ioh

 interfaith outreach house .... its transitional housing for folks who need a hand up .... help making it from homelessness, or near homelessness .... its a two year living arrangement in safe apartments where the family commits to working, saving, life skill classes and much more ... my women's group at church helped in the turnover of one of these apartments this go round ... a family graduated and moved on .... and my pals reset the apartment with bedding and kitchen gear and the whole shebang you'd need if you were moving your family into a new apartment ..... and .... i made this painting for the wall ... mixed media acrylic collage ....

this is the back of the painting .... likely the new owner of the painting won't know what the back of the painting says until she moves into her new home in two years.

8 balls of clay

i'm not an excellent potter on the wheel .... i've done it sporadically in my life .... and was pretty good .....and now i'm trying to get back to pretty good .... 

so, no surprise that i'm having trouble .... but the funny thing is, most of my trouble is gravity ... hence, this bowl, drying upside down so that its rim doesn't flip down .... not sure it'll make it to someone's kitchen, but, i'm trying! 

 i made 8 balls of clay ... each a pound and a half ..... five were decent bowls, one was a half sized bowl cause i wrecked it, trimmed it, and saved it... one was that upside down one above .... and one was a pile of mush that's now been seasoned with a few curse words .... i didn't feel the curse words really, they just slipped out. 

happy, happy, joy, joy

so now my pottery studio is up an running.... 

i've done quite a bit of hand building ... quite a bit of wheel throwing .... 

i'm still most drawn to texture, text and color..... 

.... and now i get to discover the joy of choosing my glazes from an infinite variety! oh joy! happy, happy, joy, joy! 

happy bowls

here i am in my NEW pottery studio .... throwing my first pot .... it's a bowl actually ... those empty shelves are striking to me ... what am i going to put on them? i shouldn't have worn my favorite orange shoes ... they got clay all over them .... 

 and here is the first bowl on my new to me wheel in my brand new pottery studio.... i actually made four happy bowls ... a little bit like bob ross, the painter, and his happy trees ... i've started a happy bowl series. ta da!

blue

 i'm not sure i've even announced to the world of blog that my hair is blue. it is. blue highlights. because i can. when i had to get new glasses, i got them to match my hair. that's what you're supposed to do, right?

altered book

at my current long term sub job, i am SO SO SO SO SO lucky that i get to do art with high school kids .... they work on an altered book in their free time ... so i do too.

i heart andy warhol

 i went to the andy warhol museum in pittsburgh .... that's where he was born ... the museum was excellent ... a good smattering of history ...lots about him .... and the evolution of his art ...

 these giant bold flowers have always been favorites of mine .... though i also love the typical pop art pieces of commercial art ... like the soup cans and brillo and such ....

 there were impressive amounts of portraits .... there were about a dozen life sized portraits of elvis ... he took up a whole wall of a gallery ....

 the silver cloud room was my favorite ... cause sophie and i played with the clouds .... i always love the idea of the viewer interacting/becoming the art .... the joy of people bouncing silver pillows of air off the ceiling was  just what andy warhol wanted, i think ....

 above, sophie has captured a silver cloud ...

and here's another i appreciate ... venus ... taken from art history and made into andy warhol's .... i didn't copy a.w. on purpose, but this is how i feel about mona lisa ... that i take her and make her mine sometimes ... 

and last .... but out of order, because it was the first pic i took in the museum ... he started his art career in advertising .... and drew ordinary things in gorgeous ways .... like bathtubs. ... 

college visit

 i took little.e.beck.artist (who is no longer little.at.all. buy why change blog continuity now?) to pennsylvania .... in this pic, specifically to carnegie mellon university .... as we start to help her sort out what college she might go to. this art alone made me think it was the right school for ME:

walking to the sky by jonathon borofsky ... at carnegie mellon university .... on a beautiful day just an hour or so before it started snowing on us!

together

together, 12x12 mixed media, vintage papers and acrylics on canvas board. NFS

this was a valentine's gift for my husband. that's us. he's the skinny one. i love him. when we sit on the couch, i'm always scooching closer just like that bird .... don't mind me while i get in your space.

joy platter

i have made this specifically for a friend.... she will be surprised .... that's the best part about giving gifts.

new! pottery! studio!

 i have astonishingly come into a full selection of pottery studio supplies .... my friend's mom died and the whole shebang of her extraordinary studio was gifted to me last summer .... it took about 8 months for me to get my basement cleaned out and a contractor found .... and now i have my own pottery studio full of goodness ....

here's the right wall ... with my wheel, shelving, a glazing  counter and a sink ....

here's a close up of the sink .... the basement isn't/wasn't stubbed for water (is that the right lingo?) ... so there's a pump under neath the sink that gets the water going .... 

 and here's the left wall ... the door goes to the unfinished basement ... this section used to be unfinished ..... but now i have walls and a (gorgeous) ceiling .... i kept the floor just cement slab .... 

and here is a full shot of the left wall with the slab roller and the on wheels table with a duck canvas top and storage below ... and the wheel and shelves .... 

i've been doing pottery for almost my whole life .... and definitely for my whole adult life with a few short breaks here and there ... but there is SO much i don't know ... i have a lot to learn!!! and i'm SO excited!

babies

i once was very young (and smooth faced and darker haired) .... and had two magical little babies at once. and now they are 21. i love how they have turned out. but this pic makes me miss their babyness .... if you offered me a baby RIGHT now .... i'd say ok. i'd take it. and do all those sweet baby things again.