I am back. I am very slow.

I'm back from Florida where the accident took place. My mother-in-law was killed instantly; my father-in-law is still in a coma. I'm still going through a divorce. I'm sad. That's an understatement. I've been back for a couple of days. I've slept through the morning alarm twice in a row now. Fortunately, I haven't had to be anywhere first thing in the morning. I've walked out to the studio and have noticed I have several small paintings in various stages. While at the hospital, I kept thinking what it must be like to work in a hospital. I'm not really into bodily fluids, other than my own, so I'm not sure I would make a good nurse, but for some reason I kept thinking about these people who work around sickness and injury all the time.

We brought in a Reiki practitioner one night. We pretended to understand what all the numbers meant on the monitor. We read. I learned than John Smith of Jamestown was somewhat egotistical, to say the least. I struggled with what to do with a box of See's candy I bought at the airport. Should I give it to the nurses? Leave it for other family members coming and going? Take it back home in case I wanted to eat a box of chocolates all by myself? I chose the latter.

Before all this happened, well, not before all of it happened, but some- a friend suggested I read the prologue to The Alchemist. It tells the story of Narcissus, only in the prologue, the author invents another ending, an epilogue, of sorts. In this version of the story, we read that the lake where Narcissus contemplated his beauty, is weeping for the death of Narcissus- not because Narcissus was so beautiful, but because in looking up at Narcissus' eyes, the lake was able to see its own beauty.

Tomorrow I will double up the alarm and get to work in the studio again.

I made a casserole because that's what we do.

Warning: personal. To skip directly to art content, scroll down to Paragraph Two.

I am in sadness today. We've had a tragedy in the family. Not my immediate family, but Matt's. I made some phone calls and a casserole. I haven't been able to work in the studio but I haven't been able to concentrate on much anything else either. Everyone else's life is going on, the wheels of commerce are still being greased and yet for some reason making art seems like a choice today. I don't want to make a black painting. I don't want to make a painting about death or the details surrounding it. Stepping in the studio to continue yesterday's trajectory using yesterday's palette doesn't feel right, but there's not much else I can do now either. I dropped some hints earlier, but Matt and I are splitting up, so it's a particularly difficult time even without the added weight. The bright side, if I can say that without sounding vapid or glib, is that death brings out what's important and removes the petty shit. I've been able to drop my stuff and place someone else's feelings ahead of mine for the day. Tonight may be a good night to catch up on reading and writing. I'll probably be flying across the country again this weekend.

Welcome to Paragraph Two:
I mailed my 2 little watercolors back to the Santa Monica Museum of Art for the Incognito show (May). The most creative thing I did today other than make a mac & cheese casserole from scratch was to title the watercolors. Titling is a serious endeavor for me. I don't like slapping a title (no matter how good) on a painting unless it fits the painting. So, sometimes, a month or more can go by and I'll notice that the painting has the wrong title if I cannot recall it immediately. When this happens I have no issues with changing the title if the painting is still in the studio. And needless to say, I don't like paintings to go out with the wrong title. I don't think they ever have because usually there's a lag time between the making and the showing or selling. Maybe I make too much of a big deal out of titles. At one point in my work, I had an elaborate alpha-numeric system and believe it not, knew more or less what each piece was. But then the whole thing got out of control, not to mention, it was rather robotic.

The titles I came up with today were,
"Portmanteau" and "The Girls Can Flirt And Other Queer Things Can Do." Of course, I know which is which. So obvious, right? I posted these about a month ago, but at the time they were untitled, so here we go again-

I should really be more disturbed by this.

Some Things.

The art world is super small, crazy small. I'm not talking about the online arts community or any of that, I'm talking about the nuts and bolts world of people who buy art, people who sell art and people who make art, and at some point those paths cross in the physical world.

Like this past weekend, which is how I discovered that a painting I thought was hanging 2000 miles away in a private collection is actually hanging here in Los Angeles in a private collection. I was at an opening and dealer I know showed me a picture of my painting on their cellphone. And, in an even bigger coincidence, the collector was at the same opening, so I had a chance to meet him and chat with him about how he acquired my work. It was a nice conversation. He's an amicable gentleman.
Everything's legit, apparently just some really bad timing and delayed correspondence. And I might add, an error in judgement on my part, for which I am now wiser. If the sale had taken place in California, then this link would have been useful.
(Addendum: I'm still open to the possibility that there was no error in judgement and no bad timing and that things happen for a reason, and I'll leave it at that.)

***

And then this morning I read where my comrade in a parallel universe, Steven LaRose has decided to fizzle out his blog. At first I was bummed. I mean this is not a eulogy or anything, but there are certain artist/bloggers who, whom I was particularly simpatico with and LaRose is one of them, and so I will miss the dialogue. FB is just not the same.

***

I may be posting less as well, not as an intentional desire to quit writing, but when writing about things such as life and art, and art and life, it seems that messy things are well, messy and best omitted from the public spheres. And when I start having to omit the messy stuff, then I feel self-censored, which is obviously my prerogative since I am the self doing the censoring, but there's a fine line between revealing what I had for breakfast, what I'm doing in the studio and how I'm managing a couple of difficult things in my personal life. It's hard to pull the strands. My goal is to keep working as I'm working, work a little more than I think I'm working (see Perceived Exertion scale), try and be more fearless and have some faith.

I'll place the twitter feed in the side bar. Just in case...

Get your pre-flight separation cold-weather visiting mom for the holidays travel anxiety here NOW.

Yep. Today is the day I cast aside all my other identities and focus on being a daughter for the next few days.

Fun Facts:
I don't drink anymore, so getting loaded on the plane is out.
LAX to BNA is a 3-sharpie drawing flight.
I don't drink anymore, so getting loaded once I land is out.

Okay, that's enough of the fun facts.
My flight leaves this afternoon and I'm almost done packing. I have a hefty to-do list once I arrive, but it will get done. I need to shift focus and think about relaxing and being slightly social over the next few days.

Big surprise, I am slightly compulsive about making art. I always take my watercolor travel set and sharpies. I know what my next lino cut is going to be, so I can work on the sketches for that. I don't actually sketch, so that's just a phrase I'm loosely using. One of the sketches will BE the drawing. It's more a matter of spacing issues and which time I'll nail it without using a sissy ruler.

After Christmas, I will upload some new works to the Smaller Works site. Have been thinking about trying the eBay thing, but should first try sending out an email announcement telling people about the site. I also want to put some work priced in the $20-100 range but feel a little like I'm trying to have a fire sale when I think about pricing works simply to get them out of the flatfiles. Still, the flatfiles are full, so what the hell. Stay tuned for the fire sale, without the actual fire.

My short history of printmaking.

My grandfather on my daddy's side of the family died well-before I was born, so I never knew much about him other than his name was Mose and that he was an engraver for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. This has always fascinated me, as he was the only person in my family that was remotely connected with the arts as a profession.

I took a printmaking class in college. Since printmaking was closely aligned with drawing, and at the time I was not closely aligned with drawing, I did not pursue printmaking other than the occasional monoprint, lithograph or woodcut here and there. I still have all my woodcut and etching tools, and I thought I had my lino cut tools, but they may be in Nashville. I have a vague recollection of seeing the lino blades in the little green Speedball box sitting in the drawer of my nightstand last time I was visiting.

So in making the one-of-a-kind, mass-produced journals and notepads I made yesterday and today, it dawned on me that maybe block printing might be the way to go. And then I got even more excited because although the idea of block printing abstract work does not appeal to me one iota, (Scratch that; suddenly it appealed to me very much)— what does appeal to me is doing a bunch of text-based works. Perfect! Yes, perfect. I have a bunch of text-based work I've done over the years, but since on the surface* it's pretty much the polar opposite of abstract work, I've only exhibited them a couple of times. I can't really explain my new found enthusiasm succinctly in a blog post, but I'm very excited about doing some block printing.

* Regarding text-based work being polar opposite abstract work: I find it amusing that my first foray into one-of-a-kind, mass-produced items would be a journal. The slightly amusing part is that my abstract work references my day-to- day life, but obviously using the language of painting and some personal iconography, instead of flat-out words and language-based images. So, really, my text-based work is not opposite of my abstract work at all. So how funny I would choose the outside of a journal as an image. Or maybe it's an inside joke and you had to be here. I am so funny today.

First of all, I would like everyone to know that Time Warner Cable SUCKS and if my Internet ever becomes reliable again, I intend on getting credit for the entire week of spotty frigging Internet service. The recorded message says that they’re doing their best to resolve the problem. 4 DAYS and counting, and you can't resolve the problem?!!!!

***

Fang was doped yesterday in order to get his nails trimmed by the vet. The sedative was supposed to wear off after 4-6 hours, but it lasted almost 24 hours. I spent yesterday monitoring him and making sure he could get around without falling down. It broke my heart to see him so out of it. I love that dog so much. On the bright side, his nails are trim and he can walk without sliding around.

This morning, I thought I’d shift gears in the studio and do some monoprinting. If I’d had the right kind of paper on hand, it would have been fine, but since I’m not a printer, I don’t keep printing paper on hand and I wasn’t motivated enough to leave the house to get paper. If I sound lazy, it’s true. Last night I did yoga at home for the first time in forever and I was wiped out this morning. Good feeling, but tired. So back to being lazy... after I aborted monoprinting, I began working on some homemade gifts for my mom. I don’t know if anyone else out there has a parent who’s getting up there in age and writes EVERYTHING on post-it notes, but that’s what my mom relies on now when her memory falters. (Post-it note to self: pitch something to 3M about this.) So every time I go home, there are all these post-it notes with my mom's perfect 19th century cursive handwriting lying all over the place. And they’re not organized, at all. So I’m not sure how she knows what note is current, but apparently she does, cause everything gets done, more or less. Anyway, I decided to make some memo books for her, as opposed to getting her a new tracksuit, although I still may find her a new tracksuit. The front has a nice handy place for the dates and the back is monogrammed. I was slightly unfocused today, so lettering and filling in the letters was a pleasant activity for me and I made a bunch 5; they're actually rather labor intensive. I am going to make some to sell on the smaller works site. I make them all the time for my own journaling needs, but I thought the monogram was a nice touch. The one above was my prototype.