It's working, slowly but certainly and a small space heater with some small space to heat is producing some paintings and a great deal of calm.
Here's hoping you have that too...
Rachael

Inspired.

Things (good things!) and people keep coming into my sphere and inspiring the beejeezus out of me.

Julie Johnson was just around for a workshop where she showed a lot of her honestly charming cups and bowls, boxes and plates. Nothing is as effortless as it looks of course, but somehow it truly does make me feel more graceful to sip tea from a little JJ cup...

Willie Cole and his irons, shoes, chickens, and all the ideas embedded in the work...

Edouard Vuillard's quietly brilliant paintings

and prickly smart Gertrude Stein's essay about Pablo Picasso which is so thoroughly steeped in myth-making (Braque who?) and modernity that it amazes and excites me... This mix of her poem is a treat.



So, then, more making and thinking and keeping warm and gathering treats to be mailed...
see ya,
Rachael

So this has been a magnificently inspiring and exciting coupla weeks of making, connecting, learning, growing, laughing, working, playing and starting up again (teaching and learning). It all has me concious of how dang lucky I am to be doing what I love and I figure I ought to write it down while it is still fresh because as in any pursuit, the exciting moments come after hours of hard work and are often followed by days of drone.

Why do I...

Teach?
Lighting the spark and knowing that some of these kids are bombs. When the one kid in the room is writing as fast as he can, trying to figure out how his own art can have the power of that Degas, it's just worth it.
I am again inspired by the teachers I know as I see how excitement is contagious. One teacher's passion for the funny shapes of Gauguin's Breton peasants watching Jacob wrestle is still (after 15 years) still getting me thrilled to expose others to these white and red, alive and dead, powerful ideas.
It's about learning and exploring as much as sharing. This site was fascinating to me and I wouldn't have discovered it if I didn't need to remember Hokusai.

Paint and play with clay?
I have to. I love to. I need to.
There is nothing as thrilling as when it works. I like to have the power that big brush gives me. I like to let the paper decide and take all my power away.

If I keep mucking with pretty porcelain, maybe, maybe, maybe someday I will make something as wonderful as this.

Manage a busy art school?

Busy keeps the devil away.
I just really like all the students, all the teachers, all the troublemakers and creative problem solvers.
More people who love art makes for more job security for my "real job".
Health insurance and access to the university world of academic journal articles on demand and ideas a plenty.
I get to pay people to inspire others.
I get to connect students with teachers, artists with markets, those who need it with scholarships to open up a wide new world.
Every single day is something different.

Try to maintain some friendships?

Because I have such delightful friends and each has experiences and ideas that challenge and change me.
They make me laugh.


And I blog because it lets me say what I need to say and ask open questions, such as, well...
What about you? why do you do what you do? I'm listening, I'm curious, and I'm off to do what it is I do. That bag of porcelain isn't just going to mush itself into pinchpots you know.
take care,
Rachael

Oh what exciting things I found on this site! From 50 Paul Klees to the Kandinsky research institute to a million reasons to go to France.
Not today but someday. Enjoy the cyber browsing...

best,
Rachael

Well, the grant I am applying for needs to be postmarked by January 15 and it is now January 14. The application is sitting in my lap ready to go. I am as in honor of Martin Luther King as the next person but I'm amazed that all the universities and foundations so used to keeping January 15 as a postmark date for applications would not change it when they realized that postoffices are closed on that date. I will send the stinker out but it's a big maybe if it will be accepted or rejected on the basis of postmark date alone.
I do understand the need for rules and regs and some deadlines to see if the truly serious applicants can get themselves together but I guess the learning is that I could be a little more serious about applying for opportunities. I could have packages of slide, statement, resume just sitting there ready to go. I could have checks on the ready for application fees and I could draw lines more clearly and during lunch everyday (which I still don't regularly take) I could send opportunities out.
Classes began at the art school I work at and I begin teaching tommorrow and taking a class the next night. It's a little more art immersion but I love it. It gives me a chance to stew in the ideas and images of my students and classmates and the great, greats of modern art.


That said, I'll send and start.
Rachael