Our Critique Group: 20th Anniversary Show

Twenty years ago three of us started a Critique Group of about a dozen artists. A few members have left us and we have invited others to join our bimonthly meetings. When we began the group everyone worked in colored pencil and even though some have gone on to work in other mediums we continue to value input from all and enjoy the camaraderie of long-time friends. Many thanks to American Art Company, Tacoma, WA for hosting our show.

They were accomplished artists when they first got together, and when they joined ranks, something magical happened. They met in each others’ homes to give and accept advice and encouragement. They honed their skills, appeared in shows, wrote and illustrated books, taught art, won awards. They shared contacts and opportunities. They commiserated, they supported each other. They became life-long, close friends. And now their Artists Critique Group proudly presents Pencils and Palletes 20th Anniversary Show.

shredded

When I started this blog in November 2013, I gave up writing in my paper journals but I kept them - boxes and boxes of them! I thought I might like to read them when I am old. I moved them to our new house and after two months of looking at them stacked in my little office I started going through them to pick out funny stories about our two grandsons. The problem is, the funny stories are sandwiched between all the other stuff and all the other stuff is either boring or brings up feelings I don't want to experience again. So, above is a photo of all my journals except a few from when my children were small. I gained a little space in my office and I'm happy no one will read all that tedious contemplation of life. Getting rid of STUFF.

Being HOME

Being Home. What does that mean? It means knowing in your heart that this is where you belong right now.

I grew up in Auburn, WA in a little house my father built on "M" St. Definitely home to me as a child, it is where I felt safe but when I turned 21 years old, I couldn't wait to move to Seattle to attend Burnley Art School where, when I walked into the classroom and saw easels and all things art, I almost wept with the feeling of belonging. When I married, had children and moved to our 13 acre Vashon Island farm, it quickly became home to me. I remember sitting in the tall grass of one of the pastures feeling so happy that the farm was ours. We belonged there.

Now once again, here in Black Diamond, WA I have that blessed feeling of being home. There is no place I would rather be. I am slowly learning where rural roads go and connect. I know how to drive to Morganville and past the house where my Grandma and Grandpa Benedetti lived. I hold dear the memories of being "up the house" with my Italian relatives and remembering the sense of belonging with those people.

This weekday morning I attended Mass in the 1911 St. Barbara's Church in Black Diamond and then drove the short distance to the Black Diamond Cemetery. While I was there, I received a nice cell call from my daughter on her way to work. The nostalgic past and the present. The sweet, bittersweet and the difficult. I find perspective and comfort in being home.

Uncle Sam lives here

I finally cleaned up the Studio enough to post a few photos. Here is the link to the first Studio shots.

Hot, hot, hot days on the lake and we are loving our lives. This morning I attended mass in the 1911 St. Barbara's church in Black Diamond. It reminds me of the church of my childhood.

I find it pretty hilarious that Jay is going to be Uncle Sam in the Lake Sawyer Fourth of July water parade. I guess he is supposed to throw candy and apparently he can expect to be pummeled by water balloons. Happy Fourth of July to you!

Sluggo and Marci

So much has happened since I posted last, I don't know where to start. We moved to our new house and have been unpacking, hauling dirt and planting ever since. This is s a photo of me and our neighbor Marci (Marci and Ken). She is nice, she is clean. I'm holding my container of Sluggo just before application to my new lettuce bed.

Milestones!

One of my art goals has been to earn the title of Distinguished Pastelist with the Northwest Pastel Society. That happened yesterday when Juror Michael Chesley Johnson awarded my painting "Path to Gold Creek" the Directors' Award at the NPS 29th Annual International Open Exhibition. I'm happy.

To obtain DP status is especially meaningful to me because I have long felt that once I accomplished that goal, I would quit entering NPS competitions and instead, sponsor an award. I put it on my to-do list with our tax man for next year.

Another milestone this week: our house has passed the final inspection! I spent yesterday weeding the flower garden under the maple tree near the lake. The French doors to the lake were open and I could hear the business of the painters inside. I am in awe that I will get to live there! I'm not sure how to explain the contentment I feel knowing that my Grandma, Grandpa, aunts and uncles rest in peace in the Black Diamond Cemetery not far away. Also, I know what roads to take to drive by Grandma's house in Morganville. I'm happy. Mill Pond Cottage Blog

Another milestone: Years ago I discovered Frappe mix at Costco. YUM. caloric. YUM. I began making coffee in a French Press to mix with the Frappe for a morning mocha. I became one of the those people who HAD to have my morning mocha before anything else could happen. Then, one day, it was GONE from my local Costco. When I inquired I was told it was discontinued at all Costco with the last delivery at a Costco about 20 miles away. I called, they still had some; I raced there and bought 18 lbs of mocha mix. At checkout, the Costco employee told me a woman was in the store buying multiple 3-lb bags because she couldn't live without it. That was my story too.

I have always kept a backup bag (or two) so when I began packing up for our move, I packed the 18 lbs in a moving box and took it out to the garage to the growing pile. Then, last week I ran out of mocha mix. Aarggh. I found it on Amazon but it is $28 for a 3-lb bag. I just can't do that but I also can't find the box in the garage. Jay saw my pain and ran to the store and bought me a substitute. Not the same, not even close.

So the next morning, I made a cup of Lipton tea with sugar and the only milk I had - Evaporated Milk. Voila! It is the exact cup of tea I remember from my childhood at my Aunt Evie's house (312 J Street - within walking distance of our house at 509 M Street). Now I think of her every morning and am beginning to crave the sandwich she made for me: a piece of Wonder bread with real butter and sprinkled gritty, granulated sugar, folded in half.

A Happy 27th Wedding Anniversary

Surprise! Early morning flowers from Jay. They sit beside the sawyer man wood carving we unearthed at our new home on Lake Sawyer. I imagine someone carving and painting him in honor of the saw mill that was nearby, long ago.  He was buried in our mud but he will sit on our fireplace mantle in a few weeks.

We had a wonderful 27th wedding anniversary. I spent the day inside, packing up the pantry - in part to avoid Jay's 3-day garage sale going on outside. We also had a surprise visit from our grandson William (Noah) and his father, Drew. They are logging driving hours in preparation for William's drivers license at the end of summer. He is driving my 1993 Volvo 940 station wagon - my favorite car ever - the color of my tricycle, and this day complete with sticky cherry blossoms. Drew has been keeping the car in good repair the past 12 years for this day.

The Rosewood Rocker

My latest furniture repair - the Rosewood Rocker. When my first husband and I purchased a 1903 farmhouse and 13 acres on Vashon Island in 1974 from Mr. Art Shane, we also purchased his round oak table, roll top desk and the rosewood rocking chair. My daughter has the table and desk and eventually the rocker will go to my son. I am finally getting around to doing something about the horse hair and miscellaneous stuffing in the seat. I left the horsehair in place but removed the hay/straw, dirty rags and other strange fabric.

Original stuffing Rosewood Rocker

Original seat stuffing

Rosewood rocker with new stuffing, leather-like cushion and small back cushion.

My biggest fan

Illusion, colored pencil, 2002

Yesterday, Jay and I had the pleasure of meeting with my biggest fan, Ginny, and her husband Bill to deliver my colored pencil drawing, "Illusion" to them. Over the years she and her husband have acquired quite a number of my paintings and drawings and I am so pleased to have Illusion join their collection.

Ginny surprised me with a gift of one of her beautiful silk quilts embellished with glass beads. Thank you Ginny!

Bookcase...the end.

I've come to the end of my furniture refinishing for now - two weeks was long enough. Besides, how far can one can of red paint go? Mama's bookcase - after and before (see photo below). Everything old is new again.

Maple Table Complete...whew!

Ten days ago I started work on the maple table and today I'm finally done. This has been a labor of love that included a lot of trial and error. I thought I could use MinWax Polyshades Maple but it looked terrible so I had to strip all that off, wash the table, sand the table and begin again. I finally bought some MinWax Wood Finish Maple stain then a coat of Johnson's Paste Wax on top. There is also a leaf that isn't shown in this photo of the table in the waxing stage. I'm calling the table good for the next 50 years.

Green Again - Grandpa's Chair

Well, it took some doing but the little green chair is done. First I painted it a "better" green but it looked like an Easter object - matte and pastel and wrong. I finally realized that the best outcome for the little green chair would be for me to put it back to the way I remember it; the way it was before I started altering it. So, I painted it a better bad green. I sanded some edges for wear to honor it's age of more than 100 years and I sprayed it with satin polyurethane. Here it is, drying outside in our March sunshine.

The Green Chair

When I was growing up, we had a chair that Mama said her father carved by hand. She was proud that it was fit together without the use of nails.  It was green (Mama’s favorite color). A really bad green... so, when I was old enough to use a hack saw on the wrought iron bed (aaarggh) and was able to open a can of paint, I painted it black. Next, I painted it beige. I took it with me when I moved out at age 21 and at some point I was inspired to strip it back to the wood. Stripping was not successful though so for the last 27 years it has been stored in Jay’s garage.

I am determined to actually USE all the old family heirlooms in the new house so the chair is in my studio now awaiting its remake. I tried my favorite stripper on it but no luck. So, I’ll paint it, and in honor of Mama and as penance for my furniture sins, I’ll paint it GREEN again.

 

There are some numbers on the bottom of the chair - I won't paint over them - but what does it say? 1892? My sister didn't remember the chair at all but after I told her Grandpa carved it, she suddenly remembered standing beside him as he worked. Jay says now we have an idea of how old my sister really is.

Cool red, warm red

Fifty years ago my first table came into my life*. It is maple, drop leaf. I painted the legs red. I did art projects on it in my Broadway apartment when I was in art school in Seattle. We ate a thousand blackberry pies on it when we lived in the beach house in Magnolia. My two children sat at this table while I spooned homemade baby food into their mouths and they painted their first watercolor art here and scribbled with crayons on paper and onto the table in Leschi. It went with us to the farm we bought on Vashon Island. It has been with me all these years in Renton and is about to take up residence in the breakfast nook of our new home in Black Diamond.

The only problem is the red - it is too blue. Today I began painting the legs a warmer red that will complement our Rustico Cotta tile floor. The photo above shows the old red and the new red. After the paint,  I will flip it over and refinish the table top. I won't remove stains and nicks that show it has been well used but it really needs a good cleaning after its participation in many annual pasta making parties.

*When my former husband, Bill Iles was twenty and we were dating, he worked as a delivery person for Van's Furniture in Kent. I was able to purchase this table because the original owner bought a new dining table to replace it. Originally, there were two ladder-back chairs that eventually fell apart but recently I found two beautiful vintage maple ladder-back chairs on Craigslist.

First week of my sabbatical

It was just a week ago that I declared myself to be on a sabbatical from painting. I have unsubscribed from art blogs - even Daily Paintworks - and I check into Facebook only occasionally. Today I subscribed to a gardening blog. I have some new favorite things to share.

REALLY good book to read for fun (thank you Aunie):

REALLY good advice book for furniture projects:

BEST stripper I've ever used:

My current project:
This little bookcase sat in the living room of my parents home on "M" street. It was piled with TV Guides, the phone, phone books, a little vase of plastic flowers and whatever else anyone dropped there while passing by. Then, it was with my mother in her assisted living apartment until 2004. I brought it home and it has been in my studio ever since, once again piled with miscellaneous items. Now that I'm on sabbatical, I have time to give it some attention. This week I stripped it and after washing it with a neutralizer I'll repair scratches, prime it and paint it...maybe green, Mama's favorite color.

March 2015 Update

I'm on sabbatical...FINALLY. Read more about it here.

February 2015 Update

Wow, time flies. It has been a month since I last posted.

I've been working on another version of my 2005 pastel, Dappled Path. I want to reuse the glass and frame and rip up the old painting. To prepare, I've been using the old painting as a reference for painting small studies of the scene. They look quite different from the original because my stroke and color choices have evolved in the past 10 years. (I'd be worried if they hadn't changed!)

I completed seven little studies. You can see them here or on Daily Paintworks when I post them for purchase.

My studio is in complete chaos as I pack for the move. Most of my pastels are packed away and my easels are squished over to one side of the room. There are bags of shredding sitting around waiting for more boxes to pack up china. Anyway, in the midst of this mess, I have been painting small studies aiming for a loose, abstract quality. And, I think the mess actually helps me be less careful, less contrived, less concerned about the outcome. That's a good thing for my work but when I look around it makes me crazy.

When my studio is all clean and I attach a blank piece of paper to my easel and look over at my million pastel sticks, I want to do my best. What is my "best." Oh well, that is another subject.

Progress on our house continues and we hope to be in by mid May. When we opened the door to the house a couple days ago we were met by this cute guy on stilts. I asked if I could take his photo and he seemed happy to oblige. You can check the progress of our house here.

Back to it. Happy Spring to you!

graffiti in the family

My 13 year old grandson, Elias, had the opportunity to practice his graffiti on a building his father will be demolishing (NCompass LLC). Elias is a sweet boy and very talented in so many ways, you saw his work on this blog last July when I let him graffiti over one of my old paintings.  I'm happy his father gave Elias the opportunity to express himself on a larger scale. Thanks Drew and Elias for sharing this art.

Happy New Year 2015

Looking back and looking forward

Looking back:
When I look back at 2014 I can see that it was the worst of times and the best of times. Jay and I spent the first nine months of the year practicing patience, tolerance and perseverance. But, we weathered it together. Our communication has increased tenfold since his January retirement and our relationship has grown into the marriage I always thought was possible. Yay!

I took a leap of faith into another art medium in 2014 and also a leap back by ending the year with a two-person show of my colored pencil work with my friend Kay Dewar. The leap forward was an April workshop with Qiang Huang to explore oil paint. I worked spring and summer on small still life oil paintings resulting in a body of work for a Fall show at State of the Arts Gallery. While working in oil, I took an occasional break to paint in pastel and I am grateful for the winter show of my pastels at Scott Milo Gallery.

Looking forward:
Our new home should be completed in Spring. We are giddy with anticipation. Each step forward is made easy by our builder, Chris Welch of cMac. I continue to be surprised that this is actually happening. We are grateful each and every day.

Some of the interior rooms of the house have been re-purposed. The sun room became Jay's office, then it was going to be my sewing room, now it will be my office freeing up space in my Studio to do some teaching. I'll start off slowly in 2015 by mentoring one artist during the first three months. Mentoring appeals to me partly because of the good experience I had a couple years ago mentoring artist Marie Lyndemere. Then, no teaching over the summer while we work on landscaping but in the Fall, I hope to mentor a few more artists and begin planning a few workshops.

I continue to struggle with balance in my life. I'm most interested in the house but I have found that I feel more "myself" when I paint a little each day and I'm looking forward to exploring acrylics.

I wish each of you a happy and healthy 2015. May all your dreams come true. 

My Old Treasure Map

The backstory of my Treasure Map: I worked as a hairdresser for four years to support myself through art school. Then I worked as a fashion illustrator until my former husband, Bill, and I had two children and bought a 1902 farmhouse and 13 acres on Vashon Island. We named it Island Farm and Gardens. I worked at K2 Skis, right around the corner from our farm, for sixteen years. I married Jay in 1987 and began to dream of going back to art. In 1989 I began work on my Treasure Map and left K2 in 1990.

I am talking about this now, after a visit from Jay's 31 year old niece. I was reminded what it was like to be young and in a situation that made me feel powerless. And, more recently, old and powerless. When I was young I tried to "push the river" (per Bill). Now that I am older, I have learned to have some patience and how to change MY attitude to take my power back. I am glad to be this age, it is so much easier...I now know that "this too shall pass."

Thanks also for the wisdom and support of our Artist's Critique Group. We began meeting bimonthly in 1995 and will celebrate our 20 year anniversary next year at my new studio.

LINKS
My recent paintings
Our house progress

back to it

A Sense of Place III, pastel, 10 x 13 inches

Back to the easel and it feels right! A Sense of Place III started out easy and hopeful, got difficult, got really bad. I wiped it all off and began again. Ended with a nice loose painting. I'm happy.

"Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do”—Edgar Degas

ahaa!

I have just started reading The Practice of Process Meditation by Ira Progoff and came across text (page 78) that seems to explain my creative process - cycles devoted to a specific genre before I must move on. It is too long to quote here but a couple excerpts will help.

"The old spiritual truth seems to apply in all areas of creativity: one travels by delays."

"The image of intimation contains an intuitive perception, a generalized vision of what is possible in the future..." "When a creative process is undertaken, it proceeds well for a certain distance and then it comes to rest." "In order for the work to move on to its next phase of development, another cycle must be started. To do this, the person must re-enter the process of the work, be within it, and begin to do the work once again. In that way, as we re-approach the work from within its own process, letting the process take itself forward another step...the work builds its strength again and again."

"A key to the role of Process Meditation in creativity lies in our understanding the distinction between what an artwork is and what is merely a work.  A work is a task that we do in order to get it done." "An artwork, on the other hand, is worked and reworked, done and altered and redone, seeking always a qualitative improvement. An artwork, in whatever field of life it is carried out, in literature or painting, in business or politics or raising a child, is not done only in order to be done, but it is done as well as may be."  Ahaa!

Thinking about water...

One of the best things about these golden years is that I have time to think. When I have had a busy day of family, painting, building a house...it could be anything, I wake in the middle of the night and process the events of that day (or try to find a solution to a problem that is not mine to solve - now, that is a waste of time). Because I don't have to be up early to go to a job, I have the luxury of using  these sleepless sessions  to think of desperately dire or completely plausible outcomes to pending thoughts.

Last week I was running errands, listening to NPR on my car radio. They were interviewing author, Wallace J. Nichols about his book, Blue Mind. He spoke of the human connection with water, 'the surprising science that shows how being near, in, on or under water can make you happier, healthier, more connected and better at what you do.'  Interesting; something to think about. I put a request in at the library for the book and picked it up yesterday. After reading only three pages, I began thinking about the role water has played in my life and I'm surprised to find it is a frequent theme.

Both my children were conceived beside large bodies of water...OK, that's more than you may have wanted to know but this morning, I find it fascinating.

Besides Northwest rain, I was introduced to water by my mother and our trips to the Green River to swim. Yes, that is the same river as the Green River Killer river but that is a totally different story. The green river of my childhood is following my mother and siblings along a sandy path through thick hedges of blackberries to the bend in the river where Mama swam and we played at water's edge. This is also the place where my father fished for steelhead each winter to feed our family (and probably a quiet place for him to think). I went with him ONCE. It was so boring and cold. He just stood motionless on the cold clay bank and waited for a fish to bite his line. I had a orange with me. That's all I remember but I probably complained a lot.

We lived in the same house on "M" Street in Auburn all my childhood and we went to the same bend in the river every summer. One year, Mama saved my classmate Mike from drowning, that was a proud moment for me and one I have revisited with Mike at class reunions fifty years later. Mama learned to swim as a child in the canal in Selah, Washington. In my own childhood, I took swimming lessons at one of our local lakes. I was so cold my jaws locked and I never did learn to face-float, probably because that would mean putting my face in the water which is almost the same as drowning.

In the 1950's before I was a teenager, all the neighborhood kids played in Mr. Mathieson's cow pasture pond. Brown water thick with mud, muck and pollywogs, it was wonderful fun until I heard about polio. For a week I ate a head of lettuce each day in an effort to ward it off. I guess it worked. Much later, around the age of fifty, I was determined to learn to swim and taught myself at local indoor heated swimming pools where I could usually touch the bottom. My weekly swimming ended three years ago when I traded it for dog-walking. I look forward to swimming again.

As newlyweds and students, my first husband, artist Bill Iles and I lived four years in a beach house built on pilings in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle. In the late 1960's we spent several weeks (with our two babies) on a remote island in Canada while waiting landed immigrant approval. Thankfully, we were denied because Bill listed himself truthfully as an artist and Canada did not need another artist to contribute to their commerce. We bought a farm on Vashon Island where I was surrounded by water and traveled by ferries for eleven years.

Fast forward to my present husband Jay and our search for retirement property. We purchased five acres on Gallagher Cove, Olympia, WA and built a "barn" with living quarters above. Eight years later with no retirement in sight, we sold it and began our search for waterfront closer to the Seattle area. After a seven year search with multiple starts and stops that almost sent our dream into extinction, we finally found our perfect spot on Lake Sawyer where my father, as a teenager, helped his father build boats for the loggers' use in the millpond - maybe on the exact spot where we are building our house.  I look forward to enjoying this body of water. I plan to sit, look, and think.

Mid November check-in.

This is a mid-month check in. We finally have walls! The photo above was taken today. Even though our first walls are the garage, I am overjoyed to see them. I've been preparing for two shows - my pastels at Scott Milo Gallery and I have pulled my last twelve colored pencil pieces out of retirement to show with Kay Dewar at Dorothy Liberty Gallery. I painted my current studio and am still thinking about the colors of interior walls for the new house. And, I have been summoned to jury duty next week, something I've never done. I hear there is a lot of waiting so I think I'll take the color fan with me to entertain myself.