smARTypants: Art for the not so serious

Summer pleasures: Watermelon

It's officially summer!
And I'm giving myself permission to enjoy it the way I did when I was little. I was just telling someone the other day: Well, we're doing this, and then we're doing that, and we're going here and there, and then when we get back summer will be half over...
And I thought: why am I wasting it like this? Why am I treating it like it's something to be gotten through, like a dentist's appointment or traffic court?!
Summer should be enjoyed like a ripe peach. Or a sun-warmed tomato from the garden. Just bite into it and savor it and stop thinking about how you should really be canning those peaches or making spaghetti sauce from the tomatoes so that next winter you'll be glad you spent your summer days thinking about the future.
Meanwhile you're missing the summer itself because you're trying so hard to capture it in a jar.

Watermelon is one of those evanescent summer pleasures that are immediate and fleeting. There is no such thing as saving it for later. Watermelon is meant to be eaten in the here and now, when it is juicy and ripe.
Sometimes, though, you can sort of cheat and make it last a little bit longer. These watermelon popsicles look like a good idea for a hot, hot afternoon when all you want to do is hang out on the cool front porch and watch the heat waves shimmer over the pavement. Or for a too-warm evening while sitting out in the backyard under the light of a waning moon.

Get the recipe here - along with a truly bizarre concept: watermelon donuts.

Look! Up in the sky!

Michael Riley: Untitled, from the series flyblown (blue sky with cloud), 1998

I love the sky and all things in it. I love flying birds and overarching rainbows and small planes and blowing leaves and most of all, clouds. I love wispy mare's tails of an early day in spring, towering mounds of white thunderheads on a hot summer afternoon, the gray underbellies of cumulus clouds heavy with unspent rain.
I love the racing shadows clouds cast across the ground when the winds aloft are moving swiftly. I love a sudden bright burst of sun smashing through them at sunset. I love lying under the skylight and watching that circumscribed square for what may drift across my field of vision.

I know I've mentioned this cloud-crush before: it's something that lifts me up, elevates my soul. The sky is my cathedral. the clouds my patron saints and angels. And apparently there are other like-minded people in the world. My good friend and art buddy Jan Heigh just sent me a link to this wonderful site: The Cloud Appreciation Society.

This charmingly eccentric (and yet completely earnest) site is full of cloud-lore, cloud photos, art and poetry for those among us who can't get enough of what happens up there in the wild blue yonder. Check out the Cloud of the Month archive to see which is your favorite.
I have to admit a personal preference for lenticular and cap-clouds, which can often be seen perched atop some of the higher mountains here in Oregon and Washington.

"I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee..." (Carly Simon)

This is my brain on vacation

"Early Rio Mar" by Florida Highwayman artist Sam Newton

Sometimes all my creative activity ceases and I find myself sitting still for long periods of time, just thinking. Wondering. Struggling with what it is that's supposed to come next. I've accepted that I am in a period of transition, in which my art is taking a new direction - but I have been very unsure where it's going. I have messed around with collage (again) and acrylic paint (again) and have taken some tentative steps toward working with fabric. But I still feel like I am stepping carefully in a dark place, testing my footing, patting the air blindly and waiting to connect with something solid.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, or a scary one: sometimes I can appreciate the sense of feeling lost, because (for me) there is a kind of thrill in not being sure what's going to happen next.

I have been spending a lot of time looking at art, simply for the sake of SEEING what others have made. Why did they make it? What were they saying? Can I decode their language? I want to go deeper into the ideas behind art, even if that means my own work is lying fallow at the moment.
I'm not looking for inspiration so much as I am looking for a story, something that will open up the work of others and perhalps eventually illuminate my work as well. I don't need ideas, I want revelations.

Sometimes I can stare into a piece of art for a long time. I never get tired of looking at Helen Frankenthaler's massive "Lush Spring": I could dive into that like a swimming pool. And the work of the Florida Highwaymen is endlessly fascinating to me, particularly those vivid towering piles of clouds against a purple storm-sky. Why do I want to lose myself in these? I don't have an answer yet, but until I do I'll keep looking at them. Wondering. Trying to decode their message.

My brain has been on vacation for quite a while. I'm not sure it's time to come home yet, but when I'm ready I'll pack up my thoughts and bring them back to my studio. And then I'll see what I've learned while I was gone.

It's May! It's May!

I've neglected my blog lately, but thanks to everyone who e-mailed me and wondered whether I'd dropped off the planet! I've been in a creative transition for the past few months, and it's been hard to find my focus. I re-evaluated what I was doing, and whether I was having any fun doing it, and I found a lot of surprising answers.
First of all, I decided that I was in a much too comfy rut with my art and that I needed new inspiration. When I traveled to Ohio and saw those amazing Amish quilts, and discovered that what I was really interested in was COLOR, I also realized that my art was about to take off in a different direction. The problem was, I didn't know where to start.
Then the Collaborative Quilting book dropped into my lap. I was overwhelmed by its vibrant colors and by the idea that imperfection can still have strong graphic qualities. So I had a lot to think about. And sometimes it's good to just sit and think, and not do anything other than sift through your art materials and let them speak to you.
No, I'm not quilting. But I looking for ways to incorporate fabric into my work, and I continue to be inspired by the texture and structure of fabric and fibers. This will be a challenge for me, since it's been 20 years since I've worked with fabric, and even then it was highly structured clothing construction.
But I'm always up for a challenge. And I'm excited about turning in a new direction. I signed up for 3 classes at Art & Soul, and they're all about fabric. And I am expecially excited about taking class from Beryl Taylor, author of one of my favorite books.
It's a wonderful thing to have come out of several months of being in the dark about where I'm going with my art. Now spring is REALLY here.

Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007

We were just there a few weeks ago.
We visited with my husband's aunt and uncle, who have lived in Blacksburg since the late 1940s, when Wally began teaching at Virginia Tech. He was and is a much-loved professor of geology who is still keen to show you a hunk of basalt or hand you a rock hammer, and to tell you everything he knows about structural geology and tectonics, which is a lot.
He and Dottie have lived in that little pink cottage on a leafy street in Blacksburg much of their adult lives.
Virginia Tech is a few blocks away. We drive through the campus to their house, past the Duck Pond, past the fields and the cow barns, past the new buildings with their stone facades (Wally could definitely tell you their age and provenance). On game days you can hear the football crowds from their front yard. Fans park in front of the house and walk over to the stadium. It's not far.

We were just there a few weeks ago. I walked through the tiny downtown area and was amazed, as always, at how quiet it is. How unremarkable. The students sometimes laughingly call it "Bleaksburg".
Yesterday on TV I saw it was snowing in Blacksburg.
Spring is late this year.

This is not an Amish quilt

Maybe this is cute overload, but when I saw this fabric I just cracked up. (Yes, of course I bought some!)
Last week I was just LOOKING at fabrics because I have been inspired by all the Amish quilts I have seen so recently, and thought I'd take a walk though Fabric Depot (gigantic warehouse-like fabric heaven) to get some more ideas for incorporating fabric into my own art.
While wandering around, I ran across this book and became completely enthralled by the use of color and the concept of "not perfect" quilting:

If you want to lose yourself in color, plunge headfirst into a dizzying world of shapes and forms, and to meet two of the most creative people ever (Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston), I urge you to run out immediately and get this book - you won't be sorry.
You are going to be knocked right off your feet by the color and design that literally BURSTS out of this book. These are not your mother's quilts! These might not even be YOUR idea of quilts - their incredible intensity and elaborate design is sometimes actually hard to look at for too long.
But what an artistic vision these are!
I'm not a quilter. I don't make quilts, I don't INTEND to make quilts. I am an Immediate Gratification Girl who doesn't have the patience for doing anything that takes as long to make as a quilt does!

But this book just made me want to work even MORE with color, to run away from the blacks and browns and rusts, to ditch the pastels, to drop the monochrome palette in favor of over-the-top more-is-better color combinations. The trick is to combine all these colors with designs of black and white, which temper the intensity and give the eye a place to rest. I guarantee you will never look at the use of color (AND its relationship to black and white) in the same way again.

Too cute

What's Easter without a bunny or two, or three, or four....?

Eggville

I have neglected my poor blog dreadfully during this season of road trips and tax prep and sunny days and spring-like weather, and between digging in my files and digging my suitcases things have gotten a little hectic.
But I decided to take some time to enjoy all these good things like cherry blossoms and chocolate eggs and trilliums and chocolate bunnies and new-mown grass and chocolate eggs...well, you can't have too many chocolate eggs.

Happy Easter.

And now for something completely different...

I'm under the gun here. I've been asked to speak at Mr. S's regional meeting on Friday, and things keep getting in the way of completing the presentation. I've got to sit down and put this thing to bed, but meanwhile it seems that everything else I have to do is turning into a gigantic pool of quicksand and I'm slowly sinking it.
So what do I do? Drink a lot of coffee? Stay up all night, working myself into a frenzy?
NO!
Instead I pick up a fascinating book and dive into it and pretend that chaos is not taking place around me!
Can we spell AVOIDANCE?
(I did the same thing in college during finals, and read my way through an entire bookcase of mystery novels when I obviously should have been doing something more productive...)

However, this beautiful book literally fell at my feet and I had no choice but to pick it up and start reading.

"Kokoro no Te" means "Handmade from the heart" and I am enchanted with the colors and shapes and the gorgeous Japanese fabrics (mostly chirimen crepe) that have gone into these little handmade confections.
Kumiko Sudo has written a number of these wonderful craft books, and they are a feast for the eyes.

I am in a serious Fabric Phase now, and the time I spent immersed in the colors and patterns of the Amish quilts only fed my desire to get my hands on some textiles. My chief interest is color and texture, and I hope that I can incorporate more of it into my work....just as soon as I get a chance to sit down for more than 10 minutes. And as soon as the laundry's done. And as soon as I finish my speech.

Quilt Central

I have finally returned from my meandering road trip to central Ohio, coastal Maryland and western Virginia. As I always say, just give me a rental car, a map and a credit card and I am a well-equipped traveler!
While exploring the backroads of the Amish country near Wilmot, Winesburg and Berlin, Ohio, I discovered a treasure trove of quilts and fabrics that reawakened my love of textile art.

Vintage Amish quilt

I had hoped to post to my blog from the road, with photos, but unfortunately internet connectivity issues intervened. I have a lot of treasures to share, which I will be posting as soon as I can get some decent shots of them. Meanwhile, it's almost spring in Ohio:

The view from the Inn at Amish Door in Wilmot, Ohio

The charming village of Winesburg, Ohio

Road trip

Sometimes I get a chance to tag along on a business trip with my husband. His work doesn't usually take him to vacation spots; most of the time these are just hometown places where people live and work, and there may not be any special attraction that would draw tourists. But once in a while, there is something out of the ordinary that I don't see every day.

Last year we rambled deep in the rolling farm country of north central Indiana. I was taken with the expanse and beauty of the pastures and fields, and with the very small towns we visited. This buggy was parked out behind the hardware store in the Amish market town of Shipshewanna.

Driving a car among the buggies is a patient and careful process, but there is no real rush to get anywhere. So we just slow down and enjoy the sights.

This year he's working in central Ohio, and we've decided to stay in the tiny hamlet of Wilmot, which is the gateway to Ohio's Amish area. I anticipate seeing more buggies, more rolling countryside, and enjoying some of that heartland cooking.

After which we're moving on to Annapolis, Maryland, where there will be some serious crab cake consumption.

Then we stop over in Blacksburg, VA to visit his aunt and uncle before coming home. We've been to Blacksburg a number of times, and although the countryside surrounding it is lovely, Blacksburg itself is not exactly a happenin' place (unless you are a Virginia Tech fan). We're always glad to spend time with his aunt and uncle, though, and that's entertainment enough for us.

One of the best things about Virginia: cardinals.

Flowering cherry

When I was very young, there was a house across the street from my elementary school with a flowering cherry tree in its front yard. In full bloom the blossoms were spread in thick, frosting-like profusion over every visible inch of bark and branch. When the wind blew, it scattered pink confetti petals over the lawn and sidewalks and parked cars, and I loved to stand underneath the tree limbs, hoping that the wind would drop some of those petals on me.

That beautiful tree was the only thing I had ever been moved to draw from life. One day after school I took a set of pastels and a large sketch pad and sat on the school steps, where I made many attempts to capture its unspeakable beauty. Being young and untrained and in love with color, I interpreted it in a very non-representational way, with only a suggestion of trunk and branches, and a disproportionate focus on the intense PINK. I scrubbed my pastels into the paper, working to recreate the depth of its color, attempting to translate my experience. Purple shadows and a gray background became a foil for that universe of pink, and it looked nothing like a tree at all.

My teacher came down the steps and stopped to look at my work. She said kindly, "Oh, that is very abstract!" but of course I didn't take that as any kind of compliment. I wanted to be told, Oh, it looks JUST like that tree over there!
I felt I was a failure.
So I took my pastels and my drawings home and put them under the bed. I knew I was never going to be an artist. I thought I'd be better off to just get out my Brownie camera and take a picture instead.

I didn't make art again for a long time, and chose instead to express myself as a writer because that was something I felt I could do well. And I didn't look back and I didn't think again about creating art for the joy of it until almost 40 years later.

There was a lesson for me in all of this, although I had to become an adult in order to learn it:
The joy is in the creating, in the process, in the communication between the artist and her materials.
I had allowed my joy in the intense color and power of this force of nature to be blunted by my desire for approval, and by the surprise of an unexpected response, however kindly it had been.
I had put away what had given me pleasure because I felt I wasn't "good" at it.
And I missed 40 years of pleasure and joy in color and in creating because I didn't understand then that Art, like Life, is a journey rather than a destination.

Luckily, it's never too late to start again. And the cherry trees will soon be in bloom.

Signs of spring

Let's try this again....
Camellias are some of the first flowering plants that burst onto the scene here in Portland. Before the crocus, the violets, the redbud and the flowering cherry, camellias can start popping out unexpectedly with the least little bit of encouragement.

Even a little watery winter sunlight will produce blossoms. It's not at all unusual to see camellias covering a bush on the sunny side of house, even if there is still a skiff of snow on the ground.

I saw these yesterday while I was out and about, and wondering how long I'd have to keep wearing my winter jacket...

Souvenirs

Because I am so fascinated with the early days of Florida tourism, I collect old postcards, especially the "big letter" variety:

or those that feature old cars, trailer courts and motels:

I also love state tablecloths:

dishtowels and pillows:

handkerchiefs:

and anything with oranges and gilded lettering:

It would be so easy to collect all this stuff on e-Bay, but part of the charm is finding it on location in flea markets

and funky antique stores and stadium parking lots where people just sell stuff right out of the trunks of their cars.

More Florida photos

Key West houses
I'm still in vacation mode a bit, but taking some time off to just think about creating is a helpful hiatus for me. Spending time in completely different surroundings alters my perspective and encourages me to try new approaches instead of just continuing to play it safe.

Lifeguard hut
I am enthralled with the colors of Florida: the bright, saturated pinks and greens, the clear pastels, the juxtaposition of textures. I want to start incorporating them into my work - I'm tired of sepias and browns and age and rust and decay. I want to explore color and shape now.

South Beach art deco

Dream houses

In Florida, it's perfectly appropriate to paint your house coral pink, lime green, banana, mango or rose, and it delighted my eye to see these bright happy colors peeking out from the lush palms and the rioting blooms of bougainvillea and hibiscus. Having lived most of my life in traditional-style homes painted gray and white (a perfect foil for the Northwest's dark evergreens and rhododendrons) I was captivated by these cheerful dwellings.

My dream house in Florida is a little candy-colored cottage in a palm grove within walking distance of powdery sand beaches. But I saw a lot of dream houses while driving around down there, including this one

which I could happily move into tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day

My Grumpy Valentine

"You be sweet to your wife...my husband wasn't sweet to me and look how I turned out."
-- from Thelma and Louise

I hope somebody's real sweet to YOU today!
XOXO

Flamingo Wonderland

I'm headed for the land of pink & green, the tropical wonderland that is Florida. I love Florida (okay, not the hurricanes or the humidity or the palmetto bugs, but other than that...)
I am fascinated with the Florida of the 20s and 30s, when northerners tired of frigid winters began motoring on down to Florida's sunny shores and spending a few months soaking up the sunshine and looking at the ocean. I love the souvenirs of the time: vintage postcards of flaming poinciana trees, avenues of soaring palms and frosting-pink flocks of gawky flamingos. Souvenir plates with big oranges on them and FLORIDA emblazoned in gold script. Pink and aqua Florida state tablecloths with images of orange groves and waterskiiers and fishing boats.

I love the idea of people just picking up and moving into a "tourist court" for a while and living an alternate life that was far from the wintry plains of Oklahoma or the frozen Iowa cornfields, and sending home these little mementoes of their time in a warmer, sunnier place.

LUNCH, a short but annoying play in 2 acts

Setting: Our house, Saturday
Time: High noon (in more ways than one)
Dramatis personae: Me and my significant other, Mr. smARTypants

Act I
Kitchen

Me: (shouting downstairs to Mr. S in laundry room) Are you interested in some lunch?
Mr. S: (shouting upstairs) Why?
Me: That's not an answer to my question. ARE YOU interested in some lunch?
Mr. S: What are you suggesting?
Me: I am suggesting that I WOULD BE WILLING TO MAKE LUNCH IF YOU ARE HUNGRY!
Mr. S: Oh. Well, what would you be making?
Me: Soup!
Mr. S: Is that all we have?
Me: What do you WANT?!
Mr. S: What else do we HAVE?
Me: (Grinding teeth) Just tell me what you want, we probably have it!
Mr. S: I don't know what I want.
Me: ONE QUESTION! LUNCH, YES OR NO?!
Mr S: I don't think I'm hungry right now.

Act II
Kitchen, 3 minutes later. I am making tuna salad. Mr. S enters stage left.

Mr. S: (looking directly at bowl full of tuna salad) Is that tuna?
Me: (eyes rolling) NO.
Mr. S: Why didn't you tell me you were making tuna in the first place?
Me: (waving fork) I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS GOING TO MAKE TUNA WHEN I ASKED YOU! It was an executive decision! I was GOING to eat soup! Then I decided I'd rather have tuna instead!
Mr. S: Oh. Well....I'd eat a tuna sandwich.
Me: AARRGGHH!!
(Silence)
Mr. S: Aren't we having any soup?

Curtain

DISCLAIMER: Mr. S and I have eaten a lot of tuna sandwiches in our 34 years together, and I am sure we will happily eat many more in the years to come. With or without soup. Or snark.

Florida colors

Pink. Green. More pink and green. Pink and green together. For a change of pace, green with pink. Okay, and a little more pink. You can't have too much pink! With a little green to set it off.

When I took my first trip to Florida I was at a loss about what to wear. I knew I would have to temporarily abandon my favorite black outfits. Black is a year-round staple in my closet, and the Northwest is not exactly a leader in warm-weather fashions and colors, so I hedged and wore a lot of white with the black, which sort of worked. But in Florida it's all about color and you better get with the program.
Florida is the temple of pink-and-green, and its high priestess is Lilly Pulitzer.

I was just looking for something to spunk up my travel wardrobe when I wandered into a Lilly store in Fort Lauderdale. Suddenly I was engulfed in girlie colors and tropical confections and flamingos and palm trees and lush foliage and Bermuda bags and hibiscus blossoms and overcome with a sugar-sweet smell of flowers and perfume and new clothes and my head was spinning (okay, maybe it was those mai-tais at lunch) and before I knew it I was Lillyfied.

My traveling companions were rather horrified since "girlie" is not a fashion credo which I espouse. And I knew that this look certainly wouldn't translate back home in the land of khaki cargo shorts and LL Bean tees.

But now I am sneaking my guilty little pink-and-green secrets out again and preparing to flaunt them proudly in the land of flapping flamingos, fluttering palms and ocean breezes that carry the scent of tropical drinks far and wide.

What happens in Florida stays in Florida.