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Showing posts from May, 2010

The Civil Servant

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My friend and amazing fellow artist, Jinny Pearce , agreed to be my model for this painting. The original thought was that she was the government functionary that was charged with distributing wings. Then I got a little too involved just painting Jinny in a pile of butterflies. I think I might try the original idea again, though. In other news, I just became a part of the wonderful Etsy team, RI Handmade. I'm very excited about this, because the work of the other artists is very impressive. Check us out here ! Finally, a little photo of Lucy and her soon to be new sibling:

Looking at the RISD Grad show, Nathalie Merchant, Revisiting a turtle

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Thursday night I helped the artist Bundith Phunsombatlert by being the interactive model for his interactive digital media piece. Basically, I was the lady who rocked the digital babies back to sleep when the crowds woke them up, through sound or motion. It was fun, and the crowds seemed impressed by the babies slowly waking or drifting off. I got a chance to look around at the rest of the 2010 RISD grad show at the Dunkin Donuts Convention Center. I was amazed by the high production values, remarking ruefully that it blew my own school, SFAI, out of the water on that front. However, I was a little shocked by how derivative a lot of the work was, even as some of it seemed very original. One piece I liked was a wall installation by ceramics major Robyn Gray. On the music front, the last two weeks I have been listening to Nathalie Merchant's new CD, Leave Your Sleep . I love it. I bought it to listen to in the car with my daughter, but it turns out that I listen to it by myself most

Just found some old Lucy-isms

I was cleaning my studio (kind of) and found a scrap of paper with things Lucy said when she was two: minkus pinkus Laisse passer le vulva! Il est ou, vulva? Vulva! Vulva! And, to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle... Il y a salle a manger, Papa il est au travaille Like a diamond in the sky-ye

Raccoon on strike

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I asked Laurent to check the translation: Le raton laveur est en grève. He suggested an alternative translation: Le raton laveur a du sang Francais dans ses veines. ...

Halfway there

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Putting together some characters, like the Bremen Town musicians. They are the ambassadors, maybe.
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Lucy, Laurent and I found this little horseshoe crab shell in Wellfleet Harbor. Fun horseshoe facts I found online: This is a crab that isn't a crab! It is distantly related to spiders and scorpions. To avoid confusion, let's call it by its correct name, Limulus polyphemus . (Pronounced Lim-u-lus poly-feem-us) The Limulus is a "living fossil" whose origin dates back to Triassic times, over 200 million years ago, a time when the first dinosaurs and primitive mammals appeared. Few other well-known animals can claim that record. It is not easy to be a living fossil. To apply for this category, that animal can only have, at most, a few close relatives. The body form should not have changed over the years. A true living fossil's family tree must be tens, or preferably hundreds, of millions of years old. Horseshoe crabs grow by moltin

color wins

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The appeal of monochrome wore off...

5 year olds make the best drawings

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Lucy drew this at the San Francisco airport, waiting to catch our (late) plane. It's of a storm brought on by a lion's roar...

Color vs. Monochrome

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My friend Stephanie thought the pink painting of the frog might be more interesting if the frog were in full color, so I tried it out, and made a second monochromatic painting to compare.

Buddhist quote from IBM

All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925

Irregular fences to go around the garden

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As inspiration for a fence around a pond in the garden, I took a couple of images from http://centria.wordpress.com/2009/05/ And I really like some of the ideas I saw here: http://prairiescapes.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archi ve.html I'll get around to finishing my paintings tonight...
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I love these rules from Keri Smith.
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Beautiful monoprints on exhibit in Oakland, CA by my friend Chris Reed: http://www.slateartanddesign.com/Slate/Slate_art_%26_design.html

Frog in Defense of Pink

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My little girl comes home from school telling me, "I don't like pink." She tells me that other a lot of other girls don't like pink, either. This is in a school where girls mostly want to wear dresses, and boys mostly want to play games where there are "No girls allowed." I'm not a big fan of princess culture, and it's fine if my daughter doesn't like pink, but still... What's wrong with pink?

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