I'm trying to gather photos and video of all the work I've done and I'm such a jackass that I can't find any. I have documentation of ONE piece from grad school. What an ass. I made a bunch of videos, all process pieces: keeping a public journal along the bike path (before blogs), making a cross stitch of the president - then projecting the making of onto a frame of cross stitch fabric next to the actual cross stitch, a charcoal animation on family (projected onto the single sheet of paper it was made on), a four piece video installation on parenting and family for my thesis, making a 6 foot mandala out of ground up fruit loops - about parenting... all gone. I have nothing to show for my website. I guess in the university library there would be a copy of the thesis, but come on. I have 98, maybe 2003, 2005, absurd that I have nothing from 2006 - the year I graduated ART SCHOOL, 2008, 2009, and 2010 represented. Half... most of... my "career" is missing. I try to tell myself that it was all a process, part of what got me to now, all just ephemeral documentation - that's what I was into those years - family and the ephemeral - maybe why I was so half assed about maintaining good records... and that its OK, but for all that work, I should have something to show for it, for those times I need to jump through resume-style hoops.

Coming from the beef and corn center of the country where we don't like the taste of fish, I still marvel at how much my daughters still love fish flavored foods after a formative year in Japan.

I am experimenting with my paintings. I'm pouring epoxy resin directly over wet paint and oil. I honestly don't know what's going to happen, but I can't paint unless I can be openly impulsive. Hoping that I can just pour more layers of resin over any mistakes/cracks. I don't know why I keep painting portraits. I don't enjoy them. I only want to push paint around and experiment. I researched flower symbolism and half-assed some gladiolus onto Tania and Antoine - which mean 'love at first sight,' appropriate because Tania knew Antoine was hers as soon as she met him (foster-adoption.) But, I don't like painting the flowers either. Its fun to draw them for about 20 minutes, but I have no patience to make detailed florals. So I poured stuff all over them and made it about texture again.

I'll go take a picture.

Feeling Inspired. Actually spent all morning, and then some, painting in the dining room. Chris sat across from me and read a magazine for awhile, the girls sat across and painted in tempera for awhile, and I handled all the stresses while maintaining inspiration and motivation. doesn't hurt that I have a painting due in less than a week. Almost done with one, hoping to finish 3.

Influences:

Hans Hofmann


Richard Diebenkorn

William Kentridge



Cy Twombly



Jean Michel Basquiat



Alice Neel

Keith Tyson



Joan Mitchell



Really liked Melissa Herrington at Art Chicago this year - uses resin.



Hung Liu



Squeak Carnwath - can't see the translucent alkyds on screen



Franz Kline



Agnes Martin



Helen Frankenthaller



Robert Motherwell



Robert Rauschenberg



Jasper Johns


What do these pieces have in common? Most of them have a balance of bold and subtle color, a play on texture, and are abstracted. I don't usually care for realism. Its the play of translucent layers of paint that really makes my heart pound. Its more universal if its non-objective. I like that; it lasts longer for me because I can continue to read it differently over time. Some are about line, some have text, some are cathartic. I relate to most of these pieces on an emotional-visual level that is above just seeing and beyond the appreciation I can conjure up for representational work. Some paintings give me a feeling that I have to swallow them whole, that I'm desperate to crawl inside them, to never look away. They induce a panic for their beauty. I don't know if I can ever make such a thing for another person to feel, but its important not to get caught up in realism and to continue to paint from this non-verbal, emotional-visual, panic, even cathartic state. To feel the painting, never to over-think it. (I'm guilty of some of that right now.)

The other day I saw a cut corn field FULL of geese and I imagined they were the crop and you could just pick one by it's long neck.

made an octopus costume based on Chris' idea to use sweatpants. also making shredded scarves and memory wire bead bracelets. Need to finish painting for faculty show in one week. ... not sure if possible. good start but no time to myself till after I've run out of steaming. considering getting a coffee maker to fuel late-night painting. would like make a few dozen small paintings for a Christmas trunk show.

I am so tired. babysitting 4 kids today. had 9 over for art lessons. did homeschool with my 3. i love every one of these kids but its no wonder I want to escape to a magical world of Room and Board sometimes.

this is that phase of life where your daughter is old enough to snottily take the neighbor's mail out of your mailbox and ask why you don't just walk it over there yourself, then agree to bring it over, but young enough that later you find that same envelope buried in her closet. You confront her about and she laughs. You get angry and slam the door open and make a hole in the wall with the knob. The three year old is still screaming about not getting a treat she found at 8PM. Screaming. You step out to put the neighbor's mail back in the box and the dog slips out. You chase the dog around the house and the dog rightly cowers in fear of you when caught. You're old enough to have some wrinkles but young enough to have a really painful zit on your nose that you tell your three year old not to touch so she immediately honks your nose and you shriek and she starts screaming again.

it doesn't matter because its 9 and the kids are in bed and I'm finally alone. Chris will be home soon and I can't wait to see him because I'm in love with him and I'm just looking forward to sitting with him. When I close my eyes I see his kind and smiling eyes. he has a beard again. We went to a show last night. It was fun. We met about 15 people there. It was surreal to walk down a dark, deserted city street and be approached from two directions by groups of friends. like we were in a musical about a gang of indie rock fans.

the last week or two has been thrilling weather, the late afternoon fall sun gilding halos around my little girls' heads, the maple in the yard displaying pink red yellow orange and green. I started painting again, art lessons have gone well. This is a season that first brings back memories of when Chris and I first started dating and then turns into the weather when my cousin died. And I am depressed. totally unfocused and bored. and overwhelmed at the same time. and a cold. I got some bad news about family health that made my knees buckle - but everything will be alright. I'm wallowing it right now. I painted Gram and Pa's armchairs' legs red. My aunt would be so mad. But they look like sassy red tights on puce velveteen chairs. Shabby chic looks cute online but my house is starting to look too old lady. The dining room with it's fuschia curtains and each chair a different color is the best room in the house. Need more color. no more white - yawn.

yesterday was hard. the week had been really busy with art lessons, mostly organizing them and buying more and more supplies, so I was really looking forward to a laid back Friday - such nice weather. started early - long dog walk. going to 3 stores with the kids was OK but then Charlotte had tantrums for hours because, although she could do whatever else she wanted, she had to do math and spelling if she wanted to watch TV. Eleanor instigated trouble amongst her sisters that resulted in screaming throughout the day and the occasional physical fight. And the dog DIARRHEA'd on the piles of the girls' clean clothes I had removed from their explosion of a bedroom the other day. I was exhausted. My Aunt Kathy stopped by late in the evening - I had invited her for some good vegetable soup I'd made all day with yeast rolls- and like a superhero did all of my dishes. She brought her granddaughter, who played/occupied my girls and THEN took the older two home for a SLEEPOVER. I LOVE Aunt Kathy. I needed that.