Tag: art

There are no accidents

Lindsey has been preparing/finishing a series of canvases and prints with the theme of repurposed materials/urban sprawl that she and Tom just hung at Té House of Tea this morning. To keep me company and share mutual encouragement, she did some of her work here at The Compound while I finished sewing my final collection.

She also brought in a blank 18 x 24 canvas and stuck it under my nose. I often note that I can’t paint on larger canvases. All that white space intimidates me, and I’m used to working on 3 x 5-INCH and 4 x 6-INCH canvases for One Word Art, the paintings I sell to raise money for AIDS and HIV organizations. Lindsey suggested that I visualize the canvas in sections and paint them as I normally would the small canvases. I’m not sure she meant for me to take her so literally, but that’s what I did.

When I put down my base coat, every section was a shade of blue or green except one, which I painted red. I jokingly said that I was going to call it “Green and Blue and Red.” And then, as I layered on colors, I finally said the painting was just “Red.”

While Lindsey and I were painting, we were joined by Tim, who started a couple of canvases of his own (in oils, which I love, love, love to smell, since I only work in acrylics), Tom spent some time sketching, and Rhonda helped Lindsey stamp and finish her title and price cards to hang next to her finished works. The creative energy was amazing, and Lindsey occasionally checked out my painting, at one point saying that it reminded her of a patchwork quilt.

Did the suggestion of quilt panels put something in my head? (If you’ve read here long, you know I’m a several-time panel maker for the NAMES Project’s AIDS Memorial Quilt.) Was I subconsciously remembering that World AIDS day was upon us once again? (Because in all honesty, I’ve been so wrapped up in sewing and other things that I only realized with a jolt at midnight that it was December 1.)

I don’t know, but when Lindsey came by this morning to pick up her paintings and Tom, she reminded me of (Red)™ and pointed out that my painting and its title were the perfect way to mark World AIDS Day 2009.

I dedicate this to all of you who are living with HIV/AIDS. You’re not alone; worldwide, we’re still fighting the fight with you by giving our time, our money, and our efforts to raise awareness.


Red, 2009

LJ Runway Monday: The Art of Fashion (PR 6:12)


On the most recent episode of Lifetime’s Project Runway, the designers were taken to the Getty Center in Los Angeles. They were given a tour of the J. Paul Getty Museum as well as the center’s grounds. The designers were then asked to create a look inspired by any part of the center, including paintings, sculpture, and furniture from the museum’s collections, architectural features of the building, or the center’s breathtaking views.

As much as I wanted to jet to Los Angeles and go to the Getty Museum (which opened since my last trip to California, or Jim would have taken me there), I could only look at its collections online. I’d almost decided to work from one of my favorite paintings by Raphael when I saw this wonderful mid-1720s pastel from Italian artist Rosalba Carriera.


A Muse
Pastel on blue paper

From the Getty web site: Famous throughout Europe for her portraits and teste di fantasia (fanciful renderings of beautiful women in allegorical or mythological guise), Rosalba Carriera made the pastel, above, at the ducal court in Modena, Italy.

I’m always talking about my muses, and Carriera’s painting provided another one. I was inspired by the leaves in the woman’s hair, the ethereal fabric of her bodice, and the colors. I wanted to create a very feminine portrayal of nature’s beauty. Did I succeed?

Please click here to see.

LJ Runway Monday: Around the World in Two Days (PR 6:10)

On the latest episode of Lifetime’s Project Runway, the contestants met with designer Michael Kors, who told them that much of his work had been influenced by places he’d visited around the world. Each designer chose one from a group of cities and created a look inspired by that location. They were given a paragraph about their city and a couple of photos for guidance.

Rather than pick one of the choices from the show, I asked Tim to name a random city. His suggestion: Amsterdam. Located in the province of Holland, Amsterdam is the cultural and financial center of The Netherlands. Holland is a place that appeals to me for personal reasons. During World War II, my father (a U.S. soldier) was for a time behind German lines there and was taken care of and hidden by a Dutch family.

From the Wikipedia section on Amsterdam fashion:

Fashion brands like G-star, Gsus, BlueBlood, 10 feet and Warmenhoven & Venderbos, and fashion designers like Mart Visser, Viktor & Rolf, Marlies Dekkers and Frans Molenaar are based in Amsterdam. Modeling agencies Elite Models, Touche models and Tony Jones have opened branches in Amsterdam. Supermodels Yfke Sturm, Doutzen Kroes and Kim Noorda started their careers in Amsterdam. Amsterdam has its garment center in the World Fashion Center. Buildings which were formerly housing brothels in the red light district, have been converted to ateliers for young, up-and-coming fashion designers.

An Amsterdam location that caught my attention is Negen Straatjes: nine narrow streets with a large number of privately owned shops, many of which sell vintage fashion.

These are the two pictures that inspired my design this week:

A 1912 painting from Rik Wouters,
a Belgian fauvist painter and sculptor who lived and died in Amsterdam:

Two Women Sewing in Front of the Window

And a trendy accessories shop in the Negen Straatjes district:

Please click here to see my design.

Hump Day Happy

Once a woman’s shared memories of her tender teenage years in a post, the only thing she can do next is…

Post pictures of gigantic presidents’ heads!


Marika, your two favorites…TOGETHER! Presidents Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt.

My personal favorite of the photos, President Gerald “Chia Pet” Ford:

To see more of David Adickes’ presidential sculptures and to name the presidents that I’m too tired to Google and identify, you can check out my full Flicker set. C’mon–you KNOW you want to see Richard Nixon’s nose.

Meanwhile, if you comment with a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25, Candidate Snoopy promises to find you something to be happy about.

Button Sunday


Love this beautiful button.


Tim may be catching a cold, so after eating some matzoh ball soup, he decided to spend a quiet night in the TimLair with Rexford and Pixie. Meanwhile, after a call from Lindsey, it became a spontaneous craft night at The Compound. Lindsey’s working on a mixed media piece, and Tom helped by taking apart old floppy disks so she could use their innards. I was finishing my second design for LJ Runway Monday (which I’ll post later, of course). This left Rhonda to endure our repeated pleas for her to finish the craft piece that has been waiting in The Compound Guest Suite since another craft night back on April 20.

Rhonda paid us no mind, preferring conversation and occasional Internet checks to find out whether Sunday’s fall ball games had been called because of rain.

Then I had to make an emergency trip to Walgreen’s because I needed one little thing to finish my design. Lindsey drove me there, and while we were wandering through Walgreen’s–because it’s impossible not to wander through Walgreen’s; I think there may be a hidden automatic sprayer just inside the door, like those deodorizer things in public restrooms, only this one triggers the wandering tendency–Lindsey found a means to coerce Rhonda into getting crafty.

When all else fails, tell someone she either has to paint or she has to wear cow socks TO WORK for the next month. It did the trick. Now Rhonda’s clay bear (I call him “Pixie Bear” because his black eyes remind me of Pixie) has been painted, has little black paws, and thanks to some bee stickers I found in my stickers folder, Lindsey’s Mysterious Coiled Thing™ was turned into a beehive full of honey for him.


Starbucks, art, and friends. Craft night is silly, fun, productive, and definitely better than war–and catching a cold. Hope you’re feeling better, Tim.

Button Sunday

At the end of her August exhibit, when Lindsey took her paintings from Té House of Tea, she agreed to hang her work in the two Compound homes. Happily for her, the paintings are selling. This has left blank spaces on Tim’s walls, and how do you think he’s filled those spaces? By taking the paintings that were hanging in my house. (With my blessing. He has more available wall space, and they look great in his place.)

Saturday, Lindsey picked up some more of her paintings that were hanging in another location. Most of them were too large for my modest space, but one of them I called for my living room before anyone else could speak up. Now I have a problem.

Bird III looks wonderful hanging over the doorway from the living room to the dining room. A little TOO wonderful. To buy it, I’d have to sell Tim’s good lung or something.

Button Sunday

Wouldn’t that be something? That button is from the early 1970s, after the big break-up. I told Tim I felt like I’d gone back in time when I received this recent issue of Rolling Stone.

Back in February 2008, Lisa and Mark were in Houston. They, along with Lindsey and Tom, went downtown to shoot some photos, which I often go back and look at in their LJs and Flickr sets. Included are photos of David Adickes’ “The Virtuoso.” Here are a couple of shots I took of that sculpture when I went out night shooting with Lynne:

I’ll admit that sometimes I can be a little bit of an art snob, but my preferences are rarely based on what art critics tell me I should or shouldn’t like. I react to art viscerally. If I like something, no one can make me dislike it by telling me I’ve got awful taste. However, sometimes when I don’t like something, I can come to appreciate it, at the least, when I get the insights of someone who views it with a perspective different from and more approving than mine.

In general, I like David Adickes’ work. I think it has a whimsical quality and his sculptures are public-friendly. There are lots of people who love him and just as many who dismiss him. Probably the first art of his I saw, without knowing it was his, was “Big Alex,” a giant telephone once visible from I-45 which has since been moved.

My second introduction to his work, again, without knowing the artist, was “Cornet” in Galveston. In the mid 1990s, Tom and I went to a friend’s wedding reception when the building behind the sculpture was a restaurant called “Trumpets” (long gone). Because of that restaurant and a jazz club using the “Trumpets” name, many people mistakenly call the sculpture “The Trumpet.” It was originally created to display at the World’s Fair in New Orleans in 1984.

I like both sculptures, but I’m not as fond of “Big Sam,” a sixty-foot statue of Sam Houston between Houston and Huntsville, Texas. Sam overwhelms me a little.

I’ve visited Adickes’ studio–a HUGE warehouse by necessity, considering the scale of his work–and will probably eventually publish my photos of the gigantic presidents’ heads that replicate ones placed in parks in Virginia and South Dakota. But there are four sculptures that I FREAKING LOVE, and they go with this post.


They get high with a little help from their friends. Thirty feet high.


From a different angle, with the Houston skyline a couple of miles behind them.

You can read a good Houston Chronicle article on David Adickes, his perspective on his work, and reactions to it, at this link.

Rambling Random Run-on blah blah blah

Note: Kroger-brand cranberry juice is crap. I’m sorry, Kroger, but it just is. The grape juice and apple juice are okay, though.

Second note: If there’s anything Hewlett-Packard does right, it’s the way they set up a return/recycle feature with their printer cartridge packaging. Holla.

For the past couple of weeks, I haven’t felt…me-ish. I haven’t felt sick, though there were a couple of little indications that I might be. But because I like to self-diagnose with my degree in An Aries Knows Everything, I sort of ignored it. I felt fine on Tuesday night when I got to see my friend Lisa (she who my writing partners call Big Hair Lisa to separate her from other Lisas) for the first time in forty forevers. (Hi, Lisa! And the other Lisa, too!)

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