Once in a while, something comes along and hits you like nothing else. This video was sent to me by my good friend and artist, Randy Richmond, who also was impacted greatly by it. It is a song by Canadian musician and poet, Tanya Davis and the video was created by filmmaker Andrea Dorfman. This wonderful video is so simply beautiful, it changed my life for the better.
Getting ready for tonight’s Open Studio at Moppet, which starts at 7PM – and no earlier mind you! 🙂 I don’t have too many confirmed Facebook friends coming this time, but that’s okay considering I am going to be doing this every month or so. It’s the all-day Discovery Tour that is going to be the BIG one, so I hope that brings a big turnout in November. In the meantime, I am not promoting the Second Saturday open studio every month as much as I probably should. I put out a few veggies, cookies and water and haven’t been serving out the wine – which just makes people not want to stay very long. I know art is better with wine, but I just cannot afford to get you all drunk once a month. Myself being plastered is another story all together though.
If you came last time, don’t bother coming again because I haven’t done much to the painting that was sitting on the easel. I was sick for a month and so have been working on the one at home, which is coming along. Here it is today (below), and it’s nearly done with the oil painting part. Once it’s dry, it’s embroidery time, which is the most fun.
I got invited into a show next month at Highways Performance Space and Gallery by curator Jane Brucker, an artist and professor of Art and Art History at Loyola Marymount University. It is to accompany a performance called Bias Cut held on October 16 & 17. The exhibition portion, Behind the Seams, will open the day before and will also feature Curt LeMieux, Lea Redmond and Browne Molyneaux.
I decided on the perfect song for the painting I am working on at home to be Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.
The one at the studio is slow-going (well, they all are really these days). Yellow and green is about all I’ve added to this one besides drawing more flowers and extras to it. It seems convenient that the one away from the studio is about separation and the one at the space is an ofrenda to my parents. They busted up several times as I was growing up, but the worst one was when they did it 3,000 miles apart. It was around 1976-77 and I flew back and forth between LA and Philadelphia several times. Dreams by Fleetwood Mac was one of the songs that played over and over in my headphones on the flights while I traveled with a TWA chaperone. It was weird and all I wanted was for my family to be back together. My mom was in LA and my father and brother were in Allentown. I was the yoyo that was pulled back and forth between them while they argued like children themselves. Total chaos. The song was fitting for the situation because I thought they would never work it out. They finally did before Rumors won Album of the Year.
(the one at the studio)
I’ve been sicker than a dog these last 2 weeks, and the doctor said to expect a couple more. I am wiped out completely/completely wiped out. Having my Open Studio the other week was hard to get through because that was probably the first day or so I got this virus from Hell. I wish I could say I am feel much better since then; I am way less congested, but all I want to do is sleep like a bear. Oh, but if only I was a bear. Bears are not neurotic.
For the past week, I’ve tried to spend as much time making art as I have had the energy for, which really isn’t much. I stand for a while, get dizzy, get tired, and have to lay down and sleep. I have 2 of the same size pieces going at both my home studio and at Moppet – 36” x 36” – both very different. One is a continuation from Contender, and yet as always. I am trying to allow the influence of what inspires me flow into the work without stunting it. It’s the freedom of Amy Sillman, the innovation of newer discoveries too. I’ve been most focused on local artist, Mary Addison Hackett, NY artist, David Humphrey, and a Japanese/British artist: Peter McDonald. Looking at their work lately has given me a lot of inspiration to create with abandon and remind myself that I really have nothing else.
The painting I have on my new easel at Moppet is a sort of an Ofrenda for both my parents. I have been sorting out a lot of flowers along the top, while adding a lot of things they both loved to eat around the bottom, which is based ontop of a make-shift cloudy heavenly sort of upsidedown sprially dripy plaine. So far there are things in there like a bowling trophy, bowling pin, Doritos bag, Yocco’s Hot Dog guy, Tommy’s burger logo, Ding Dongs, Sunkist orange soda, Dolle’s Saltwater Taffy… I know it still needs some Jiffy Pop. I may put in some sugar skulls for effect, but I’m not sure.It’s still gotta be mine.
This weekend marked the 1 year anniversary of my father’s death. I spent Sunday at Forest Lawn Cemetery.My mom’s brand new tablet was in place and that was very very hard to see. I laid on the grass between the two of them, like when I was a little kid, curling up between them in bed when I was scared, and just slept in the sun between them, crying and asking if they knew I was there or if they knew how much I missed them. It doesn’t feel like I am moving past this situation at all whatsoever.
Back to painting today. I am going to work on the one at home and try to go somewhere new. I’m going to try not to be afraid and remember to allow myself permission to experiment and trust my gut. Funny I have to tell myself the very same things every time after decades of painting, eh?
In progress (at home).