A Dame and a Landowner

March 7, 2013
Maggie Smith

For this reason among others, Maggie Smith:http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141241n

March 8, 2013 (International Women's Day)
Woman Farmer in Sahel

Through micro-lending like KIVA, women in some Sahel Desert communities (especially in Nigeria and Mali) are able to not only feed their families but nourish their communities AND through sustainable agriculture help to heal the damage done to the Sahel because of Human impacted climate change. These communities are inclusive and ALL members regardless of gender beneficial from the small businesses the women run. These women run farms and small businesses also aid in the education of girls and boys thereby improving the lot for future generation. Women also have less children but those children tend to have lower mortality rates. Women as farmers and business owners often is beneficial for the WHOLE ecosystem.

Willow and Hanifa

March 5, 2013
Willow Smith

A dear friend asked me why Willow Smith.  My first response was this link, a Red Table talk between Jada Pinkett-Smith and Willow Smith. The conversation weaves through fame and priveldge and holding true to one's self and roots despite and because of fame.  Paying back to the the past and to the community and building up a better place than one was given.  Willow Smith seemed to "get" this.

My second response was her song I Am ME.  The music is not something I would listen to ( I prefer grungy blues stuff) BUT: the message of remaining one's self SHINES THROUGH in this song.  This girl loves herself and is letting other girls and boys know that that is okay. What a powerful thing.  Be yourself, be kind, and it's okay.

Third, I am curious as to what this young person will do given the power she possesses.  Where will she take  herself and her understanding of empowerment?

March 6, 2013
Hanifa at Skateistan

When skateboarding is considered a crime and being a girl is considered a crime, take the two, mix them up and make empowered skater grrrls.  That's what a program in Kabul, Afghanistan called "Skateistan" is doing!

Words like daggers (progression drawing February 2013)

February 20, 2013
Pencil, pen and ink, collage

 Art is often a call and response even if one is talking to one's self.  These pieces represent a conversation I had with myself.  The book I have been using in my collages is "Hollywood Wives" by Jackie Collins.  I didn't read it before I began using it to make art.  But currently when I cut pages, I read chunks of it.  Collins has a lovely mastery of word phrases that makes me perhaps, want to read the book for real. These word phrases sometimes propel the drawings.

For example, the progression drawing piece started with an open mouth with teeth. The portion of the book I collaged onto the piece was very visceral and talked about domination and suppression...specifically about a man who raped women.  The open mouth became a moth open with rage and anger.

The piece became quite cathartic for me.  But I needed to wrap myself back up.  The drawing below did that for me.  The little girl in the drawing is protected with information and intelligence and space.  She knows the danger is out there.  But she is well insulated from it...and able to grow and become with what she has.

Books not Bombs
pen and ink

Course and annoyed but still chatty

January 30, 2013
Found Object: plastic thingy that I found on the road by my mailbox.
Word of the Day: brusque

January 31, 2013
Found object: a blue puzzle shaped eraser that I sliced into four pieces
Words of the Day: magpiety and peevish

Wandering while being grumpy (but sitting still all the while)

January 27, 2013
Found Object: green ribbon
Words of the Day: Empathy and Pilgrimaging

January 28, 2013
Found Object: Plastic Bird Foot (and a metal pin from one of the things where you press your hand or your face into the back of the pins and you have a contour of your hand or face in pins/ nails. But I didn't take it because it needed to be with its fellow metal bits.)
Words of the Day: Churlish and Collins

January 29, 2013
Found Objects: Blue Pen with blue ink, wispy gray feather, a dying wasp
Word of the Day : congruent

Lost, discarded and reclaimed

January 23, 2013
Found objects: The rapiograph pen I lost last week and the tea I lost yesterday. The black lines are from the pen and the wash is from the tea.
Words of the day: melancholy and algebra

January 24, 2013
Found object: nothing
word of the day: gourmand

January 25, 2013
Found Objects: word fragment and a local airfield map crumbled up in the kindling bin.
Word of the Day: amorphous

January 26, 2013
Found Objects: a leather thingy piece and a porcupine quill
Word of the Day: Offalist

You can't compare idiots with artists, necessarily...

January 21, 2013
Found objects: blue feather, an eye that I cut out of paper last year sometime and lost, a coil of yarn made from loose hair I found on my dog.
Words of the day: Demonstrative and Neddy*

January 22, 2013
Found objects: orange seeds found in 2 of the 3 oranges I ate today. The oranges were supposed to be seedless.
Word of the day: Disparate

* A note on today's blog title:  A neddy is a donkey or in slang, an idiot.  Artists demonstrate what's going on in society.  Sometimes artists seem to be acting like idiots.  But that comparison is not a valid one...as the artist is reflecting the insanity/idiocy in society.  This is all in theory of course.  Sometimes theory and real life don't jive.  They indeed, are sometimes disparate.

Loving life more than Monsanto

January 20, 2013
Found Object: an empty licorice candy box left on the kitchen table
Words of the Day: Biophilia and Atrophy

Yesterday, my husband had to go into Portland to get books for class.  My daughter didn't want to go.  She wanted instead to curl up on the couch (that was pulled out to the full sized bed) and draw.  She wanted nothing to do with the outside world.  Snuggling- that was her objective.

I wanted to get out of the house.  I had a romantic idea that leaving the house would be fun.  So my husband and I left the dog in charge and wandered out.  We went to the bookstore, the art store and Trader Joe's.  We realized upon getting to the highway that our daughter had the right idea in staying home.

We encountered numerous jerky drivers on our trek down 295.  Upon pulling into the bookstore parking lot, some guy who was banging a u-turn in the parking lot almost plowed into our car...then yelled at us for pulling to an open parking spot that he was using as a turn around.

The art store was non-eventful save for the 8 year old boy that I thought was pocketing drawing pencils.  I'm not sure if he was or not.  His parents seemed completely tuned out to what was going on with him.  This of course is my perception.  I after all left a 110 pound Maine Black Dog in charge of a 12 year old girls.  Who am I to judge?

Trader Joe's was gross.  We went because a friend had been talking about the fake good and plenty licorice candy coated candies that were really good.  We wanted some.  And a sandwich.  Maybe a cheap bottle of wine.  Blurg.

The parking lot was a mad house.  No spots and people zooming in when other folks had been waiting for the empty spots.  Gross.

The store was packed and we both questioned why we were there.  Nothing was any better than the local grocery store near our house.  Yeah, we got the candy and some saffron.  But everything else was over priced and the store was filled with people.  Perhaps because Saturdays before football playoff games are mad houses filled with ravenous people filling their huge carts with stuff- meat and chips and meat and beer and chips and cheese and bread and soda and candy and meat.

Maybe.  I don't know.

My daughter had the right idea.  But the candy was good.  And I love saffron rice.  I'll go out into the greenhouse soon and grab some kale to make rice and greens for dinner.

The box the candy came in is what I used to make today's image.  I question where exactly the organic produce sold at TJ's comes from.  There is so much local food grown right near my house all year long, I usually don't bother with "organic."  I can meet the farmers and see how much they love their plants and livestock.  They care and put effort and commitment into their food produce.

This is the best candy.

Itchin' to boast about fightin'

January 17, 2013
Found Objects: a flattened rusty bottle cap and a white feather
Thing I lost: a brand new .07 black inking pen
Word of the Day: Impish

January 18, 2013
Found Object: One of the schools I was at today was having "Fresh Fruit Friday" and I was given a banana. I ate it and I didn't feel like saving the peel to place on this drawing. Also I ate about 5 oranges and another banana. No objects to display. You'll have to trust me.
Word of the day: Accolade

January 19, 2013
Found object: word fragment talking about Marlon Brando.
Word of the day: Bellicose (I think appropriate with the Brando thing and a little dog.)

Safe Friends who judge your milk (shake)

January 15, 2013
Found Objects: a shopping list and a pine cone
Gross Thing that I wasn't allowed to pick up: dead skunk
Word of the Day: Amicable

January 16, 2013
Found Object: Penny found heads up (found at my house in the living room- nowhere near any grossness (just in case you were worried))
Thing I found but thought better of picking up: loose 1 inch square tile on the floor of a girls bathroom stall in one of the schools I was at today (I was at 4 different schools today)
Words of the Day: Galactometer and Benign

We always go there...

January 13, 2013
Found object: purple string; the cast offs of three beets that were left on the paper for 3 hours staining it pink in four places
Word of the day: Incessant

January 14, 2013
Found Object: plastic bat ring and fragment of a tape dispenser. (What I really found was two fake fingernails but my coworkers said it was too weird and I threw them away.)
Word of the day: Patronize 

Sniveling harshly that I love you...

January 10, 2013
Found Object: a very very small two whole button
Word of the Day: Servile

January 11, 2013
Found Object: yellow eraser
Word of the Day: vituperative

January 12, 2013
Found Object: bone fragment from a ham hock
Word of the Day: Ardent

Helping each other soar...

January 9, 2013
3.5 inches by 4.5 inches
Found Object: small magnet with the word "NEED" printed on it.
Word of the Day: Phalanx

January 8, 2013
3.5 inches by 4.5 inches
Found Objects: animal crackers (as purposefully left for me to find by a lovely coworker), glitter stars, shiny stars from a garland, and the word gift
Word of the day: volar (the Spanish word of the day I found on one of my searches because the animal crackers flew across the room to be found by me and because all my coworkers help me to fly!)

A collection of truth searches?

January 6, 2013
3.5 inches by 4.5 inches
Found Object: Glittered Stars (found while cleaning up holiday decorations) and a word phrase fragment from a book
Word of the Day: Compendium

January 7, 2013
3.5 inches by 4.5 inches
Found Objects: Key, Paper Butterfly, Adhesive Visitor's Pass with only the word "well" exposed
Word of the Day: Discern

Irreproachable ambiguity: Unknown keys and skeletons

January 4, 2013
3.5 inches by 4.5 inches
 graphite 
Found Object: key tag (actually it was my key tag that fell out of my pocket before I walked into a school today and then I found when I was leaving the school later in the afternoon.)
Word of the day: Equivocal

January 5, 2013
3.5 inches by 4.5 inches
 graphite 
Found objects: ribbon, paper with "Name and Date", and staples found in various locations
Word of the Day: Canonize

Found Object Drawing a Day for January 2013 (at least so far)

January 1, 2013
3.5 inches by 4.5 inches
watercolor and graphite 
Found object: button (found in my studio tucked in a corner among dustbunnies)
Word of the Day: Sapid

January 2, 2013
3.5 inches by 4.5 inches
watercolor and graphite
Found Object: a dime in my dryer lint trap
Word of the Day: Obdurate

January 3, 2013
4.5 inches by 3.5 inches
graphite
Found Object: a paper clip and a swedish fish on my coworkers' office floor. (One of my coworkers threw the swedish fish on the floor so that I could "find" it.)
Word of the Day: Audacious