Folklife Festival 2006

Folklife Festival 2006: Seattle's gift to itself in the form of a free festival devoted to music, culture and diversity. What a joy to be a part of this amazing party.

Anyone can come and bring their instrument and participate with others in singing or playing their music. It is a calcophany of sound.

Beautiful people. Every age, race, condition and persuasion. Having fun together.

My good friends Andrew and Terry McIlrath. Terry is a painter too and Andrew is a treasure.

My booth (OK, 2 pictures spliced together with a lots left out but maybe you can get the idea of how much work I usually bring to a fair).

The fair was a huge success despite 3 days of moody Seattle weather. On the 4th day, Memorial Day, the entire city seemed to turn out for a day of sunny pleasure, dancing, making music, playing in the fountain and enjoying all the art and film and musical programs on the schedule. I took a lot of pictures and will share these with you. I really love Seattle. The city has more diversity than any other I know of and the most tolerant, loving attitude toward its multi-flavored mix. This is surely heaven right here on earth; acceptance, kindness, love. I am crazy busy and so I will just post some photos for now to give you the flavor.

Blog Eats Woman's Brain

We leave for Folklife in the morning so I am supposed to be packing, cleaning and all that but no, my friends, I am here because you are here. This is the painting i finished just in time to take to the show. This one was inevidable as where I live there are about 25 non-human animals to every human-animal. They have to sleep outside! Life is so unfair. I know they would love nice houses with central heat but the man draws the line. Only Hermanito gets to sleep on the bed.

I will post some flowers that I shot last Saturday. I did nothing all day but circle the property taking pictures and having an "appreciation" day. To be alive. To have health. To be surrounded by beauty. For beautiful food from the garden and fragrant breezes and friends and family. I never forget that I am pixie dust - here for a very short visit and then quickly again I will depart. We create our lives. Make it a good one!

Mermaid Collaborative Book

This is the front and back covers of my half of the mermaid books that Bee and I are creating together. She lives on the Atlantic coast and I live on the Pacific so the book will travel a long way in it's journey toward completion. I had no idea what I was doing so I just plunged in and did what was fun. As it turned out, I headed for the old photos of my family and so I decided to tell the story of my mer-mommies and my home. We'll see how that goes.


I did the writing on vellum with walnut ink and used Babblefish for the Spanish translation. I know just enough Spanish to know that the translation was somewhat bogus but that just made me laugh and I used it anyway.


On the "Home" page I used a transparency of a painting of a house surrounded by aluminum tape with scraffiti. Lots of glued paper and embellishments. You can probably figure it out.


This page shows my Great Grandmother and her sisters dressed in their mermaid tails. We owe everything to our mamas, our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers and beyond. Some day I will do a book to honor the men who nurtured us but I have never heard of a merman (well, beside Ethel) so that will wait. Maybe. I'll think about it. It's so much fun just making it up as I go and making it just what I want to. So Bee, it's coming your way on Monday. And I'll be watching my mailbox for her book in return.

Themes and Symbols

One of my art teachers once said that there were only a few themes in art and life; birth, death, metamorphosis, love and a few others that I’ve forgotten. Some artists are drawn to one particular theme and some to another; by deep awareness we each discover the themes that to us are recurring and meaningful.

I dream a lot at night. In a majority of these dreams I am flying, dancing on air, leaping over buildings, having great joy in my body. Floating. Traveling. I am always me; never a bird or Wonder Woman, but I can always fly and while it is thrilling and dangerous I have trust that I will not fall. So it is an act of courage, this flying as well as an act of showing off, for in most of these dreams I think I am doing something special and that people are watching with approval. I suppose that is the child in me that still delights in pleasing others and basking in the limelight.

One of the recurring themes in my paintings is of a lone woman in the act of flight. I have portrayed this activity in various ways. The painting I just finished is one of these in which I am traveling with intention; I have my little boat and I am charting a course for myself by watching for signs and heeding my intuition. This is how I see my life nowadays. I am wide awake and charting a course of my own choosing. I am no longer young and confused.


This painting is on canvas, mixed-media; acrylic, alkyd, encaustic, and collage. After I finished it I remembered an etching I did of a similar subject about 27 years ago. I searched my drawers and found the etching (a drypoint, really, with aquatint etched in) and I will share it. Someone recently called my "style" magic realism. I dont like labels in art as each painting is so individual an exploration, but I think this one is suitable because it recalls one of my favorite authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who has always been referred to as a magic realist. The etching now strikes me as the work of a very young artist but I think it is interesting how it fortells the painting I just completed.

I think I may have done this etching in 1977 or 78 and it was only the second one I'd done at that time. I wanted to write a story then of a woman who danced into a rainbow and create a handmade book of etchings to illustrate the story but I never got beyond the first two illustrations. After that I learned how to make etchings in color with multiple plates and turned to a more painterly style.

To sum up: life themes. What is your recurring dream? Or daydream. What do you doodle while you talk on the phone? Where does your mind go while you are pulling weeds or washing dishes? These are the seeds that your imagination can turn into art, be it storytelling, song or pictoral. Save them up and nurture them. You have a story that only you can tell. It is a powerful thing and it will change you and the world.

Eighty degrees

It's nearly impossible to stay indoors in this weather. The air is too fragrant, too warm. Everything is growing so fast that it changes on a daily basis and begs to be appreciated.

The lambs. The figs. The growing tomato plants and peppers. The roses which refuse to open with the exception of Therese Bugnet. The blackberries which sprout up everywhere and bite my fingers when I pull them out by the roots. Blackberries will eat us alive in Oregon if we aren't vigilant.

Then there is my trusty assistant, Hermanito, who pesters me all day long to lie down on the floor with him and tickle and pet and cuddle him in all the approved ways. If you dont do it perfectly you will get the wrath of his razor claws. Otherwise he's a pussycat.

These are beautiful, dont you think? Common little weeds. But so precious.

We brought these irises with us from our old house in Orenco. They are a rather ugly variety but they emit a powerful scent of grape kool-aid which everyone who experiences them agrees is miraculous. Beside that they were given to me by Mrs. Sharp who passed away this winter and so they remind me of her and all the loaves of bread of pies she used to send over when John and I were working late into the night preparing for the next art fair. Her name was Dorothy and she was a great role model for me. She excelled in all the old skills; sewing, baking and child rearing. She could butcher a hog and make laundry soap out of it as well as food for the table. Her stories of the "hard times" were a vivid contrast to the easy lives we live today.

Spring Fever

What does the dreamy, dazed artist do when her head is filled with cotton and the sun beckons? If she is me she counts the budding figs and peaches, checks out the blueberry blossoms and moves on to the roses to see if any of the buds have popped yet. She reads her favorite blogs; Dooce, I Blame the Patriarchy, Finslippy and Fussy. She takes pictures in the garden to put on the blog which she wonders why she has started since she is a boring writer and it just gives her one more thing to obsess over instead of heading for the studio. But in addition these are the things that fill out my life and keep me from being a compulsive painting machine. My love for John, our little created paradise and the love we share for our family and friends. Here is the man I love doing what that man loves to do.

Last night we visited our oldest daughter and her family. They left for Hawaii this morning and we all gathered for a Birthday celebration. I took the pictures of the violets and bleeding hearts in her garden.


The violets grow in Oregon as a groundcover. I have them in front of my studio instead of grass and alongside Corsican Mint. The mint is the kind the monks use to make Creme de Menthe and it smells like heaven when you walk on it. Try it in your bare feet when the ground is dewy.

My youngest daughter's family has adopted a new puppy from a dog rescue. He was so sick a week ago that he collapsed into his water dish and didn't bother to move. He hadn't eaten and seemed to have given up. After a week of force feeding by the talented dog whisperers in her house little Cooper was strong enough to take a walk on a leash. Steff says he is part Lab, part Grrrrr-man Shepherd and part something else that herds sheep. But he is all cute and very smart. He joins a house with 2 female cats and so far they are getting along splendidly.

I'll finish up with some more pictures from our place that I took this morning. Then I am headed for the studio - NO KIDDING.

The peony is covered now with enormous pom pons. This is the color they turn when they fade. Eek, there's a weed in the background!

We have pansies and chives in a tub on the deck. Handy for those morning eggs.

We have dozens of varieties of rhodies but these pink ones are my favorite.

The apple trees are covered with blossoms. The mason bees and honeybees are busy helping us pollinate (actually, they do all the work with no effort on our part. That's a pretty good deal for us.) I hope we'll have a bumper crop this autumn so we can borrow Will & Sue's cider press again and make a party out of it.

Carriage Lane Primavera

Yesterday I took my camera with me on my daily walk to the mailbox. I live halfway down a dead end lane at the edge of a small town and this is the brilliant green pasture across the street from my house. Spring has finally come to our neighborhood this week after months of drenching rain and we are very happy.


Here are twin baby goats, so young they still think they’re in their mama. She stood up and eyed me warily as I made cooing noises to get close enough for this shot. Maybe she remembers me from last fall as the lady that brought the grapevines for her and her siblings to eat. After that the entire herd would come running to the fence whenever I stepped outside my studio door.They became my new best friends.


These guys were playing a private game of keep away on the picnic table. They play together like clumsy puppies with joy and vigor apparent in every movement. Ah, youth!

Their mother uses the table too when she wants to get away from them. She climbs up on top and dominates the area while they try to scramble up to get at the food supply. She rolls her eyes piteously and looks as harried as all new mothers look.


I took a few shots of the mamas too with their beautiful faces and delicate little beards. They love to be petted and scratched, especially the little spot right between their horns. They take on the look of the ecstatic buddha and each of us has a moment together that is out of time.


After I’d picked up the mail I shot pictures of my neighbor’s cherry trees in full bloom and of my Peony that John planted for me several Mother’s Days ago. For many years after I moved to Oregon from Arizona Peonies were my favorite flower. I still love them but have switched my allegiance to roses because they bloom all through the summer and fall and fill the air with fragrance. This peony was supposed to be a deep blackish magenta which I love but instead starts out like this and fades to pale amethyst. But then, why wish for the stars when you have the moon?

Nervous Things

So did you see the Sopranos episode with the post-it note on the wall of the hospital room ? Oddly enough, in 1993, with these words on my mind, I carved this little frightened rabbit with her protective spirit hovering above. It was not at a happy time in my life. The frightened rabbit does not realize she is safe. She is poised between a dead tree and a cactus. She is living in darkness but she wants to believe and to feel safety.

I found the David Kenyon Commencement Address for 2005 on the web recently and it was the best piece of writing I’ve come across on why we should cultivate our minds to work for us instead of against us. We each possess the power to create our lives by what we believe and what we expect. We have the power.

My Botts

Here is a photo of a large etching by Bruce Botts that hangs in my office. It was printed by hand off of two separate plates laid side by side on the bed of the press. I think it is marvelous and I love Bruce's unique style. His method is interesting too. He draws all his lines by arranging salt into the resist and then washing it away before placing the plate in the acid. So instead of a thin skritchy line he gets a wide line with lots of dots and false bite that takes my breath away. He is the etcher's etcher.

Since it was impossible to get a good shot of mine, I filched a couple off his website for you.

I love the way he draws his animals. Check out the haunches on that zebra!

And I offer this one too; so that you can see my etching without the reflections. These prints are very large; my guesstimate is 54" wide.
If you love etchings (and you should!) be sure to treat yourself to Bruce's site.

Dorena Beta

Here is a freebie for you on tax day. I learned about this Mac program at a recent Users Group meeting when the developer, Craig Hickman, came and spoke to our group. Craig is a brilliant program writer and what this program does (among other things) is give you images and tools to generate collages. Go to his website at Dry Reading and read all about it. Then download it and have fun. You will love the old engravings and copywrite free images and I hope you'll share some of your creations with me as I can think of so many things to do with this program and I am sure you will too.
Here are a few of my collages. If you have Photoshop or Elements you can also export the images to use as stand alones.

OK, I gotta go now. I have some checks to write to my Uncle.

The Desktop

The junk on my desk just keeps closing in on me so that I can hardly find room to work. Every so often I have to scrape everything back to the edges so I can lay my journal down to write. I've noticed the same thing happens in the studio too. The bottles and jars of paint and the brushes creep closer and closer until I realize I am completely hemmed in and can hardly move. So I have to crack the whip and push everything back to the edges.

I looked out the studio door this morning and saw my little tulips blown sideways by the wind and rain. That's Easter in Oregon. I hope the sun is shining where you are.

Calacas y mas

The ingenuity of Mexican artisans never ceases to amaze me. With wire, springs, discarded metal objects, paper mache, sugar dough, solder and paint they create the most delightful objects. I love skeletons and have managed without trying to collect quite a number of them. They may seem repellent to some but I grew up in the desert southwest (Arizona) at a crossroad of cultures; native american, hispanic and white refugees from the dustbowl or families like ours who had moved there for health reasons. At any rate, it was a wonderful stew of humanity. When our midwestern relatives came to visit we would all load into one car and drive to Mexico for a day trip where we could cross the border and bring home souvenirs. I remember a pair of azure blue maracas that were made out of dried gourds and had wooden handles. I had never seen gourd in my life, dried or ripe. How novel to me then! And so our beige lives came to be filled with riotous color; crepe paper flowers the size of dinner plates, hammered tin trays, nested earthenware casserole dishes with glossy (lead) glazes and beautiful designs. The beauty of the Mexican culture seeped into our pores.

You could tell the houses on our street that were lived in by our neighbors from the south. As a general rule they grew more orange trees, more grape vines, more flowering vines and pecan trees. The screech of pet birds came from cages nested within the tiny jungles they'd created. I remember looking out the window of our house and seeing them lounging in chairs on their porches in the evening and wonder about that. To sit outside. But of course our porch was not a fragrant, cool oasis. We stayed in the house to avoid the heat of the evening and missed the brilliant sunsets.

There were so many differences in our cultures but it was decades before I had the time to think about those days and to reflect on them. Now that I am older I realize that the Mexicans had been living in Arizona for a lot longer than we newcomers and that they had learned how to be comfortable in that climate. But I digress.

Back on topic: clever handcrafts made of simple materials. These are sugar skulls and objects that I brought back from San Miguel Allende after a visit there several years ago to observe the Day of the Dead.


The small items are formed in molds and made from a sugar paste. I have googled instructions for them in the past and you can purchase the molds too if you are interested in a little Day of the Dead of your own. They are painted and piped with edible embellishments and although I haven't eaten them myself that is their use. Very fragile but I was determined to bring them home. Behold the clever little lamb in the shadows off to the right. So sweet.



This calaca of the gold tooth is paper mache held together with cotton twine. I just love paper mache and will do a post on that one of these days and show you some of the things my friends and I have made that are among my most prized artworks. If you haven't played with paper mache, I will try to tempt you.



This little juggling calaca in the box was a gift from my daughter on my birthday a year ago. We had just shared a muy sabroso lunch together at the excellent La Casa Del Tio Guero in Oaxaca when we came upon a park with street vendors relaxing under the shade trees. I love not only skeletons but also jugglers as they remind me so much of my own life and perhaps the lives of all women - the children, the lovers, the work, the cooking, the art making - so when we saw this little guy with his juggled skulls held in place by an invisible wire it was fated to go home with us.

If you get a chance to visit Mexico, especially if you love art, if you love to eat, if you have curiosity about the world and its people, by all means go there and delight your senses. It is the Italy our hemisphere, or maybe the India.

Artist at play

Two years ago I painted my worry wart on a lightbulb. The lightbulb was burned out, was "used up", was a surface to play with. She is painted in acrylic and then dipped upside down in verathane and hung out to dry. Now she stares out at me from one of the many brush containers on my painting table. Eventually I think she will find her way into an assemblage of some sort. She frets for me so I am free to play.