More art for the WOW Hall

Well, I'll be hanging this show in six days. Here are a few more shots of the art in progress.


One has to stay inspired and feed the head. So, I had a great time over the weekend visiting the studio of my illustrious illustrator friend Katura Reynolds. She was all set up for the DIVA's Open Studio Art Tour and I got to see many beautiful watercolor and ink drawings of plants, animals, insects, bones, etc. It is so cool to see an artist in their natural habitat. She even put me in her sketch-blog!

Inspiration is pretty easy to find in the fall, below is a picture of some leaves I collected on a "nature walk" down 12th Ave.

Busy little artist, and artistic memory

Fwew, just found out that the publicity info for my November show at the WOW Hall was due today, right before going to the Eugene Uketoberfest Ukulele Festival to see my friend Jay perform (He was great, yay Jay!). So I went, ate pizza, came home and wrote and sent the publicity statement, now I'm so very tired. So tired that I am writing a blog entry!

This month is going too fast! I only have one piece completed! But I am having fun with my new pinstriping brushes.

You know, I always found it interesting that I could look back at my drawings and paintings and remember what I was thinking or listening to or what was happening around me when I was working on each area of the artwork. Even work from years and years ago. Like when I inked this one line I was listening to a presidential stump speech, and not one that I particularly liked...hmm too bad for that line. Ah, but for these dots over here I was watching the Daily Show, that was pretty funny. Does that happen to anyone else? I wonder if there's a name for it.

Ok, I'm way too tired now and I have too much to do in the morn'. Here's a peek at one of the pieces for my show. It's shot at an odd angle, but who can tell anyway? It's about 3x5 ft.

Wow, my favorite artist of the moment

I just checked out this newish book from the library about renowned artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976). It's called Calder Jewelry (Yale University Press c2007). He is probably best known for inventing the mobile. His sculpture, lithographs, and paintings are of course wonderful, but this book is jam-packed (and huge, maybe ten pounds) with pictures of his jewelry and jewelry-like sculpture that just make me want to cry with adoration. Every piece is unique and so ingeniously constructed. They range from powerfully simple to deceptively simple. They are mostly built with hammer flattened wire, some with odd bits of pottery, stones, wood, or glass. They are so playful and animated, and being primarily wire, they are all about the lines. But not sharp mechanical lines, more like a pencil sketch come to life. They seem to vibrate with levity.

Let me be clear, I am not a fancy-jewelry girl, but I am an abstract artist obsessed with lines. This man was a genius. A lot of the pieces were gifts to his wife (lucky lady!) I really need to get some metal to hammer on.

Well, anyway, this book is worth a trip to the library. It's probably pretty expensive so I'm going to try not to cry and drool all over my library's copy.

Summer is over, but I like fall anyway.

Fall is my favorite season. I've lived on a school schedule for so much of my life that to me fall is a time of new beginnings. It's when I try to add a few new (new-to-me that is) items to my wardrobe, and a time to get started on new projects that I will work on through the winter. Also, I was born on September 30th, so this really is when things began for me.

I am trying to get my head together again after a psychological summer vacation (I still had to go to work, but otherwise I mostly played video games). So now that I have had a couple days to cry about turning 30 I have to refocus.

One thing that was focusing and helpful was that I just emailed a super-cool Eugene artist Jud Turner to ask for some advice. I saw his show at the DIVA Center a few months ago and it got me really hyped up about working in metal. He promptly replied with very useful information about learning to weld. I did some smithing and welding at Eastern Oregon University when I lived out there in the boonies, and let me tell you there is nothing quite like pulling red hot metal out of the forge and banging on it with a hammer. Very elemental and empowering. A little dangerous too, one time I burnt all the hair off my arm and half of my face taking too long to light the gas forge. Hah, good times.

Anyway...umm...oh yeah OOOooommmmmmm....focus!