New sugar skull pet pieces and some custom pet portraits

Because we all love our furry family members!!!

Not just printmaking!

A little over a month ago Trevor and I were driving through West Seattle on our way to a studio sale and came across a building that had a large piece of live edge unfinished wood leaning against it with a “FREE” sign on it!  So of course I pulled over and within a couple of days of sanding I had a great shelf in our home!

I’ve now been working on some more wood projects.

Additionally, I’m taking a sculptural welding class at Pratt and I’m having a BLAST!!!  So much fun!

Here are some of the things I’ve been working on…

Hard year = lots of art!

This year has been a particularly tough one.  In December my son’s 3x/week (15+

hours a week!) ABA therapists quit giving us less than 2 weeks notice and we have since had the state discontinue providing that behavioral therapy to him.  I’ve also recently had his home healthcare aide quit with no notice. Needless to say it’s been challenging emotionally and physically.

Art is always my escape.  I play my music and create!

Heres some new pieces from this past week (including 4 sculptures from my welding class I’m taking):

 

Music heals…. art heals!

Like countless others all over the world I am heartbroken over the death of Chris Cornell.  I have been incredibly sad over the passing of other artists, especially David Bowie but this one has hit me so much harder.  Maybe it’s because for the last quarter century I’ve been blasting his music and continuing to see him live at every opportunity (most recently when I flew to Los Angeles in November to see Temple of the Dog).  I always look forward to new recordings and never get sick of the older ones.

Music plays such a huge roll in my life.  It can be whatever I need it to be.  If I need to cry, to scream, to dance, to relax…. I can with it’s help.   When working on my art music is always playing.  Goes hand in hand.

So after 2 days of off and on crying bouts I decided to do a little art therapy and share it with others who are struggling with this.  Thank you Chris Cornell for being a beautiful light and voice, for

leaving your words and music for generations to come.  Thank you for my many amazing memories of seeing you perform live.  Rest In Peace!

Only a few more days until Twin Peaks returns!!!

Evolution of a linocut

I was approached a little over a month ago by a teacher who runs an a regional cultural arts program for developmentally disabled teenagers in rural Appalachia.  The teens wanted to make art projects using a Damask pattern they found but they don’t have the manual dexterity or muscle control to carve the blocks themselves and their teacher tried herself unsuccessfully several times before contacting me.

She sent me an image that the students wanted to use in various ways and I told her I would recreate a very similar version for them but of course it wouldn’t be identical.  She said they had a very limited budget but being very close to my heart I told her I would be more than happy to send them a block free of charge for the students to have fun with.  Here is the image and what I carved for them.   It’s a bit cruder and more hastily carved than I would do for my own art but that was done on purpose since the students will be printing this block over and over.  

 

After carving the block for the students I decided this was a fun design to work with but it needed to be more “LESLIE” so taking inspiration from the original Damask design I redrew it with the biggest change being an elk skull instead of a deer silhouette and of course my birds couldn’t just be sitting doing nothing on the antlers!  Of course the whole thing took on my take as well.  So now I hope the students in Appalachia are having fun with their linocut block and I’m having fun with mine!

Let’s get some SPRING up in here!

After a LONG, wet, cold winter I am definately ready for Spring!  Since I can’t control the weather at least I can work on some new spring inspired linocuts.

Want to make a block print with me?  Upcoming classes:  artEAST (www.arteast.org) Print & Sip nights are Friday April 14, Friday May 12 and Friday June 9 6:30-9:30pm.    Kirkland Arts Center  Printmaking & Wine (www.kirklandartscenter.org)  Saturday April 8, 3-6pm     Pre-registration for all locations required as these classes often fill to capacity.