Yes, apparently my work is controversial and inflammatory. This quilt incited one woman to write the following on Latte Play’s facebook page: " I ordered a coffee and went to sit down only to hear the word "hell" repeatedly over the rock music playing, rolling stone magazines, and a huge nude painting of a woman with her breasts exposed as she is straddling what seems to be onions. Frankly this is not a family friendly atmosphere. I will never be back to that coffee shop. Thoroughly appalled and disgusted!!!
Art museums, Greece and Rome are NOT marketing themselves to children. To take your child to a place like that would be a conscious choice and one that I would like to make rather than be completely caught off gaurd and deceived by a name that implies kid friendly. It was offensive and tacky. Let parents know there will be a distasteful and confusing painting of a naked woman straddling onions. Kids would play with each other in a strip club. Doesn't mean it's an appropriate atmosphere to take them to!"
I must admit to being somewhat tickled by this visceral response to my work.
mutation
I recently came across photos of this rare variety of dogwood. A native to Mexico, it is apparently called Magic Dogwood. Plants are such a wonderful expression of genetic diversity and mutation. How and why would a dogwood develop flowers like these? It gets me thinking and guessing at humanities’ genetic trends in our uncertain distant future. I’d like these flowers instead of hair.
on repetition
My college educators were always emphatically stating it, “Repetition, Repetition, Repetition”! We were repeatedly subjected to famous works and told to notice the use of repetition as a unifier, for thematic emphasis, as a defining aspect of an artist’s style... I stored this information somehow, somewhere. I use the tool of repetition in almost every piece I make, but it wasn’t until I took on the task of painting these little berries, one after another, tiny brush, little careful dabs of red paint, that I felt it as a mantra. Dip, dab, repeat, repeat, repeat... After the initial idea, so much of art making is small steps repeated again and again. There is beauty in repetition. Has someone said that before? Was it me? Well it’s worth repeating.
on cultivating an image
My daughter did a fantastic job on this summer squash. I am seriously considering hiring her to do my marketing and presentation.
an attempt will be made
to recapture a moment I was in while walking in my neighborhood yesterday. I looked over at the small grey run down house with the rusted orange pinto parked in the driveway. I saw the young naked maple reflected in the street puddle out front. Rain was starting to fall and perfect rippling rings were disturbing the surface of the grey puddle.
It was simultaneously a sad domestic portrait and an expression of the remarkable qualities of water, with its powers to reflect and cleanse, distort and sanctify.
writing a language I can’t read
I am working on four quilts with tree images; oak, birch, cottonwood, and dogwood. I’m spending a lot of time staring at, fondling, and sketching branches. Each species has distinct qualities, of course. The curves and rounded ends of dogwood branches somehow remind me of the japanese lettering my daughters are learning, while the points and angles in a stand of oak have some quality in common with jutting, swooping arabic. The task of capturing those aspects in cut cloth and stitched thread is daunting, like writing a language I can’t read.
socked in
This low cloud blanket hanging over Eugene through the last week threatens to settle itself in my head and limbs. I am becoming a creature of fog and shadow, slow ideas and movements, perpetually numb fingers and toes, constantly breathing in and sipping at the medley of teas I am endlessly preparing for myself in a fruitless effort to get warm. If I don’t become lost in the fog on my way out to the mailbox, I may certainly become trapped beneath this expanding and precariously stacked collection of tea and coffee cups on my work table.