Thank You

I always get the greatest Christmas gifts, and then I am lax about sending out Thank You cards. As an artist, I get caught in that trap of "oh, why buy a card when I can make it." (Well the answer to that is, because if you buy it, it might actually get sent sometime this YEAR!) In any case, today I finished this cute one that I'm going to use, and finally get my thank-yous out.

Oh, and I should say that if these drawings from the past few days look like those from Aimee Myers Dolich, then that's because she is inspiring me at the moment. But I won't cross the line and add these lovely little creations to my work that I'm selling. I need to get through the new ideas inspired by others and BACK to my own style, or onto a brand new style of my very own that has yet to be fully developed. These are just baby steps along the way.

I'm back! Redesign is on the way

I have been away for a long time. This blog is about to have some new life breathed into it. The first order of business was to get rid of the brown and beige color scheme (what was I thinking?!), and soon I will be redesigning the whole thing. I hope you will be patient with this multi-tasking, homeschooling, artist, work-at-home web moderator mama.

Newbury Street Gallery!

I was recently contacted by a Newbury Street art gallery called L'Attitude. They are putting together a large exhibition of paintings by Worcester-area artists in a brand new building going up at UMass medical complex. It will be the cancer infusion center, and word has it that it will be a "green" building. Very cool.

L'Attitude commissioned me for two 18" x 18" paintings for that project, and I am happy to say that they were pleased with my work and have just commissioned two MORE for different UMass medical buildings! I am thrilled to say the least.

At least someone's solved that vexing problem!

I love this blog post by a fellow Creative who calls herself Scoutie Girl. She is taking her stand against the guilt that plagues so many artists who are also wives & mothers: the feeling that we somehow have to do it all (hint: she doesn't even try!):

Click here for the article

Two great quotes from Ann Lamott

Ann Lamott is one of my favorite writers. Her book, Bird by Bird (about the process of writing)is a DELIGHT to read. Here are two quotes that I enjoy in particular:

"It helps to resign as the controller of your fate. All that energy we expend to keep things running right is not what's keeping things running right. We're bugs struggling in the river, brightly visible to the trout below."

And

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft." (which, Ann explains, is important and unavoidable first step in writing)

I've started art journaling

I like to go to Barnes & Noble on my free nights, and have a coffee (or caramel latte) while I read inspirational artsy books. One recent visit took me to a publication in the magazine rack. (It looked and felt like a soft-cover book, but it was in the magazine rack, so I guess it's technically a magazine?)

Anyway, the publication is called Art Journaling, published by Somerset Studio. There are a lot of books and magazines out there about art journaling, altered books, and collage, but this one spoke to me so powerfully and directly that I just had to take it home. It has been a wonderful resource, and I think it's because it not only talks about the technical side of doing art journaling, but also the emotional side. It addresses for me the stumbling blocks that had, until now, kept me from diving into collage or mixed-media art.

I will try and see if I can put it into my little store (the one here on the blog), but if I can't get that going, here is a link to it:
http://www.stampington.com/html/art_journaling_w09.html

What is amazing is that when I Googled "Art Journaling Somerset Studio," I got the page I just shared with you. And THAT wasn't even the book I bought! So apparently there are MORE ISSUES of this amazing book! Oh my. Somebody stop me before I spend all my money....

My first public poem

Yesterday, out in front of the art museum on a gorgeous sunny Saturday with spring starting to make itself known, I started to wish I could write poetry. But I always seem to have this blockage. And suddenly it dawned on me. My wish has always been to write poetry....not to write GOOD poetry! LOL!! It's just been my perfectionistic voice that put up all these barriers to my attempting it. A familiar feeling that "others" can do it but not me. What garbage! I am the wordsmith! Always have been. So I decided that if I didn't really care if my poetry was any good, but that instead I wanted to honor and play with words and let them OUT of my head,then I would declare myself a poet. So today I declared myself a poet. And then wrote a big long poem and didn't care if it was a "real" poem or any good or anything. It was just what came out. Here it is:


"I am a wordsmith,"
I always say,
boastfully.
But a wordsmith wouldn't abuse her words
by keeping them so tightly under wraps.

I always keep the gate up
like they're going to gallop off
and embarrass me.

I wait until they're lined up
like prim girls in party dresses,
legs twined at the frilled ankles,
patent-leather shoes shining, squeaking uncomfortably as they rub.
Little halo-crowns gleaming on their
little-girl heads. The words are me.


Do you love me now?
They ask to the empty room,
the audience having died,
the clothes no longer fitting,

the lonely emptiness being the most palpable
and important thing that's left.

(Ashamed but only seen by herself, she
takes off the ill-fitting shame.
Drops it in a heap. Steps out.
Brushes off. Throws open the window and leans out,
squinting at the brightness.)

In the beginning was the word
and the word was good
and the word was God.

Below the window, the little girl sees
the words of others gamboling down the street,
shining and twirling and establishing themselves

for the words are our thoughts
and they must be free
because thoughts
and words
are what we build lives with.
It's what the world is made of.

Without my words,
I'm not quite real.
And without air and sun my words die.
And so will I.

(So the little girl ventures
down the steps of the empty house.
Out the front door.
She reaches into her pocket
for a handful of tattered, rumpled words and

triumphantly
flings them to the wind.....)

3.6.10