balls are rolling

back to sf. pretty drive back down.
but unfortunately my head and chest cold made the trip as well.
all the same back in the studio and feeling good about it.
yesterday was cleaning time...organizing, preparing stuff to bring over to my storage unit.
taking out the trash for the new year.
today came in ready to paint but also felt like collaging my trash...
nothing to collage on at first, headed down to the dumpster and aha!
the trash elves must have dropped by last night!
got a huge piece of plywood, debatably too big for me to carry...but i got it up here
and took my saw to it, cut it in two pieces.and then collaged all the trash in my personal trash bag. so my trash bag is as empty as empty can be. fresh start 2k9.

it feels so good to have no lingering trash from the year past to impinge on future paintings.
it will be the biggest painting on trash i have done yet.
finished a painting i had been working on since pre-xmas...called "a walk in the mission"

big changes on the horizon:
i have a part time lecturing job now which starts in a few weeks.
so i will have to shift gears a little bit but i am cool with that. money is necessary.
at first i was reluctant to come back to the world from fox hollow, it is so easy for me to be away from society, but i am ok now. this is part of my gig.

fox hollow never treats me wrong

so in came 2009.
david and i represented at a couple eugene dance parties with whiskey, scotch and moves. it made sense and worked easily for us.
slept in slightly this morning and then we got the place together for the burn.
i finished the painting "japhet in november and december of 2008" before people arrived which felt nice.

and david got the pile going.
then people arrived and we burnt things. the award goes to heidi for burning her journals...30 of them!!!
we all helped her and it was inspirational.

i burnt a few things, abstract ones, written on paper...fear of my strength, the past, a dream that has been holding me back.
then after the fire? more fire.
took a sauna to clear out my head and chest...turns out 2008 is putting up a decent fight to remain in my being, i.e a shitload of mucus.
and then yet more fire...throwing balloons and citrus rinds into the stove in the living room.
guests left. david and i reflected. again with the sauna for round II of operation "clear this shit out".
hydrate, hydrate, sweat, sweat..blow the nose.
david did some nude posing out by the burn pile and i took photos.
further relfection...
gave david a tarot reading by the fire...
now drinking water, blowing my nose, coughing and reveling in the easiness of warmth and solitude.
2008 the year of massive amounts of mucus.
2009 the year of warmth and flow.
this has been a good trip.

last day of 2k8

but i still have a ways to go.
all the same the year will have turned and a new year is just that...a new year.

so yesterday wrapped up with a bang, or anyway my soul was jarred or the little that is left of it was blown lightly to the ground.
by connie. the eugene reader that i saw yesterday.
a powerful experience.
validating, verifying and educational.
and she told me tools and tricks to work things out.
mostly keep my energy in use it to replenish myself for just a little longer.

then dk and i headed to our friends house for cocktails which was fun and easy then to dinner in town. also fun and easy.

no work today. we woke up and headed to the coast to meet up with some friends for lunch and a walk around.

then back to fox hollow in the dark...we got lost in the back country, round in circles, disoriented into the new year. hot shower when i got home then to rest in front of the fire before we head back into town for various ceremonial new year's eve parties.

tomorrow morning we are hosting a burn for friends out here. i need to create some cartoons of what i want to burn and then burn them...maybe it will come to me throughout the evening's activities. maybe.

back out on fox hollow to wrap up 2k8

so here i am.
after visiting family has come and gone.
caught a ride with a friend up to oregon from sf.
great drive. decent weather...funny discussion, nice music.
arrived to homemade miso soup, margaritas and homemade sushi.
delicious.
like a nice warm hug on your way to sleep.
since then; david and i have done some planning on how we will spend the week that i am out here: wrapping up past projects most importantly and some house decoration.
currently i am making progress on the book binding of our "some seals" story = gorrilla glue and binding clips.
david is in town for a pedicure. then i will have to go in for a tarot reading in a bit (somebody's gotta give me some answers these days i guess)
we are getting ourselves in order in those senses(?) as well.


brought some of my own personal paintings as well. and i started working on them other day out in the workshop...those are some shots of them

it is very nice. very nice to be back in the space out here.



david is back and here are his toes. gonna have some tea and fire time before i go out for my reading

blue sky, puffy clouds, fleetwood mac

"never going back again" is bubbling along with the background purr of my space heater.

in my studio. not doing art today. instead, putting attention towards getting a part time job to relieve some financial burden and i guess impose a little more structure to my life. slow time down; because time flies when you are having fun and at this rate i will be in the grave in no time. no no no, please not the grave.

this weekend i had a holiday open studios which was slow and people were sparse. though i sold a good deal of greeting cards. ended the time with my friends showing up and hanging out to some eggnog cocktails. that was the best part.
worst part was realization that being an artist and the type that i am, opens me up to being preyed upon by lonely stalker types...leading to a sleepless night of deliberating all the ways in which i should have shut people down or barricaded my person from invasion.
the tragedy of the world huh?
some would debate that. i actually have in mind who those "some" are, i know you are out there and to you i say...you have no idea.
all the same my opinion is go find your fucking connection somewhere else lonely stalker types...connect with my art and my cards, that is why i put them out there...but don't come near me, i am not a fucking free for all for all the lonely and uninspired.
bitter?

i am trying to look the other way but am standing in front of a mirror

time to just look straight ahead at myself...
it is nothing i have never done before and no one is here to yell
at me that i am selfish...or anyway what could be more self-absorbed than standing in front of a mirror?
tattooing self promoting jargon on one's hip? debatable.

all the same drink from the well when you spent all day walking to it.

so painting today...broken up with a few phone calls and lunch.
then...
when the going got tough, the artist poured herself a shot of tequila and
communicated once again to the world around her...i am here to stay bitches and i am serious about taping into the collective conscious and letting it flow out all over this world of matter.
does it matter? time will tell no doubt but who's to say this or that.
i guess me, here, now.
so i finished 2 pieces today...the first is "3rd time's a charm" hopefully the last of the break up pieces that i make...who knows though, again with that whole time telling deal.

and the second is "right to be" which is about the actualization of homosexuality in our country and in a broader sense, embracing one's inner creature and being who one truly is to the strong reaction and resistance of "those people" who fear their insides so much they attack and ostracize others.

then i thought i would do a small demo of a piece i am in the midst of
first is the collage
next is the whitewash

third is the creation of lines and identification of images.


now i am gonna put on my non painting clothes and go out for a friday night.

December starts as a mixed bag

got back from ireland just over a week ago.
it was great.
i am a horrible horrible person cause i am not giving it the proper update here that it deserves but time is moving beyond it and the seeds have been planted days ago so to talk about their beauty and the adventure in planting them is passé...
the green sprigs have sprouted i assume at this point...but i haven't gone outside to look. i have been keeping my head down at a desk somewhere inside my mental self.
but an update on broader things later.
besides i think i am already actually up from that serious boring desk and on my way outside, i just am scared to admit it just yet.

now = settling down from a day of art support...building frames, painting frames, constructing furniture to decorate, making calls, sending proposals, getting things done so when the artist steps out over the cliff their will be a nice bridge on which she can walk.
a practical needed bridge.
my hands are calloused and i sustained a decent gash between 2 fingers.
but my studio is quiet and clean and blank canvases of sorts await me for when i come in tomorrow. the little lovely creative creature in me has the rest of the week to use as her own without a practical thought needed. the work horse is done.
she is going to the lone palm for a cocktail.