little treasures

Easter Sunday 2009 - a beautiful day in Southeastern Arizona - blue skies and sunshine, a gentle breeze. Decided to take a walk down to the monastery and enjoy this beautiful day. The Holy Trinity Monastery is about a mile or so down highway 80 from my home.



In lieu of traditional Easter celebrations where I have always hosted the family dinner, now living alone and far from my children, I figured spending a little time at the monastery seemed like an appropriate way to spend Easter.

The trees are all in bloom this time of year and my favorite tree in town is this giant cottonwood. It reminds me of the cottonwood that Georgia O'Keefe often painted with its twisty curvy branches. I definitely have to paint this tree.

During my walks I am often on the look out for little treasures and today was no exception. At the side of the road I found a dead but fully intact butterfly and carried him with me to the monastery and home with a little damage due to the wind and the sweat of my hand. I also found these wonderful gourds on a vine I had passed.

Of course I stopped to visit with my neighbors on the way home.

Happy Easter my friends.

Fear and the Creative Genius

For years I have struggled with the my true passion of needing to create art while also trying to make a living and be the responsible grown up because being an "artist" certainly isn't responsible in a culture that values financial and material wealth as true success. The reputation of the artistic creative type doesn't seem to hold the same value in our corporate American society as other professions and artists are often considered to be lazy or mentally unstable. I received an email from a dear friend with a link to this video the other day. Elizabeth Gilbert, a very talented author and speaker discusses the "Creative Genius" and it struck me as being so timely and powerful, I needed to hear this NOW. Listening to her speak was like a gift for me. It was so relevant for me that I had to share it with all of you.

Elizabeth's personal experience of now having to live up to her own great success as a writer and how the fear of success or failure about one's work is assumed if one is a creative type. Her statement, "should anybody be expected to be afraid of the work they feel they were put on this earth to do" validates my own knowing that this is what I was put on this earth to do and whether or not I experience the "genius" or "daemons" in my artistic endeavors, I will continue to show up and do my job of creating my art. Thank you for that, Elizabeth.

Please take the time to enjoy this video as Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses:

Encaustic Group Show in Tucson

Our encaustic group, Tucson Encaustic Artists had an opening reception at Details Art & Design last night in Tucson. We had a great turnout and I was very pleased with the presentation of our work. The 10 member group presented a wide variety of work including encaustic monotype, photo transfer, 3 dimensional and sculpted pieces representing the versatility of working in encaustic. I had my encaustic monotype sell and leave the gallery before I arrived. Yippie! The lesson on that one though is to photograph your work before framing and making available for sale.

Artistic Integrity

For the last week I have been working on an ecaustic painting that includes a photograph of my son and daughter in law for their upcoming wedding gift. For the last 3 days I added, then scraped, walked away, went back, changed palette, added some more, added some more, and kept finding it was never right and probably would never be right by the time I had to pack it into my suitcase and head for Seattle. In fact, I don't even like the painting because it is so not me - I don't do hearts or cutesy, but that's what it ended up being.

detail of encaustic painting

If I don't like the painting, am I compromising my artistic integrity by then accepting it as is and giving as a gift?

I decided that they would like it, or at least appreciate the thought/effort as opposed to a purchase from the Target gift list, which I just couldn't bring myself to do seeing that I was "the artist" .

I also decided that I liked parts of the painting, the way the copper colored oil pastel melted over the wax, the way the titanium white oil paint breaks with direct heat from the heat gun, and so I learned something in the process - what I liked and what I didn't like, what works and what doesn't - for me at least. And I learned that I need to make my art based on what I like, letting a true creative process come from me and not compromise myself for what others may want or what I think they may want. Be true to oneself.

Getting Started or Starting From Scratch

A new home and life in Arizona and a new direction with my art has inspired me to get started or start from scratch with this new blog. When we take a break from our art or are lacking inspiration, its best to just "get started" or even "start from scratch" throwing out our previous expectations about our work and even the direction of our lives. So with a new direction and expectations, here I will update my artistic journeys with "Little Art Notes".

The new direction started when I moved to southeastern Arizona outside of Tucson in October 2008 and my palette obviously changed by the influence of my new environment. I continue to make landscapes, mostly in encaustic but now after a workshop with Paula Roland out of Santa Fe who visited Tucson last month, I am combining my love of printmaking with my passion for encaustic by working in "Encaustic Monotypes" on paper. More to follow.

New Encaustic Paintings to Debut At The Tempe Festival of Arts

I have definitely been inspired by my new surroundings since my move to St. David, Arizona in mid October of this year. The landscape of Southeastern Arizona is so varied. I think this state must have the most variety of landscape in one state. Locally, the view goes on for miles and I continue to be amazed at the amount of wide open spaces. The tall grasses have almost a buttery color against the backdrop of the warm mountains. The weather and time of day have a huge affect on the color and hue, changing the mountain ranges from a warm tone to a cool blue and purple as the sun begins to set.

I'm working on a painting of the Grand Canyon but its had a few revisions and I am still not satisfied with it. I'll get there. Of course, I think they look better in person since encaustics are so difficult to photograph. I'll be presenting these along with a number of other new works at the Tempe Festival of Arts, booth# 5535 Friday, Dec 5th - Sun. Dec 7th. I'm also excited to start teaching workshops here in my studio starting in January. Schedule is on my studio website exPRESSive Arts Studio.

"Wide Open Spaces"
Encaustic & Mixed Media on Panel
12" x 24"

Painting above:

"View From My Car"
encaustic & Mixed Media on Panel
8"x 8"

Road Trip - the Destination

Friday morning we left my sister's house in Phoenix and headed south. Its a short but uneventful drive from Phoenix to Tucson. A few scenes sparked some old memories such as Compton Terrace - just south of Phoenix, where I attended many concerts in my youth - my most memorable was when I took my sister for her birthday to see Fleetwood Mac and we joined up with some childhood friends, a group of sisters - so we were a happy dancing group of young women having a fabulous time with our blanket out on the lawn, singing and dancing to the latest FM hits and at least I - was wishing I was Stevie Nicks. That concert was also the first time I ventured into the men's room after discovering that there was no line at the men's room when the women's had a line so long I would have peed my pants. Stevie at Compton (not the concert I was at)

We were hungry by the time we got into Tucson so decided to stop and find a Mexican restaurant. To our surprise, they were few and far between or perhaps I just didn't know where to look. We ended up at Chewy's - not what I had in mind but they let us have Sonny in the patio area and since it was about 96 degrees - thought this best than leaving him in the car.

Back on the road and I was starting to get anxious about my new digs - only having seen pics over the internet - was I going to hate it - was it a Craig's List scam? Am I totally screwed? Was this all a mistake? Driving into the small town of St. David I was very pleasantly surprised to see an art gallery, A Gallery of Dreams and hoped it also lived up to my expectations. Down the little dirt road and spotting my new home, a smile came over my face. I had perma-grin for the rest of the evening. It was everything I had hoped for. I had always loved the Santa Fe style architecture. There were only 3 houses on this dead end dirt road and my need for privacy was satisfied completely.

Evelia and I unloaded quite a bit of my "oh my gosh I have too much stuff" from the POD which had arrived the day before. I was surprised and entertained by the numerous grasshoppers that filled the lawn and rested against the wall on the front of the house. There were some very large ones, slow and walked only - no
jumping or flying like the smaller majority. The neighbors later told me the nickname for these 3" long grasshoppers was "Little Generals". Different state/climate - different bugs.

We claimed bedrooms and threw down sleeping bags and pillows and then started our arrival celebration with a few margaritas with supplies we picked up at the local safeway (yes - they sell tequila at the safeway). Being out in a small town, away from the lights of the big city allowed for a dramatic view of the stars as the sun went down. The stars were amazing - the milky way a clear streak of white that ran over the front past the back of the house. The quiet, the dark - I hadn't even seen close to this since living in my private 1 1/2 acres in Gold Bar, WA. The last few months of a very public and very noisy living environment made me appreciate this all the more. We were inside when at about 9 or 9:30 we heard the coyotes and went outside to investigate. They were running in the area and practically screaming as a pack - something I hadn't heard before.

In the morning Evelia was outside reading and called me to come see the horses running by. The property backs up to some ranch land that my neighbors/landlords say is owned by the Kartchner's (Kartchner Caverns) and they run their horses and cattle thru the property at different times of the year.

Turns out I actually have a horse corral area on the property and as much as I love horses, I am not in a position or driven to own one - too much responsibility. And as my friend Pat reminded me, the size of the vet bill is relative to the size of the animal - ouch!

So now I'm settling into my new home and enjoying the sunshine and warm weather and solitude and setting up my studio space. New art beginnings to come soon!