A crow's nest

Blizzards of 2010

2010-02-11T23:16:00.002-05:00

Mmmmm...Prudens Purple

2009-09-23T21:53:00.001-04:00

Definitely the most delicious tomatoes we have ever grown!

Lovely Louisa

2009-03-31T18:20:00.000-04:00

The reason I have not been posting much here lately!!!

Happy Day!

2009-01-20T16:52:00.002-05:00

I've spent all day in front of the TV watching the inauguration events. Would have loved to take it all in live in DC, but it is waaaaaay too cold and I'm just a little bit pregnant!

So excited for a new day and a new administration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wassup 2008

2008-11-04T13:11:00.001-05:00

Awesome! :-)

Happy Halloween!!!

2008-10-31T20:57:00.000-04:00

Autumn Beauty

2008-10-01T18:41:00.001-04:00

mini collage

2008-09-12T12:32:00.001-04:00

2008-09-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

Yay!

2008-09-04T09:27:00.000-04:00

Poster for The Odyssey

2008-09-04T07:21:00.001-04:00

Here is what I have been working on lately, a poster for the theatrical production of Mary Zimmerman's adaptation of "The Odyssey":

Progress!

2008-08-22T18:39:00.003-04:00

Moving right along! This is over a period of three days, these guys are fast. By the way, don't mistake my expression in the bottom pic for philosophical...I was just plain tired. :)

Finally!

2008-08-19T17:46:00.004-04:00

After nine years of putting up with the "deck" that was on the house when we bought it, we have hired an awesome contractor to build a new one. The old one:

Note the spaciousness, perfect for a party of one. And don't miss the steps that must have been drawn from Mayan pyramid designs: tiny and dangerously steep. With a slight rain the steps were transformed into a bumpy water slide down which I, Dan, and Bonnie the dog have at various times inadvertently slid down.

Progress!:

This weekend's cool find:

2008-07-29T11:36:00.005-04:00

I was very excited to come across this at an antique show this weekend, it's from 1945. 318 pages of goofy illustrations and descriptions of magic tricks that could be ordered through the mail.

\

busy backson

2008-07-03T20:41:00.002-04:00

Have been all over, on vacation...flying over mountains, swinging with Savvy, and climbing tree roots! Just a few more days left in another mini trip, and then back home for the rest of summer.

R.I.P.Bo Diddley

2008-06-02T14:50:00.002-04:00

The Originator 1928-2008

Robert Rauschenberg 1925-2008

2008-05-13T14:40:00.003-04:00

"Screwing things up is a virtue."

Go read the impressive four page New York Times obituary/tribute

They describe him as a "Titan of American Art". It is definitely not an overstatement.

Michael deMeng's transparency class

2008-05-13T14:19:00.002-04:00

I had a great time at Art & Soul
in Hampton Virginia two weekends ago. I went with my mom and our friend Catherine, and we three all took Michael deMeng's
transparency class. It was a fun time, and I came away with some new ideas for my work. He is a great teacher, very nice, has a great sense of humor and was very generous with information and help. The experience was 180 degrees from last year's disastrous felt-making purse class! :P I'll NEVER try that again!! We also stayed for vendor night this year which was crazy and crowded but chock full of really cool art and supplies. I came away with some really interesting finds (old and new). Here is my transparency piece/work in progress from class:

And some shots from when I got home, the alliums that I planted this past fall are blooming and I love them!

And taking Bonnie for a walk through the park:

This is how it is

2008-04-24T17:00:00.004-04:00

In the midst of working on a new piece, and I stand back to take in the horror of my studio. I can't work without covering every surface, getting out every material. Add to it that I have acquired a sudden flush of ephemera and old books that I haven't yet figured out how to put away. I know, it looks like that Oprah show about hoarding...whatever. I've been in those homes that look like the pages of an interior decorating magazine, everything selected and in its' proper place. They are incredibly boring.

Kitchen window still life

2008-04-19T16:20:00.001-04:00

More backyard scenes

2008-04-19T16:19:00.000-04:00

Spring all around

2008-04-19T16:00:00.002-04:00

Couldn't pass this up for $.50

2008-04-11T14:53:00.004-04:00

I can't resist old postcards, especially one like this. To me there is just something beautiful about this very artificial scene. The garish, sparkly sign next to the reservoir and concrete bridge. The clear southern sky.
A little trivia about Eufaula, Alabama:
It is the birthplace of Martha Reeves
and Lula Mae Hardaway, mother of Stevie Wonder
and co-writer of his hits "I Was Made To Love Her" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours".

April 4

2008-04-04T09:33:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter

2008-03-23T11:22:00.000-04:00

Spring

2008-03-22T18:31:00.000-04:00

2008-03-14T15:44:00.000-04:00

Studio still life

2008-03-12T20:02:00.005-04:00

I've been neglecting the blog again! My studio is a mess from getting work together for the show last month, and I'm just now getting around to a point where I can see the surface of my table. In the meantime, here are some scenes from my studio shelves.

Art opening this Saturday, Feb. 9!

2008-02-05T10:14:00.000-05:00

Veiled Workings

2008-01-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

Retrieve

2008-01-14T15:51:00.000-05:00

O Christmas Tree!

2007-12-13T10:31:00.000-05:00

Alien flower

2007-11-15T19:15:00.000-05:00

Late Autumn still life

2007-11-12T16:38:00.000-05:00

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - - -roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - - - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

- Mary Oliver

11/9/2007

2007-11-09T10:41:00.000-05:00

2007-10-31T17:21:00.001-04:00

2007-10-20T15:03:00.000-04:00

2007-10-20T14:52:00.000-04:00

Necklace

2007-10-17T08:29:00.000-04:00

I played around with some jewelry making yesterday to try and get past an artist's block on some assemblage work. Sometimes it is helpful to switch mediums.

Interior scrawls

2007-10-05T18:19:00.000-04:00

Finding things...

2007-10-01T16:31:00.000-04:00

I'm rearranging all of my studio books and of course that means relearning/remembering all of that I have. An incredible amount of old books that I find in antique stores for $5.00 or less and just can't pass up. Sometimes it is the graffiti inside the book that appeals to me. This is inside the back cover of a book of etymology from 1882.

The State Fair & the end of summer

2007-09-03T22:00:00.000-04:00

Last night at the last night of the State Fair and truly summer's end. All the prize winning vegetables were well past their days of glory, and well on their way to looking like dessicated astronaut fare. Sorry I didn't get a picture of those!

New piece

2007-08-29T15:51:00.000-04:00

Another sideshow photo

2007-08-27T11:55:00.000-04:00

First, here is an explanation of what Odette is all about: Headless Illusion
Pretty ingenious really!

And the only other circus sideshow picture I found from that same family album...too bad there aren't more. This one is nearly as bizarre as Odette. Are they inflating or deflating this guy?

Circus pic

2007-08-17T16:12:00.001-04:00

I was really excited to find this photo in an antique mall last week. It's from someone's 1939 visit to the circus in Philly. I am totally intrigued by the sideshow posters, and this one particularly:

What is she? I have tried looking on google for "Odette the world's greatest mystery" but can't come up with anything! I would love to know what in the world is going on there!

Vintage baby socks

2007-07-06T15:15:00.000-04:00

Dan's parents recently moved and we acquired many incredible family treasures that they had kept all these years. These elegant little socks are from a box of his dad's and aunt's baby clothes. Hard to imagine putting them on a baby today!

Recently unearthed...

2007-06-28T14:57:00.000-04:00

the bizarre and secret dance moves of Victorian men:

Tim will not hold still for a photo...

2007-06-23T16:12:00.000-04:00

2007-06-06T09:57:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Uncle Walt

2007-05-31T12:01:00.000-04:00

“This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.”

-Walt Whitman

Zigada 1993-2007

2007-05-25T15:28:00.001-04:00

We will miss you so much little buddy.

New collage

2007-05-20T13:55:00.000-04:00

This is a newly completed collage to take down to the alumni show at MICA tomorrow.

The book is out!!!!!

2007-05-16T15:20:00.000-04:00

CLICK HERE TO ORDER!

What God will wear...

2007-05-15T21:39:00.000-04:00

to turn away Jerry Falwell at the Golden Gates.

A couple of pictures from Indiana travels last summer

2007-05-02T15:26:00.000-04:00

Beauty is truth,

2007-04-25T17:56:00.000-04:00

truth beauty.

So it goes...

2007-04-12T08:12:00.000-04:00

"The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand, treats man as garbage— and his children, and his cities, too. Military science is probably right about the contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe. Still— I deny that contemptibility, and I beg you to deny it, through the creation of appreciation of art."

-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

>www.vonnegut.com

The sunny south

2007-03-26T18:35:00.000-04:00

The spoils of last weekend

2007-02-02T16:39:00.000-05:00

We spent all of last Sunday in the antique mall, cruising the weird, the overpriced, and the can't leave without it. Dan pointed out as we were checking out that "It's better than gambling." No doubt! I detest the idea of spending time and $ in a casino, just no desire. May as well throw your money directly into a hole. Yet I have no problem spending hours wondering an antique mall (with the possibility of coming home empty handed) in the hopes of finding the totally bizarre detritus that no one else would consider twice. The two of us inevitably receive odd glances from the little old ladies at the register when we pile up our odd purchases on the counter. This time it was "Baby arms? Never seen those before."
So, for a mere $6.00 I am the proud owner of the above items. The baby arms, the well-worn Mcguffey Eclectic Primer, and my favorite, the labeled test tubes of ocean creatures and plants. The tubes were stuck in an old can, buried behind piles of stuff in one of those booths that is a wreck. My favorite kind, no aesthetic presentation, just an exhausting array of junk that one has to get down on the floor and dig through. Antique mall archaeology.

2007-01-15T12:52:00.000-05:00

"I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart. ... I knew I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government."

-Dr. Martin Luther King
speaking out in opposition to the Vietnam War, April 1967

Happy Holidays!

2006-12-19T11:56:00.000-05:00

Phone cards for veterans

2006-12-12T22:07:00.000-05:00

Give phone cards to injured veterans in VA hospitals and help them call home for the holidays.

DONATE

"Year in the Field" article

2006-11-14T10:15:00.000-05:00

Great article from the Loyola Greyhound about Dan's sabbatical show of farm photos!

"Year in the Field" brings farm life to our city campus - Arts & Society

The day after elections...

2006-11-08T15:52:00.000-05:00

and I can't seem to wipe the smile off my face!!!!!!

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

And to sweeten the deal Rumsfeld is out of a job!!!!

OK boys and girls, roll up your sleeves and get to work AND DON'T SCREW IT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A day well spent...

2006-11-04T21:10:00.000-05:00

We enjoyed a stunning fall day at Longwood Gardens with Dan's digital photo class. The blue skies and late fall light rendered everything into a state of supreme beauty. It was the kind of day and setting in which all you need to do is point the camera and push the shutter release. Nature seems incapable of being a poor model.

Messenger
by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T17:39:00.000-05:00

BOO!

When to admit that you are a nerd...

2006-10-25T15:02:00.000-04:00

I guess that dressing your dog up to look like a Cardinals player (including bright red soul patch) and then uploading her pic to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would confirm my card-carrying membership in Nerd-dom!

LET"S GO CARDS!!!!!!!!!

2006-10-24T19:09:00.000-04:00

"Some things must be shown,
some can be said,
others...only hinted at."

-Emmet Gowin

Woodpecker

2006-10-05T17:12:00.000-04:00

I think this is an immature yellow-bellied sapsucker. It slammed into the window over my head this afternoon with the force of a small rocket. Hard enough to have died within seconds of hitting the ground. Mistaking the cold solid surface for a vision of clear and fluid sky. A mirage.

It brought to mind a favorite poem of mine by Wendell Berry:

VI
(for Jonathan Williams)

The yellow-throated warbler, the highest remotest voice
of this place, sings in the tops of the tallest sycamores,
but one day he came twice to the railing of my porch
where I sat at work above the river. He was too close
to see with binoculars. Only the naked eye could take him in,
a bird more beautiful than every picture of himself,
more beautiful than himself killed and preserved
by the most skilled taxidermist, more beautiful
than any human mind, so small and inexact,
could hope ever to remember. My mind became
beautiful by the sight of him. He had the beauty only
of himself alive in the only moment of his life.
He had upon him like a light the whole
beauty of the living world that never dies.

2006-10-02T18:32:00.000-04:00

2006-09-29T21:19:00.000-04:00

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard

2006-09-27T12:52:00.001-04:00

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—
however small—
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.

Kay Ryan

In Memory of Louise

2006-09-25T18:09:00.000-04:00

2006-09-02T16:18:00.000-04:00

Working on another poster for Loyola. It has been rainy all day, the dog is incredibly bored after two days without a walk. She keeps walking in here and sighing at me. She will just have to hang on for another day!

Aspen leaves after the rain

2006-08-29T18:17:00.000-04:00

Crocs Rock!

2006-08-29T18:08:00.000-04:00

Yes, I have an unhealthy obsession with my crocs. I knew they would be comfy, but I had no idea just how comfy. My high top hiking shoes totally let me down by pressing with cruel and unusual force on my ankle bone after a 8 mile 1500 foot ascent. This was our second day in the Rockies. Setting off from the campground for our second hike I said to Dan there is no way that I can walk any further in these boots. He said well, how bout your crocs? Switcho-change-o and I hiked the rest of the trip in Crocs which were awesome! No serious rock scrambling, but probably about 20 miles up and down some steep elevations. I think that I should send this picture to Crocs...and they should reward me with another pair in green! :-)

2006-08-28T21:48:00.000-04:00

Rocky Mountain clouds

2006-08-28T21:45:00.000-04:00

Goldie yellow

2006-08-09T17:20:00.000-04:00

The garden is a constant surprise, especially when some of the plants are unknowns that have come from a farming friend. I completely forgot about planting these yellow tomatoes, and was totally taken by surprise at the sight of this golden orb!! It always happens that our plants are just growing along and I have this small panic attack in July when I don't see anything ripening and then come August we are completely flush with produce and trying to come up with a new way to eat tomatoes. This year we have finally succeeded with cucumbers and have been overwhelmed. I picked twenty (!) yesterday, all at least twelve inches long. Now what? An elderly neighbor that I have been taking cukes to ran into Dan on the street the other day and proclaimed that she would happily take tomatoes but was good on cucumbers for the rest of the summer! I think that she was starting to panic that I was about to deliver the next round. I'm starting to think about home spa treatments, like a bathtub full of sliced cucumbers...sounds good for the skin right?

Painter's studio...

2006-07-23T11:14:00.000-04:00

or owls in the attic?

Whatever happened to Snow White?

2006-07-23T11:12:00.000-04:00

2006-07-06T00:14:00.000-04:00

rain rain rain

2006-06-27T14:47:00.000-04:00

Well, at least the currant bush can enjoy all of the rainy weather. I would love to make earrings out of these little jewel-like berries.
My piece "Weight" sold at the MICA alumni show...to a D.C. lawyer who I googled and found had contributed money to the George W. re-election campaign!! :-S How funny! I am somewhat disconcerted but mostly flattered that someone on the opposite side of the fence would respond to my work! It is such a funny thing to sell art...you almost never get to see what happens to your work. Where it will be hung, or maybe it goes right into storage, or maybe it is given as a gift to someone else...off it goes!

"Weight" updated

2006-05-19T10:34:00.000-04:00

I worked some more on "Weight". I'm dropping it off at MICA this weekend for their annual alumni show.

2006-03-15T16:21:00.000-05:00

Four more illustrations for the Farmer's Market book.

Farmer's Market book illustrations

2006-03-09T17:51:00.000-05:00

Little pictures to go at the top of the chapters of the Farmer's Market book.

Three greats gone

2006-03-08T15:46:00.000-05:00

Three of my favorite artists passed away in the past week:

Ali Farka Toure

Gordon Parks

Octavia Butler

Weight

2006-03-03T16:14:00.000-05:00

Finished? Not sure.

2006-02-12T21:31:00.000-05:00

2006-02-12T21:28:00.000-05:00

Snow Bonnie

2006-02-12T21:18:00.000-05:00

2006-01-27T18:56:00.000-05:00

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy - your life appeals to a select few.
But if someone's obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky.

Your best movie matches: Office Space, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

Reclamation

2006-01-26T13:19:00.000-05:00

2006-01-19T21:51:00.000-05:00

This is a mock-up for a wedding invitation I have been commissioned to design and print.

2006-01-17T20:11:00.000-05:00

An attempt to follow Dan's model of posting a piece a day...only this took me two days and I haven't really completed it I think!

2006-01-16T11:55:00.000-05:00

Poster for Loyola's next production.

2005-12-09T11:23:00.000-05:00