Monday, November 17, 2008

Six Paintings exhibited


Exhibit Space,
Austin Center for the Treatment of OCD
Nov. 1-30, 2008
austinocd.com


AISD Faculty Art Show

AISD Faculty Art Show
Nov. 1-Dec. 5, 2008
Hideout Theater/Gallery/CoffeeShop
617 Congress Ave. Austin, Tx

Monday, October 13, 2008

August -October, 2008 Exhibit at BookPeople and Fort Worth Community Arts Center

REAL and IMAGINED
Five Austin Artists
Fort Worth Community Arts Center
Fort Worth, Texas
October 3-30, 2008


BOOKPEOPLE
Austin, Texas
August 1-30, 2008



Wednesday, July 16, 2008

midsummer 2008


I began the summer with the blahs...exhausted...happens every year, but I was determined to be productive sooner than in years past. As usual, we spent the beginning of the summer at the Kerrville folk festival. Good transition. MUSIC!! Camping!! SWIMMING in the Medina river. Reconnecting with old friends. Making Merry! Once back and rested, I found myself rather lazy and unmotivated. Tried a new journaling method: ask a question, writing with dominant hand. Answer using non-dominant hand. So I wrote down my dilemma of non-motivation. My left hand answered "crank up the AC! look at art books! go to art supply store!" Once I followed my inner daemon's advice I started painting like a fiend! I now have 8 paintings ready for the Ft. Worth show, and I'll be hanging them for 6 weeks this summer at BOOKPEOPLE, my favorite independent bookstore here in Austin. More room in the studio and a good chance to see what they look like together in a larger gallery-like setting, even if it is just in their coffee shop.

OTHER STUFF:
A good geeky friend wants to create a tarot web site and asked me to do the tarot card images. Fun doing the research, and am doing a collage method to produce them. I think we'll call them the "wallpaper tarot", as the site is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Posted here is the "FOOL" card: The naive, innocent leaving home to see the world, the trusty canine close at hand, the packed bag full (on the dog in this case) and wand in hand (umbrella). The card is # 0, the joker in our modern game-deck.
Another friend is selling his huge high-end home in Travis Heights and asked if I'd like to hang some paintings for an open house they are having. To make a long story short, it turned into a several artist event, musicians too, and I casually agreed to coordinate the artists and hang the show..well it's now a project. Lot's of emailing so far, meeting some new artists and reacquainting with others. It's a shot in the dark, an experiment...
So of late, I've been somewhat distracted from painting, but hope to get back to the fervor and luxury of long hours to myself, after the Mexico trip, after the hanging of the bookstore show, after the open house exhibit...

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Spring Break, 2008

It seems every year, after my teaching begins in late summer, I go into a social "hibernation". Thus, no work on my site or this blog. It's Spring Break now, a time for reflection, a time for all public school teachers to rest and try to figure out how to make it through to the end of the year.
I had a dream last night that someone gave me some rooms at the top of a very old building. There were two rooms, very grandmotherly, with fireplaces, oriental rugs, comfy soft sofas and chairs, dark curtains. A baby was crawling around, with messy excrement I had to clean up after...I worried about the rugs. The rest of the house was the same, two or three sitting or sleeping rooms and a kitchen. My first thought was, "ah...peace & quiet...sleep...hibernation", then I thought "where will I teach the kids? what about an art studio? it's too dark." I made plans to have rugs put into bedrooms, have some furniture I didn't need taken away, paint two big rooms white and take curtains down for light, set up classroom and studio. Leave part of the rooms dark and old and quiet.
What a metaphor for me! An answer or good advice: it's ok to hibernate, go to your "cave" for renewal, but you also need some bright open airy rooms for art making and teaching.
My two latest paintings I can analyze from that: A dark room looking out into bright sky with bird flying out the window. A child sleeping in a dark room: My Spring Break paintings.
CATCH UP (in a nut shell): Art Marketing class has been wonderful. We have a show coming up together in Ft. Worth in a swanky gallery (Oct.). This brought me back to making larger paintings. And back to canvas (to avoid the framing dilemma). I hope to have ten paintings to choose from.
I went to an art retreat earlier this week:
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/debdidit/) Out in the country, at a B&B with an art studio across the road. We slept, ate good food, made art, took walks on long country roads. I came back depressed that I couldn't live like that always. But, painting and sleeping here, before I go back to teaching in a few days, has turned me back to my own life and reality. I'm going to start up yoga again, and perhaps get some centering. As long as I paint, I'll be fine.