Things about today

I'm holding Coil XV print

Today was snow flurries moving sideways and upward as much as they fell. It was heavy eyelids, and beneath a grey sky it was a big dome packed full of light. Inside it were legs moving quickly over artificial grass. Today regret held me, it shone its light on the things that are most dear and made them feel incredibly tender and pliable and delicate. Today my hands are dry and the water is frozen and feels like a burden on top of everything. How many cycles of freezing and thawing can a person take? I know, even as I ask, that I will take what needs taking.

New Drawing

You can buy prints here.

An illustrated card / poem / mini comic

I just added a digitally printed illustrated card to the shop. 

Folded the card measures 4.25" X 5.5"

It is an illustrated poem/prose about my mother's rock collection. It folds out from the first page in a unique, way. There is room for writing your own personal message on the back of the card.

The text reads:
My mother and her rocks.
You have always found them...
I imagine each one waiting for you on beaches.
Tides have turned for that one to catch your eye.
Another was delivered from the belly of a whale.
And another started out as the piece of the tallest mountain
at first it was jagged and angular, but it traveled so many miles downhill, 

for thousands of years
and now it fits smoothly in your palm.

You can purchase your own here.

A contrast and a dream

A day at the Conservatory was followed by a snowfall.

This blog has become somewhat of a dream journal. I have been loosely writing my dreams down for as long as I can remember, but ever since I quit my job in late 2011 I have been religiously keeping track of them. Every night there is something and every day I record it. This has made my dreams, and my capacity to remember them, stronger. Mostly they are just images and surface shapes but sometimes, at least once or twice a month, I dream something that feels compelling and important for me to investigate. This is the latest such dream:

I dreamt that I lived inside of a huge, glass building with another woman. A great storm was coming and the building was expected to fill up with water. This flood was different though… I got the sense that this building was already underwater and that cracks in the surface were now going to let the water in. At first my roommate and I were attempting to seal off our apartment. We had tape and silicone and spent some time making the place waterproof. Just as we were feeling secure a young guy opened our door and shouted at us to follow him and get out. I became frantic. I started yelling at my roommate who was annoyingly calm and cool. I gathered my belongings in panicked armfuls. There was a bulletin board with photos from different parts and ages of my life. I paused in front of it and selected some photos to take with me, knowing somehow that whatever was left in the room would be forgotten and erased from my memories. I was crying and dropping things and knocking things over and begged my roommate to hurry! We finally left and descended down through the building, which was beautiful (like an underwater greenhouse). Somehow, despite the oncoming disaster, there were still people living inside, normal and calm. As we walked down the great staircase I felt myself grow incredibly sad. I took step after step haltingly, my body shaking with sobs and shrieks. I was so loud and disruptive that people stopped to look at me and my roommate grew annoyed and asked me what was wrong. I replied that I was loosing the only place that had ever felt like home.

New Work

I just dropped these pieces off at Gallery 360 today. 

1. The movement of cells bound to light

2. The beginning of light felt like amber

3. Perched on the edge of bloom, color was not separate from sound

4. Such light inside her. It spilled out of her mouth, cutting her words in half

5. The land is a clock and time is the sea and light flows from everything in long angles

6. Waters stretch across the room of my chest

Of course, prints of the new work are available for purchase in the shop.

Little pieces of my studio

1. My sister recently moved back to Portland. I miss her. The pin was found by her and that social capital dollar bill was made during her work on the Minneapolis Reclamation Project last summer. I love you Sarah Frances!

2. I'm sprouting mungzuki bean seeds!

Here it is winter...

... and it's hard to remember that there is water moving in other places of the world. These photos are from another time and place and season.

I woke up early last week. Night was still hanging onto everything and I wrote this:

I move apart -
joints floating away from their sockets,
skin draped with flails of muscle rippling,
blood has to move a mile from my hands to my heart,
cells orbit slowly around bones.
My dreams are fire far off in the distance
and wolves who pull animal noises from my throat.
Even the moon follows me here,
its path a twisted helix along the horizon.
My stomach turns over.
The body knows.

Mammoth & Co.

I'm proud to say my work is up on the amazing Mammoth & Co. site. They are selling three of my original Coil paintings as well as prints of each.

Check out the site here. 

1. Rain grows heavy and thick and so close together there's hardly room to breathe between the drops
2. Illuminate Aria inside a thousand leaves 

Click on the titles to purchase these prints in the shop.

In progress mixed media pieces

Some images of what I'm working on in the studio. 

Six new mixed media pieces are slowly coming together. 

These are for a show at Gallery 360 in March. 

They feel really good to work on.

Coil XXIV

Coil XXIV

12" x 12"

Watercolor and Gouache on gessoed wood panel

New drawings on black paper added to the shop

I've added several of these drawing on black paper to the shop this week. 

New Coil paintings

1. Coil XVI
2. Coil XVIII
3. Coil XIII
4. Coil XXI
5. Coil XXII
6. Coil XXIII


I'm happy to say that some of these originals will soon be for sale on Mammoth & Co.

Now that these paintings are finished I'm going to dive back into some new mixed media pieces for a show at Gallery 360 in March.