The Paper Doll Fashion Show Continues

Oprah Winfrey is an eternal inspiration, so this cashmere knit dress is in her honor. (Plus: ankle-strap pumps, box purse, silver bangle, turquoise earrings and multi-strand seed-bead bracelet)

This paper doll fashion show, which has taken over my daily art project lately, was a completely unexpected development. I'm far from a fashionista. I'm uncomfortable in heels, don't wear makeup or strapless anything. I live in sweatpants. Hell, I had a mastectomy and I don't even wear a fake boob! Also, I have a major problem with "fast fashion" - the overproduction of cheap clothing, the waste and pollution and exploitation generated. But I get it—clothes can be fun, empowering, beautiful, inspiring. I guess this is my answer to all that. All the creativity, none of the practical implications.

Celebrating Women

My Daily Art collection has become a paper fashion show — here's today's addition.
Daily updates on my Facebook album and Instagram feed.

In childhood I got the message that the hair thickening on my brothers' legs was fine, while mine was disgusting, an embarrassment, something I needed to make sure no one saw. Shaving, putting on makeup, wearing "dressy" (aka uncomfortable) shoes and constrictive clothing, was not a pleasure for me, but a punishment, an insidious, subtle message that I was not okay as is.

But at the same time, I read the beauty magazines and longed to feel pretty, to feel worthy of all of the pretty things...

Whether it shows on us or not, we women feel pressure every day over our appearance, a sense that we need to be attractive in order to be worthy of attention. Some women go to great effort to meet this challenge, but for me, this effort feels humiliating. I hate for it to show that I am in any way "trying" to look good.

I remember coming downstairs one morning at about 14 years old in the slightly tight t-shirt I'd slept in. My father stared and smiled at me like I was something delicious to eat. I felt good and bad in that moment—aware of the power of my developing body to attract male attention, glad that my father was smiling at me, but also uneasy. Instead of getting the loving and respectful attention I so desperately wanted from him, I felt like as if I might be devoured.

I admire women who are unapologetically fierce while conforming to these difficult standards— the hair and makeup and shoes and manicures etc. I admire women who don't feel like they're conforming but do all these things in the name of personal expression, or in celebration of their inherent beauty—regardless of age or body size or curves or lack thereof. I also admire women who, like me, have hair in their armpits and dirt under their nails and holes in their jeans and not a single high heel in their closet. AND I admire women who struggle with the pressure, who try things and try other things and sometimes give up trying altogether, eat too much (or too little), have closets full of clothes they never touch or can't bear to shop. We're all up against brutal, irrational pressure. I celebrate all of us!

Daily Art

I've completed something every day so far in 2018 — I'm determined to continue for as long as it's fun. Maybe longer (sometimes the most interesting stuff happens when you get bored or careless and start taking risks).

One of the most interesting aspects of this challenge is economy. I don't have a lot of space in my life to devote to this right now. When there isn't much time, my creativity, and creative confidence, are stretched.

It's always good to stretch!

I'm archiving these in a facebook album.

In Praise of Swimming

Masters
6 x 6" collage on wood

I grew up swimming. I was on swim teams from age 8 to 18. I had a pond in my backyard and spent much of my summer diving into its cool and murky depths. One of my first jobs was teaching swimming. Then I was a lifeguard for many years. When I spent too much time away from the water, I swam laps in my dreams. When I felt lost and depressed as a young adult, the pool is where I found myself.

I've been swimming three days a week, like clockwork, for a decade. I swam through breast cancer. During chemotherapy, it was the one thing that suppressed the nausea. I had to take a break for my mastectomy, but as soon as I was healed enough, I was back at it. It was the best thing for me, so they told me—the lymph nodes removed from under my arm put me at risk of lymphedema, or chronic swelling in my arm.

I was terrified of lymphedema. It got to the point where I was actually afraid to stop swimming. I ignored the pain in my shoulders. Of course the pain got worse and finally I had to fold. It's been almost two months now since I stopped swimming. My arm hasn't swollen. Even when I crashed my bicycle and scraped up my elbow last week, I've been okay.

Speaking of biking, without swimming I've had more time to ride. I've been sleeping more. My creative life is expanding. I no longer fear vacation (it's true, I feared not swimming).

But I do love swimming, and I do miss the meditation of it.

So here's a little piece of art in tribute to the sport. Thank you, swimming, for all the good you've brought into my life. All the amazing people. All the hours of lazy-brain daydreaming, losing count of the laps. All the moments I've floated in the middle of a lake on a summer morning thinking about how lucky I am.

Hopefully I'll be back with you soon.

The Joy of Framing

An art show in the making.

I helped hang my show at Silver Circle Gallery today. I'm tired but feeling good. Another artist wandered in as we were working out the arrangement, offering appreciative and thoughtful feedback. He kept referring to my work as "delicious." That's a new one for me, and a nice one.

But especially, I like seeing the work transformed. A piece in progress amidst the clutter of my studio comes alive when given a frame, and breathing room on a wall. Suddenly it has a voice, and, if it's good, something to say, and I am reminded that I'm making something that has meaning.

I'm also reminded that sharing my work with the world is the best way to get inspired to make more.

More images, and inside scoopery, on my other blog.

Spring Wind

Just got back from hanging the new show. Here's another sneak peak. I picked this one because it reminds me of today's weather. It's a perfect spring day, sun and clouds, warm but cool at the same time, a bright afternoon that promises winter is gone, summer is coming right up. Hallelujah.

Collage

These latests are 6" x 6" on wood-mounted panels. They'll be at the Willimantic Food Coop for the month of April, along with other works strictly made from salvaged materials.

Art on Video, Frogger, Milli Vanilli, What More Could You Want?

I made this while I was a student, lots of art, philosophy, the game Frogger, and the secret origins of my dog's name. (Hint: her name is Millie Vanillie).
More of my videos here.

Three Things I Love Today

#1. The Dumpster Project - When forced to downsize his huge collection of memorabilia/salvaged art supplies, Artist Mac Premo did so by creating a walk-in collage in a 30-foot dumpster, lovingly documenting and eulogizing its contents on his Dumpster Project blog. Beautiful, touching, and funny.

#2. This quote, from Winston Churchill: Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.

#3. Collaboration. What a fun way to bring great people closer to you, to get inspired, and to expand your creative horizons. Here's a poster I recently designed in collaboration with my thirteen-year-old nephew:

Gratitude

If you're looking for a good, no-pressure warm-up exercise for getting the creative juices flowing, and also for giving yourself a gentle attitude adjustment, get a stack of 5x7" paper and if you're lucky, a roll of "thank you" stickers from some long ago grocery store, plus a bunch of other scraps and pens and crayons maybe, a pair of scissors and a glue stick, and make some one-off thank you cards. Here's a few from my latest batch. Click on the horizontal ones to see them full-size..

One more here...

Art Art Art

A few more collages that didn't make it into the daily collage series (because I made them a little later on in a fit of creativity and then lost them at the bottom of a pile).

The images look terrible here. Click on them to see the right resolution.

Hope you enjoy...

Uplift

(Click on images to see them with clearer, crisper, and probably bigger)

Life has been crazy busy and intense lately. I was diagnosed with breast cancer just over a month ago and have been quite busy to say the least. I've got a little breather right now as I recover from surgery and prepare for chemotherapy. Last night I managed to pull out some materials to put together a collage.

Needless to say, my life, not to mention my body, is permanently altered. (More on this on my other blog.) I wondered if this might show up in my art.

Upside-down, this collage is Chicken Little's biggest fear: the sky is most definitely falling. But that's not the way I intended this piece. I've tried it at every angle but came back to the original. And now it has a title. Uplift.

9" x 12"  mixed media collage

Treescrapers

I made this collage a long time ago, but somehow it resonates with me still. When I made it I wasn't thinking about meaning, I was in the flow. But then it struck me that this image had something to teach me, and even now, I am learning from it. There is something about skyscrapers here, about reaching for the sky, and something about the majesty and mystery of nature, and something about how skyscrapers are nature – just like anthills and wasps nests are part of the natural world. It is easy to forget that we humans and everything we make, including our messes, as disastrous as they can be, are part of the natural world.

American Thrift

One of the art associations I belong to stages a yearly "6 x 6 Show." Each participant may submit up to six pieces, all six-inch square including frames. Here's a sneak preview of my six collages, hope you like:

SOLD

Worry is Creative

.dotstring, collage on bristol paper, 9 x 12", on view at WindhamARTS until April 23rd

I'm going to be on the radio this coming Tuesday, April 14th, on the award-winning Wayne Norman Show on WILI 1400AM, beginning at 7:15 in the morning, until 8:30 or 9. (If you miss it, or if you're not in the area, the audio will be posted later in the day here.)

I am nervous. I didn't pursue this at all. It's overwhelming to note that the splash made by my art show opening last Friday was strong enough to bring about such an opportunity.



Opportunity, according to Miriam Webster, is:
1: a favorable juncture of circumstances
2: a good chance for advancement or progress

The surface opportunity is clear: perhaps an appearance on a popular local radio show will bring a few more fans of my art, maybe a potential design client or two.

But the core opportunity lies smack-dab inside my worry. In the fact that I will be called upon to talk about myself and my work.

This is what scares me. Right now, my thoughts are like furniture fresh off the moving truck, crowded into the center of a room. I know all the pieces, but I haven't arranged them in any coherent order.

I suppose I could spin an elaborate image of myself bumbling and stumbling, trying too hard, flailing, choking. Or I could just feel the fear (yikes!) and apply my creative energy to preparation. Which is exactly what I plan to do.

What a gift a deadline is! Come Tuesday morning, I'll be able to articulate who I am, what I do, what moves me to do the work that I do. I'll know myself better. And knowing myself better is the key to BEING myself better.

So yes, I'm nervous. But I'm also looking forward to it.

Art Show To Do List (+ hints)

18" x 12" mixed media on heavy cardboard
SOLD


ALREADY DONE:

• write proposal and get the show
• make lots of art
• choose what goes in the show
• document art work (scan & photograph)
  
• design invitation postcard, send to printer
  
• discuss mailing list with gallery
• frame shadow box assemblage pieces
  
• make decisions about matting and framing everything else, choose a framer
  

MAILING LIST:

• compile Mailing list (friends, family, colleagues, clients)
  
• enter names and addresses into excel spreadsheet (instructions here)
• transfer to Word to print onto sticky labels (same instructions apply)
• make appointment with gallery - have them print out mailing list labels ahead of time
  
• when postcards arrive from printer, apply my mailing list labels
• go to gallery to add their mailing list labels and bulk mailing stamp to cards

MORE ON PUBLICITY:

• design email version of postcard invitation
• design poster version of postcard invitation
• send out postcards, e-cards, put up posters
• post announcement & e-card on Facebook
  
• ask gallery what they're doing re: press release (so as not to duplicate efforts)
  
• possibly write press release and send to local papers along with art image
• pick art image for press release - print hi-res on glossy stock (if mailing hard copy)
  
• send press release to local college radio, and to one dj friend in particular

ART:

• look for response to follow-up email from framer re: price and wire hangers (I spoke to him yesterday - all of the 2d work - 43 pieces - have arrived safely. All matting & framing decisions are done)
• set prices (taking into consideration: materials, framing & shipping, gallery fees, postcard and postage expenses, size, and time to create each work )
• make labels for each piece and decide how to hang them
  
• finish last two pieces
• finish framing last shadow box (add glass)
  
• follow up with company sending clear sleeves for unframed daily collages - make sure order has shipped and will arrive on time
• follow up with framer to make sure they ship on time (I am using P.S. Art Company for the first time - very good prices, good reputation - hopefully good results!)
  
• hang everything on the appointed day (find a friend to help and then to take out for a celebratory meal?)
  

ETCETERA:

• plan for reception: food, drink, what to wear! (note to self: comfortable shoes)
  
• make personal phone invitations, and plans for dinner after reception
• check over contract with gallery to make sure I'm not forgetting anything
• make/get guest book for show, ask for: name, address, email, comments
• print list of art pieces: titles, size, media, price
• print artist's statement and bio
• compile statement, bio, art list into single document to leave with gallery front desk
• take it all down twenty days later
• rinse and repeat - at another venue!
  

Brainstorm, Daydream

At any given moment, there are infinite avenues for thought and action. Be brave, take risks, embrace the opportunity to make mistakes - you cannot fail. Brainstorm. Daydream. Experiment. Play!

Scape 1




Scape 1-detail



mixed media, 20" x 15"



Brainstorm




Brainstorm - detail



mixed media, 20" x 15"

Cultivating Change

(click on image for larger view)

I sold another painting through this blog last week (the middle one here), which delighted me, and got me thinking about a much darker time of my life, when I marked a few simple symbols on a pocket-sized calendar and learned some wonderful lessons.

Every evening, I entered a "+" or "-" for the day to indicate whether I'd been feeling generally up or down. I'd been doing this for several months when, after a string of three particularly trying days, I began flipping back through the calendar pages. I was sick of feeling bad and expected to see confirmation of my despair.

Though this this was the first time I'd had three bad days in a row in weeks, I was surprised to note that in the beginning, negative days were the norm and even two positive in a row was exceptional. I could not deny that something was shifting, that though I felt low right now, it was nothing compared to how I had felt weeks before. Instantly, I began to feel better. I have felt better ever since.

The lesson? That it is a powerful thing to step back from the minutia of right here and now, to take in the wider landscape. It is a discipline, with enormous creative potential for cultivating optimism, pride, confidence, and future-vision. In other words: Perspective is a tool. Use it.

In time, I added a second mark to my calendar: On days when I'd felt exceptionally industrious, tackling swaths of items on my long To Do list, making long-avoided phone calls, I added the letter "S" (for Sowing Seeds) to that day's calendar entry. And on days when it seemed that a flurry of things had fallen into my lap: receiving a letter from an old friend, a new job offer, a refund check from the IRS - I marked my calendar with a letter "R" - for Reaping Rewards.

I began to notice an amazing thing: Though the rewards did not necessarily correspond to the seeds I had planted, every "S" was followed almost exactly two weeks later by an "R." I've come to trust this process, to live by the implicit lesson. Plant all your seeds. You reap what you sow.

Inspirations and Aspirations

While making a collage this morning, I listened to Rick Warren's TED talk and had to pause to write down his statement that we live toward a three-tiered aim: 1) Survival , 2) Success, or 3) Significance. I know the Survival tier very well. I've spent many years in that realm. These days I have been tasting some Success. Though it feels triumphal, it also feels like a dangerous seduction. There is always more success to be had, more work to be done to attain it. Though I don't shy from hard work, there is an emptiness to it. Even in my collaging, I suddenly noticed, I get to a certain point in the piece, when the general background and color scheme is blocked out, and my attention goes toward the home stretch, into making something cool, beautiful, interesting, successful. It is so easy to slide away from the push toward discovery, inquiry, meaning, investment.

I remind myself that these collages don't need to be anything more than a warm-up exercise. But still, what am I warming to? Something to think about...

More inspirations of the day:

Martin Venezky's It Is Beautiful -- Then Gone - a beautiful book about one designer and his personal and professional design practice. So much to look at, I can only absorb a few pages at a time.

Lara Cameron's 10 (Potentially Controversial) Tips for Starting a Small Craft/Design Business. The first tip is the best.

The artist Carol Blackwell. A true artist with a unique sensibility, actively teaching and showing her work, but didn't start doing a bit of it until she was over fifty years old. Just goes to show you, it's never too late.

Letting Go

I'm not exactly in love with these two latest, but I'm happy to see myself letting them be whatever they are.