Something worth checking out!
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
more painting!
I did this one for a swap--I think it's the last painting swap I'm going to do for a while--I want to keep some!!
This little painting, "Gardenias", is 7" x 5", acrylics on canvas, and went out to my Swap-bot partner in Los Angeles with a digital art ATC also of a gardenia.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Back to Art!
This is an art doll I made for a Swap-bot Group swap--the Autumn-Winter Recycled Art Doll. They are all to be made from mostly recycled materials, and this one is form an empty Boost bottle, scraps of fabric from other projects, extra silk leaves form another project and a bit of twine from a package. The little charm is the only non-recycled thing, I got it in a swap form someone else and it needed to be part of this doll!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Get Out and Vote! But intelligently!
I'm ashamed of my own ignorance in politics, but I'm definitly working on it! I will vote for the persons I think best able to do the job, but I'm going to vote!
This came in an e-mail:
This came in an e-mail:
Why Women Should Vote
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail.
Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited.
She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory.
Some women won't vote this year because ... why, exactly?
We have carpool duties?
We have to get to work?
Our vote doesn't matter?
It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say.
I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient. My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry.
She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women. The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'
HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum, want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized.
And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse.
Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave.
That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men:
"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
Please, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote Democratic, Republican or Independent - remember to vote.
History is being made.
Separation of Church and State
I'm a little slow on speaking out, but fortunately, there are some good people out there who can help me out!
Palin's Pastor Problems
The only good thing about Sarah Palin is what she's done for me politically--I've never been so active in any political event in my life!!
She and McCain scare me!
Palin's Pastor Problems
The only good thing about Sarah Palin is what she's done for me politically--I've never been so active in any political event in my life!!
She and McCain scare me!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Vote for Change!
Someone e-mailed this to me, and I have been trying to gather all my thoughts about the subject to write on it--and here theya re!
Thanks to Eve Ensler!
*******************
> Eve Ensler,
> the American playwright,
> performer,
> feminist and activist,
> best known for "The Vagina Monologues",
> wrote the following about Sarah Palin:
>
> DRILL, DRILL, DRILL
>
> I am having Sarah Palin nightmares.
>
> I dreamt last night that she
> was a member of a club where they rode
> snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned
> and starved polar bears around their necks.
>
> I have a particular thing for Polar Bears.
>
> Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness
> or the fact that they live in the arctic
> or that I have never seen one in person
> or touched one.
>
> Maybe it is the fact that they live
> so comfortably on ice.
>
> Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
>
> I don't like raging at women.
>
> I am a Feminist and have spent my life
> trying to build community,
> help empower women
> and stop violence against them.
>
> It is hard to write about Sarah Palin.
> This is why the Sarah Palin choice
> was all the more insidious and cynical.
>
> The people who made this choice
> count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
>
> But everything Sarah Palin believes in
> and practices is antithetical to Feminism
> which for me is part of one story --
> connected to saving the earth,
> ending racism, empowering women,
> giving young girls options, opening our minds,
> deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
>
> I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one
> of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime,
> and should this country choose those candidates
> the fall-out may be so great,
> the destruction so vast in so many areas
> that America may never recover.
>
> But what is equally disturbing is the impact
> that duo would have on the rest of the world.
>
> Unfortunately, this is not a joke.
>
> In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept,
> the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution.
>
> I take this as a metaphor.
> In her world and the world of Fundamentalists
> nothing changes or gets better or evolves.
>
> She does not believe in global warming.
> The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying
> our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers,
> are all part of God's plan.
>
> She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list.
> The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered.
> The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered.
> The oil is here to be taken and plundered.
> Iraq is here to be taken and plundered.
> As she said herself of the Iraqi war,
> "It was a task from God."
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion.
>
> She does not believe women who are raped
> and incested and ripped open against their will
> should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby
> or not.
> She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control.
> I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence
> and we know how many babies that makes.
>
> Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking.
> >From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library,
> has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently.
> She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference.
>
> This is a woman who could and might very well
> be the next president of the United States.
>
> She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
>
> Sarah believes in guns.
> She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle.
> She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip.
> She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
>
> Sarah believes in God.
> That is of course her right, her private right.
>
> But when God and Guns come together in the public sector,
> when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are
> denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and
> state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
>
> I write to my sisters.
>
> I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands.
>
> This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of theU.S.,
> but of the planet.
>
> It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make
> it forever
> uninhabitable for humans.
>
> It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the
> world
> or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack.
>
> It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning
> or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency
> and destruction.
>
> It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare
> or whether we build more and more methods of killing.
>
> It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society
> or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
>
> If the Polar Bears don't move you to go
> and do everything in your power
> to get Obama elected,
> then consider the chant that filled the hall
> after Palin spoke at the RNC,
> "Drill Drill Drill."
>
> I think of teeth when I think of drills.
>
> I think of rape.
>
> I think of destruction.
>
> I think of domination.
>
> I think of military exercises
> that force mindless repetition,
> emptying the brain of analysis,
> doubt, ambiguity or dissent.
>
> I think of pain.
>
> Do we want a future of drilling?
>
> More holes in the ozone,
> in the floor of the sea,
> more holes in our thinking,
> in the trust between nations and peoples,
> more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
>
> Eve Ensler
>
>
>
> September 5, 2008
>
Thanks to Eve Ensler!
*******************
> Eve Ensler,
> the American playwright,
> performer,
> feminist and activist,
> best known for "The Vagina Monologues",
> wrote the following about Sarah Palin:
>
> DRILL, DRILL, DRILL
>
> I am having Sarah Palin nightmares.
>
> I dreamt last night that she
> was a member of a club where they rode
> snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned
> and starved polar bears around their necks.
>
> I have a particular thing for Polar Bears.
>
> Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness
> or the fact that they live in the arctic
> or that I have never seen one in person
> or touched one.
>
> Maybe it is the fact that they live
> so comfortably on ice.
>
> Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
>
> I don't like raging at women.
>
> I am a Feminist and have spent my life
> trying to build community,
> help empower women
> and stop violence against them.
>
> It is hard to write about Sarah Palin.
> This is why the Sarah Palin choice
> was all the more insidious and cynical.
>
> The people who made this choice
> count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
>
> But everything Sarah Palin believes in
> and practices is antithetical to Feminism
> which for me is part of one story --
> connected to saving the earth,
> ending racism, empowering women,
> giving young girls options, opening our minds,
> deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
>
> I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one
> of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime,
> and should this country choose those candidates
> the fall-out may be so great,
> the destruction so vast in so many areas
> that America may never recover.
>
> But what is equally disturbing is the impact
> that duo would have on the rest of the world.
>
> Unfortunately, this is not a joke.
>
> In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept,
> the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution.
>
> I take this as a metaphor.
> In her world and the world of Fundamentalists
> nothing changes or gets better or evolves.
>
> She does not believe in global warming.
> The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying
> our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers,
> are all part of God's plan.
>
> She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list.
> The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered.
> The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered.
> The oil is here to be taken and plundered.
> Iraq is here to be taken and plundered.
> As she said herself of the Iraqi war,
> "It was a task from God."
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion.
>
> She does not believe women who are raped
> and incested and ripped open against their will
> should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby
> or not.
> She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control.
> I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence
> and we know how many babies that makes.
>
> Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking.
> >From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library,
> has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently.
> She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference.
>
> This is a woman who could and might very well
> be the next president of the United States.
>
> She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
>
> Sarah believes in guns.
> She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle.
> She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip.
> She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
>
> Sarah believes in God.
> That is of course her right, her private right.
>
> But when God and Guns come together in the public sector,
> when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are
> denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and
> state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
>
> I write to my sisters.
>
> I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands.
>
> This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of theU.S.,
> but of the planet.
>
> It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make
> it forever
> uninhabitable for humans.
>
> It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the
> world
> or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack.
>
> It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning
> or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency
> and destruction.
>
> It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare
> or whether we build more and more methods of killing.
>
> It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society
> or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
>
> If the Polar Bears don't move you to go
> and do everything in your power
> to get Obama elected,
> then consider the chant that filled the hall
> after Palin spoke at the RNC,
> "Drill Drill Drill."
>
> I think of teeth when I think of drills.
>
> I think of rape.
>
> I think of destruction.
>
> I think of domination.
>
> I think of military exercises
> that force mindless repetition,
> emptying the brain of analysis,
> doubt, ambiguity or dissent.
>
> I think of pain.
>
> Do we want a future of drilling?
>
> More holes in the ozone,
> in the floor of the sea,
> more holes in our thinking,
> in the trust between nations and peoples,
> more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
>
> Eve Ensler
>
>
>
> September 5, 2008
>
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The Show Went On!
My art exhibit at the Thompson Library was lovely! I missed my own opening though due to a short hospital stay, but Fred stood in for me and talked to people who came to see my stuff.
I have pictures I'llpost later, when I get a little better organized--I'm trying to stitch them all together into a 360 deg view, but haven't sat down to do it yet! That'll be interesting!
I was fortunate to have someone drop out of a class at QVCC that I wanted to get into--Intro to Computer Graphisc--it happened on the last add/drop day, and was a little miracle for me. I was just shutting down my computer in expectation of the bad thunderstorm heading our way, and thought to check just one more time to see if anyone had dropped--I went all gaga and called the college to have someone walk me through the process of registering online I was so excited! I felt like an idiot! LOL--it was like winning an auction on Ebay!
I took this class years ago when both Photoshop and Illustrator were new, and the college didn't even have syquest or zip drives, so we had to adjust all our images to fit on floppy disks!! I enjoyed it then and it launched me into the love I have for Photoshop today, but I never really utilised Illustrator much. This time, the teacher assured me that it would be about 2/3 illustrator, and using the newest versions, so I'll learn something I've been wanting to learn for a long while.
I can't wait for class tomorrow morning!
I have pictures I'llpost later, when I get a little better organized--I'm trying to stitch them all together into a 360 deg view, but haven't sat down to do it yet! That'll be interesting!
I was fortunate to have someone drop out of a class at QVCC that I wanted to get into--Intro to Computer Graphisc--it happened on the last add/drop day, and was a little miracle for me. I was just shutting down my computer in expectation of the bad thunderstorm heading our way, and thought to check just one more time to see if anyone had dropped--I went all gaga and called the college to have someone walk me through the process of registering online I was so excited! I felt like an idiot! LOL--it was like winning an auction on Ebay!
I took this class years ago when both Photoshop and Illustrator were new, and the college didn't even have syquest or zip drives, so we had to adjust all our images to fit on floppy disks!! I enjoyed it then and it launched me into the love I have for Photoshop today, but I never really utilised Illustrator much. This time, the teacher assured me that it would be about 2/3 illustrator, and using the newest versions, so I'll learn something I've been wanting to learn for a long while.
I can't wait for class tomorrow morning!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Busy with Art
"The Harbor, Monhegan Island, ME" acrylics on canvas, 16" x 20"
I participated in an Adult Open Studio program at TreeTop Studio with Nancy Shay over the last couple of months. My six weeks stretch out a bit due to skipping a couple, but I worked on two paintings in acrylic and actually finished one!
Nancy had some pictures she had taken in Monhegan Island, ME and I picked one of the Harbor to use for my subject. I'm so amazed at how it went and was totally surprised and pleased with the resulting painting. The experience has inspired me to continue painting now at home--or at work where I've moved all my painting supplies so I can work in the off-shift time between lunch and dinner.
I'm having a solo show at The Thompson Public Library, too. August 1-26 with an Artist's Reception on Thursday, Aug 7 from 6:30-8.
It's exciting, though mostly I'm using the event to see what I really have, and to get more organized. It's forcing me to pull everything out and make sure all the good stuff is framed properly and ready to go. The show is called: "A Little of This, A Little of That: a Multi-Medium Exhibit" and I'll be showing Paintings, digital art, photography, collages and sculpture. Should be educational, for me, at least!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Top Three Laughing Babies
Monday, February 25, 2008
Dotee Dolls!
Now there is the cutest fad going around in the crafty art doll and Swapping world--Dotee Dolls! They are little finger long dolls shaped rather like Good n Plentys with faces, beaded tails and fancy hair, with a loop to hang them. Here are two I made for a swap on Swap-bot:
The next picture is of three other dolls I made for swaps--the two on the sides are "icicle dolls" and the little one in the center was for a Goddess Doll Swap:
They're fun and easy to make, quick because they are small, but no limit on how much embellishment you can add to make them really special!
The next picture is of three other dolls I made for swaps--the two on the sides are "icicle dolls" and the little one in the center was for a Goddess Doll Swap:
They're fun and easy to make, quick because they are small, but no limit on how much embellishment you can add to make them really special!
My First Juried Exhibition!
Ok, here I am grinning ear to ear with my very first entry accepted into a juried art show!The 65th Annual Connecticut Artists Juried Exhibition at the Slater Museum in Norwich, CT. This was my third try to enter something into this local but prestigious (to me!) show.
The piece is a collage called Circular Generation and it's composition came from a collection of circular and flowing items that are arranged to represent the circular flow of life itself, from the little ways day-to day activities can lead us back to beginnings and the large circle of life where we all return to the beginning one way or another. It's a little piece with a lot of meaning.
Here's a close-up:
Saturday, February 23, 2008
How to Become a "Real " Artist
That's the question. I've been pondering this concept for a while now, and having just had my first artwork accepted into a major (for our area) Museum Art Show, I feel like I can take the whole thing more seriously.
I subscribe to three Art business newsletters:
Fineartviews by Clint Watson
Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letter
and just newly subscribed to: Art Marketing Action newsletter from Alyson B. Stanfield
Here's info about her new book:
I'd Rather Be In the Studio: The Artists No-excuse Guide to Self Promotion(.pdf)
They communicate with each other, so they contribute to each others' information to confirm and recommend the best ways to work out the business of being an artist.
No Time, oil on canvas, 13.5" x 15.5"
I subscribe to three Art business newsletters:
Fineartviews by Clint Watson
Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letter
and just newly subscribed to: Art Marketing Action newsletter from Alyson B. Stanfield
Here's info about her new book:
I'd Rather Be In the Studio: The Artists No-excuse Guide to Self Promotion(.pdf)
They communicate with each other, so they contribute to each others' information to confirm and recommend the best ways to work out the business of being an artist.
It's a little overwhelming at times, and sometimes I feel like I'm reading and researching too much and not making art enough, so I have to make some decisions. Winter has been a time for research and pondering though, so as spring peeks around the corner, I'm making more plans to do art instead of just thinking and talking about it.
No Time, oil on canvas, 13.5" x 15.5"Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Last lunar eclipse till 2010
I caught this one picture of the lunar eclipse starting tonight, no tripod, I had to use my car!
Monday, February 18, 2008
ArtandCraftAuctions
I've listed a collage on the new website to be part of it all, I have to work on gathering other pieces to list this week, so watch for them.
This is the site for my current piece listed today
"Eye of the Storm"
mixed media, 11" x 8.5"
New Auction site for Art only!
Well, Ebay pissed off enough people to get boycotted this week, and to send many of the self-representing artists scrambling to create a home of their own. It's http://www.artandcraftauctions.com/ and should be up and running sometime this afternoon.
It's going to be an auction site where only Fine Arts and Crafts and supplies will be up for bid, and no big corporate businesses, powersellers with a zillion satelite sellers scattered all over, but the real artists themselves.
I'm hoping I can get in with some of mine to help get them off the ground, I know the 250 charter members will be rushing the "doors" this afternoon to register and get in, so check them out a little later on when things have quieted down somewhat.
Later!
It's going to be an auction site where only Fine Arts and Crafts and supplies will be up for bid, and no big corporate businesses, powersellers with a zillion satelite sellers scattered all over, but the real artists themselves.
I'm hoping I can get in with some of mine to help get them off the ground, I know the 250 charter members will be rushing the "doors" this afternoon to register and get in, so check them out a little later on when things have quieted down somewhat.
Later!
Monday, January 14, 2008
More Snow!
The snow came again in the night last night, soft and quiet, it piled up on the trees and the cars. I managed to get out of my driveway just before the big maple at the end of the drive gave way under the weight of the heavy snow and came crashing down on across the driveway, taking the power, cable and phone lines with it! Strangely enough, that line powers the big house, which still has power, but the little house out back which is on another line altogether is without pawer, cable or phone. Strange quirky things happen sometimes, I guess.
It's stopped snowing now, around noonish, and the drive at work has been plowed and the snow is melting across the blacktop so with luck my drive home will be easier than the drive in. Nothing had been much plowed and it took me an hour for the normally 1/2 hour drive.
It looks great though! like a winter wonderland. Pictures will be forthcoming!
Enjoy!
Cyn
It's stopped snowing now, around noonish, and the drive at work has been plowed and the snow is melting across the blacktop so with luck my drive home will be easier than the drive in. Nothing had been much plowed and it took me an hour for the normally 1/2 hour drive.
It looks great though! like a winter wonderland. Pictures will be forthcoming!
Enjoy!
Cyn
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