30-Day Art Challenge -- Day 4

Another layer of color



And the last element, some text.


First one done & I'm ready to rock the rest of the designs.|

30-Day Art Challenge -- Day 3

Adding some layers to the piece now.



Still taking it slowly as I discover what I like or don't like in the process.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

30-Day Art Challenge -- Day 2

I want to get this post started before it gets too late.

First two steps on canvas #1 for the 30-Day Art Challenge. I've glued down scraps of text torn from an old and irredeemable book called "The Infinite Woman," a fitting beginning for this piece. The figure is one of my favorite stencils. Next, comes some more color & texture, but I may have to leave it here tonight because I'm just flat-out tired.

I suspect weekends will be more productive days on this project.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

30-Day Art Challenge -- Day 1

I picked up my canvas boards today for the 30-Day Art Challenge coincidentally just in time for Traci Bunkers' latest 30-day art throwdown.

I have to admit that the stack of them is a little daunting, particularly as I am also making some new pieces for my upcoming show at Sky River Mead later this month. Still, I think I'm up to the challenge, I have a great concept for the set of 30 pieces, and I think I'll be able to do a great job carrying it off as long as I stay focused and make sure to do at least a little work on the canvases every day.

This is as far as I got with the actual art-making tonight. Ironically, when I tried to make this post from my phone, the App kept throwing an error, so I'm up late anyway, downloading pics to my laptop so I can upload them to this post.

Long day & I'm too tired to stay up making art. More time and energy for art tomorrow.

Buried Treasure: The Art on My Door Project

Update: Check out the entire set of Art on My Door (now more than 260 pieces), and be sure to visit Seth Apter's The Altered Page Buried Treasure to find a collection of amazing art blogs.

From 1/22/11
I moved into a new office in a different building this week, and upon arrival, I noticed this little card frame on the door:

Intended originally to hold cards posting faculty office hours, these little frames hold little value to non-faculty such as myself. Or do they?
I felt inspired by the tiny frame to kick off a new art project.
I'm aiming to create a new tiny artwork measuring just 3"x2" each workday to slip into the little frame on my door.
So far, I've created two new pieces, and I have to say that I am having fun with this project. I am finding that making the art helps me separate myself from the stress of work at the end of the day by creating something fun and whimsical. Additionally, the new art increases my enthusiasm for going to work because I have something new to share.
Below are the first two works in this project:

Day #1: Still needed to work out the dimensions of the frame

Day #2: Got the dimensions right. I love this striped mermaid.

Arthouse Co-Op Mystery Project

A month or so back, I accepted the challenge to do the "Mystery Project" based on the description on the Arthouse Co-Op site that read "Create a token of inspiration using the tools in your kit — it could be a drawing, a zine, a sculpture, or a collage — then install it in a public place for a stranger to discover."

I was a little excited when the small bubble envelope containing the ingredients for my "Mystery Project" arrived. Inside the envelope, I found a nice little thank-you card, a Prismacolor marker in a color called "Cinnamon Toast," and a small card with the phrase "If tomorrow came yesterday" on it.

Yeah. I was less than thrilled with a brown marker and a prompt so tortured and twisted that my head hurt every time I tried to think about what to do for this project. For weeks, I picked up the envelope, pulled out the contents and felt my heart sink as I struggled to work out what I was supposed to do with that marker and those words. I planned an elaborate voting box with tokens for people encountering the art to select what they would do if, as the prompt suggested "tomorrow came yesterday." I imagined a social experiment in which people weighed the burdens of knowledge of the future and tried to decide how they would spend a day with that knowledge. All the while, I kept thinking that in that circumstance, I would do what I always do: Be present and content in the here and now.

After a whole lot of agonizing over how to build the contraption and where to install it, I scrapped the idea altogether and decided to do as the original challenge said and create a token of inspiration, a small item to remind people how important it it to be present, in the moment, here and now.


That's when I grabbed a tiny wooden birdhouse, covered it in strips of old Wall Street Journals (how perfect is that?), distressed the corners with a liberal touch of "Cinnamon Toast," and slipped a special message inside for people encountering the art to discover.


I took the finished piece to work & installed it between two bulletin boards that feature marketing materials for the various MBA programs offered at the business school where I work. 


Here are a few photos of the installation and people viewing the piece:

Sometimes I feel...

So, I don't know if it's because my birthday, the one I shared with my mother for 43 years, comes just two days after Mother's Day this year or if it's because she would have been 90 years old today, but I am having a very hard time having a happy birthday this year.

I don't mean that I'm not enjoying the fabulous weather and the few days off from work to which I've treated myself. I just mean that every moment I am reminded of her absence. Of the fact that I will never again hear her say, "Happy birthday, baby" after I say, "Happy birthday, Mom."

Never. That's a long time.

And she'll never see how well my life has turned out, how happy I am and what a wonderful husband I have. I think she would have loved his music. And him. She would have squeezed his knees at the dinner table and told him how handsome he is.

And it hurts to miss her just as much today as it did the day she died in 2003. I keep thinking it will get easier, but I don't know when.