Circles for the Green Show

I did this picture on a piece of scrap redwood and used buttons and patterns I collected over the years. I think of these as offering me a sense of play that I might not normally be able to engage in. It's funny how art is really all about play for me, yet I can so easily attach "shoulds" and "musts" and deadlines, and self ascribed seriousness to creating art. This is a playful piece and it reminds me to make more of them.

Blowfish Chicken

I learned about labels last week. I've been blogging for over two years and haven't really paid attention to the world of blogging or what bloggers hope to achieve, or any of the ways to drive traffic to one's blog. I do notice that when I google something, I frequently land on someone's blog so it must be working for them. Me, I'm pretty content to post a painting for my pals and have that be that. But Isabelle is another story. Isabelle is a blog I've started and she's hoping to get some serious readership. For now, it's private, but stay tuned for "Stories From the Life of the 7th Child of the 7th Child."

Greta Garbo 24" x 36"

This guy is much larger than the usual square chicken portraits I paint. I first did the background last year and was never quite satisfied with the painting. Now I know it was just waiting around for the rooster, which is actually called a Phoenix. These birds are bread for the length of their tale feathers, the longer the better.

Peek

Saturday night Tedda Hughes Boutique and Gallery will be having it's Grand Opening party. Both Trish and I have work up so come on down and have a glass of wine and enjoy a sense of prosperity and possibility with the artists!

Mr. T

Tonight I spent time on the computer cropping, editing, and saving the images of my paintings. Twice a year I send off slides made from digital images to Visual Aid in exchange for vouchers to buy art supplies. It is also just good practice to have my images sorted by large and small (for printing or for the web).

I've been feeling pretty confident about my software skills lately so I choose to open Adobe Photoshop Elements and do my editing with a more comprehensive tool. I happily busied myself editing image after image. When I went to upload an image to this blog, there were no pictures, only words describing the type of file. I decided to take a chance and try to upload anyway, but no luck.

I've made a decision not to take this as evidence that I should stick to what I know but rather turn to my in-house technical support to see if I, once again, did something to cause this blunder.

Leghorn or Jimmy Dean?

I just learned that daylight savings time happens this weekend. Now that is really good news, I always feel better when it stays light longer.

I seem to be coming out of the coma/shock/malaise of losing my mother. This week I managed to cook a chicken, roast broccoli, steam asparagus, cook brown rice, and stir fry some red chard. Between the light changing and my return to self care, I'm starting to feel like everything is going to be alright.

Dolly

Lately I've been having the experience of talking about something totally remote and later having a completely different person brings up the same subject. For instance, last week over brunch, my friends were telling me that people were squatting in foreclosed houses and turning them into "grow houses." Two days later I get a call from an old friend asking if I could write a letter on behalf of his son who was arrested in a grow house.

Another example of this phenomenon is that I was talking to my friend about how my mom called me Dolly and saying I missed hearing it. Later, another friend who was not privy to any of this, was in my studio and she said I should name the elephant Dolly.

I should probably buy a lotto ticket, but instead I'm just going to name the elephant Dolly.