Mind is on babies

I did this piece while waiting for my first grandchild, a little girl. Well she has arrived and all is well with the world. I am entering this piece in the Great Lakes "Small Works" juried show at the Riverside Art Center to be held in their wonderful gallery in Ypsilanti Michigan.

New Artwork

This piece is called "tenderness" worked in layers and a variety of mixed mediums. I also wanted to share part of a poem from Ben Okri, "Healing The Wounded Learner or the Pygmalion Complex"

We are all wounded inside in some way or another

We all carry unhappiness within us for some reason or another.

Which is why we need a little gentleness and healing from

one another. Healing in words, healing beyond words

Like gestures. Warm gestures. Like friendships, which will always

Be a mystery. Like a smile, which someone described

As the shorest distance between two people

I hope you received some smiles today and were able to return the gift.

Artist collaboration

"We all have to fight our obsessions and prejudices and try to keep our eyes open to new forms. I know I do, for one. It's very difficult to see something that's new, and not a repetition 0f something you've already seen and responded to. But if you can get into the right kind of receptive and appreciative -creative- way of seeing, then the whole world is full of new ideas and new possiblities." Henry Moore

This photo is from the latest show I took part in, called Balance, an artists' collaborative game. It is a traveling show that will be in four galleries thru out Michigan in the coming months. It is a Women's Caucus for Art exhibit. I was paired with another artist and we exchanged three works of art. Mine were 2-d,hers were 3-d. The artist was Sandy Shelly and she does wonderful altered books and assemblages.She helped me to think outside the box about memories and balance. In the photo is a painting where I have my Mother center, I am to the right and my daughter on the left, we are all in our early 20's - each in our own way trying to find balance. This was my third piece.It is a mixed media where I used photo transfers, watercolor and pencil.

Chaos

"The creation of true art requires some mysterious innate ability to thrive in chaos" - Sharon Hubbard. Ain't that the truth!  I have been meaning to post for some time now but other things like committee meetings, local art groups, museum openings ( University of Michigan has just reopened and it is fabulous), and now I am a on facebook talking to other artists but I will not twitter at least not yet. These two paintings were in a show I was in at the Riverside Art Center. Lady of Means is a mixed media piece with a photo transfer, the model was a gal I paint with and is also a Chelsea painter - a group that I am a member of. The first piece "remembering" is also a mixed media piece with a photo transfer of her face and a lot of other media on top. This afternoon I am going to try to conquer some of the chaos in my studio.

Show at Flint Art Institute

This piece is called The Land Ladies. It is a mixed media with paint , a photo transfer and lots of texture. It won third place in a juried show at Uof M hosptal. The Ann Arbor Women Artists and a few Good Men board members have a show in Flint at the Art Institute. A very nice museum that I had never even been to and right in my own back yard, shame on me. The museum has just been remodeled and was a pleasure to tour. I've been doing some reading about Nathan Oliveira. I find his figures so haunting.I love this quote of his, "I believe in an art that layers time upon time, an art that simply reaffirms our presence and the depth of our extence on this earth, our planet in the universe."