from the time I was about ten years old, comes through quite obviously. This painting, Persimmon Thief, was first drawn in with Chinese ink and brush so that, when I carved the branch out, I retained the feel of those brush lines I so love. Of course, it's tall vertical shape is like a scroll as well. Painted about a year ago (unlike all the other just finished pieces in this blog) it hangs in my husbands Edward Jones office where his clients say they feel like the raccoon, getting away with their higher percentages and dividends and whatnot's, i.e. their share of the financial pie.

Oh but I do so despise (I know that's a strong word but it is such a frustration) art reproduction. This painting is taller than myself and I am forced to tile together almost seven separate photos to create one. Each photos light is slightly different as the camera adjusts itself and by the time I've fiddled the thing into existence it is never quite what is on the wood. This piece is not so 'minty' colored. And it is so hard to view it so small. sigh. grumble grumble.

A few of my paintings (and likely this one) will be hanging what I hope to be a fabulous show August 1st in Healdsburg at the Palette Gallery (who's name may change very soon- Ill keep ya posted). A group show, we have all done labels for EricKent wines, a really fabulous and unusually artist-friendly label. EricKent will be pouring excellent wine as you peruse the wonderful art. Please join us! And check out Eric Kent Wines homepage to see all their fabulous artists and wines!

Studio Contour, Sharing a Studio With Children

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Someone recently asked me, incredulously, how I can share my studio with my kids. Okay, okay, so its not really ideal. Generally either I'm helping them with a project or listening to their sleeping sighs through a monitor, or berating them for trying to sneak into the Mommy area once again. And the shared floor space is always a mess of small toys missing small parts, strings, a few washers strung with wires and bungee cords into what Ben has deemed his latest teleportation device, picture books, screw drivers and half dismantled electronics, as well as glasses of murkey paint water, and lately a scary tin can half filled with desicated black olives.

As you may guess, gentle reader, this is not an easy enviornment to paint in, and Im certain passers by get to hear through the thin metal barrier of the garage door the earful I lay on the boys for their mess. Or perhaps they overhear my sad attempts at bribery- a fruit leather treat in exchange for cleanliness.

On the other hand how wonderful it is to flee to this space at nap time or in the evening and know I can rejoin the family as needed without driving across town. And how wonderful to see their creations emerge and line up for display as mine do. And if a small boy, sleepy, comes and finds me still painting, time can be bought to finish using up my mixed color while said child creates another deluge of mess on the other side of my dog gate barrier.

I tried to capture the chaos with my camera but the photo was just that- chaos, and imposible to read. So I tried a contour drawing instead. A single line threaded around haphazardly seemed more sucessful. Thanks to my friend who suggested contour, I shall try to draw other artists studios this way when I interview them. You can make out their table and supplies, my dog gate covered half down with a a tarp and my easles and sewing/small painting desk, as well as the edge of my round table that sits closer to the garage door. I edited out the clutter.

I'm frustrated not to be painting much this week but Im fighting some fatigue causing chronic malaise and must also do other things like shower invites for a deserving friend and wretched laundry. I can't wait to show you my Quail General or the large piece on the easle, which is trying my patience.

And Yet Another Miniature, Jackal, and A Sappy Bit on Being a Parent and an Artist

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Jackal
6"X8"

Being an artist and a parent means updating my blog by pressing as softly on the keyboard keys as possible while they sleep in bed behind me.
Being an artist and a parent means occasionally destroying my brush by forgetting to clean it because I had to RUN from my painting to attend to some duty like scraped knee kissing and sibling or cat claw removal.
Being an artist and a parent means letting go of keeping floors clean and laundry folded.
Being an artist and a parent means making sure the caps on the varnish, painting mediums, and acetate containers are screwed down really tight.
Being an artist and a parent means enclosing the studio behind a dog security gate/fence while my kids run amuk in the rest of my studio like chickens with their heads cut off and somehow miraculously still concentrating on painting.
Being an artist and a parent means always having an ear leaning away from the project.
Being an artist and a parent means finding a way to let them participate and create their own always amazing (to me) art.
Being an artist and a parent means sometimes putting down the child to take up the brush, and sometimes putting down the paintbrush to hug the child.

Ibis, Another Miniature Painting, and the Possibility of Interviews

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Ibis 6"X 4"


Just a quick post today. I don't usually post on the weekend (you know, in the TWO big weeks I've been blogging so far!) but I am trying to write at least three week day posts a week and last week was a bit post slim.

All this blogging about myself feels so narcissistic, and anyway, how much can I personally write about being both parent and artist? So I am compiling a list of interview questions for parents who make art at home while they also don the mantle of parent. It may take some time to actually finish these lists and pin down interview times so please, kind reader, bear with me and all this me-me-me-writing until then. I promise the interviews will be worth waiting for!

My miniatures aren't all that miniature, just so you know. Ibis was actually the first one, and a bit rough, but also the smallest (by a couple inches). I added the curtain last night, which helped ground the bird. And Jackel is done as of last night as well, but too wet to photograph.

Printing Lace Shadows and Inheritences

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Lace Shadows
4'X2'



One month after I jetted off to Taiwan to see what was up with that guy Norman and I, my step father passed away. I didn't have enough money to fly back to the states and my mom told me not to try to return so I didn't. But a year later, when I did manage to get back she had gotten rid off just about everything that my stepdad had owned. Actually-everything. I had nothing to remember him by and being the sadly materialistic person that I am I was quite distraught.

But then, about a year ago I started collecting old crocheted bits of lace from craigslist, garage sales and flea markets. I mentioned this in passing to my mother. It turned out my step dad actually knew how to make lace and my mom still had one of his pieces, albeit a bit ripped. I sewed the lace onto a pillow, embroidering what lines were missing. The other pieces of lace I have found are either speckling my house like the freckles on my hands or being used in a new series of paintings I am working on. I actually roll oil paint onto the lace and print it, wood cut style onto my paintings, and then carve around them a bit. It's fun. I sold the first one, "Stork", already, done in my favorite long vertical, about 6 feet tall.

I just finished Lace Shadows, but instead of leaving only the color of the unfinished wood cuts I stained the wood lamp black in the shadowy cuts and rolled the lighter hue over to catch the edges. I am currently working on a sky themed piece to balance all the dark shadow.