No, I don't really want to talk about it. No, I don't really want to dwell on the election results or the same old same old or how cold it was today or why I was grumpy from start to almost finish but...

When a seed of an idea plants itself in your head and you can't get it out, even grump can go away.

Big changes happen slowly but smaller changes in how each person is more kind than self centered, more giving than greedy, more listening than talking, can happen quickly.

Pie helps.

The making of art is only the first step, another very powerful part is the sharing of art. In between grumps today I watched a lot of people (tentative artists and those more sure of their technique and their images) put their work out there. The stuff got seen. Other folks spoke up and helped out. I just think that's important.

So, we will volunteer and ask tough questions of leaders big and small and we work hard and we work together for four more or however many more years and someday America and the rest of the world will be a little more fair and a little more kind and a little more free.

Pie helps.

Take care,
Rachael

The country may be red or it may be blue, we don't have a glowing, shouting tv box so instead I sit here listening to the radio count. It's easy to tune out and there is plenty of leftover halloween candy to eat. Honestly, talking art I should tell you that were the candy dish on the drawing table, I'd be more likely to draw.

Have I mentioned Charles Burchfield and Arthur Dove yet? These guys and their Western New York gloomy greys and fantastic images are in the back of my brain as I walk around my neighborhood. All of the trees around now are yellow- bright, bold cadmium yellow- and they stand striking against purpley grey skies today.

More Burchfield is in Buffalo at the Burchfield-Penney Center and wandering online, thinking about trees and color and daydreams of walking in the woods got me to the Morton Arborteum .

It's still raining and should the vote counting keep coming, I may be building an ark. Will do so when my candy bars are gone.

take care,
Rachael

OK, so it's come down to this. Tomorrow I'll drag my ass out of bed at 6 am and trudge to the polls where I'll cast my vote and then go to work. Since we don't have a TV, I won't watch the news, won't even let the crap in my head for a couple of months. And then I'll just keep doing what I do. Same old, same old. But some of my friends, some of you out there areeven more disillusioned and will want to stay in bed. I urge you to get up.

Vote smart , vote arts , vote to help the hungry , vote skeptical. Maybe even vote sexy . Vote for the perks, like free admission to museums ( Rochester's MAG, scroll down to election week special).

I'm really thinking about a new project. It's an old project. It's a ton of work. For fear of jinxing myself, I won't go into the idea and won't share much until it's well brewed. But if you don't hear much from me, that's because I am drawing, thinking, planning and plotting and because the elections and all of the political nonsense around has forced me into an early hibernation.

Yes, and I am a little over all the stepping and steppers and comment frenzies. David B can and did draw from his own perspective, his own experience and did so in a lovely way. I appreciate Elise and Barbara's defenses of artistic freedom but these stepper comments seem to be coming from the middle of left field, so I don't really get my panties in a wad about it...

That's all for now, but please do take care and please do vote, and not just cause I said so...

Rachael

Don't mind me with my nose stuck in a book. I've been absorbed with Epileptic by David B.. More about David B is here and here. Drawn from obsession, with imagination, from honest experience, I keep pausing the story so I won't get to the end. I'm scrambling back to earlier pages to see an image again.



More here about Epileptic and more soon when I pit my book and my paintbrush down, this has been a productive week where the hours I'm not working are spent mostly working, processing ideas and putting together pieces to make some art and start up some trouble.

Take care,

Rachael

We're really back, after a quick trip to the Atl (looking all sunny and beautiful, shiny and promising), we have come back to the pattern of our daily lives. When we returned there was a solicitation for an art auction to benefit an Atlanta based art mag in our mailbox. It was addressed to me but written to my friend who skipped town for Charlotte a little after we headed back here. Guess when you're gone, you're gone.

No matter. Atlanta was chugging along nicely for what we could tell. The people, places, and details we had packed in our memories were still mostly there. I managed to stumble upon the painter who now rents my old studio. Apparently the paint is still so vivid on the walls that it is seeping through some coats of white paint.

Detrius, remains, and remembering were so much on my mind, that Rebecca Desmarais' work in the Gathering show at Agnes Scott College , made me cry. (Suppose I have to read the other James Elkins book now ). But Demaris gathered togther so many adandoned objects in such a careful and beautiful way, I was deeply affected.

So, now, I'm sure mr stepping friend moose frog goat potato whatever stepper will comment, and I hope you will travel back to someplace you've once been and I'm off to draw some more.

take care,
Rachael