It has been my great pleasure for the last five summers to share some personal universe creating with groups of kids who come to my studio to make art. We usually prepare creative costumes for the 4rth of July Parade. It's a long day, from 9:30am -4pm but we make the most of every second. Clay, charcoal, acrylic and watercolor are some of the materials we worked in this session.
For lunch we take a walk up to the ice- cream store, and have a picnic by the lovely swimming pool belonging to the Brandon Inn. Then we stop by the Inside Scoop, an ice-cream and antiques store, with cool toys, games, fascinating trinkets, Mexican folk art and fine antiques. Lots of inspiration to be found there, and great ice-cream too!
Not a bad way to spend a summer day!
This year the Brandon Artist's Guild's community project is titled "Starring Brandon" so we chose that for our Aartz theme as well. Large cardboard cut out sandwich board costumes, and some ingeniously engineered constructions will be part of the Fourth of July Parade. It's always so much fun to see what these fabulously creative minds come up with.

Ravens awake me here. They nest in the spruce above the house. All day long the young one calls to his parents reminding them he's there and hungry.

Reminding me to be attentive to my work.

Apparently the first bird that Noah released from the ark was a raven, who flew back and forth, drying up the waters with the smooth flapping of strong, dark wings, drying the land so the olive branches emerged for the dove to find.

Haida people believe that Raven discovered the first people hiding in a clam shell, and fed them berries and salmon. I like both myths.

I'm just happy to hear and see them on my last few days in Santa Fe. They're comfortable with me and I with them. For great info on ravens read Berndt Heinrich's Mind of the Raven. They are intelligent, fascinating creatures with a complex social structure.

Hoping to get the two sculptures fired today, though I'm pushing the odds with the second one. "Duet: Raven" is ready for the kiln. "Trio" would be fine if I were home and firing it myself. Strange to be at the whim of someone else's schedule, although my time at Santa Fe Clay has been productive, pleasant and informative.
Paintings will travel back to Vermont and continue to grow and change.
This has been a great residency time of focus and replenishment.

Have been reading Ghost Ranch by Lesley Poling-Kempes. Fascinating story of the adventurous women (and men, but mostly bold women) who set out to discover the wild west and fell in love with this raw, vivid part of the world.

And working is what I have been doing.
Painting in acrylic and watercolor, ink drawings, charcoal, and clay sculpture. Also a little plein air and cloudscape. How can you not respond to this astonishing landscape, so overwhelming and immense, continually changing.
There is a constant sense of wonder.

I have been painting indoors and out, working on 3 large canvases at once, after stretching 5 canvases the same size. The idea I had planned on has, of course, completely changed since my arrival. But that's fine.
I hope to have finished 2 small clay sculptures. One is done, but has yet to pass trial by fire. The other is nearly done. My days alternate between my home studio (painting) and Santa Fe Clay, where I've rented studio space. That has worked out quite well, although there's never enough time to get it all done.
I had one night of camping on my land near Taos. My car, an Element named Georgia (for guess-who, who used to paint in her car) was very happy to be there in the quiet, serene sagebrush across the Rio Grande Gorge from Taos.

Never enough time!
Back to work now.

These are the words of my beloved friend Andy Towl with whom I recently spent a day in Cambridge, Mass. He is 98 years old, calmly brilliant, truly humble and thoughtful. I know he will read this, because he does read my blog. I just want him to know what an inspiration he has been to me all these years, and also to let his words and thoughts inspire others. I feel very fortunate to have him as a friend.
How many 98 year-olds do you know who read blogs?
We are all at different points of our journey into infinity. Each step of the path offers opportunities, challenges and occasional set backs.
I was in Cambridge to see Andy and to deliver work to Co/So, the Copley Society on Newbury Street. I dropped off three small paintings for the summer show: Starry Night Sunflower, Singing Wren and Moonlit Shell.
Boston was at it's most lovely, gardens in perfect bloom, the scent of lilacs in the air.

I've been working with iridescent color pours for backgrounds lately. The challenge of creating a sense of drama which emerges from the shimmering multi-colored mica background is satisfying.

Here is the painting 3 days ago...
It takes walking away to see what needs to be done.

Every work of art is a conversation between the artist and the art work. You make a mark, a gesture, lay in a glaze of color, then step back and listen.
Then respond.

I think it's done, but it might talk to me some more.

It took me four years to paint like Raphael,

but a lifetime to paint like a child.

I had a fun request last week.
A friend asked if I would consider having her daughter's birthday party in my studio.  The studio was filled with laughter for much of the two hours, but the best moments were when the children were absolutely focused on their paintings. The intensity was tangible. And the results were spontaneously beautiful.
Children's art is always a success. It gives me such joy.

Jim & I had a whirlwind trip to Art Expo at the Javitts Center in NYC two weeks ago: our annual pilgrimage to immerse ourselves in an amazing array of diverse art. Individual passion & artistic dedication made visible. An artist has to be CRAZY to spend as much time as she/he/I do with big or tiny brushes, tubs and buckets and smears and palettes of paint, melted wax, cameras, computers, scissors, clay, bronze, patinas. All of the tools of our trade.  The show is a visual smorgasbord: samples of every sort of art from every continent.
Well, maybe not Antarctica.
Several artists grabbed my attention this year, but I only took one photo. Here I am with Michael Albert. What a dynamic, creative, delightful artist, working in the medium of collage: tiny snippets of contemporary packaging assembled into a new reality. He calls his work "Cerealism." Michael is yet another example of artists who look at the same things we all see on a daily basis and imbue them with new meaning and purpose. His excitement is contagious. His work celebrates, mocks and renews our consumer culture, empowering what would soon be thrown away with new significance and potential..

After several hours at Art Expo we rode the bus through snow clogged city streets to the Museum of Modern Art. The new building is well worth the visit unto itself. Architectural nuances abound in a soaring bright space. An Escher-esque quality is revealed as balconies and staircases emerge across vast soaring interior spaces. The sculpture garden, blanketed with snow, was visible through a wall of windows.

 Brancusi, Picasso, Monet, Klee and many others, icons and guideposts of my childhood, were all there. Bizarre to see Clifford Still's "Red Wall" displayed so reverentially. At this point in my life his work does seem like the emperor's new painting, amusingly validated by the audio curator...
How many delicately brushed layers of red over red does an artist need to paint to make a meaningful painting?

Good to see Frida too. Her tormented muse stares out from frames as elaborate as the Mexican traditions which sustained her. I was wearing my Day of the Dead cowboy barn boots- perfect for a snowy day in NYC, but also very much in her honor.

Time to get to work.