Broad Brook Art

Rosie Smelling the Roses

2012-02-14T16:26:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-31T16:26:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-14T11:58:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-06T14:47:00.000-05:00

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.

Fresh Starts

2011-12-19T17:19:00.000-05:00

Donna and I have been extremely anxious this holiday season. There are changes afoot making me act like a hermit crab, waiting until no one looks to move along. We have tackled a couple of simple things and found nagging complications that have been completely out of our control. You had to see our newly hung bedroom curtains to see how a seemingly silly detail could throw us off. One set of panels had been resealed into a bag to make them look new and ready to go...but they had been hemmed a full 24 or more inches! So half of the curtains went to the floor and the other half looked like a poor soul who had rushed out of the restroom with her skirt accidentally tucked in her underpants. Not pretty.

I was fixed on unnecessary details~ that is until I got a synchronous phone call with an art show request. Despite the season and our offers our house will be almost bereft of company and the business where I was to show my work in January and February abruptly closed last week. The end of one opportunity has cleared the way for another. Suddenly the priorities are made clear....new work for the first of the year makes sense. The gifts and galas will sort out as the week progresses. All in good time, all in good time.

Season of Light

2011-12-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

We found this silly 7.5 foot narrow tree at Target and I am happy to say the twanging and panging of my old Christmas Tree business days are quieted when I look at the finished tree. Neither the dog nor I have a rash or the sneezing and wheezing we both do when we bring in a locally grown smells-like-fresh-air just cut Christmas Tree.

The sale on the artificial tree was good enough that we thought it would be worth a try and if we had to abandon it later we would find it a good home. This year there are additional strings of crystals serving as garland~ we purchased them for the arch we were married under this past February and it seems like a perfect new addition to the decor.

We tightened up a little on the decorating this year. I love to paint the rooms with light during these shortest days of the year. I am really all about the pagan parts of the Christmas rituals except that I can sing every hymn related to Christmas as if I am standing in church with my choir robe on and a battery operated candle firmly gripped in my hand. Anything can set the singing off and nothing will drive the melodies out of my head. Without fail I am accidentally (and probably in a quite unwelcome way) serenading my fellow holiday shoppers to the heralding Muzak in the store.

But the light of this season is a hair more dim.The double hit of storms in August and October did nothing to diminish the power bill. How can one be out of electricity for 9 days and not see it any reflected lowering of the utility bill? In the most unnoticeable and useless protest ever I refused to put up the outdoor lights. Yes, I am questioning my seasonal spirit. Grinch? No. Curmudgeon? Yes. Until "Hark to the Bells" puts a skip in my step and a pleasant ringing in my ears.

At Last...

2011-11-26T16:55:00.000-05:00

I can hear Etta James belting the song out in my head...not only because it was what my sister Barbette and her newlywed husband Nathan chose as their first married dance at their wedding, but because it has become my theme song for hope. Please tell me we are hitting the outside edge of the repercussions of the October Surprise snowstorm! Each time I began to put together a newsletter or blog piece about upcoming art events and such I was set back by technical problems. After a 3rd visit in as many weeks by technicians for Cox our internet and phones both seem to be working better and I was able TODAY to finally make some updates to my ArtFire Studio. Our network is finally working so I can print again. All of this AFTER "Black Friday" and "Small Business Saturday". Broad Brook Art missed both of those boats....in port due to storm.

I rely on my computer and other technology objects even more than my art tools, and when I look at the big picture they cost more than my canvas and pencils and such~ although you might be surprised at how often art materials are "updated" or "upgraded" for the better...meaning the old stuff just might not do anymore. That new set of intense pigments I have my eye on? Exorbitant! CUH-razy! We have stayed away from relying on a second car and smart phones for now, but we have found the thrifty choices are not always worth the money OR the time. And ooooh those paints are soooo cool.

For now we will continue our economic insecurity...give me a mild winter and we might yet join the ranks of consumers. First I need to rejoin the ranks of operational business owners. Horse then cart.

Settle in to Monday

2011-11-21T11:56:00.000-05:00

Galileo's moon phases

And of course the name is derived from "Moon Day" and countless other references, but considering my penchant lately for the moon and night landscapes I think I will tag this day as my MoonDay.

I haven't sketched a single night landscape since the end of August, when storm Irene robbed us of both daylight and night light...closely followed by storm Lee with torrents of rain. Somewhere in there we headed to a new berth on Cape Cod and found that portion of the Cape was not dog-friendly until October...so we had less night moon on sand, water and beach grasses to look at. I suppose we could have snuck Rosie onto the night beach, but these same places were pretty strict about staying away after sunset as well. I will figure it out~ I must have my dose of moonlit beaches every year.

For years Donna and dog and I have headed off to North Truro for Halloween. This year we knew we couldn't renew the rental. When it was time to place our deposit Donna was still unemployed and we are both grateful she is working now, but common sense told us our lives had changed more than "same time NEXT year". We made a new plan and lo and behold when we would have been moonlighting on national seashore we were digging out from under the storm of the century here at home.

from THIS October 30, 2011

To THIS November 20, 2011

What is typical for the month between these two photos is my father mowing the back acres one field at a time and the autumn colors creeping into the grasses and glowing gorgeously in the moonlight on my night walks with Rosie. This year relentless weather literally flattened the grasses and the fall colors just greyed out as the snow melted away and the green grasses kept staying spring-like.

And, spring like, there was and still is water water everywhere. Donna and I wondered when we went into as kind of storm coma. After a tense few days we finally figured out Saturday that we had been collectively holding our breath all of November. I had to admit that I had frightened Donna and my folks pretty badly by having the stupid seizure when they had no phone service and couldn't reach 911. Not only did I not want to hear about their experience, I had no interest in discussing the ramifications for me. I was supposed to have the busiest show season EVER. I had a big fat old 50th birthday coming. I also was not interested in a new neurologist and his demands and a new medication and its side effects. Hence my storm coma. I just grayed it all out and moved forward.

During Open Studio we heard some other storm-related traumas. Everyone has at least one story and it is surprising how many of them include explosions. Really. Explosions! As we packed up to head home last Sunday night the block of ice around our experience began rapidly melting into a new edginess. Other people began to speak their continued fears. Did we have any?

Refusing to be inconvenienced is one thing...denial of the facts is quite another. Somewhere my graying field grasses demarcated the line between staying positive and staying delusional. And delusion is not to be nurtured. So here is my Moonday morning. Reality is shaping up pretty well~ into a new normal. Still here, but a little more real.

What is your Moon Day reality?

Banned from city hall....doesn't stop the art!

2011-11-17T14:43:00.000-05:00

Things have been just plain crazy. Part of the reason I haven't written sooner is the world is simply puzzling at the moment, but one thing is straight-forward as can be: if you want to see good art for a good cause you will head over to Manchester Memorial Hospital between 6 and 8 pm tonight and have a gander at the male and female torsos transformed into art to raise breast cancer awareness. Yes, this is the show that was banned from city hall and city hall has realized it is art...not gratuitous nudity. This was a fun thing to do but who knew it would have the power to dissolve an art organization! The real power this "Celebration of the Ta-Tas" show has had is it did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do extremely well~ remind both men and women that regular screenings for breast cancer are essential to the defeat of this disease! And we will have some fun in the meantime...

Full Storm Ahead!

2011-11-07T15:01:00.000-05:00

Despite the obstacles we are moving forward. For two days we have had no need to go to a shelter to charge computer or phones and our power has been on consistently and long enough to have caught up on laundry and dishes. The ambulance company tracked us down for billing and my parents now know for sure their oven, coffee maker, surge controls, phones and various lights are blown by the surge that happened when power returned. This time we unplugged our refrigerator (new due to the last big storm) and other expensive appliances and seem to have emerged minus additional power complications. I can still see crews working to restore power down the street and when we drive toward the center of our town the devastation is still too real. School is still not back in session and this is day 6 of 180. With Irene school didn't start on time so most north central schools have already used their allotted snow days and then some...and we are nowhere near the end of winter.

Legislators have been wandering through the public spaces (shelters) and I have received some e-mails that attempt to demonstrate intervention on our behalf. Each local community is allowed to do their own thing, which has left many of us without essential services. Thursday Don and I passed through our municipal buildings and found MREs (meals ready to eat) provided by the National Guard or someone and no plans to distribute those resources to people stranded. I was horrified to pass a house with a grill set up INSIDE the house...sure, the door and windows were open but there have been so many carbon monoxide poisonings (including deaths) that it was hard to believe people would take the risk.

Bottom line? We need some serious distribution of disaster preparedness info...and our communities should be better prepared to inform people of what is going on. I would have gladly gone house to house as a volunteer...I am sure others would have also been willing.

Now the worst is over what was most distressing? The fact that my parents, who happen to live next door, were not willing to leave their home even for a short time. We kept our fireplace going and the temperature near the fireplace was well above 60 degrees...far warmer than the rest of the house and surely far warmer than theirs. Our neighbor with a generator, Justin, was generous and shared his shower facilities as well as electrician information. The electrician is practically a member of the family at this point. He hooked up the old generator to my folks' furnace and pronounced their power and appliances unsafe. I could have done the same thing even as a layperson, but my elderly parents wanted that expert opinion and we were grateful to have it.

Each time we say "lesson learned" but this time...two devastating storms in two months...perhaps we actually have.

Butterflies

2011-10-27T14:37:00.001-04:00

I hate self promotion I hate self promotion I hate self promotion! I just sent out an e-mail telling people about Jan Warren's November world and it is making me VERY anxious. Of course the only other option is to not tell anyone and be miserable when there is a poor turn out at my exhibit opening November 3. This show is extremely important to me and I have been running on a very disciplined schedule to be sure it all comes together well.

The butterflies in my belly take me right back to elementary school stage fright. I loved singing with the chorus under Miss Harding's kind tutelage and I remember a concert assembly like it was yesterday. My friend Pam stood up next to me on one of those metal cafeteria chairs so everyone could hear and see her perform a solo. The song still can stick in my head from time to time. I thought she was wonderful but I had butterflies just being next to her! As much as I loved music I did figure out early on that if I had art up on the wall at school I could watch people look at it and hear what they said and never even be seen.

Well, the butterflies in my stomach mean this all is very important to me. Add in turning 50, which I am thrilled to be celebrating. I have always been a little obsessed with the Adirondack Trail and thought I would like to spend my 50th year hiking the entire thing. I committed to artwork instead and of course saw a little snippet in the paper today about a 50 year old woman who had to be rescued from the trail in New Hampshire after breaking her leg. I could just picture that rocky section of the trail and how cold it must be up there right now~ there is a possibility of snow here! Without a doubt I would rather have butterflies and art work than broken bones.

This past weekend I also had a great reminder about how quickly plans can change ~ like shifting winds or breaking a leg ~ so instead of marching in the Hooker Day parade or going to yoga class I got to spend time with Donna and Dad and fix the tractor exhaust to boot. The reminder? Family first. And be prepared. Any procrastination at this point in the game leaves me too vulnerable. If things are done ahead than I can absorb the occasional last minute detour. I am such a procrastinator by habit, staggering between perfectionism and worm tall self assessments. I really have to work to stay in middle ground.

The butterfly here shows every stage from caterpillar to chrysalis to spectacularly winged creature and sometimes I feel like I have to do those stages over and over again...but less now. At 50 it is a little easier to keep my wings intact. So, where are you going to be November 3rd? Did I mention I am having an art show...or three?

Flap flap flap FLAP goes the butterfly.

Damage control

2011-10-19T10:00:00.003-04:00

After storm Irene blew through all six of us here on the farm cleaned up what we could of the storm. The days and days of power outage finally exhausted our cooler's abilities to preserve much from the refrigerator. Dad loaded up his generator on the trailer and drove it from Barb's house to their house then on to mine over and over and over. Barb and I each chose one appliance to run and we tried to be sure things were split up accordingly. I still have the top of their wedding cake in my freezer...the one appliance I tried to keep at a workable temperature. I haven't dared look.

I had bushels of garden stuff because I needed to strip the plants before the storm~ the biggest single day harvest of the year. Donna and I drove down to the grocery store to get what was needed to preserve all this fresh-picked bounty. As we got to the parking lot a torrential rain beat down on us. Irene was still 12-16 hours away from impacting us at all and we were already seeing flooding. Slowly the gravity of our situation dawned as we sat there in the car, knowing the already saturated ground would partner with the coming wind to create a disaster on a level we had never seen. Donna started up the engine and we slowly drove home without ever having entered the grocery store. I have to admit to stopping by the liquor store.

I can't remember when exactly my Aunt Barbara came to my rescue. If she hadn't taken my harvest off my hands completely it would have all rotted along with the contents of the refrigerator. And she is such a love...Barbara has the same passion we do for the fresh picked. I knew nothing would go to waste. It wasn't much considering the disappointing growing season, but it was all we had and I couldn't bear to see it wasted.

24 hours before Irene made landfall

24 hours after

It took a while for the full extent of the damage to reveal itself. You could look into a stand of trees and leaves from broken branches and fallen trees blended right in, as long as they were green. As days went by all the broken started to reveal itself. Nathan bought himself a chainsaw and all of us worked to clear the paths. As more and more limbs were piled to the sides we realized the log splitter needed to be revved up...but no luck getting it going. The heavy heavy snow brought rodents into engines and air filters to take shelter. It was impossible to get into the shed or under tarps to check on things with a 36 inch snowpack. The tropical storms came on the heels of our earthquake. I am not sure I was joking when I said to people locusts would be next.

I haven't written about it or posted photos because so many people were hurt worse than us. Agriculture in our area took a double hit as record snow reduced sheds, garages and barns to jumbled piles of tinder. It is still hard to look at the twisted carcasses of our neighbors greenhouses. One family we know simply packed it in: put their retail location up for sale and left the ruined greenhouses as testimony to powerlessness. And all of that was months before record September flooding wiped out millions in crops along the CT river and deeply inland.

A month and a half later and we can't get equipment across the bridge over the brook without becoming completely mired. We had 3 1/2" more rain here last week and expect another inch or so today. Like I said, so many people suffered losses that the insult to our household shouldn't be whined about. We slipped away to South Dennis on Cape Cod and had a fabulous week...then came home to a post-storm newly restocked refrigerator with an internal temperature of 80 degrees! Two days of research and comparison pricing led us to Lowe's and a solid price on fridges with newer features. Next day delivery was exactly as promised although I did not account for the baseboard trim or the cabinet being just 1/8" off plumb. For the first few days it hung out into the kitchen while I DARED it to fail. It took about a week to really feel we could invest in cold food again. For a while I tried to wrap my brain around the idea that the loss of the refrigerator guaranteed it would be a while before we purchase that second car.

2011 has been quite a ride for this family so far...unemployed, snowed in, Dad ill, married, dug out, re-employed, Dad better, sister married, rained out then to ice it soon I will be turning 50. Not bad. Not bad at all. I really am happier than I have ever been!

Time Travel?

2011-10-18T15:59:00.000-04:00

I wonder more and more how time can pass so quickly. I seems like we just finished dealing with storms Irene and Lee from late August and early September and it is past mid October now! The morning glories are giving us one last big show until a hard frost does them in. The garden was almost hopeless this year because wet weather spread more kinds of plant fungus than I have ever seen and I certainly have come across mushrooms I am sure I haven't encountered before. Time did crawl to a stop at one point...all those days the power was out.

Garden nightmare: tomato fungus everywhere

The fall garden wasn't worth photographing. It is just a big patch of dirt with a sprout or two of red lettuce and a sorrowful row of radishes that simply won't fill out. Once we pulled out the tomato plants the marigolds revealed their glory. My one good idea was to put those between the tomatoes. It kept it from looking completely like death.

It still does seem like the sky looks like this more often than not...and the one-two punch of Irene and Lee added a few permanent fixtures to our lives.

Sand bags and pick up sticks! Oh and we can't forget the must-have fashion item for October! Donna and I drove up to Tolland, MA to help my uncle out with his internet connection. I was going crazy trying to figure out what smelled so offensive in the car...then in the house...the scent was following me around. I was horrified to narrow the nauseating reak down to me, the only common denominator. Before I was revealed as the source of the odor I tiptoed outside, double-bagged the shoes I was wearing and stashed them in the van to throw out when I got home. My shoes had simply not dried completely in several weeks and finally they were going to rot right at the end of my leg. L.L. Bean here we come. These wellies have been used EVERY SINGLE DAY since their purchase. I feel like I am going fishing instead of walking the dog...but at least my feet are finally dry!

Wow~ great month, good show!

2011-08-25T20:56:00.000-04:00

I was grateful to fall into a one-woman show as artist-of-the-month at Aetna, here in Hartford CT. Lots of people in our geographical area have been employed by some big companies, but not me...so the whole place seems HUGE! I have come and gone through the loading dock a number of times and the conduit for cold drinking water has to have a 3 foot radius. But stuff is selling nicely and people there have been so great. I hadn't advertised two of the pieces anywhere else because they are so new...and now they are going to live with someone else! I couldn't be happier!

Morning Mayhem

2011-08-10T15:42:00.000-04:00

I have no one to blame but myself. I have suddenly moved from garden maintenance straight into full harvest and I don't own any canning jars! I am pretty sure my mom will share her equipment, perhaps even pass it on. After 50 years of gardening and canning the folks are just about finished. But that doesn't mean there isn't commentary. Moments ago I heard my father's farm cart pull away from the front step...and there it was...

Drive by squashing

I took the pup out for our morning stroll yesterday and caught the man circling quietly about the compound. He warned me I had cucumbers to harvest. It seemed impossible. Perhaps there is one, I thought, but I was so very wrong. 10 more for our house and 7 for Mom. The father was not mistaken. I believe I have underestimated the capacity here.

Over the weekend Donna and I caught up to the garden...or tried to. It took a lawnmower and much hand weeding to get us back into shape after weeks of heat and no rain and other priorities. I was sure I had harvested well enough to skip a day. But no...we are to the point of daily harvest. At last!!! The moment I was anticipating since March! And how could I have been so unprepared?

I pictured how the days of August would be. I would roll out of bed ready to face the day. First, get Rosie out. Let her run around pretty well and then we would pitter patter around the garden selecting succulent veggies for a gourmet supper. The way I love it...breakfast from the tomato vine. Back to work in the studio all day and another walk before making dinner...cut through the garden gate and just brush against the tomato vines and the basil...pick some flowers for the table.

Okay. I know no one but me is surprised how different reality is. This is the actual way the day has gone:

Get up early to shower.

Take the dog out to pee before the trip to camp...doggy day care.

The dog won't pee. If she holds it maybe I won't leave.

I take her back inside.

I rifle through all my various bags for keys, grocery lists, coupons.

This is the activity that tipped off the dog of my imminent departure.

Again! I have allowed the cell phone to die without charging.

Borrow Donna's phone for the day.

Drive dog to camp.

Drive Donna to work because in order to be environmentally responsible AND avoid a car payment we have become a one car family.

Drop my darling off and head to Hartford.

The inevitable traffic.

I pick up my friend Cathleen and we head to Whole Foods to shop and have breakfast.

I find MORE than what I need at Whole Foods. A $9.99 vanilla bean? One bean? Really?

Cathleen and I sit down to eat and we can't have a conversation...

there is a raucous meeting of men behind us and we are both hard of hearing.

Load up groceries and head to a store that has a coupon and sale on frames.

Wander around calculating, finally putting some in the cart.

Helpfully pull things together for the cashier while I should have been searching for my credit card.

Watch the line become absurdly long for 9:00 a.m.

Give up the search. Pay cash.

Hit the bank for cash...not sure if the bank HAS cash after this week on Wall St..

As I drop Cathleen back at ArtSpace an alarm sounds.

In my car.

????Low fuel? I have never seen that giant orange square before...and did I mention the alarm?

Ha! I can beat those high gas prices with my Stop & Shop gas rewards!

Drive 10 miles to Stop & Shop gas station.

Wait a long time in line.

Get to the pump and find I do not have the new fancy purple card that gives the gas rewards.

And then there is the alarm...and the line.

Pump 5 gallons and called it a fill up.

Go to grocery store for items that were too pricey in Whole Foods,

stuff I need to put up crops from the garden.

Scan and bag my own groceries as I go and head to the self-check-out lane.

(In high school I got paid to check groceries)

Coupon dealy-doo keeps yelling "coupons full"

Does anyone else in the store find that

know-it-all talking witch of a cash register speaks very loud?

Live cashier helps but not without a subtle but unmistakable

adults-are-SO-stupid eye roll.

The woman in the machine insists I slide a coupon into the slot...

A coupon that is in fact IN the slot.

The woman in the machine takes back my discount, only it seems she is more quiet with the stealing-my-money part.

Try to catch the eye of eye-roll girl.

Race out of the store and throw everything in the car...I have frozen stuff...gotta beat this sun...

Look for the receipt and realize in my haste I must have left it in the store.

Head back in...and slowly realize I do not have a receipt because

I LEFT WITHOUT PAYING!!!!!

Run faster, searching for cops or other authorities mobilizing.

Think about my defense...

Skulk into the check-out lane and find the woman in the machine has not stopped talking to me,

despite the fact I was long gone. This is now a good thing.

Finish and pay, retrieving the receipt that PROVES I saved $17 in coupons

and quietly exit the store.

As I am getting in the car I look at my "gas rewards" total.

They have started my gas rewards over again.

I have no gas rewards.

Head home, unload groceries.

Look down and find frozen fruit pop melted

in pink blotches all over my new white shirt.

Soak the shirt...

And here I am. I am not making art. I am not pickling cucumbers and making cucumber soup. I am not walking the dog or strolling through the garden. In fact I am actually paying someone else to wear the dog down. I haven't started dinner. When I am through here I think I will have spent a good chunk of my afternoon whining on a blog no one will ever read again if I DON"T MAKE SOME ART and get it up here. And in a little bit I will head out to pick up my sweet wife from work and my sweet dog from camp.

But life is good. My sweet dog is always glad to see me. My sweet wife never, ever says "whatever did you do with your day??!!" and she likes it when the three of us stroll through the garden together and she never minds when dinner is late and she is happy to help cook and still clean up. It could be so much worse....the woman in the register could have been my only friend today...but I had Cathleen and Jane and sunshine with lower humidity and rain for the garden last night.

Sure, I am behind in work and chores...but what good is growing stuff if I don't stop and drink it all in?

Installed at Aetna

2011-08-02T08:11:00.002-04:00

There is a gallery space outside the cafeteria on Aetna's Hartford campus. Artists selected have a month to show their work and give a gallery talk at the end of that month. I took 23 pieces and hung 20 because that is how many cables there were to the hanging system~ a typical rail with hanging wires system.

Hopefully I can get some feedback about two new pieces I made in late July. I love mixed media and collage but I rarely include those pieces in shows. After the hydrangea-all-over-everything for Barb and Nate's wedding I was burnt and bored with plain old drawing. I made myself a challenge: new pieces that fit in a #10 envelope...you know, regular business size. I have a ton of odd envelopes hanging around, gluing themselves closed over time. The idea was to send thank you notes but...I liked one of the pieces too much to send away!

There are a number of pieces in the Aetna gallery I have not shown before. August 21 I am participating in a plein air painting event at Valley Falls in Vernon. I haven't painted outside with anyone else in a while and I am wondering if I should get on my horse (so to speak) right now and join the Tolland County Artists' Association Tuesday Painters. They won't be too far from here and I can figure out if my approach to outdoor art will be too bizarre. The Valley Falls area is near and dear to my heart and I want to be sure to make something there that will sell~ a portion of the proceeds go to the Friends of Valley Falls.

All right. With just a few chances at a dry run with other painters I had best get my shy self over there. We will see how it goes...

And the summer flies~ literally!

2011-07-28T15:37:00.000-04:00

I was ripping about yesterday, tearing from meetings to ta ta pick up to conservation commission. I left the car running for a second and flew inside for some paperwork and when I got back out waiting on my door handle was this dude...

It should have been complete with the theme from the Jaws movie. All right, so I exaggerate a bit. The blue color was brilliant and this time of year you can observe all the colors of summer, from the flowers and fruits to the buggers that bugger them.

I can't remember a worse year for biting insects of all kinds. I am a great nature girl...every creature has a place and purpose...and then I am STUNG again! Farm wide there have been plenty of wasp stings, hornet infestations and then the monster mosquito population. I even stumbled on an underground nest in the back of my compost pile. Well, I didn't stumble on it...I accidentally dug the top right off of it. Rosie and I lucked out on that one. I saw them before they saw me. What an exercise motivator...RUN!!!!!

I need to get back to work but it proved to me one can find a motivation to use color in art in all of those moments. That blue iridescence on my blue door made it so clear. Observe and run...observe and run!

Family Medical Leave from art?

2011-06-07T15:38:00.000-04:00

Few folks know my Dad had a turn in health in December and now here it is June 7. Time crawls when a diagnosis can't be nailed down clearly...and flies toward my sister's wedding date (July 9). I am of that age group that has aging parents and that is all there is too it. What was simple becomes more complex...I had to stop ignoring the phone during my work hours. Dad has had two serious health crises that required hospitalization and the establishment of a team of specialists.

One of his symptoms was rapidly deteriorating mental status~ dementia ~ that did largely reverse with the right medical treatment. I felt strongly this was not Alzheimer's...there is no family history, he had a sudden onset of symptoms and a very rapid progression. In December he was sometimes confused, by mid-March he woke and had deteriorated so severely he could not speak, his body overtaken by severe tremors. A hospital admit at that point was absolutely essential and someone finally asked the right questions and got the right answers to those questions. He was treated for hepatic encephalopathy and over the next several weeks his symptoms faded. In May he developed an internal bleed that also took a few days hospitalization to nail down.

Over the months I repeatedly asked myself if my close following of my parents' health was necessary...and each time the answer was yes. I would have taken family medical leave or some other time off from any other job and I felt strongly something was being overlooked. My sister had a major surgery this Spring and there is just the two of us. Being self-employed I have a flexibility she does not when teaching. It is just near impossible to take a leave from your own business without destroying all that has been built. And now Dad is more stable it is time to focus on Broad Brook Art...but I believe there is a degenerating condition underlying these health crises and it may pull us all in again sooner than later. Everything is fine...until it isn't.

Night Landscape#1 in metallic acrylics

NL #3 in metallic paint

Night Landscape #2 in pastel

So I have been painting night landscapes with Lumiere acrylics. Despite knowing the paint's metallic appearance can't be duplicated online or in giclee prints. I just wanted to do SOMETHING. I wondered if I would be better off with pastel to get what I was looking for...so on to pastels for a moment. They also come in metallic shimmery shades, but I don't have a huge selection.

For me the paint transforms the color in a different way and building layers comes easily. I started on night landscapes when we stayed in North Truro on Cape Cod. The beach grasses and fences shoring up the dunes catch what little light there is, highlighted an instant at a time by the Highland Light lighthouse. Then the sweeping light is gone and in fills the void with a sparkling darkness that is the ocean. I love walking there at all times of the day, but the night sometimes seems mine alone.

Here our night landscape is starting to be transformed by fireflies. I am going to try and video some of that this year. I have never found a good way to make art from all those moving, searching points of light but this time of year marks when I first fell in love with landscape in the night.

Lots O' Speculation/ Reflection...big words for not so much. In the meantime I made myself finish this:

Fawn Moon color pencil

I am pretty sure I won't stop at the four seasons...Rabbit Moon is summer, Crow Moon is autumn, Fawn Moon is RIGHT NOW Spring. Now my fox hunting on moonlit snow needs final touches.

Back to work...the fight is not allowing every day dramas to drag me away from artmaking.

January records

2011-01-27T08:13:00.000-05:00

2011-01-14T10:22:00.000-05:00

Deep snow

2011-01-14T09:51:00.000-05:00

Snow was still falling Wednesday, January 12th, when we headed out to try and clear things up a bit. Donna is keeping warm while shoveling in her dayglow orange coat. Late Wednesday was clean-up from the two feet of snow. There was 22 + inches at Bradley Field, south and west of here. The "shallowest" snow in a trough formed by the wind was 16 inches.

Yesterday we strapped on snowshoes and made our best effort to create some new paths for Rosie. The video doesn't show her making her own paths, diving like a dolphin. In the paths Donna and I created she blazes around, looking for all the world like a racehorse on a track...and running out of track fast.

Each time we go out all we can say is "AMAZING". Trees look shorter~ I look shorter...how can that be? Oh cruel world!

To Fall From the Sky

2011-01-10T15:52:00.000-05:00

There have been several incidents of birds simply falling dead from the sky in mass quantities, thousands at a time. Fish and crabs are also affected...creating a disturbing series of events, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8244044/Bird-deaths-timeline-of-the-mysterious-bird-deaths.html

events and news that are now eclipsed by the Arizona shooting tragedy. That is as it should be but it all feels just a bit apocalyptic. It leaves a queasy feeling in my belly...what is to be done?

In the same vein there was a news clip of a meeting between officials in Louisiana and one man was shouting that they had gone easy on the fish and game people, refraining from releasing photos of how bad things still are in the heavily oiled coastal areas. Since I am cataloguing images for use in artwork about the oil spill I know there are more photos to be had. I have no doubt some are not being published and it isn't for the good of the public.

I hate to be paranoid, but who can be trusted to monitor these wildlife and environmental knowns and unknowns? With deadly events spread across multiple US states and even to other countries, no one thing can explain it all. After the bird deaths I saw an environmentalist interviewed on the Today show. He made us all look like idiots, raving that animals are dying everywhere and quoting statistics for manatees dying in the Florida cold. Yes, he was correct, but he didn't come close to answering questions or making observations regarding the bird deaths.

Bird falling dead from the sky resonates in some dark way. Mass kills happen in natural ways...lightning and hail for example...what kind of natural disaster kills fish AND crabs AND birds in seperate mass incidents? I await scientific answers.

As for another headline: Arizona Talk Radio Hosts Deny Responsibility
I lived in Arizona when the new kind of rabid talk radio was born there and the heated rhetoric always sounded like a call to arms. I think any strong pacifist or champion of free speech would find the airwaves out there challenging and someone with a distorted fear or hatred could be fueled to violence. To me only true thing is that readily available firearms increase the likelihood of deadly tragedies.

Other frightening news this month, seperate incidents of alteration...the erasing of words from classic literature and the airbrushing of historic images. One was rendered by an "authority" on Mark Twain and the other museum mounting a show with World War II photos.

Curiouser and curiouser...

January Thaw

2011-01-10T14:50:00.000-05:00

It has been too long since I sat down to write. It was a good Fall/Holiday season, getting work out and getting around with it. It is time for all those January chores but there are some good bonus activities...new art shows and wedding planning. Then not so great new activities...Donna's job search and wrangling with the former employer. Sustained cold here has meant indoor nesting, but we get out with the pup and our snowshoes, a gift last Christmas, are finally getting some use this year. In fact, it was possible to snowshoe all but two days since the December 26 blizzard. Snow falls and stays, unusual in the last couple of years.

My thaw isn't the temperature, it is a melting of the casing that seems to envelope my brain when the holidays are past and winter is totally set in. There is new work and a new office in which Donna and I can work together. We yanked out our old desks, which nearly filled the room. Instead we put together a couple of Ikea pieces and refashioned an 8 foot countertop along one wall for us both to pull up to the computers. For the first time we have an event calendar we both share. THAT has never happened in the 7 years we have been together! An Ikea sofa table is serving as an office credenza and we have more bins and baskets for storing stuff than ever before. The whole thing is painted a Sea Sage green and the room is far more calming than before, especially with Rosie curled up in my grandmother's old pink chair behind us.

8 X 10" scratchboard in progress

sketched first

I have to be honest and own up that I have let Donna's working from home interfere with my art-making productivity. It is too easy to keep tapping away on the computer next to her and less easy to tear away and make work, which has put me a bit behind for a late January show. I have a new Gulf Oil Spill work in progress although these are just for art sake, I am not quite sure if anyone will want to own one!

It always seems that when it comes to distractions the art-making is the biggest loser, the easiest to derail. When I was working here by myself I simply put on my headphones and went for 5 or 6 hours at a time. I ignored the phone and the door and anything else that got in the way. Anyone who is self-employed understands there is far more to earning a living than simply producing whatever it is you sell. Sometimes I look up from my morning e-mail it is nearly noon. Time to start setting a timer to be sure I move away from the computer.

But the computer led me to a very cool person just this Saturday. Just in one phone conversation, after some rapidly exchanged e-mails, helped us pull in to focus a whole different project~ a delicious distraction if there ever was one! So I am off to manage multiple priorities. All right, truth told, ATTEMPT to manage...

Explosion of Art!

2010-10-29T13:57:00.000-04:00

I keep saying it is November already because everything I am involved with seems to have fallen in a span of 15 days in that month. I am skipping celebration of my 49th birthday, not due to the agony of marking such a milestone, but simply because there is no time. Here at home we are reeling with the news that Donna will be included in a Hewlett-Packard "workforce reduction", and the impact this will have remains to be seen. The details are unfolding daily, and we await critical information. To me this waiting is like watching the unfolding of an accident. There is that surreal slowed-down moment when you know a crash is coming and the impact is pending. We are stilled in that moment.

Mostly we can not pause. Life around here is insanely busy as we both (what would I do without Donna's help?) meet the demands the deadlines for a busy season of shows.

Tomorrow is the Manchester Art Association Annual Craft Fair. It is being held from 10-4 at Great Path Academy at Manchester Community College here in CT. If you come along head for Parking Lot B. This event for me is a carry-over from when I was doing wearable stuff, but now the inventory is all wall art.

Coast Guard Beach, North Truro

Tomorrow we also leave for North Truro for our scheduled week of autumn ocean. Birds of prey are still migrating and migration is, no pun intended, all over the map. Just now we heard there is a white-fronted goose~ a western species~ in the pond down the corner and despite today's chill bluebirds were checking out the houses, perhaps inspired by the warm days just past. Up on the ocean side of Cape Cod is where I draw lots of nature inspiration. I could prattle on about local birds of prey behavior but as my sister Barbette says "not everyone is on that train". Bottom line: I am packing the van for the show and Donna is packing the car for the cape. We keep telling ourselves it will be a good time to digest Donna's news.

Maybe I shouldn't have favorites, but my favorite show is also on the horizon: Open Studio Hartford! The 21st year of this event is chock full of all kinds of activities. If I don't stop typing RIGHT NOW I won't have my gallery piece finished for the "Coming of Age" themed show, which is a mixed media thang. Working on this piece has been fun, despite tight deadlines all around. Look for us on the 3rd floor of ArtSpace Hartford November 13&14.

Before I head back into the studio I will mention several other dates & places for seeing my work:

"Mad Gifts: An Art Show" put on by The Icarus Project will be November 5 - December 7 at Small World Coffee in Princeton, NJ. I will be unable to attend the November 5th opening but I can guarentee it will be a good time. 7pm-9pm.

Tolland County Art Association is also having a 21st birthday and mounting their 21st annual open art show. It will be held Wed. Nov 3 until Tue. Nov 30 at South Windsor Public Library in the town of the same name in CT. Most know I grew up in SW. We will be attend the reception Sunday, November 7. I took this opportunity to show two of my Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill series. I will be surrounded by watercolorists with mad skills and plein air painters who meet weekly in one beautiful location after another, as well as a wide array of other work.

New photos soon...

Respite from Business

2010-09-14T07:33:00.000-04:00

Brown Trout

Today I will again head out to Belding Wildlife Management Area nearby in Vernon, CT. It is a gorgeous area and I get to work with 4th graders learning about ecosystems. My station is the stream and we were lucky yesterday~ most of the children saw at least one fish in the stream and we had a great time with our experiments. These same children came to Belding in the Fall and I was so pleased to hear what they remembered from that trip.

We walk quite a way through forest to get our prime learning real estate. To watch how kids absorb and interact with the outdoors is a huge pleasure of mine and becoming a Master Wildlife Conservationist with the Department of Environmental Protection has given me great experiences. In another life I would be a wildlife biologist. I wander around after the pros and soak up everything I can, and I can get a little "star struck" at these scientists.

Off to the stream!

The Race

2010-08-22T13:26:00.001-04:00

It is that time of year, 2010 has flown by and is racing to a close at a speed like lightning, the sight of fall leaves is as startling to my eyes as the sound of a clap of thunder is to the ears. The year began in deep sadness and personal loss and quickly moved into world wide horror with the Haiti earthquake through to the BP Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion and devastating oil spill. Nearby, the tragic shooting at Hartford Distributors left 9 abruptly dead including the killer and the toll of flooding in Pakistan is still unfolding as the monsoon season continues. A man I knew and loved since age 6 disappeared abruptly from our midst and I didn't have any idea until months too late....too late to say goodbye. I have been uncharacteristically silent.

Life rolled on rapidly in celebration as well. I know what my high school and college classmates were doing in the seasons of 1991 and early 1992...making babies. An unprecedented number of my friends' children matriculated from high school and into life and college life this summer. I am old enough that some of my classmates are grandparents and I am amazed at the marches to the alter all around me: youthful first marriages and the elder blissful surprise of second marriages.

My beloved neighbor Fred Voto had his Vietnam memoir published and an old friend launched another best seller. My kindle has been a constant companion.

I am a news watcher, but I have ceased to be a trend watcher. For the art business, like many types of business, the economy has ached deeply, and I needed to stop tracking trends to find my own way. Starting last October at the East Coast Art Retreat http://www.art-is-you.com , my network of creative people exploded and I have been happily networking since. Our local Creative Co-Op turned me on to some unprecedented and excellent art marketing workshops and it has become easier to keep my eyes on the prize of creating more work. A college chum shared my work with a dealer in South Carolina and getting work in place there jump started a better organized system for tracking shows and consignments in more states than I have ever had representation.

Whoo. But I sat down to do a show submission today and I have doubts. All these years of painting and drawing birds, being a nature lover and observer, set me up for an unmatched ache for the BP oil spill and its impact on the fragile Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. I could, without the aide of news crews, easily picture the devastated breeding areas and the horror of live and dead animals helplessly mired in oil. Sea birds have, especially over my years vacationing in North Truro, MA, become a special passion. My new work is inspired by the disaster and I am not sure how people will respond. My first chance to submit work from this series is today, and I am torn. It is still too soon too offer for sale. How silly is that? Yeah, I know, starving artists should have no qualms. These two are the 8th or 9th images in the series. Any thoughts?

A welcome downpour of rain has arrived. The yard became dust with little rain in July and August~ except the three garden zones I watered sparingly. The moist air has reminded me of ocean: "The Race" is what the New York current in Long Island Sound is named, and it was a terrifying band of water when I was a child. You could be on calm water one moment and see a boats of every size lurching wildly ahead, parked in The Race in pursuit of "blues", one of my favorite fish to eat next to shad. My uncle acquired a boat this year and he and Donna and I have been venturing out on a local lake and, unexpectedly, spending time on the CT river. I missed signing up for the boating license class in a flurry of art stuff, but I am motivated to "get 'er done" this year, before the fees go up. I am sure the only way I will get my bluefish this season is sailing out on a charter...or cruising into a fish market!

Feeling like life is racing by, picturing the bounty of the sea in Autumn, and off to make more art of sea birds. Perhaps I will yield to the sale, perhaps I will just keep drawing and picturing the Sound on a stormy day, bemoaning the plight of fishermen and sea birds everywhere.

Marchness

2010-03-04T14:16:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have a hard time making a commitment...to yourself, to anyone? Knowing what is good is one thing, doing what is good is another. I don't mean acts of charity or other goodiness. I periodically stumble on doing a good thing...say comforting words to a friend who has lost someone, make a particularly good meal for my love, pick up trash on the trail...easy things that take little sacrifice.

But in the lengthening days of late winter, right about now, a winter kind of madness sets in to me and nothing eases it. Everything around me has lost the grace of snowy whiteness, and the grey and brown earthly things revealed I know are poised to burst, yet to me they still feel hard and coiled in their seedy hulls. A moment of sun warms my face, then the relentless grey sky takes over again and I am chilled to the bone, stiff and older than my years. I become stingy with myself, withholding simple pleasures.

Life is out there...I SEE it...glorious and beautiful, clever and cruel. But I am separate from it somehow, as if thick frost covers the glass I am trying to look though. Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Snow Queen was one of my favorites as a child. I read it over and over and at the moment I feel like one of the central characters, Kaj (pronounced "Kay"), after he has fallen victim to the splinters of the troll-mirror.

Quickly I will sum it up, though I imagine you might remember it a bit. An evil troll makes a magic mirror that has the power to distort the appearance of things reflected in it. It fails to reflect all the good and beautiful aspects of people and things while it magnifies all the bad and ugly aspects so that they look even worse than they really are. The troll teaches a "devil school," and he and his pupils delight in taking the mirror throughout the world to distort everyone and everything. They enjoy how the mirror makes the loveliest landscapes look like "boiled spinach." They want to carry the mirror into heaven with the idea of making fools of the angels, but the higher they lift it, the more the mirror shakes with delight. It shakes so much that it slips from their grasp and falls back to earth where it shatters into billions of pieces — some no larger than a grain of sand. These splinters are blown around and get into people's hearts and eyes, making their hearts frozen like blocks of ice and their eyes like the troll-mirror itself, only seeing the bad and ugly in people and things.

It is on a pleasant summer's day that splinters of the troll-mirror get into Kaj's heart and eyes while he and his best friend Gerda are looking at a picture book in their window-box garden. Kaj's personality changes: he becomes cruel and aggressive. He destroys their window-box garden, he makes fun of his grandmother, and he no longer cares about Gerda, since all of them now appear bad and ugly to him. The only beautiful and perfect things to him now are the tiny snowflakes that he sees through a magnifying glass, and his pursuit of them leads him away to the permafrost home of the Snow Queen, who imprisons him. Kaj is presumed dead by his family and neighbors, but Gerda is not convinced and commences searching, and after many trials she releases him from the Snow Queen for eternity.

I suppose the commitment I must make is to release myself from the grasp of my Marchness by spending time making stuff with the East Coast Artist Retreat folks and taking advantage of the snowless land for longer and longer treks with the pup. I can commit to the birdwatching course and finish one thing of the hundred I have in progress. Just one.

Perhaps my Gerda, the heart and soul of Spring, will find me soon. May she have found you already, or, may you be certain she is looking, just in case you too are lost in the Marchness.

Yellow Brick Road Paved with Good Intentions!

2010-01-30T15:39:00.001-05:00

Okay.

I should have taken the hint that things were all going astray when I was working on a new/old piece (started it in October!) I have been calling "A Shrine to the Whaler's Wife" which seemed perfect for the Hygienic Art Show in New London. After all, New London was at the heart of the American whaling trade for so long...

So I spent a little time planning how to do what was left...it required some special rivets...and I come back to claim the pieces and sure enough, there is Rosie, happily gnawing on the oh-so-fragile whale bone that was central to the piece. I found it on the beach at the Cape years ago and had finally found a home for it. In a few short minutes she chewed off the part where the fastening was to take place. I haven't adjusted to the new shape of it, so I set it all aside for now...the whale bone and driftwood, and the tin types of my imagined whaler and his imagined wife...the key to her and their story's home~ a triangular box that was a small drawer in its' former life.

NEW PLAN! Take something from my own collection I haven't shown. Sure. That's it! I have been dawdling around this for days. Donna and I shamelessly "Wiied" away our morning golfing in the living room and I had leaped in the shower, ready to roar out to the show. And apparently the blackberry went off. Next thing I know Donna is sailing out the door to work (an emergency with computer speakers?) and I am marooned. I suppose "marooned" is a strong word for it. I could go on by myself. Thursday my sister had provided Mom and I with the chance to see the musical "Lion King"~ the sets and costumes and lighting made me WEEP they were so fabulous ~ and my engine light came on on the way home. Now, I know most people would go ahead and use the vehicle...but I am not interested in risking being alone in the dark with in a not-running car an hour and a half from home when it is 25 degrees out. I know, chicken s--t.

So here we are. I have no dinner planned...the oven isn't working (don't get me started on my annoying appliances)and the whale-eating dog and I will just have to settle for a track-stuff-in-the-snow walk while we wait for the better half to be through with work. And this painting will just have to stay on the wall in the studio...no walk-about for it.

So why the Yellow Brick Road? After last October's Art Is... conference a bunch of us decided to make a deck of artwork. We are doing a round robin...make a piece on a card from some sort of deck of cards (I used flash cards left over from tutoring) and mail it on around so all 22 artists end up with a deck we all contributed to. The theme for this year's conference is Wizard of Oz and we all were taken with the idea of wickedness...so this is our "wicked deck". Sounds great, right? I went nuts perseverating on my start-up...the first card is always the hardest, right? I pulled together FORTY TWO rough drafts of ideas before I started playing with ruby slippers...and there are ruby slippers still all over the darned studio...once I narrowed it down I still made another 23 before I liked what I had, then I express mailed it out to the next person on the list so she could get it turned around before the next mail date. I must not be the only one who gets sidewinding all around...the robin had not rounded its way here yet!

Ah, the best-laid plans. And now Donna is already on her way home. She had to work just long enough for us to miss the deadline for submission for the New London show. I suppose if we had been just a little quicker out the door she wouldn't have been able to get back to help the person in need...by far the greater portion of our bread and butter.

Speaking of bread and butter, if we had gone along...we also would have missed bread fresh from the oven our good neighbor Fred brought to us. Win some, win some.

Close encounter

2010-01-06T14:03:00.000-05:00

John Nieto's "Blue Coyote" is perfect art for this clear, bright winter day. I haven't been sleeping well, a combination of an earache and the antibiotics to treat it have kept me up and down, so Rosie had to wait until 10 a.m. for me to get my butt in gear for a "big" walk. The snow is beautiful and the sun is making for higher temps than we will have again for a while. I didn't really intend to go very far, but the day called us further and further out. Against my own policy I left without leash in pocket, letting Rosie bound freely in the snow.

First we tracked the red fox that walks up along the treeline on the North side. My theory is that there is both a male and a female, but they do not travel together this time of year, so I need to get photos at each sighting~ not always easy. The fox tracks crossed back over into the brook and we had people and dog tracks from neighbor's who run their dogs out here too. Off the beaten path was unmistakable coyote track, and if I thought about it hard I might have guessed they were the freshest there. We followed those across the open snow drifts in the meadow then joined the trail again at the brook and pond, where Rosie plunged her face in the snow, searching for the mice and voles.

Snowmobilers came through a day or so back and I briefly considered following their tracks off the property, but I was mindful of not having a leash and turned back to look for deer tracks on the South trail, on the "Abbe" side. Deer cut through the trees there and often find a bit of open water that trickles across the path there, and I hadn't seen deer since the weekend snow. The "herd" is only 7 or 8, but this year an impressive 8 point buck trails the does and last year's twin fawns. Rosie was lagging behind me, just as I entered the trees past the pond. First I heard a yip, then a howl. Unmistakable. Coyote. VERY close.

Now I adore a close wildlife encounter, but I had just been thinking food might be scarce for the fox and coyote with the freeze and the snow cover. I threw off my hood to hear better. I don't hear well on a good day, and I am temporarily pretty deaf in the bad ear. Another howl. The critter had to be within 25 yards, hidden by the old Christmas tree growth. Rosie was oblivious, face in the snow still, intent on her hunt. I needed us to be in the open fast. I kept thinking about a hiker and dog I met on the trail in Massachusetts in November. She had a stand-off encounter with a full family group...a pack...the day before we met up.

I called Rosie in a way that caught her swift attention. She sensed my urgency and did not look behind me. Good. I did not want her to catch sight of the coyote, and I know it could see and smell us just fine. I picked a more playful tone and started running, calling her and looking back. Good girl, good, good dog. Rosie veered once away from me and the coyote, but she was glad for a game if I was playing and quickly rejoined me. It was going to be hard, telling the story to Donna later, to confess I left without the leash. I would have dropped it so the two of us could run without tripping each other up, but it would have held her to me should she become curious about the critter.

Nothing followed us. I stuck to the wide open and made my way home, distracting Rosie with a frisbee I had dumped off to pick up on the way out, and I spent plenty of time looking back as I caught my breath.

She is napping now. Our late day walk will be up closer to the houses. Not that coyotes don't come close to the houses, they do. If I step outside they freeze, and we watch each other until one or the other of us has to move on. But Rosie is not yet a year, and I am not ready to know how that goes if she is with me. For today I am grateful her puppiness kept her distracted.

I remember the first time I saw John Nieto's paintings, in a gallery in Sante Fe. I hadn't been painting or drawing wildlife for a while, but the bright brushwork slaked a thirst I forgot I had. His colors are luscious and I recognize his work from any distance, for all of the two and a half decades since my first look. So I will take my coyote encounter, and this dry, bright day that reminds me of walking in snow in the high desert country, and finish the fox moon series I started months ago. Hopefully this will be a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of experience, an awe-inspiring close call that keeps me mindful of the wildness of life even in this tiny pocket of space.

1,000 Tuesdays

2009-12-09T13:30:00.000-05:00

1,000 Tuesdays and then some.

This is my Aunt Shirly, older sister (by 2 years) to my father, Bob, and younger sister to my uncle Jim (they were born on the same day 4 years apart). She has two married sons and eight grandchildren. This picture was taken by my mother at the wedding of her oldest grandson.

Shirly (no "e") Warren Stone.

There are many, many ways to describe Aunt Shirly. She was a dedicated and tireless volunteer for Literacy Volunteers of Waterbury, Waterbury Hospital and an active member of her church. She adored her family and enjoyed her grandchildren immensely. She smiled and laughed easily and often and that smile and her humor and intelligence drew people to her.

But I know her best by way of simply, and often accidentally, being present. Her sons settled in Bethesda, MD and Orlando, FL. After her father-in-law died, she began to come up to Manchester weekly to check on and help out her mother-in-law, always on Tuesday. One of those Tuesdays she was in Manchester when my Uncle Bob died suddenly at home in Waterbury. I suppose a sudden and unexpected death always creates a monstrous void, but to me this seemed particularly cruel. From the outside theirs looked to be an ideal marriage, the last two people who should be wrenched apart by death.

Despite everything and anything, my Aunt's Tuesday rounds continued.

Aunt Shirly's Tuesdays flexed to include her mother and her husband's aunt, Aunt Maude. I came to know Grandma Stone almost as well as my own grandmother. I still have reminders of all of these ladies around...things that became useless to the three older women as they left their homes for smaller and more sustainable places. Anyone of my generation who was close enough geographically helped with those transitions, and I guess that is when I started to understand the chaotic aspects of aging...and I did my best to pitch in. It was easier to help put things in order for others than for myself at the time.Once or twice I was included in Aunt Shirly's Tuesday caretaking rounds.

With sons far away my aunt was a frequent attendee to farm gatherings, and more than once I altered plans when I learned some portion of the Stone family would be around. One by one Aunt Shirly's charges passed on, the last was Grandma Warren at age 96. By then I had my home here on the farm and Tuesdays had become an opportunity for me to easily visit with my aunt and grandmother. My presence was never expected or required, probably that was part of what made it easy to do. When Grandma died I was glad Aunt Shirly would have her Tuesdays for herself, though for me loss was of two...not one.

For years and years my aunt quietly painted pictures with a group of people who met taking a class and stayed together painting long after the class was done. She worked in oils and this was one~ there are many. They were tucked out of the general visitor's view. Like me, she was her own worst critic. When I was a bratty 21-year-old recently graduated art student I made some remark about how one must paint...then moved to Arizona. Over the years we talked about artists and art, but neither of us ever discussed our own work again. She never owned a piece of mine and I never, until last week, owned a piece of hers...though the two I came away with feel more borrowed than anything. I would surrender them immediately at the slightest desire another family member expressed. I consider it an honor to house them, even temporarily.

But I have wandered away from Tuesdays.

It didn't seem much time had passed after my grandmother's death when Aunt Shirly had surgery to remove what was thought to be a troublesome ovary and turned out to be cancer in her bladder. She went to sleep ready for a hysterectomy and awoke with no bladder. The cancer was self-contained. The surgery was the cure. I visited briefly but was of little help. My back was swiftly turning me into a semi-invalid. I was the go-to girl about pain management and other random medical knowledge, but good for little else. Aunt Shirly recovered and returned to her volunteer work

Again very little time seemed to pass. Grandchildren graduated...competed at sports...worked hard in school...got new jobs...and Tommy got engaged to Lauren. A second diagnosis of cancer, this time in her lungs. My mother, aunt and I went off to Dana Farber and came home stunned with shocking words..."rare"..."incurable"...the doctor suggested holding off chemo until it was more necessary. She thought and thought about her options. She set her sights on her family and decided to travel to see everyone. My mother became her frequent companion to the doctors and father drove to the airport. She stayed over here on the farm. She swam in the pool. The cancer survivors talked. She celebrated a birthday with brother Jim.

Back pain chimed in before the wedding, but she refused further tests until after she saw her grandson married. It was a lovely wedding, by all accounts a warm and beautiful gathering of family and friends.

Once back home it was time for chemo. And what day of the week did the rhythm of treatment fall into? Tuesday. We noted the irony and she pressed on. In so many ways she fought alone, loathe to be a trouble...but Tuesdays she relented some. On Tuesdays she let Betty in.

Like all those other Tuesdays way before she did not complain. She smiled and charmed the nurses like she charmed others all her life. She set her sights on a family Thanksgiving and had that. She made sure she connected with all who came that weekend. When she learned each member of the family was returned safely to their places she finally closed her eyes to rest.

There are a thousand other details...moments those who knew her will hold dear, moments we prayed for better answers...regret and promise wadded up here and there, pressed back into the corners.

For me? I cried hardest Tuesday, as she was buried, a thousand Tuesdays forever gone.

After the Show

2009-11-17T14:35:00.000-05:00

Okay. Time to finally completely unpack...unpack from the Cape, unpack from the show. It was fabulous networking with all the artists and seeing friends, and it is time to build inventory back up and make some changes to how things are listed on the website. Ah. But that is normal work.

This is the first time I have been back to ArtSpace to show in more than 7 years. While teaching full time it was difficult to pull together enough artwork, and it is important to me to show new stuff. It is 11 months since my back surgery and it does feel like life is back on track, but for sure the economy isn't fully recovered~ at least not for those who make art.

Some of the richness and variety in the halls and studios was directly related to unemployment. A few artists showing had more time and energy to make stuff because their primary income was lost. It is hard on a household but it was great for the show. It was also easy to observe that many of the attendees make stuff themselves. We had plenty of time to trade for other artists' work Sunday afternoon.

Best part? Finding someone who has the same desire/passion to make a space for others to connect to their own creativity. Exciting stuff!

Onward!!!

2009-11-10T09:57:00.000-05:00

Back from the Cape with my driftwood all intact. Because we are working like crazy to get physically ready for Open Studio Hartford it stayed lashed to the top of Donna's car for another couple of days.

Today I am framing a few giclee prints but the computer wants to eat my time. I want the website perfect, but it will have to be where it is right now. Because the work is one-of-a-kind the show will change the inventory (ideally!)

I have more goddesses and earrings in pieces, so it will be a late night...cleaning glass for frames is better in the daylight. My "Art Is" friends have been busy and I can hardly keep up with everyone's activity. It is GOOD to have a busy season. Hopefully we will have plenty of folks shopping at ArtSpace this weekend.

View Larger Map

If you do come along, parking is easiest across from the train station, with event parking just $5. There are nearly 50 artist and studios in ArtSpace alone. A dozen years ago there were just a few on each floor. Spend $100 at Broad Brook Art and we will pay for your parking! See us in studio #104. Check out my neighbors ahead of time at hartfordartistnetwork@blogspot.com ~ I am in good company.

How to Bore the Dog

2009-11-03T21:27:00.000-05:00

November 2009, Cape Cod, MA

We have been staying in North Truro, MA, for three full days now and though we are hardly in full vacation mode with show-readying, art-making and blackberry buzzing, there has been some down time. One thing I always forget is to factor weather when planning work and play. The best laid plans...yesterday had unexpected rain and the wind has been fierce enough to wake us throughout the night,cottage rocking to its core. Today, when the sun broke through for a good while and the wind died down enough for the crashing waves not to drown out all outdoor conversation, I was unprepared. This was inconvenient! I had THINGS to do, self-important things! I had already had my BIG walk on the beach in the early morning, getting a good look at what the full moon tide and wind had washed ashore, sure I was quite clever, ahead of today's predicted rain and all. I can be so smug.

Now there is Rosie there are BIG walks and small walks, the former designed to somehow finally wear her out and the latter for the usual doggy business. Small walks are still a good distance and the desired activity happens in direct proportion to how hurried the human feels. I am very sure Rosie senses this and withholds poop just for the pleasure of the manipulation...ah, but I personify.

Beach walks after stormy weather are thrilling but very sad, too. I did not photograph the two dead sea birds I found in the morning, one clearly beached alive and recently (or not quite) deceased. I did not have to be a crime scene investigator to figure out abandoned fishing gear and other tangled lines are deadly to far more than the fish, and the trash that floats ashore is shameful. I wanted to apologize somehow to the curious seal who shadowed the dog and me in our early morning solitude. It was poking its head impossibly high out of the churning waves to see what we might be up to. For a while I picked up and pocketed wayward deflated or partially deflated balloons, deadly to sea turtles who mistake them for the jellyfish they consume for food, but my pockets could hold no more. Rosie was as excited as I was by a washed-up, dead, pure blue lobster, as well as a huge dozen-fingered finger sponge. To her they were not potential art or decoration materials, just playthings that interested her because they interested me. With a few playful doggy tosses they were art for the beach alone, no longer worthy of my carry home.

Later in the day Rosie continually updated me on the weather. Sunshine and a change in wind made the outdoors appealing, but I did my best to ignore her. (The Royal Pup is being indulged in her every whim this first visit of her's to the Cape, and I keep trying to put her back in the the dog's place, no help from Donna.) The dog relentlessly picked up and dropped toys, stood still at the door, beseeching me with just her eyes and her eyebrows wiggling, head cocked side to side...she all but leashed herself up and headed out. Finally the call outdoors could not be ignored. Donna, back from my list of errands for her, joined us, and we decided this rare November sun and quiet deserved another beach-combing trip. Donna herded Rosie and I filled a bag with small driftwood for various projects, then proceeded to haul another two pieces larger than me with my bag (and a bag of poop) up the 80 steps to the cottage. Two even larger pieces of wood still lay on the beach, squirreled away from the tide as best as I could manage. Within the first hours of our arrival I had already claimed a tree too large to transport without the tailgate open and day two had me digging out the gorgeous sea-dashed roots of another giant driftwood. I figure if we have to put TWO on top of the car to ride home, why not FOUR or SIX? That is what rope and tie-down rails are for! I may be as indulged as the dog is in this area...Donna shakes her head and laughs and lifts her end as I run/walk my treasures to the aptly named Ford Escape.

For those who shared or know of our journey through 2008 and my surgeries and such, these beach forays are a miracle for me. Eleven months after my back surgery I take as many trips up and down the dunes as I like, and walk for miles with less pain than I have had since 2004. It was hard to keep believing, in the thick of things, that healing was possible and real freedom awaited me. Twice in the past few weeks I have wanted to call my surgeons...once to ask if this relentless cold and rainy weather will always feel this way and once to ask permission to jog. Yep. Jog. Didn't call, just did it. The moment, and a pup, kind of demanded it. Although I am also quite sure, with no phone call needed, I will be able to continue to predict oncoming low pressure with some creaks and groans. Not much different than an average Joe or Jayne who is turning 48. This time last year I didn't go anywhere off road and traversed only the smoothest terrain with the help of a cane. The goddess is great, memsahib.

If I had not been standing, waiting for a good photo op, looking at the moon, I would not have run into our lovely cottage neighbor Mary. After several years of coming here same week we have just discovered that we are both birders, and she thrilled me with news of a sighting of greater yellow-legs she had in Wellfleet and I confirmed her assessment of the poor dead northern gannets. Now I know what she saw at the Nature Conservancy site we will have to go see too. Turned out we had all been chasing the moon since sundown. Full-fledged nature geeks.

The waves crash and the moon rises, again and again, despite human worry or folly, and we are grateful witnesses.

Getting Ready for Nothing?

2009-10-29T21:49:00.003-04:00

Okay, so it turns out my name got left OFF the advertising. Ha ha ha ha ha . Business happens. And all of you understand the darker sides of business...if only I had asked THIS question, if only I had known THAT part, then I would have been SURE to take care of it.

Open Studio Hartford!

good place to start~

ArtSpace Hartford
555 Asylum Avenue,
Hartford, CT 06105
FIRST FLOOR
11-5!!!!

Saturday the 14th and Sunday the 15th.

see more info (can you say DIRECTIONS?) at my/our website: broadbrookart.com

But this is the other truth:

This is the first time I have shown with my ArtSpace homies since 2002. Then we had two shows a year and I opened when stuff and teaching didn't intervene. I don't do that anymore. I mean, let teaching intervene. On the other "stuff" that intervenes? I talked with someone last week who also believed that the muse can be a bitch of a mistress (hmmm...she didn't use those words) and that no matter how high one can get on making some kind of art, a crash (or crisis) of some sort will come. Call it the dark side of creativity...that "it" may go and NEVER come again. But then I could always just OPEN THE DOOR if someone wanted to see what I had (or didn't have) goin' on.

To say that is not an option here in the country is an understatement. In most ways I don't miss the sirens and the lights and sounds of the trains. After a couple of years the new gov shut off the Christmas lights on those beautifully filled the trees in Bushnell Park, but I still had the thrice-yearly fireworks and an open window or short walk to any live concert. You could also look up from Asylum Avenue (yes, it is named for what you think) or the Southbound or Northbound trains and see exactly where I was. I could find myself anytime, even when I couldn't quite find myself,

Now...slave over your work 14 hours a day with these guys staring at you:

Rosie IS the devil dog puppy she looks like. Playful, energetic...exhausting! And Cassandra, that enforcer of a kitty, just lives to leave her paw print as signature. She always has. She was raised indoors in Hartford, and in all of her 10 years I am pretty sure she has attempted to contribute at least one hair to each piece. I thwart her, but in the days of BIG installations, she completely glued herself to a number of large projects/objects. The bigger the money, the larger portion she glued herself to. This work? She was nowhere near it. Perhaps she grasps the concept hairless art equals kitty kibble! Nah. I lie. She is kittenish, but too old to be a devil kitty anymore. Wait! That is my Halloween costume idea...

Nah. I lie. Donna and I travel twice yearly to Cape Cod and marginally observe the spectacle the Halloween can be there. Things have changed during our tenure...no need to "come out" as anything queer...but you better be theatrical, no matter what. All Hallow's Eve is merely for the costumed now, no politics required. It is a blast to watch.

I won't make earrings or goddesses there. The sound of the ocean and the look of the sky automatically puts me in drawing mode, and what I don't draw I photograph for later drawings. These are just a few of this week's earrings:

A bunch more (see bin?) will finish drying before I dress them with classy beads.

I don't know how long I will be this divided person...the one who loves crafty stuff and the serious two-dimensional artist. For now, just think of it a little of something for everyone...every one of me!

Open Studio Hartford has a theme this year...it is 20 years old. And I have been here (not always showing) all this time. There will be eyeglass cases created by individual artists for sale, all proceeds to charity. I have some in progress...

I will post the progress. In the meantime, dream time.

So THAT'S what's down the rabbit hole...

2009-10-19T16:45:00.001-04:00

More than a week has passed since I disappeared into the Alice-In-Wonderland themed East Coast Artist Retreat, and it already seems like light years ago in some ways. I have never experienced anything like it...it was a sumptuous feast of creativity, like a music festival for your eyes and hands instead of ears. I spent most of my time there with Keith Lo Bue, a found object artist originally from Connecticut but who has resided in Sydney, Australia for a decade. http://www.lobue-art.com/home.html Keith's website showcases the work, so wonderful in person, but we were there to see if we could utilize his amazing techniques in our own work, or the work some of us hadn't even dreamed of doing yet.When members of our class emerged from our work area some of us sounded like cult worshippers. I had 3 days and 4 workshops with him and many took every one of his classes over the full 5 days. Closed in that hotel I definately felt like some sort of vampire, hidden away and greedily sipping life from all I came into contact with. In the end I could call myself, at the minimum, a Keith Lo Bue groupie. This is Jeanne, Nancy, Keith and me. I certainly look like a woman who rarely slept and closed myself in a room with a bunch of tools and some "junk" for days. Found objects, lost touch with the everyday!

Learning the new techniques will truly enhance my own work, but the retreat was "spiritual" for me as well as technical. Combining the hands-on tactile experience with meeting other artists walking similar paths created a feeding frenzy in my soul. So many artists described similar art-school experiences, shut down in some way, and the self-taught among us (there were many...with mad skills) had their own barriers, and we were able to strip all of that away for the weekend...to say "why not?" in place of "how will I ever?".

There were plenty of extras. We had creative visual journaling sessions in the morning and special lunchtime placements to be sure we met everyone we could, regardless of their creative focus. The screening of the documentary "Who Does She Think She Is?" was icing on the creativity cake. Be sure you wait for the flash intro to load if you visit the site http://www.whodoesshethinksheis.net/ . I recommend the film to anyone who has walked a path in pursuit of a creative life. Though the documentary describes a woman's journey, it may be eye-opening to the men among us who also want to understand the barriers to making and showing art. The organizers outdid themselves: the air virtually buzzed with excitement all of the time.

I made great friends, both the kind one keeps around all the time and the see-you-next-year kind. There were people for whom art serves as a vocation and those who have it as a passion in addition to a full time career, and those non-art career folks were no shirkers. It reminded me (like a great clap of thunder) how fortunate I am to be able to be in my studio as much as I am and how much all these other business people have to offer~ I vowed to stop working in such isolation. Jeanne, pictured with me, and the found-object art piece she created, volunteered to share her hotel room and it made all the difference. We both had plenty of stuff to haul around (she came as an antiques vendor as well as participant) and our room looked like a mini warehouse. Our lodging couldn't have been farther from the venue and without her help hauling I would have been a very sorry soul indeed. The worst part for Jeanne was my talking aloud while I dreamed about the work~ really loud.

So I will be there next year...in some form of ruby slipper or other...ready for the magic Art Is...

What's it all about?

2009-09-22T16:55:00.000-04:00

Already the days are shrinking into Autumn, one of my favorite times of year. I actually like all the seasons, but 2009 has been a bit strange. It seemed as though we were sealed in ice forever this winter~ the solid snowbanks and immovable chunks of frozen debris made it hard to get back to life post-spinal-surgery. To say I was stepping gingerly is an understatement. Finally the thaw! Oh triumphant Spring! And we covered the front windows with window boxes and made new garden beds, then planted all the containers on the deck and added some veggies in for good measure, hundreds of plants in all. We were celebrating! Then rain! Excellent! Young plants need rain! But then it rained and rained and rained and rained.

The nights stayed cool as did the soil temperature and we watched as only the grass grew and grew and grew. Even "the tundra" had thick globs of clover that looked like a drift of snow from far away. "The tundra" is what we call the large rectangle over the leach field for the septic, and it has been a sandy blotchy fragile ecosystem since its beginning. Word of a massive tomato blight spread and I spent hours trimming leaves with fungus and picking slugs off everything in sight. I have never seen so many slugs! We got tomatoes after the longest time. Our only heat wave in August came too late to do much but create damaging thunderstorms and oddly placed tornadoes. Nearly everyone I know had a summer cold or worse. We even had outdoor friends spend time doing winter jigsaw puzzles!

But the time FLIES and this morning as the dog and I waded through the dew I wondered how long it would be before we would be trying to do the same in the dark...both morning and night. For the next three days I get to talk with 4th grade students in Vernon about streams and wildlife habitat at Belding Wildlife Management Area. It is great to be able to do my Master Wildlife Conservationist volunteering again and that will give me a rare additional hiking spot for a weekday and good company.

The pressure is on but the progress is steady for Broad Brook Art. A WEBSITE COMPLETE WITH SHOPPING CART is coming along rapidly, much thanks to new efforts by Nathan Skinner. There will be Open Studio Hartford in November to see us in person, and plenty of new inventory for that and holiday shopping in general.

A bit of side cash insured I can attend the East Coast Artist Retreat in October and I expect to pick up great techniques and good camaraderie there~ other people's art is always inspirational. It is what I miss most about not teaching art in a more traditional way.

In choosing who to follow around at the retreat I did a lot of web research. Though it is in the 3rd year, the "Art Is...You" conference has just a couple of familiar faces. It gave me pause about blogging in general. There is so much to see and do and read away from the computer! I get impatient with slow uploads and poor design. Finding a balance between self-centered or self-serving blather and sharing genuine moments of grace or despair seems difficult for far more folks than just me. I have people I know who blog and follow them, mostly for the humor and the joy they seem to live in.

So I will go quiet for now, knowing there are a hundred other things on the lists of things we all need to do, and I would just as soon show you a new art piece than report the weather. You can get that anywhere! Can you get this?

Transcendence

Furry people

2009-07-22T11:56:00.015-04:00

For a couple of weeks I have let this puppy who bounded into our lives take over my days. It has been exciting and fun and periodically dreadfully frustrating. Puppy training class last night was FABULOUS and I am inserting MY needs back into the day. At the moment Rosie is resting peacefully in a crate next to me. We have 2, the larger one is where she will spend any time she needs to be kenneled.

Donna and I were told she was housebroken and crate-trained, and we needed to be sure Rosie could co-exist with the queen of the house, the seal-point siamese cat. Five years ago we became a blended family...Donna and her two rowdy boxers came to live with city-raised indoor cat Cassandra. The pets were all the same age and there was no question about our dedication to them. Before they moved here, the "girls" had full run of a large fenced yard in Windsor Locks, only closed in the house at night, and then happily sharing the bed. Jasper was as strong as an ox, and handling both dogs on leashes was impossible for one person. On property full of wildlife we simply failed to re-train their impulse to chase. It was a disaster. I refused to believe they would try, literally, to kill the cat, and carelessly dropped the leash at the door one day, not knowing the cat was right there. Donna shouted to me and in a blur of howls and growls, fur and claws, I narrowly caught the cat as she climbed the wall and Donna dragged the dogs away, barking, growling and snapping the whole time. We tried everything to get the three to get along...training and crates, leashes and gates. We consulted animal behaviorists and trainers from here to Tufts. We finally resigned ourselves to the wretched arrangement of boxers downstairs and cat up. We went through a series of enclosures and kept the door from the basement out open all day, regardless of temperature. Finally a chain link fence and dog door stood as our reluctant concession.

Eventually they calmed enough to be able to walk with Donna and I each handling one dog, but we didn't have much chance to fully enjoy it. Boxers have a predisposition toward heart murmur and heart disease, which we did not know. One Thursday night Jasper's breathing was labored and we drove fast to the emergency animal hospital. Jasper spent that weekend there, eluding exact diagnosis but on heart medication. She saw a specialist vet on Monday and was cleared to come home, no heart medication, just a modification in diet. 8 hours later it was clear she was not well...in hindsight we figured out she was on her way to full renal failure. There was no missing the acute respiratory distress. We loaded her in the van to get back to the vet as quickly and calmly as possible. She died, in agony and in Donna's arms, as I merged into rush hour traffic, watching a nightmare unfold in the rear-view mirror.

Jasper and Cheyenne had never been separated from each other in the 8 years they lived together. Cheyenne was a tricky escape artist but it was the challenge that motivated her. One day we heard a bark from an odd angle and looked out to find Cheyenne up on the deck, scratching at the boards, desperate to get back to Jasper below her. Now what would she do? When we came home without Jasper Cheyenne was curled in a tight ball, looking at us with what I felt was knowing. Of course we see ourselves and our own humanity in our furry creatures. That smart girl had never forgotten a command word, just ignored them when her best buddy was around. Anxious to be with us all the time, she was willing to forge a truce, and very willing to have further training. For a year we enjoyed her antics off leash~ she loved to dawdle around for a minute and then RUN as fast as she could toward us. She and Cassandra had moments like this, much to our amazement. What should have been a easily curable infection revealed the fateful murmur. This time we were prepared, this time we were able to call the shots, once we had all the information. We nursed her at home until the day her discomfort exceeded our need to hang on to her, and we took her to our own home vet to calmly ease her pain for good.

It has taken us over a year to commit to another dog. When we were ready life wasn't...I was recovering from back surgery and Connecticut was a sheet of snow and ice for months. The economic news was getting more and more grim, and inevitably close to home. Now our eyes are wide open to the cost of good veterinary care, and we wanted to be sure we could handle all the unexpected things.

She is a good dog, this Rosie, loving and bright. On the petfinder.com website she was listed as a "German Shepard Dog, Mixed", but when she got off the animal transport truck that didn't quite fit. Her vet papers described her as "Boxer, Red, Mixed" but I think we just wouldn't see it. It doesn't matter what type of dog she most resembles, but now there is no denying the boxer in her. Our hope was to both rescue a dog and rescue ourselves~ pet lovers know the creature does more for you than you could ever do for it. You might think our grief at losing Cheyenne and Jasper a year apart would be a bit smaller by now, and it is, but we still shed tears now and again. To watch Rosie and Donna last night, I know our changed family is just right. They each had expressions of pure joy a good part of the time, and for me that is worth just about anything. There are moments and looks Rosie has that make me think, just for a moment, that Cheyenne might be reincarnated. If there is a heaven where Cheyenne and Jasper (and all of our lost loved ones) play in joy and peace, I am sure they would look at us and see they trained us right, and sent us a pup who would teach us even more.

Observation

2009-07-06T07:55:00.003-04:00

It has been too long since I posted. Fred and I have set aside his memoir for too long, time to get my editor job finished. I stopped dead working on my own memoir pieces. And I stopped dead in the studio. I have one scrafito piece from last week and that is ALL.

I came in to write a private chapter, but after an e-mail from a friend I realized we were having a convergence of thoughts and wanted to post this story/message she sent along:

Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.
4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:
A3 year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly, as the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced them to move on.

45 minutes:
The musician played. Only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.
He collected $32.

1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments .....
How many other things are we missing?

I have been pondering heavily about observation and perception in the every day...the seismic change in the way we now interact with world, what of that folds into what we see and hear, and how we retain imagery? If I can shift my perception even a little bit doesn't it rearrange the maze I am wandering through, the path ahead? How does observation change with aging? If I am becoming less observant what can I do to exercise that brain matter so nothing is surrendered?

Perception is an organic concept. It changes with everything: light, time, position, attentiveness, and on and on and on. I can offer you my meager words about what I am experiencing, but I desperately want to view things from behind YOUR eyes. Why am I so anxious for this? Is it fear? A desire for a deeper connection and understanding? Proof of life? Proof of visibility?

Empathy isn't enough...I want to know how your joy or pain compares with mine, your eyesight...hearing. What is common in the ways our brains act? Uniqueness is spectacularly possible, yet so many start in adolescence craving sameness. My desire for sameness can still pop up. I am like an actor with intense stage fright in my uniqueness, I can be so frightened I nearly cease to exist.

So much spins through my head in my dreams. In my sleep I can't really rest...I am too busy! What are your dreams...waking and sleeping?

All this means memory is malleable as well, and I have been reading innovative studies that may impact how we treat people who have survived trauma and are suffering from severe PTSD.

And time marches on...

2008-12-24T00:51:00.003-05:00

With or without art, sometimes. Solve one thing and while you are holding that thing together something else creaks and crumbles behind you. I remember vowing no negativity and next thing you know my last type here was mid-October. Day by day we measured whether or not to go on vacation later that month...I was sick in one way or another all the time...we went and didn't regret it. Cape Cod has a healing effect for me, and has served as cure more than once, and I haven't been able to spend much time with the photos I took to add to my "sketch later" pile, but it is the quality of light that brings me back to North Truro, year after year. I could feel it even through my closed eyelids in those short days, but it shines through in the photos, and I am glad I opened my eyes long enough to snap the shutter. As always I got my falling stars, and a sunrise, with the ocean at my feet. This year's Christmas card from the cottages' owners, the Greenes, has a photo of a stubborn wildflower dug in stairs up the dune, and that is who we are this year too. With CT gay marriage legal it seemed a good time for us to set a wedding date. Our plans are modest...a close few to share. After more than a couple of decades "out" it seems sentimental but still important to speak a vow, though none are needed. Unspoken has served us well too.

November brought the election of a lifetime and news and news and news...I wept the weekend of my birthday when I found a way to make wedding rings for Donna and I and 2009 (rings up to my standards!), and wept more that month in sorrow and joy than in a very long time. Sharing our news (and dealing with the reprocussions) made me set the modest wedding plans aside, and weeks without decent sleep due to more and more severe back pain took a huge toll. Several people were the recipients of long, rambling e-mails. To not stretch my electronic ties further, I stayed away from the computer until today. It has been the most insane of sane times in my life. Maybe I even courted madness briefly...desperate for an excuse to get away from myself.

December has brought the gift of cards and letters, updates from our all-over people. December brought much-needed back surgery, and we will have a very quiet holiday. Let me just say that medical technology is amazing and I am recovering spectacularly (time to get out of the chair now, though), and our health-care system is insane. The surgery was the 17th. On the morning of the 19th a passing doc gave me a quick nod and I caught the fast train...my folks and our van...to recovery OUTSIDE the haunted hospital halls.

Cassandra is starting to make her meows louder. If I am up she wants a lap. So Donna can keep sleeping for that one more day of work before she can be home for a week I will quiet her by quieting me. There is too much fun for kitties here and this is not my office!

2009 will be as amazing and more productive than ever...with only physical recovery for me...and whatever else lies wait. I have hope...even in uncertain times. Hope will carry all of us.

technical troubles

2008-10-17T23:22:00.005-04:00

Hey~

I have been away for a while, at the moment I am not feeling all that much better, but that was somewhat expected. My $1.99 "crakes" (croc fakes) are retired for the season, put away for all but use in the basement. They are day-glo ugly but convenient and now I fall down while wearing them...not helpful.

Movie from the last post won't play, too much data (gotta have music AND images AND animation, right?) I am learning, I am learning.

I am going to attempt to send out a "mass e-mail" that will let folks know we may be even MORE out of touch for a while. Our internet provider (Cox) has had consistent troubles throughout the area and I have been working on it from my end, assuming they would eventually clear it up, but it isn't looking good. With ongoing health care stuff and our MUCH NEEDED trip to the Cape, catch us by phone. Those of you who need those #s have them. Laughs delivered via phone from friends who loathe email have also been VERY welcome.

The collision of health issues and economy and internet/computer technical difficulties is turning out to be a bit of a blessing, despite the Halloween style (this "scorched earth" painting comes in handy for all kinds of references!) disguise. It is giving time to heal, regroup and prepare for winter, on the outside and inside. I can get by some of the personal trauma and we can keep on and get back to the new work. New work is always good~ the cure all.

I have been doing my best to follow my father's lead...that any day with time spent outside, even on the smallest chore (or in his case, HUGE chores) is a good day. It is best to take a walk, soaking up in the beauty of brightly colored leaves wafting by on the newly crisp wind catering in the new season. I have come to not only appreciate but adore the rare gems his (and our)gardening friends pass on, THOUGH I STILL WANT TO DIG THE DAMN HOLES MYSELF! Ah, to have it all. Before I was gifted with this life long dream of living on this Broad Brook land, I read and clipped WAY too many pictures and articles about what might seem to make up the perfect landscape. After more resistance than I would like to admit, I have learned there is no substitute for hands-in-the-dirt experience and the zig-zag way life has of bringing new and surprising influences on our now more user-friendly Better Home and Garden. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Speaking of growing things...Anyone need a houseplant? My indoor gardening sufficed during my urban living phase and the population is WAY out of hand. This is Diva and her leaves are not supposed to be wilted like that. Everyone else is MUCH lower maintenance and like me, she is far too needy. I suppose my curtailed email time could be used to re-pot the poor thing and give her some crystals so she can hold her water better. She needs just a few gently drops...otherwise she pees her pot. But the potting bench is full of woodworking tools and it all seems...overwhelming. If she gets a new pot shouldn't everyone else?

Fa has been working on a big indoor project, pulling together more family genealogy than I had any idea we had, and there is plenty that is of interest to us. So we pass around plants, and new and old letters, and books about weather...the weather obsession is probably genetic, but luckily Donna shares it.

Mom has been dutifully dragging me about, stuck with the more mundane chore of sitting in waiting rooms, bringing necessities and her home-cooked specialties, both sweet and savory. I am afraid I am sometimes too exasperated to be as grateful as I should be and I am quite sure the protein shake recipes I mix up and walk over to share are not comforting in the same way at all, but the folks smile and politely thank me for my effort. Other friends have shared the driving/dropping off chores, and I have been grateful not only for those interventions but the moments I get to find out what THEY are up to...always welcome news.

Donna and I have the bizarre luxury of ignoring much of the news...not much we can do about most of this. Unsure of how I would feel after the November 3 go around with the oral surgery, and sure the lines at the polls will be LONG, Donna and I cast our absentee ballots a couple of days ago. What will be will be.

This is our first time our October/November trip to the cape will coincide with a presidential election of such contention. Those blessed "no computer no television" beach days may, for the first time ever, send us to the local tavern just to peek at the news once or twice. Our neighbor in the next cottage can give us the Boston Globe's view if I am desperate...this time Ken will be tracking more than just sports. Yeah...sad to say the cell phones go these days...until the last couple of trips we were glad to go without phone as well.

As always, thanks for the support.

Movie struggle

2008-10-03T09:14:00.001-04:00

I created a simple movie using the beta version of Picasa 3. It is there, but I know it is fuzzy. Working on it with other intense users and techs. Will republish after sleep. recuperation.

like the poltergeist, I'm ba-ack!

2008-10-03T04:24:00.005-04:00

Movies

Okay. I was going to give this up, this blogging, but I have a lot to say. In rereading many of my entries I keep seeing the word ANGER over and over again. Most of the country is angry, frustrated, agitated...I certainly am not alone. And I have made my point. Enough about the anger.

And the blog is about art, but art is a process, a process about living, about seeing. For me it is mathematical, it is literary, it is contemplative and it is technical. Photography helps. I often do a great deal of research, both of the materials and my methods. This makes me a little bit of a know-it-all. One of my character flaws. What I don't know I ask about. I have a box full of cast off failures from 2007, but not so this year. Lately I have just sat down with a book or board and thrown down line after line, or in the case of pastels, gentle touch after gentle touch until it satisfies. There has been very little waste, there are only three or four pieces I would not present here, or offer for sale.

There is a huge historical perspective I often ignore. I have experimented with all kinds of media tools...the computer software being a large part of for a long time.It was too long ago now, lying on the floor in an icy Princeton computer lab, working with a bunch of guys to stretch code to someplace that would work for what I wanted. I didn't know what I wanted. While I was in college I had the chance to intern with some of the most well-known artists of the time, at full tuition cost of classes and dorm fees. It was hard to make that make sense when I would be a mere 2 hours from home, not the normal 12. Those internships evaporated without the direct educational institution link. And I believed my college art professor when he said I could paint and even sculpt but I would never be an artist. I sat in his studio, tears and snot running down my face at his pronouncement, after 4 years of hero worship. He might have clued me in a little earlier and I could have freed myself up more for writing and French and literature. The bastard had one of my art papers published, under my name of course....he had to think it was good, right? He had little comfort to offer beyond a rag tainted with turpentine (of course we had no idea we had been poisoning ourselves all that time). I knew I wasn't Van Gogh but it took me what seemed like an eternity to get over what was probably a simple, common, sexist assumption on his part...perhaps even merely a bad day. His education was from professors who used and threw away women, men who drank themselves to death and abused others in name of their art. The masters suffered for their art, it was natural too assume we must too. Sobbing at my last critique as not the kind of suffering I had in mind.

These harsh lessons made me a passionate and empathetic teacher, not afraid to push hard for good work but unwilling to tear anyone apart to get at it. My poor parent's car was so loaded down with bronze and metal and canvases and tools that the trip home ruined their shocks or struts. I was so car sick we had to stop at every gas station until my mother pitied me and road in the back. Fien time to tell me all that work was for naught.

When I graduated from college with my very classical art training (experimental materials required such bold in-the-face-of-the-masters when I did dare I was punished with b grades).There was plenty of greatliberal arts education. With my specialized Bachelor of Fine Arts I got 2 offers...I could earn $13,000 as a junior designer for the Boston Museum of Science exhibit department or at the Smithsonian, for just under $12,000. Really great jobs in very expensive cities. I thought of my friends in New York, sleeping in closet size rooms and fighting roommates over noise and food and money, slamming the toaster on the counter before making breakfast so they didn't toast any cockroaches. I had never seen a cockroach before. Sure, we have mice and rats and crickets and stuff out here in the "country" of Connecticut, but could I adjust to urban noise and smells, conquering my fear of the unknown for a spectacularly great job at a really low wage? I stayed with my cousin and his wife in Washington D.C. and it seemed a more plausible city to live in, but I didn't know where to find an edgy art culture...that was easy to find in Boston and New York.

One of my fellow art graduates lived alone in a storefront, which she accessed by raising and lowering those rolly metal doors that protected her from break-ins I couldn't comprehend. At 17 someone stole a good pen that was a graduation gift, right off my classroom desk, probably as I turned in a test. At 18 a poor unwell soul broke into my parent's house and stole underwear and dresses from my sister, mother and I. At school my dryer was mysteriously emptied of panties. Other than that my sister and I only stole from each other. Of course we each remember it all differently and I am finally old enough the details don't matter, but my elephantine memory can be inconvenient.

I went and stayed in Brooklyn with a good friend who found a low paying teaching job at a very progressive school. He was thrilled with the way he had adapted, and he was a genius teaching the children of well-known authors, artists and designers in any subject, without a teaching certificate. It wasn't too long after that the first Mac was released and hypertext became my obsession. It all moved so fast, and I loved riding the wave. His desk at home(with the required little Mac)was an ironing board. I was impressed yet still somehow horrified. There was a toaster oven and a hot plate and one of the things my mother taught me very well was how to cook. I did not gain weight as a freshman off to college...the food was so substandard I refused to eat it most of the time. Life still seemed doomed to Ramen noodles and tea even beyond college! The subway and train rides seemed long out that way but didn't scare me. I did cry about half the night sleeping on the floor, and sadly I have lost touch and not found him again, I was an unapologetic, ungrateful wretch as my farewell. Even if I could land a good gig what would I do with the car I just bought and how on earth would I find a date? Newly "out" as a lesbian (and a rabid feminist) I was horrified that it was $9.00 in 1984 to get into a club for lesbians. No addresses were published...you walked up and down a rumored street and the street hoped for a nod from a bouncer, so you kind of had to look like you belonged in the club. I did not look like I belonged in the club. It was a lot of wandering alone in dangerous places for a costly maybe.

I headed back to the folks' house, uncertain of what to do. That short sordid story ended with getting fired for taking the bookkeeper to a gay bar and off I went cross-country, determined not to humiliate my family by residing nearby.

Out West I did graphic design and illustration for print in a VERY low-end way. I utilized the first releases of most of the new stuff as the technology improved. I got so I could draw as well with a mouse as I could with any other tool and I played around with animation, but my New York fellow grad friend went off to Canada as a less expensive place to learn filming and film editing skills. She blew me away with her productions, with fabulous control of voice and music. MTV production remained hot dreams for many creative types I knew.

Computers couldn't hold that data, I kept maxing out my memory and waiting forever for graphics to load. It didn't take me long to figure out that I could make a lot more money in much less time selling printed products than I could designing, and the world of design was still very sexist. Men did concepts, women slaved at keyboards for much less money. Then the low-end women's jobs disappeared. If you didn't keep up, you were simply erased from the industry. I decided being reasonably dressed with earning power I directly that increased with good work made more sense.

The story is long and I am so very tired. Hopefully I will have correctly finished my play with a free software toy and you saw that already. I don' care if nobody reads it. I am back, and the word anger is banished.

and so what now?

2008-09-27T10:03:00.008-04:00

Yesterday, after not having slept for a very long time, I published long pieces here on the blog written from a place of despair. I deleted them but one thing remains: rage.

I am an angry woman, and I have been angry for longer than even I imagined. For this moment I am going to set aside my gratitude and relentless pursuit of God's grace and voice the darkness alone, without trying to balance the madness with words of hope. I am going to falter, maybe for just a moment, in my faith that what God asks of me is good works, and that even the smallest good works meet that mandate. I am going to rage against powerlessness. I am going to doubt out loud that there is a higher power who can hear prayer, any prayer; those spoken with grand passionate volume or the silent and softly whispered prayers of the naive, straight from the pure heart of just one child.

I am so angry at the greed that clearly infected an entire generation of what should have been vetted financial geniuses, greed that endangered shareholders and every citizen of an entire nation, greed that brought us to an unprecedented financial collapse, a collapse that will require a unique description, not "recession" or "depression". I am infuriated that there is even a concept on the table in Congress that any of these people would have any kind of "parachute". They should go the way any of person caught stealing..."please leave your keys and your badge on the desk, security will escort you out. We will send you your personal belongings after we have searched them for evidence of any further wrongdoing."

I am angry at the suicide death of a man who I have always silently believed saved my life. This man was a good man...a brother, father and husband. I only had a couple of opportunities to wander around the woods and rivers of Connecticut with him and a crew of others, and now he is gone we have lost a person who taught many about the wonders of nature with his own contagious wonder. I am the only one who knew he saved my life once. He did it so deftly and with such skill that my fear was instantly evaporated. I wanted to appear cavalier about what happened, and so I did not laud his heroism...I kept the depth of peril to myself. I only spoke of it in the abstract...rules of the river or other fast water. Those closest to him fought for him valiantly, but the disease he and I both have took his life anyway. Perhaps he will have saved my life twice...his suffering and that of those around him may have led me to a path of safety from suicide, and his death will heighten my vigilance against the symptoms that can sweep me swiftly into dangerously fast water.

I am angry that another family, stewards of our agricultural heritage, could not set aside their differences, differences I understand very well, and save a farm. I am angry that farmers are dying breed. I am angry that as much as I love the land and the Connecticut River Valley's rich and fertile soil I could not, physically or financially, grow food or flowers for a living.

I am angry that my personal struggles keep me from waging war to preserve open space for agriculture and nature...and that in my town more taxpayers think that we can magically keep development away by simply pulling the "no" lever on every budget vote. I am angry that some of our best and most skilled citizens and staff can be silenced, chased and beaten away by those who believe everything can stay the same as it always was.

I am angry we can only shrink what we teach our children in schools strapped financially, we can not expand or explore progressive education designed to nurture the skills our next generation will need to win the battles we are losing now. This kind of education must be smuggled in the back door, by teachers and leaders who bravely teach their best, always refusing to leave any hope for any child behind, despite the hurricane force winds of a national education crisis that has broadly painted all who educate incompetent, or even more ridiculous, greedy for pay. I am angry as I watch children skimmed off the top of urban schools and whisked off to new magnet schools. The progress "no child left behind" has made is that only the poorest of the poor, the most educationally needy, will be left to flounder in schools labeled "failing". They will have lost their only entitlement, their right to an equal education.

I am angry that few understand poverty is and will remain the powerful undercurrent at the bottom of every crisis we face globally and locally.

I am angry our health care system is broken, not by the greed of medical professionals, but by the insane costs of monstrous government bureaucracy, greedy pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists, and insurance companies who have needed to keep their profits high enough to invest in now failed financial institutions. As a country we are nowhere near prepared for the costs medical advancements have made that lengthen our lives, longevity we should celebrate, but that will force more and more of our elderly into unresolvable poverty and perhaps even a longevity that severely diminishes any quality of life.

I am angry government has cost all of us our individual rights, at the hands of a political party built on the value of individual rights and LESS government interference. I am angry the same people set back science in our country, not just on one front, declaring any single human cell life, and at the same waded in to a marriage, into the sanctity of a "proper" marriage, to deny a conversation between husband and wife is not enough to fulfill an expressed desire, a right to die with dignity, after all hope for a meaningful life is lost. We are not free to choose what "meaningful" is. As we battle over single cells, entire species are wiped away and climate change is declared a myth~ just climate change, just pure empirical data, before we even begin discussing what is fueling it. Individual rights and scientific pursuits, swept away, perhaps unrecoverable for a lifetime.

I will never stop being angry at the spectacle of watching poor people die days and days and even weeks after Hurricane Katrina had long passed through. It was a national shame I hope we will never repeat.

I am angry our larger health care advances have been to repair brains and burns and the lost limbs of soldiers who would still serve their country given a chance.

I am also selfishly angry. I live with the kinds of chronic illness there are no big fundraisers for, that have no cool little rubber bracelets, the kind we don't talk about, the kind that people whisper about. I am angry that there is some reason pharmaceutical companies spend huge money to advertise anti-psychotic medications. Are there enough psychotic people out there to warrant that kind of advertising? Then again...do you have any idea what these medications cost? Who is the intended target of these advertisers? I am betting your average psychotic joe or jane isn't rushing to the doc to get a script...not like, say, the little purple pill.

I am angry at the new assaults on my body. They are temporary and should resolve in a few months, but they are side-effects of my treatment, not new disease.

I am angry I must depend on the generosity of others, like my parents, who should not have to be caring for their 46 year old daughter. They drive me around when I can't drive, and launder money for slow-to-pay insurance companies, enabling me to keep seeing the specialists who help the most, specialists who must employ huge staffs so they can accept insurance, but who must pay themselves and their people this week...not in 90 days or six months or even, in some cases, more than a year.

I am sad that this will be my last blog entry. My desire to work and sell what I am good at is under assault...by the economy, by my health, by my desire to make art AND still teach. That art and the students I tutor must come first. Teaching any subject feeds my soul in the same way making art does. I have surveyed those who have purchased from me, those who are my friends and any one else I could ask. The message is clear: the easiest way for them to see exactly what is for sale is a website. This week I also learned that one of the other tools I use for marketing is technically flawed. I will keep journaling, on my own, and maybe someday find a way to write something more useful. I have a lot to say.

Maybe there is one bit of gratitude that will surface here. Thank you, Helene, for reading and encouraging me. Your words are not lost on me and they will keep a dream of mine fueled for a different time. In the meantime, to my great fortune, you are right next door.

good friends, neighbors, and our favorite things

2008-09-21T12:47:00.016-04:00

I could write and write and write. Instead today I will simply say that our neighbors, Fred and Helene, have been a great gift in our lives. We spend time together impulsively...when we find ourselves with a moment or an hour or so to sit and enjoy the fruits of all that planting labor and can share and catch up on each other's doings...and try to worry less about the "not doings".

A recent Friday they kindly had Donna and I to dinner...it all came together perfectly. Before Donna got home from work Fred and I were chatting, looking at this gorgeous gate and enjoying the day. Helene came along then we had drips and drops of rain. Faster drops moved the conversation to their screened in porch and before long a spontaneous dinner plan was hatched. Donna came home, delighted to celebrate Friday with friends. We shed the worries of the day, grabbed some melon we had to offer for dessert.

The food and company were joyful for me. Helene is an outstanding researcher so she has all kinds of stories to tell about her finds and people she corresponds with. Fred dreams big, like me, and we commiserate about the demons of perfectionism. Our conversation topics range from tools and yard maintenance, mowing and weeding and cute furry garden destroyers, on to local history, flea market finds or religion, literature and philosophy. Nothing is off limits.

They are away this week, being grandparents in California, but their cottage garden is keeping us company in their absence, and you can see how heavy with morning glories the gate that leads to Fred's young orchard is. The variety, Heaven Blue, is a favorite of my father's, and he generously shares seedlings he gets from a local nursery. The row of 4 homes, from Voto's to our house, the farm house and my sister's place all have some, and this year they have been better than ever on picket fence, a comfort~ joy in the dawn stretched into the afternoon as the oaks across the street keep the blooms open far into the day.

We share plants back and forth....well, between my folks as the other next-door neighbors Donna and I have been lucky recipients. I am hoping that we can offer from our own divided perennials one of these seasons. Fred salvaged some Rose of Sharon, almost bare root sticks, set aside to be thrown away at a local nursery. He nursed them along himself and the rewards have been wonderful. This is the best shot I could get of one bloom of vigorous plants on the path through the garden gate path has at least 4 different colors, if not more. There are so many more blooms and colors and I am hoping those flowers will give them joy after a a happy journey.

My folks have at least one of his offerings and we popped one into my yard to replace a red maple sapling that did not winter well.

Maybe it is maturity that makes it easier for people of may parent's age to approach a stranger and ask about their plants or their bird feeders or life in general. My father saw a woman working in her garden and stopped. She spoke of her morning glories coming back from seed...as "volunteers" but what she shared with my Dad turned out a little different, The variety did not Heavenly Blue, but I adore them. The star of pinkish violet set in the purple pops out of the grand green leaves in a small but majestic display. The buds are a swirl of white and pink and purple. The folks used to grow clematis at the back step and it was not doing well the last couple of years. I put my vote in early for a repeat of the annual. We are sucking the marrow out the bones of summer's end and allowed ourselves to enjoy the sun, read and snack on our inherited lawn furniture.

There is always something to see and watch for in just a moment's walk in any direction. I hope you find the kind of treasures we are rich with around here.

work in progress

2008-09-20T11:26:00.000-04:00

I am losing my mind.

There is no other
explanation for this
I just wanted to show
the two painting sketches
and new scrafito I am working on,
as of Friday 9-19
and I seem to have a
very ugly conflict of
software applications.
That isn't relevant to the actual making of art
(well it is if you count the lost hours in computer hell)
so I will be away from the keyboard
and working my a** off on actual art-making.
It took 9 days to recover from the
first dental/jaw procedure,
the first of three between now and 11-3.
So I am drawing and working like a fiend
when I feel well, working indoors
rather than haul all my
tools and paper outside and back in again.
Though I canceled participation
in local group shows
I can't let go of the hope that somehow I can pull off
Open Studio in Hartford, but I am only working on the stuff that will be pricey
and in this economy I should do more of the pieces (jewelry and such)
that people are comfortable nibbling up.
Ah well. Back to the drawing board.

back to anger, chasing wildflowers

2008-09-16T00:53:00.008-04:00

I have been editing pictures this day until I could not work any more, until I was in so much pain I couldn't bear my glasses on my face. My blogging intent today was to show off my father's wildflower photos. Their blooms will pass but the grasses will change colors as the trees do and there are gorgeous paths to travel. He sought out the rarest sites this time, a yellow patch of flowers that appeared last year but are even more prolific this year. He got close but after a photo or two he very carefully retreated from what may have been an underground yellow jacket nest. He and I both have had very many stings from that kind of encounter and there are chores we save until hard frost, when the risk has passed.

I couldn't resist throwing in the holly hock photo in and if I feel better soon I promise more photos, I will make acrylic paintings or pastel paintings of them. Our neighbors to the North, Fred and Helene, have a gorgeous cottage garden and the gate is loaded with hundreds of blooms of morning glory, and I intend to photograph them too. Fred shared with us some Rose of Sharon he nurtured from teeny tiny plants and they are doing well in all three yards. The cameras are always at the ready these days, both at the farmhouse and here, next door. Dad (Fa, as we call him) has answered my many questions, identifying mystery patches of different colors of wildflowers in new places.

I am back to anger because I loathe this process I am in. I planned the fixes my face and teeth need as carefully as I could, only imagining the three seperate days of the procedures would keep me from work, and to be realistic, a little more, especially in October. I did not plan for complications immediately, or the need for rest. I was thrown by not being able to eat much, making a desperate run to the store for ingredients that would make healthy shakes I could drink more easily. Tea and soup... yogurt and cottage cheese. Donna was very creative with those over the weekend but I must admit I didn't even try to eat when she was at work.

Desperate, I called the dentist Saturday, through his answering service, and he suggested the complication was allergy. It was humiliating to call Fred and Helene, and ask them to list the ingredients of the excellent spontaneous feast we shared Friday. There was no change in our environment or foods that would trigger an allergic reaction. I have never had food allergies. 24 hours of benedryl did nothing to ease the swelling of my face, tongue and throat. I couldn't ignore it~ I headed for our primary care doc, grateful it didn't get bad enough for an ER visit.

There is a saying among physicians...something about when you hear hoof beats they are more likely horses than zebras. I have quite a few zebras in my health history.The discouraging series of events over the last couple of days has more details, and they do not belong here.

As fast as I can there will be more work. While I recover I have been using classmates.com to find old friends I left behind. I was not in touch, fearful that the lesbian thing was too much, fearing my "crash and burn" pattern would horrify someone. I have to say the process of letting people know what a difference they made in my life has been rewarding, I feel a bit redeemed each time I come across someone. It is making my little infirmity into grace, chasing wildflowers and old friends, finding both.

on the run, practice stillness

2008-09-12T12:27:00.003-04:00

What do you pack when you don't know where you are going or how long you will be? If I can't do that for my purse right now, in this moment, what can it be like to be in the path of a deadly storm and trying to choose what to bring? What can it be like to not know if your home will be home anymore?

I want to help. I just want to just help... fix IT. Turning off the news doesn't help.

Did you ever just get in a car or a plane or train or bus so you could get there NOW? Get to your loved one, get to a stranger alone, find a way to do something, anything?

I have run toward things like that, but not in a long time. Never too late, right?

And no, I am not driving to the southeastern US right now. I am having lunch and packing a purse full of practical things. I will figure out what to pack for the longer journey later. For now I will just be. Stillness is a hard thing to practice, and it is going to take a mammoth effort. It is temporary, this stillness, but it serves a purpose.

I am up to the task.

always blog when grateful

2008-09-10T12:30:00.016-04:00

So I had a bad day, but the blog is about art so the topic is art and here is the latest work. These things have been around here and it is time I get this stuff posted. Then I have to do more! I am thinking I may have to do the darker stuff on a nameless, traceless blog, or bury on my computer as a novel, perhaps a thinly disguised memoir.
I have been very grateful to get good feedback on the writing and I haven't journaled in too long. We all have plenty of stories to tell and I love to hear them as well as tell them. I have this luxury of time right now. Well it isn't a luxury actually. But I am going to make it one.

Let's just celebrate life. I am going to take advantage of this "luxury" of time to tackle a painting series I have had planned for a while.

Autumn is upon us and the colors of the sky and intensity of light can't be matched. Good painting weather. This monarch color is going to give me momentum to the new paintings. The photo this is from Connecticut Wildlife, a photo by Paul J. Fusco. I have tracked butterflies and identified them since I was a child, drawing them in less and less childish ways as I grew older. Paul works for CT Department of Environmental Protection and his photos and illustrations are admirable. I went to Sessions Woods in Burlington for a birding walk he did and I must do more. I am grateful to have completed the Master Wildlife program offered by DEP and enjoy the volunteer assignments I have taken. I have plenty of my own monarch photos that will work as well. I was pastel experimenting and the picture was right there. Because it is not from my own original art references I would not sell this piece and the Broad Brook Art watermark was accidental.

The black and white works are 5" X 7" scrafito . I may have mentioned this before, but a thin layer of india ink is applied to a layer of fine white clay on compressed board. I wear white cotton gloves to keep any oils on my hands from hardening the surface of the ink, otherwise the lines are not as easy to control.

I use various tools and I the very fine lines I do wearing a magnifying glass. The detail I can get this way pleases me. Crazy detailed black and white birds and smudgy thrilling color sketches. Woo hoo!

My college art professors were always saying you have to pick something...printmaking or painting, sculpture or pottery. You have to specialize, have a recognizable, signature style, something everyone who sees it will know who made it. I peaked, learning art, my junior year of college. Maybe because I couldn't choose. And not choosing gave me all kinds of other opportunities to learn and teach all kinds of subjects.

If you study the long careers of artists like Picasso you know materials are fluid, colors and styles keep evolving. Then there are the tortured souls like Van Gogh, who can't shake the image in his head; painting must happen, over and over, like breathing. The paint was giving him his whole breath. He made most of his entire body of work in about 4 years. He was manic depressive, like me, although the used term these days is bipolar, and there are shades of grey within that definition, kind of like the spectrums of autism. When I see Van Gogh's work in person and I want to weep, not just because the color is delicious beyond words, the brush strokes genius, but because I know he was afraid his illness would rob him of the paint...his mission in life. You can see it in his eyes, one self-portrait after another.

I have had that all-consuming fear. We have treatments now, but when the pictures won't come, when the brush and pen are uninspired, life just isn't the same. The illness itself is shameful enough, but the loss of the pictures that filled your head as long as you can remember, the way you have always seen the world...it can be an unbearable soul sickness.

And I never struggle with that these days. If the art isn't working then I can spend an hour or two with the kids I tutor and my spirit is bursting. For me, teaching kids, especially struggling kids, you have to pull out all the stops, you have do your very best to see through their eyes, what they connect with. When you do that, when you see that magic moment when a child understands he or she can really see their own thoughts in pictures or letters or strings of movements, something magic happens...something they can carry into math and music, foreign languages, language arts, social studies or history. I feel like I can see firing synapses, like watching fireworks. Sometimes I have to reign in my excitement a little...you want them to keep making the connections, creating connections to language, to equations. They don't need to know their sports talent or outdoor recreation can be informed by geometry. It just happens for most. for some, you have to teach it on the court and finish the lesson back in the book. The best teaching tools come from the learner. then I have the advisory crew~ my best teaching tips come from the world of expert teachers all around me.

never blog when angry

2008-09-06T10:54:00.020-04:00

Good Lord, save me from myself.

I haven't written in a while for many reasons. I am one angry woman. I want to control things that are not mine to control. I want this blog space to appear spotless, but not without thought. The problem is that reflection is slowed when one is battening down the hatches against the wind, finding shelter in the midst of storm after storm. Maybe that is why running is so good for a body. It might bring time of reflection without being immobilized, paralyzed by rage...or sadness...or any of the other common human conditions.

The collage of people pictures is of Barbette, my sister, and her significant other. He has been quick learning the outdoor chores and he provides a new perspective. One picture is of Mia, his daughter. I didn't have one of Grant, Nathan's son, but we sure like having them here. Nate is very funny and between Barb and Nate the two of them can get laughter going easily. Both Barb and Nate are working long hours so we will see them much less. We will have to make dates to play indoor board games. I wish for them the happiness they deserve.

I want professionals, like the specialist we saw for Donna, to never, ever show the kind of homophobia he did, and I never again want to be immobilized with shock as she was treated so badly. I have to forgive myself for not intervening...but there was so little time for me to act. He spent 8 minutes with us, after a 40 minute wait. He roughly examined her, so roughly I should have slapped him, truly, and I have not smacked anyone since my sister and I wrestled over clothes and games and car seat space. With false authority this "doctor" pronounced that she should "get on with her life, this is stress and you just need to stop taking medication for your pain and discomfort..." I didn't necessarily need to intervene. Donna can take care of herself very well, better than ever, and she has soldiered on, in spite of not feeling well since April of this year. Whither thou goest I shall go. I want my love to feel better, and I want us to have found the answer months ago.

I want my aunt, who has been a role model for me my entire life, to be cancer-free.

I want my partner's father to be safe and warm and happy. I want to help and I can not.

I want none of us to be allergic to anything.

I want to forget the savage crime I survived 13 years ago. I want to be able to face these final physical repairs without fear, eyes wide open.

I want to erase the shame I feel when I am forced to share the truths of my body's uneases. I want to be tough and rugged and unstoppable. I rage at the possibility that I may have to surrender more of my freedom. I want to be lifted above the endless, endless exhaustion. I want to be like all the other kids on the playground. I want to be the sturdy oak, not the fragile orchid.

I want nicotine to be not addictive.

I want world peace, and I want to be naive enough to believe anything harmed can be reversed in the next four years, no matter who leads us.

I want to be calm and joyful and only use this space to show the light side, to show the art work I have been blessed with.

I want to never feel self-pity, and to never blame anyone else for my shortcomings.

I have never been good at the powerless thing. Surrender is not an option. So I will wait as this anger transforms, I will use it as fuel, I will remember it but not forget all I have to be grateful for.

Although, I may have to make some anonymous blog somewhere for the darkest of the dark thoughts, a place to hide the sarcasm and cruel ironies, a bucket to hide revenge in. I may need a place to hide the thoughts of revenge; the messy addled mind of a woman who has endured plenty and knows that many others endure far more.

Have you seen the art work lately?

2008-09-01T23:53:00.005-04:00

Posting backward, I reviewed the set of photos that was linked here when I realized it had more old work than I wanted to show, and some more personal work I didn't know I had left in. Yes, yes, we all know about Freudian slips, but this was more a banana peel.

In the releasing of the name "wishhorse studio" and the change over to Broad Brook Art I apparently lost some art publication in the transition.

The hour grows late and the race is on between now and the mouth mess, with the first 3 hour procedure under anesthesia on 9/9. My battle with this seems epic to me...but as 7 of 9 would quote on the television show Star Trek Voyager, "resistance is futile". It would seem that I am trapped, rocketing toward better health despite my fear.

With hurricanes and elections bearing down on us few will have much peace. Be the calm in the storm, follow your heart.

Divided we fall, united we stand

2008-08-27T23:07:00.002-04:00

This is when that old phrase "the personal is political" and so the political must also be personal comes into play. No matter where you turn there are lessons in freedom of speech, the health of the and wealth of a global community and when a local economy can be altered in an instant with the departure or arrival of industry.

I firmly believe that each and every citizen should exercise the sometimes hard won right to vote. There are three homes on this family farm turned compound and each home has a different political mix. I am not sure what my parents intended as we grew up but time with family friends meant spirited discussions with many points of view. Recently I remembered a moment I had at my mother's knee...literally, her knee. The neighborhood women were having a spirited discussion over coffee about the politics of the day. I preferred the company of adults at the moment so I sat under the table at my mother's feet. In our neighborhood people with very disparate views seemed free to present any viewpoint. I have no idea how old I was, but I fit easily under the table without coming into contact with anyone. I knew the posse did not all agree, that was clear. The thrill for me was hearing all the sides...the disagreements that dissolved the second any one of our neighborhood crew of children needed something, anything. Every mother was on hand to dispense band-aids or advice and would call your won mother well before your arrival on your own front step.

As children will do, we tested our boundaries. We rode our bikes well outside of firmly defined areas. We read things we were not supposed to know about, and with glee we shared the greatest discovered contraband. Our games were of our own design, with rules that changed as needed. You might guess that the rules changed to ensure the success of our playground-style picked teams, but the opposite was true. We would change the rules to ensure that we were all equally invested in the outcome,

Full Production Gear

2008-08-22T13:42:00.014-04:00

Donna has been busy finishing the set-up of her production area, mostly the wood lathe. We don't have much...Norm Abrams wouldn't consider it a "shop" at all, but it has been a labor of love since February and it is easy to spend time there. There has been a lot of finessing setting up areas. We are trying to avoid needing to change the power outlet locations...one of those "if I knew then what I know now..." situations.

A guaranteed gorgeous weekend will most likely keep us outdoors. There hasn't been much time for that and sure enough weed monsters from the ground level are creeping up through the deck, a full 8 feet above the ground. I kid you not!

I have finished another set of scrafito pieces based on birds and trees. I am using a magnifier to make the smallest lines and the detail of the work pleases my obsessive tendencies. Within a couple of days I will have the new pastels photographed and ready for purchase. They are currently unframed although I will offer them framed as well.

Donna did win a local contest with her fledgling owl photo and we have had some great luck with new photos of wildlife. We have a compound-wide wildlife alert system~ simple phone calls telling what and where...no time for chit chat...fast fast fast to cameras and binoculars. Often the alert includes our neighbors to the North. Fred and Helene's yard and gardens are the epitome of the English countryside they love and I can see all the best parts right here out of the studio window.

This doe and her twin fawns have visited a couple of times. The meadow grasses are too tall to spot them and it is nice when the fallen fruit in the orchard lures them into the mowed areas. I am quite sure Fred is torn between the love of the wildlife and the love of his gardens. Often his best heritage specimens serve as lovely meal to the deer and chipmunks and woodchucks. They can undo countless hours of work in one evening. I bought a special variety of tomato this year and it was eaten~ fruit, blossoms, and stem~ by the chipmunks who would like to rid themselves of the pesky humans in their home. They chatter indignantly and loud enough to attract the attention of our indoor kitty Cassandra. She would like just a minute outside...the regular yips and howls of coyote, fox and fisher assure that will never happen. We know the predators are helping us with the garden pests and the kitty does well patrolling the downstairs for mice. That will have to do.

Often we view things that fully demonstrate the cycles of life and death up and down the food chain. A cooper's hawk has been using the top of this bluebird house and a branch in the hackamatack trees as a place to enjoy a meal. The bluebirds and swallows are long fledged but the relentless house sparrows have been spooked away from this particular box.

I have taken several weeks away from the website to edit and organize photos of art work. We have well over 500 images and the cataloging and editing have taken more time than I anticipated. I finally decided I needed to spend as much time on art work as on the computer and that has worked out better all around. I hope this all will lead to faster editing and uploading.

To that end we are adding a new backup system. I suppose we might be called too cautious but it's easy to lose something or everything. Mom's computer bit the dust last week and we were not able to salvage the folks pictures from their Audubon tour in Texas. The new computer should be in any day and when we set Mom up she will have a sure-fire way to back up those photos from their trips. They added plenty of new birds to their life list and hopefully the other travelers can share some of their photos so all is not lost.

Soul Bared, Soul Barren

2008-08-09T09:41:00.005-04:00

We have been away. Not physically away, but far off. For me there has been a struggle to find the boundaries. What do I share here? This venue is about publishing the art fast...the learning curve on some of the web tools is steep, and I have not had the the time (or focus) to tweak each line of HTML in the way I want. Now I remember a conversation I had couple of months ago with my father. The business end of our art needed attention and I was consulting him about how to manage it best. He listened to all of my analysis, my endless myriad of options, leaning back on the chair at his computer. At the end of my detailed explanations he quietly urged me to "keep it simple".

That may seem like common sense, knowledge I should have acquired already. But those who know me understand this is my greatest challenge. I made a collage a 15 years ago that included and image of Thoreau's "simplify, simplify, simplify". I had read an article about a man managing his property and one piece of it had an outbuilding. He carved Thoreau's words into a rugged slice of granite, kept in a building next to his pond. In spite of this man's wealth the outbuilding was spare. The interior was painted completely white and every wall had an attached bench, nothing more. There were no doors to close, just sizable openings, so I imagined perching quietly inside, observing every detail of the teaming life surrounding the shed. The stone was perched on the bench inside, and its bold presence seemed noble to me. I transfered a photo of it in the middle of my chaotic collage and always kept it where I could see it while I worked. I put it away when it seemed I would never make another piece of art again.

Just now, as I ponder all of these VERY serious philosophical questions, baring my soul, Donna has been playing games on her computer...a game we are both addicted to. She was sure she had leaped over the last hurdle, completing the final puzzle. But NO! She had been betrayed! I was having a sip of soda and sure enough I could not contain my laughter...I spewed a mouthful soda all over my desk, keyboard and monitor. I walked into her office with soda still dripping from my face. These are the laughs that save me. Donna frequently laughs in her sleep. How can life be any better? Well, my monitor could be cleaner.

So there is the boundary, the outer reaches of what is real. Some higher power intervened and I was rightly pulled back to what is real, what is not barren, what will never be barren.

Gardening

2008-07-29T15:41:00.006-04:00

More appropriately I should say "leeching from the bounty" because the folks have done all the work and we have simply taken advantage of the harvest. The garden reminds me that I have to lighten up...rain comes when it does, one year has zuccini and one has none...this is my zuccini year!

My parental Master Gardener likes summer squash better so I have been lobbying for a zuccini plant for a couple of years. I am sure anyone who grows vegetables knows that you can't plant just ONE. What would you do with the other 5 plants in the six pack? How long will leftover seed keep? And what about the extra one that the bugs or woodchucks or other pests need?

So it all grows up and the vermin leave it alone and suddenly we could open not just a farm stand but a full zuccini-only organic grocery store.

Mom has been a constant supplier of delicious, moist zuccini bread. Turns out the whole compound is having the stuff for breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack time! It seemed only fair that I take my turn baking. After all, I have whined about the zuccini. And we should share the burden of oven heat in the summer kitchen. Theoretically... but this is a perfect example of what a great baker I am. The recipe I used was exactly the same as Mom used, except I decided mini loaf pans would make it easier to share. So cute! So fun! So yummy!

So RAW.

The recipe said that if you used the small loaf pans the bread would need 30 minutes of baking time, instead of the hour the big pan takes.

So I set aside the raw loaves and started over.

I wanted to be SURE they weren't raw, so I baked the little buggers for the full hour.

Now I could build myself a little wall out of cute little zuccini bricks.

Of course there was enough zuccini to try another batch. I am a bright girl...what else could go wrong? Live and learn, right? Here's my problem...I can't taste test the last loaves. Turns out I can't even look at the fruit of my labors, nevermind taste it.

Maybe I will go look for some tomatoes in the garden. Wait! I don't have to. Fa has made a batch of one of my all time favorites...garden stew! His tomatoes, peppers, onions,celery...most anything harvestable all simmered together. It's the only "stew" I eat.

Good thing I can draw. Being away from the computer can be good. After a little while I pick up the pen or pencil or pastel and get going. I clearly can't make a living as a baker. I am hoping we can all laugh about it and relax while floating a bit in the pool. I will draw another one of these after dark.

Summer is fleeting.

Website setback

2008-07-27T15:15:00.003-04:00

I am racing the severe thunderstorm warning, so excuse typos or rambling. If you have seen the blog before you know I have altered the look to make it easier to read and added the "new" logo that is included in the unpublished website. All of it is done except the display of the actual work for sale! A problem with my directory tree has to be resolved and I lost the edits on nearly 400 photos. Each set of photos has to be imported again into the two programs I use to make them web-ready.

Barbette's partner Nate has his daughter here now and perhaps her nimble young mind and sophistication might lend me another viewpoint. Mia is a great budding artist and reminds me of myself at that age with all of her extra projects and interests. Both Mia and Grant, Nate's children, are very impressive and enjoyable. We had a great family dinner over at Barb's though we opted out of croquet. My favorite lawn game is bocce ball and perhaps I can persuade them another time.

All this computer action has kept me from making more artwork and these deadlines are looming. I am going to work on the photo situation, but I will not publish the website this week so I can catch up on production.

Perhaps you can relate to my dilemma as the summer flies by~ to spend a spectacular day out of doors instead of holed up in here. Balance is required. Donna helped set me up in the sunnier portion of the house and we are going to savor the summer while we can.

Bad weather is upon us now. Soon I will share the fall show schedule and I will be patient with myself as I sort out the photo thing. At least I lost none of the originals. Time to get an external hard drive to protect the computer catalog.

Let me know what you think of the logo and I will publish new work here on the blog. Donna is having her lathe repaired so we are stalled on more than one front. We are pleased with our 2008 progress and we will keep you up to date. Thanks for the kind words and feedback.

Networking

2008-07-26T06:09:00.003-04:00

I really have to get out more, it is time to build a network of artists in this area. I have worked in isolation since moving to Broad Brook from ArtSpace Hartford. I miss the collaboration, the spur-of-the-moment critique~ and political and philosophical debate. Music drifted or slammed into the hallways and we traded work for theater tickets, or simply dropped a friend's name at the door, hoping for a seat.

Perfectionism has transformed the studio into a spider hole. Cassandra (kitty) is vocal about how much time I am spending here so I have brought some kitty toys in. This morning she crept behind a stack of canvases and meowed, then ran down the hall at full gallop to flop down on the rug. Then she walked over to her box of toys and just stared at them, hoping a person would animate them. How could I resist?

Enough. I am working with one eye closed again. No rest for the wicked.

Rain and rain

2008-07-24T15:27:00.000-04:00

But we aren't having a hurricane.

Cassandra the kitty is not liking Day 2 of thunder and lightning so I won't tarry here at the computer. She will urgently claw everything we own until I settle in to comfort her discomfort. Cheyenne was the same in a storm. I miss her.

Is it only Tuesday?

2008-07-22T15:57:00.000-04:00

Maybe I am just having a week of Mondays. 4 hours ago work was taking a good path. A few years back one of my students told me his martial arts trainer had passed along a new point of view, some sage advice. When things don't seem right, change the channel. It sounds simplistic but part of its beauty is the simplicity. I have adopted the words and practice for my own and now is a good time to practice it. Everything I am working on seems like it is written in a different language, as if I need to wade through some sort of thick slime to make sense of it.

So I am off, changing the channel.

Is it only Monday?

2008-07-21T20:00:00.001-04:00

I have always liked to believe that I broke the rule on "spacey" artist types. Clearly after today I may have to admit I might be a member of the stereotype after all. My sister, Barbette, views me as the Van Gogh type, quick to turn tragedy to epic proportions. Though it has never occurred to me to slice off my ear and send it to the local prostitute as a demonstration of love, I must admit I have come close. Today's absurdity takes the cake; whatever cake Van Gogh might have been eating whilst asylumed. I looked for angel food but the store-baked version would feed 60. I tried the idea of a Marie Callendar's pound cake and lingered quite a while over an Entenmann's butter thingy. No cake was suitable, but there was no denying I flaked out in every other respect.

As I drove away from Enfield, talking with Donna via cell phone with the speaker on (it IS illegal to hold it up to your ear, which makes sense), I yelped in disgust! I thought I left my glasses back at the lab or something. I had gone about 1/10th of a mile and I panicked. I told Donna I did not have my glasses and I was going to retrace my footsteps to find them. Sianara sweetie! I abruptly hung up, made a U-turn, and then suddenly drove right by the place I thought I left them. Another U-turn (not in the street~ in a parking lot) and I automatically punched the center of my nose. There they were, more clean than usual, on my face the entire time. I AM AN IMBECILE!!!

I headed home, tail between my legs, all the while laughing at my moronic behavior. The humilation is not just forgetting the glasses were on my face, it is knowing that I rely on them now for distance as well as reading. I am still adjusting to the idea that I will see better if I keep them on while looking through the binoculars. Figuring out that fractal truth is near impossible to me, kind of like Captain Janeway and her despised quantum mechanics on Voyager. Not only am I dim-sighted, I am such a Star Trek groupie that I see my problem in the fictional space/time continuum. So so SO very sad little geek girl.

By the way, I loathed the series prequel. What was that called? "Enterprise"? Or something equally unimaginative. I used to cook dinner to Voyager reruns, but now that TV has died and I have to live with merely with my own thoughts as I cook. Good or bad? Remains to be seen. Where is that nano?

A stormy night kept all of us restless, at least the 4 of us Northward. Time to sleep. I HATE THESE DAYS. I HATE THEM.

Of fear and alligators

2008-07-19T15:12:00.000-04:00

In just a couple of hours we here at the compound will have a visit from one of our long-time closest friends. We don't see her often, she lives quite away, but she still has friends and family near us and this trip she has time to stay a little bit here at Mulberry Hill Farm.

I am trying to figure out if it is rude to pack up my current work and haul it over to my sister's, where dinner will be. She has not met Donna or Nathan yet and the last time she was in my house it was for my sister's surprise 40th birthday party. Barbette's cancer treatment was done and her hair was growing in.

Her visit is important to me. Mandy is 4 years older than I am and it is not an overstatement to say I worshipped her. She was kind and didn't mind little girls following her around like a puppy dogs. My sister and I would share her room on visits up to her family's Vermont farm and the only time she was ever frustrated with us was when we sniffled and snored kept her awake when we slept in her room.

We all had something we collected. For me it was butterflies. Barbette collected frogs and my mother collected owls. Actually, we all still do. Mandy collected mice, and I drew and drew and drew mice on everything. I had different mouse formulas, a certain way to draw the heads, bodies, ears and tails. Then of course I drew them doing different things. Out of fear that my childish works might be discovered and embarrass me I do believe I threw out any that might have accidentally survived. I pictured myself dying, like some artists and poets, and in the throwing out of my things these would accidentally be discovered with other hidden artwork, art I made that I never expected to sell or be seen. Other secrets I could tolerate reveal of, but not artwork that was inferior or childish. Yet, I would be dead. The idea of fearing judgment post-mortem is ridiculous...still, it lurks.

Every time she liked something I drew I was encouraged more, and I am grateful that I was encouraged by everyone, from the moment I put anything down on paper. I could go and go and go and have all kinds of compliments. I copied all of the images of the late sixties and early seventies. I drew fashion designs, imagining that I might someday be able to have my own fashion lable. I thought I might have a future designing album covers. They were the dreams of a child and I carried notebook after notebook, and drew on scrap paper my father brought home from the data processing center at Travelers. When we went to the dump we would scour the piles of trash for discarded office supplies or paper I could use. One of the best trips yielded a variety of ink pens and my affair with ink drawings began. For Christmas and birthdays I always had the latest art supply and I squirreled them away, afraid to use them up. Recently I discarded a box of pastels my father gave me when I was in my early teens. There were only very small pieces left but those pieces had moulded a bit and I knew I would finally have to part with them. The company that manufactured them is gone, and the pastels I was required to purchase for college art classes were inferior. Just over the last several months I have begun collecting and using pastels that finally, finally measure up to the intense pigments of long-ago, and I am very happy with the work I have done with them so far.

Back to Mandy...I only shared elementary school with her for a couple of years, but when her class line passed ours in the halls on the way to lunch or another class she always waved to me. Imagine! A fifth grader waved to me! She taught me to ski and once we needed to get down the mountain fast, so she skied me down the mountain road tucked beneath her. All four of our skies road aligned together, faster than I had ever gone. I have no idea who carried our poles or why we had to get down fast, but the feeling of that speed has never ceased to be alluring. I have only had cross-country ski equipment for years and Donna and I have adopted snowshoes so we can track the local critters. No speed there.

Mandy invented a trivia game that we would all play when we were inside. I can't remember what the subjects were and I vaguely remember something about a radio station contest. A close guess would prompt her to say, in a very official way, "be more specific please!" and the contestants of the moment would keep guessing until she declared a winner, though she was winner when we couldn't guess it. She always kept an eye out for my little sister and me. She taught us how to horseback ride but I preferred motorcycles to horses and still do. Horses smell my fear and I have never been cured of it.

So here is the quandry. Should I haul some of my current work along to show her? When I sent her the rabbit moon card it came back to me and I found I had an outdated email address. This is where I stumble. In my mind it is rude to ask for such individual attention when everyone catching up. That is the purpose for the gathering for all of us. Should I simply ask her to come by the studio and take a look while she is here? My only hesitation there is that the house is in upheaval. I have been single-minded to build inventory, to get the word out with the new business name, finish designing logos and website. I have barely tended to anything else...Donna will periodically set a meal in front of me, or lure me out for a little time. In my imagination my home will be substandard due to my neglect, somehow invalidating the artwork.

How pathetic am I? So much worrying what others think...so hard to set aside the fear of disappointing, the stigma of underachievement.

The pit of alligators I thought was next to my bed as a child yawns open yet again. Then, as now, I am afraid to put my foot down on the floor lest I might be eaten. But the imagined yawning alligator jaws are my own fear come to feast.

silly troll!

2008-07-16T11:20:00.000-04:00

I have felt like the troll under the bridge, waiting for someone to trip-trop overhead, like the three billy goats all name Gruff. My father used to read the fairy tale to my sister and me and he made the best noises and voices, completely different for each character. Do you know the story?

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0122e.html#gruff

Barbie (we must use her given name now, Barbette) and I would poke him and climb around him or jump on him to get him to make those funny noises. Just a few months ago we regressed to play one of our favorite tricks...we would each grab one of his stocking feet and tie a knot in his socks at the toe. He grimaced and growled and squeaked and roared, the same as when we were little, and we laughed hard at our triumph, both socks firmly knotted at the toe.

Well, a lovely person is coming to trip-trop over my bridge and I am going to emerge and enjoy some sunshine and splashing and good company. There will be lunch of treats made from the garden plenty. It would be just silly to miss this chance! Already the days are short enough that we need lights on when we get up for work. It is always a bad sign when I am reading with one eye closed, reading and computer fatigued.

I hear the trip-trop now and I am off to play.

Overly Optimistic? I think not!

2008-07-13T08:04:00.000-04:00

Optimism is always good. In fact, optimism has helped me slog through some very difficult times. Eternal optimism can go too far, blinding one to danger or difficulty. I also know a couple of self-described "realists" who are plagued by negativity, always poised for the worst possible outcome. Their realism is blinded by pain and the past, rendering them unable to see subtle shades of grey.

I like to think I live on Middle Ground, a little known island paradise off the coast of anywhere and everywhere. But apparently there is no Middle Ground off the coast of the World Wide Web. Like Dory in Finding Nemo, the fish with eternal optimism, I must "just keep swimming, swimming, swimming".

We are swimming, and I have been known to carry a metaphor off the map, so I will not say we are "treading water" or "riding the wave". Instead I will not tell you that something on the website will appear by such-and-such a day. Donna and I will e-mail links and announcement directly and privately, to our mailing list customers and other friends.

We expect the best but prepare for imperfection. For now I can be found in the studio at my computer, on hold for my technical support person in India.

What to tell?

2008-07-08T14:06:00.001-04:00

Again I come back to blog and struggle with the idea of conceit: what could I have to say that is unique or important enough to post? But the creation of both fine art and crafts requires interaction. By making art I show you what I saw or felt. I feel most successful when the thing I have made is meaningful to a viewer in some way. It is like an invisible strand of thread, reaching out of my experience into yours; something I experienced is similar to something you once experienced. I am not there, with the piece, but you know something about me anyway, and maybe it reminds you of something that is unique to you. There is common ground yet perhaps we never meet.

I used to use the words "organic" and "dynamic" when speaking about change, about inevitability, and about evolution or destruction. Any art I see brings me to the brink of understanding SOMETHING, and is worth looking at, even for a split second. In that split second I can love or loathe, I can be moved and look closer or I can be angry, irritated or indifferent, and dismiss it. Maybe in another few seconds or other interval I will change my perception. Maybe I will take the art home, or revisit it. Over time I will have changed, and I will see something new even if the thing itself seems to remain static. All of that is organic, changing, living even if lifeless, unique and yet similiar.

Currently the word "organic" is being beaten to death, overused and at the same time undefined. How can a massive organization like Wal-Mart suddenly have found or created a source for all types of produce grown in soil that has no chemicals in it, without processed fertilizer, without the use of pest control? Even my local farmer has to do something to enhance crop production, to prevent being robbed of income by birds or bugs. Here at home I can pluck the damaging insects off, leaf by leaf, plant by plant. Anywhere else I have no expectation of such vigilance. It is in nature to act in self-preservation. Birds will pretend they are wounded and limp about, dragging a wing, to lure you or any other predator away from its young. They will lay their eggs in the nest of others and let others raise their offspring, offspring who will shove the smaller out of the nest to die. Butterflies lie and so do people, for simple self-preservation. I won't be able to use the word "organic" any more to describe something that is in the midst of change, moving toward something different, to an unseen future.

Okay. I got carried away by "organic". I won't go there with "dynamic". Although consider, for a split second, that fire breathes and continents move and heave, and water wears away anything and everything to be at the bottom, to be even with the sea. All that is true regardless of what temperature the globe is.

I am sure no one questions how I get lost in my head.

How important is it to find a way out?

Evolution

2008-07-03T08:59:00.000-04:00

So there is a new incarnation in this business of art. My lovely "wishhorse" served me well for a decade but we put the sweet mare out to pasture after she pulled up lame on the web. It was just too confusing. In person, with an artist statement, the meaning of the granted wish horse was clear, but it was hard to find us on the internet.

So here WE are, newly founded as Broad Brook Art.

Donna and I have been together a little less than 5 years. When we met I was sure I would never make my own art again...I will skip the indulgent sob story. An old friend of mine came to our house for the first time and asked me where all my work was. Slowly I started to excavate pieces I hadn't shown in a very long time. Donna also had photography worthy of display. Unearthing all of those artifacts was inspirational. We took a seminar class at Maine College of art together a couple of years ago and we really loved it. We needed to find a way to do more.

I think most would agree that it is easy to get sidetracked. Flowers, trees, neighbors, gardens and grass are distracting enough. Add in a periodic crisis and the next thing you know another day and another week slips by. Discipline is the key. I feel a little like a troll these days, indoors all the time to build inventories for Fall shows. I will post the specific dates and places shortly and I am very happy with what I have to show. We have secured the new domain name and within the next week or so we will unveil the website. I have a new mailer in the works so look for us in the mailbox too.

It is thrilling that Donna will continue to do her wood-turning. We already have ideas for pieces we can collaborate on and this week we are expanding the workshop area, downstairs from the studio. A lightning strike last week had consequences in all three houses on the compound. I was so grateful I had all the equipment upstairs shut down and unplugged, smug even, but I didn't think about the downstairs. We are hoping to have the casualties restored this 4th of July weekend.

It has been great to have the ongoing support from friends who have encouraged the works in progress and offered sympathy when Cheyenne died this Spring. I feel very fortunate to have these friends who are willing to read my lengthy e-mails and set aside any pressure to type back, picking up the phone instead. I feel blessed.

Anything is possible!