I Had an "Out"

My friend Deb asks me every year for donations of my artwork for the Boys & Girls Club holiday auction.  She called me this morning to double check - was I still willing to make a quilt and paint a child's rocking chair for the auction?  I said yes.  OMG, it's due in a month!  There's nothing like a deadline to reinforce the need to schedule studio time.  I had the chance to say no, but I just couldn't.  Frankly, there's a part of me that loves the fact that someone other than my husband will buy my work this year.  Ha. Now all I have to do is find someone to stand behind me with an air horn every time I appear distracted, blogging or flipping through a magazine instead of working.

I joke about having an "out," but the commitment really is not a bad thing.  These are the two projects I can pull off without stress.  Sewing and painting furniture are so relaxing for me, so my only pressure is having an actual deadline.  We talked about the design of the rocking chair and whether she should list it as for a boy or a girl.  I told her that unless I painted dump trucks or footballs on it, it's perceived as being for a girl.  When my son was an infant and toddler, I struggled with finding clothes and decor for his room that didn't have sports junk on it.  Golf clubs for a six-month-old?  Really?  What a pain in the neck.  Since a few of the board members have new baby girls in the family, that made it easy - it'll be a rocking chair for a little girl ;-)  I start working on everything on Saturday.

Apropos of nothing, I broke the rules last weekend and took just one photo at the Laguna Arts Festival.  I regret that I can't provide the identity and proper credit for the artist (I ran away after the camera clicked!), but I can report that this is the product of a school-aged artist.  There is always a section with art created by students in kindergarten through grade 12.  This piece was in the area exhibiting older students' work.  This dragon is made of plastic utensils and was amazing!  To the artist, I'm really sorry but I just had to share.  You rock.

Shopping for Art

Traffic was beastly, but the trek to the Laguna Arts Festival was worth the struggle.  It didn't hurt that we had to park so far away (at least a mile) on a day that I didn't have time to work out.

The best part of the show was meeting April Raber, the artist that created the beautiful "Mandala" painting that we just hung in the living room.  What a wonderful treat!  Even nicer was the flood of wonderful, warm and heartfelt praise of April from every single artist with whom we spoke about our most recent purchase. 

Coming home without artwork is pretty much impossible for us ;-)  We met so many incredible artists whose work I would love to have in my home (self-taught painter Paul Bond, ceramic artist Carol Tripp Martens), many of whom were happy to talk about their art.  We bought a small piece from Stephanie Cunningham, an artist that creates "duets" with Betty Haight.  Stephanie paints beautiful landscapes and Betty creates lovely figurative work, both of them incorporating other media.  The two canvases are joined and a story is created, written on a tag and tucked into the backside of the work.  The notion of collaborative work is fascinating to me.  I asked Stephanie who wins when they disagree on which pieces should be joined.  She smiled and reported that she wins because it's her husband that joins the pieces.  LOL.  I told her that I'd often thought of putting an ad in the local paper soliciting artsy friends.  It would be fun to have a partner in creativity! 

For now, I'm happily plodding along with the collaborative art journal project with my sister Lisa.  She's continues to be much more productive than I am.  The inspiration of the art festival came at the right time and offered a gentle kick in the caboose to get moving on my end of the project.  My son will be back in school in a little over a week, and I'm making a mid-year resolution to schedule studio time as if it were a job starting on Monday.  We'll see how much I accomplish!

A friend took me to lunch this last week and we spent a few hours catching up with each other.  I shared with her the challenge of a recent dinner at the university where my husband works.  My table mates were a former congressman/now senior administrator, two college/university presidents, and faculty.  Everyone at the table but me had a Ph.D. or was in the process of completing one.  I think the thought most often occupying my mind was, "Duh."  Seriously.  I was unable to participate in any conversation (something anyone that knows me well would claim to be impossible ;-)  My girlfriend asked me why I didn't share that I was an artist, and I about choked on my iced tea.  She gave me a stern look, told me that I was incredibly talented, a true artist, and then suggested quite seriously that I might need electroshock therapy to snap me out of my lack of confidence.  That was a good laugh!  It was also a good reminder to relax, and remember that there may be a lot of folks with a Ph.D. that don't know how to pronounce "giclee" and probably think gesso is some kind of frozen dessert.  Bahaha.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it to make me feel better.  ;-) 

Stitches

After a lengthy and unplanned break from art, I have made my way back into the studio.  Earlier this week I delved into the art journal project.  I tore down watercolor paper, folded and stitched it and have a lovely and stark white blank art journal.  My sister had a fun idea of each of us doing the artwork on our respective journals, then swapping them for the other to do the writing, and finally returning them so that we each have a shared project.  I love the idea!  Tomorrow I start on painting the pages.

Sewing is always my fall-back stress reliever, great when I feel panic from deadlines or just cranky from having a teenager.  Ha.  Today I worked on a quilt until my back screamed from bad posture.  Regardless of the discomfort, I continue to find time at the machine or pinning or just cutting to be so relaxing.


The best artsy moment of the day came with the delivery of a wonderful painting.  Last year, my husband and I enjoyed a wonderful day at the Laguna Arts Festival in Laguna Beach.  As I turned a corner, moving from one artist's work to another, I was stopped in my tracks at the sight of a large painting.  I was quite literally and inexplicably moved to tears.  It took a moment to place the subject, the ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier.  I have only been to the pier twice and can't figure out why it moved me so but for the sheer beauty of the piece.  Alas, the painting was unaffordable for us at the time and, sadly, we had to walk away from it.  Here we are one year later, and my husband surprised me with the news that he hunted down the artist, called her, and found that the painting was unsold and sitting wrapped up in storage.  The painting was delivered today.  I have a lovely addition to artwork in my home, all of which I'm so happy to look at every day.  Every piece of art in my home has deep meaning to me, beyond just the pleasure of the visual.  I am proud to call some of the artists represented my friends, and I am grateful to be surrounded by inspiration to be creative.

Today, I am the proud owner of April Raber's painting entitled "Mandala."

Hungry and Grumpy...

What a couple of days!  The "big" school year-end pool party we throw every year turned out pretty small.  The last two years, cool weather caused some kids to hold back in the belief that it might rain.  This time we moved our party to a nice, hot weekend, but I think the fact that it was on a holiday weekend hurt us.  Of the 35 kids invited, only two had the manners to call and RSVP as the invitation required.  My charming son insisted that at least 19 told him they were coming, but only about ten showed.  Those ten included two that told me personally they were not going to be able to make it.  Has the world lost its collective mind and forgotten the purpose of RSVP'ing?  We had soooo many hamburgers, hot dogs and unopened bags of chips in the house.  It won't go to waste with two teens coming to visit for a week, but it's not a good thing for a hungry woman on Weight Watchers to have to face.  Ack!

My weigh-in this morning was not happy.  I'm up a little over a pound.  I thought I'd been so good, then remembered last weekend and the trip to a restaurant without thinking enough about all I ate and drank.  Whoops.

Add to my hunger the not-so-fun and sometimes daily grind of being the mother to attitude-on-legs.  Sometimes I can blow it off, and other days I find myself wanting to whack that boy upside the head, but of course I don't.  I shouldn't say of course.  I really, really wanted to at least whip out the air horn and just blast it until I felt better and his ears were ringing.  Everyone says this ungrateful, eyeball rolling, gasping and wheezing attitude on his part is normal, but it doesn't make me any less cranky.  Fuss, fuss, fuss.  I'm going to get it out of my system and then let it go.

I grump, then delete, grump, then backspace...I think it's time to put away the keyboard and snap out of it.

One more harrumph for the road.  ;-)

Drawing Blind

Well THIS has been an amusing exercise!  So I've been doing the daily exercises in my drawing lab book, one of which was the blind contour drawing of a giraffe.  Guffaw.  That's no giraffe!  Next I tried the same technique drawing a cow.  It's as goofy as the "giraffe."  Looking for some sign of hope that this could improve, I immediately go to my expert Debbie who, in her always wonderfully cheerful and glass overflowing attitude, encourages me to keep at it and have fun.  Time to whip out the pen and sketchbook.

Stress and Journaling

I was very excited about the prospect of starting an art journal, inspired by Teesha Moore's videos.  I told my sister about it, and she's already gotten started!  I didn't have all of the materials I needed, so of course I'm behind.  I found a web site from which I can order individual panpastels, the recommended watercolour paper, and I found the Sharpie paint pens at Michaels this last week.  I'm always planning, but not so much making.  Today I'm going to at least go through my paper stash and old magazines, pulling pictures that have good colour and texture to use.

The topic for my art journal is going to be really easy.  I'm stressed liked a maniac right now.  Facebook has been a good place to share a little with friends about the stress of considering moving, but those friends just don't get it.  Well, most of them don't.  They are thinking of the fun of decorating a new place and the fun of exploring a new neighborhood.  That would have been the case before I had kids.  But Kevin is 16 and about the start the last two years of high school.  We weren't seriously considering moving once he hit high school.  That was just the deal.  I was ALWAYS the new kid, growing up in an always-moving military family and moving several times in high school.  My husband moved after his first year of high school and was devastated, leaving the idyllic beauty of Sonoma, CA behind for a rough and unfriendly community for his final three years of school.

The dilemma we face is timing.  Not having planned to sell our current home any time soon, we are aware of major issues that would have to be addressed before putting it on the market - the exterior walls in the back have visible damage (it's just an old house), paint on the sunny side is peeling and in desperate need of a new paint job, the rain gutters were removed the last time it was painted and not replaced, and we've got termites.  There's more, but those are the biggies.  There's no dancing around those issues in the hope that a prospective buyer won't notice.  We're getting ready for house guests, followed by a lengthy vacation.  Even were the housing market fabulous, it can't be sold before school starts.  I WON'T move him after the school year starts.  It seems an easy decision.  Drop the notion of moving.  But my husband is exhausted from an hour-long commute twice a day for years and years, finally having the opportunity to buy in a neighborhood near his work that was previously way, way, way out of our price range.

Here's hoping that art can soothe my rattled nerves today.  And tomorrow.  Because heaven knows that stupid Crystal Light margarita isn't doing it for me!  :-)  I'm also going through drawing exercises in a book I just bought to help loosen me up in that arena (my artsy friends know just how much I blow at drawing), enjoying the silly outcome and the practice of it instead of worrying about the quality.  That, too, I think is good for the artsy soul.  Time to sketch!

Renewed Sense of Direction

I've spent the last two days in the studio doing a lot on the computer.  I've sorted photos, cleaned off the full camera memory chip (only after a panicky double back-up on CD of ever photo on it, just in case) and watched a zillion videos by Teesha Moore while I worked and my feet turned blue from lack of movement.

I think one of the big reasons for my getting so little art done is that I flounder about exactly what to do.  As I've fussed over and over about, there are so many areas in which I wish I were skilled, but I always let those too-many ideas block me from making progress.  As my good friend has advised, narrow it down!  I love working with fabric and paint.  That's probably what I enjoy most about my figurative work/art dolls so much.  They give me the opportunity to make a single piece that incorporates painting and sewing, with a little bit of playing with clay.  But sometimes the stress of the sculpting part takes the fun out of it (I know, I induce the stress myself which is totally dumb and a waste of time), but I've been looking at book after book about projects that include both the fabric and paint and just hadn't found anything that excited me.

Yesterday I was looking at an old copy of Artful Blogging and a very colourful spread caught my eye.  I went to the artist's blog and looked around until I hit the jackpot.  It wasn't until I saw Teesha Moore's videos on art journals that I got really, really excited about a new project.  The journals include everything I love doing, from using the bright fabrics and hand quilting bits to make journal covers, to the collage techniques in the individual pages.  I thought of other things I'd add, including personal images on fabric and interesting embellishments, and am so eager to start.  I have journaled since I was 12 and this is a great time to incorporate the journaling with art.  I really can't wait!  I can try the sketching ideas that my friend Debbie has helped with, and talk with my sister about ideas for painting cloth...the ideas are swimming in my head in a GOOD way for a change!  How fun to dip into the stash for something new and different.

Today is an especially good day.