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.