Well, OK, I don't know what the survey will say but I am very curious. Having art blogged for over six-months now and having spent a longer time reading and thinking about art, I wanna know you think. So, please do spend some time filling this out.

So, then, this has been a busy week at work, and with my adjusting to a new climate, but at this moment I'm loving the chill in the air, excited about seeing David Byrne's powerpoint presentation , thinking about how I'm gonna win the lottery ($101 million). Yes, I will remember you. I will remember the funny gang over at Yankee Pot Roast , even though they don't know me. But with that kind of hard cash, they will.

If my money doesn't come in, I suppose I'll be OK... I'm off to draw and look up some old friends from Atlanta and their projects (like this show at Agnes Scott college) .

take care,
Rachael

Watching the world go by sometimes results in drawings like this. Go look around, why don't cha?

Take care,
Rachael

It is easy for me to forget that we've just landed here. After seven years in Atlanta, and several years of feeling pulled back up north, now that we are here I half-expected to know where I was all the time. I kind of thought I would know what I was doing here. I know, I know....it's pretty funny. I am definitely meeting craetive people, finding inspiration, and, yes, I am cleaning out and cleaning up the room that will be my studio. I'm writing and reading more and am doing all the things the folks who advise new kids in town would have us do... but well, it is just so much easier to cause creative trouble, to help people make change in their own lives and those of others, to get to know new folks when you are connected to a place. Or so it seems to the new kid.

Today is my day off. And after drawing pea pods and and finishing my book , I set out to discover. The University of Rochester keeps their art books stacks underground. There are tremendously bright (like cadmium orange) trees all over this campus, and the co-eds all have their noses stuck in books and laptops...

The new kid looks out the window and wonders where she is. But I have a couple of books and a couple of ideas and plenty of time to fit in here. Might as well fix my head to consider the simpleposie question for today:

simpleposie question for the day #202
simpleposie wants to know:

What descriptive passage from a novel do you think would make the best
painting? Or to rephrase it, what is the most painterly excerpt from a
work of fiction that you ever read?

Oh, and before you ask, the pea pods are fascinating for the seed forms, for the long shapes which hold little round pods and I was thrilled to find that the mottled red and white pods hold mottled maroon and cream beans. And doesn't this sound good?

So, maybe that's the thing, as my mom used to say, "whereever you go, there you are," and the kid is the kid wherever she is, new and old, same and not so same. Just looking around and making art and trouble and hopefully some friends...

take care,
Rachael

Just read both Anna's great little bit (from Sept 23) about her old art store job, and the NYTimes article that sparked her memories, and I am sitting here thinking that I don't know an artist who HASN'T worked as a clerk in an art supply store. Maybe I'm wrong.

A couple years ago when a writing job fell through, I started working a few days a week selling brushes and paints and papers. I've done a lot of retail work in my day and all of it helps give me the human contact I need as I aim to make art that connects (or maybe that's how I rationalize?).

At the art store, I was able to save enough money on supplies with my discount that I went off on my residency with fancy new colors and brushes...I found myself considering more materials and reading more product labels when it was slow in the art store, and I did try a few new directions. Most of the people I worked with were artists, but the bosses weren't.

It's funny to me how in smaller communities (not Atlanta, San Fran or NY) the art stores have a little less artist attitude (in what other retail field would it be OK for a store to display a book of satirical drawings and insults of customers?) and a little more of a craft store, strip mall feel...

So, any artists care to share how their time spent working in an art supply store changed their work? I'm curious.

Now for something completely different, a nice web gallery of Women printers, book-makers, and whatnot at Princeton . Lots of time this weekend for exploring, painting, and writing...

take care,
Rachael

My magic and wacky surprise trip to Cincinnati won't happen. Oh well. I didn't really move to Rochester to take trips to chin-chin-atti and having the weekend means that I can paint and write and read and think and take walks and maybe even write letters. Sure, it stinks to go from feeling like a jet-setting art star back to a work-a-day creative troublemaker but...that's the reality.

In other realities, here are a couple of good things to look at and think about:

an interesting article about Marjane Satrapi is at NYFA

Olana sure looks magical

I suppose there are only as many magical things as one has time or patience to see. There is a pile of books and a watercolor set that I see and am drawn towards now. So I'll go.

take care,
Rachael

Below is my blurry picture of the painting that is in Cincinatti, see it if you can get to the Delta Business Elite lounge.