Thursday, August 26, 2010

Fragilé



"Fragilé" is Italian for "you must really like Pizza."
Construction starts today.







Make mine with peppers!!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

stop and smell the roses


These are actually geraniums, but the point was to take a few moments to enjoy a pretty summer day.

This was taken at the Delong garden this summer with the middle school
students. It was a great day to stop and smell the roses. Unfortunately we
then had to load the photo's onto the school computers, which was an exercise
in frustration. I suppose it's that whole Ying and Yang thing again.






Monday, August 23, 2010

salsa

I have a huge bag of beautiful, roma tomatoes (thank you Martha) in my fridge waiting for me to do something! ANYTHING! with them before they turn into mush. I think its going to be salsa--I'm just waiting for Martha's recipe (see, somehow I made the procrastination someone else's fault--I'm good.)
Okay... so the reason I'm procrastinating is... cause... well, that's what I do best! Stick with your strengths I always say! I have tomatoes on my kitchen - on towels, in boxes, bags and ice cream pails. Mikki walked in this morning and her eye's went as wide as, uh, tomatoes, and she just started laughing... instead of going for a walk, we cut and seeded four gallon ziploc bags of tomatoes for the freezer. Thanks Mikki. (today is salsa day here as well. Recipe Zaar's "Wonderful Salsa" is a fabulous recipe for homemade salsa.)

Friday, August 20, 2010

What I did on my summer vacation, 5



I'm part of a round-robin journal project this summer. We each complete a page in a journal and send it on to the next person. This was a page I did in a journal with the theme "Morocco".

A friend of mine brought a box of broken bowl parts to my door one day. She said her good friend Susie had taken the bowl to a picnic where it was dropped and broken. It had been a wedding gift and one of her favorites. Tearfully she dropped the mess into the garbage can. Later my friend, Zaida, pulled out the pieces and brought them to me and asked me to turn them into an art piece, for her birthday. What a good friend! The bands of the blue glazed pottery are the left overs of the bowl.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

what I did on my summer vacation, 4





I watched a lot of soccer.

I didn't!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

what I did on my summer vacation, 3

This was a photo I took in a cool flower/gift shop in Portland, OR. The black and white vs. color effect was done with an Ipad app that is a lot like coloring in a coloring book--perfect for a photoshop illiterate like me!

I went to visit Grams and Gramps in Kalamazoo and my dad was focused
on "digging up these flowers, so they can be moved" that week. He would
go out in the morning and dig and dig and dig... I'm still not sure where the
plants were being moved "to" but the accomplishment of having them "dug"
was the important thing for him!

Monday, August 16, 2010

what I did on my summer vacation, 2




We went to Michigan for a few days and we saw the Roaring Bear Clouds.(sort of like the Sleeping Bear Dunes... only different.)

This guy isn't roaring or sleeping, just sniffing around for something to eat.  The picture is taken from the car window on a road trip out west this summer.  And, full disclosure, we didn't just come across him in the wild.  We actually paid to drive through a "bear park".  I'm OK with that-- no bear spray needed!

what I did on my summer vacation, 1



I'm wearing a sweatshirt this morning--first in a long while, so starting in on end-of-summer activities doesn't seem so far fetched.
These cherries were done on my ipad. I had a lot of fun this summer learning
my way around the various art apps. Somehow working on a touch screen rather
than with a mouse has made it more accessible to me.
I helped teach a class about organic gardening, eating and cooking. Doesn't that
sound impressive? Well, it was for 12 year olds, and mostly I drove the school
van. My friend Mikki taught and organized the class and had some amazing things
planned for the kids to do. This purple pepper is from the organic garden on
the campus of the University of Wisconsin EC.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

flower


I was at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts today and it happened to be set up day for an annual event called "Art in Bloom". Local florists and designers create floral works inspired by art works in the museum. It is always beautiful and it was fun to see some of the prep work that goes into the final pieces. I tried to capture the feeling of an Ikebana piece with Birds of Paradise, clouds of baby's breath and wonderful bent sticks.
An orchid from a shop in Florida caught my eye! They are spectacular!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Sunlight


Sunlight behind hair - an irresistible combination!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Woof




Well, sometimes it just happens. Personality - it comes through in the strangest places. It's that intangible that artists look for, strive for, try to create. The harder you try, the more elusive it is, like trying to remember the dream you had last night. Today personality showed up in front of me. In ten little pieces of broken cereal bowl - there it is. I love this little guy. Just something about him makes me smile. I'll put in another pic when he's all grouted up.
Update - it's a She. To clarify, I added a bit of bling!
Since she did the artwork this time, I'll do the photo--of my dog as a puppy. I couldn't let a title like "woof" pass by.

Monday, April 5, 2010

ReFocus

Time to start again. It's been too long saying YES to everything for everyone else, time to say:

Friday, January 15, 2010

Still Life


After two days of posting still lives by other artists, I figured it was time to do one of my own!

I like to call it, "Still Life, With Eyes"

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Movement


Another of my new postcards, this one by Samuel Peploe. I didn't intend to use another right away, but don't these tulips look like they are just flying around the room? I've had tulips with stems like this before and they do seem like they can move all on their own.
Trying to get a decent picture at a swim meet is nearly impossible - unless
you want something to illustrate, "movement." Then I have FOLDERS full of
perfect examples! Wow, they move fast.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

sharp

I bought a packet of postcards yesterday by four artists known as the
"Scottish Colorists". This still life by FCB Cadell is all about "sharpness"
to me-- clean, sharp lines and angles, high contrast colors, strong white against
black edges. Beautiful.
A nice sharp knife - nothing better in the whole kitchen, except maybe salt.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Blur

Days, years, decades.....it does tend to all blur together. Exhibit A--this picture of Rachel that somehow surfaced in my studio recently. She is scowling at her lame mom trying to take her photo....and here we are 17 years later...
She still scowls for the camera 90% of the time, but this day I got a smile. Wow... that is a blur of time! (p.s. the photo's today are Mary's on the left, Martha's on the right - they just made more sense that way.)