Art is a Gift Part 2: Pieces of Home

This project began a water color painting of my family home in California, which was then cut into 6 8"x10" pieces. Each piece was framed and wrapped in generic brown paper. Each of my four siblings, my parents, and myself opened a gift to reveal a piece to reside in each of our homes which spread from California, Colorado, to Alabama and New York City.

text portion:

You hold a piece of our collected memories

A sectioned piece of our unity.

The home is a place for dreams, daydreams, a symbol of future hope.

This childhood home holds many memories for each of us

But still it is a place that makes us connected,

That brings us together from different places and lives.

Hold onto this portion of the painting, hang it in your home,

And always know that each of us holds a unique piece

And without it the picture would not be whole.

cutting in studio

framed, all together

Art is a Gift

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
-- Pablo Picasso



The end of this year allowed for an engagement in art-making as gift-making. This year I wished to create some projects which I found to be both personally satisfying in terms of process and interpretation, but also resulted in giftable objects. The first of these involved creating 8 unique t-shirts for each of my nieces and nephews in a project titled Childhood Idols.

Each shirt was hand-drawn using fabric markers and features a cameo-style portrait of each child. The shirts, when worn, reiterate the uniqueness of each individual in both the portrait and the spirit in which it is displayed as wearable art. I believe the child-like experience of making art is one of the most true and often the most pleasurable modes to exist in. It is to appreciate the act of creation in the moment of creating, and to have a pride in the display of your creation. I was proud to share these objects with the most receptive art audience: children.

project images:

sister and brother cameos: Taylor & Noah

idols or rock stars


the best art audience/pint-sized performers
Orange County, CA. 2010

there is an empty space where you used to be

"Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. There are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing."
— Miranda July (No One Belongs Here More Than You)

COMVIDEO-- Vote Online Now!

My video is titled "Never Tell a Lie" (#90). Vote Online Now! EXHIBITION OPENING
COMVIDEO An Open Call Exhibition With an essay by Pinky Carnage Opening reception: Wed, Nov 10, 6-8 pm Including over 140 videos submitted from 19 countries.
Vote online and visit COMVIDEO at apexart. We invited artists and creative others from around the world to cut, dub, reverse, add to, and otherwise manipulate at least one broadcast commercial and submit a 60 second video. Add a critical element to the exhibition by helping us determine the best works. The top five finalists will have their work shown on a public screen in Manhattan, and the winner will receive a $2,000 cash prize.

i still believe that love is out there

Studio Update: October..

sketchbook drawing, ink and colored pencil

painting studies, oil on wood panel, 8"x8" and 12"x12" panels

one day, i will be a real artist. sketchbook drawing, ink and colored pencil

going nowhere. oil on wood panels, 10"x10" each

wild geese

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

the object and the negotiation

Art-making is a constant negotiation. Between the world, its movements, this city, a job, family, personal roadblocks. As a child, I looked at the artist as free from restraints, free to create, to make, to live outside of the every day negotiations that seemed to plague the non-creative. I see this as a faulted view now. No one is unrestrained. The artist almost has a more difficult relationship with these factors, as she is constantly clawing out time in the day to create, paving a route that walks between the fantastic creative spirit and the world. I wonder, if given all the time in the world, what kind of art would she create? I believe that it is this relationship with the social order, the daily grind, the negotiations made with time and interest management that make the desire stronger. The work is at times a response or a release from social restraints. It comes from a place that is here and now. The negotiation is as much a part of the art as the object.