Katie's Feminine Icon Workshop

This is one of the images I created in Katie's class at Diane's all day retreat. It was a wonderful day with a room full of spirited women. The atmosphere at this workshop was unique; perhaps because of the subject matter these women seemed unusually sympatico and enthusiastic. The work they produced was incredible; I didn't get photographs of their creations because I was trying to stay out of Katie's limelight (oh, yes, good try Judy, you big loud art smartie pants you!). I am hoping either Katie or Diane will post work on their sites for you to appreciate.

This is a second image I created. So now I will take you through the weekend with me and share our experience from my point of view. Beginning with Friday night when I arrived arm in arm with Katie. Diane had the libations all lined up for us.

Diane was chopping up a stack of mangos when we arrived, making the mango chutney for our noon meal on the following day. To the mangos she added chopped ginger, garlic, golden raisins, cider vinegar and 20 minutes over the flame. Oh my mama mia was that ever awesome with curried rice. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We were up into the wee hours catching up and sharing. Awesome good time.

After a night on Diane's featherbed with the down comforter I was greeted with this plate of oatmeal dressed with bananas, blueberries and walnuts. Yes, it was soooo good.

Katie was meanwhile out in the studio preparing for the arrival of her class. She was wearing these charming knitted slippers. She is a gal who knows a thing or two about shoes. Thought you'd like to see them too. Doesn't she look surprised in this next shot? Hee hee, she was.

Soon she had us all slaving away over our projects. Gel, paint, sandpaper, gesso, oil pastels and more. She showed us how to let go, to live in our right hemisphere and to follow our intuition. She has little tricks and they work. Every time we visit I learn more from her about letting go. She's done her homework and she can teach what she knows.

Following a morning of high energy work the studio is deserted for the banquet table Diane has prepared for us. Yum yum. What will we have?

(Quiet scene of chaos in the studio during lunch break.)

Rice Banquet! Curried rice (very mild) with dozens of bowls of toppings and greens. Very healthy, good for people counting calories, good for people not counting calories and for dessert a coconut cake. Oh, and chocolate. I ate more chocolate this weekend than I do in a month at home.

After lunch we continued to work on our projects and at the end of the day we gathered again to share our thoughts and intentions. It was so good. I got so much out of the workshop. Katie is such a skillful teacher and she showed me ways to work that I had never experienced before.

This is a quiet corner of Diane's studio that I love. The log cabin quilt is one of dozens she has made. The sofa is set in a little window nook in a quiet area; I wonder if she occasionally curls up under the blanket with a good book and just relaxes there. I know I would. I bet Simon her cat does too.

The last photograph was taken this morning. Good strong lattes to get the conversational ball rolling again as we shared ideas for future gatherings and art making getaways. Diane has a house at the beach that she is considering letting out for art retreats for one thing. One of the women who came to the workshop yesterday spoke with excitement about holding art gatherings in her studio in Boise, Idaho. We laughed about sowing the seeds of art love all over the place; of countering the bad mean people with our joyful spirits until they just lay down their war games and learn how to play nice. Pray for this if you have a kind soul. That we can some day soon learn to cooperate and celebrate each other and live in harmony.

My 100th Post

"The moving hand has writ" as the old poet said and our journals prove it. Capturing time; the moods, thoughts, worries and joys. All summer I work and play hard and then winter comes and I shut down as much as possible and go inside. I dream, piddle around, read everyone's blogs, dream I am a great cook and someday will create a giant chocolate ganache to make my poor deprived husband's eyes bug out with wonder but no; it is only the castles I build in my imagination. If wishes were fishes.

Getting the ideas to materialize is so much work. I will put the finishing touches on a big 30x40" canvas today. I paint with the canvas tilted on a flat table because the big easel makes my arm hurt after awhile. A vertical canvas is so much trouble; I can never get back far enough to see what I am doing. I feel like a bug painting a mural. And the painting. It is weird. John came in last night and made the wrong kind of noises when he saw it and then tried to back peddle. It's okay. I know it is an odd one. But what is an artist if not a person who crawls out to the end of the limb? If you think about the risk you will be doomed. Silenced. And so you go on and paint the occasional weird canvas.

I've been wholly absorbed in the idea that I must gather the materials to (1) hook a rug out of strips of wool and (2) learn how to knit a sweater. I think the painting I will show you in a day or two would make a good hooked rug. Maybe that is where my mind is right now.

Thanks for hanging with me. I am feeling indecisive today but also accepting of that. More so than I usually am; I am usually bipolar-ish and unable to find the middle. How about you? Winter compared to summer? Do you change with the seasons? I really want to know.

Make Lemonade

My daughter gave me the idea for the painting of lemons. (24x30") She was having a really hard day on Saturday and telephoned for support. At the end of our long conversation I said, "I'm going to start a new painting when I get off the phone. What shall I make it about?" She immediately answered "Oh, in winter, lemons. Nice, yellow lemons." So I put her sad mood together with the lemons and got "Make Lemonade".

One of my pet theories involves warm and cool colors and their various effect on mood. In the winter I crave the color yellow even more than I do chocolate; when my eyes are bathed in shades of it I experience a soothing, energizing effect and all signs of depression float away. It banishes the blues, get that? Several of my artistic friends have noticed the same thing and we love love love to paint with yellow and especially in the winter.

In this week's New Yorker magazine there is an interesting article about a woman whose career is choosing color for the paint and siding industries. She describes a color based on wasabi; a cool green with a yellow undertone. I like that color. I like the word wasabi. I like the image that comes to mind; that little dab of green paste that explodes on the tongue and reminds you that you are very much alive.

This is what I put in the frame I showed you in the last post. Both the collage and the frame are coated in a nice layer of encaustic; satiny and fragrant, it has the softest feel.

I got up today meaning to start another painting but got hung up reading the blogs of people who bake things, especially this lady here, who is half my age and does more in a day than I do in a week. I saved a half dozen recipes that she made and pictured on her site (she lives in Portland too) - like my mother before me I collect recipes and dream of yummy food all the time but seldom cook. I did all that while my kids were growing up and now I seem to have just run out of enthusiasm for it. If I had hungry teenagers to feed I might be more motivated but now I'd rather paint and cut and paste.


BTW, another good novel just finished - "Digging to America" by Anne Tyler. Just a wonderful, easy read that I finished in 2 days because I couldn't put it down. It is about cultural differences among other things and I think one of Anne's best.

Snow in Portland!

It's coming down in huge bundles of flakes we call bedsheets. A lot of it. It's like someone shook up the snow globe and we are inside it. Oh, it is so beautiful. I just had to share it. Inside the house we have a cozy wood fire and coffee with cream and chocolate. Winter is kind today.

Salmon Dreams

My mind keeps wandering. I started this painting meaning to paint a salmon underneath a sky map for a gallery show. I was thinking about navigation, intuition and the salmon's life: how it begins that life in a small stream, swims out to the ocean to live for several years and then returns through a rigorous journey to the very place of its origin. It travels so far from home and yet it somehow finds its way back to that exact spot, many years and a lifetime later. It is a wonderful mystery and one I like to think of as I explore my own origins and how I've wandered so far from "home" and yet how I know that place like nothing else. Well, instead of a fish and its internal guidance system I ended up with this wistful child and her salmon. She is listening to the heart of the universe - trying to absorb its immense mystery and beauty. Above all, she loves that salmon. She IS that salmon. And she loves the watersheds, the rivers, the ocean it has called home.

Many years ago I went fishing from a chartered boat off the waters of the Washington coast. My friend Susan from the east coast was thrilled to catch her first salmon, a big, honkin' silver, that she proudly displayed for the camera. She had just recieved an art residency in Montana and was moving away from Portland so I did this woodcut (15"x 21") in her honor showing us hot tubbing, Mt. Hood in the background, the rain, the happiness, the being in love with life. I wrote about Susan here and in her defense I must say that she is pretty and looks nothing like a Robert Crumb character. Anyway, since I had posted some early work of prints I thought I would continue here and show early work opposed to mature work for whatever that is worth.

I have a friend who I encourage to paint. He is advanced in all he does and yet he has been reluctant to jump in on this challenge although he has expressed the wish to get started. I told him last night that he might as well go ahead and start painting, that if he was waiting to acquire the mastery needed to love everything that came from his hand that he would be waiting forever. No matter how long you practice you are always reaching fore something beyond your grasp. That's how it is with all the artists who have shared their thoughts with me. So dont wait for perfection. Just start. Always try to learn more and improve. My guidance system tells me that is the way to go; to do it. Listen quietly to your heart, accept your imperfections, and begin the journey that will take you home.

Etchings

Following up on the etching theme; I thought I would post some of the etchings I did many years ago. These hand pulled original prints were pulled from zinc plates that were etched with nitric acid and then inked a la poupee (with little wads of fabric), relief (with big rubber or gelatin rollers) and intaglio (ink wiped deeply into the incisions). The plates were in many cases cut apart with a jeweller's saw and re-assembled on the press like jigsaw puzzles after the individual pieces were inked. All of the inks I used were oil based so that all the plates had to be cleaned with paint thinner. It was a stinky, yucky mess and I had black ink under my fingernails for about 12 years. Yuk!!

I printed on many kinds of paper but mostly on Murillo which is an ivory colored paper that took embossment very well. You can see the paper pillowing up around the plates which were quite thick. The paper had to be soaked for about half an hour and printed on while damp.

I think the script on the plate above is called Carolingian (my calligraphy memory is rusty) and in latin reads: "Everything that lives is holy." I looked at wrought iron gates for the embossed white-line imagery. I've always loved the flowing lines and grew up in a place where I saw a lot of it. The imagery was transferred to the plates by a photographic method that involved Photo Resist, exposing the plates to a bright light for a certain amount of time, washing it out in a chemical and then cleaning the plate before multiple acid baths to add aquatint and deep embossment. Are you snoring yet?

Cicada Song was the follow up to Chrysanthemum Page. (Those were the titles of the two prints directly above.) On this page I wrote in Persian the same quote as above and in addition it says, "Every Creature Loves It's Life". I found an Iranian student at PSU who did the translation for me. That was before the days of Babelfish.

I am doing some painting for a commission and ramping up a bit for the season but not very ambitious yet. Today it hailed outside for about 20 minutes so I put my brush down and stood outside to marvel in the sounds and sight of the weather. It was cold, noisy, and enchanting. There is something I do love about dramatic weather.

See you again in awhile.


As an afterthought I decided to add this close-up so you could see more of the detail in the etching. Click on the image to see it up close.

Studio Visit

For 12 years I worked solely making etchings and selling them at art fairs and to galleries. My first love of making art is inseparable from my love of etchings and I am lucky to have a connection to that world through my friend Gene Flores. The beautiful press pictured above belongs to Gene and on Saturday John and I visited his new studio where we christened the new space with good mojo and wine toasts.

This photograph shows a copper plate etched with the drawing Gene put on it and on the right is a print pulled from the plate. It is a very old and laborious technique that is challenging and when done well, thrilling to admire. Gene does it well.

I love this funky corner of his new studio where he has drawn a huge music speaker into service as a table leg. Typical. You gotta have the music and you gotta have a table leg.

Gene is pulling prints out to share with us from the stacks that he has produced over the last 15 years or so. He is tremendously prolific in spite of his teaching schedule at Portland Community College and his responsibilities as the Gallery Director there.

This is a shot of a great idea for storage and framing. He has stapled carpet onto the walls and floor area of cubbyholes that hold his framed work. Above that is a platform that is covered with the same carpeting where he frames the pictures, washes glass, etc. Very efficient.

This shot shows the same storage area from a different angle. It is roughly in the center of the picture. To the left is vertical storage where he keeps booth standards and hand carts, etc. The studio is located in a building with easy access to his vehicle so that loading up for art fairs will be easy to do. Our cherished friend Joan is on the left side of the picture and she helps Gene at the fairs just as John helps me. I could not do it without my side kick and I'll bet Gene would say the same about the help he gets from Joan.

This archaic piece of machinery is a guillotine that is used for cutting heavy slabs of metal. It is heavier than it looks and a good friend to the printmaker. I used to sneak into the metal department at the School of Arts and Crafts to use their guillotine; the head of the department would look daggers at me for the liability I represented. Few printmakers are lucky enough to have their own metal shear.

Following the studio tour we shared a magnificent meal that Gene spent the day preparing; Chili Colorado, Chili Verde, refried beans, spanish rice, green salad, tortillas, homemade apple empanadas and homemade ice cream. Cooked entirely by Gene; is that not awesome? One other time he cooked for us he followed up another memorable meal with Tres Leches Cake (my favorite) which is a real production to create. I bow down to the genius of the good cook. It is the most useful of all the arts (sez me).

Sorry I didn't get good pictures of the main dishes. Here are the tortillas and the dessert. Mmmmmm, perfection.

It is New Year's Day today and I am tying up loose ends in preparation for a return to the studio. If past experience serves me, it will be a slow re-entry after nearly 2 weeks excess. I didn't make resolutions this year but instead wrote down words to consider. I will share them with you.

• Fearless Exploration
• Confident Re-Invention
• Utilize Your Time Wisely
• Greet Change
• Respect Strangers
• Help Everyone

I guess in a way they are resolutions; to keep pushing beyond old boundaries and to utilize my hours well. To keep improving. To reach out to others so that we can all be our best together. To recognize that if each of us uses our energies for good changes in the world, the entire world will change. And even if the world does not change, that the world we experience changes when we become porous and loving.

The Rain

Woke up yesterday with this image in my mind; I think it will be easy for you to know where it came from. I am very busy now through the holidays but will try to keep you posted. Love each other and eat cookies!

All Is Well

Thank you, my beautiful friends (you know who you are) for your kind and loving messages. All is well. The nest is safe. Mama hen was up all night with cotton in her ears, keeping watch during the howling gale. Anxiety disorder hurts. Perhaps we are the sentrys for the race.

I feel very emotional and touched this morning by the amount of comfort that comes through the contact we can form over the internet. It is really a miracle. I do not feel alone and that is good. Thank you all again.

(this painting was done last night just as the winds began to howl. I thought if I could paint I would be distracted. It is 8x10".)

Completed Journal Page

We are supposed to have another windstorm this evening. They unnerve me. I get weird enough in the winter without the weather; everything seems magnified and tragic this time of year. Whenever I feel the fear creeping up on me I know it is time to stop all worldly participation and take stock; meditate, watch the rain drip off the eves, curl up in a ball and let a short time out make me whole again and ready to return. Nothing soothes me as much as nature. When the war is too terrible, the deaths of the innocents too much to bear any longer, I retreat into nature and remember that the trees, the moss, the rain will all endure. I love the earth like my own mother and she always comforts me. No matter what we foolish and selfish humans do to her, she will endure. She is better than the savages she has spawned.

In this unusual state of mind (for me) I asked myself if this blog wasn't just a pathetic cry for attention (look at my art! you must!). And then a couple of lovely emails arrived from people who took comfort in words I said and I thought that maybe it doesn't matter if I am imperfect, weird, sometimes afraid, sometimes overbearing. That what matters is that sometimes my intentions help.

Winter is the time of the shadow for me. The wind howls, illusions appear and seem convincing enough, the spirit is tested. So forgive me this indulgence, or be glad that I finally let the mask slip for a moment. But just now, with the lights lit and the affluent children eager for new toys, I feel a little off, a little sad and in need of renewal. And it will come I know. It always does.

Journal Pages

Today I worked awhile and played awhile. Whenever I find myself not quite ready to start a new project I get out my journal and putter. I see what that will lead to; what that will tell me about what is on my mind and in my heart. The layout above was created from a computer generated collage (well, generated by the computer and me - the computer couldn't have done it without me) and a whole lot of multi-media messing around. It is in shades of my favorite color (yellow) but slightly to the cool, linen side of the shade which fits my mood today. I am thinking of southern Spain, of the moorish influence on the art and of the beautiful madonnas and tilework I will see there. The art from this part of the world has always influenced me; the exotic veilings, hidden harems, latticey windows and dark mystery. It draws me to admire and to wonder.


Yesterday I was in a pink mood and I created this layout. After I did it my mind wandered to the saying that all paintings are self-portraits. I asked myself what about this girl could refer to me and then thought about how important my purse is in my life. All my stuff is in there; identification, money, bank accounts, lists and notations, curious art supplies, secrets and sundry flotsam. It is the one thing I want to have with me when I lock myself out of the house or my car (please don’t ask). With the purse I have the keys, the phone, the entertainment, the ability to summon help. Also this lady is hiding behind her sunglasses, much in the way I have always hidden behind my work, my blog, the ample skirts of my big sister. I am a big ham and still shy at the same time. So yes, I can see how I have unwittingly created aspects of my self in this collage.


This is what the entire 2 pages looks like of the pink spread. I usually do one major page next to a minor page unless I am just in the mood to rattle on with no artwork. Since I paint so much in the studio I am not compelled to create as much art in my journal. For many years it was a written journal only but when you create a visual pertaining to your life you do unleash the magic and often find inspiration for the next “big one”. So I try to make time for that too.

Winter's Comforts

Here is Hermanito keeping watch on the fire. Sometimes he gets so close to the very hot cast iron that I have to catch my breath. He is 17 years old as near as we can figure and he wont even go outside now unless one of us is with him to insure his safety. We live in an area of prowling Toms and dear Hermo knows he is no match for any of them. In the summertime he will "help" John in the garden but this time of year he won't leave his spot by the stove for anything but food. Smart cat.
This is a composite photo of one corner of my studio; the one with the little wood stove. Dont worry; the photo is deceiving. The stool on the right is actually smaller because of the splicing of the photos and it is not sitting dangerously close to the stove. Behind it is a ceramic piece by the local ceramic artist Deb Norby. Some years ago she was the artist in residence at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. I was studying ceramics then too. Here is a close up of her piece called "Kabob". I really enjoy it.

After I shot these I continued my wander through the house. Here is a shot of the top of a chest that sits by the entrance. The drawing of my daughter is over 20 years old and was sketched off quickly on a sheet of typing paper as she dozed. Amazingly, the paper has not degraded although I am sure it was of the cheapest kind.

Kim Murton of Vancouver did the two little ceramic faces and John Taylor of Seattle did the big face jug.
The wall doll and milagro cross were collected somewhere in our travels in the southwest or Mexico, I no longer recall which.

As I write this John is out in the kitchen cooking Urud Dal (spicy Indian soup with asophedida and peppers). He came in with these enormous beets (wine glass for scale only - ha ha) and said to tell my blog that the mighty hunter went out into the darkness with his blunderbuss and returned home with this "game". So tonite it's soup, squash and beets. Nice visiting with you. If you live in the northern hemisphere, keep warm. If you live in the equatorial or southern climes, well you lucky dogs, enjoy your paradise.

Cook turkey or create new journal?

Oh, carumba my friends, does this happen to you? You have a house full of people coming for Thanksgiving, a huge menu to prepare, a house to clean and a list of chores to be done and then like a thunderbolt the muse is upon you like a seductive lover demanding to be wooed. Why does my best inspiration occur when I should be doing other things?

This is the new journal I put together last night when I should have been cleaning my studio for tomorrow's and Sunday's guests. First I had to put away the acrylic journal covers that were left over from the workshop. Aye, aye aye, just handling those journal covers made me want to make a journal. Really, really bad. I could not resist. You know the rest. Wet glue, hurry, hurry, feeling guilty, can't stop. My best projects go like this.

This is the back of the journal. I made a collage in PhotoElements and then printed it on a full sheet of transfer paper. Ironed that onto an old sheet (wrinkles because it was my first time and I didn't iron the sheet first because of my haste) and gelled it onto the acrylic cover.

This is what the front and back covers looked like attached to the canvas spine. The signatures will go in next. I love how rigid the acrylic makes the journal. Everything glues to it fantastically.
This view shows how the tissue I used inside and outside makes a translucent layer that shows both sides at once. Like looking through jello or encaustic. I woke up at 2 a.m. thinking the technique with the layers of tissue on acrylic was so novel that I should write it up for Cloth, Paper, Scissors but I know I have too much on my plate to do that. There is just so much you can do with acrylic panels!!
This is the inside of the covers showing the inside of the spine. Next I will sew in the signatures.
This is the spine of the finished book. I sewed a chinese coin in the upper spine (it doesn't show very well). That coin was an Artfest trade so thank you, anonymous giver, it was the perfect thing for this journal.

Oh *%$#@!!! I hear DH out in the kitchen running water while I madly type away in here. He must think I've lost my marbles to be on the computer with time running out. Wheeee, I love being an artist. Catch you later.