Boa Constrictor

Here I am at a benefit for the Elizabeth Bagshaw clinic last week in Vancouver. I was delivering much needed Charm Beauty and Poise to the gals who work tirelessly to ensure that women enjoy full reproductive autonomy. They were a most delightful audience and a well bred time was had by all.
If I have an especially glamourous glow about me in this photo, it's because I am sporting my newly acquired, vintage feather boa. And this baby is real....no bogus feathers. Trouble was, it was incredibly hot under all that plummage. I suppose four million water birds can't be wrong.
Perhaps my next presentation should be for "Ducks Unlimited".

many thanks on thanksgiving

I had a wonderful (Canadian) thanksgiving weekend here on Gabriola. My studio was open as part of the annual Gabriola Thanksgiving Studio Tour. I had about 400 people through.. a bit like Grand Central only without the trains. They came from far and wide to warm themselves by the cheesy glow from the very cheesy fake fireplace I acquired this year on one of my many thrift-store hunting expeditions.
It never ceases to thrill me how many people feel they cannot live without art, no matter how low the TSX goes. To them I am exceedingly grateful. And yes, that is Freud on the wall there on the left. The piece is called "Freudian Flip". It's a Mary Tyler Moore/Sigmund hybrid.

Housekeeping Horror

It has come to this. Perhaps I should back track. I have never been what you'd call a pristine housekeeper. I have been particularly lax in the vacuuming, dusting, dishwashing, polishing and waxing departments...which upon second glance, leaves little else.
So maybe it shouldn't have come as such a surprise when yesterday, the beautiful fall sunlight came streaming through my front window and cascaded across one of two old burgundy easy chairs. Not the one I sit in, the other one used by guests. Up until that point all was good. But things took a decidely sinister turn when the aforementioned sunlight glanced off the handywork of a certain spider who shall remain nameless. I thought to myself, this can only mean two things, both of them tragic: that I am a terribly slack housekeeper and - perhaps worse - that visits from friends are insufficient to prevent the formation of cobwebs on my furniture.
Thank goodness I have other things going for me.

writing on the wall

I was just admiring the wall which sits behind my canvases while I work. It has all the markings and makings of a fabulous painting. Too bad it's busy holding up part of a room otherwise I might frame it and send it out to one of my galleries. What is all that paint doing there you might be asking. Does she miss the canvas? How bad can her post-menopausal eyes be?
I use the wall like a giant palette which means I mix colours on it. Also, before I put my brushes into water, I discharge excess paint onto the wall which is a fancy way of saying I put it there. The marks are pure random, unsupervised, energy. If only I could tame it to the page.

Bite Me

Ever since I was a girl in dungarees, I've been a tasty target for biters. Ants, mosquitos, spiders, and even the odd toddler - have all, at one time or another, found me irresistible. So I wasn't really surprised when I began scratching at my back yesterday. What DID surprise me, was when I looked in the mirror and found....well, you can see what I found there....a veritable TRAIL of bites, a pathway of pinkish disturbances, a meandering corridor of chomp marks. And they don't stop at the panty line either. However, since my blog is rated safe for all members of the family, I will not show you just how far this x-rated little beast got. Let's just say the whole affair has been a bummer.
I know he is one of God's precious creatures, but at the risk of sounding unenlightened and vengeful, I hope I sat on him.

What is it with you and Sigmund?

You might well be asking that question yourself. What's a post-menopausal dyed in the wool lesbian feminist doing, cavorting with the likes of Sigmund Freud? I can assure you it is strictly platonic. Sigmund could not be reached for comment.

Artist Waxes On

I had a swellegant opening last thursday at my solo show here on Gabriola Island. Apparently I had some "splainin" to do and here's the evidence courtesy of the local paparazzi. I know it appears as though I'm preparing to catch a volleyball, or launch into prayer, but I am actually discussing with a few interested patrons, the ideational tenor of the painting, and how its implied synesthesia speaks to a post-premise ideologue which simultaneously constructs and restricts conceptualization.
Just kidding.
(photo credit Christy Wilson)

Raven Appears in Tea Leaves

I hardly ever go and get my tea leaves read. Actually I have never had my tea leaves read. It's not that I don't believe in that sort of thing. I own a tarot deck and I have friends who think I'm a bit paranormal. So imagine my surprise when I took a sip of mint tea this evening, and saw at the bottom of the cup, an avian apparition in the shape of a raven. And not just ANY raven, but one that I have painted.
Life works in mysterious ways.

Headless Brides Terrorize Guests at Double Wedding Ceremony

It was Beatrice Pierce who wrote in 1934 in her best selling It's More Fun When You Know the Rules, that "Girls with brains are all right, but the brains mustn't be too evident."
Well someone has clearly left nothing to chance with the two girls pictured here. Their heads have been removed altogether, thereby promoting ease of operation of the new brides.

Henry

I am struck with the fierce attachment many of us have to our pets. I specialize in canines..although I can hardly use the plural. SInce 1975 I have had only one dog. It would actually be more fitting to say that she has had me. Her name is Rosie and she came into my life in december 2001. I knew things would change. I didn't know my heart would break open.
I write about dogs today because I just finished work on a commission for a woman whose love affair with a small, elegant, boston terrier has exceeded all expectations. Henry is his name and love is his game.
I suspect Rosie would approve.

Bringing Aid to Women of Nanaimo

Here I am, last night, delivering much needed Charm Beauty and Poise tips to the girls of the Nanaimo Business Women's Association. Sad that there are so many women out there who have let themselves go.

sitting down on the job

This is what i saw out my studio window this evening. It's not uncommon to see deer outside my place. This is a small, rural island I live on. But to see one sitting down..now that's unusual.
Make yourself at home I say. This land is your land.

Sigmund Driven to Edge

Well, I'm afraid I may have pushed Sigmund to the brink of his tolerance for artists mucking about with his likeness. He has thrown up his hands and his cigar in sheer exasperation and is perched perilously on the ledge of my back deck and all because I sent out into the world, a large canvas showing him reincarnated as a bird. You'd think he'd appreciate the gesture, you know, trying to free him from all of his mental encumbrances. This is the gratitude he shows me.
I suppose I need to work more on my giving to get.

What's a nice girl like you doing in a recession like this?

For a painter, totally reliant on my income from art, I am having what amounts to way too much fun these days, when you consider that we are in the worst economic downturn since God was a girl. The galleries that represent me have all gone a little limp and sales are sagging like an old brassiere. One of my galleries is throwing in the towel/bra altogether, after over 20 years in business.

Some folks say the art market may never quite recover. But as Gloria Gaynor put it so eloquently in 1978 when I looked like this and had just burned my bra, i will survive. And how I will do that is through diversification....which loosely translated means 'a girl does what a girl has to do'. I am painting smaller works and getting them out to folks via my web, holding my own art shows in the homes of friends who will let me, and producing mixed media speaking events which I am taking on the road.

Yes, it's true, this recession has turned me into a one girl band...but the music never sounded sweeter.

earliest known blog entry

This is me in 1953 getting comfortable with a typewriter which I am certain weighed more than me. I was very short at the time, so several pillows were pressed into service to bring me to a better height. This was before we knew about ergonomics otherwise they might have had me stabilizing my tiny core by balancing on a ball. I don't know why the little measuring spoon is so close at hand unless I was planning to add a dash of irony to the entry.

sigmund, we have lift-off

Today a very old friend (she's not old, but our connection is) emailed me a photo of us from 1955 when we were classmates in kindergarten. I guess it got into me somehow. I know this because the painting I worked on shortly after getting the email shows Sigmund Freud as a bird, lifting off. I was originally thinking of having him in a housedress and turning him into a wife from the 1950s; something I am sure he would not have approved of. But instead he ended up flying. If I were on the couch today, he would no doubt have something to say about all of this.

Barbie Love Tryst

This is a decidedly non-Mattel approved Barbie configuration. They had been minding their own doll business and then the next time I looked, there they were, together. I wonder what sort of brain activity would show up on magnetic imaging.

Strange Factoid

Apparently, if all the Barbie dolls purchased since 1959 were laid out end to end, they would circle the globe 7 times. I think this is as serious a problem as global warming.

Location, Location, Location

Here we are at the 3rd day of 2009 and I am up to my knees in papers, files, post-it notes etc, trying to make sense of 2008, well really, if I were more honest, I would admit that I am really avoiding going into the studio. It's a time-honoured tradition of mine, especially after I have had a break from painting. But I have had enough experience to know that I will eventually settle down enough to grab a brush and make a mark, and then another mark, and another mark and before I know it I will be off to the races. It makes me think of the saturday night bath that I had such aversion to as a child. Once I was in the hot water, I quite loved it. It was the getting undressed part that troubled me. I suppose painting is a lot like that.....getting undressed.