Among factors outside our human control:

• hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis, earthquakes, natural disasters
• much invasive and scary disease
• um...lots

Not unlike everyone else outside the Katrina belt, I am obsessed with the images of uprooted houses, trees and trucks, people on rooftops, and the utter horrible loss. Maybe it's wrong to look at CNN photos and be pulled back to thinking about paintings, but while we have little control over nature we have lots of control over art.
All of that destruction, sad sudden change for millions (?) of people, and pain has me thinking also of how artists use images as catharsis and catalysts for action.
Katherine Taylor is an Atlanta based painter originally from Biloxi, Mississippi. She shows with Marcia Wood and for years has been painting images of the Mississippi coast (all casinos and neon lights or hurricane ravaged in 1965). I used to be in the same studio complex with Katherine and we'd have plenty of talks about home and family and the places we were from. She spoke of Biloxi and the Mississippi coast with a love and mixed emotion as the casinos and disparity between poverty and glitz grew, surface and substance. When the New York Times tells me Biloxi is practically gone , I gulp and hope Katherine's family is OK, I hope she is not shaking from the loss. I hope the eerie similarity between what she painted (the destruction wrought by the last horrible storms) and what has become real points only to a future in which we have sustainable coasts and more respect for factors outside our control.

I guess now, we can only watch the images, witness the stories, and give help in whatever way we can. Take good care of yourself and friends and family who've been uprooted,
Rachael

Well, there's not much honest art talk because I haven't been having many honest art thoughts. We are so very close to buying our first house, very family oriented, and exhausted from this summer's breakneck pace. I'm so very much in need of the vacation days I've got lined up. A whole fat week of days I plan on drawing, thinking, starting some new projects and processing the change of seasons and changes in our lives. We forget how every single messy day is a gift.

I've looked closely only at Ben Shahn's drawings and John Marin's watercolors. Images are in my head; this photo I took in Atlanta in June keeps lingering.

The only music I've been listening to isorchestra baobab . Even though I have no idea what it means I've been running around singing Soldadi, among the most hypnotic songs I've heard in a long time.



Ah, OK, before I forget: If you are a New York artist, you should know about these grants.

That's it, then, my report.

Take good care,
Rachael

I haven't been around here much, not even to straighten up the messy links in the corner over there or to clean up all the spammy comments that collect in old entries. Busy is as busy was this summer. Blink and it's almost september and I've put away most of my clay, picked up the paintbrush, taken up temporary residence in the squatter studio, and started to brew some more drawings and ideas.

There is still a stew of stuff happening around us. We're house searching still and working and working and working. Solving other people's problems all day is less satisfying than the painter's truth of creating one's own problems.

But I'm noticing, remembering, being reminded that if I don't make art I get grumpy. Really. My jaw gets set a little tighter and I am just a little too pissy. Today was a messy morning of sorting and starting and spilling and making tentative marks. I remain (8 hours after) refreshed and excited and unsure of what those things will be when they grow up and (maybe) become paintings. Or maybe they'll just remain the same smoky smelling, sad and sorry scraps they are.

Either way, I am less pissy and more strong to fight the good fight. Even if I don't really know what it is. To tell the truth, to encourage others to make the art they want to make and the art they need to make and the steps to change their world, to be better. I will try not to be a stranger in these parts.

take care,
Rachael

Although I'm landlocked this summer I have been thinking of the bigger world. I've been lucky to work with a wonderful woman from Italy (she works at the Castello di Rivoli normally but is here for love.) She practiced speaking by helping 4 year olds with their hands in clay, coming in to art classes everyday with a glowing smile on her face, and making sure kids and teachers enjoyed themselves. It was a pure joy to have her here. I wish I remembered all of the Italian I studied but then I'm a forgetful kid and can be lazy when free translation sites are around. Forgive me if the Italian is muddy but tomorrow the big thanks I give Manuela will communicate more than silly words.

Allora...

Sebbene sono senza sbocco sul mare quest'estate che penso del mondo più grande. Sono stato fortunato lavorare con una donna meravigliosa da Italia (lavora al Rivoli di di di Castello ma è normalmente qui per l'amore. Ha praticato per parlare aiutando 4 anno vecchio con le loro mani nell'argilla, entrando alle classi di arte di tutti i giorni con un sorriso ardente sulla sua faccia, e si assicurando i bambini e gli insegnanti loro stessi sono piaciuti. Era una gioia pura averla qui. Desidero che abbia ricordato tutto l'italiano ho studiato ma poi sono un bambino di forgetful e posso essere pigro quando i luoghi di traduzione liberi sono intorno. Perdonarme se l'italiano è fangoso ma domani i ringraziamenti grandi do a Manuela comunicherà più di le parole sciocche.

c'e veddiamo,
Rachael

The niece went back home but not before I caught a picture of her painting like her dad does and her aunt does and her mom used to. This kid has a natural talent for drawing and an ability to lose herself in her imagination. We miss her already.



We've been cleaning up and hunting down houses and working more than our little non-profit-do-it-because-you-love-it-not-for-a-paycheck-jobby jobs pay us to work and all the while I've been wanting to simply stop and hole up in a quiet studio setting and make quiet little things. I've been dreaming of a studio again. A quiet place I can make art and trouble and mess and connections between disparate things. I've been closing my eyes and pretending I am in a plain white room.

But you know that would be dull. So it's a busy room with a few minutes and a couple of vacation days looming on the horizon. My ticket to nowhere is a chance to paint in the same intense way a seven year old can. Anywhere, anytime. Who needs a studio?

take care,
Rachael