high time ...

i went to the high museum yesterday ...
it was a date ...
my date took me to lunch first ... we ate mexican ... then we got some culture at the high .... for those of you not HERE, the high museum is a gorgeous fine arts museum in atlanta, georgia .... in an art history class in 1985 i had to do a paper on the architecture of the new building ... it has been added to again since then ....

we specifically went for the exhibit, picasso to warhol .... a MoMa (nyc) show that is travelling .... some of the pieces i had seen before on trips to MoMa, probably my favorite museum ever ....

one of warhol's marilyn series was highlighted in the main lobby of the museum where we bought our tickets (oops, i've let my membership lapse) ... and the focal picasso was on the wall that you see right when you step off the elevator ...

i just snatched that photo off google images ... don't know the photographer, but the artist is picasso

.... this was the perfect exhibit for me .... 20th century artists have always been my favorite .... the focus of this exhibit was artists who were breaking with traditions and trying new things .... the obvious ones are picasso with his cubism, warhol with his iconic commercial imagery, pollock with his splatter paintings , matisse with his colorful gigantic collages, mondrian with his grids, calder with his mobiles and stabiles ... i think people who know a little about art, know of these artists ... when we walked into the calder room, mr.e.beck.artist said, i always recognize this guy's work, but i never remember his name .... there was a lovely whispy mobile in the corner that was NOT moving ... but i blew a couple of times and got it twirling .... there was NOT a no blowing sign ....

there were some artists who surprised me ... romare bearden ... i LOVE LOVE LOVE him .. he is a collage artist ... i have one of his pieces in a poster in my studio .... and girl.beck.artist has his three guitar players as a poster in her room (that's the tiny pic above, from google images) .... but i was surprised he was on a short list with the likes of picasso and matisse ...

jasper johns was on there ... mr.e.beck.artist recognized him as being influential on my work ....

and only one artist that i had never heard of ... louise bourgeois ... the only woman in the group and i had never heard of her or seen her work? i would have guessed louise nevelson who does amazing assemblages .... so, louise bourgeois beat out louise nevelson i suppose?  could there only be one woman? or only one louise? anyway, i need to study up on ms. bourgeois ... my guess is that when i was studying art history avidly in the 80s, that she wasn't cool, hip, studied, appreciated yet .... she's now dead, giving her art some extra panache ... such a pity that artists are more celebrated dead ....

 there was a nice learning moment with a miro painting ... he had used a dutch masterpiece and "copied" it ... his version of painting .....

the audio that i listened to at the high did a great job of comparing the two and making you notice the similarities and miro's intent ... he gave his the same title, not hiding the fact that he was being inspired or copying .... here's an article about it that i found ....

so ... a date and art time ... doesn't get much better than that, right?

.... flowery ...

this is a 36 inch square canvas .... with some drop flowers .... i think i did most of the background a couple years ago (eek!) ... and added flowers recently .... i think i need some lovely word happiness running around on the bottom ... but i haven't figured out what yet ... hmmmmm

spinning a yarn ....

why is a story a yarn? i titled this spinning a yarn, but really it was spinning clay and glaze ... 

 i spun four pieces of hand built pottery .... i attached it to a pottery wheel and threw glaze at it ... really, i squirted and poured glaze at it ....

 my problem with this ceramic event was knowing when to stop ... just like in all art really ... when is it done? haven't you seen art before (natch, even on this blog) that should have been finished a few steps earlier than what you see? that's what is happening here ... not sure how those glazes will look all layered up like that ... if after firing they will be true to these before pics ... or if they'll go all muddy looking ... crossing my fingers for no mud ..

 but, if perchance they come back muddy, i'll just do more ... and use a lightter hand ... i'll stop earlier .... not go quite so giddy and out of control with my spattering and spinning ....

 this is my third spin art post in a row ... but now i'm out of photos to show you ... well .. until friday when i make some more at my pottery class ...

more spinning ...

 this is my chocolate platter on the wheel .... i'd done maybe three colors of glaze in the spin art mode .... but there are some problems ...the pot is hand built, not thrown, hence, not attached to the wheel head .... so i attached the platter to the wheel head ... and i had plastic so my clay wouldn't stick to the platter .. cause that's how i ALWAYS make my hand built ceramic pieces .. with plastic ... for easy removal of clay from forms .....

however ... the same reason i normally like that plastic, is the same reason you shouldn't use it for spin art ... no stick ... oops .. so then .. right after you add the red, and you push the pedal to the metal to get some major spinnage ... well ... that plate spins right off into the splash pan ... leaving behind the form on the wheel head ... but taking that plastic with it .... ugh ...

 this is me looking happy right before the plate spun off into the splash pan .... note the orange shoes ... and the pedal not to the metal for the moment ...

below is a good birds eye view of the spin art ... note all the glaze spatter on the splash pan ... it caught some of the splash .... the rest went on my jeans, knee to knee ... and on anyone who dared walk withing a yard of me ....

it's a trial and error thing .. i'm looking forward to seeing how my pieces turn out ...

spin art

when my twins were quite small we did a TON of spin art ... a ton .... i think there were moms who didn't like doing messy projects so when there was a playdate or playgroup we were spinning ... a ton .... we actually had three spinners ... one had been a gift, the other two were hand me downs ... or "oh my goodness not in my kitchen" regifts .....  some kids, the more paint the better ... when you just like the spatteringness of it, why take the paper off and get a fresh one ... thicker and juicier and more painterly the better .....some kids went for quantity of papers ... one drip and I"M DONE ... and you'd change out the papers .... we used our spin art as cards on gifts for eons ....

my twins turned fifteen yesterday ... so there spin art days are long past .... but on friday i did some spin art at pottery class ... my spinner was an actual pottery wheel ... thank goodness for splash pans ... but i still made a mess .... i had some jackson pollack jeans by the time all was said and done .... i did not throw the plates on the wheel, i handbuilt them ... and then attached them to the wheel head and added underglazes to the spinning plate .... the plate above is chocolate clay ... so i don't know how true the underglazes will come out ... but, they are mighty thick looking in the pic so they might be true colored ...

i made four ... i need to wait and see how they turned out before i commit, but this might be my new favorite thing! it was so fun and messy ... pretty gleeful .... i got glaze all over myself,  my teacher, my pal, the studio, the wheel next to me .... hopefully after the firing and clear glazing, i'll still think they are fab ...

what's your spin art experience? just at church or school fairs? or at home? for you? or with your kids?

poppy joy

this is a 24 inch square BRIGHT canvas .... the background is painted .. the poppies are maps .... red, orange and yellow maps of poppiness .... i've donated this to the school auction .... i love it ... and was considering hanging it up in my orange kitchen ... over the stove/oven ... but, the auction girl liked it ... so i thought i should send it on its way ..... fare thee well, poppy joy ....

large heart ....

i just donated one of my favorite pieces to an auction today ... i'm happy for the auction .... it's one that is important to me .... it's my big kids' new school ... but one of the people on the acquisition team liked it ... and i let her pick ... and she picked it .... it's still hanging on my wall of "to be sold" but i miss it already ... i don't usually feel this way about sending art out into the world without me .... it might be because i like the words so much though ....

here's a pic:

and here are the words: 

a wise man builds his house upon the rock ... that's in the bible and it is a grand metaphor of biblical proportions ... so what does it mean that this little house, a seven of diamonds house, is built on a heart, and not just any old heart, but a very, very, very large heart.... do you know? it is another metaphor ... almost any time you see a heart it is a metaphor ... love... a metaphor for love.... have you built your house on a heart? are the people (your dearest loved ones) who inhabit your house with you, filled with certainty that their house's foundation is love? when something goes wrong, do you all know that you can go home to a house built on love and filled with loving people? hope so! some more metaphors from this art that you and your family should live... those admit one tickets.... do you let people in your heart? look, there are plenty of tickets for everyone... need another metaphor? how about the sunshine? why don't you all try to be each other's sunshine? light up their life, light up their world, and, even better, be willing to light up for them, with them... share their joy ... and, see those clouds? share the sorrows too.... help them through the cloudy moments.. help them know that there will be more sunshine after the clouds ... if you lived in a seven of diamonds house, don't you think you'd play games... and have tons of fun... while really you are just happy to be together... here's hoping your fine house is happily built on the metaphorical heart .... 

so, long time faithful readers ... have i ever shown you this before? why can't i find my photo of it? 

now it's gone ... off to spread its joy to another family .... but at least i've chronicled the words and can keep them now .... 

... late to the game apparently ....

i recently saw a cute comic sort of thing on pinterest ... sweet words ... and i wanted to use them in my art ... but i wanted to quote the originator of the words ... well ... no such luck ... i googled it ... and found out that penguin is in the urban dictionary .... do you know jane? ... yeah man, she's my penguin .... it can be used as mate or really good friend .... or  soulmate .... in some of the multitudes of penguin lore i looked through, the words were: when a penguin finds a soulmate, they stay together forever .... so ... soulmate ... mate ...

have you heard of this? am i so behind? who are these urban folk that are slangin' with penguin talk? and since when is urban slang so darn cute?

anyway ... the wee canvas above was my valentine gift to mr.e.beck.artist .... it's official ... he's my penguin ....

happy valentine's day ...

it's valentine's day ... 

i rolled out sugar cookies ... in lots of heart sizes ... i used flour, not flower....

 some of the cookies have pink sprinkles .. .but not all my valentines like sprinkles ... so some are plain ...

 and here's a big brownie ... cause some of my valentines like chocolate goodness ....

and here are some spritz ... where you use a cookie press ... these are butter cookies ... my grandmother's recipe ....

 and here are four collages for my four valentines ..... 

 and here are three small yummy packages for my kids ... i splurged and wrapped them in newspaper ... my eccentricity is showing, i suppose .... at least the string is pink ...

and here is my mantel ... can you see two pink packages near the middle? it looks kinda like one, but it's two ... those are TO me .... they were there all day buy i never peeked ... 

 and here's the kitchen table set with desserts running down the middle .... sweets for my sweets ...

 this morning i was given a giganto card ....

 her daddy and i each got our own side of the card and a pocket at the bottom holding special pictures ... 

 i love valentine's day ... a nice time to make the extra effort to celebrate the ones you love.

happy valentine's to you and yours .....

bruno mars ....

... cause girl, you're amazing .. just the way you are ....

i love bruno mars ... do you know who he is? he's cute as a button and has a beautiful voice ... since i have teenagers, i tend to listen to , well, teenager music, i guess ... we kind of have a happy medium radio station programmed on the car radio ... girl.beck.artist and i like it very much ... little e.beck.artist wants to switch to disney radio ...and boy.beck.artist listens to harder music .. he likes more rap and hip hop than i do ... i don't even like when a rapper is featured with a solo in a song i like ... i change the channel ... very narrow minded of me .. and i've tried to like it better ..... but i just can't ...

i think my boy.beck.artist likes quite a bit of the music his sister and i listen to regularly ... it's just not his first choice on his ipod ...

this purple collage is on a board from lowe's ... an end of a board that someone chopped off and discarded ... and then they saved it for me .... it's probably 10 inches by 4 .. maybe not quite that long ....

there's dictionary paper in the background ... then purple glaze ... it was BRIGHT BLIGHT purple .. wow purple ... then i used a new favorite (not new, just new favorite ... formerly unloved now favorite) stencil of dottiness with ecru ... i call it ecru cause i like that word .. but i think it is actually called titan buff ... acutally , i love the word buff too ... so .. i used ecru buff to dot with my groovy stencil ... then i glazed it all again, including the sides, with raw umber ... that raw umber is kind of an antiquing effect ... it toned down the hotness (gaudiness) of the purple ....

and then i wrote out the words ... careful to do it without misspellings and such!

i like the notion of someone being amazing just the way they are ... i think mostly we all go about our lives hoping other people will change ... instead of just getting them, understanding them and loving them, just the way they are ... i'm guilty ... i try to change my kids all the time .... and then i wonder if they are changeable or if some of their i-wish-i-could-change-it-bits are just innate (like dirty clothes littering the floor from the shower, through the bathroom, down the hall, in the bedroom, and on the closet floor) ... so i try to change my kids ... but i seldom try to change mr.e.beck.artist anymore ... either i'm just used to him after all these years, or he's too close to just-right-for-me to need to change anything ....

yes i do ....

james taylor spent time in chapel hill, north carolina as a kid, teen, and young adult ... it's beautiful there ... i was there for one year as a newlywed ... mr.e.beck.artist was in grad school .... i taught while he studied .... i have always loved james taylor, except for a short time when he was divorcing carly simon ... and in the divorce, i chose her .... i got over it though and can like them both again ....

uh oh ...

so ... i posted this collage on this blog a while ago ... and a pal emailed me and asked if it was WORD or WORLD ... the left is the original wrong version... wrong ... the right is the corrected version ... i tweaked the hue or the balance or the saturation to show you the correction ... it doesn't show like a correction in real life .. particularly if you don't know there was a mistake ..... if my pal hadn't caught it, i would have sold it wrong ... how crazy is that .... i think LOADS of people saw it and didn't even notice the error ...

do you get annoyed with mistakes ... i tend not to care much ... probably cause i'm mistake prone ... so i just take it in stride ....

gifties ...

do you give valentine's gifts to anyone?
i bought some valentine candy and a couple heart shaped boxes of chocolate for little.e.beck.artist to take to her class and her teachers ....
and .. shhhhh ... i've made tiny gifts for my four favorite people .... i also plan to do an extraordinary amount of baking on the 14th ...

and here are three commissioned valentine gifts that are off for one celebrator to give to her family ....
if you are celebrating valentine's day, better make your plan now ... it's coming soon!

wow

you are amazing ....
thanks for reading my blog ...
thanks for all the great things you do for the people in your life who count on you ....
have a great day ....
wow ... you are amazing ...

sing a song ...

what song sings to your heart? is there one special one? lots of them? or, like me, whichever one happens to be what you are listening tends to be the momentary favorite ....

right now, i'm loving kelly clarkson's new song stronger ... i've always like her ... i tend to like angsty singers ... which is funny to me, cause i'm not angsty at all .... but there aren't too many just joyful singers and songs .... although, this happy one, is my all time favorite song .... you should see my kitchen dance to it!

and ... to speak to the pic of the small collage in this blog post, i do love elton john ... and just yesterday told my husband that he bore a slight resemblance to him ... because he was wearing my very brightly colored reading glasses .... this collage could be for him (mr.e.beck.artist, not elton john) but it could just as easily be for my kids ... or my parents .... or a brother or sister in law or niece or nephew ... or pal .... lots of folks need to be told that life is better cause they are in it ...

how 'bout you? what song are you loving? who would you sing an elton john song to?
do you mind i ended that last question with a preposition?

right now .....

i have a great friend who got married recently ... i painted him (and her ... well maybe more her, cause aren't wedding gifts more for her than him?) a canvas for a wedding gift ... and it was a sweet house on a heart and it said " then they lived happily ever after..." ..... it seemed so positive and marriage affirming .... and then someone saw it and bought it and i didn't give it as a wedding gift ... someone else did ... so i painted another one ... and sold it ... and another ... and sold it .... and i never did give that married couple a canvas that i had collaged and painted for them ..... i ended up giving them pottery instead .... i'd made it ... and it was nice .... but i still think of that happily ever after ... cause isn't that all anyone wants ...
graduate? then live happily ever after ...
have a baby? then live happily ever after ...
get maried? then live happily ever after ..
retire? then live happily ever after ....
buy a house? then live happily ever after....
join a gym? then live happily ever after....
but really ...
do a load of laundry ... and live happily ever after ...
clean out the basement ... and live happily ever after ...
empty the dishwasher... and live happily ever after ....
watch wipe out on tv (we just did) ... and live happily ever after ....
so ...
happily ever after begins now ...
get going ....

editor's note..... i prewrite these blog posts ... usually three or four at a time .... and then date them to post one a day ..... i wrote this happily ever after one a few days ago ... and this morning, we were SO not living the happily ever after ... i inadvertently woke my entire family up an hour early .... it was not discovered until we were all dressed and ready to go and making breakfast ... my happily ever after will have to include my kids finding the humor in the morning ... they haven't yet!

do you say yep or yup?

yep, i love you ...
yup, i love you ...
do you say yep or yup? is it regional? did your mom always remind you to say yeS .. not yah or yep or yup ....
oh .. how about uh huh ....
there are lots of ways to say yes .....

do you say yep or yup?
my answer is nope ... i generally use neither (nee-ther or nigh-ther, which did you say?) so it's funny to me that i put yep on this little canvas .... but when i was doing it, yes seemed too formal .... yup, it did ....

how long is forever and always?

do you have a valentine? someone who knows they are your valentine? do you get them anything? make them anything? bake them anything for valentine's? cook a  special dinner? let them be in charge of the tv remote? let them win at backgammon?

all my work is at a show this week .... this is one of the pieces ... made purely to take advantage of valentine's day rolling around soon on the calendar ...

all in favor of dinosaurs, raise your hand ....

i've been saving these pics for a while now ... waiting til i got close enough to valentine's that you wouldn't think i was crazy ...

so ... mid january, coming off a pinterest binge .... i was interested in this pic ... of groovy hearts .... made from paint chips .... and decided to make my own .... i blog teased you here ... did you see that post already? .... when you saw it did you know what i was going to do ? ....

 ... i punched more than 100 hearts .... and this is what i did with them ...

 i attached all of those hearts to pink string .... and attached the strings over a large canvas ....the canvas was an old painting that i'd grown to hate ... .so i painted the whole thing brown .... so there's my mantel ...

and because just a canvas full of hearts wasn't quite enough, i spray painted some dinosaurs pink .. yup ... really ... pink dinosaurs ... doesn't that just scream "be my valentine" to you? ... yes, me too ...

 did you know that we don't actually know what color dinos were? we (we being scientist types, paleontologists, and hard core dinophiles) presume that they were lizardy or reptilian in color ... but i'm thinking no one can prove they were NOT flamingo colored ....i chose flamingo colored to show that this pink is found in nature, as opposed to cotton candy pink or peptobismol pink (not quite found in nature).... for arguments sake, agree with me, yes, there's a good (to great) chance that dinosaurs (at least some of them) were pink,  making them the perfect valentine beasts ....

let's say it again ... dinosaurs are the perfect valentine beasts ....

here's a tyrannosaurus rex ... isn't he (she) dashing in pink? fierce? growly and gorgeous?

you know, easter has bunnies .... and eggs and chicks and pastels and peeps and new bonnets and lilies and patent leather mary janes and clip on ties and once a year church goers and the cross ... 

and halloween has pumpkins and witches and zombies and ghosts and SO much great candy ...

 and christmas ... well ... baby jesus and mary and joseph and wise men and a star and camels and a donkey and a manger and shepherds and sheep... and then a whole 'nother christmas with santa, elves, reindeers, sleighs, snow, snowmen, candy canes, and tickle me elmos (insert present of your choice) ....

 so i think valentines is kind of paltry with hearts, chocolate and flowers ... we need more substantial ... why can't we give it dinosaurs?

now it's february .... so i thought it was ok to show my valentine dinos to you .... and you still have plenty of time to make your own ... hop on board the latest trend ... in five or ten years when the drugstores and groceries and hobby lobby and michael's are just FULL of dinosaurs at valentine's time, you can say you were an early adopter ...

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... happy valentine's day ....

.... yup... ordinary things ....

i know when mother theresa said this quote, she probably did not mean carpool ... or grocery shopping ... or picking up those little lego bits off the floor that hurt so much when you step on them .... but i think this quote speaks especially well to parents ... new parents ... parents of the very young ... like when you are parent and still trying to get it figured out .... like how to get everyone under the age of three to the pool and back without anyone dying or pooping .... when you are at that stage, it is hard to be cognizant of just how good the ordinary can be .... and how the things that are the chores, really aren't that bad ....

i've matured with my kids ... i can do ordinary things and get why they are important ... or how they are acts of love .... and even revel in them because time seems to be speeding along so quickly ...

how about you? are you in a phase of life where time is flying or creeping? i think it makes a difference on how you view your days ....

... grand things ...

the last few days on my blog, i have been showing wee wooden pieces that are covered in dictionary, then glazed, then stamped, then inscribed .... i just browsed a document i had made of great quotes and picked the ones that spoke to me ... now, going back through them, they are very lovey .... i didn't plan in my head to make them valentiney ... but the are ....this is an odd quote to me .... the question is, do you prefer loving someone or being loved ... i actually think it is just an unfair question.

john, paul, george and ringo ... do you have a favorite?

the beatles are pre-me .... i never saw them or heard their newest song on the radio or watched them on tv .... i remember (sort of) when john lennon died ..... i know paul was the cutest one ... i can probably sing all the words to lots of their songs .... when my twins were infants, my favorite lullaby cd was called baby road ... it was beatles songs all instrumental ..... hey jude was the first song the cd ... and i was usually asleep before it ended even if whatever baby i was holding wasn't ..... i guess songs that last so long do so because of a universality to their message .... all you need is love ... that's a good message ...