Saw this wonderful video on OpenCulture – here’s a link to more information about it and what inspired it.

It’s getting close to the end of semester and there will be time to read the books in my TBR pile, see what other people are doing via their blogs, reimagine stuff around in the house, and try some new things in the studio – including getting back to some new ideas for Kindle covers. Here are some blogs I intend to peruse for inspiration with when I have vacation time:

Planet Green
Treehugger
Inhabitat
Jetson Green
Dwell
Huffingtonpost Green
Blisstree
design*sponge
Remodelista
Apartment Therapy
Design Milk
Decor8
aqui pelo campo
Desire To Inspire
Craftzine
CraftyPod
EcoEtsy
GOOP
Sweet Paul
Slow Love Life
The Greenest Dollar
Nest by Tamara
A Way to Garden

That was the title of an painting by 15th century artist Albrecth Durer – I liked the painting and just finished a collage that has both pears and a Madonna. It features two versions of the same photo that I took of a pear but with different lighting. It really looks sort of Dali-esque to me. This work is 20×24″ framed. It was a tough piece to complete and went through a lot of phases but I like the results. I used a lot of gold leaf on this one.
Here’s Durer’s painting – check out the weird expression on the madonna’s face.

Underneath it is the collage I finished this evening – really different!

It is a joy to see my friend, Stevie Kesner Ricks, doing new work and exhibiting again. She has inspired me for a very long time. I’m looking forward to lots more time with her, sharing thoughts about art and life. Thanks, Stevie!

I guess the beach R&R worked – before we left, I had prepared a piece of black board with some clear gloss medium, but didn’t like the shiny-looking results when we got back yesterday, so I painted it with gray house paint and started a new piece. This is it! It’s called “Intercession” and it measures 14×20 framed, so it’s a bit smaller. I’m using some new photos of yard eggs that I took last week, great colors. It went together like a story that couldn’t wait to be told.

I just got home from spending the weekend in Port Aransas, Texas with old friends. Taking time away from the studio had me concerned, but it was a good trip, very relaxing. Here is a very short video I took yesterday morning just after sunrise and just before my walk.

The beach was almost completely deserted except for the gulls and pipers. There was reddish seaweed everywhere that had been scraped into long piles along the water’s edge, but apparently the birds loved it because they were digging in it finding whelks and mussels.

Our group went back down together a couple of hours later and there were people and tents and canopies all over the place, so this was a very lovely time to be there by myself.

I wish there were a way to capture the color of that peach-y gray sky. Maybe the next kimono I fold will have those colors as an inspiration.

My son gave me a card one Mother’s day that had a Chinese character on it meaning “To Revive an Old Dream.” Going back to creating mixed-media kimonos is definitely a revival of sorts. I just finished this piece and am not sure how I feel about it other than that it is artistically satisfying. But my style has changed enough that I don’t do these on art-autopilot like I used to, which is probably good. At any rate, this one is finished and I plan to do at least one more kimono for the show. We’ll see how they are received.

Amazing burst of energy today. I finished another piece based on what I had learned with the previous work. It may be one of my favorites, titled (right now, anyway) “Noh Festival. Unfortunately, I was so excited about it that I framed it before taking a photo, so this photo is shot through Plexiglas! I will probably take it apart and re-take later, but right now I’m happy to just relax. I’d hoped to get six paintings done over spring break – this makes four. Remind self – it’s quality, not quantity that counts. Er, right…?

I worked all day Friday on an Asian-themed collage that just did not work – I had the mat cut and was ready to just go ahead and frame it, but it felt so NOT-RIGHT. Scrapped it, worried about why I couldn’t get it to work, and started over with a result that I really like and gave me a zillion new ideas. One of those is scanning and printing fragments of previous work onto rice paper – it’s amazing how different those images look from the original collages.
Here’s the new piece, titled “Not for the Cat.” It has lots of little areas that I want to incorporate in the next piece.
Here’s the piece that didn’t work (below) – let me count the ways why – too cluttered, no story, no unity, just matchy-matchy images stuck on without enough thought to relationships and values. It’s valuable because it’s a lesson. Sometimes it’s so frustrating to keep adding things , thinking it might get fixed, but that’s a mistake.
Look at the difference that a fresh start and clear artistic purpose makes!
I do so love telling stories with images, paint and paper.

I seriously don’t know how working artists who blog get any studio work done – obviously my good intentions to blog often about my work have been sunk by the work itself. Arg. But here are two new pieces. I had hoped to finish six over spring break, but that’s rapidly evaporating.
Titles for paintings are always a challenge. On of these collages is titled “The Laying” – it’s a semi-serious allusion to laying of hands, laying eggs – healing. The other new one is titled “Alberta’s Dream” because it features peaches (!?). And some other things, of course :).
OK, off the computer and back to the studio.