Sometimes a poem is all I need to spark new fresh thoughts. Marsden's dogtown looked different after hearing Charles. More poems here, (more Charlie Olson) free, and freely told by those who wrote 'em.

Cold, beautiful winter days make me want to travel to the end of the earth and think, paint, and share.

Reading Anna's recent entry about the way she uses the internet in her work has me thinking. I too am pretty amazed at the ways this web of working artists, art lovers, art thinkers, and civilians has been helpful in my own process. I am inspried by the community here and even though I hardly get a chance to reply to comments or emails, I read 'em and think 'em through. Honest.

And honestly, I'm obsessed with the story of the American Chestnut. Blight. Regrowth. Big beautiful trees. I wanna find a tree...

One benefit of working in an arts education program is that I can learn as well as help others learn, so my class starts soon and I'm hoping to get some help in pointing my work in a slightly different direction. I ordered some new stuff last week and stocked up at the post christmas sales but I can't keep my hands off my new schtuff. All my school supplies will be major mucked up by the time I show up at the first class. Oh well. So goes it.

take care,
Rachael

by the way, more residency links are here

Often, in assessing my day, I will consider a good one by saying "well, no one got hurt." Today, in my little world no one got hurt. My talk went well (i.e. I didn't babble like an idiot and I did stop to look again at the painting), I managed to answer most of the frantic phone calls at work, I found time to eat my lunch, and all of my fancy new art supplies came in the mail.

Things are good then. But there's such a lingering sadness over the Tsunami situation. I heard a powerful commentary by Annie Dillard on NPR this morning that stuck with me all day. So many people got hurt.

I often think of scale in terms of art and size but it's so easy for me as an American to forget the magnitude of this tragedy...how many others lives and deaths are just dots in blue water...

Vija Celmins seems appropriate here.



More people hurt, more people missing, more people traumatized seems like more reason to make art to me, to help others, to connect as human beings in this big messy world.

More soon, but again, take care of yourself and others,

Rachael

and Dad, I love you, nice to know you are reading

The past two days have been a tremendous blur of activity at work. Good stuff but busy. And then at the end of the day I spend a bunch of hours trying to pull this graphic novel project together and a bit of time trying to sharpen my ideas about the talk I'll give this week and then some time just spilling paint and moving a pencil around to ease the stress and calm my nerves.

Big thanks to Jennifer at simpleposie for the canadian art links, see the exciting new section to your left and feel free to send me more to add.

I got my Art Papers in the mail today and felt a tinge of missing the ATL but mostly I wondered why they won't cover the south like kudzu. Once they did, now ArtPapers is so diffused as to be...um...boring. I promised I'd be honest. I used to love the artist's projects pages in ArtPapers and when I first moved down south that was the only place to learn about contemporary art in the south but now like most art mags it's ads, blah-blah-blah-ticles, reviews of shows that are over over and more over, and ads. Barbara Schrieber had a good living the art life/survival series of articles for a while but if they're gone so is a big chunk of relavent content. I have faith that that magazine can find some sparkling new perspectives, some real relavent ideas, and some distance on the market. The glossier it gets, the farther away ArtPapers will be from the non-glossy lives of those folks who make art in places like Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, Charleston, you know, those places that aren't big and aren't apples. People do make art in places that aren't on subway lines...

Ok, that's me and I'm off my soapbox to paint again. Like I did last summer. Sorry.

take care,
Rachael

Well, now, three days into this new year I am newly aware of why the figure has been creeping back into my work. No doubt it's because I am thinking, drawing, writing and working on a graphic novel project (a pretty good list by Andrew Arnold of 25 graphic novels to start with is here and from the past year here ). My project is an old idea turned new again, a way to breathe mew life into an old narrative character back to the world, and as always, an excuse to make up stories and draw pictures.

That's an old Janet. New Janet's a bit older, a bit wiser (maybe), and a bit more tricky to pull together. I think part of the problem is that I am more concious of what I'm doing. The content will probably be better but the process is tougher, rougher, messier, and it takes more more more time.
Oh, and Franklin's recent post about his decision not to pursue a phD in art history reminded me of my own moment of truth a bunch of years ago. I walked away from a phD program because I was having a lot more fun drawing comics than sitting in the library. I wonder, hope, think that maybe there could be a way to branch the deep thinking of academia with the passion of creating and all in a way that can communicate with others. More on this in future posts probably. But I gotta get back to my funny pages, not so funny right now (Ed's up in a tree and Janet'd depressed, how funny is that?).
take care,
Rachael

and for Elise, here's an example of a sneaking figure from a few months ago...

My public radio station played a This American Life episode about words and included was a powerful, poignant, fascinating reading of a Fears of Your Life book. This was a project sponsored by Creativity Explored which has just become my favorite non-profit art organization of the day. OK, I don't know a thing about them, really, but I am impressed with the images, and the concept, and the wonderful idea of connecting and communicating through art.

I'm off to paint and think and sort out some of the reasons why figures are sneaking back into my paintings. It's cold and they have no place else to go? Maybe.

take care,
Rachael