I'm a happy kid. Everyone was really nice to me today. I received lots of treats (perfect bowls, fresh roses, a delicious carrot cake, funny and thoughtful cards, new stamps with which to write new letters to send down an old mail chute , Umberto's sexy new book, dinner with green tea sauce) and a very clear appreciation of the luck, love, laughter and kindness I have around me practically 24/7, not just my burfday.
I did have time to play with clay today and learned that while small objects make great patterns in wet clay they also get embedded so I guess I'll wait until leather hard sets in.
thanks again everybody for the kind words, the great treats, and just for listening and making me laugh. I'm off to sleep.
Sogni d'oro,
Rachael

I worry that this little blog has gotten mighty navel-gazish lately and I do hear a bit of a whine in my voice when I tell the story (granted any story has it's saturation point and I simply might not be able to tell it anymore). So then tomorrow I'll (sorta) stop. I want to point forward. I want to relax and not worry about what to make of those paintings or how we'll manage to have a place of our own that will never burn.
So on this long and lovely 21st day of june (my 32nd and Hogan's 4th birthday) I will relax. I will not overwork. I will play with clay during my lunchbreak. I will work on getting over my fear of poetry. I'll tryto discover three things. I'll listen and talk to strangers. I'll call old friends and draw. I will hug my sweetie again and again.
Eat cake, enjoy. I'm happy to be in it for another year and ever so ever so ever so happy to be here. Thanks for listening to me and my bellybutton. Maybe someday I'll talk about art again but it's the seams of art and life that are the most interesting to me anyway. The studios, the methods, the meanings, the work, the mess, the process and the people. Always the people...
take care,
Rachael

All of my artwork was affected in this recent fire. My husband, my neighbors, my cat, my sketchbooks, many of our pictures and personal objects survived but everything changed quickly. So we are continuing with everything we can, taking stock, and sorting out. Below is what my floor looks like most nights as I try to insure there is no wet and no mold and minimum smoke smell on the best of the remainders of the paintings. It's kind of funny in a way, since the past few years have been about understanding how I paint and the past year especially has been full of experiments integrating scraps of past work in new pieces. But, seeing the mess and the muck and the change is also tough. Fire trumps any painter's intention. These are different and may be better when (if) I can go back into them.

Today we visited family, played badminton, collected random things (envelopes, soup, bookshelves, a stapler), and remembered again the greater (much greater) importance of people. We don't need things. We need people.
take good care and thanks for listening and all the kind words,
Rachael
Below is some of the pile of stuff that was destroyed in the fire. It's bigger now. We're all still sorting out.

Well you know, they aren't much but I am proud of my first attempts at ceramics especially amid all our rethinking of the importance of objects. I want to make more clay things and I will.

take good care,
Rachael

I went back to work today and told the story a few more times. This evening we'd wanted to see a movie but we would have had to have free passes and we didn't have 'em so instead we came home and watched tv while I sorted through another portfolio of paintings. They all smell smoky but some are going to be salvageable (not too wet, no mold, looks like they looked before), some are going to be revived (if they are noticeably different but retain enough to be revived, renewed, or remixed), and some are trash (ish, probably can't bring myself to destroy them completely but maybe they'll be cards or letters or paper pulp or turned into paper clay or collaged into new work or something).
I have ideas to share about art and change and flexibility and smiling when knocked down and the kindness of so many people but I am also simply tired.
goodnight and take good care,
Rachael