Open Studio Hartford 2012

Janice Warren with her art work

It was a great weekend to be an artist in the Hartford area and there was plenty to see and buy and taste along the way. Donna and I saw many friends~ both art appreciators and fellow artists. To make the weekend special Connecticut Women Artists sent their acceptance letters out to a new batch of juried-in members and I was proud to be named among them. Time to focus on smaller items for the duration of my time at the South Windsor Winter Farmers and Artisans Market, Saturdays from 10-1 now until December 22nd, except November 24. November 24 is American Express Small Business Saturday and I am going to set up some special packages and shipping rates for that event.

Day to Night

Night Fall, Elizabeth Park   Hartford, CT   October 13, 2012

My friend Nancy called last week and wanted to know if we were up to anything special this weekend. She needed to come in from CA for her brother-in-law's funeral. Last week was a tough one for people my age that we know...two friends, one age 50 and one 55, died of sudden cardiac arrest. Both men were well loved and generous of spirit. Then there was Rosie the puppy clown. She nicked her leg and we had a terrible time stopping the bleeding. We were devastated to learn she had thrombocytopenia, possible brought on by her annual vaccines. Her platelet count was terribly low, well into serious danger of  internal or external spontaneous bleeding that would most likely require transfusion at the minimum. We started her on high doses of steroids and tried to figure out how to navigate our best laid plans...joining friends in the park  Saturday and the East Windsor Farmers' Market Sunday.

Anne Cubberly http://www.annecubberly.com/ is a fellow artist whose work I admire and have watched develop over the years. I had gone to one of her lantern workshops where we recycled water bottles into lanterns by changing their shape and cutting and combining them into something that could carry an LED candle light. All the lantern workshops culminated in a performance in Elizabeth Park...Night Fall...celebrating the change in seasons. I had been planning on attending from the moment I heard about it, but how to juggle this set of circumstances?

I picked up Nancy at the airport and she simply joined our stride. We experimented with leaving Rosie alone for very short periods of time, then forayed out to gather all our farmers' market supplies...cornstalks and pumpkins, gourds and mums. Okay. whew. Rosie was hanging in. Then we gathered a little picnic, a blanket and lawn chairs and headed out to Elizabeth Park. What a beautiful spectacle! Literally, as dusk deepened into night we were entertained by costumed creatures dressed as birds and trees and leaves. Even winter herself danced before us. Then the sun goddess creature entered, lit from within. The music was perfect, making the scenes complete in their magic. We were momentarily transported away from our grief and worry by the spectacle of dancing lights.

Sunday morning dawned rainy and we slept almost too late, but managed to get out and get our farm stand set up. Thank goodness for friends and family or I think we would have ended up totally alone out there. The memory of Saturday night's lights kept me warm as Nancy went off to the calling hours and Donna went to nurse Rosie~ she had taken a turn for the worse. By the end of the day, the end of the weekend, all of us showed some improvement, I think mostly because we chose to walk the path together. Today the sun has returned and it is the epitome of Autumn in New England...brightly colored leaves and bone-warming light. As we say goodbye to friends gone too young I am reminded "to everything there is a season..."

Accidental Enchiladas

Woohoo! Okay. Reality check. My wife and I just came home from vacation. We are not REAL foodies...but we like good, inventive cuisine and insanely, on Cape Cod, for us this meant Thai food this year. Wickedly warm and well seasoned Asian flavors! Of course we squeezed in our Wellfleet oysters, the must-have lobster and tender but surprisingly under-seasoned fried clams. We left craving spice and heat and with a couple of tomatoes still in the garden I decided fresh enchiladas were on the menu. Sunday I roasted chicken mediterranean style (loads of citrus plus home grown garlic and tons of fresh herbs) and used those leftovers to stuff the enchiladas. I scoured the grocery store for acceptable corn tortillas because both Donna and I love that white corn flavor. Turns out we both (different decades) savored tamales from street vendors in Tucson, AZ, and I like to have that flavor and texture. Wheat tortillas will not do! As I was roasting the chicken we were catching up on Pioneer Woman episodes from the DVR and there she was making simple http://www.foodnetwork.com/the-pioneer-woman/index.html enchiladas in a way my mother never did. Mom and I had a favorite Mexican restaurant in, of all places, Manchester, CT. When that closed down I didn't have any other taste test reference for her favorite Mexican meal.

Well. I think I have got it...in the oddest accidental ensemble I could imagine. Ree Drummond fried her corn tortillas VERY briefly in canola oil. I have always done that in the enchilada sauce itself. The oil works SO much better! The dish held together beautifully and the fried corn tortillas were actually lighter in texture than those dipped in sauce before rolling.

How else were these accidental? My cousin Cheryl and her husband rented here in CT this summer and when they headed home to Arizona we reaped the bounty of their refrigerator. Bob likes to cook like I do but I mistook a hunk of mozzarella for chedder. Yep. That became part of the accident in my "Accidental Enchiladas".

Combine what you like...but this is what I did:

Accidental Enchiladas
preheat oven to 350

6 white corn tortillas
2 Tbs canola or other vegetable oil
1 cup cooked chicken
1/4 cup boursin or seasoned goat cheese
1 Tbs chopped roasted or sun dried tomatoes
(With roasted garlic if you choose)
1 tsp hot sauce
1/2 chopped sweet onion
1 cup enchilada sauce
1/2 cup grated cheese (mozzarella was my accident~ I was sure I had cheddar)
1/2 cup grated OTHER cheese (I chose Romano for the compliment)
2 cups chopped romaine lettuce
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
3 Tbs chopped fresh cilantro
2 Tbs chopped red onion
sour cream for garnish

Heat the oil until it ripples in the pan. Cook each corn tortilla just a few seconds per side in the hot oil. Let drain on paper towel. Combine the cooked chicken with the roasted tomatoes and garlic and boursin cheese. Add in finely diced sweet onion. Mix well and use to fill tortillas. Put a couple of tablespoons of the enchilada sauce on the bottom of a casserole and line the dish with the filled and rolled tortillas.Cover the rolls with the remaining sauce. Top with the grated cheeses. let bake for 20 minutes and rest for 5.

In the meantime chop lettuce and tomato and spread on plate. Once the enchiladas have rested top plate with them and garnish with remaining ingredients.

That will nicely fuel my painting assignment! How about your fuel?

Welcome Autumn

Blue Moon

The signal of summer's end to me was the cold nights we had leading up to that twice-in-a-month full blue moon. In my parents' yard the cherry trees are the first to shed their leaves and as we sat visiting with family last Sunday a flurry of yellow leaves danced around us.

Art and Autumn go together well. It is perfect for painting outdoors or going to a fair or festival where people show off their creativity. I have been seeing some great work. Currently I have work up in the East Windsor Town Hall and the Butler-McCook House & Garden and Sunday I will be joining a "Pretty Wings" benefit show called "2012 Year of the Goddess at the MAC650 gallery at 650 Main Street in Middletown, CT. I have plenty of goddess stuff for that!

Goddess 

Chatty Cassandra

My promise for today is to at least spend a couple of hours painting. We all have plenty to do...pay bills, walk the pup, talk to the pretty kitty and all sorts of running around or reorganizing. I am fortunate enough to have a job where I can pull in or reach out to paper or canvas and see what comes and I need to be sure I do that every single day.

underpainting for latest work

Wild Summer

unidentified spider from genus Auraneus

This has been the year of the insect...and nearly everything else. In our pond frogs and turtles are prolific with bullfrogs staging impromptu concerts any time of day (while the herons aren't lurking). Over the last couple of days this year's red-tail hatch-ling has been calling for its parents to keep providing meals, competing in loudness with the bullfrogs.

The winter was so warm there was no winter kill...seems every weed seed and insect egg survived. We saw several kinds of aphids in record plant-destroying numbers. Deer flies have been lurking in the shade for weeks and have bitten all of us ~ they are especially cruel to the dog. I know more people who have had Lyme disease this year than any other year previously, including me. Considering I spent a good portion of the summers of my youth where the disease was discovered I figured with smarts and caution I would continue to beat the odds. No chance, not this year.

A record dragonfly hatch brought hundreds of swallows gorging on an easy meal for several evenings. I have seen more kinds of insects I have never seen before. After Donna and I walked the dog last night I wondered about spiders. By now there would generally be several large webs in the garden. Don't get me wrong...they are there...just not the same types in the same places. Donna found the one pictured today.

tomato "cat-facing" 

Truth be told I have somewhat surrendered to the pestilence and vermin that are proving to be the scourge of the garden. Drought followed by 2 2" each rainstorms split most of the tomatoes which were already cat-faced. Patient trimming of tomatoes can yield edible fruit but hot humid weather gave insects a chance to occupy those yummy cracks and spoiled most of what I had. This year I changed types of plants on my father's advice but now this is the second year in a row with a poor yield I am not sure what I will do next year. Heirloom varieties are not always known for disease resistance and the plants were place improperly for irrigation through the drought. I gambled my garden and lost! I found the cutest little bunnies just outside the garden fence...and watched them zip right on in to the garden through tiny holes. They ate down favorite herbs and even nibbled the tomatoes they could reach. A rabbit now and again...yes...but a dozen? Really?!

The most surprising problem we had was with plants inexplicably dying. Turns out the black walnut and butternut trees my father planted years ago have put on just the right amount of root growth to touch the garden, destroying new asparagus plants and tainting a portion of the tomatoes. The trees put out a toxin in the soil designed to reduce competition. I dislike the bitter flavor of the valuable nuts...and now I have a new reason to scowl at these woody giants. I was already criticizing them for cutting down on morning sun in spots.

Time to get new bug books and figure out new gardening strategies.

Food Heaven?

Okay. So I admit it. One of the ways I express my creativity is through cooking. I suppose that isn't a surprise since my form is significantly more rotund than it was when I was younger, and I come from a family of cooks but unlike my the vertically challenged rest of the crew I am a mere 5 feet.

 I can't tell you how many artists I know are gardeners, and if not gardeners then straight out COOKS. The beauty of being a gardener and a cook is that as the bounty rolls in you just have to get more and more imaginative. This is late in the season because we started with high heat early on...like all of North America...so we are seeing the peak of the season early. Drought has all but destroyed the crops and four inches of rain in a few days after all that dry doomed what is left. But I wanted to have a revolution on the barbecue before it rains again. I had a ripe pineapple on the counter and grilled pineapple salsa has been the condiment of the summer. We like the cooking shows and in particular "Chopped", which currently is having a grill master series. They influenced me this way:

I took my pineapple slices and added SALT, pepper, brown sugar and cayenne pepper. Sweet caramelizing on sweet with a spicy kick. Awesome. And if you have to break up with someone at least take the family recipes. Turns out the family recipes were some of what I value most! To get near the original recipe but with my own twist I soaked 4 boneless pork chops (2 for lunch for each of us tomorrow) in soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, garlic powder, red pepper flake and salt and ground black pepper. In a bowl I combined Ken's french dressing (the old divorced family secret always was applied to lamb), soy sauce, brown sugar, granulated garlic, red pepper flake and ground black pepper. The pineapple slices and pork hit the grill at the same time, and I reserved the french dressing based sauce as if it was BBQ sauce. Essentially it was! After 3 minutes I flipped the chops and applied the sauce. Flip and apply...flip...rest. Yum freaking yum. What is your favorite food to BBQ?

Arctic Stories

After making several piece that included sea birds I kept wandering about the ocean and landed, easily, in Inuit mythology. This is the work contained in the Butler-McCook House & Garden show sponsored by CT Landmarks.

Keep reading for the longer version of how I got to these stories...

Over the last year as I muddled about with my work imagining and drawing birds trapped in oil spills and other at sea disasters the Audubon Society began a campaign to broaden understanding about the impact rapid warming in the arctic is having on species of birds we know and love locally. And I have always been a fan of Inuit art, often including a segment for kids when I teach. So I started reading...about new species being discovered deep in the trenches of the ocean, about Inuit life and the stories that make up their understanding of the world and all other kinds of arctic wonders.

Another reason I have been interested in the Inuit is that they seized upon traditional art-making as a way of life when their hunting and gathering ways were altered by the encroachment of modern life. Years ago I had read the story of Skeleton Woman as told by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With Wolves. http://mavenproductions.com/index.php/services/dr-clarissa-pinkola-estes/ and I sought out the book and story again as I tried to embrace and feed my own bones of sadness after the snow storm accident last October 30. Skeleton Woman led to Sedna, the Inuit Goddess of the Sea...and suddenly a series of images was hatched. The Inuit people are spread across the world north of us and their stories of Sedna differ slightly from region to region. I created a panel that depicted an aspect of one of those stories and then a panel of text to accompany it.

then I created panels that depicted the new sea species being discovered. For the small but lovely gallery at the Butler-McCook House & Garden I displayed 4 of these completed panels along with 4 of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Spill drawing. The preceding works are the panels. The stories have similarities and I have romanticized some details and minimized others, so you will see overlap in the texts.

"Catch 22" or "Running Around with my Hair on Fire"

I will likely do more to edit this little me character as I go forward (insert flames), but one of the things that makes me feel like I am doing just that....running around with my hair on fire...is begging people to "like" me or "click this and that" in an effort to get "the word" out and show off more art work. Most of my artist friends agree...we could spend 85% of our time on the computer or phone, marketing and maintaining communications, and a mere 15% (or, sadly, far less) actually making the art.

It isn't a balance that sits well with most of us. It isn't balanced at all.

We artists dream that we will simply "be discovered" like naive potential starlets in the early days of movies. We extract great joy from the process of creating, and then again great joy when a viewer really, really likes something we have created. From the drawing board to the wall there is so much to do! Now with facebook and websites and pins to manage as well as the old-fashioned finding gallery or public space to display the business of art has changed in a fabulous way. In a really fabulous sucking-all-the-time-and-life-from-you way. Like running around with my hair on fire. I am not really sure if I should just scream "look at me" or beg you to put it out!

With just two weeks until I unveil the new work going into the show "A Sea in Myth and Reality" things really are very busy, but here I am typing a blog entry. My first instinct is to keep the computers off, lock the door and stop answering the phone so I can get everything just right...but when I don't let you in on what I am up to then I don't sell a thing. And the only way to keep making art is to sell some.

So follow me, would you? 

Everything Little Thing It Does is Magic

Maybe "It" is New England. Maybe "It" or "She" is the community of humans experiencing this life and smashing into each other like the movie "Crash". I think "It" or "She" is the whole dang planet and everything IS magic.

Case in point: Donna helped me hang 26 works at the Simsbury Public Library, which is a great place within a great place. We popped across the streeet for a great lunch at Peaberry's and hit Rosedale Farms on our way back home. http://www.rosedale1920.com/about-us.html. They were having a wine tasting of their own vineyard's product...6 one ounce tastes for $9.While it seemed like a good deal we thought we would move on with the corn, peaches and strawberries we plucked from their stand.

In the meantime I am keeping pace with Audubon's education regarding arctic creatures you might not be aware rely on the arctic. http://policy.audubon.org/alaska-arctic-page

Each animal is becoming an art piece that works with the Inuit legends and stories that are told and retold to this day. One of the ways the Inuit coped with cultural change brought on by contact with other peoples is to make art...does life get better than that? All right, I am biased. But dramatic climate change is pushing up the pace on change all around the arctic, for human and animal alike. The Audubon Society wanted to know if I knew peregrine falcons relied on arctic wilderness. Yep. Knew that...but I didn't have any idea I would look up from my perch in our living room to find a peregrine falcon clinging to the deck. I assume the gorgeous bird had just missed a bird snack at one of the feeders but it was an amazing site that has yet to be repeated. Suddenly, what the arctic and I have in common closed it circle. Every little thing she does is magic.

When you live in a small town gossip and innuendo are your bedfellows and I had heard (but, truthfully, not believed) that a peregrine was nesting on the high power lines about a mile away. I still have no confirmation except for that one winter moment when the unmistakable peregrine mask stared at me from 20 feet away on my own deck. Recently we have had suspicious sightings of small falcon shapes...not quite sharp-shinned hawk definitely not american kestrel (goodness I miss them). Crank open my identifying mind and eye? Again, yes. Always look for the magic!

Girl in the Garden

The soaring temperatures, mild winter and seemingly early onset of Spring brought about a delicious agony. I love to have my hands in dirt and paint (never together~ well not since that diorama I did about agriculture in 7th grade) and the soil has been workable nearly all year long. The delicious part is the sun warming the soil and buds swelling above me with the delightful sounds of birds siting their territories and nests. Rosie has become a good "farm dog" so I can have her with me whenever and wherever I am working and with the use of chain saws and felling of damaged branches she has a pretty good understanding of how to stay out of danger, although we are still very cautious. Donna has been reading and reviewing organic farming articles in preparation for the growing season and I couldn't be happier. I can practically taste the sweet crunch of raw peas out of their shell and feel the tomato juice slip down my chin as I sink my teeth into that first beefsteak tomato sandwich of late summer. My father and Donna never have enough corn and hopefully we will have better luck with this year's variety, "Gotta Have It". Last year's corn crop was terrible for numerous reasons.

The agony is more about a girl's long path to self-determination. I want nothing more than to please my father and nothing more than to put decades worth of gardening ideas and new knowledge into practice. Those are somewhat mutually exclusive goals. The older gardener wants things to stay the same. Crop rotation? Phooey! Reduce the square footage of growing area? Why? The younger gardener is a known perfectionist with multiple books and the internet in use for reference. Both love the sights, smells and tastes of gardening and that is where I will have to try and stay...on common ground.

When I Swallowed the Story

When the Earth Swallowed the Moon  March 2012

 At long last I finally finished a piece based on a personal myth I have been working with for months. The actual mixed media piece took about 20 hours over the last several days. It feels like I started the story ages ago but for some reason, despite a very mild winter, my pace been glacial. I was talking with my friend Nancy a week ago and made yet another reference to yet another thing impacted by the October surprise snowstorm (I think the damn thing was named "Alfred") and she laughed and reminded me that the storm was 4 1/2 months ago. I did not need reminding. In fact, I was temporarily not amused. I have effectively been wallowing in self pity pretty much since then and nothing slows time like self pity. Actually the storm-related funk began with the water drenched remnants of hurricanes Irene and Lee. Once I realized that I actually did, at long last, start laughing at myself.

rough sketch for underground moon piece

After the rain but before the snowstorm I was preparing for Open Studio at ArtSpace and purchased a frame I liked for signage. Because of the heavy snow that led to the bonk on the head that led to the seizure that led to the hospital that led to the medication that led to the side effects that led to...well...the self pity part gets pretty clear right about now, doesn't it? Anyway, the frame didn't get used, so I started on an 11" X 36" image to stuff inside it instead and the image with the tree above is a second attempt at filling it. Once I started drawing I became fascinated with the idea that while the sun was shining the moon was trapped underground in the tree roots, with the above ground and the under ground depicting the night and day opposites. I stopped and played dead for a while until I decided starting over was best, still with the idea of the ground swallowing the moon.

The first piece I ever did depicting both roots and above ground plants was in an etching from my high school art days, and I resurrected the idea for a very personal piece in my own collection about being buried alive. You can see how that might end up in my own collection. Selling a piece about being buried alive is a lot like selling art about environmental disasters. It doesn't happen. Still, now and then I have to make such a thing. After all, art is first a dialogue with oneself and then a dialogue with life outside of oneself.

Underground  June 2011

Finally I ended up with the smaller and more benign piece "Undergound", but the other stories kept nagging at me.

Freya and the Art Cloak

In Fall of 2010 I started a mixed media book about the Norse goddess Freya (Frejya) and her story of keeping the winged cloaks of the gods and my interpretation of her true desires. I had a grand time at the "Art Is..." conference telling the story and even selling a couple of related works. I like myths and legends as jumping off points, so I have been s-l-o-w-l-y storyboarding two other works for multiple illustration projects. But I have a question...if the myth or story starts with another culture, do I have any right to rewrite it as my own, with my own embellishments? I have collected many stories over the years and in particular two other goddess stories, both Inuit in origin. Once slightly changed each suits my own personal mythology. Do I have any right to interpret another culture's way of explaining life, even the very origin of life, to make peace with my own life? Do I have an obligation to that culture or is my greater imperative to interpret what rings true for me in a contemporary timeline?

I think if I can't get these stories and my matching imagery out of my head I owe it to myself to get them down  somehow, but should it be like the "buried alive" and "dead birds" themes...for my consumption only? Makes me go "hmmmmmmmm". What do you think?

Rosie Smelling the Roses

Right on time (well, maybe not as on time as Donna wanted...she was pacing) a beautiful bouquet arrived via unmarked minivan. It was to mark our first wedding anniversary yesterday and even though I most often do my own arrangements Donna thinks now and again I should have the luxury of someone else putting it all together. It has been a cooler and grey week marked most noisily by the severe cold we unintentionally shared. The pup was glad for her sliver of sunshine and a little sniff. Last year, same day, she gnawed on my lei during the ceremony itself. If you don't watch that pup during gardening season she will "help" weed by tearing out plants and pick or dig ripe things, not always gently. Since Donna and I met 8 years ago yesterday life has been very interesting, but this past year was jam-packed with happy and lucky events and frightening and even devastating moments. Maybe this winter barren of most snow means we are back on the road to average, which wouldn't be all bad. It is easy to spice up average...much harder still to moderate the extraordinary. For today I will very much enjoy my slowly recovering senses and smell the lavender roses with Rosie and Donna.

Art and Weather

A friend shared this drawing by Pearl Eden and it seemed particularly timely. I gave an artist talk Sunday...well, it would have been an artist talk if the woman I was a guest of had allowed me to say anything! But let me back up a bit...

Three weeks ago I hung 25 pieces at an unfamiliar venue. I had two helpers whom I had never met before. One was a prominent member of the community and the other also of long-standing community importance and the same person I will call my "non-profit patron" who had invited me to show. What is a "non-profit patron"?  My attempt to have words describe the most common way an artist gets local exposure. Someone does you the grand favor (I am not being sarcastic) of allowing your work to be hung where others might see it. This person is rarely a buyer, no, but someone who has control of wall space and likes your work. Then you, the artist, spend many hours adjusting work, frames, price lists and labels to accommodate the place where the walls are. Sometimes you just get the walls for the prescribed period of time, but sometimes you need to make an appearance and talk about the work. Ideally once people see the work and like what you have to say they open up the wallet and take home some art. Sometimes the venue takes a percentage...as much as 40%...but sometimes it is a communal space that requires no commission on top of whatever the cost of the show may be. Sometimes you pay to be at the venue and then pay a percentage of what you sell too. Free is ideal of course but still involves cost to the artist...time, gas, materials, time, advertising costs. Did I mention time?

Back to my helpers...I brought them each a small gift for both allowing me to hang my work and helping me to hang it. While we were working I was avoiding any "interpretation of the art" discussions. I was more concerned about the hanging mechanisms and the fact that all the pictures were well above my eye level. Easy to do...I am only 5 feet tall after all...but it was unnerving to know I would leave the building with my neck semi permanently swiveled upward 45 degrees. These people were doing me a huge favor by helping, and the second part of their favor, one that can not be ignored, is to pronounce an opinion of the work. It is part of the bargain, their rite/right of my passage.

This show includes work about the BP gulf oil spill.When people react to work about the oil spill they let me know if they want to know the story of the art or they don't. They either want to be left alone to admire the pretty birds divorced from their meaning or they want to discuss the merits of the meaning. In this case each of my two helpers chose a different path. I didn't know how it might effect the whole show. Not until this past Sunday when I turned up to do my "artist talk"...my most disastrous artist talk EVER.

The weather outside Saturday, the day before the fateful talk, was good for chores...and we do have those piled up. But I stayed indoors and prepped for Sunday while Donna repaired the wood splitter and ran around with Rosie the farm dog. I spent several hours putting together a new set of greeting cards that showcase some bird art. I wanted to have a set comparable to the moon cards~ especially because I am nearly sold out of those at the moment. What I did not include in greeting cards was any images of my work about the BP oil spill in the gulf of mexico. That work has received critical praise and an award, but I have not sold a single one. What I need to do right now is SELL. And when someone invites you for an artist talk or gallery talk one of the lures they use is that you can and will sell. Non-profit patrons are all convinced their venue is the BEST opportunity for you to sell your work.

The disaster began right away. When I arrived I could see there was no accommodation for my silly little greeting cards~ no table or rack available despite the abundance of such things. And suddenly it was clear that the prospective audience would be downstairs...a full floor away from the art itself. I surrendered myself to my hosts and watched helplessly as it all went terribly wrong. I cursed myself for not bringing my own name tag...everyone had one but me.

The first worst part was I wasn't the one talking about my work! My host was...and she was absolutely enamored of oil spill art and its tragic birds...not a good topic for a sunny winter Sunday. My other patron/helper was there and for some reason he immediately dragged a few of us into a section of the building's basement...essentially an emergency exit... to show off a piece by another creative person. If only I had used the fire exit right then! Every moment we spent in that concrete bunker more of my potential audience/buyers wandered off, before they even had any idea who I was or what on earth I was doing there with my little canvas bag of cards and cash for change.

Until this past year I have been adamantly opposed to making any of my pieces into greeting cards unless it is for me to gift to others or to use as self promotion. In 2010 I sold fewer large pieces and decided I needed a some lower price point items. Big mistake, especially as this situation deteriorated...as my host rattled on to individual attendees and I began to get sidelong glances of pure pity. Then the worst happened. The pity people each bought a card. One woman actually gave me pennies.

This was the point at which my non-profit patron seemed to figure out what a failure the "artist talk" was. Another pity person had dragged over a card table for me to put out some things and the non-profit patron began to gather up what I had spread out. I quickly put those things back in the bag and tried to find a graceful exit. All conversation switched to our pets and I happily tucked away my hugely uncomfortable artist persona. I came very close to gathering up all my work right then and there...all the packing materials were right in the van...but instead I smiled and nodded my goodbyes and promised to try and figure out something better for another time. A sunny Sunday and me with chores at home.

And art and weather?

Every bit of this series of events started with a storm. And then another storm, the likes of which I have not witnessed in my lifetime. The October snowstorm was a true show stopper for me. Instead of hanging work in downtown Hartford for a heavily promoted event the lights went off for 80% of CT and stayed off for most for a week or more. I snowshoed my way into a storm-related accident and spent the better part of the last 3 months trying to get control of my life back. The storm brought new opportunites...but the price was SO high. It has left the life of my non-profit patron in ruins. I think it was her shock that made her focus so on the tragedy of the oil spill birds. It was her shock that was taking the stage Sunday. I drove away wondering how I could help her, sure that my own difficult circumstances were coming to some resolution, hoping so. I drove away with more questions than answers about how life chooses pathways and feeling odd about this winter of no winter. In fact it is a balmy 54 degrees outside right now. I opened the windows and aired out the house with glee, as if it was March or April instead of January 31. Unsettling.

It has been hard for me to decide how much of the storm story to tell. I have an acquaintance who uses the internet to trumpet her personal tragedy and it never sits well with me...the mixing of blog and business and bedlam. Should I always appear be one of the happy shiny people? Should I put out an internet beg for business? Do I make it look effortless and easy? There was a painter and painting that became the talk of Open Studio...the "Portrait of a Girl with Road Kill". It was gorgeously painted and hysterical, a lot like my pretty dead birds but way better, more like the dark drama of storm clouds cracked by late day sun. Art and weather. Girl and road kill. Birds in oil. Disaster passes. The earth is so much older than I will ever be.

Murmeration

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.


My "Flight Pattern 22" or "22 Bird" piece was made to express just this kind of unexplained event. My friend Cathleen McClain sent this along to me after we were remembering our huge flock of starlings in downtown Hartford and had a weird bird encounter in West Hartford (although that was caused by a supergathering at bird feeders).
http://lightbox.time.com/2011/11/03/murmurations-spectacular-starlings-signal-winter-is-on-its-way/#1

Most of these sightings are in Europe, specifically the British Isles. I wonder if the flight patterns are embedded in some sort of collective memory starlings here don't have. Starlings in the US were brought to Central Park so that all the birds of Shakespeare would be represented there...same with "English" sparrows~ commonly known as house sparrows. Both breeds established themselves quickly and spread across the continent. House sparrows create a huge problem for bluebirds around here by taking over already occupied nest boxes, sometimes killing the bluebirds and breaking eggs in the bluebird nests.

When I lived in Hartford it was not uncommon for the huge flock of city starlings to be startled by the peregrine falcons that regularly hunted them. Sharp-shinned hawks also cruised through and suddenly the small birds would decamp from under the highway overpasses and find themselves clinging to the screens all over ArtSpace. I lived in a perfect spot to watch the spectacle. I could see the railroad bridge and Bushnell Park and watch the dance between resident birds of prey and the starling and pigeon flocks.

Around our bird feeders at home in Broad Brook things have been quiet. There has been no snow cover since the October snowstorm that devastated the trees and we are wondering if our birds from the "forest edge" like grosbeaks and indigo buntings will not nest in the changed landscape, that it will not provide the cover they are used to. Spring will tell. One of these autumns I want to travel to Scotland and watch the spectacle of murmeration.

There's just something about a church

This week, via a series of events stated at Open Studio Hartford and after the abrupt cancellation of my show at the Butler-McCook House due to that devil of a storm October 30, 25 pieces of mine migrated from the West Gallery of the Simsbury Public Library to the Unitarian Society in Hartford. I hadn't been in the building since the late 1980s and I can't even remember exactly why I was there then but most likely it was because of something supportive the Unitarian Society was doing for the gay and lesbian community. At that time Congregationalist churches, the church I was brought up in, were voting congregation by congregation  about whether or not to be "open and affirming" of  gay membership. Neither of the churches I attended as a child and adult held such a vote. Politically we were working hard at that time to pass hate crimes legislation and civil rights legislation that could end human resources policies that openly violated the rights of gays and lesbians to live and work in peace and segments of communities and organizations were actively working with the lobbying effort.

The building was fascinating then and it is still striking. The gallery space extends in a circular fashion around the sanctuary in the center and the construction of the whole thing is, to me, like a shallow nautilus with a large center. My pictures look good there, if I may say.

These are tumultuous times and it is nice to have had the work out continuously. Originally my work was scheduled to be shown at a restaurant in the area and in the aftermath of the storm the restaurant closed for good. In our own lives the full tally of the cost of the storm is still coming due and  if you told me I would be switching form one type of CT landmark as a venue to a completely different one I would have tipped my head a bit, like Rosie does, wondering what could precipitate such a change.

 In a quick aside I did have one inquiry in the last couple of months asking if my price was "firm" on a certain piece. I think people are reprogramming themselves to ask if they are getting the best deal just as common sense, but sometimes the question as posed to an artist seems  like unnecessary commentary on the value of a piece. This woman summed it up quite well: http://www.somersherwood.com/?p=126 . It is a calculation that relates pretty directly to the labor intensive detail of my own work. Yes, with the exception of my mother, the price is firm. Mother is a whole other story.

So, back to the church. I am unabashedly comforted in a place of worship, no matter what the type of worship is. I am sure that is not the experience of those around me so my discussions of spirituality over the last few years has been limited to my good neighbor Fred, who reads extensively on the subject and talks openly about his experiences, thoughts, and feelings regarding religious practices and beliefs. And we had such a strange series of weather all of 2011 I think most of our talk has been relegated to our Yankee-like obsession with the weather. Often the weather completely prevented over-the-back-fence conversation!

This is my first art show in a place of spiritual gathering except that summer I had an outdoor show of loose canvases painted and nailed to trees for a several days long music festival. Of course I would consider a stand of trees a sanctuary. We even call the front room of our house, the one with a wall of windows facing the sunset, the "sanctuary".

This Unitarian Society building went from simply being a place to hang work and became, when I stepped gingerly inside, some ancient feeling washing over me head to toe, as if I suddenly lay down in a generous soft patch of moss outside in the field, with only nature as noise and a wide blue sky view. It held a comfort that caught me off guard. I still am oddly unnerved but not in the least surprised. It is as if I am afraid someone will ask me to explain myself. It is as if I am afraid no one will ever ask me to explain myself. Usually that contradiction applies only to the art...not my whole self.

In these days of short light it is easier to talk about the discomforts....the itchy cold, the wreath dropping needles, the electric bill, the unease left by big storms that changed us, really changed us. To say I am frustrated or envious or impatient falls more easily from my mouth than the really oooey gooey center of me...loved, comforted, fed, warm and grateful. "Grace" was my word of the year for 2011. Donna and I decided together it needs to remain a watch word but we need a new one too. The new word may lie in these experiences of comfort that sneak up on me.

Life shifts shapes. I'm going along. Yes, I'm coming along.