Sadly, it seems I’ve been spending more time behind the wheel than in front of my easel this summer. Happily, there’s something to see while driving about. I’ve particularly enjoyed the local street art the intersection of Stockton and Taylor where there is a sad concrete underpass. Someone had noticed it was in desperate in need of some humanizing! For me, this spot combines color field painting with elements of …
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This is the vision I had in mind when I set out for Elizabeth’s blackberry bush with my pruners this morning. I have been collecting china that lets me believe I could drink a Nova Scotia summer in a tea cup! I spent many summers collecting wild blackberries from brambles a good deal taller that I was in the woods behind our family home. I’d come back all scratched …
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Fiddleheads take me back out east to a creekside forest in springtime Nova Scotia where I gathered buckets of these tender spirals with my friend Marge. It was a cool, damp morning years ago somewhere between Wallace and Tatamagouche and I’ll never forget it. I l just love that feeling of gathering in the wild – blue berries, black berries I’m in – though I do draw the line at …
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OK, so maybe I always liked dressing up, but these fun themed exhibition receptions, like tonight’s Fur, Feather and Fins reception at the Pacific Art League, are always a great excuse to pull together a look that relates to your work! It’s not a costume party of anything, I’m not going to wear a feathered mask or wings but I do enjoy drawing subtle references to my work in my …
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I ran into a crow today, or rather, I think someone else did, with a car. And with Fur Feathers and Fins opening in just a few days at the Pacific Art League and dead birds being on my mind for a while now I just had to gently scoop it up and take it back to my studio for a closer look. Nothing compares to studying the …
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I’ve been wearing my lucky feathered themed jewelry, willing that my painting End of Spring would be selected for the Pacific Art League of Palo Alto’s regionally juried exhibition “Fur, Feathers and Fins” and happily, I found out the other day that it was! And while it may sound silly or superstitious to be relying on charms when it comes to such matters, there’s nothing frivolous about positive thinking! These …
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Ah, a few days have passed since Open Studios and I’ve had a chance to complete my paperwork and wrap up paintings that were graciously left for the remainder of the exhibit. Here are the little ones in the studio window all ready to go. My feet and throat have recovered from all my marathon of hosting in heels and I’ve had time to enjoy reflecting on the experience of …
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Mmmmmmm, one of the perks of having creative friends! My film making, picture taking, yarn bombing friend, Marie Hetherington brought her artisanal ice cream to my Open Studio – Rosewater & Pistachios, it was like she’d crawled into my subconscious and designed it especially for me! For more on this amazing woman click on the photo above for her website, I’m not saying you’ll get ice cream, but who knows! …
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Lots lots of lovely people at the Los Gatos Museums Gallery’s champagne reception yesterday, including Carol Ann Graves, one of my favorite art patrons! You’d hardly know that the huge Saratoga Rotary Art Show was going on just down the way. I guess there are enough art lovers to go around. Not only that but it was Cinco de Mayo and the Sharks were playing the Canucks on home ice so …
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Remember Me, my casket full of forget-me-nots, is designed to exist both as part of a gallery installation to compliment my Florilegia series and in composed landscape photographs. I adore how thoroughly Victorian this piece is while still seeming somehow contemporary. I think the secret lies in the simplicity of the idea and its presentation. These flowers bloom in the spring for about a month or two which is a small window …
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I so love this project! Conceived as the first of many installation pieces to compliment my Florilegia series, this casket full of forget-me-nots combines my love of gardening, antiques and art. Rooted in of the Victorian language of flowers where the message of the forget-me-not is, not surprisingly, “remember me”. This early wicker casket is as much a basket as it is a coffin. I love the underlying sentiment of …
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Today was a perfect day, iridescent spider webs trailing from the skies and across my face on the way to work. The air was heavily scented with wisteria and lilac, all flooding through the open windows of my studio, mixing with the smell of linseed oil. NPR was talking about the secret lives of cats as seen though mini cat cams and I was finishing up a painting that my …
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Tonight I was part of a panel of artists which included Christine Oliver, Melinda Cootsana and Stephanie Maclean along with Mel Thomsen, Executive Director of SVOS preparing artists for this year’s Silicon Valley Open Studios. Here I am after our talk with Mel, Stephanie and this year’s directory. This SVOS University helped to make last year’s open studio such a success for me that I could help but want to …
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Rose Mandala has been snapped up before the paint was even dry! I’d love to fill a room with these little blooms – and maybe some giant ones too!
Some days it happens that you need to be in a lot of places at once. Today I was dropping off work that was accepted in two juried shows. I brought Cherry Blossom Spray, which was juried into the Pacific Art Leagues’s Breath of Spring by George Rivera into Palo Alto. I paused here at the original building which is currently closed for renovations before moving on to their new …
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Bed of Ghosts, found it’s way to a new home in the Santa Cruz Mountains this weekend – a surprise birthday present from husband to wife! It’s always exciting to me when a painting finds the perfect place it’s supposed to be. I’ll miss these little fawns but look forward to continuing to work with this theme: the startling glimpse of the surreal and vulnerable white in the dark and dormant …
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My TV debut is tomorrow at 5:00 am – cable access here I come! I haven’t seen how the episode turned out yet but I was in good hands with host Sally Rayn and producer Nance Wheeler and the entire crew at the Mid Peninsula Media Center (thank you everyone!) In this half hour interview I give a bit of my background and talk about my paintings on linoleum, Odessa’s …
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I adore prints! I met with Sally Rayn (host) and Nance Wheeler (producer) of Talk Art last night, prepping for my TV interview that we’ll be taping next week. I found out that my entire wardrobe is made up of TV unfriendly clothing. Prints (bye bye florals and stripes), reds, whites & billowy bohemian tents are all a no no as they do funny things on screen. I have lots …
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Here’s a parting glance at 2012 and the paintings that were sold to private collections!
Nothing like a little sparkle in the dark to give thanks for the old year and welcome in the new one! What a year it was too! My deep appreciation to everyone who helped to make 2012 the success that it was! Thanks to Tom Sloan of Metro Architects for translating my vision into a blueprint for my art studio! Thanks to Ernest Culp of Bonsai Builders and his team – Sherry, …
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