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The Color of Sadness
Sad is emptiness, it is what is left after mad, after grief, after all the other emotions have flamed out. It is a stuck place where there is no forward or backward movement. It is texture-less, colorless. It is a void.
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I have had two shows this year. Each time pieces were finished just before packing the car. Two will require some re-do. The pre-show grind seemed especially brutal. A recent day job promotion had added hours of commuting time and work time, leaving little time to get into the focused state needed to make the…
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Fitting In (my latest piece)
For three months in third grade, I was the most popular girl in my class. My dad had returned from a big city business trip with Barbie dolls, the first in our small town. All the girls wanted to play with my doll. It was thrilling to be in the in group, but after Christmas…
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Daniel Minter
While I was in Seattle last month I went to the Northwest African American Museum to see the Jacob Lawrence and James W. Washington, Jr. exhibit. It was a treat to finally see Jacob Lawrence's work in person and be introduced to the sculpture of James W. Washington, Jr. , but the biggest surprise of…
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Recent Work
Fences Laying down my pencil in disgust, I was jolted with the realization that I hadn’t spoken more than the few words needed to buy groceries or greet a neighbor in weeks. My husband was fishing in Alaska. Our cat had died months earlier, but I refused the offer of a neighbor’s kitten out of…
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Andy Goldsworthy, Stone River
I was in Colorado a couple of weeks ago for two family weddings, followed by a few days on the banks of the Frying Pan River to regroup before my final push for the Hult Center Show. The aspen were just beginning to turn, the air was crisp. I was purposely not thinking of art,…
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Commuting Whales
Thursday as I was driving to work, I was so distracted thinking of the meeting filled day ahead that I almost didn’t notice that the ocean was calm and the light breeze was barely stirring up a wind chop. A perfect day to spot a whale spout. This is the time of year that a…
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The Leaning Curve of Gratitude, Mary Chapin Carpenter
Sunday morning I woke to the sound of Mary Chapin Carpenter reading her NPR This I Believe essay titled The Learning Curve of Gratitude. The day before a friend had sung her favorite Chapin Carpenter song in a clear but breathless voice ravaged by asthma and chronic pulmonary disease. My friend struggles with a host…
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“The Sell”
This week our community had an opportunity to meet four finalists for the college dean overseeing programs in our county. Each applicant was allotted precisely three minutes for his/her vision, followed by a question and answer period. The first question to the first applicant started with "I feel I just heard the Fuller Brush man".…
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Andy Goldsworthy
It is spring, the time of year I prowl my yard daily searching for signs of life – a swelling bud, a spike of green poking through the ground. I clear the dead stalks of last year and pull the weeds first in places I know certain plants will soon emerge, because if I don’t…
