Everyday Objects Opening Party at Rare Device

Last Friday night was the opening party at Rare Device for my first-ever show of my drawings, Everyday Objects (shameless self-promotional plug: the drawings from the show are available for purchase online, right here, and 10 of the 20 have not yet sold! just saying). Regular readers of this site will know that normally I have lots of words to describe everything that happens to me. But when it comes to this evening I'm still a bit dumb-struck. It was amazing and surreal and utterly delightful. I have wanted to be an artist from the first time an adult asked me "what do you want to be when you grow up?" How old are you when that first happens? Maybe three? So this is a dream I've held, sometimes in the most secret part of my heart, for nearly four decades. And it happened. So. You can see why words can't quite express it. Pictures will have to do:

Yet Another Six Things

The art deadline for the journal I'm writing and illustrating is looming up next month so I'm going as fast and furious as I can on making all these drawings. This time we have: vintage Mille Bornes card game, sliced tomatoes, shoes, funny cat video, peacock, and Mastering the Art of French Cooking. 

Robert Rauschenberg at SFMOMA

I don't think of myself as a big fan of Robert Rauschenberg. Those big red-blue-and-yellow photo collages with JFK's face and an astronaut and a cow and whatnot just don't do that much for me, personally. They just don't quite fit in to the special art receptors in my brain. But the cool thing about the Rauschenberg show currently up at SFMOMA is that, in addition to a goodly sampling of that most well-known work, we also get to see a huge variety of the artist's work in other media: abstract paintings, assemblages and sculptures, cyanotypes, things made with cloth and textiles, my very favorite (bottom-most photo) the unfolded blue-painted cardboard box, and even a giant tank of bubbling mud that I didn't manage to get a decent picture of. And I enjoyed this new, to me, stuff so much more! Now, it may just be that thing where you haven't seen something (and been told how important it is) a million times and so can come to it with fresh eyes and appreciate it on its own terms. But I do also think it's that, to me, this stuff is just really cool. It fits my brain. See for yourself!

Color Poem #36

the paint color I
chose is called
mermaid tail

and it’s precisely the shade
that was my favorite color
when I was a small child

a bright deep
rich spring
green

I bought it practically on impulse
put three coats on the wall and
hung my pictures on top of it

it exudes life
and power
and joy

that day I also bought 
a tiny mermaid pin
to remind me

The Secret Art of Being a Grown-Up on Instagram

I mentioned quite a long while back how happy it makes me when I see  How Art Can Make You Happy poping up on people's Instagram. But I just realized I've never rounded up the comparable images that appear of The Secret Art of Being a Grown-Up, which make me equally delighted when they flit across my screen. What an oversight! One I now correct.

Above, an image by Sheila Deleo

@shop_fuego

@booksandmortar

@chateauandbungalow

@dropforgeandtool

@crystaldaggerbooks

@mags_vdbee

@lindseyduhon

@kellywalden

@jenesisrose

@ricysreadingcorner

@vixey290

@marion4thstreet

@rarebirdoakland

@wickedLA

We Cannot Retreat

I came across this quote over on Swiss Miss (whose quotation curation abilities are extremely top-notch) and it speaks to my very soul. I have it pinned up at my desk where it resonates, for me, with topics ranging from work and creativity to activism and family, and encompasses the perennial struggle of our age to have enough time. It comes from a commencement address that Ruth Messinger gave at Stanford in 2009.

Six More Things

The latest drawings for the journal I'm illustrating for Chronicle Books: ice cream sundae, very small car, lawn mower, sad balloon on ceiling, fire truck, ocean.