home....

You are home to me.

what i miss...

So I have left Brooklyn for almost 2 weeks to install my show, have my orals, move out of my studio, and have my show reception, and then take down my show.
So I will miss my kitties, my C, my red kitchen table, the light of our kitchen, and all 4 of my geraniums. I love the red of the geranium.
What would you miss?

photo story through him

So I am telling my story through the amazingly beautiful and gritty images of Nicholas Lorden.
Sorry, I can't remember where I found him but his images are so lovely and maybe even a bit haunting...
So here goes:
In the last week I have been going from this (above) to this (below).

A.k.A Depression and Hysteria

and on top of my stress I am suppose to be thinking about getting a job!!
If only someone would just throw money at me.
Any takers?

So in short of I could open my mouth this wide, I would.
And boy would I let out a scream.

But with the compassionate love of family and friends and the kindness of my wonderful C,
I have arisen from my darkness to light.


And keep reminding myself that in less then 2 weeks I can stay in bed all day dreaming of being in a bubble that looks like this...

And that I will start my life, day, and work all over again.

fabulous outfit? check.

My fabulous outfit for my opening has been purchased and I hope it is fabulous.
I tend to try to wear bright colors, in homage to Amelie...ever since... I watched that movie the 2nd time, at this point I have watched it 100, I have consciously worn less non colors and more bright colors, I figure we all need a little color and joy in our life, right?

Anyway this is yellow, so hopefully it will be "fierce"

And these are pink:

Now only if I could have this to top of the look... too bad it is never going to go on sale:(

under the covers

I truly had no idea that writing this thesis paper would be so hard.

My approach to my work and life is so non linear and to try to explain that in a linear way has proven to be an incredible challenge for me.

And honestly I am not dealing with it so well.

Essentially I am being humbled to my knees.

And all I really want to do is crawl under the covers and cry.

Bu that will only delay the inevitable and so I am again re-writing the entire g!d d!mn thing.

so I post this thought...please bare with me as things get a little funny here.

I promise I will be back to a form of sanity at some point.

Right?

the calm.

It feels a bit like the calm before the storm.
I feel strangely relaxed and calmed... but am deep down so aware that I am installing the biggest show of my life, so far, next week.
With work, that I have invested the most time and the most of myself in ever.
But ... while I have this calm I am going to enjoy it, because the next 2 weeks are going to be insane.
I am letting myself be invited into my bed for some much needed rest.

And letting mu eyes linger on watching the light move over the rainbow.
Enjoy your Sunday....

flutter

I wish I had the time to flutter in the wind today.

Posts may be brief this week as my show installation is coming up on Friday...

so... I promise to stop in, but apologize for the potential quickness.

have a great friday.....

and if any of you are in nyc I am teaching a yoga class tomorrow at 10 here, Id love to see you.

oh to....

hold your hand....

to lounge in the sun...

would be so sweet.

"escape pod..."

I was in Chelsea a few days ago for a meeting and stopped in to see this:

I recognized artist Karin Weiner's name, but not her work.
I loved the above piece, she had fabric waves, felted pools of water, a macrame chair, and yarn gods- eyes as sky and rain. (this image does not even come close to the experience of the piece) 
Materially the work was great and metephorically even better.
The press release states:

This ship is the artist’s escape pod in an upended world and represents the notion that in the end, one is left with oneself. The vessel is about her own personal salvation as much as her hopes for the future.

She is inspired by:

When I was a kid, we would spend the summers with my father in Maine. We lived on his boat and were left alone at a very young age to mind ourselves while Dad went to work. It sounds criminal today, but to us it proved our father’s trust. In addition, we developed this incredible sense of freedom and adventure. We had a small dingy that we would row out into the middle of the bay day or night. In complete darkness, we would be amazed with the stars and the phosphorescence in the water that sent up an eerie glow when stirred by the oars. We would float around for hours, oblivious to danger and fear which should have been very real, before attempting to navigate our way back to harbor by way of the few lights on the houses. Therefore, boats have always been symbolic vessels for me. They embody something mysterious and wonderful from my childhood and even that incongruous sense of security remains appealing…

her material approach reminded me of her...

a little imperfection can be just right...

I am one of those people that finds imperfection in all its forms as essential, necessary, and perfect.

For instance, I would not have the same elated joy, happiness, and freedom in the sunshine of today, if I had not endured (and at times even enjoyed) a long gray winter.

C would not be as handsome without the dimple in his nose.

E would not be as adorable without his funny, bent tail.

My sister would not be as unique without her funny toe.

I would not remember my past in the same way without the scars to remind me.

So as circumstance and relationship makes me think about how one's perspective leads one's life...

I embrace the imperfections in life as gifts, gifts to remind me of all the wonder that life still has.

very old print by me.

here is something for you collectors out there....

This is one extensive collection of sweetness:
see the entire collection here.

It seems familiar... so I'm sure it has been posted before...

but a little extra, or a lot of extra, sweetness never hurts.

The collections belongs to designer Angela Schwab who created this fun demonstration for how to use her interesting cups.

looking forward.......

I am looking forward to finally getting back to some projects I had to put aside in order to focus on my show. (which by the way I just realized installs in just a bit over 1 week, agh, freak-out.)

My door piece:

My fabric plant, I am knitting one too:

I have a new piece in mind that is coming out of this piece from the show:

and of course I have a few embroidery ideas I am ready to start on....

I actually got an hour in my Brooklyn studio yesterday, maybe today too?

this ain't your grandma's lace...

 

Works of Artist Cal Lane.  I first saw her work at the amazing show Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting.

And have since thought about it often, I particularly like how she leaves the dirt from the process to make lace patterns on the floor.

A wonderful mixture of the masculine and feminine material...

I feel like she took the words right out of my mouth:

I like to work as a visual devil’s advocate, using contradiction as a vehicle for finding my way to an empathetic image, an image of opposition that creates a balance - as well as a clash - by comparing and contrasting ideas and materials.This manifested in a series of “Industrial Doilies”, pulling together industrial and domestic life as well as relationships of strong and delicate, masculine and feminine, practical and frivolity, ornament and function. There is also a secondary relationship being explored here, of lace used in religious ceremonies as in weddings, christenings and funerals,

The weekend turned out to be a much needed respite from all the stress of "the thesis."

I actually allowed myself to not look at my paper and barely do any work...

and now I feel ready, a little bit, to march on, and hopefully resolve the paper this week.

Damn paper!

Anyway... I really liked this post and read the quote to my yoga class today, it fit the mellow mood of the overcast cool Monday we have here in NYC.

And very much enjoyed going here yesterday, the cherry blossoms and magnolias were so lovely.

image via BBG website

We got a membership so now we can go here to read and play chess in the sun, we will feel so spoiled.

truth and serenity

I am feeling very mellow today and she just fit my mood:

I have never been a big fan of minimalism and ironically now I am writing about it in my thesis, researching it for myself, and being inspired which reminded me of ...

the fact that
I had never really appreciated Agnes Martin, (though she did not consider herself a minimalist) that is, until I got to see many of her works in person.

While working at the gallery PaceWildenstein I got the privilege of seeing most of Martins work, up close and personal, and in short:

it is amazingly beautiful and serene.

Martin says:

Any material may be used but the theme is the same and the response is the same for all artwork... we all have the same concern, but the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly.

and

Sister Wendy Beckett, in her book American Masterpieces, said:

Agnes Martin often speaks of joy; she sees it as the desired condition of all life. Who would disagree with her?... No-one who has seriously spent time before an Agnes Martin, letting its peace communicate itself, receiving its inexplicable and ineffable happiness, has ever been disappointed. The work awes, not just with its delicacy, but with its vigor, and this power and visual interest is something that has to be experienced.

my favorite part of her work is the allowed flaws, the moment where the human hand falters and proves its own humanity.

image...

Here is the image I made to advertise my show on the UMASS website.

I hope it represents me well.

I am finally getting a bit excited, I am going to have so many people in town it is going to be crazy.

Hope it all gets pulled together.

Overcast and dreamy today in NYC.

Hope you have the time to be dreamy today....

So lovely spending my day with the warm sunshine and then...

the long shadows of summer.

C and I went to the park, laid on the lawn, and  played chess, (I am learning and he is teaching.

Of course, he won... but I did not do half bad)

I hope you had a day in the sun, if not literally at least in your spirit.

Letting myself lay low and take the weekend off all this thesis stuff, hoping it will act as a revive.

Best.

I wish...

I wish I could be spending the day lingering over coffee and the newspaper but....

Alas that cannot be so, as usual my day in Mass. is going to be a busy one:

meetings, grading, painting, building a shelf.

How do we get it all done and still have time to breathe in the day?

Ok, here goes, 

inhaling; the sunshine, the green earthy grass, the sounds of the birds twitter, the morning kiss goodbye to C, the coffee coming my way, the fact that I will be done with my masters degree in less then a month, and the joy of sharing with you.

Exhale.

Ok, now your turn.

After all...

And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine. As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden-parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing. Hundreds, yes, literally hundreds, had come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as though they had been visited by archangels.

from the short story The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield.

Seems like the perfect story to be reading this time of year on a lovely day.

If you have not read it you should, it is a classic.

Read the entire story here.

Want one?

Do you want to receive invitation cards to my gallery shows?

Including my upcoming thesis show, Lovely.

If so leave your mailing address and you will be added to my mailing list.

This is only for receiving gallery show cards for me and nothing else.

image from the shoot for Lovely, not the chosen image...

in the...

in the morning...

looking and light and waiting for coffee

in the studio...

working on a new, small embroiodary.  The last piece I am trying to finish for the show.

In the world...

all is green and lovely and I am so happy for the sun.....

The breathing continues.

Thanks to all who sent us good vibes.

E is doing well and is home.

We still have some treatment, medicine, and blood tests to get through, but hopefully all will go well and he will be a ok asap.

Fabulous flowers...

Blossom

Ice

"Her language of form is fresh, unexpected, and utterly conventional.

It is neither tiresome, boring, or full of tepid cliches. aware of what took place in aesthetic achievement in the last half century.  Polly Apfelbaum has a connoisseurs command of the history of modern art.  And while she readily acknowledges the roots of her work, she is also insistent upon proceeding way beyond what has comer before." 

Burton Wassmen

I have always been a fan of seeing Polly Apfelbaum's work, the MOMA has a nice one.

But I never thought of researching her as it seemed she was doing such different things, as an artist, then me.

And then, as I make a major shift towards minimalist installation someone says...

"you should read up on Polly Apfelbaum."

I did and I can't stop.

the dwarves with snow white

Conceptually I am so into what she is doing and in reality it is not so far removed from what I attempt to do myself... and the work is freaking gorgeous.

Her website has many articles written on her so it is a research hub in itself.

I highly recommend some time reading a few.

And Polly is so great you can get your own t-shirt, celebrating her love.

Single Gun

She states "Color has such a wide range of associations. I don't see a contradiction between structure and emotion. I think that's a false dilemma" And I agree!!!

the early rise...

So I will admit that I do not normally or voluntarily wake up at 5:30 am, but

I have recently started teaching an early morning private yoga class...

and I was walking to the studio at 5:45 am and I was reminded how wonderful and quiet the world is at this time of day, and how much I missed getting up and seeing its loveliness (I use to wake up for work 4 days a week at 5:15 am)

When I got home I was surprised and delighted by the light in our living room, normally I never see the sun there, but I walked in just as the shadows were long and lovely...  a perk to early morning rising...

and of course I got some rainbows.

So today is the day that E gets his blood test re-done.  We are hoping for major improvements so please keep him in your thoughts and send him healthy energy.

Have a great day.....