New Etsy Item!

This is the Obama O warm and fuzzy t-shirt...I've been meaning to make them since the election...hope the good feelings haven't worn off....I had made a custom t-shirt patterned after one I saw in a political t-shirt shirt (read: rip off!) and it was a simple, monoline "O" with a little "08" on it...I put it on some exercise t's just to tick people off at the YMCA (I live in a rabidly conservative, rabidly baptist community) and it felt very good, very empowering....so this is the chia pet version of that monoline O, with all of the warm fuzzy satisfaction at finally feeling proud to see my president, to see his speeches and hear is voice over the radio. If you go to my Etsy store, you will see this item and the other things I have for sale, coptic journals and the like.....

Love Letters: This Year

Just finished the 2009 Valentine; now my 18th year of doing this mailing....more and more, it's not a mailing to my entire client list, but more of a "thank-you" to clients who sent work my way, workshop hostesses and folks who helped me with my workshops, new friends, my support network, etc...it kills me, because there are so many people I would like to send them to, but time and the complication of the project prevents me from doing so...each year I meet more wonderful lettering and book artists, and I want to keep up my relationship with my extensive network of friends, especially now that that list includes people to whom I've sent valentines in the past, who are no longer alive! yipes!

This year's valentine came to me, as it so often does, in the second week of January and reflects the sort of "brother-can-you-spare-a-dime" times we seem to be headed for: I image folks staying home, telling stories to each other and making art out of whatever is at hand...the valentine collage is made out of hand-cut recycled cardboard boxes, rice paper from my studio, winter weeds, feathers, seeds, old newspapers, scraps of this and that, and one heart of real gold (laid on gloss medium) for HOPE, and scaps of writing, which most says: faith, hope, love and charity...obviously the love theme here is less personal and more universal...this gold is not the money we have, don't have, never had or might have had, but the heart we still have inside.....enjoy!

a good poem on Love:

myselves
ask "life, the question how do i drink dream smile

and how do i prefer this face to another and
why do i weep eat sleep-what does the whole intend"
they wonder. oh and they cry "to be, being, that i am alive
this absurd fraction in its lowest terms
with everything cancelled
but shadows
-what does it all come down to? love? Love
if you like and i like,for the reason that i
hate people and lean out of this window is love,love
and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason
that i do not fall into this street is love."


ee cummings

All the Jazz....

WordPainting-on-the-Ocean 09 (March 25th - 28th)ebbs and flows like the tide....we have a committed band of three students, and not quite the critical mass to rent the condo for that last full week in March...we have had so many folks interested  but peoples lives are  complicated...family obligations often stand in the way of participation...it's a shame, because it's truly my favorite thing to teach...bringing people together to learn how to break rules about the paper's surface,  dropping all of their "learned" rules of design, and play with texture, letters, words and wet ink, watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, any media that they can think of....to create a completely unique version of their imagination, of their own landscape....when you write into a painting, the linear word-order, sentence-order thing is broken up, words recombine and reform and a new language is invented...and sometimes those paintings "talk back" and give you some fresh perspectives!~ we have had some epiphanies in classes past....and, if not, you can take a long stride on the beach and experience the therapy of fresh air and exercise! Living on an island here on the atlantic coast does have it's advantages, and I like sharing my view with you!

Marching into my deadlines...it's February

While I'm working on this year's valentine, and waiting for my Zazzle stamps to be delivered, I'll post some valentine's from years past...in 2004 I had a local chocolatier mold me some Love Letters chocolate letters! I mean chocolate bars...and chocolate business cards! The chocolate bars were white, dark and swirled, but apparently not the best chocolate in the world...but they looked so wonderful...
In 2007 I decorated paste paper with white gesso to colorize the surface, and folded the pieces in half so the designs were symmetrical. I "built" these little architectural doorways or gates and worked letters into the designs (mostly L O V E) and called the series "Building the House of Love". I handmade about 40 of these, and made color copies as well.