Put your coffee cup on it

I just realized that I have been remiss by not yet promoting a cool local business that has been one of my creative partners for the last few years.  Loudeac Tile Studio, operated by Jean and Phil from Newfield, print art on ceramic and stone tiles.  Which includes my art...among several other local artists of all sorts, and classics like William Morris.  Here's their website and their blog, check them out!  You can order several sizes and surfaces, tiles for coasters or trivets or wall art or even tile murals. What the heck, tile your bathroom with a million little Star Trees if you can stand it.

Also, they recently opened a store in Collegetown called Magpie Gallery, tucked in a side street near the main intersection of Dryden Rd and College Ave, right near that yummy Vietnamese restaurant.  Lots of lovely things, shiny objects for your inner magpie.

Korova show reception on Sunday!

Here's a shot of part of my show at Korova (thanks Scott for good photos!).  This is about half of the room, and you can see 4 of the new paintings.  I really love the way Tim hung everything, all the clusters and levels set the work off so nicely.  Can you see my favorite live oak from Santa Cruz over there in the corner?

So tomorrow evening, Sunday April 19th, is the official reception.  It starts at 8:00, when the place opens.  If you're in the area, please stop in.  The address is 214 The Commons.

Odetta

  
Meet Odetta.  He or she is a baby Eastern painted turtle, who has been living here in a tank on my dining table since late last fall.  (Gender is anyone's guess at this stage, so let's call the little critter a "he" to avoid cumbersome inclusive pronoun gymnastics.)  When he arrived, egg tooth still attached, he looked like a tiny colorful wind-up toy (see photo on the left), with little beady eyes glittering and wee legs vigorously churning.  I took the photo on the right today, 4-5 months later.  Huge!  Well, relatively.  Still totally cute, and exquisitely perfect and colorful.  

Turtles live a pretty simple life.  Odetta pretty much spends his days bobbing around in the water, craning his neck around, basking on the rock with legs sticking out, watching me, waiting for food, munching on spinach leaves, occasional bouts of vigorous swimming.  What do turtles think about?  Do they get bored?  Why do they seem so wise?

Tomorrow morning I'm driving Odetta to a new home at the Montezuma Audubon Center, where he will live in a big tank that is part of an interpretive panel that features a mural I painted last August.  I'll miss hanging out with Odetta, small alien intelligent presence.

Kew Gardens oak tree

It's Monday morning, when I make my lists and assess the week ahead as I drink my morning tea.  It looks to a rather full week.  Freelance projects and market work has been sneaking up on me, and multiplying like rabbits when I haven't been looking.  

Here's a linoleum block print I made last fall, using two blocks.  The tree image this time comes from some sketches from Kew Gardens, made when I was in London last spring.  Kew is an amazing place  with a rich history, and I am extra fond of it because it's where I did my botanical illustration internship.

Linoleum block printing is a fun, very low-tech means of printmaking.  I played with it a lot during the patient months of waiting for the etching press (not low-tech) to arrive.  You can even make prints in this style using styrofoam and a ballpoint pen to score the lines.

Alright, off to actually tackle the weekly list instead of just looking at it.

Easter

It's Easter, my housemates had their new baby girl, the hostas are coming up, and there's a blush of red on the maple hillsides.  New life everywhere, renewal and change and cause for joy.

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices

In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices

And the weak spirit quickens to rebel

For the bent golden-rod and lost sea smell

Quickens to recover

The cry of quail and the whirling plover

And the blind eye creates

The empty forms between the ivory gates

And smell renews the salt savor of the sandy earth

-TS Eliot, Ash Wednesday

Quiet week

Well, it has been a super quiet week here in my little arty world, and I'm finding interesting blog post ideas to be thin on the ground.  So I'll just put up an amusing chicken photo (this is Clara) and ramble for a moment in case inspiration strikes.  The Farmers' Market started up last weekend on a wicked cold windy day.  It snowed quite a lot this week, I finished my taxes (and now would like to request a federal bailout package so I can buy groceries and pay my electric bill, thanks!), and I've been working on an illustration project involving alternative ways of increasing rice yield for small farms in developing nations.  

It's beautiful outside, and I'm heading out for a run instead of sitting here on my computer.  You should do the same.

Comments

I know people read this blog (hi Mom!), but I've had several people say they've had difficulty making comments.  I just reset that to allow anyone to comment regardless of what kind of account they have, etc.  So please leave your thoughts...! 

My alter ego

It's a rainy darkish Monday here in Ithaca.  It was a busy weekend, with the Farmers' Market starting up and all (it snowed).  Currently I'm digging out from under another pile of paperwork and generally attending to the non-glamorous side of running one's own business.  I am also procrastinating on a project... although procrastination is kind of productive because then I do everything else that needs to be done.  

Speaking of glamour, let me introduce my alter ego.  Some friends and I had a riotously good time at a sort of costume party this weekend.  I love dressing up, and also love that I have friends who don't mind being outrageous in public.

Artist's proof

Here is the first print that went through my press...a small copper plate etching called "Inner Child."  I spent the whole rainy afternoon in my newly carved studio space, harmonizing loudly with Emmylou Harris ("Wrecking Ball" is one of my all-time favorite albums) while sorting out my system of water baths, inks and blotting paper.  Made many prints.  I think the press is dreamy.  My cats however are very skeptical of the big scary machine and tiptoed nervously around the room.

"Frail my heart apart and play me a little Shady Grove..." she sang.

Negative space

Negative space in art is the space around the object in focus.  I first heard the phrase in a high school art class, when we were trying to draw chairs.  Our teacher told us to look not just at the chairs themselves, but at the shapes of the spaces between, and to draw those shapes.  Amazing, it worked...I use this trick all the time when drawing.  Lately I've been thinking this is perhaps the most important part of designing a piece of art, and I like to play with it.  Sometimes I spend more time on the background than on the object.  The spaces between and around your subject are what create interest.  In the drawing here, what you see are the trees...but what I drew was the spaces around the trees.  

As time has gone on, this idea of negative space has matured for me to extend beyond the art application.  We see stars because of the dark sky they sit in.  In music, it's the flow and variations in the spaces between the notes that make the notes shine.  In words, sometimes it's what's NOT said that should be listened to the closest.  In people, often it's the things you don't know that are intriguing.  In relationships, it's the context around the moment which give the moment shape and meaning.

Background, mystery, silence, intrigue, context, flow.

Starwheel

My etching press is here!  I'm in love, it's beautiful.  *sigh*  All that is lacking now are some C-clamps in the correct size to anchor it to the table, and then I can start pulling prints in my own basement.  In fact, I can pull prints at 2 AM in my pajamas if I want.  

I recently learned that the big spoked wheel that turns the press rollers is called the starwheel.  I think that sounds very romantic and lovely.

I am a big fan of complicated processes for making art.  Old-school arcane processes are the best.  Whether it's the steps involved in an etching, planning the colors in a batik, reduction linoleum block prints, making a fine botanical plate, I enjoy sorting it out.  Ironically, I also like to make acrylic paintings that take under 2 hours.  

Nebraska as role model

Have you ever looked at your cat and wished you could have their life?  Like...that your job could be sitting about on a cushion on the sunshine looking pretty, while your person feeds and dotes on you?  Or that you could get away with being completely obnoxious (i.e. poaching bits of toast off your person's plate) just because you're cute?  Or that you could spend all day curled on the futon and no one would think you were a total lazy wastrel?  

On the downside though, they have to eat cat food.

This is Nebraska, and his brother (the one laying by my head in my photo) is Turtle.