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Postscript to Layered Taffeta
Remember the bookmark I painted for friend Daisy to be tucked in the book at her family’s ancestral home—the book with a photo of a painting done by Florence Hosmer, and the ancestral home where the original portrait also resides? Well! Daisy had occasion to visit said ancestral home a few days ago and brought… Continue reading
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Jolt!
On my nightstand: Feelings are bodily reactionsthat are the healthy built-in technologiesfor dealing with life’s jolts, the healthy devices nature has given usso we can be stirred to resolving problems,creating new solutions, andinventing helpful alternatives. David Richo, The Five Things We Cannot Change On my easel: Let’s hear it for feelings that stir us to… Continue reading
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The Stalls
The Stalls, in the lexicon of my family of origin, is a term that encompasses any and all behaviors that serve to make way for one to avoid doing something perceived to be objectionable for any reason. I’ve got The Stalls this morning. I’m avoiding having to park myself in the kitchen for a long… Continue reading
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Shaking Things Up
I like routines and rituals. To that end, twice a year, once in September and then again towards the end of the academic year, I sit mindfully with a self-drawn grid, with days of the week on the x-axis and until breakfast, until lunch, until dinner, and until bedtime on the y-axis. I start by… Continue reading
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A Summer Morning
This morning, something falls away when I pick up yesterday’s stalled work in progress, reach for a chunky Stabilo Woody pencil, and begin scribbling. I re-inhabit an orientation to the world I remember from early childhood, maybe four years old, mostly wordless and highly sensory—the feel of air on my skin, the hum of the… Continue reading
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Going Up in Smoke
To look for the good in some other circumstance than the one in which we find ourselves is to trash the only happiness we will ever have: now. Whether it pleases us or not, each moment is a gift. No matter how unpleasant the wrapping, inside is something wonderful that life wants to give us. —Polly… Continue reading
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Taking a Vacation
I find it soooooooo gosh-darned difficult to ‘take a vacation’ from the negative internal dialogue that all too often revs up as I paint. My knee-jerk reaction is to try to tame it. Quash it. Outsmart it. Maybe, though, in addition to exploring color, line, handwriting, scribbles, and veiling—as I’m in the process of doing… Continue reading
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On My Nightstand, On My Easel, 6/7/23
On my nightstand: Especially in the wake of having recently read the densely rich and compellingly informative book Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, the following one-liner from Alexis Hall’s romping romcom Boyfriend Material hit my funny bone head on: I hoped I wasn’t going to… Continue reading
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Layered Taffeta
What a wonder,the yards of fine fabrics,with tiny hooks or invisible zippers,tucks and linings and finishing seamsa work of art.Some with lace,some with petticoats under layered taffeta … —Shelby Hearon, Hug Dancing A few weeks ago, my friend Daisy asks me if I’d be willing to give her one of my painted bookmarks to hold… Continue reading
My Story
In 2014, I grab an unexpected opportunity to paint.
To make art.
I get hooked.
In 2015 I start a blog—a diary of my life as an artist.
I post my paintings and their stories. The good, the bad, the ugly.
My compass points: bust through fear, be playful, get messy, trust my gut.
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