My amazing friend, Larissa, (she has a small PR business and started this whole business) and I will pick up my framed paintings from my other amazing friend, Jody, (she has a framing business and the ability to frame my little guys up nice and quick and inexpensively) tomorrow. I don't actually have to hang this show, they'll hang it for me and then I can order a latte and stand back and see what it is I've been making. That's a huge part of showing for me. Really, the ability to stand back and see what the paintings are when they are all grown up and out of the house. For those of you in the Rochester or upstate area (or with an excuse to be in the next 3 months) you can see them too at the Starbucks at 2900 Monroe after Monday.

Nothing appeals to me more right now than the thought of a day to simply make. Drawings, clay nonsense, bread, my messy house more clean, long letters to old friends. This simple, nothing expected of me, chunk of time is nowhere to be seen but I can see to making one soon. In the immediate future, I have a show of my own opening in a few short days, a deadline almost met at work, a sketchbook I keep filling, some time in the studio every couple of days for a couple of hours, and a painting and a clay class every week. I've just started a class about inclusion in education and I am the only non teacher or almost-teacher in the room. It's a fascincating thing, really, to hear so much talk and read so many words so quickly about evening the playing field, seeing all kids as kids, and teaching everyone.

For the dreamers, then, I share. I was reminded about Jim Hodges today and just need to spread the lovely.



just tell me, you are making something?!
take care,
Rachael

I made a painting recently that smacked of motherhood to me. Nursing specifically.

Yep, I'm thinking about babies. No, I'm not pregnant. Yep, I am fascinated by all the babies I know, all the toddlers I see, and all the mommies who still make art. That's simply amazing to me. How does an artist balance the responsibility of motherhood with day-job and income-gathering and making art? And then the work of getting it seen?
My friend Deb emailed me recently that she'll have a show in New York and I promise to fill you in with details when I know them. She is a momma, she's a painter, she's magic.
There's a whole world of representations of pregnant, nursing and mothering mothers. From Demi to The Art of Motherhood, it's in there and I oughtta look again at the images that women who are mothers have made of mothering. Like Alice Neel...
In wandering online looking just now for a Peggy Bacon motherhood image, I found instead a fantastic Library of Congress cartooning and caricature show with a smart Peggy print about vanity.
Time for me to get back to painting in the time I have allotted.
take good care, troublemakers, and more soon,
Rachael

Oh and see Junebug if you haven't, it's lovely and all about motherhood and other assorted mysteries. Makes me miss my friend Toni even more...

I had a chance to draw today. And also, I am pleased to announce that I'll have a solo show opening in a (gulp) week at a local store of a ubiquitous coffee company (think green mermaids). This company actually has a very friendly, very good way of working with artists localy, they'll take care of much of the work of the show, and also I like their coffee. It'll be up for three whole months and will maybe after that move to a new town. I'm excited to have my work in view for a whole bunch of people who sit in that space and talk, and think, and read, and occasionally buy artwork. And I tell ya, much of this happened because I have a good friend who has a part time pr business and the confidence to talk to anyone and on a day she was getting coffee she was also chatting with the manager about how she knew a painter whose work would fit right into the store.

In other fabulous news, my friend Shelly (she of the recent baby shower) gave birth yesterday to a little girl she and her husband have named Eva (in honor of the sculptor Eva Hesse and also because it's a pretty name and she's a pretty girl.)

And also, the sun shone, the day surprised, I learned and leisured, and feel refreshed for what will be a busy busy busy week. And also, it will be busy.

I think I'll be busy.

goodnight,
Rachael

Amazing but true that my day started with a treat of a morning, and a chance to be a part of a very creative, chaotic environment. I have been living this week like a whirlwind full of past (old friends from art school who come back around and take art classes with me, memories by the bucketfull), present (phone ringing, deadlines pressing, ideas formulating, images brewing), and future (dreaming my friends, dreaming of travel and time and art). Today's the day when I slow down some and maybe have something more to say about taking chances, looking carefully, making art and making trouble. In the meantime, I have a painting that will be in my next show and my next show I'll be able to fill you in shortly 'bout.
Carefully, we go is one of the paintings in my studio that has been through several lives. It's probably done changing.
I'm not.

bye now,
Rachael

We've lived in Montgomery, Alabama (home of the Southern Poverty Law Center) and Atlanta, Georgia . in both cities and for many years we were very much aware of the work of Dr. King (as in this 1956 comic book) and the work left to be done. I feel a big guilt in knowing that mine wasn't a day on, not a day of volunteering or giving or helping much, but a day of spending time with my husband driving around upstate new york shopping, getting lost, and picking up a painting. We did get home in time to make luminaries and put them in front of our house as a tribute to Dr. King and his legacy (non-violence, positive social change, equality, risk taking for the good of others...).
I really do want to do more but tonight there are glowing lights in my front yard and throughout my little successfully integrated neighborhood. We live now in a city whose legacy is Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Still strong and still relevant.
take care and make good trouble,
Rachael