i went to camp

i spent this past weekend in north carolina ... near hendersonville ... at kanuga ... for camp .... i've been to kanuga loads of times ... i think i've loved every time .... it is a magical place .... but this time ... it was like double magic.....

the camp was called life is a verb .... and was run by the amazing patti digh who wrote the book life is a verb ....the book is about living your best life .... i have art in the book .... and i have used it as a sunday school curriculum for an art journaling class .... i've read my copy of the book countless times .... so..... pattie is amazing. the book is amazing. the camp was amazing. the people there were artists and musicians and writers and poets and dreamers .....they were amazing. it's almost too much to process to spend the weekend with so many that are so extraordinary .... i could write many blog posts just about the musicians ... or just about the poets (oh my gosh, the poets!) ... or the artists .... or the yoga instructors who made me think i should turn into a yoga sort ....   what?  haven't i don't a blog post on ten reasons i'm NOT meant to be a yoga sort? maybe not. but i could have.

so, i've spent some time since i came back, reestablishing a writing practice, nursing tennis elbow (wait, maybe that doesn't belong in this blog), thinking like a poet, and sorting through all the paraphernalia and paper bits i brought back and putting them into my camp journal ....

i'm not sure camp is a small thing ... but it is taking up a large spot in my heart and my brain right now ... stay tuned. maybe one day i'll be brave enough to share a poem i've written.  

ralph waldo

after all my people left this morning, i started my day on my computer ... and this quote dropped into my inbox .... one of the quote a day things i get .... and i loved it ... so i wrote it down ... luckily i just happen to have a pile of prepainted notecards ready to go .... i actually need to make some more .... i like the idea of acknowledging blunders and absurdities ... i like that rwe called the yucky parts of the day blunders and absurdities .... and i've always been a firm believer, with scarlett o'hara, that tomorrow is a new day .... and i like the idea that i can start a day serenely AND with high spirit .... those usually seem diametrically opposed to me ... but i like the idea of serene, zen, calm AND high spirit, go go go, zippity do dah, start the day ....

finish every day and be done with it ... this morning i checked my fitbit stats and my sleep stat says it took me 2 minutes to fall asleep last night... two whole entire minutes between the day and trying to be asleep .... i rocked that whole emerson "be done with " the day thing ....

drawing .....

i've made a lot of notecards this year .... for the ICAD art card challenge ... and just for myself to hang up or give away .... this ice cream cone is reminiscent of the ice cream cones i drew with the emmaus house kids at summer camp ... i taught a drawing/doodling/coloring class ....

 i didn't snap any pics of the kids' ice cream cones ... but above are some robots .... and below, cupcakes. yum.

so i've been drawing more than ever .... notebooks full of doodles and ideas! i'm not as inclined to blog all of it as i am finished canvases ... but just in case you were wondering what i was doing, now you know.

bananas and pottery

i've been in love with pottery this summer.  i've been taking an evening class with a best pal ... and it has been awesome in a way that it hasn't been for a while: i think about it A LOT when i'm not there ... i have plans and ideas and notions ...

 i need to find about 20 gift giving events to release some of my newly fired inventory out into the world .....

bright colors and textures make these align with my canvases too .... 

and orange ... orange is the best.

new thing...

so a friend added/invited me to a new facebook page ... well new to me .... it is for local artisans and locals looking for hand made .... well ... i do hand made ... hand made artsy stuff ... so i signed up and posted some pics of some 12 by 12 canvases ...i'm not sure anything will come of it ... it kinda seems TOO easy, right .... here's the page .... it's called intown atlanta handcrafted marketplace .... IAHM ... it's a mouthful ...

and these are the paintings/collages that i have listed ..... wish me luck ... we'll see where this goes ..... worth a try!

back to pottery......

i don't usually go to pottery over the summer .... but this summer! i am! ..... and after not having pottery for four or five or six weeks, it was a marvel just how absolutely awesome it was to go back. i missed it.  all i did was work on underglazing this platter .... it's going through a second bisque fire as i type ... next monday i'll clear glaze it .....and then i'll need to look for someone to give it to!

summertime reading .... 47 books, year to date.

 http://ebeckartist.blogspot.com/p/2014-books.html

so there you go ....i've updated my book list .... i've read a bunch of good ones since my last update!
what have you been reading? anything i should put in my kindle queue?

mark twain

i think of mark twain as a crotchety old thing ... i have no idea if that's right or not ... this quote makes me think i might be wrong about him.

that's me on the left. i have short short short hair now.... though i think my bangs swoosh the other way ... or they are supposed to? .....

this very tiny artwork was done for the ICAD challenge ... index card a day.

beautiful

this pinkypurple card is part of my ICAD ... index card a day .... i'm not following the prompts ... more just doing what i want to do ..... i have doodles that i love ... these half circle ones in particular are soothing to do .... sitting in front of the tv ..... my girls and i have been binge watching the gilmore girls this summer ... we are well into season two .... we all love it. gives me lots of opportunity for card making ....

this elsie de wolfe quote is a favorite .... words to live by ... though, i'm sorta messy ... so the beauty i create might have a dirty laundry pile close by ..... or a stack of "important" papers ... oh well ... it's an ongoing process, this making everything around me beautiful.

ICAD ....

i have been doing a notecard challenge .... from a blogger ... who appears to have thousands of artsy folks working on notecard art ..... the premise being, just do a little thing .... no pressure ... since i always do notecard to tape up all over my kitchen anyway, it was a natural to join in ..... 

here's her blog .... icad is the abbreviation .... and she has an ICAD facebook page that i post on .... and where i get gobs of notecard inspiration .....

 icad ... index card a day. fun stuff. gets you doodling.

pottery in the summer time ....

i went to my last pottery class of the spring semester yesterday ... prepared to clear glaze this one last piece .... and not come back until fall .... but i had such a great class that i went ahead and committed to a summer class ... oops ... so much for slowing down for summer .... i just keep piling things on my plate .... oh well .... at least the plate is pretty and full of colorful houses .....

hustling on the resolutions in april ....

this year's resolution was multi part ....

art .... do something artsy 200 times this year .... i am off schedule on this one .... easily noticeable to any blog followers because i've been doing a poor job of updating my blog..... though in the first three months of the year i did art on 35 days ... that's not on track for 200 in a year though ... hopefully this summer i'll get in 100 in 100 days ....

that's a new pottery piece i made on one of my art days .... happy, springy colors, right?

exercise ... also to do 200 days ....  oy. what made me want to do such a big number? new year's enthusiasm i guess! .... but in the first three months i did 56 days of exercise. that's actually pretty good ... and on target to be successful ... i've been doing lots of planks, push ups and squats .... and tennis ... and slowly working my way back to running (darn plantars fasciitis!)

meals with pals .... basically going out with friends .... breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks .... my goal is 50 for the year. and i've done 22 in the first three months ... i didn't really have a way to gauge how many i did last year to know what a reasonable goal was.  50 seemed reasonable ... but now it seems low! i put it on the list because it is one of the things that makes me super happy. .... and if it makes you super happy, you should do it more often, right?

and books.
i said i'd read 100 books this year. i've done it before, but don't read 100 every year .... and as of today, i've read 33 .. and well into 34 ... so a third of the way done before a third of the year has slipped by ...
here's a link to my blog book list..... and the main way to achieve this is reading every day. not a day of 2014 has gone  by where i didn't read .....

happy reading.  happy resolutions. go ahead and hustle and keep stuff going! my next hustle needs to be to get back on track with documenting my art on the blog ....

happy easter ....

babies

my twins are 17 years old today. time flies when you're having fun.

art

i have a wall by my kitchen table that is the only white wall in my entire house .... and i redecorated yesterday ... put up all the art that is available for sale .... it feels fresh now...it's a chore that i'd put off for eons ... but i just got back some pieces from the trinity show ... and rather than have them propped up indefinitely, i got on with it..... i didn't take a picture of the whole wall cause there's a stack of stray stuff off low to the left .... makes me think i need to paint over a couple pieces that have been sitting around too long .... things to do, things to do .... always more art floating in my head. can't keep up!

happy valentine's day, friend.

i love valentine's day. i always have. i hope i always will. i usually give valentines to lots of different people. i don't think of it as so lovey dovey, though there is certainly nothing wrong with that ...i use it more as a simple i love you reminder.... or maybe i just use it to remember how many people i love.... happy valentine's day to you .... go tell someone how great you think they are.... xoxo.e

bucket list joy.

here in the deep south, we are not snow people ... i am even less of a snow person, being a florida girl in my bones .... even long removed from florida, i am so summer and so NOT winter.

and we had an ice storm yesterday ... and a snow fall last night ... and the world outside my window is gorgeous and white and silent .... but i'll just stay inside thanks.

i was looking out the window at the snow and thinking about snow things .... skiing, winter olympics (yay curling), snowmen, pity for my dog who is about as snowy souled as i am ... and i wondered if i had anything snowy on my bucket list ... antarctica ... just antarctica, i think .... so i went to my bucket list ... which is an electronic post it note on my desktop ... and i organized it .... yup, i have snowed in days off and instead of cleaning my closet or kitchen cabinets or my studio like my friends seem to be doing, i cleaned up my bucket list ... i organized it .... by continent mostly ... by to do and done ... and have saved it to a doc and to this blog ... here it is if you want to dream yourself.... 

do you have a bucket list? 

is it overlong like mine? ...seriously, i'm sure i can't get through all of those due to time and financial constraints. but it's fun to dream.

is there something i'm missing? something to add?

mexico.....and primary/secondary colors.....

i just had the most excellent good fortune to do a girlfriend getaway in mexico ... sunshine and swimming pools and flip flops and beaches and sunscreen and a big ole hat .... 

i didn't actually 'need' a vacation like sometimes you feel you do ... but when given the opportunity to go i certainly wasn't going to say no thanks, i'm feeling fresh still ..... and i am NOT a winter person so it was certainly grand to escape to sunshine and 80 degrees .... 

last year i had lots going on and sort of put painting on a back burner .... but in the last two or three months i've tried to revive my art and i think it's working .... as perhaps you've noticed with an increase in blog posts about art ..... but now i'm sure that i've been successful in reconfiguring my art brain because i see art ideas everywhere now ....

so ... in the cancun airport i was inspired by this:

what? e is inspired by the airport food court? no way!

but yes.

there was a sea of perfect chairs. in this picture they look red green and blue ... but really, and i studied them, so i know, but really, they are red leaning towards orangey .... blue leaning towards purpley ... and yellow leaning towards greeny .... so primary colors leaning towards secondary .... and just really lovely .... so is that blue kinda periwinkle? i don't think i ever use that color ... and that green is so subtle ...  i need some greens in my pieces that aren't so bright ... 

so there you go .... airport inspriation .... 

and then here's a bit of airport artsiness that made me laugh ....

gotta love frida selling you some last minute toursist clothes ....

and now i'm back home ... waiting for an ice storm .... i will paint the next couple days unless i have no power .... without power my basement studio is just too cold and too dark ....

warm wishes to you from this winter spot ....

choosing.

love notes.
when's the last time you wrote one?
mine are usually on post it notes.
i have four people in this house that i write them to.
as i prewrite this blog post, in my future there will be a bunch o' post it notes .... by the time this is posted to the blog, those post it love notes will still be, days later, stuck in the spots in bathrooms and by beds where i left them.  i like to think they leave the love notes up for days and weeks and months cause they like them so .... but it could just be easier to leave them there than figure out what to do with them...... it's the thought that counts.

dreaming.

have you been dreaming lately? big dreams? little dreams? or just the usual dreams at night? all those types of dreaming are important...... i think dreaming is kind of like planning .... you just need to follow through.

i'm not partial to rules.... however ....

in my family of five, i'm the not so good at following the rules one ... i argue that ... i do just fine .... i just find rules to me more flexible than some of the others ..... which is good ... since most of them are under the age of 18 and should be following the rules to the letter! ... however ... as rules go? this one is perfect to me. i have these same words hanging in my kitchen. i've been known to point to them to remind someone of something!

pink

i sure don't do many pink paintings. but i adore this one ..... i think i love it because the color mix is so ME .... pink and orange and yellow ... can't get much happier than that.

sun.

"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others, who, thanks to their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." (Pablo Picasso)

... and then there's me .... my spot is orangey.... but a sun, nonetheless.

this one is a little slice of tennessee. it's reminding you that you are amazing. or maybe it's to give to someone who is amazing.... someone who is amazing and likes purple flowers.

everyone needs words of encouragement, huh?

12 inches square gallery stretched canvas.
vintage dress pattern.
jumbo light blue flower.
do flowers actually come in this particular shade of light blue?
probably not.
oh well.
do your best.
that's always good advice, right?

just some lovey dovey mushy stuff.

12 inches square.
vintage dress patterns.
fields of colors.
simple red poppies.
lovey dovey words.

share your joy. ok?

this is a 12 inch square canvas ... i started it EONS and eons ago and just finished it finally this week .... along with many others .... it is currently at trinity, looking fancy in a show.

be ....

i have done a great many canvases with these words .... they always sell quickly .... i think this might be the biggest, brightest, and happiest version of it i've ever made. in regards to the blog post a couple days, maybe a week ago, about my new swoopy cursive handwriting, this be kind, be careful is an example of the font i invented for myself when i started pursuing art with intention.

so what are you going to be today? kind, careful, happy, helpful and honest? happy is my favorite. i'm probably least good at careful. are there other be's that you would add to the list ?  i sometimes want to add thankful and grateful ... but  wonder if those don't just fit in a subset under happy....

happiness to you and yours!

smile

this is one of the small collages that i have dropped off at trinity school for their gigantic art show .... i make a lot of these every year right before valentine's day .... they always sell well ... the mushier the better. do you celebrate valentine's in some way? i like that some people buy little bits of art for their love ... my kids all have pieces similar to this hanging in their rooms ... so ... it's february. are you making a valentine plan?

three feet square.

this used to be a painting with some flowers ... on a blue background ... and i never finished it cause i never liked it much and was having trouble fixing it ... so ... feeling liberated, i covered it all in gesso mixed with some pale yellow paint ..... some flowers still showed so i covered them here and there with some dictionary pages .... any darker rectangles you see above are book pages ...... and then once that was done, i washed on some mat medium, raw umber fluid acrylics, burnt sienna hard body acrylic .... and i kept spritzing it with my trusty water squirt bottle to keep it damp as i worked it in .... when it was all wet and even, i picked up half the paint and created texture by using a trash bag .... any plastic works, but for this big a canvas, the trash bag is the right size .... then i added hearts from my hodge podge of papers that are sitting around in my studio ..... can i just confess right now that my studio might be the messiest it has EVER been .... but i need to keep plugging away at painting to meet some deadlines .... i think i'll clean sometime in the end of february .... hope i can stand my mess for that long! i don't like the mess, but that certainly doesn't stop me from making it!

bruno's flower

i hope that the person who buys this collage, gives it to a teenager ..... do you know this bruno mars song? it's a love song ... but this bit on my painting could easily be a love letter from a parent to a child ....


if perfect's what you're looking for, then stay the same ....

when the universe gets on board and everything falls in place ....

last week i used the very last page of my atlanta and vicinity street map atlas. darn. i was super disappointed. i still had a few of the last pages of the index, which are nice pages full of tidy rows of type ..... but i was a bit mournful of its passing. no one really totes around an atlas in the door pocket like i used to, right? we all have smartphones with maps? .... and just to be have another moan, both of my dictionaries are thin .. they are running out of pages as well ... nearly done. i imagine i've used 6 or 7 dictionaries up in the last 10 years .... that's a lot .... not all the pages are in art ... some are just painted papers ready to be used ... some were used for sketches or doodles ... i've wrapped gifts in them .... i use them to wipe up spills .... but i was thinking i needed a new dictionary before that one was no more ..... and i procrastinated ... i needed to just get on ebay and find what i needed ... but ebay is like a black hole SUCKING ME IN ..... and i never can get one thing .... in the past is has always been ebay spreeeeeees ... wheeeeeee for eeeeeeeeebay ..... but i was hoping against that.

so.
imagine my delight when i went to pottery class at the spruill center. and i parked at the MOST far away spot from ceramics.... and i had to walk through the library to get where i was going ... well that parts not all delightful.... until i discovered that the friends of dunwoody library were having their annual sale. yes. score. yes. so lucky. and then double the delight that they had the EXACT atlas that i had just run out of. what? total fabulous serendipity. score. i bought two street atlases and one big dictionary (that i think is the same dictionary i used at home growing up!) .... all for four whole dollars. yes. i'm considering going back for closing bag day when the books are no longer individually priced, but instead, you get a brown paper bag full for one low price .... that's fun pickings!  but then it starts to feel like ebay and i'll go overboard .... so maybe i'm just going to be super happy with my artful treasures .... super happy is always a good plan, right.

handwriting

about 8 years ago or so i made up a new handwriting for myself. my own font. i loved it. i don't even try to have it now, it's just what my handwriting is. i think that's kind of weird. i wanted a new handwriting for my art so i made it up and then i adopted it for everything .... it made for some good looking to do lists and post it notes for my family .... but lately, it isn't what i've wanted ... i've been going with swoopy cursive with some dots and dashes .... the funny thing about that is i didn't learn cursive as a kid ... i taught it to myself as an adult ... weird, right? i still am not clear on/good at uppercase cursive ... but that's ok since i generally avoid caps at all cost ....

a friend asked me for this quote .... it's a good one, right?

home sweet home.

most of the country is freezing today, huh? makes you want to stay in bed with all the covers pulled up to your nose with one gloved hand holding the kindle .... or is that just me? and yet we get up and go out and walk the dog and whine in our heads in wonderment that even with the weather in the teens the sweet dog takes too long .... but back to my warm house i go, and the dog can barely wait for me to get my gloves off, she's so anxious for her treat .... she likes being in doors during the cold too .....winter is more of a nesting time than summer i think ... and this painting is definitely about home, nesting, comfort... as all my nest paintings have been ... but it has a decidedly warm spin to it, don't you think? ....

warm thoughts to you and yours this cold winter morning.

mae west and ralph waldo emerson. incongruous.

 my big kids are high school juniors ... SAT tests and ACTs are this giant thing that hangs around. the english teacher gives crazy hard vocabulary every weak. i rock hard vocabulary and was stunned that i didn't remember what calumny meant ... now i know. but how did i forget? slander. slander is a hard enough word without turning it into calumny. anyway. when i titled this post i liked the incongruity of mae west and emerson. incongruous is an excellent vocab word, right?

these are art card happies that i have sent off to new artsy friends.

art cards again ....

here are two art cards sent out to people in my new art group ... 

this first one is a maya angelou quote ....it is from her poem touched by an angel .... i'm completely into poetry right now. i did patti digh's design your life camp last fall and there were poets .. the most astonishing poets ... and then i saw billy collins ... and it was all kinda revolutionary in my wee brain .... i wish i had studied poetry in college .... so i'm doing it now instead.

 i have a thing for mandalas now .. cause i took an online mandala class ... we have a self help/change yourself/expand your horizons thing going, huh? ........ this one is a partial which made it fun and tricky to do ... well.... not that tricky, but still ... a little tricky.

i've been working on canvases too .... but not snapping pics for you ... better get on that.

art cards

 i've joined an art group ... on facebook ... as a way to stay accountable for my vow for increased art activities ... why is it that i LOVE any art activity so much, and yet i find it difficult to carve out time for it sometimes. enough of that. i am changing myself, just like rumi says too. more art this year. not sure if that'll mean more or better blogging, but let's hope so.

so these two art cards have been mailed out to people in my art group .... i have cards like this hanging on my backsplash in the kitchen ... and in cabinets ... and in the fridge even cause there was plenty of space ..... not sure what my new art friends will do with them... like them, i hope.....

new years resolutions

on yesterdays blog post, i was asked how i track my resolutions.... so here it is... a word document. i actually didn't make it ... well i did ... but in 2009. when i used it to chart art .... see a VERY perky blog post about it right here ..... 

so this is this year's calendar .... i have a for art ... days i do art..... e for exercise, the days i exercise ... b is for book ... and i intend to read EVERY day cause that's the only way i'll get to 100 books read .... you can see the books i've already read this year right here .... and p is for pal ... i 'm going out to eat with pals 50 times this year ... though i'm thinking i'll do more than that.

realistically, i'm certain i'll make my exercise goal so long as i don't get injured .... i think i'll get my pal goal early and go over the goal number. the art goal is hard... i'm super easily side tracked from that ... which is funny/odd/ironic/incongruous since this is an ART blog......  and the book goal, i think i can read every day, but getting 100 books finished is hard. but doable. i'll know by summer if i'll make it.... pretty much i need to do ten a month and then take it easy in november and december when life gets so busy with other stuff.

new year. new stuff. here's to 2014.

i'm late to posting this new year!
i started the year in australia ... sydney harbour for the greatest new years eve celebration in the world ... and then i got home and things were a whirlwind. but, now i've updated my books for 2013, and started the list for books 2014 ....
one of my resolutions this year is to read 100 books .... even if i don't make it, it'll be awesome to try! i'm way ahead of schedule having done so much reading in the first few days of the year while i was on interminable plane rides!
another goal/resolution: 200 days of art this year .... i already feel a bit behind on that.. i think i'm four for 15 today .... but i'll work hard to get back on track ... and share some of the fruits of that labor on this blog ...
third goal: 200 days of exercise this year. i'm further along on this one than the art one at least ... i think i'm 8 for 15 ...
and final goal in this year of doing LOTS OF what makes me happy .... 50 breakfasts/lunches/dinners with girlfriends. i just did the first of this one ... so, off track, but expecting it to be not so hard .... my daughter made fun of me for this one ... too easy, she said ..... so if it is easy, it'll still be fun to keep track of ....

here's an art card i made ... on one of the art days, of course .... hope your resolutions are going well ....
happy new year.