Oh this is a lovely thing, this lomographic paper pinhole camera. I want one. But more than that, I want to see more of this town. I wanna wander around other artists studios and make new friends. We are transplants, newly planted in a fertile place and even though I have plenty of days when I feel connected, there are as many times when I lock myself in my studio not so much just to draw but because it is easier than trying new situations, new places, meeting new people. Sure I've met artists (like Carol and more who are not so easy to track online) but there are lots more I've been lazy about approaching...

For years, I've told friends of mine who moved to new places. The first six months are lonely, and then you connect. So, I've started to read the book everyone here is reading. The first story had me roped in, urging me to spend more time looking this weekend.

I'll try if you do. Deal?

See ya,
Rachael

Big white snowy world outside my door makes me even more hungry to see Emile Nolde's watercolors (suggested by my painting teacher), Sam Francis, and Paul Klee. It's cold and I'm onlyinviting old favorites into my head, maybe I ought to be a bit more receptive to new things but I do need bold reds right now.

Oh, and yesterday was town meeting day in Vermont. Maybe the most democratic and impressive thing I ever saw, my friends, was a genuine town meeting. Come to think of it, that too, was a flash of color in a black and white world, in the green state no less.

take care,
Rachael

Why not? The latest Utne Reader has a story about Creative America project which aims to train artists and cultural workers to run for local, state, and national office. It's a beautiful idea and the site has some good links and resources.
When not completely disillusioned or focused entirely on the microcosm that is my studio, I'm hungry for political, social and cultural leaders with passion, creativity, kindness, a committment to feeding, keeping healthy, and educating all Americans... Yep, still looking. But apparently I wasn't the only one who would have voted O.
Oh no, didn't go.
Goodnight, kids,
Rachael

The Hockney I like, well love, is not the pick-a-fight art writer but the watercolor painter who plays with color and pattern, mood and memory. I want to see this show but LA is far far away.
That's all.
Rachael

In this self portrait, Mabel Dwight , 1932, looks like she saw truth. Honest and real and committed to observing.

It's getting easier and easier to see the prints and she's once again getting some recognition, her story told, her wit, wonder, and composition seen, and those prints preserved and considered as more than just social record. Sure, there's some social record in there, but there's also a hell of a lot of the balance between carefully weighed lithographic decisions and the instinctual, the impulsive, the need to see. It's there too in Martin Lewis, the kind of looking that so carefully sees the real moment that seventy years later it still feels true.

Just wanted to share.

take care,
Rachael