Blowing Sands Gallery Show Extended Another Month

I got an e-mail from the curator of this show saying that it's getting such a great response they want to extend it another month!  How great!  Check it out if you're in the Ballard area.  Directions can be found at this link:http://www.blowingsands.com/

Big Night Gallery Opening

The gallery opening in Ballard (Seattle) at Blowing Sands went well on Saturday night, Valentine's Day and also the curator,Rebecca Devere's birthday.  I got a great rundown from Reb and her husband Dennis of what sounds like a smashing success and a lot of fun.  I am attaching the link to pictures (the first shot shows my entry in the show "A Compendium of Heroines" on the right hand side, nine 10x10 panels) so you can see for yourself.  There was a string quartet, yummy food, a birthday cake for Reb, and the house was packed.  I think the show will be up for a month if you're in the area and want to take a look.  There might be an artworld connection made for me here in Spokane as a result of the show, I will keep you posted, my wish is to get gallery shows in this area (i'm hoping for Tinman) and there is a gallery in Coeur d-alene that I am interested in.  It's a new world.

I'm currently finishing up a collection of paintings of cupcakes and chocolates for a bakery that opened in Kirkland in the last few months; the owner said she would like to sell them on consignment which normally I don't feel too hip to selling out of a cafe, but it's a favor for a friend of a friend.  I will mount pictures of them as soon as they're dry enough to scan, they've been really fun to paint, I am particularly inspired by this subject matter :)

And I got my first request on etsy for custom work...something to adorn the walls of a cafe here in Spokane...isn't that funny?  In all the big wide etsy world it's the second person I've connected with in my own back yard (shout out to brenda, mother, artist and runs three blogs).

Here's the link to the opening, wish i could have been there:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019057&id=1157229748

Why Harpies? and Last 3 Paintings for Gallery Show

Punxsutawney Phil has spoken and the word is six more weeks of winter.  I have plenty to do indoors anyway, so this internment is for the greater good of my household and bank account - taxes, for one thing...eeeek!  typical right brain weirdo i completely freak about numbers and also need a sympathetic tax preparer in the spokane area...anyone out there care to toss me a name?  On the flagging morale of "six more weeks of winter" that some of you might feel, i've been looking at it this way:  my nieces are kick ass skiers and they have that much more time to perfect their technique (so instead of thinking how crappy six more weeks of winter is for those of us whose sport is, oh, RIDING HORSES, let's think about how this weather is GREAT for someone else!  yay!)...also, a simple re-frame of the "six weeks" idea; instead of listening to Punxsutawney Phil, listen to Bourne Lane Fred:  Summer's Comin'! Okay, I talk about the weather a lot.  I live in the country.  Now, Why Harpies.  I give a pretty good 2 second version of the Oresteia, which should explain why all women should proudly and prominently display harpy images wherever and whenever possible.  Click here to read it.  This artwork is also in my cafepress site so you can get it on t-shirts, tiles, aprons, and BABY CLOTHES...for the infant feminist in your life!  (i didn't say infantile.)  If someone orders the onesie with a harpy on it could you please send me a picture of the baby wearing it?  I'd be so proud to put her on my blog. And finally, I finished the last three paintings for the gallery show in Ballard which opens on Valentine's Day!   They need to dry for a few days before I can coat them with beeswax and resin and make them look really scrumptious, then some final touches and ship them off for the curator, Rebecca DeVere, to hang.  I'm sad I can't go to the opening, I'm excited to be a part of this show...maybe anyone in Seattle would like to stop in?

Three More For Friends & Family Show

Had a really successful day painting yesterday, and now I'm totally spent.  Slept completely and heavily through the night and was so surprised when the alarm went off at 5am...it felt as if i'd just blinked my eyes. Kate usually gets me up at 3 to go potty (that is one of my old weimaraners, if you follow this blog you will certainly see paintings of her), i wonder if she tried but i was so dead to the world she gave up.  that would be a first.   I'm working on a series of nine paintings entitled "A Compendium of Heroines"...each painting looks like a page torn from a children's book, a very old-fashioned children's book, more like a fairy tale with mystery and darkness and things that need to be solved and possible dangers on the hero's journey, except all the heroes are girls.  A world populated with talking animals and nature figure heavily, just like in my world :) Last night i finished the second set of three and i just had my groove on.  I stopped once briefly to eat some oatmeal (right now it has to be steel cut oats with walnuts and dried cranberries and maple syrup), and then i stopped for a while to eat dinner with my husband.  he watched movies while i kept painting and listening to the movies and frequently asking him to narrate, which could be completely annoying under certain circumstances, but my husband is very patient.  It was a thriller so there wasn't a lot of dialogue and the music would change and mostly i could follow based on that...maybe you're not surprised to hear that the final third of a thriller involves lots of high drama soundtrack and the actors grunting a lot.  So i would say "What just happened?" and eric would say "Someone just walked behind the car and she didn't see them...it's foggy."  Now that i think of it, the movie was probably much more interesting broken down and digested by my husband and relayed to me, like watching a movie through morse code.  

Finally Jumping In...

So.  It seems that my writer's block issues are deeper than I thought.  Just picking out the template and uploading the artwork were enough to put me into a state of shock for the last month and a half.  Then I got over myself and realized no one expects me to be a literary genius and that maybe I should just talk about the artwork and the rest will take care of itself...

2009 has a very different momentum for me than the last two years {which were all about getting out of Montana and landing where I needed to be, which is Deer Park, a rural community just north of Spokane in Eastern Washington State}.  2009 feels about the work.  

One of the first orders of business is creating a 9 panel installation for a show that my friend Rebecca DeVere is curating in Ballard, Washington {downtown Seattle morphs into Ballard as one heads north}.  The opening is February 14 from 6-9pm  here's the link to the gallery for directions and other related info:www.blowingsands.com

The piece I'm showing is called "A Compendium of Heroines" and consists of nine 10x10" wood panels, each featuring a different young girl and a chunk of her narrative.  Here are really hideous pictures of the first three {solving the "photographing work/lighting problem" is on the TO DO list}.  When they have dried I will scan them and re-post them.  I think I will have t-shirts and cards of them on my cafepress site {see link at upper left} and prints on my etsy site, {see link at left}.