I completed two pieces that I really like today and just finished cutting the mats and assembling the frames – one has a four inch mat and one has a three inch mat. I think I like the wider one, but am just not sure. And I am so frustrated about not being able to get good photos of these larger pieces. My light box isn’t big enough. I do take photos before they are framed. Any tips out there? It’s something I need to work on and figure out, especially if I want to make a giclée print of the one on the right.
The two pieces are titled “Inedible Fruit” (right) and “The Architecture of Dreaming” (left) and both are 22×24″ framed.

My girlfriend Gina came over yesterday for a studio visit. I was cutting a mat for a piece that was finished (I thought). We decided to go down to La Vida Gallery, so I put off framing the new collage. This morning I got up at five and realized it really wasn’t finished. It was an incomplete story. The fact that I had already matted it didn’t matter, it just needed another small dimension. Here is the before and after. It’s not necessarily better, just different, and I am much happier with it. The “before” is the top image. After I added the second profile on the right, it brought the focus back into the center of the collage. This one is titled The Cat’s Dilemma. There’s a whole mini-drama behind what’s going on in this composition but that’s for me to know and you to figure out!

The day before New Year’s Eve, a group of friends gathered at Casa Belisle to make tamales. What was I thinking? But we did it! Ten intrepid tamale makers, including our expert, the fabulous Elaina, spread homemade masa (lard-y and veggie) on shucks, filled the tamales with beef, pork, beans, squash, chiles, cheese – all manner of wonderful things, rolled folded stacked and steamed. The result? At least 16 dozen of what were undoubtedly the best tamales we’ve ever eaten. It was a holiday miracle – good intentions, lots of laughter, and one person who knows what to do and can show the rest of us works. Special thanks to Elaina, who can pull steaming tamales our of the pot with her bare hands to check to see if they are done, to Raven and Sandra for washing mounds of dishes, to the wine and cheese bringers, to Jim for being a good sport at a grownup party, to Michael for making masa and fillings, to Sherry for the awesome shredded pork, to Stuart for the veggie inspirations, to Carol for the Lady of Guadalupe that blessed the venture – and a happy new year to all!
Viva Tamales!

I sincerely hope that my son Rick doesn’t read this post before Saturday – it’s about his Christmas gift that I commissioned from my friend and fellow artist Gina Mitsdarfer. I always have trouble finding something special for him but when Gina showed me a journal she had made for her trip to Ireland this fall, I loved it and knew Rick would, too. See her Ireland journal here.
For his gift journal, she crafted a brown leather wrap cover that closes with a silver Celtic dragon ornament, and the inside paper is beautiful ivory. Gina includes touches like pockets and envelopes to hold notes and tickets, and her hand painted divider pages are amazing. It’s a perfect blend of form and function – the thought and craftsmanship she puts into her work is inspiring. Thanks, Gina, this is a treasure.

I think it may be – this piece is interesting. It doesn’t have a name yet, something about Venice and Doges and such probably.I knew I wanted to use a Tarot card and thought I knew which one, but found I was holding them against the work and “letting” them tell me which one to use. It turned out to be a different one, The Moon instead of the Page of Staves. Yikes, I’m losing it! But it was fun.

Cynthia Wenslow (aka the lovely Raven), talented artist and art advocate from Austin, included me in her series of Texas Artist Portraits and the results of the interview and her photographs taken in my studio were posted today:
Texas Artist Portrait Project: Lyn Belisle
I am so grateful to have been included in such a visionary project by a woman who does everything with grace and flair – thanks, Cynthia!

My favorite of four new works was happily someone else’s favorite at last night’s opening of LaVida Gallery in Southtown. It’s my new art venue, and the owner, Carole, has been wonderfully supportive. When I brought in four pieces at the last minute, she hung them in a great spot
And my collage, Lady of Anjou, sold! I even got to meet and talk to the buyer.
The opening itself, held on the established First Friday art night in San Antonio, featured musicians, food and wine and a lovely courtyard for visiting outside on the balmy evening.
It’s nice to be a productive artist with a sale – Carole wants more work and I think I’m on a new creative track with this series, not too far from what I’ve been doing with the Kindle covers, but a bit more narrative.
Carole hung my work on a vivid green wall – I wondered about the contrast, but it worked! See for yourself.

My dear, beautiful and exotic long-time friend Ann Lyneah Curtis was in San Antonio this weekend for a show of her exquisite body sculptures and I got to see her after far too long between visits. Tall and regal, Ann personifies the free spirit that comes through in her work. See what I mean at her website, Masquerade Life Casting.
At her opening, her friend was wearing a paper cast body corset that laced down the back and was a replica of her own torso – it was adorned with funny, bawdy ceramic ornaments. She looked fabuous and was the subject of questions and photos.
Ann is passionate about her work – she’s been doing this for over a quarter century. She’s cast faces, big beautiful bellies of pregnant women, groups – and anything else you might imagine. We made plans to get together in the spring when I visit her studio in the Hill Country. Here are some pictures from the opening.

Just finished the second collage of what appears to be a new series – I like the size, techniques and the materials (and the rather flexible self-imposed guidelines, such as they are). This one is called Lady of Anjou. These first two are 13″x15″ unmatted and will be 20″x22″ matted and framed.

The Esperanza Center’s annual Mercado de Paz/Peace Market was the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, as it is each year. It’s my favorite holiday sales event – here’s how it’s described (see some photos of the sellers’ wares at the end of the post):

“As an alternative to crowded malls filled with crazed consumers and mass-produced goods, the Esperanza’s Peace Market features unique, handmade gifts and artesania centered around themes of peace, social justice, cultural diversity, and ecological concerns.

Shoppers can wield their economic power by spending their time and money supporting individuals and groups that are fighting for a better world. A diverse array of gifts are offered each year from artists like: Oscar Alvarado, mosaic-tile artist and found-object furniture designer; Veronica Castillo, internationally-renowned ceramic artist from Izucar de Matamoros, Mexico; Martha Prentiss, silversmith and owner of Prentiss Jewelry; Barrio Beat/Alma de la Raza, a company that seeks to carry on Chicana/o culture through community-based business enterprise, and to reflect and include voices of the pueblo in its operations; and Colores del Pueblo (formerly Pueblo to People), a Houston-based nonprofit organization that buys merchandise from over 200 grassroots craft and agricultural co-ops throughout Latin America—paying much better prices than for-profit corporations—and then resells directly to consumers in the U.S., thereby eliminating unfair profit and providing artists in developing countries a larger market for their work.”