Coyote party this morning. They’re somewhere on the other side of Mama’s cottage. I didn’t feel like hoofing it down there to snag a visual.
The big boy bark is my neighbor’s lab telling them to stay away. Just another quiet day in the country.
My first youtube video. There will be others. Art lessons, anyone?
Don’t know about you but some nights I’ve just got to veg. Crash on the sofa with a couple of dogs. Watch TV. Eat M&Ms, the ones with almonds because nuts are healthy.
And if you happened to have read the post I wrote around the end of last year, I really meant what I said about cleaning up my act. Watching what I eat. I meant it at the time, that is. Really. But now, two weeks into the new year I’m thinking that’s sooo 2011.
And I’m a 2012 woman now. An M&M popping, dog lovin’, gen-u-wine twenty-twelve sistah girl.
So I’m sitting here, feet on the coffee table, dogs by my side, laptop on my lap, TV yakking in the background and on comes one of those commercials that tell a guy to pop a pill and grow a woody, just like that. No foreplay involved. And then the happy dude with the throbbing pants turns to the camera and says, “If you have an erection for more than four hours call your doctor.”
Hell, you won’t need to do that. The lady will HATE you by then and kill you herself. Trust me.
OK, so the first commercial was for erectile dysfunction, The next commercial, and I’m not making this up, was for one of those honker pre-cooked sausages. The ones that are close to a foot long, no matter who measures it. The smiling woman waves it in the air like a trophy and shows it to her daughter. Look what we’re having for dinner tonight, honey. Yumm…
And then she chops it up and puts it on a plate. Just like that. No foreplay involved.
Mwhahaha…
Wiping tears from my eyes. Wheezing. Wondering if Lorena B has a new job scheduling media buys for national TV.
The first time I walked through the doors of the Neighborhood Center of the Arts I was blown away. Totally blown away. Over the years I’ve watched other visitors have the same reaction. Because the art created there is raw. Authentic on a level you won’t find in an art school.
It is amazing.
I started working there shortly after that first visit. I teach mixed media three days each week. Been there nearly fifteen years.
I’m not there because of the money, trust me. This is a nonprofit that serves developmentally disabled adults, people who were either born with their genetic wires crossed or who suffered a life altering injury before their eighteenth birthday.
I’m there for them. Because I’ve learned to see beyond their disabilities. I’ve learned to see their abilities. I’ve learned to see them as people, like you and me.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn’t see them that way. The state of California sees the most vulnerable among us as the most expendable. Our budget has been slashed over and over throughout the years.
We make due without raises. We scrounge for supplies. We’ve learned to make art out of damn near anything.
But there’s one client I haven’t been able to reach. I cannot tell you her name or show you her photograph due to confidentiality restrictions. But I do want to tell you about her as best I can without stepping over the privacy line.
She’s a young woman. Autistic. She spends her time in my class on the floor, half under a table. I put paper, paint and markers next to her on the floor. Somedays she’ll write on the paper, copying words from whatever reading material is handy. Some days she’ll paint. But none of this activity lasts longer than ten minutes. And that’s on a good day.
If I’m lucky. Some days she won’t do anything.
One day, in desperation, I pulled out my iPhone. I have it loaded with art apps because, well, why not? I’m an artist. I handed it to her and she immediately began exploring the apps. I was amazed at her intuitive grasp of the programs, some of which I haven’t even figured out yet.
The iPhone kept her busy for over an hour, until it was time to go. I was amazed. Totally. These are a couple of designs she made with an app called Type Drawing. She had to type the text, pick the colors and draw.
A few weeks later I brought in my iPad. Same reaction. It was as if someone had flipped on a switch. She lit up and immediately began exploring the possibilities. She wasn’t the woman hiding out from the world, she was a young woman interacting with something outside of herself.
It was an amazing transformation, one I’d dearly love to see continue. Because something like this can change a life.
But an iPad is completely out of our budget. I know, I’ve put in the request, spoken with the powers that be. So now I’m putting the seeds out into the universe. If any of you have a connection to Apple, or belong to a service organization looking for a project or want a tax write off or just have an iPad lying around that you’re not using…well, feel free to contact my boss, Amee M. ncadirector@nccn.net (530) 272-7287.
Because you never know where you’re going to find an angel.
Mr. Spouse builds things. If his attention wanders when I’m talking to him I know he’s calculating the price of lumber or how many sacks of cement he needs the next day. And no, this is not what he does for a living. This is what he does to relax.
Which is fine by me. Especially since his latest project is my new studio. Here are the photos from this weekend–because this is a weekend only project. As long as the La Nina keeps messing with our winter the building will continue. I expect the snow and rain will come eventually, it snowed well into May last year and even a few flurries in June–but if it can hold off just a couple more weeks until he can get it dried in…ah, bliss.
This is taken from where the door will be. The wall on the left faces north and will have no windows. There will be skylights. The wall straight ahead will have two large windows with a counter running the length of the wall. It faces east. The wall to the right will also have a counter. The windows will take up the entire wall. It faces south.
This is the view from the windows on the east wall. The two brown buildings are the hay shed and the barn, more of Mr. Spouse’s handiwork. As is the green building which is his workshop. Or as Missy B says, “Grandpa’s house”.
I’ll be able to look out at the horses while I work. I don’t know where they were when I took the photo, somewhere out there but not in sight of the camera.
This is the view to the south. Umm…I see a garden here someday. Maybe a patch of lavender, a level little patio with a small table and chairs. I will put that idea out into the universe and see what happens. The universe in this case being Mr. Spouse because his other vice is building stone walls. We have a lot of stone walls around here. Matter of fact, the studio will have a stone facade.
This is what you’ll see when you step out the door and look straight up. This is facing west.
So that’s how studio-to-be progressed this week. I worked in Studio Grande today but nothing is ready to show. Maybe tomorrow.
Now I’m going to settle into the comfy chair and read the first draft of my friend Mitzi’s novel. A nice way to spend a Sunday evening.
There will be dogs involved.
With all the holiday bru-ha-ha around here, art (or the making of it) just didn’t happen. After the kids left I went down to the studio, scratched my head and wondered what I was supposed to do. Because I really didn’t know. Oh, I have plenty of files full of inspiration but starting up cold after vacay time just seemed like too much work.
So I decided to play instead. I discovered a free workshop on line, Doodles Unleashed by Traci Bautista. You can check it out here. It’s probably even better if you’re not an artist because then you might enjoy the exercise in its purest form…simply making marks on paper. But being someone who makes marks on things for a living, I found myself second guessing what I was doing. No paisley patterns for me…I wanted results.
Once I discovered how difficult it was to let go of my expectations, doodling ceased being fun and became a challenge. At least two paintings suffered a grueling end when I grew impatient. Warning: Cranky artist + paintbrush= BAD IDEA.
But I kept at it. Because really, I was not going to be taken down by a doodle. How bad would that be? So I didn’t give up…and I didn’t give up my standards either. Eventually I arrived at a compromise that technically isn’t a doodle in it’s purest form (who wants a doodle virgin anyway?) but it’s different enough from what I normally do to make me feel like I learned something.
I started by marking the paper with various stencils. Two papers actually. This is about the one on the left. The one on the right, RIP.
The shapes reminded me of building. Of houses. The squiggle could be a river.
I did some quick and dirty scribbling with acrylics. Houses. A river. And holy crap, throw some pine trees in there and it’s my town!!!
Because there are houses in my town. And a river nearby. A creek runs through downtown. And we’re surrounded by the Tahoe National Forest. But…but…this is supposed to be a doodle!
To shut up my inner doodle critic I did some loosey-goosey stuff. Paint. Oil pastel. Markers. White-out pen. It’s all about compromise.
And I’m liking it just fine.