. . . anticipated a change

in the weather, for one thing. It's 7:30 a.m. and the temperature is 60 degrees. By tomorrow I believe the temperature is supposed to be in the single digits. That probably accounts for the wild wind that has been blowing since early yesterday morning, and the dark and gloomy clouds that seem so ominous.


Perhaps there are other changes coming, too. Yesterday I made this collage. . . but aren't they all starting to look alike? I think it's because I'm using the same papers in every collage. So also yesterday I created some different papers. I hope you will be seeing those in future collages. I am also going back to review a DVD by that inspired me last March. I have a ton of purchased papers, too, but I feel compelled to use only those that I make myself. Otherwise I feel like I'm using someone else's creativity.


Potentially there are other changes afoot. . . well, there will have to be or else I will join the ranks of all the other folks who are the victims of the economic recession or whatever the hell you want to call the current financial mess we seem to be bogged down in. I will again be a statistic. . . nothing unique or unusual. . . just another babyboomer coming to grips with altered realities. My mind is busy conjuring up ideas to overcome the fear. . . but there seem to be obstacles at every juncture. I will have to use my creativity to solve this problem, because that's what I do. . . whatever it takes. It seems highly unlikely that even if my art were selling, it would generate enough income to really help out much. One of the biggest obstacles is my own mindset. . . I'm feeling like I'm too old to start something new. How ridiculous. . . with luck, given my set of genes, I'll be around another 25 or 30 years. So (pep talk to myself) get on with it. . .

. . . made no art

yesterday. . . didn't even get down to the basement except to put away Christmas decoration boxes and hid Christmas presents. Yesterday morning I was absolutely bent on fixing my kitchen sink drain and garbage disposal. It has been screwed up since Thanksgiving and it needs to be fixed. The last time I called a plumber for this problem, he came out, pushed the little red button under the disposal unit and charged me $65. (I have fixed innumberable garbage disposals in my many houses. . . I just forgot about the rest button that time.) Well, I tried all the usual stuff, with the little crank thing and the reset button, but nothing. To the internet: if you hear the motor when you turn on the disposal, then something is stuck in the rotors. That's my problem. As well as a slow drain. First the plunger and unclogging the drain. That went okay. But what a nasty dirty stinky job. . . no wonder plumbers charge what they do. I could barely control my gag reflex. Per the internet: if the little wrench thing doesn't work, or you don't have one, get a wooden broomstick and stick it in the disposal and force the rotors to turn. Okay, although I had the wrench, it wasn't doing the trick, so I tried the broomstick. Still, motor sounds for a while, then stops, still no churning of the rotors. Suffice it to say that this went on all morning. I gave up. Temporarily.


Just as I was headed down to the studio, Stef called and asked if I could pick up Betsy. She was apparently sick, had thrown up at her "school" and had to go home. Within the hour. It takes almost that long to get to where she goes to school. When I got there, she met me at the door, bouncing around in glee. She got in the car and asked if we could go to Wendy's for chicken nuggets. Obviously the child wasn't too sick if she could stomach that food. I asked her about throwing up. She told me somebody's dad had brought in "barfy" barbeque for lunch, and she didn't like it so she threw up. But she was feeling fine. Then to the bookstore, where we picked up a few Berenstain Bears books, then to the grocery store for supplies, then to my house where we made cookies, then read all the books. A great afternoon.


Betsy has become a little "potty-mouth". . . not bad language, just a lot of information about her bodily functions and why and how and where things go into her body and come out again. The subject of poop came up time and time again. Like, "Did you know that I pooped on Joey's head?" (Wild laughter ensued.) I don't know how her mother and father deal with this, but I tended to either ignore it, take it seriously and pretend to be grossed out, or discuss with her scientifically the process of eating, processing and elimination of her food. Thank goodness she's only four. . . I could make up a lot of stuff and not be questioned too closely on the accuracy of the information.


Well, this post has been kind of disgusting. . . repairing garbage disposals and the gastrointestinal system of my granddaughter. Back down to the studio today. . .

. . . collaged a wall

This collage is what I had in mind when I wanted to make something more structured, with a limited color pallette. Still nothing on the negative space experiments. . . didn't even attempt one yesterday. I really like how this collage turned out. It was inspired by a picture of a concrete painted wall. . . the corrugated cardboard and crunchy white gesso paper texture is supposed to be the cement in the wall. I like to use corrugated cardboard. . . ripped, torn, cut, painted, used as a stamp. . . it's automatic texture. I can see painting this, too. My next collage, I think, will be similar, but based upon a small home-made matboard squeegee I use to spread paint. It has become a little piece of art in and of itself. And I like the way these scans have turned out, much more detailed than my photographs. I'm thinking maybe I should put these collages on etsy. What do you think?

. . . totally screwed up

this little collage. Although you would never suspect it, this one actually started out to be an exercise in both more structure and use of negative space. You will notice that the right side of this thing started out with a number of small squares or rectangles of various colors. That was my attempt at more structure. The red triangle that comes in from the left side was supposed to be the only thing on that side of the collage. . . the rest was supposed to be negative space. Well we can see that didn't work out. Then I continued to screw up by stamping those squares on the collage. . . Oh, well, at least it is colorful.


I don't know why I have a compulsion to fill up every available piece of blank canvas I work on. I admire artists that can skillfully use the concept of negative space in their art. Is that something you have to consciously practice? Is it something you learn taking classes? When I try it, the piece just turns out to look unfinished. Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The structured part that was such a failure in this collage doesn't bother me too much, yet. I figure I can still get it right. I also want to try to limit my color pallette. It's all about playing around and experimenting and learning, right? And I learned that stamping white squares in a totally unrelated manner is not a good thing.

. . . ate something bad

because my digestive system absolutely crashed yesterday afternoon for several hours. I was fine until after lunch, and actually created this little collage in the morning after doing most of my chores. I detest being sick . . . now I just feel weak and tired but I hope to get into the studio again today. The more structured collage just didn't happen yesterday.

. . . tore, glued, painted

another small and relatively quick little collage. I had to scan this one because my camera batteries were dead and I don't have any replacements right now. But this picture does show in pretty good detail some of the papers I created by painting tissue paper.


The dark blue background is opaque. Thee white blobs are tissue paper painted with watered-down white gesso, on which I left some of the tissue unpainted and when applied, the unpainted parts become translucent. The two red circular blobs on the right side of the page, top and bottom, are crunchy textured bits from a used paper towel that was varnished. The red on the left side of the page is transparent painted tissue paper. . . you can see the difference in this red where it was applied over the blue, on top of itself, and over the white. Then I added a few more pieces of paper and just felt compelled to stencil a checkerboard and add my usual circles with paint.


These last three collages, I feel, are kind of wild and woolly. . . undisciplined maybe. . . I want to try something perhaps a little more structured today.

. . . experienced a moment

of panic this morning when I started to post. I couldn't access the internet. What was I going to do without it??? Shut down, restart. . . ah, now it's on. I am such a technical wizard. The babies were at it again with the electronics. While Betsy and I were visiting an alternate universe peopled with pixies and fairies on the Disney website last night, Joe was maniacally hitting the "X" button on the printer and causing pages of blank paper to spew forth and land on the floor, to his great delight. Joe leaned over and pushed some brightly lit button on the computer and suddenly we were plunged into the great darkness known as the real world before the internet, before computers. Squeals of anguish from Betsy about the fate of her fairy, and squeals of glee from Joey for causing the disruption.


Betsy started basketball yesterday. . . in her pink basketball shoes and her American Girl pink lipgloss. Her father said that her road to a Title IX scholarship began yesterday. Uncle Matt advised her to shoot the ball whenever she touched it, that when she walked into the gym door, she was in range. Uncle Tim called from WV to see how practice went. Papa, the former basketball coach, said nothing. Just smiled.