I love this interview with Sir Ken Robinson – he shares a lot of insight packed into a one-minute time frame.
“Everybody is creative – it comes with the kit”
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Category Archives: thoughts and opinions
Cooler weather contemplations
This first really cool morning truly felt like fall – and I think a lot of us feel a pull toward thoughts like those Mary Oliver expresses in the poem Fall Song:
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows . . .
I started a little construction yesterday and worked on it again early this morning – it seems to fit. Bones and seeds and clay and cactus skeleton – there is something so poignant about fall.
Altar Update: The Guardian of the Golden Bough
Done and delivered to Celebration Circle! Here is the finished altar for their silent auction during the month of September, and now I know why I needed to use the moss. The figure represents The King of the Wood from Sir James Frazer’s book, The Golden Bough (pub. 1890), which seeks to explain the roots of human religion, science and magic. Being an eccentric spiritual eclectic, it made sense to me to reflect my own private musings through this guy, The Guardian of the Golden Bough.
The completed piece
I had fun constructing him, and when I took him down to the collection place in Blue Star Art Complex, I got to see some of the other altars. They’ll all be photographed soon, so you can see them, too. Hope you can come to the fundraising event on Sept. 30th! Here are some other photos of Mr. Guardian (or maybe it’s Ms. Guardian?) And here’s a tip – if you have a Kindle and want to read The Golden Bough, it’s on Amazon for a free download!
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- The empty altar
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- The work in progress
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- The finished altar: Guardian of the golden Bough
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- Detail of the face with keys
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- Detail
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- Detail of bird with glass and stone eggs
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- The completed piece
Meanwhile, back at the altar . . .
When last we saw our altar box for Celebration Circle’s Silent Auction, it had a not-too-happy Spirit Doll lying in it, and it looked pretty creepy. Sigh. But I *knew* the moss was the right thing – so I kept thinking and working, and then I remembered a graduation gift I made for my grandson. It was a wall sculpture of the Celtic god, Cernunnos. I liked him because he was kind of a mystery, open to possibilities (actually, that goes for my grandson, too :)). Using Cernunnos as an inspiration, I am working on my Altar gift to Celebration Circle. It’s not quite finished, but here he is – The Guardian of the Sacred Grove with his little bird buddy, still a work in progress.
If you want to see it finished, come to the Bijou Theatre Gallery between Sept.1 and Sept 30th and view all 50 of these wonderful Altars. The closing reception and Silent Auction is on September 30th at 6:00. With any luck, you can take home the Guardian of the Sacred Grove or another cool altar to grace your own place of creative belonging!
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Experimenting . . .
I’m doing some experimenting with mixed-media collage for a series of lessons I’m developing for CraftArtEdu, a pretty cool online teaching site for artists and students. It occurs to me that one of my favorite things is to put weird images together . . whether they want it or not. Here’s an acrylic-based collage I finished today called “Sweet Upon the Golden Child.” The doll’s face is a photograph that I took when my friend Ellen called me and said, “Come take pictures of my creepy dolls!” I think the face looks fascinating in the context of the collage. The large stone is an Ammonite. It has wonderful shape and texture. ArtPlay is FUN!
Provincetown
We had a great time exploring Provincetown today. The ferry ride took about an hour and a half from Boston Harbor. P-Town is a charming, quirky, arty, touristy, colorful place with a crazy assortment of architecture. My favorite gallery was the Tao Water Gallery on Commercial Street. The current exhibit there was The Calligraphic Gesture which included  some amazing encaustic works on paper. Here are a few photos with The New Camera, which did a good job (even though i kept turning it on and forgetting to take off the lens cap – oops, glad I bought that warranty).
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- The Provincetown Ferry
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- The sign says it all
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- Light, fresh and delicious fish and chips
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- Wonderful encaustic on paper
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- Encaustic on paper at Tao Water Gallery
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- Paper construction, Tao Water Gallery
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- A wonderful portrait at Tao Water
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- Purple gingerbread
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- Faces on the walls
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- A strange collection in a window
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- The beach by the ferry landing
Hamburger Transformed
Sorry,  I’m probably “over-blogging” from Boston, but rarely do I have such a stretch of time to experiment with art and write about the weirdness of the process. For example, my Taos teacher Gwen Fox always says, “Start with a thumbnail from an existing picture.” So I found this hamburger in a magazine (fig. 1) – it looked interesting through the paper window (or maybe I was hungry). I turned it sideways and sketched in the shapes which started morphing into abstract figures. (fig.2). I tried to make the two figures balance and relate, but it became obvious that the figure on the left was dominant, so . . .whack! Off went the second figure to be used elsewhere. (fig. 3) I put a very few finishing tweaks on the left figure and, when matted, it is intriguing and colorful. (fig. 4). I think I will name it “McDonald.” Or maybe “Hunger and Evolution.” Isn’t art fun??
Art Show on Sunday – you’re invited
I’m hanging on Sacred Ground – well, actually, I’m hanging my *work* this afternoon for Sunday’s Sacred Ground art opening at the Cathedral House Gallery along with a really special group of artist friends. Please come! One of my pieces in particular has surprised me. It’s the encaustic painting I did at Michelle’s workshop. I’ve been experimenting, and think it’s finished, but I’m very new at encaustic (painting with wax), so who knows. Anyway, it’s going in the show, it’s the first and one-and-only encaustic I’ve shown, and its title is Wax and Wings:
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- Wax and Wings: Encaustic on Dimensional Paper
Hope to see you Sunday – it’s a beautiful place and there will be a wonderful meditation walk followed by a wine and cheese reception – truly Sacred Ground.
ALSO- the info and registration for the Transfer Workshop is up. I had a lot of interest in this. It’s a ways away (June 30) but sign up now if you want to come. Here’s a preview of what we’ll be doing – it’s super fun and fail-proof:
FINALLY – (honest) – The Summer Newsletter is posted on the website. I think most of you are on that list, but if you want more info on Pablo Solomon, Eileen’s workshop, upcoming openings and such, click here.
Happy Friday dance – bye for now!!
Friday Freebie – Silver Shards for a subscriber –
The kiln and I have been busy for the last few day. I’ve done two firings since Tuesday with new designs. Here are the first few pieces of earthenware with silver Gilder’s Paste which I order on Etsy. I love this combination or terra cotta and silver. Check out the little shard mirror! The Gilder’s Paste is a metallic wax that you can rub on with your finger to highlight texture, and it becomes a permanent patina-like finish on the unglazed clay.
Today’s Friday Freebie is one of the little B Beautiful shard dishes like the two in front. You can use them for tea bags, rings, whatever – or just look at them as a small one-of-a-kind work of art. I put a honeycomb texture on the clay that looks very cool, if I do say so myself. If you are a SHARDS Blog subscriber before midnight tonight and your name is drawn by my number randomizer app , I’ll send you one of the little B Beautiful dishes – free tea bag included 🙂 Subscribe by adding your email on the top right on the page – thanks! And thanks to all of you loyal already-subscribers – you guys are awesome.
Also, as a PS, since I’m talking about ME, I was asked to submit my digital portfolio for consideration as San Antonio Art League’s Artist of the Year for 2014. Now, chances of my being chosen are about as likely as flying pigs, but it was nice to be nominated. I didn’t have a digital portfolio so I put one together with some work from the last couple two years. The nomination made me smile because my work was rejected by the juror in the last Art League show, but you gotta roll with rejection, keep calm, and carry on!
Aromatherapy and Compassionate Care
This afternoon the Studio will take on a different role as a workshop space for ABODE Contemplative Care for the Dying. More than 20 hospice workers, counselors and social workers will attend the presentation. You’ve heard me mention the good work that Patsy and Edwin Sasek do with this beautiful non-profit organization, and today they have asked Dr. Bill Kurtin and me to discuss essential oils for end-of-life care. Bill and I maintain an educational website about Aromatherapy as an art and science. It’s called Chemaroma, and I invite you to visit anytime for research-based information about aromatherapy – there’s far too little of that, and we hope to provide more of it on our site. There are also some formulas for skin care and other fun things. – look around!
Researching today’s presentation took me far afield from visual arts (sort of), but I discovered some wonderful resources. One of the best discoveries was the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. The abbot, Joan Halifax Roshi,is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She has worked in the area of death and dying for over thirty years and is Director of the Project on Being with Dying. It’s a fascinating, if not cheery, subject. If you’d like to know more about what I’ve found out, you are welcome to look at the Resources I’ve gathered for today’s workshop.