Save the Elephants, 48" x 44"

This painting came about this past summer, in the midst of a heat wave and news of yet another wild fire consuming the Californian forests. The volatility of our global environment made me focus on animals and their states of consciousness, reflecting on their knowledge –as it were- of the environment’s decline and the repercussions thereof. One can only imagine their connection to a reality (and a concept) that seems ever further away from our species as progress makes its way: Nature.

Bird Meditations 36" x 48"

Woman and Child, 36" x 24"

journal for sale

new painting: asian family eating

its SNOWING today!!

and, here is a mosaic i just finished:

a selection of prose i find to be beautiful and a thought about valentine's day

PROLOGUE

"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."

-Ralph Ellison


tonight juan and i are having a beautiful valentine's day. he is playing the guitar and whistling. last year i cried on valentine's day for some strange reason having to do with expectations and past valentines days and whatever else. this year we said no gifts and no expectations. he made me dinner and bought me a pillow. there have been no tears nor do i expect any- even though we are to have no expectations. but i think this day is about love ... and commercialism and whatever else, sure. but if we have those we love then we just have a day the same as any other day of the week and just say again, i love you, and that is all.

amen to god and to all his amazing blessings. to wisdom and understanding-- that we continue to grow in this every every day.

the marathon

photos from my drawing marathon.

New Paintings

Click on the Link at the Left to see my paintings on Webshots... They are the new stuff from the summer.

Leonardo Da Vinci

"If a painter wishes to see beauty that enraptures him, he has the power to create it. If he wishes to see things that are grotesque... or are laughable, or are truly pathetic, he is the lord and master of them... Whatever lies in the universe--in essence or imagination--he has first in his mind and then in his hand."

i'm working away, but I CAN'T SEEM TO FINISH ANYTHING.

photos of some progress::
building the canvas/ christy helping-

the painted 5'x5'.
cello player, memaw, and some other random things

moving forward

i think i just finished the cello player. and two days ago Juan and i picked up 6 canvases from Israel Horovitz. Apparently Julian Schnable lived in his neighborhood and when he was moving he threw these canvases out. Israel picked them up, knowing someone could use them. One year later thank God they have been waiting for me- size 4' x 3'. tomorrow i'm going to pick up 5' stretchers and to rearrange my room a little. i bought 3 yards of canvas the other day for $10 a yard because the man at the fabric store said i was pretty. i am having such a beautiful time and things seem to be going perfectly. i'm realizing everyday more and more that this is what i'm meant for.

i met with Karen last week- a homeless woman who called me because she saw my artwork and she's an artist too, she needed someone to talk to and thought she could seek help from a fellow artist. i told her i could bring her some art supplies, but i couldn't offer her my place to say. we arranged for a another day to meet, and she didn't come. i asked the clerks at starbucks if they recognized that an older woman, with large breasts, and slightly unkempt hair had come in that morning- they didn't notice anyone who met that description. Karen called again, but i decided not to meet with her anymore. i would like to help, but i think she needs more help than i can provide. [god protect and provide for her, amen.]

today i am ready to begin my painting

the last two days i was preparing the space:
1. taped paper onto the floor
2. made a curtain for my bookshelf so i won't be distracted with titles and letters and colors.
3. bought house paints: burnt sienna, royal blue
4. and a few more pastels/ rembrant soft

questions on my mind:
1. should i buy violet or mix it myself
2. home depot for plywood or utrecht for canvas and stretchers
3. live models? no> national geographic images on my mind

images on my mind:
1. crying girl from newspaper, with shiite mother in background
2. martha clark with her horse
3. memaw/ today i finally painted over my painting of the old woman in venice- i've painted and repainted this thing too many times. to start over... using the polaroid i have of memaw

thoughts to myself:
1. trust in my ability to combine colors
2. the preparations are over/ relax and let out paint
3. converse with god and all will be revealed.

"the smallest of things"

photos from my play last night... i was a pakistani girl living in iraq, trying to bring my brother inside the house

"Bread and Wine" - poem by Paul Goodman

An empty container that cannot be filled is nothing at all.
Smash you! be nothing!
Now hope is no longer hollow,
but shards are a lasting reproach of violence.
Ow! no longer am I disappointed;
whatever is broken has a bright outline.
I love you immortal contents of the empty
container that could not be filled I smashed.
In the raw light of my no longer disappointment
I am immortal drunken with the contents
of that empty container that could not be filled
I smashed, whose shards are lying on the ground.
Say! who is this tipsy fellow who is dancing for joy
as though he were in love and had what he wished for?
He has drunken the immortal contents
of an empty container that could not be filled
but he smashed it on a rock
and the shards are lying on the ground.
He keeps repeating how he broke the jug.
I too feed daily on the non-being of paradise
of which a month ago I gave up hope,
the days pass unresentfully away,
I have put on weight,
people remark that I look young.
-Alas! where is Adam? where is my
Adam who used to waken to surprise?
Adam my red one made
of the red soil of Appalachia?-
I was distraught with longing for paradise
convinced it was unattainable for me,
I came to my senses at 142
West 23rd Street in New York.
-Woe is me! where is Adam, fearless?
where is Adam namer of the beasts?--
Such is my bread and wine; also, creator and spirit,
let me make a song like Yuan Ming
on his lute that had, for poverty, no strings.

-Paul Goodman, in the BLACK MOUNTAIN REVIEW, 1955

going backwards

this morning i gave a presentation on the Black Mountain College. While i was waiting for class to begin i looked at a book of Jenny Saville... so much art, paintings, artists. I think I've looked at enough paintings for now. I must confess that the more I look the more jealous and overwhelmed I feel. need to paint. to finish school and to paint in open spaces. with more brushes (one for each tub).

i was thinking more about Picasso today. when i watched the video of him drawing- i was thinking that it made sense that he went through so many artistic periods in his life. that he began with realistic painting and finally ended in abstract representations. and that in order for him to have mastered the art of proportion (which enables him to draw perfect figures wihtout correction in a matter of minutes) he had to spend a lifetime practicing in more realism.

but why is it more easier/natural for me to draw like picasso and egon schielle than it is to draw from rembrant? maybe because i am picking up where picasso left off- in the abstract. where picasso started with the real and went forward into the abstract... i have to start abstract and go backwards into the real.

whatever it is/ it is always a matter of sensation- of something more sensual than mental .. but anyhow. off to rehearsal .

i just want to say thank you for those that bless us. i'll more later.


Link

the mystery of picasso

i deleted a post i created may7,2006... because today is april 28,2007. and the last post i created before the may 7th was april28,2006. i think its fair enough to allow a year to pass and to restart again.

tonight i watched a Picasso documentary by Henri-Georges Clouzot. it was picasso in his studio, created works with markers and inks on vellum paper. the inks bled through the paper and the photographer filmed from the opposite side. we watched the drawings come to life, line by line. it seems that picasso has an array of characters that is always on his mind:
1.nude females lounging
2.bull-fighters, bull-fighters falling upside down after being hit by the bull
3.men with big noses
4. goats/horses 5. a rooster 6. a snake charmer
7. walls with pictures hanging on them
He worked with inks in jars with a paint brush for each jar/and when it was time for him to refill- he poured more ink from what looked like a wine bottle. it was fascinated to watch these pictures come alive... the lines informed the figure. .. (note to self-for next performance art work with inks and vellum/ create a scene on the page...) a scene. generally his figures in this series were not just floating in space/ the background was suggested or a shadow was placed under foot.


i checked that documentary out from the library because i had seen a short film on youtube...
this short film on youtube http://youtube.com/watch?v=7vgAYTC9bRY
i have been watching and re-watching for the past week

it is good to learn from our masters.

a pablo neruda

Pablo Neruda:
"Investigations"

I asked of every thing
if it had
something more,
something more than shape and form,
and I learned that way that nothing is empty--
everything is a box, a train, a boat
loaded with implications,
every foot that walked along a path
left a telegram written in the stone,
and clothes in the washing water
dripped out their whole existence.
I went from country to country, never knowing
where to put down my bundle, now so heavy,
loaded with all my knowings,
till with so much seeing and knowing,
moving and moving, asking and asking
every chair, every stone, and later
so many men who never answered,
they got me used to answering myself,
replying to myself without speaking,
talking with no one, to amuse myself.
Perhaps it's what happens to a blind man
who from so much not seeing then sees everything
and in a single focusing
sees
with all the intensity of aa diver
who descends one single well in the whole ocean
and in that place all the fish are gathered.

longing

I long for a community of my own. for collaborators. for a chance to make some art that really means something to me. for a feeling of going forward. of stepping in and stepping down. clinching with my fist. for someone to give me an idea a direction a commission. a mission. sitting idle drives me nuts. art supplies laying about the hard wood floor taunting me. so close so close don’t touch don’t touch. pen and paper not satisfying. wordless. wanting to be wreckless and hopeful. to reach out to spit to vomit to uncontrollably respond. maybe I’m just not inspired. not spontaneous. been a long time.
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