I used to have a card for the Koret Center at USF by our old house. It’s a great gym with an Olympic sized pool. But since I wasn’t a student of USF, the hours I was allowed to visit were very limited. Plus I had so much going on in my life, I rarely made it to the gym. When I did get a good gym habit going, I loved, loved, loved swimming. I would swim until I was almost too weak to get out of the pool. My dad called me frog when I was a kid because I’d stay in the pool all day. I still feel like that frog. It seems like swimming is in my DNA.
So here I am, a couple years later and several pounds fatter. A 24 hour opened up down the road from our house. Tom hates gyms, he thinks they are a waste of money. I was trying to be thrifty and tried to stay away. But after last week’s black plague, my priorities in life have changed. I was aching for a pool. The idea of a hot tub sounded like a dream. I decided to make that dream a reality. I got a damn membership to 24 hour and I couldn’t be happier about it. It’s less than 2 miles from my house. They have a steam room with eucalyptus oils, a hot tub, a small but nice lap pool, and all the other 24 hour fitness gear. My lungs are still in rough shape so I’ve been taking advantage of the steam room and hot tub. Yesterday I did the steam room, hot tub, and some weights. Today I swam. I could only swim for 5 minutes before I was pretty damn winded, but it still felt so good. I sat in the hot tub and did some time in the steam room. I was able to get in and out on my lunch hour, and even drop by the library, and got home with time to spare. lunch time at the pool is pretty empty and I pretty much had the pool to myself. This could become a habit. Even a 20 minute lunchtime swim could do wonders for me, spiritually and physically.
I realized, I’m a gym bunny in my heart. I know that sounds crazy, but I totally love the gym. I love the pool. I can’t believe I now have access to a swimming pool 24 hours a day. I can’t believe I have access to a hot tub 24 hours a day. It’s a nice gym too, the people are all generally mellow, not like icky macho gyms I’m used to in Sunnyvale. No sweaty grunting men so far, just nice, mild mannered Portlanders trying to shed a few pounds. I happily join them. I now always have somewhere fun to go. Working from home, you really need a regular place to go outside of your house. I now have a great option, I can swim whenever I want. I won’t regret the elliptical I bought for the house, I’ll still use it. Maybe I’ll even use it more now. If not, I can sell it off for cheap and consider it a lesson learned.
I’ve has some pretty different priorities since emerging from my cocoon of sickness. I want to feel healthy, I want to be proud of my body again. This comes first. Everything else comes second. How can I expect to make great art if I’m miserable in my own skin. Now that I’m on the thyroid meds and I have more energy, I need to shed some pounds and start feeling better about myself.
I’m behind in both my classes right now. I have the graphic novel class tonight. I have things to show but not as much as I should. I haven’t completed any paintings for the painting class. I’ll catch up, my energy level increases ever day as my lungs heal and my stomach calms down. I was still pretty sick this weekend, although I was able to get out a little, I couldn’t be far from home and I needed naps.
I’m looking forward to a couple days in San Francisco next weekend. My costume is almost done. I can’t figure out what I’m going to do Friday in the city. Seems like such a treat to have a whole day to myself.
Hi, It’s been a strange week. I came down with the ole swine flu a week ago Saturday, Oct 17th. I experienced four days of 101-103 fever. After the fever came down, I’ve been exhausted and weak. I’m just coughing a lot now, and food makes me sick to my stomach, very, very sick to my stomach. But I’m getting better. The blog is going to continue to be light, probably until next week. I’m just trying to make it through the day.
Sometimes it seems I can’t get enough of the outside world. I want to read and see and hear. Lectures, shows, books, websites, I envelope myself in all things visual. Other times, I am stuck inside my own head. I make lists of ideas, I doodle, I sing. I can’t imagine seeing another show, the outside world holds no interest for me. I want to spend all my time pouring my thoughts onto paper. This is when the sketchbooks come out. I don’t keep a daily sketchbook, my scribble are erratic and I have many sketchbooks scattered around the house. I picked one up today to scratch out a list. I turned through the pages and found this lovely little sketch inside:
I quite like it. It’s not very old, I probably did it one night in the basement a couple months ago as Tom wrote music. All these little drawings really do add up to something. If I was to take inventory of every little chicken scratch of grand execution, I think I’d find I’m constantly making and thinking. Strange that. Nice that.
I kept feeling conflicted about not wanting to go out and see other people’s work. But I get better at recognizing these waves of creativity and I should catch them when I can.
I started my graphic novel class at PNCA last night. I want to do a comic about Mississippi. The trouble is, a black dog poses a challenge. I want her to be black in the strip, it so much part of her personality, but black is a tough one to add character to. And then I thought, what if I draw her in white, and then invert everything in photoshop. So I did some tests. I like how they are coming out so far.
Photographer Eirik Johnson will be giving an exhibiting artist lecture Thursday, October 22nd at the Henry Art Gallery at University of Washington in Seattle, WA 7pm to 8:30pm
Exhibition:
Eirik Johnson: Sawdust Mountain
University of Washington Henry Art Gallery
North Galleries
October 24, 2009 – January 31, 2010
Artist Lecture
Thursday, October 22, 2009, 7:00 – 8:30 PM
Henry Auditorium
Henry Members FREE | $5 General Admission
Portland is so very beautiful right now. Friday I found myself wandering around our neighborhood, taking photos of trees. The neighbors probably thought I was nuts, but maybe they are getting used to it. I often walk outside our own house to marvel at the beauty of our dogwood tree and how it’s reacting to the current weather conditions. They probably think I’m talking to our tree, maybe sometimes I am.
As I walked the neighborhood, I plucked leaves, wandered up and down streets, took photos, then took more photos and plucked more leaves.
I’ve been making counterfeits from my plucked leaves. Leaves out of watercolor paper, dyed and glued to drawings. Our latest assignment in my painting class is to do some work that has something to do with place. That’s been an easy one for me. San Francisco doesn’t have much of a fall, in fact, it doesn’t really have seasons at all. I am absolutely loving it here. I love how quickly the temperature has changed. I love watching our garden wilt, and the excitement of wondering how many more tomatoes we’ll be able to get before the plants just give in to the cold. I heard some places in the Portland area got down to the mid 20s last night. The changing colors are so brilliant and the sky is so blue and crisp. The last couple of weeks have been visually stimulating to say the least, and very inspiring.
We are loving the electric blanket Tom got me for my birthday. I think it’s going to be the best purchase we have ever made. We’re considering putting on the giant storm windows to try and keep some of the cold out. Our bedroom is about the coldest room in the house and despite how much I loath the idea of dragging out that giant, spider web covered window, I think it’ll make a huge difference in comfort level. I’m so happy I need to worry about such things.
Sunday we walked around the sellwood neighborhood and we found a bunch of chestnuts laying all over the ground. We couldn’t figure out if they had spilled out of a bag or if they were coming from a tree. You couldn’t see them in the tree and I realized I have no idea what a chestnut tree looks like. Within a minute or two, we started hearing them drop, making loud cracking sounds on the sidewalk. I wanted my own chestnut tree. They seem almost a bit dangerous, with these large, hard as a rock nuts falling willy nilly on the ground. I picked a few up to take home. I wonder, if we did have a tree in our yard, if we’d be able to find ways of using all the nuts, or it we’d be so tired of chestnuts after the first year that we’d curse them for the rest of our lives for constantly falling on our heads when we’re just trying to enjoy a cup of coffee in the garden. I’d love to find out.
We’ve been in Portland 7 months now, and we are loving it.
This segment of the 365 apples in 2009 project finds our protagonist making art about fall, bundling up with electric blankets, and getting back into oatmeal as a delicious and seasonally suitable breakfast option.
Apple 285
I’m cutting out and dying leaves using thick watercolor paper. I plan to use them in some drawings.
Apple 284
Tom says this apple doesn’t count because the little cup of apple sauce they gave me was puny, I say it does could. I ordered apple sauce, it’s not my fault I only got a little bit. We had a great post Anne Ailson lecture dinner at Delta on Woodstock near SE 45th.
Apple 283
I’ve worked for my current employer for over a year and had never bought a single item from them. So I got myself this cute little reading lamp. I love it. This is a shot my nightstand, complete with my favorite watermelon glass, Portland magazine, The Gift, and my thyroid replacement meds, which incidentally are making me feel 100 times better.
Apple 282 was eaten on a break during my painting class at PNCA. I got it at the great little corner market near PNCA.
Apple 281 was eaten while I stained some pages in my new sketchbook. I prefer drawing on stained paper, generally speaking.
Apple 280
This is a common facial expression for Mississippi when she realizes I’m going to make her stay home with me for the day instead of letting her go to daycare at Rockin’ Roxys.
Apple 279 was eaten very quickly as I gathered up my things to go see the Leonie Guyer lecture at PSU.
Apple 278
Tis the season! I love this time of year. Now that we have a front porch, I needed some pumpkins to decorate it with.
Apple 277
Arugula, apple, hazelnut salad at the Living Room Theatre after First Thursday
Apple 276 was cooked up and servied with hot oatmeal and pecans. That was a great breakfast.
Apple 275
So ashamed of this apple. Fritters are my weakness.
Apple 274 on our winter bed setup. Down comforter and electric blanket.
Martin Kersels is a big man making big art. Most of his sculptures and photographs have to do with size relationships. Human hamster wheels, giant shoes, giant nests. His works tend to accentuate mass and gravity.
Martin Kersels
Lecture Series through PNCA
6:30 p.m. Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Lab at Museum of Contemporary Craft, 724 N.W. Davis St.
Free and open to the public
Los Angeles-based artist Martin Kersels has long used art as a forum for wrestling with the limitations and possibilities of being a fully embodied, sentient and emotional being. He employs a range of media, from sculpture and photography to video and performance. He has worked on staff at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the UCLA Art Department, and currently serves as a faculty member and co-director of the art program at the California Institute of the Arts. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the J. Paul Getty Museum and ACME in Los Angeles, Deitch Projects in New York, and the Galerie Georges-Phillipe and Nathalie Vallois in Paris.
Anne Wilson is in Portland this week discussing art and craft through Reed college and the M0CC. Both event are free and open to the public.
From Reed College website:
Chicago-based artist Anne Wilson will be lecturing twice this week in Portland. Wilson is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a renowned craft artist who coined the term “sloppy craft.” First, she’ll present Liminal Networks at Reed College: “Employing familiar, domestic materials, including table linen, bed sheets, human hair, thread, and lace, Wilson explores the larger themes of time, loss, private and social rituals.” Wilson’s second appearance will be a craft dialogue with Josh Faught, Nan Curtis, and Jessica Jackson Hutchins on the topic of “sloppy craft” at PNCA. The dialogue is anticipation of the exhibition on that theme at MoCC in 2010-2011, co-curated by Faught and MoCC curator Namita Gupta Wiggers. (Keep an eye on this space for an interview with Wilson.)
Anne Wilson Lecture
Thursday, October 8th 2009, 7:00 pm
Free and open to the public
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd Vollum Lecture Hall Reed College
Portland Oregon
From PNCA email:
Prominent fiber and multimedia artist Anne Wilson, professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and local artists discuss “sloppy craft,” a rising, controversial approach to conceptual craft practice.
Panelists include: Anne Wilson, Wilson’s former student Josh Faught (University of
Oregon), Nan Curtis (Pacific Northwest College of Art), local artist Jessica Jackson
Hutchins, and Museum of Contemporary Craft Curator Namita Gupta Wiggers.
This conversation takes place in preparation for a related exhibition co-curated by Josh
Faught, assistant professor and program coordinator of fibers, University of Oregon; and Namita Gupta Wiggers, curator, Museum of Contemporary Craft. Sloppy Craft is scheduled to exhibit at the Museum during the 2010-11 exhibition season.
Sloppy Craft Discussion panel
1 p.m., Saturday, October 10, 2009
Pacific Northwest College of Art, Swigert Commons, 1241 N.W. Johnson St.
Free and open to the public
Visit MoCC website for more information
Some artwork of mine will be auctioned off at the very cool PYDC First Annual Glass Ball. Tickets just went on sale. I’m so excited about this event and I hope you are too. Please join us for what promises to be a very memorable evening.
I just love this show. The pieces are made from found photos and frames, and graphics tape.
Reading through his Bio, Joe speaks of forgetting and remembering, cast-aways, re purposing, revealing, resurrection, and architecture and morality. I want to call them a re-revery. A seeking out of the once cherrished, breathing new life, revealing hidden energies, He’s also an OMD fan so he instantly won some brownie points from me there.
The show will be up for the month of October, 2009.
Dear Mississippi, We’ve been together for 6 months now and I can’t imagine life without you. You are so wonderful, such a face, you could melt the heart of any human or dog. Cats, I think you’ve got some work ahead of you to win them over. I’m so glad you picked us that fateful day last April at the Oregon Humane Society. It was rough going for a while there. But you’ve come a long way. You still bark like crazy, and sometimes on leash you bark and pull when you see another dog. At the dog park and doggy day care you’ve gotten much better at keeping yourself out of hot water.
I honestly don’t know what I would have done without Rockin’ Roxy’s Dog Daycare in Sellwood. Because of them you are a much, much happier dog. You’ve learned some valuable conflict resolution skills by hanging out with the other pups in a supervised environment and you’ve made some great friends, both human and canine, as have I.
We think it’s really cute that you love stinky French cheese as much as you do, and you are so patient as you wait for our table scraps, it’s really hard to say no to you. We call it “waiting with enthusiasm”. I love that you like all kinds of food. Among the list are beet greens, asparagus, carrots, stinky cheese, celeriac, figs, apples, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli. There is actually very little that you are not interested in. We still haven’t tried having a dinner party of more than 4 people. It should be interesting as you are still very willing to take a chance on counter surfing if you think you can get away with it. We’ll have to rent extra high bar style tables or something. Or I guess we’ll just have to take a chance on you.
You are getting so affectionate lately and we love it. This morning, as I was lying in bed, listening to your pitter pattering feet, I wondered why the sound had suddenly stopped. When I looked over, I found you, standing in position next to the bed, waiting patiently for your morning back rub. And last night you sat next to Tom, all curled up while he rubbed your belly. I hear that yesterday afternoon you had him trapped on the couch, all curled up and snoring, sound asleep on his lap. You are the dog that once only knew how to get attention by destroying our belongings, jumping on us, or barking non-stop. Now you know how loved you are. Now you are much better at asking for attention without driving us batty… Though you still love to drive us batty every once in a while, for old time’s sake.
You’ve been very gentle with kids lately and I am so grateful for that. Sometimes at the dog park, you follow around the little 3 year old girl and just touch your nose to her hand every now and again. I wish you’d stop jumping on people at the dog park though. Especially when it’s rainy. People prefer less mud on their clothes. You get away with a lot with your doe eyes of yours and those silky soft, adorable bat ears, but the jumping is not becoming.
We still haven’t tried taking you off leash anywhere but a safe fenced in dog park. I feel like you get closer and closer every day but i know if a squirrel comes into your view, there’s no way you’ll listen to us. I also still worry that you’ll get all excited about a kid and want to jump on them. I don’t want to be responsible for any life-long dog phobias. You have a very strong personality and some kids might find that a bit scary.
We love you, love you, love you so much. I’m so glad things seem to be working out for all of us. I know we can be a bit boring but we do our best. You love you to pieces and want you to be happy. But we also want to have our own human adult lives so you’ll just have to cope. We’ll try to take you more and more to pubs, cafes, restaurants where your kind if welcome. You are the best dog ever and I can’t imagine having any other dog but you. To me you are the perfect dog… well except for the barking. We learned that we have to run the air purifier at night as a sort of white noise generator, otherwise you wake us up every 2 hours with startlingly loud barking. I know you want to protect us, but we hate it. Opossums really can’t do us any harm. The worst they could do is mess with the vegetable garden and you seem to be the queen at destroying the garden. Maybe you’re worried about competition.
The Launch Pad Gallery is having a pot luck for the opening of the group show “Family.” For this special occassion, I’ve made my famous white trash sushi. If you come early, you might get a chance to sample some. I’ll be there with my sushi at 6pm. Choices are Bologna with Miracle Whip or Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly.
I’ll be showing this piece:
Alanna RIsse
“Doesn’t Fall Far”
24″ x 24″
Encaustic on wood panel
2009
Linda Hutchins Pulliam Gallery
Very intricate, fine line drawings on paper. Like ripples on a pond.
And a lovely, simple sewn sculpture out of a kind of tulle fabric
Patrick Abbey at PDX Contemporary Art
Photo of a sort of found object drawing. In the photo you see a hand scrunching a roll of paper towels made to look like an owl.
Eyeful gallery staged an epic battle between heaven and hell.
Honorable mention were some great painting of Star Wars action figures in compromising poses at Tribute Gallery by Seth A. Leamer. I was having so much fun looking at them, I forgot to take photos.
I started my Advanced Concepts in Painting class last night at PNCA. The teacher is Anna Fidler, I love her work and I’m so excited to get to take a class from her. The class is a combination of studio class, experimentation, presentation of our work, and study of West Coast Contemporary Art. It is just what I needed. For three hours a week I get to be stimulated and inspired. There will be a couple of guest lecturers and lots of reading.
I’ve been too much in my head about what I want to work on next, and not enough putting paint down. I spend too much time worrying about whether I should work in acrylics or gauche or if I should just stick with oil painting, how I’m going to technically accomplish this vision I have of where I want my work to go. All these are just thoughts and they are all fooey! Less talk, more action. I’m going to use the class to build my portfolio, both for my MFA application and for trying to get more shows.
Next week I present a short slide show about my work. This week I am all fired up about some possible solutions for some sticking points on where I want to go next in my work, so I’m trying them out in my sketchbook. I got some colored origami paper and I’ve been tracing leaves from the yard. It reminds me of when we used to trace leaves and cut them out of construction paper to hang in the windows at elementary school.
I’m excited about the work I’m going to do during the 10 or 12 weeks of the class. I could really use a week off to just play in my paints, but that’s not reality. I definitely seem to have more energy since starting the thyroid replacements. Modern medicine isn’t all that bad after all. I feel more productive already.
Today is first Thursday, better poke around the websites and see what’s happening.
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