New Work
Posted on | August 31, 2010 | No Comments
I am almost finished a series of 6 pieces created on reclaimed cabinetry. 
As I Wait
Posted on | February 3, 2010 | No Comments
Again I find myself in this place that has now become so familiar. Unlike previous times, I am now beginning to trust that I will find my way out again. Where am I? In this place like a deep hole…no , thats not it. I am in a glass box high above the world. I can see how everyone continues to move along. I wonder about them as I push my hands and press my face to the glass. Who are they? How can they keep going like that? I can’t keep going like this, but I do. Each day another day another day another day. I wait. I manage. I do what I can. I feel my way around in my feeling too much.
I hold my baby-breathe in his amazing smell and warmth. Then I feel the fear run through me like a sharp pulse. I could lose it all again. It takes so much to put the pieces together again. I will keep it together. I will do just this, and then this and then another day will pass. I can sleep this time so far, and that I am grateful for. It helps to write this- somehow it tames the beast just a bit.
I know I have made it through before, so I can make it through again. But once again, will I think it will be the last? Will it be the last?
For now I am trying for a drawing a day as I wait to make it out.
Raw
Posted on | December 27, 2009 | No Comments
I am already a very sensitive person, but after having my second baby all my senses seem even more raw. My sense of smell is crazy strong. Everything I see and hear drives me to distraction. I can taste everything. I can even taste the stress in my throat as the things that need to get done loom above my head- the things that cannot just be left for whenever time opens to do them…like the things that have to be done to keep my job, which provides income, which then keeps our life running- the life that is consumed with this amazing new little being…who I do not want to miss a minute of, but life has to keep moving. My first child quite grown also continues to fascinate me. In fact, I could use up all the time that exists basking in the glow from both of them – and nothing would get done. ( My husband just brought me a little pile of notes he found while cleaning up, written by my 11 year old daughter. Stapled together like a little journal, they were things to remember…one per page…” a drop of water that fell on my forehead when I was very young”…”the day I became a big sister”…she astounds me – these scraps of paper were the cut-out left behind paper from making snow-flakes…she leaves her creations everywhere. I find them like lost treasures). Yes, my children alone could swallow my time whole and I am not even talking about the time it takes to actually KEEP THEM ALIVE- like feed them, and do their laundry , and keep them bathed. I am just talking about watching them.
Then there is me and my five raw senses and the LIFE that breathes and needs, and yearns and churns. Inside me- all these things that I am feeling alone- but sometimes reach a plane of common ground on. Those rare moments when suddenly I know for sure that someone else knows exactly what I mean – and the loneliness is gone for a second. I am plugged back in to the universe outside of “I” and it feels great.
Often I am grateful for my raw amplified senses. I know it makes me appear shell-shocked sometimes, or far-away ( though I am actually too “here”), or distracted and self-absorbed ( which in a way I am…but really its myself absorbing EVERYTHING).
This son I have, though- who grew inside me and was the catalyst for all this postpartum hormonal rawness- is still so new- we are still connected in the way that I feel his breathing like my own. I taste and feel his satisfaction as he gulps milk loudly from my breasts. I smell him like his body is still part of mine 
. It is primal and raw, and sometimes even overwhelming.
This is what life is right now. I am trying to be with it as my mind reaches out its desperate tendrils to curl around all the endless ideas and expectations. All the DOS and DONTS. All the people I don’t understand and miss and long for. All the places I think of going to. All the things I wish to do and have done.
It is winter. I can let myself hibernate with my raw senses. I can be with just these small things in this huge, small world.
Life GOEs On
Posted on | December 4, 2009 | No Comments
The show went well. I am so appreciative of all the wonderful support and feedback received. I sold enough to inspire moving forward. The new little one and my return to teaching has me very busy, and my studio time is confined to musing for the most part. As things settle, I know the time will open if I push for it. Maybe it is a matter of wishing…is there really only time for so much? Or can it all fit in with skill and care? Regardless, life goes on.
Show in a month!
Posted on | September 24, 2009 | No Comments
Paradigm 2009 acrylic, ink, charcoal on wood panel
I have a show in November, and I am about to birth a son. Great timing. My paintings still sit waiting to be framed. I need to make postcards…It is a coffeehouse gallery. Which I have mixed feelings about. Maybe more exposure than an exclusively art gallery. I did not submit to very many places when I was looking to show this new series. I know I need to be more determined and far-reaching.
This may be the best place though- we shall see. I need to sell work!
Hope 2007 silkscreen
Clearing Out The Studio I find…
Posted on | July 17, 2009 | No Comments
Old random attempts at poetry from another time and place- a life time ago, really.
All from 2004
I am not quite sure
how this happened
why, I withered
in your embrace
always too tight.
It was as if you
intended to keep me
from breathing
every time.
Now free from grasp
it is only my own
thoughts of you
and the cold
words you share
in a voice like
a locked door
that make my chest tight
just as your arms use to.
What was intended
to be giving
always took
something away.
There is so much I do not understand.
There is so much I feel.
Sometimes, the shame, it seems unbearable.
I see I am here- caught between the spaces-
where she is dancing. and he stands watch.
Funny, how seeing
a kiss
made me want to live.
A kiss,
is somehow
worth living for.
I have a daughter,
still small.
Our life
together
once so woven,
now broken.
Sometimes
she would give
me kisses
on the lids
of my eyes.
WATERMELON
Posted on | May 15, 2009 | No Comments
So sweet. Every cell bursting between my teeth. Eyes closed. I can see it . Watermelon mind. Watermelon breath. I am watermelon. Life is watermelon in my watermelon moments, and life is beautiful. I open my eyes and gaze in to the flesh held up towards the window light. Watermelon glow.
I wonder about places in the world that do not have watermelons. Here- there are many. It feels like a luxury. It makes me feel rich- like a queen. The queen of watermelons.
This watermelon was bigger than my pregnant belly, and I have consumed almost all of it. Sweet water held firmly in this hard, green encasement. Slow bites. Sweetness running cool down my throat.
I am the Watermelon Queen. I have no King. My husband does not like watermelon. My whole being smiles with this fruit, and I bask in this alone…
In This Moment
Posted on | April 18, 2009 | No Comments
Usually I am either wandering through the days nostalgic OR in the moment. Lately it seems that somehow it is both at the same time. Perhaps I am nostalgic, and the baby growing inside me is in the moment. What else could you possibly be in utero besides in the moment? Could my baby feel nostalgic over the time when he/she resembled a reptile? Or a an alien?
According to all the resources available in this information age- my baby actually looks like a baby now. My belly seems way too big to be only three months along though.
But back to nostalgia. Now that I am back in this little town where my life nose-dived years ago…thoughts of those days infuse my consciousness on a regular basis. It is not true nostalgia though. If I were nostalgic, I would be feeling LONGING. Occasionally I do feel longing, but it is for certain people who I lost, or people who things never really got started with, or people who I must have terrified or disgusted or angered. Sometimes I replay events in my mind but replace how it ends with something I imagine…like running away to a different story. Then I think- how would that different ending then have made this moment now different? Then I think about how good my life is now, and how thoughts like that are just a matter of curiosity. I mean, I could still be swimming around town addicted to benzos. Instead, I turned things around- and in this moment, I am grateful.
The Point
Posted on | March 25, 2009 | No Comments
The thought of having a blog seemed very appealing before I actually had one. The anticipation was similar to the desired acquisition of some new object, like a new bag ( I have a bag fetish. I never buy expensive ones though, because one- I do not have that kind of money, and two- I am very aware of the temporary thrill.) I envisioned writing every day without fail. I thought maybe I would develop a meager following. I thought it would be a nice sideshow to my paintings . My paintings that still have not been added to this site because I have no idea how to do it, and my husband has apparently lost steam…oh God that sounds so bad…like standing on the road stranded with a flat tire, hip extended and hand placed just so…dammit, I can’t change a tire either. I CAN do many things though, and my hands are calloused- just so you know!
The point here is…I now have a blog and I do not write every day, not nearly. I write bi-weekly. Maybe I will try for weekly, and then maybe daily one day. It does not seem to be a problem to check crackbook, I mean Facebook almost every day. But that site I know people actually exist on- so not only does it vaguely feed a bout of loneliness ( you know, the kind of loneliness that when you think about it, you really do not want to be around anyone- the kind of loneliness when the thought of anyone just stopping by to say hey would really be kind of a pain- because it would interrupt your freedom to just wander, lost in thoughts, getting random things done…)- but it also appeals to my voyeuristic nature…or should I say OUR whole culture’s voyeuristic nature. Its our own custom reality show…Anyway, when its time to get back to REAL work, its just a matter of closing the laptop. There are no subtle hints to be dropped to lead a person or people out the door. Ofcourse, there are those friends who are so close that it does not matter. Things can continue moving as they standby, or lounge in a corner shuffling through the bookshelves, or raiding the fridge…thats the best.
Ok, back to THE POINT…what is the point?
Growing
Posted on | March 14, 2009 | No Comments
I am growing. I have this little tiny bean size mass of cells with a four chambered heart, and other developing organs inside me right now, growing. My life is growing. I am opening- though I thought I was so open. Now I understand its been a different sort of closed.
I have been told throughout my life that I am the least judgmental person this person at that time ever met. I judge. I hate it. But sometimes I think it could be a form of safety- of self-protection. Sometimes even an affirmation of autonomy. I have never been one to follow a group or doctrine, or even to catagorize myself. I often judge others who do- How could you confine yourself like that? You could be such an interesting person all on your own…I’d want to say
…or when did you come to believe you were so interesting and important? You are really nothing, but I find you amusing in this way- with all your rituals, and snappy dialogue, and connections…I will look at you the way you want to be looked at, because I am in awe of your ridiculous audacity, and it makes me chuckle inside- somewhere in this indescribable place. And yes, you think you are ok- as long as all these things are in place that define your importance.
Because that is often what it is all about. Feeling important. Feeling significant, and feeling significant because other significant people see your significance. And this placing of significance is selective, and exclusive and that is very important ( essential really) to really being SIGNIFICANT-magnificent!
But back to growing. It is my main mission right now, and it is important. In fact, I think it is really quite significant.