Update

Postcards From San Miguel

Encaustic in San Miguel

Here I am with my class mates in San Miguel; studying with a lovely new teacher and learning how she does things in her studio.

I'm on the slowest internet connection I can imagine - very difficult. It has taken me 2 1/2 hours to upload 4 images but I am nothing if not determined. I want to share my 2 day class with the superb teacher Ezshwan Winding. You will have to Google her name; she has videos and a great blog but I am too wiped out to spend any more time on links. I'll add them to the sidebar when I return home.

Mexico at 7,000 ft. altitude has special challenges for the encaustic artist. The torches want to sputter in the oxygen poor atmosphere; things take longer to heat up, even the strikers act reluctant to do their jobs.

Here is Ezshwan with one of her large encaustics. She is very interesting, having lived in Spain for some years and traveling widely before making San Miguel her home. Classically trained, she is equally comfortable with realism as well as abstraction. Goodness, my blog is acting so weird. It won't let me start a new paragraph!! Anyway, there are still a few spots left in my March class in Malibu (again, see the sidebar for the link) - I am so excited to hit the ground running on my return and meet with my new friends in southern California. Art makes everything incredibly exciting and new. I will bring you the latest. xo

 

 

 

 

 

Sunny and Warm

Seeing amazing art here and finding time to journal too. This was an old door in the morning sun.


A mural at the Instituto de Allende.


Typical street scene.


Walking everywhere. Profound gratitude for every moment. xo

Recent Sightings

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Five Hundred and Fifty Five

The sun has returned to Portland this week along with warmer weather. We are all careening around like drunken sailors, smiling for no reason and feeling the sap rise.

Sun in the studio. Que bueno!

Journal writing. Unfocused. Smiling at all the fun stuff on the front and back burners.

Eating simple food with my snuckle bunny. (sorry - TMI)

Waxing and making plans. Looked out the window this morning and noticed fog.

John says fog happens when the ground is cold and the air is warm.

We have flowering quince. Yes!

We have garlic rising.

We have leeks; so good in pasta dishes or grilled and laid over rice.

Our apple tree, leaning into the light.

The cloche, tucked warmly under the canopy of Douglas Firs.

Moss on the maple tree.

Look Ro. The daffys are on the march. We are grinning. We can't help ourselves.

Rebecca wrote a wonderful blog post about the plaster workshop and the sign-ups are coming in. Thank you thank you thank you. We won't let you down. 

I love this life. I just want to go around touching, embracing and laying my head down on the lap of the earth and giving thanks. Spring is in the air.

Plaster Studio Workshop

Two weeks ago Stephanie Lee came to spend the weekend with me, to get away from work, relax and take a breather. How do you suppose we spent our R & R time then? I'll tell you. We started talking about plaster and how much we love it. Next thing we knew we found ourselves asking ourselves why we didn't teach an online plaster class to coincide with the May release of our book. We got ourselves all excited. You know how it is when you love something and you want to share. Gosh we've had a lot of fun cooking this up together. And now we're ready to share it. And dang, are we excited!!  

Stephanie and I will both be demonstrating all our tricks in videos and PDF's and giving you studio tours and much more. But rather than me trying to describe it to you here, follow this link to all the information we've put together and then mark your calendars. This is going to be good. We really hope you'll join us. xo  

Back and Forth

Yesterday I started writing in a new journal. I had a ceremony for the old one and then slipped it onto the shelf beside the previous ones. It's been a year since my paraganglioma was discovered and I expressed gratitude to the universe for granting me more time. I am still here. There is more for me to learn and to share.

I'll be travelling in a week and I'll share my road adventures with you. There is a house in San Miguel waiting for me and for my art supplies. I am exchanging excited emails with my ex-pat friends there and I am anticipating new adventures. 

Meanwhile in river city it's been raining like a busted pipe and the mild temperatures mean I won't be needing much more of this. 

And look what is right outside the studio door. The air will be perfumed with Daphne's sweetness in no time. The days are passing. Always moving, changing. bringing the new.

Stephanie and I have been working hard this week and will be making our announcement on Monday. She is a national treasure, that one.  Meanwhile I am in the studio in the hot wax and plaster. 

Remember as you go about your day that we who create are part of the solution for what ails the planet. We are kind, we share, we encourage and nurture. We are powerful. Pass it on.  

Petaluma

Quick announcement: I'll be in Petaluma teaching at Art Is You on September 24-25-26th later this year but the registration is open NOW. I know many of you read my blog from a feed so you don't get to see the announcements in the sidebar so for many of you who have asked when I'm coming to northern California, this is it. One of my last on-the-road teaching gigs.

The Ides of January

January has brought with it a desire to retreat somewhat from the blog. There are so many things right now vying for my time. Slower than some, I have finally gotten around to thinking about how I want 2011 to shape up. Specifically, I want to spend more time in my own studio, on my personal search with wax. I will check in here but maybe not quite so often. I want to paint all the time I can now.

I'm loving being a homebody as well, teaching to very small classes of like minded others in my little studio where I have access to everything. Sharing. Exploring. All of us learning together. This weekend I hosted Meri Arnett-Kremian, Kathy Sandler, Tangie Belmore and Paula McNamee. We made good energy.

We spent two days in the wax. We shared food and encouragement. We laughed and relaxed and agreed that it was the perfect way to spend a rainy Portland winter weekend.

We painted faces from dry pigment and wax medium.

Made grids and tried various approaches.

Learned how to transfer on wax, build texture, embed and carve.

These were all done by the students in class.

We learned how to make our own color blocks of wax.

How to make wax medium with resin and beeswax.

And how to make that medium safely. I'm all about safety.

Where to buy supplies at the most reasonable prices.

How to ventilate our work area.

How to make color mixtures with oil paint, chalk pastel, dry pigments and more.

How to use the torch and what kind of torch to buy.

How to use the heat gun and when to use a torch with a larger flame.

I love to teach. I love to pass on everything I know and to see the happiness it brings to others.

Just read Cutting For Stone this week and copied this beautiful quotation into my journal. I recommend the book. A great lesson in how our every action has repercussions that ripple out and back to us.

I feel again the great wheel of change creaking and groaning as my priorities shift. I will be teaching less at the national retreats. This will likely be my last year to travel very far to teach. Home. That's where I want to focus my energies after several years of travel and outreach. 

Be very well and take care of each other. xo