For the first two covid months of lockdown, I felt like I was drowning – in too much grogginess, too much where’s the money, too much confusion, anger and fear. I decided things had to change in a big way. A dear friend was kind enough to give me some real feedback: that I was […]
SAN BLAS 2, 3 and 4
I have really enjoyed playing with my new sets of pastels! Here are 3 more images of the beach at San Blas. My favorite is #4.
SAN BLAS 1
In 2006, I visited the tiny town of San Blas, Mexico. One of the first things I noticed was the number of pickup trucks driving around, 3 or 4 soldiers in the back, 2 in front – with submachine guns, dark glasses, camouflage uniforms and all. Kinda freaked me out – I’m not accustomed to […]
SURELY, FISH KNOWS THE WAY
I’m not an adherent of any recognizable religion – my folks never went to church, so I never got the classic religious conditioning many kids did in the 50s when I grew up. But I did have a few pretty traumatizing events happen in my teens that made me keenly aware of my mortality. By […]
THE BALANCE
The Balance is the 2-ton piece I carved at the Oamaru International Limestone Sculpture Symposium I was invited to participate in when I was Artist-in-Residence in Gore, New Zealand. I felt so fortunate to be a part of that symposium! Me, a little 55-year old funky sculptor from the US – whoddathunkit! But choose me […]
MANDALA: SACRED
A friend of mine posted on FB today, asking how old we were when we got our first traffic ticket. This little story popped into my mind right off: I would have been 22. I was late learning how to drive – I had driving-phobia. So one day I took it upon myself to get […]
IN MY WINDOW
After I got back to the States from New Zealand in 2002, I was filled with gratitude to be back in Hawaii again. I wanted to do a bunch of paintings celebrating the culture, and yet not be blatant, touristy-looking hawaiiana-ized. This was the first of the series. Each one was underpainted in various colors, […]
THE REAL USE OF DEPRESSION
Depression is a sneaky bastard. I have experienced it all my life, and because I didn’t know how to handle it, I was even suicidal for years … until 20 years ago when I found EFT, the Emotional Freedom Techniques (in case you’re wondering, find out about it here). As I began to use EFT, […]
KO’OLINA
I read an article recently that brought back vivid memories of when I first came to Maui, in 1966. My BF at the time and I were flat broke, and had no place to stay. So we went down to the beach just to the north of LaHaina, and found a secluded patch of trees […]
LIFE
When I was in Gore, New Zealand in 2000-2 as Artist-in-Residence, I painted around 50 paintings. Because I had thought of myself as primarily a stone sculptor, I was surprised to see so many of them just flowing right out of my hands! Someone asked me where I got inspiration for them all. There are […]
LEARNING to LOVE MYSELF NO MATTER WHAT
I’m not sure why everyone thinks they need to write about the current happenings (referring to the wave of black people being killed by cops and unmarked special ops troops). Yes, it is horrifying. Yes, I detest it, just as you do. But it’s not as if any of us are ‘experts’ or even come […]
LOVING YOU
I have decided that I am going to put 4 hours a day into painting from now on. I design and publish others’ books for a living, so my time will obviously have to be adjusted a bit. But I’ve decided I’m not even half as good a painter as I want to be, and […]
IRINA’S GARDEN HAT
Once more in the mood of Modigliani – this was a color study I did today – In 20-20 hindsight, I think the composition could be a whole lot more exciting, but the purpose was to test out colors for a larger work, so at least that got done. I liked how loose I could […]
ANGELA DERAIN
KAILUA BEACH CANAL – Painted in the style of André la Derain It was highly educational to replicate this image by André Derain. I learned that, although he had some cool ideas about color and its use, he was a careless painter, thus getting muddy colors and sloppy sections. I’m a smoother, and he was […]
ANGELA MODIGLIANI
Self-portrait #2, done in the style of Amadeo Modigliani, one of my all-time favorite painter/sculptors. Amadeo Modigliani (which is pronounced MOH-dee-lee-AHN-ee – the G is silent) had a very distinct style that has always appealed to me. It was very simplified, and intensely stylized, yet he always somehow was able to get the personality of […]
ANGELA van GOGH
I’m not sure I really like this – it’s pretty harsh looking – but here’s my first attempt at a self-portrait in the style of Vincent van Gogh. I got the idea watching a series of wonderful videos called the Forger’s Masterclasses – where an ex-forger was showing 3 students in each video how to […]
A SWEET SURPRISE IN A DIFFICULT TIME
“Hank,” a friend and fellow stone carver who is also a talented tattoo artist, came by yesterday to drop off some tools I needed. When he held them out to me, I found myself gasping in surprise. See, Hank spent many years recovering from his gruesome experiences in the Viet Nam war. His body is […]
What Can YOU Do?
Thank you to all the people who came to the tap-for-fears-and-upsets call I gave this week! ( If you’d like to watch the replay it’s HERE ) And, to those who complained that, although they were on the call, they didn’t get called on: Perhaps in all the chaos that has ensued from this crazy […]
WOLF MOON
Sometimes things just blow up in your face. I painted this as a gift for someone, because he loves wolfies. I wanted to make kind of an oplalescent underpainting for the light streak to go on top of, so on some parts of the piece, I used lemon yellow first, and a bright pink watered […]
Stop Center-Justifying Your Text! It’s to
Do you know the sure sign of an amateur graphic designer or copywriter? It’s when they create lengthy text in a document that is center-justified. Lengthy meaning over 55 characters wide, and longer than 5 to 10 lines. Here’s an example of center-justified text: The only text that should be centered is: 1. a short […]
OUTRIGGER
Today I wrote my postman a note on one of my art postcards that has this painting on it. He’s been a continuing pain in the butt – leaving my mail half sticking in and out of the slot, allowing it to get rained on, not knocking on the door as I asked him to […]
INTO THE LIGHT
When I came back to Hawaii in 2002, it was a very scary time for me. I had almost no money, so I had to take a job. The only one I could find was pushing time share brochures into people’s hands as they walked along on the streets of Waikiki. 7 hours a day, […]
DEER PRAYER
In late 1999, I was house-sitting for some friends in Tesuque, NM. (pronounced tess-OO-kee) It was bloody cold – maybe you don’t know this, but Santa Fe is 7000′ above sea level, and Tesuque is a bit higher. There was snow that morning; my blankies weren’t sufficient, and being naturally a tropical gal, I was […]
DELIGHT
Every morning before I get up, I do my best to spend an hour in meditation. If I don’t do that, I feel disjointed and discombobulated all day, or at lest until I get to sit and focus inside. It has become such an integral part of my life that if I stopped I would […]
FROGGIE!
I’m not sure what year this is from – probably around ’78 or so, since this is stoneware, and I hadn’t switched to porcelain yet. I went through a big froggies phase – painting them on tiles, vases, mugs, plates and platters – in greens and blacks and browns – not sure why – it […]
My Heart Is Broken
I see the world in terms of the Heart – what other way is there to view it if we are to remain at all sane? It has to be the very fundamental core of everything. Sometimes as I read news items, my heart feels like it’s being ripped and slashed out of me by […]
For Thine Ears Only
I painted this when I was Artist-in-Residence, down in Gore on the South Island of New Zealand. I had a dream where these women were shocked at my sharing how cool EFT/tapping was. I was shocked that they were shocked, and finally got them to see how important it is that we know how incredibly […]
How to Deal with Ughy Relatives Over the ...
Yesterday at the grocery store, I saw – well, heard – a woman berating her child for dropping and spilling something all over the floor.The horrible things she was yelling at this 5 or 6 year old were unbearable. She must have been upset about something else, too, because the energy she was releasing over […]
Want to Release Extra Weight?
If I gave you an expandable bag to carry, and added one ounce to it every day, within a couple years you’d be carrying around a 100+ pound bag. Certainly not with ease, but you’d be able to carry it. That’s what happens when you gain weight over time. You are able to carry it […]
Time to Raise Your Prices!
Last weekend, I went down to the local art center where about 50 artists run a coop gallery so I could sign up for the Open Studios Art Tour. I was pleased to see some pretty good work there. And surprised at one painting in particular. This painting was about 11″ x 14″ – good […]