Fantasy Island

If I had my way I would be raising goats, bees, and chickens.

This is not to say my lot is not good, but with these 3 things, I could easily see Justin and I being rather self sustaining.

I like goat cheese and honey...what could make more sense?

Manifestation part 3

Studio

I had a studio when I was 22. I lived in the basement of the Broadlind hotel with 2 other artists. It was not a perfect place, but we worked to make it a livable, viable work-space as we continued pursuing our separate passions and studies at CSULB. I was quite prolific at the time and managed to create life as well as art. You all know the lovely tale of my son and how he has enriched my life but something very special happened when I had separated from his father and started to remember my magic.

When I started sculpting, about 14 years ago, I met an artist who I helped as a model. I met him at his studio. The studio was on a hill, overlooking the ocean. In a leotard, holding a veil of fabric, he took pictures of me standing in the bitter cold wind of that bleak winter afternoon.

We had taken the pictures on the edge of a bluff, with a sacred Indian circle behind us. Though the day was wretched and bone-numbing cold, the wind wending its way into his studio as he set up the armature, I vowed to have a studio in the same complex. I dreamed of it through out the session....and then promptly forgot about it under the pressures of raising an 8 yo on my own and keeping my creative spirit alive.

Flash forward:
I am not a “mommy” anymore and now have the dubious title of mom. I live with a man who loves not only my corporeal body and wicked ways but admires and supports the creative in me. It is a golden time.

I submit an application to be considered for a space in the Angels Gate Cultural Center, an artists community near our home. I am accepted. And as I move in, I open the double doors of my studio and see the red summer sun setting behind the sacred circle on the bluff.

I am here.
I am blessed.
I have come full circle.

The upper level of the Garden, early July

Here it is... The upper Terrace.
In full swing is the three tomatoes, onions and beets.



It is time to get the strawberries to get growing and the basil seems to have made the transplanting quite well.

I have some more tomatoes to plant in the lower terrace next week and I am contemplating more melon plants, though the thought is a bit scary. Melons can become monsters...real fast!

Raw Chioggia Beet Chips

I am demonstrating the beauty of my Chioggia Beets and the clever art of dehydration. Though I tried to produce a crunchy, thoroughly crisp chip, many drying hours later, I still had a fruit leather like substance. Not good. I wish I knew how to make them more “crispy” without cooking the diddly out of them.



A self congratulatory note here : the initial stage looked mighty fine, did’nt it? I promise to apply myself to this technology again. In the meantime, and for the record, my salt and vinegar sweet potato chips were a hit last weekend!

Strange Days

On another note, Michael Jackson was laid to rest today. His tribute dominated the morning into the afternoon. The last person to speak was his Daughter, Paris. Her small voice broke when she told us all how Daddy was the best Father ever. I believe her. And I will miss her father too. In spite of every weird bizarre thing he did, said or participated in, the man was genius incarnate...and for all accounts a heart more open than can be imagined.

I feel as conflicted about this as the stories about him are.

I will always remember being the little girl, stuck in Texas in front of the TV, wishing I could marry Michael Jackson. In my 6 year old daydreams, we’d dance at our wedding together, and everyone would applaud. I think I was not the only little girl who felt that way.

Michael Jackson made you feel like the world was indeed a very special place.
I loved to see him smile.

The Mysterious Acanthus Leaf’

In school, we always saw stylized versions on columns, scrolls and borders. You would see them represented in illustrations and architecture. I have always wondered what Acanthus leaves really looked like.

Well.....here ya go.




Now you know too

Once again ...the Garden!

I am now allowed to garden the lower terrace once used by Mario. He makes note that I am not setting out my Fava Bean plants out properly. Next year he says he’ll “supervise” me as I plant.

I am wondering if these sad little bushes produced enough beans for planting next fall.

Dali Lamas Vision on Art

What is my responsibility as an artist?

I listened this morning to the Dali Lama, who spoke on the responsibilities of the artist. He said that it is the artists goal to provide hope to those who are not artistically inclined.

This leads me to think on all the angry, violent and or forlorn art that I come across in my daily journeys. I have never related to bleakness, except for maybe in the context of the wide open space found in the desert. There seems to be a waiting potential in those spaces.

But I think on the artists I know who make these very black feeling works, despairing and cutting in their images....and I find myself dismissive because of their quality of dreariness. I rarely feel inspired when I look at things like Basquiat or self important post-minimalists. Their works leave me feeling bored and unfulfilled. This is in direct conflict with what the Dali Lama says we are to do as artists.

I do not deny the place for anger, hurt or sorrow in art. I do feel that there has to be a way of offering up hope through ones talent though, even if the feelings that generated the artistic concept are less than comfortable.

To some I may appear a luddite...I don’t respond in an impressed way to modern or contemporary art. I still feel great importance in the standard ways, the long held views of beauty and proportion. The values of humanness in art, decorative, paintings, sculpture and the like, create a desire and ache in me for icons and images I can relate to.


Maybe I am simply not fit for this modern world.
I still adore frescos.