Tree

My plan was going great, I even managed to finish one miniature. It's a little version of "Big Apron, Little Girl." I plan to do a big version for my show when I get home.

It was going great, my painting plan, till my dad, my sister, and I were told that we need a finished painting advertising for our "Tree of Life" show by the third week of July. The show is in October, so this is unexpected. I have a couple half-finished... at home. I decided, rather than having Gavin send me the paintings to finish, I would start something new. Here is the drawing for the painting I will start tomorrow. I'm really excited about it. And, I am geared up and ready to paint like the wind.

Tree of Life, it gives us shade
Tree of Life, we've got it made
Tree of Life, I better run fast
Tree of Life, I'm late for class

Chump, Muthahardinyourfacejack, 1996

Website

My website has finally been updated! (It's been over a year.) The Current page is all paintings from 2008. And, 2007 on the Archive page is up to date. I've tweeked about everything, but there are still a few kinks to work out. I love my website.I am working on some fun stuff here in Utah, but I miss the paintings I left at home. I had almost finished these two before we left and I'm itchin' to call something done. These are Bound and She Wore her Heart on her Apron Pocket.

Art City

I took my sweet girls to the Springville Art Museum yesterday to see the Spring Salon. Besides having to touch everything and baby running around sans shoes, dress or diaper, they were perfect angels. After a treat we took a trip down memory lane. They wanted to see all the places we lived in Provo and to see BYU campus. We had a lot of fun, but we miss daddy.

Longest day of the year, indeed

Well, we painted plein air.

We painted the exquisite water lilies on Friday, serenaded by bullfrogs and giant jumping fish.
On Saturday we worked in a grove of shady trees, avoided the worst of the heat, and got to enjoy dad's interactions with his fans.You have good days, you have off days. For me, I'll just say, you can't win them all. We sure had a lot of fun though.

Whoa Daddy

And so the adventure begins. Tomorrow is the first day of the Thanksgiving Point Plein Air Painting Festival. We call it an adventure to cover our inadequacies when we are faced with painting landscapes, from life, in two days... to display for our peers and potential buyers. In order to do all we can to be prepared, this afternoon we drove around the gardens for an hour in a golf cart, scoping out paintable vistas and vignettes. Though we had a lot of fun hanging off the back of the cart with my dad at the wheel... we came up with nothing. No idea what or where we are going to paint. I'm not nervous yet, but I am getting there. We also try to cover our shortcoming with humor, so you can expect something off the wall and out of the plein air norm. Here's to hoping we come up with something brilliant.

Craftin' Time

My list of baby presents has been growing and a few are long over due. Sounds like it's craftin' time. I saw this fun idea online, unfortunately I cannot find the link to share with you. I'll just show you how I did it.
First, I used an exacto to cut out a little picture/image/word on a piece of freezer paper.
Then I used spray adhesive to tack the stencil down to a onesie and blotted it with fabric paint.
And voila, I have some goofy, personalized baby presents.

Miniatures

In a couple of days we head off to Utah. I will get some painting time (hopefully) bumming space in my dad and my sister's studios. Deciding what to take to work on was too complicated, so I am leaving everything here - unfinished, hanging in mid air, thoughts and images hibernating in the corners of my mind (and studio) - and I am starting all new pieces. I have committed to three miniature shows (small paintings that don't make you disloyal to your galleries because they hardly count) over the next year. They all want two pieces each, so that will be six little paintings I will need to squeeze in here and there. Why not get them all done in one shot and have six less things to worry about.I want paint this one like Andrew Wyeth. I seriously doubt my capability, but with my dad's help I'll see how close I can get. Hopefully I'll learn something. If I could paint like Andrew Wyath.... sigh.
This one is a spin off of my fifteen piece apron series. It's really small, get out the magnifying glass. It has a full circle thing going on, the ends match up.
This one should be interesting... A Christmas tree ornament?

Mantra

I need a mantra. As I mentioned a few posts ago I will be featured as one of Southwest Art magazine's "21 under 31" up and coming artists this year. I have a phone interview next week and will be asked some randomly challenging questions. I did my research and have a list of questions to work on. That way I don't have to spew clever and intelligent answers on the spot. The questions are a little different every year, so I'm sure there will be a pleasant surprise for me go, "um, um... I don't know, I can't really think of anything... what would you say?... um..." One of the questions in previous years is, "What is your mantra or motto?" I only plan to blubber like that once, so help me out with some ideas! Do you have a mantra? We have a family motto: We're all in this chihuahua. It's a long story. But one that is art related? Hmm, any ideas? I also possibly need a quirkiest trait and a biggest fear. Oh, and here is the closer, "I'll know I've made it when..." Oh boy. I'll come up with something, but I'm pretty stuck on the mantra.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

You know how what doesn't kill you makes you stronger? And there is that whole tree growing in the wind thing. Well, given the trials that this painting is going through, it is destined to be really great.
It already had a rough start. I got the drawing just so and and it needed to be cropped. We took a saw to the end and it turned out pretty straight (thank goodness for frames and their eighth inch give). Once I stared painting, I lost all self control and painted all the fun parts before it was prudent. Then...My friend's son came in my studio when we weren't paying attention (rock band can do that to you) and took a crayon to the painting. Luckily the crayon was the color of vomit, so when I threw up all over the painting it blended right in. Just kidding. I'll recover, it will just take more work and more time, which I don't have enough of as it is - but it will work out in the end. Just when I had emotionally recovered from this incident and started to really get into it...I left to make dinner and my little Ezra grabbed a brush and went to town. I've fixed it, but man! I have to say, my kids are very respectful of my paintings and have never done this before. I am grateful for that. I'm trying not to overreact and lock my door. I love that this is "our" studio and my kids get to be creative and make stuff every day. I'll just have to work harder to keep paintings out of little two-year-old reach.

Tooth Fairy

A Piece of Bound

Oh sleep, sweet nectar of mortality. How I wish I could do without you. As much as I love the magical land you take me to and the comfort you give me, I ask for only a night or two...elve. If I could have this time, the next eight hours, to work away uninterrupted, it would be a dream.

Allow me, Just this Once

You know when you read something and it says exactly what you think, nailing how you feel on a certain topic? I read an interview in Mothering magazine this morning with musician Ani DiFranco. This is so not art related, completely of the topic, and a little lengthy. You may get thrown off, so this is your chance to stop reading and go do something productive instead. Here is what Ani DiFranco says about her childbirth experience:

I decided I wanted a homebirth, but I was shocked at how hard it was to find a homebirth midwife in Buffalo. The whole experience of childbirth and pregnancy was an introduction to feminist thought and study that I'd previously been unaware of, in terms of the way that childbirth was co-opted, and is so controlled by the medical/patriarchal establishment.
It makes me really sad that women have been ejected from the seat of their power in this society in terms of what happpens around childbirth. In other parts of the world, there are places where women can't drive a car, but they're still in charge of childbirth. I look at my society and think, how emancipated are we, really? We can play basketball, but can we benefit from eons of women's wisdom that accords a birthing woman the support and time to give birth healthily? Those elements are absent in our society for so many women.
I've always been very aware of the animal I am. If I walked into a flourescent-lit hospital with people pressuring me to get it done, take drugs, get on my back, and put my legs up in the air, it wouldn't have worked. As Ina May [Gaskin] says, the cervix is a sphincter: It doesn't open if it's not relaxed.
I knew I needed to be at home, comfortable - not feeling any pressure. I agree with that whole school of thought that if I were drugged through that moment of revelation, It would have taken something away from my life journey. I'm really happy in the end that I felt every last bit of the pain, and was as present as I could be. Whenever you go through something terrifying and come out the other side, you grow and have more self-respect in terms of your own strengths. I wanted that more than I wanted whatever sort of numbing that the hospital would have offered. The way I finally got my labor going after two days was to march up and down my stairs. I couldn't have done that in the hospital - they wouldn't have let me climb up and down stairwells for hours, naked and screaming. [laughs] But that was a necessary part of my process.
Birthing naturally, as most women do around the globe, is a superhuman act. You leave behind the comforts of being human and plunge back into being an animal. My firend's partner said, "Birth is like going for a swim in the ocean. Will there be a riptide? A big storm? Or will it just be a beautiful, sunny little dip?" Its indeterminate length the mystery of its process, is so much a part of the nature of birth. The regimentation of a hospital that wants to make it happen and use their gizmos to maximum efect is counter to birth in general.

Amen sister. I would not trade my three births, two at home, for any experience this life has to offer. From these, I grew and have had a peek at my infinite potential and strength as a woman that I pull from every day as a mother. I loved it so much, I think I'll do it again... not yet, but soon.

Desert Flower

We just got back from camping by the beach at Santa Cruz, California. Sigh. I really love the ocean. I have previously thought I was meant to live near water. Thought I needed the humidity, vegetation, and all the smells that go with it. On this trip, I found myself craving the hot, dry air of the desert. Longing to return home where I could bake in the sun and get satisfactorily dried out. This caught me by surprise. Perhaps I was wrong and I was built to bask in the desert sun all along.

Pop

I have so many ideas that my head is about to pop. I can't get them out fast enough because I never get enough painting time. (I am only half complaining, I would much rather have this than too much painting time and not enough ideas - I never get bored). So, a couple weeks ago my friend/dentist/fellow ward member gave me a box with sixty-something 8"x11" masonite panels that were used as clip boards at a youth conference. Just when I thought I had a handle on things and could sit back and actually finish something.

Picture this: You walk into the gallery, you see a few amazing paintings with beautiful colors, captivating figures in aprons and intense ideas on a room divider, obscuring hidden treasures waiting to be explored deeper in the cavern. You look right, a trio of more of such paintings. You look left, strung across the wall, fifteen paintings identical in size and simple frames, spaced an inch or two apart suck you in. As you walk along viewing the small paintings, you feel their tension and tensegrity, each pushing and pulling and weaving into and out of the next. Till you get to the last piece and are released.

That is my vision and I can hardly wait to get to it. So, I got a model over here and got to work. I will play with ideas of duty, sisterhood, toil and a little tenderness. Will I ever finish anything? Will my head explode or stay in tact? Is there anyone who will clean up the mess? Stay tuned.

Desert

I just came across this music video by french singer Emilie Simon (click here to see it). Love love love it. When I saw it, I felt like it came out of my head. I wish it had.

And yay for my new nephew, Anchor, born yesterday!!

Bound

Bound by a duty
That feels a little tight
Bound by love
So strong I feel fright
Bound and determined
Not to choke or suffocate
Bound to a promise
I cannot abdicate
Bound for eternity
Wrapped up in an embrace

Segullah

My sister, Cass, and I were featured artists in the spring issue of Segullah, Writings by Latter-Day Saint Women. It is a really neat publication, I have enjoyed reading through this issue. It makes me want to write poetry and essays and stuff. The theme is Roots and Branches. Displaying our art together fit the theme, as we are shoots off the same branch. Our art also lends itself well to the theme because we paint with a lot of introspection and familial themes.

Happy Day

Happy happy birthday Ezra dear
Happy days will come to you all year
If I had a wish that it would be a
Happy happy birthday to you from me

From breakfast-in-bed together to dip-dipping in cheeshe fondu, Ezra Petunia and I had a wonderful 2nd birthday/mother's day. I made her a cute little skirt. And while I was at it, I made her a doll with a matching outfit and a birthday crown with leftover scraps from her skirt. She was stinkin' cute.

Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful mothers out there. A special, heart-felt Happy Mother's Day to my mom. You are wonderful and I love you. It's a grand realization when you become a mother yourself and stand in awe of all your mom did (and with minimal freaking out) for five kids! Thanks mom, couldn't have asked for better.

Epic

I'm taking on a two by three and a half foot painting! I'm pretty excited to start working on it. Will my attention span hold out to cover the entire panel? We'll see. I'll have to get a good book on tape going and ignore the kids while they reek havoc and watch movies. This is a rough drawing of what the piece will look like. It's about sisterhood and all sorts of mushy and gushy stuff. This is huge, I hope it ends up as amazing as it is in my head. Wish me luck.

A little complaint: Remember when those paintings disappeared from my front porch? Never to be seen again. I was just thinking about that as I pack up paintings to ship to Park City. I really look forward to taking the large box into the shipping store with my small children in tow. That should be fun.

A little boast: Southwest Art magazine just accepted me into their artists under 31 deal. Not only will I be in the magazine, but they liked my piece so much they are using it on their post card to advertise the issue. Cool.

Knot (the unfinished painting)

I try to be positive in my art - to uplift, praise, glorify, encourage, define, idealize and unite. I also can't help but be honest and speak from my heart. Sometimes these two concepts will not coexist. This piece is very expressive about how I sometimes feel about my role as mother/homemaker. I have talked a lot about bees and their dichotomy: they make honey and they sting. Motherhood is like that. I hesitate to put my frustrations and inadequacies out there, I don't want to bring anyone down. So, I kind of want cop-out with, "read into this what you will," and leave it at that. I think the image is obvious enough and we all feel it at times - that our apron strings are tied in a knot. Maybe we should talk about it, I don't know.