Little soundbite for you from an old favorite Talking Heads song and something I was thinking about tonight as I scanned in some small paintings.

After several requests and kind compliments, I've put up a small sale of small paintings at small prices. These are the results of my pledge for no painting left behind (references to misguided national education programs forgive, I hope). I simply make too much stuff and I like it too much to throw it out. Occasionally I send small paintings to dear friends but mostly they pile up in the corner of my studio. And that's not right. I want to scatter my paintings around to good homes throughout the big bad world.

I'm seriously influenced by Duane's painting a day project , Mark's eBay project, and my own piles of those pieces I've always called, little pretties...

So here they are, enjoy, and find one of these in your mailbox...

Always for love!

take care,
Rachael

Little moments of aesthetic glee go a long way for a kid like me. Today I saw a stamp of this painting which made me stare and star and look again. I vaguely remembered a few lectures and little this and that about Heade but now I want to really look and really looking is what it's all about, friends.

More good stuff about Martin Johnson Heade is here.

I am also working on a piece that keeps me guessing, funny how allowing myself to draw into the paintings more is a thrill, a scary thing, and a joy all at once.

Take good care and keep drawing (little things, big things, messy things),
Rachael

My husband and I are both from fairly quiet towns in upstate new york. We went to SUNY schools. We are as thoroughly Empire state as those apples. So yesterday we ventured to a new land just a few hours away...yep, we spent the day in Ithaca. Or as we've called it for years, The People's Republic of Ithaca. Gorges. Cold. Vegan and available with soy.
We felt as if we were constantly walking uphill. Climbing stairs. Walking another block up, turning and finding the road even steeper.
We did see art and I have to admit that I was under impressed with most of the stuff on most of the floors of The Johnson Museum at Cornell. Again, we climbed stairs and more stairs but the place was a bit haphazard. The lobby was weirdly cluttered but it is free and what with this sharp Bonnectou directing us upstairs we were encouraged.
My main problem with the Johnson is a temporary one (or two rather). Too many things crowded the strange exhibition spaces (the building itself is a work of art with lots of big windows and a very concrete feel but they are working on expanding it someday.) More though, I really was irked by the installation by Elana Herzog which frankly took itself way too seriously, crowded carpets and carpet scraps into places where other paintings and sculptures were, and just said nothing to me. Well, actually it said,"hey, I'm smarter than you. I'm staples and carpet embedded into walls thus making more work for the guys who'll fix these walls and thus commenting in my own smarmy way on civilization and it's discontents." Discontent to see one set of unfinished ideas barge into the way of a whole lot of work that was finished, was subtle, was content to say what it had to say. I should maybe give this installation the benefit of my doubts because I guess her work had more strength.
The real treat of the Johnson and of our trip to Ithaca was the reward, once we were up thousands of feet in the air, at the very tippity-top of the museum to be surrounded by an exquisitely beautiful collection of Japanese ceramics, Chinese calligraphy, and Korean celadon glazed pots. We looked out huge windows at long skinny lakes and squat mountains, smiled, and remembered that the way back to our country was a pretty way, and generally downhill.
take care,
Rachael

Although urged by wise friends to go to the Rongovian Embassy, alas, we missed it. Simply will have to go back.

 

Recently, I taught a drawing class in and around the objects of the museum where I work. Today I spent some time teaching a mini-version of that course. 15 minutes in which women were asked to sit down, turn off the voice inside that told them they couldn't draw, and try. Their results were wonderful. Alas, they took 'em home.

I share with you here, the thoughts I sent them home with. Maybe it's preaching to the converted but in the chance that you might need some encouragement to draw, try this the next time you are in a museum or place where beautiful things are. You only need pencil and paper.

I cribbed all the quotes from Robert Genn's Painter's Keys site (ever so handy!)

(before and during)
     Find a place to sit where you see something interesting. 
     Look.
     Draw.
(after)
How did that surprise you? What do you see about this thing now?

When drawing, I suggest you:
• Arm yourself with the courage to try and try again. Acknowledge the frustration of trying to see, trying to draw. Drawing is rarely easy, always a chance to grow.
 "You must do the thing you cannot do," Eleanor Roosevelt

• Keep a sketchbook. I highly suggest you consider your sketchbook a messbook, an idea book, a place where you can write or draw anything, where all honest marks are welcome and all mistakes (there are none!) are forgiven.

• Remember that you are human and as humans we make mistakes. Drawing is a skill, a language, a way of working that takes time to learn and become comfortable with.
As you acquire the language, you become more fluent. Regular practice helps tremendously.

• Concentrate. When in doubt, close your eyes and look again.

• Even a ‘bad’ drawing is a good chance to look carefully.
 “Keep a bad drawing until by study you have found out why it is bad,”  Robert Henri
 “The Sun will not rise, or set, without my notice and thanks,”  Winslow Homer

• Draw when you are calm, have time, and can let your eye wander for a bit before you draw. Drawing works of art has helped artists for ages because it allows us to follow a prepared path.   
 “ The beholder's eye, which moves like an animal grazing,   follows paths prepared for it in the picture,”  Paul Klee

• Approach the objects you are most drawn to, whether or not you feel "ready" to draw them.

• Know that you are not alone, should you seek others with which to draw.

“What do drawings mean to me? I really don't know. The activity absorbs me. I forget everything else in a way that I don't think happens with any other activity...,”  John Berger

and so now, my friends, have fun drawing!

take care,
Rachael

The drawing above is this object. Something I never would have noticed if I hadn't been drawn to draw it.

I have to tell you that it is blissfully Spring-like today. Sunny and 50 and the snow is melting and I have the day off and I can sit at the top of the world (or rather the top of the public library here) and watch the world go by. I've been eavesdopping and daydreaming and right now I can see two mounted policemen walk by. They are down there in the street, strutting along looking to fight crime.
I could send you magic places here but I'll instead send you to these adventures, on line. It's all visual discovery today...

Carolyn's wonderful blog sent me to the New York Public Library to see the picture archives. Amazing but true that all those pictures are available, accessible, ready to inspire.

I am on a list serve (usually full of museum folk talking amongst ourselves about conservation, whether education programs can be photographed, and where to find an internship at a 19th century farm.) Not exactly thrilling but every once in a while something interesting comes along. Today I found that Brian Springer's looking for info about a strange thing in the basement of a library. If anyone should be tracking down lost objects for their strange stories it would be Mr. Springer. In earlier artistic adventures he documented spin and from what I know of Brian (from way back in Buffalo) he is as active an observer as he is a listener.

Ok, so now it looks like it might rain and I'm going to go and find the book I need and the promise of spring which sustains me. Yea today!

take care,
Rachael