Touching Art

Making a Diva Bowl Parts 1 and 2

Would you like to see more about how I make art? Here are links How I do it, Part 1, and How I do it, Part 2. Feel free to comment, and if you like, share something about your creative process.

Sacred Travel

Since I fired that last kiln, I have been to New Mexico and Arizona. Then I entered an 8 day fasting cleanse. I was home, but in a slightly altered state. I am back, making art and feeling wonderful. Real spring in Maine helps.

My trip out west was to attend Mystery School with Grandfather Joseph Rael, Beautiful Painted Arrow. Three days of intense teaching. He really poured it on. He kept saying we still don't get it. He's right. I don't get it. I feel pretty sure that if I stop trying to get it, I'll have it. I am that close.

This was the last Mystery School. Joseph is now on silent retreat. He's setting us free. We have to get it now.

After mystery school I went to  Canyon de Chelly in Arizona and Navajo Nation. I visited with Spider Rock and hiked down into the canyon with Howard Smith, my host and guide, at Spider Rock Campground.

Some pictures from the road and Canyon de Chelly:

The Seven Peace Drums that are traveling around the world from Seven Circles in Australia. They were brought to Mystery School from the Peace Chamber in Brazil.

Shiprock, on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.

Spider Rock early in the Morning

Sliding House ruins where Anazasi people lived.

New work

This morning I opened the kiln to find new bowls and new silver pendants. The silver is fired and awaits polishing. The bowls are bisque fired and the glass is slumped. They are now in a glaze firing which will bring them to Cone 10. I'll show you everything again when it is all finished. I am working with a spider theme this week. Bisque spiders, porcelain spiders, silver spiders.

I can't wait to see what they look like all finished.

Dancin' Fool

This past weekend, I danced my fool heart out at the Down East Country Dance Festival held every year in Topsham, Maine. I danced so much that after a while it hurt more to sit down than to dance. I took it all the way to bliss. I am still high from it two days later. Dancing is like that, and contradancing is really like that! My friend Richard happened to be in the bleachers with his camera, and caught some of the late afternoon "Gypsy Dances". These are contras that all have the gypsy figure in them, in which two dancers lock eyes and use that energy to turn. Very  sexy! The dancer in the long purple skirt and pale lavendar  shirt is me. This is the first time I have seen myself dancing. The amazing dance band is Catharsis.

My Maine Home

This week I've been looking at some older paintings. I still get a kick out of this one.

Look at this one for a while before you read on. What do you see?

The original drawing in my sketchbook came from a model session at the late Round Top Center for the Arts. I set up my easel and paper, and the model positioned herself. I was startled at first. The view of her vulva was unexpected, and I wondered if I ought to move.

I took it as a gift. I never get to see that view of a body, let alone draw it, so I drew it with abandon, and made a few paintings and sculpture inspired by the pose. Let me here honor once more the generosity of models who lend their beautiful bodies to artists.

This painting is a favorite among my fans. It amuses me that some people see the figure instantly, and some never do, even if I tell them. I have spilled the beans to you, but I want to share an inside joke. I made this landscape a puzzle of my neighborhood, where the mountains meet the sea, with lakes, coves, and rocky cliffs I can see on my drive to town. The houses are all Hope houses visible in my view, or on the road. I am amused to imagine the very conservative town fathers and mothers if they saw portraits of their old farm houses nestled in a woman's crotch, or on her knee. This painting also reminds me of the Baudelaire poem, Giantess. My Maine home on Mother Earth's Stupendous knee.

Coming back from the depths

The past two months have been quiet at Touching Art. I have been spending time in silence and solitude, mixed in with visits to family, and quiet meals and hikes with friends. I've let myself just be in grief, getting used to life without parents, and also feeling that something new is coming, though I don't know what that is yet. I have made some sojourns into the studio, painting and sculpting work that no one will ever see. Equinox Thursday, March 20, when day will be as long as night, for a moment.

Five--Only Five-- big old hairy Art goals for 2008!

1. Mount a group show of erotic art in Midcoast Maine. Is the midcoast ready? Is Maine ready?
I doubt it, but I want to do it anyway. I have some established and very accomplished artists telling me about their "secret" body of work they can't show. Those are the people I want.

2. Establish a studio routine so that I am working almost every day. I have a lot of pieces I want to make, and a couple of series I want to finish. But the important part is just work my way into the Zone, consistently. Because the work will tell me what to do. Something wonderful I can't imagine while typing a blog post will emerge when I am in the Zone.

3. Set up the business side of my art with Quick Books, a database, a newsletter with enthusiastic subscribers, and professional help (not a shrink! a bookkeeper and office helper!)

4. Launch and maintain the new art blog Loving Art. Create a vibrant network of artists by linking to and writing about other artists with blogs and websites. Especially blogging artists.

5. Find a gallery or similar representation for my artwork that will put it in front of my audience, and work to sell it for me!

If anyone has any brain storming ideas or resources to share, comment away! I'd love your input.

My Art Year: 2007

The 12 days of Winter Feasting are over; I have two cords of firewood spilling out of my garage doors; and the January thaw is drip drip dripping, about three weeks early. It's time to return my focus to Art and the business of making and selling art.

For those of you who like the entertainment awards shows, and are missing them due to the writer's strike, I offer you my own personal 2007 self-congratulatory pat on the back: My 2007 accomplishments!

Biggest was the Love Medicine show, a one woman retrospective in June at the Yellow House.

Flipping through the calendar, I celebrate:
January I spent hours in the studio, diving into new work.
February, I was in the All Heart show at Nielson/Smith Metalworks in Portland, Maine. I made all new work  and I felt a degree of mastery of my material and process using porcelain and glass with the work for that show.
March, I made my first precious metal clay pieces.
April, I discovered a way to add silver to my porcelain pieces.
May, created up a storm completing new work for the show and creating publicity for it.

Also in May, I started my video career, with the 39 minute Love Medicine video at Google video and the 3 minute trailer at Youtube. There are others in the wings, just waiting for my co-creators and me to finish them and load them up.

June: Love Medicine show
July through September: Pieces in the Judith Gallery in Boothbay Harbor.
Also July through September: weekly model drawing with my artist friends, and unsinkable Lise!
And I completed the Peace  Chamber series of Paintings during the summer... well almost. I have more work to do on the fourth one which is why I have not shared this particular suite with you yet.
September I continued my experiments with PMC and porcelain,  and I made the first porcelain buttons for Nanney's Seacolors sweaters.
October and November my mother died and I was occupied by family stuff.
Though... at the end of October I met Jeannie Greenaugh at 205 Lavinia Street. We worked in her forge and I made a hook! What a great time that was!
Finally at the end of November I made an amazing silver merqueen/dolphin button for another SeaColors sweater.

Throughout the year, I became better at blogging, and did a lot of art networking, building my art community locally and on line.
For the  first half of the year I was part of Alyson Stanfield's Inner Circle art business coaching and mastery group.
It is Wonderful to write down accomplishments. A year is long, and I had forgotten how much I accomplished in the first half of2007. I am very proud of the work I have done. I am grateful for the help and inspiration I received. Bill, you started  something with that email... "let's do a show". Hahaha! Thank you. And I offer particular appreciation to everyone who bought some of my art in 2007. I hope it is bringing you great happiness. You made it possible for me to keep working with your support and faith in me! I love you!!!

The work of 2007, the goals, and the successes have germinated many new ideas and dreams. In a day or two, I will tell you what I want to accomplish in 2008. I have already started!

Enter the Haggis, or the fun I had last night

Last night I went to see Enter the Haggis play at the Opera House in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. EHT plays Celtic Fusion Rock. They are super musicians! And they are five really nice guys, who seem to enjoy talking to people and signing autographs as much as they like to perform. The performance is high energy, and wicked exciting! Here's a bit of video I shot of "Gasoline", one of their anthems. First, let me say hello and thank you to Chris, Mike, Katie, and David who drove down from the Augusta/Waterville area and adopted me into their group. You are really fun to hear music with, and I appreciate you! (They play beach volleyball together in Central Maine, miles from a beach!)
Now, Enter the Haggis, and Gasoline!

If you are not set up for multimedia, here are some still photos.

 

 

One of the great things about the band is they appeal to all ages. The audience ranged from young teens to elders, and every body was rocking! Part of that is winter in Maine... everybody comes out to the Opera House. A hundred years ago, all the seafaring towns in Maine built one. Many were torn down in the seventies, and in the last 10 years or so, the ones that weren't are being restored and saved. Here's the Boothbay Opera House story.

Christmas Tree

A few weeks ago I took a walk through the woods on my new snowshoes and found a big fir tree had blown down in the storm. I came back next day and took the top of this tree for my Christmas tree. On Christmas Eve, I finally got the tree up and lights strung, and today I decorated it with crocheted snowflakes and Santas my mother made. Here is a very short video with a lovely Christmas Tree carol playing on the radio.

Merry Christmas to all my friends, family, and brother and sister  bloggers!

Risotto recipe

Tonight, after weeks of unpacking, I could see the surface of my dining room table, and I celebrated with tablecloth, candlelight, china, and risotto, from the recipe my friend WWA in Walla Walla sent me.

Orange on orange risotto
Here is Bill's recipe:

Ok. It doesn't take a month to do it. Try in the worst mood, to take love in your arms, and see if the butter melts. Then sauté julienne carrots, add water, after a good moment when the juice is wet pour risotto, enough to be dry again, pat it down where it matters, add water and stir successively throwing your mind into the odor of love. Drink white wine, salt the mindplay and liberally throw some vine to the gods, -in the play too. After a while in pure ecstasy, add pre-baked slices of sweets, orange on orange, potaToes, suck them if you dare. off the heat. Cover, let the juice fondle. Light the candles, more wine sips, and music. Who cares what it tastes like, it'll be heaven.

Oh woman, I forgot to mention--I poured olive oil, fragrant extra virgin, to the blend--what is love without fairly spreading lubrication?? Then when served, the freshest herbal savory and cheese, parmesano, and  mmmmm delight.