Giving A Hand To A Friend

Meet my friend, Pam Creamer.  The picture is not the "real" Pam.  It's Pam With Lyme's Disease.  The "real" Pam is a talented painter, lover of animals, vivacious, energetic, loving, generous, independent, gracious, FUN, loyal....and....painfully ill with Lyme's Disease.  She has fought it for years, handling it on her own (with her partner, Anita) until all of their income and savings, including their business, is gone.  But here's the thing...she has begun a series of IV treatments in NYC because her friends have opened a website  to help raise funds for this staggeringly expensive treatment.  There have been so many, many donations and she is moving through the treatment protocol like the champion she is - it is very painful and debilitating, but it is working!  This is an ugly disease that takes a horrible tole on the body, not to mention the mind and the spirit!  But Pam is a fighter!  We believe she will conquer this and be able to paint again - and painting is how she has always made her living and paid her bills.

The thing is, and why you are seeing this on my blog, is that we have stalled out on the donations, and we have a little ways more to go to finish the treatments.  So, I am asking all of you reading this, all of you who have loved my work, supported me with your purchases, taken classes from me, been inspired by my work or my words, to please show that today by clicking Pam's picture, and making a donation to this wonderful team effort to get Pam well.  I know we all get asked all the time to donate, donate, donate.  But, if you will make a donation of $10 to Pam, I will send you a packet of greeting cards with pictures of my gourd sculptures as a huge thank you for joining our team (that's a $20 value for your donation of $10 - not a bad deal).  Just leave a comment here on my post or email me through my website and I will get the cards in the mail to you.

Think of this as paying it forward, of being an angel, of sending some love like a pebble thrown in the pond - making ripples that go on forever.

Thanks for your help!

 

http://www.gofundme.com/o36z4

Wine & Art: The Perfect Pairing

Recently I had an opportunity arise in the form of an invitational exhibit at our local winery here in NC.  Cauble Creek Vineyard invited several artists working in several mediums to show up to three pieces with the only stipulation being that one of them should have something to do with wine.  I have had grapes on my list of sculptural gourd pieces to do for years and have never gotten around to!  This seemed like the perfect time.  And so it was.  I am happy to say that it sold at the opening and will be residing right here in Salisbury.

Here are several views of "Full Bodied".  It has lead to another piece, almost finished, for the Celebration of Fine Art in Scottsdale, as well as a request for drawings for a totally different "wine piece" for the wall.

                             

In an English Garden

A big project is finished and ready to deliver this week.  It is a companion piece to a peony and butterfly piece I did a number of years ago.  They are both 44" tall and In an English Garden will be a gorgeous mate.  The first piece is all rose reds and pinks with butterflies zipping through them in shades of yellows, blues, lilacs and whites, and perched on shades of green leaves and sunlit blooms.  This new piece is a rambling garden of a variety of blue and purple iris, peach and cream lilies, deep green hosta with delicate white blooms, some roses peeking out.  Dragonflies are here and there and a few other surprises as well.

I was asked to do this with the utmost trust that I would do something "just right", and I hope these lovely clients will be as pleased as I am.  That is always the thing, with commission work.  Will the expectations be fulfilled?  Will the artist understand the request?  Will the client be so nervous that the artist feels constrained and indecisive about the end design?  It really all is a delicate balance between them, and often hinges on how much each knows of the other.  The artist, being the artist after all, will have a strong vision of the work colored by her style.  If the client isn't very familiar with that style, or if the artist isn't solid in a particular style, the visions can be drastically different - sometimes not even in the same park.  The client may have a strong vision too - perhaps something he seen in a photograph or a place visited, a memory.  But if the client isn't able to tell the artist some particulars about that vision - something beyond a color palette or medium for example - then there's a good chance that a problem may arise.

How do we avoid such a mishap?  Artists need to be certain that the client understands her style and has seen several examples, preferably in the flesh as well as in the portfolio.  And I believe the artist should ask many questions - questions dealing with the more subtle aspects of the request - questions like, what is the angle from which you will view my work?  What other things are in the peripheral view?  What other artwork is near?  What is the overall "feel" you are wanting to create for that space?  Conversation that is more ephemeral perhaps, but the answers may get to a deeper place from which the client may clarify his expectations.  If we take a little extra time to distinguish these things, I think commission work can be exciting and very satisfying for both the artist and the client.

Then, every once in while, some wonderful people will say to you, "Do what you think is best - we love your work!"

Detail

In an English Garden

another view

another view

another view

and another

I can't decide which I like best!

Follow my Blog

I just added this gadget to the right so you can follow my Blog.  I'd love to have you comment on these thoughts and ramblings, and to know I am reaching you out there in the ethers!  Thanks!

Windows of Opportunity

Last 7 days of the Celebration of Fine Art 2010 here in Scottsdale!  Beautiful weather and still more beautiful artwork!

This year has been remarkable and we've had great sales, so some things that you may have looked at are gone, BUT we have some great work we'd love you to see - Syed has almost sold out of his little single window pieces, but has about 6 left.

I have 2 Japanese boxes left, and one large Japanese piece in soft, matte colors.  We'd love to see you so come in and say hello.

The Seven Poppies Question

This piece has been in the entry area of the Celebration of Fine Art for a week or so.  It's an interesting exercise to put a work out of your daily vision for a while and then come back to it.  I have always loved this piece.  It is so close to a perfect interpretation of what was in my head!  To see it afresh amazed me, and with humility, I say that it is still among the best three pieces I have ever done.

That raises the question of value.  Sure, it has a price tag on it.  But it is a piece that may well remain in my personal collection.  I don't believe in keeping much of my own work.  I think it can be too self-congratulatory and often acts like a kind of glue, sticking you to an idea, an image, an interpretation, when what I want to do is to keep experimenting, move onward, test new ground, push the limits of this humble material, and, of course, the boundaries of my imagination.

So.  Keep it?  Sell it?

New Collection of Japanese Inspired Work

Just finished a large work inspired by Japanese Ukiyoe woodblock prints.  Subtle and sophisticated colors in rich earth tones accented by spots of deep corals.  Forgot my camera at the show yesterday, but I'll get a pic posted tomorrow.  It looks fabulous beside another piece which sits in an old glass and wood display case which has the feel of country Japanese architecture.

Migraines

Migraines. Do you have them? Then what I write here will probably resonate with you. If you have never had one you can only wonder and be grateful for your good fortune.

It's not the aching head that is the test. It's the Black Hole. If I can manage to get through the two or three day ordeal without going down the Black Hole, I don't consider it a migraine - just what I euphemistically call "a really, really bad headache". Vomiting doesn't count. Nor does complete intolerance of light and movement. What counts, after nearly 50 years of these nightmares, is the Black Hole.

The Black Hole is where the pain takes me to after being down for about 24 hours, continuous stabbing pain unabated, unable even to move. The darkness inside my brain manifests as depression accompanied by increasingly morbid thoughts about loved ones - fears made powerfully real down there in the Hole. I cannot cry the terrors away - migraine pain makes crying not the release of emotion, but the agony of nausea, vomiting and greater pressure in an already overly pressurized cabin. I cannot even give voice to the visions of these terrors, unwilling to allow them into my conscious, and currently sane mind. For years I feared I was simply "going crazy". But finally, on day 3, I would know it was behind me, just the "hangover" day to cope with. Day 5, back to life.

Lately, for the past several years, I have been experiencing a change in the nature of the headache. For years I knew the instant one had begun its attack - a sharp stabbing pain behind my eyes, slight dizziness, and a heaviness of my head - my neck unable to support what rapidly became a boulder. Putting life aside as quickly as possible - turn the gas stove off, get the child out of the bath, call Dad to watch the kids, try to finish the work day & get home safely, whatever I was engaged in had to come to a close as I headed for the bed, the dark, the silent, often feeling like I had failed somehow to control my psyche, visualize good health, be in the moment, remove stress from my life, be positive about my world view, eat this, don't eat that. Friends, relatives, therapists, doctors - all opined on the cause and cure of my migraines, as though I, myself, didn't obsess about it - Oh! that must be it - you are obsessing! Now why couldn't I have figured that out?

Over the years I discovered some good medication (Cafergot - old, tried and true, and cheaper than all the new stuff), acupuncture (the miracle worker Dutch physician that used to live on Orcas Island saved me from insanity, I'm certain), and after many years, the ability to "go with it" - the migraine. Embrace it, I believe, is the current language. Enter Stephen King. Yep, horror story King of the Hill. I heard him interviewed on NPR. He was asked (maybe it was a Terry Gross interview) about his ideas and how did they not frighten him. His answer, as I recall, was about giving voice to his greatest nightmares so that they could no longer hold sway over him...once he had given them a voice, they were simply stories, not REAL, not even potentially real. And so, next migraine I gave it a try, while I was in the Black Hole....here they came, in all their horrid violence, and I whispered down deep in my soul, you are not real, you are just my pain, you are not real, you are just my pain, you are not real, you are just my pain... No, it did not catapult me out of the Black Hole. It didn't even shorten the length of the migraine. But it did change something in me. It gave me the strength to, yes, embrace the pain, and in that embrace I knew in that moment, and in every similar moment in every migraine thereafter, that this was JUST a migraine, not a failing, not a psychosis, not self-induced, not punishment, not a sign of things to come, not my dark side, not too much coffee, not denial, not eggplant and tomatoes...just a migraine, and it will pass. Thank you Stephen King.

As menopause came on, the migraines began to fade. What? Did I not spend ten out of the last thirty days in bed this month??? With each passing year I had fewer and fewer marathon head bangers (and by the way, if you have ever wondered how that expression came into being, I think it was someone who, as I have done on several occasions, simply banged their head on a hard surface in an attempt to alleviate the migraine pain with a different pain - to turn to a different brain channel, fool your endorphins, jump the track, pass out - anything, ANYTHING, A N Y T H I N G to get away from the pain!). Amazing. I was almost migraine free. I almost laughed at the two-aspirin headaches I would now, occasionally, experience.

But here's the rub. Bummer. A couple of years ago I swatted at the pest that knocked loudly at the back of my head. When the bones in my face felt like I'd been beaten, I pronounced, "It's just sinus" and headed for the pharmacy. Gradually the insistent monster appeared full force, once again snatching me out of my day and slamming me flat in the cold, dark, quiet. The Black Hole alive and well.

Here's the difference now. Sometime in the Stephen King transitional phase, I spied, while in the Hole whispering to the horribleness, the edge of the Hole. It looked like a spiral. I was sliding down the spiral hole into the depression and the fearful visions. Weird. Not falling. Just spiraling downward. Then something new happened. I was sliding down the darkness, reaching a plateau of some sort, when out of the corner of my inner eye, I saw something light and colorful. My brain jerked to a stop, then made a hard right, and that's when I saw the something light and colorful resting on a level UP on the spiral.

I now know the power of the creative mind. The something light and colorful was and is the creative energy at work underneath the migraines and all the bio-chemical depression that comes with them. It was, that day, an idea, perhaps for a tapestry, or a painting, or a solution to some problem. It has been, on other days in other migraines, a vision of a piece of art I would see full-blown, an absolutely "new" idea born on that spiral, proof of spirit alive and well. Now, I recognize the spiral in migraine and wait for the light and colorful to capture me. Then it's a sure climb out of the Black Hole.

Next week I'll post a picture of the something light and colorful from the migraine I just climbed out of. In the meantime, I wish for all of you, good health, and great manifestations of your own creative energy.

FRUSTRATIONS!!

There are just some times when the best laid plans of mice, men and artists go astray!  What you see here is Syed taking my Foredom apart for (hopefully) repairs.  That would be because I nearly drilled a hole in my stomach when the grinder got caught in my tee shirt, instantly wrapped it until the torque stopped the motor just a fraction of a hair's width away from my abdomen.  Good that it stopped.  Bad that it broke the shaft.  I was reduced to finishing the "grinding" of ragged edges with a knife - very slow.

I was working on this Iris piece and ran into a little dilemma trying to clean the inside of the neck.  It's a very strong gourd but the slits are not wide enough to get any kind of tool through to shave the plant material away.  So, I cut an entire section away, giving me better access.  With a bit of luck I will be able to fit it back together so you can't see the joins.

I'm thinking of looking for a job designing puzzles.  Maybe gourd puzzles.  I wonder if there's a market...

Back to work...time is flying and my fall show schedule starts next weekend.  Isn't that what Labor Day is about....working???

Commission

I love doing commission work because it makes me think in ways different than I would under ordinary circumstances. When Peggy and Larry asked me about doing a strawberry, I wasn't too sure - but doing the "patch" proved to be lots of fun. This is about 12" w and sits nicely without an added base.

I am recovering nicely from my hip replacement - at 2 weeks I am walking around on my own and off the pain meds. It's good to be back in the studio where I am at work on a couple of tall Iris pieces - one of old fashioned brown iris and one in purple/blue.

Developing Ideas left and right!

When an artist works in more than one medium, it 's interesting to see the intersections and the ways techniques can overlap and complement each other. I am working here on a flat wood surface, basically doing exactly what I do on the gourds - draw the image, engrave the line in with a woodburner, and paint. The effect is quite similar to the gourds, and rather unique for a flat painting - almost more like looking at a tile piece. This is the beginning of a body of work having to do with women of various cultures surrounded by the patterns of their lives. Look for more at the Celebration of Fine Art in January!

Working on Japanese inspired box designs.

Currently, in an effort to respond to the cautious marketplace, I am working on box designs.  This means a couple of things to an artist.  First, it means that we are developing a price range that is accessible for a wide range of incomes.  Secondly, and of great opportunity for the artist, it means we can work out ideas for new work, or in my case, for elements of larger work in a vein not previously investigated.  I like these very graphic types of designs.  They work well in color and black and white.  They lend themselves to intricate ways of filling space and to creating complexities in negative and positive space.  Watch and see what happens and these little works grow up.

Celebration of Fine Art

Beautiful opening day on Friday!  What's better than art and 70 degrees?  The show is spectacular!  We have some very talented new people and many of the veterans of the show have spent the year getting special pieces ready for this special event.  The Celebration is a very out-of-the-box artshow.  We artists appreciate the support we get for expermenting in new techniques and materials, concepts and ideas that stretch us and ultimately make for more dynamic work. 

Keep an eye on this blog as I post pics from the show, or, just come on in and see the work in person.

Celebration of Fine Art 2009

The tents are up and we're ready to start setting up on Monday - the drive from NC this year was a bit easier since we are pulling a smaller trailer....and because we kept our vow to skip the junk and fast food.  Had a small delay in Dallas with a bad wheel bearing, but found a great garage to do the repairs and we were on our way again.  Come and see us at the Celebration of Fine Art, opening Friday, Jan. 16...lots of new work. 

The Process

 What is a clear picture in my head passes through many states of being before completion - currently this newest project (a large commission piece of an Iris garden) is in what I refer to as THE CHINESE NIGHTMARE phase.  Now, this is not meant to be a cultural insult of any kind, so I hope none of you are taking offense.  Rather it is simply what a nightmare dreamt by a single-language American girl might look like in Chinese........but in another couple of weeks it will be quite another story.  Till then, enjoy the pictures of the process....and, btw, the finished work will be on display for the opening weekend of The Celebration of Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ, Jan 16-18.