Food Heaven?

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

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

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

Arctic Stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So follow me, would you? 

Everything Little Thing It Does is Magic

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

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

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

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

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

Girl in the Garden

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

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

When I Swallowed the Story

When the Earth Swallowed the Moon  March 2012

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

rough sketch for underground moon piece

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

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

Underground  June 2011

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

Freya and the Art Cloak

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

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

Rosie Smelling the Roses

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