Look what showed up on my door. Winter 2009

(2009) I like: Learning that it is all CONNECTED. Numbers. Nature. Pattern's. Foreign Script's. Bright ideas. Twinkling lights. Jumping off high dives. Curiosity. Contagious laughter. Sleeping cities. Patchwork quilts. Attention to detail. Good listeners. Tipping points. Living out dreams. Resting. Revving up. . .

As a woman Artist, living in a technologically driven culture, I wonder what this "tweeting-chatting-blogging--texting-online grouping" is really about ? I think it's about wanting to feel connected, seen, heard. The modern world offers a variety of  veins on the Internet to do just that. Connections are playing out in events around the globe and in the tempo of people's private lives. Everything is made of energy, everything is connected.

On 9/9/09,   I reached out to my Internet community asking if they would share with me a brief list of their daily joys and pleasures. Drawing inspiration from these simple joys and pleasures, a testimony that we are more connected than dis-connected, I am pursuing a year long study on connections. Working with 5" x 5" claybord panels, I will create one large composite art piece, a quilt of connections.  Throughout 2009 and 2010, I will call upon you to share new lists with me and inspire new depths, as we create this body of work together, your words and my paintings.

* a post requesting new lists will be released randomly in December right here. Bookmark me and stay in the loop! 


To visit the beginning, middle, end of this project
click here *

9.18.09

Paint shaped heart, Autumn 2009

It's raining. My window is open, my bare feet are cold. Birds sing in the distance every now and again. There are low clouds riding the river and golden pockets of Aspen and Birch curve on the hillside. In feeling around, I think this is one of the reasons I chose Alaska as my home. I want to experience exactly this - her edge of season.

There is something familiar about Autumn. It flutters butterflies in my belly. There is something eager and expectant about it. It is outlined in cobalt blue and dotted in star light. The moon returns and leaves drop. Mornings begin and end in coolness. Thick socks get slipped on more than my flip flops and all I want to do is cook winter stews and bake bread. A few more weeks and snow will be flying. Once again, a wood stove will warm me . . .
I know what is coming.

It is quiet, now. I've been sitting like this for an hour or so, just staring out the window. In front of me, eighteen new paintings. They are the first pieces in a year long study I began on 9.9.09. Details and images surrounding this collection will arrive in good time. Until then, I will tell you a secret* It is my wish to engage you in a communion of quiet with this collection. To create a space that opens in you well being and deep peace. It is a soft place to land and a hand to hold, it is why i paint.

9.9.09

(i am listening to the wind come off the back of the ridge)

In a grove of Birch,
tambourine leaves
play
golden
still - -
the sun slides by
in passing.

A day of Nine's

light thin yellow lines --

to

descend

diagonally

across my path.

ALL of this i think,
is to remind me:

How to hold

secrets

of seasons

carefully

*

Angel Rocks hike, Autumn 2009

The wedding of two rivers . . .

Chena and Tanana River, Summer 2009

. . . has me thinking about this change of season.
It is overlap. It is wet and messy. It is green going yellow.

This past weekend, The Daily News-Miner exclaimed: Fairbanks says goodbye to Summer!

It's true folks. Last night the radio announcer rattled off a weather update for the Interior and snow made a debut. I stopped what I was doing and thought for a second what day it was. August 31st. Snow?

The cold months and I always start like this. There is that 7 year old kid in me that wants to keep playing games with the neighbor kids til the street lights come on and I am being called home for dinner. I drag my feet on the walk home; careful to take in those last moments of the thrill of stealing the flag and running hard all the way to safety. It's all or nothing, baby. So, that is how it starts with winter and me. I will tell you a secret. Even though I'm dragging my feet, I love winter. Oh sure, I am a little reserved upon its arrival, but eventually - I warm up. I love a good cozy - and winter definately delivers.

Thinking now about the light filled season I ask if it was all I dreamt about from the insides of last years frost lined winter belly?
With the sureness of blowing breath to warm cold hands -
I answer you - YES.

A (short) list of loves for my 2009 Alaskan Summer:
one am light. barefoot driving. garage sale signs. dandelions. cool breeze's carrying cottonwood. crayola blue and green landscape. a growing garden.hauling water. watching people who are intimately acquainted with winter enjoy a warm summer. grilled scallops and steamed clam dinner. boat rides. tecate in can (with lime). dog walks. surfboard yellow paint . . .

A (short) list of loves for now:
baking things that take 4 hours start to finish. blue striped socks. the "hoody". harvesting garden. big blue tub full of red ripe tomatoes. morning coffee, npr, and painting. the way the earth smells -- kinda fertile and rotting at the same time. cranberry picking. greasy spoon's and sunday paper's . . .