Autumn Color Week: Orange

First of all, I am thrilled that one of my GREEN paintings was included in a Poppytalk post yesterday! Thank you, Poppytalk, I am honored!

Today's color is ORANGE, and I have a few pieces to share. These are actually some of my favorite small works in the past few years. Orange is such a great color to work with.


Heart & Lungs, Knees & Toes, mixed media, 2009


Franco Nero, mixed media, 2009


Please, mixed media, 2004

A Rush and a Push

One of the things I don't like about myself (as an artist and otherwise) is that I often find myself making a grand last rush (and push) to get something out the door (figuratively and literally, I suppose). I might have the best intentions, mark up my calendar, rough out a schedule... but something always seems to happen that foils my best laid plans.

This time around getting ready to ship a big box of art to New Hampshire for The Incredible Print Show at Artstream Gallery, everything ended up taking longer than I expected, from the making of the work to the arrival of the frames and mats I ordered, to the wiring and labeling of things... and true to my nature, I kept putting it off this past weekend in favor of something, anything else; gardening, in this case, because I cannot WAIT any longer to get my hands in the dirt and I thought that the manual labor would inspire me.

So what should have been done the weekend before did not get done until the weekend after, i.e. this past weekend. By the time I had everything ready to go, all the good light had gone and I had little if any time to shoot decent photos of the work, which was probably the worst part. Big lesson learned for sure: be MORE than prepared, be MORE than ahead of time. Always. I don't know why it's taken me so long to figure this obvious fact out.

Anyway, here's the six little beauts that are headed, as I write this, to southeast New Hampshire. (I am totally cursing myself about the documentation. Seriously.)


(All above are 11" x 14" framed: The Early Bird Loses the Day; Highway to Hell; and U-Men.)


(All above are 5" x 7" framed: The Why and The Wherefore; Suddenly, I've Got That Old-Time Feeling; Can You Hear It?.

Dear Ada

Ack! One of my very favorite art blogs, Dear Ada, made a post about my work! I am especially excited about this just because I love her taste in art -- I'm always learning about new artists (to me) who just blow me away. I'm just so honored to be included there. Thanks ever so much, Dear Ada!

(Yes, I know I sound incredibly juvenile in this post. I can't help it!)

Giving and getting

On Friday and Monday, I visited my old high school for the first time in over 20 years. I went because I had been invited by the current art teacher at the school (my art teacher from way back when retired a couple years ago and now works as a docent coordinator at a local museum). She asked if I would be willing to do something like a mini-residency with her students, and I gladly jumped at the chance. It was a blast! On Friday, my first day, I presented a Powerpoint slide show and talked about my work as well as how I arrived at where I am with my art today. Then, we all crowded around a table where I also showed them some smaller work that I was able to bring in to show them, as well as some of my design work, aka My Day Job. There were two separate classes, so I got to do all that twice. Suffice it to say that I was pretty zonked after that, especially considering I had to wake up at 5am to make it there in time.

(It was totally worth it, by the way.)

Yesterday was where I think everyone had the most fun. We began with me sort of demonstrating my techniques for reusing and recombobulating old work that was either just languishing in the corner for far too long, or work that I just never really liked that much to begin with. So, I started with a couple prints I made back in grad school and some other random pieces of ephemera and pages from type catalogs... and voila!

OK, well, it didn't happen that quickly and I told them it doesn't always. At that point the kids started working on their own creations and it was then that I really started having fun. It was so amazing to see how these young minds and hands went to work, totally unencumbered by rules or requirements... but, surprisingly enough, I think some of them had a hard time letting go a bit. And most of them certainly did NOT want to go cutting up their handiwork, even if it wasn't something they were very happy with. Hey, I remember what that was like...

Long story short, I had a great time and felt I was able to give something back to the school where I grew up and received so much support and encouragement. A big thank you goes to the teachers who invited and welcomed me into their classrooms: Mary Beth Zacher and Jude Kosinski.

Not to mention... all that creative activity really inspired me. By the end of the time I spent in classes, I walked away with two new works on paper myself!


Highway to Hell, mixed media, 2009


U-Men, Mixed media, 2009

New work up on my Etsy shop!

That's right -- new work is available at my Etsy shop. One small painting and one mixed media piece are for sale. Interested? Check them out!



"My Wandering Days Are Over," acrylic on canvas, 18" x 12". This one won an honorable mention award at the 2009 Big Orbit Members' Show in Buffalo, NY.



"Trouble in the Underworld," mixed media, 7" x 9.25".